John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO ANOTHER COMMENT IN THE INDEPENDENCE

Reader comment:

“It has done nothing but kill people for 65 years, having invaded every neighbor that it has, many of them two or three times.”

Israel was attacked in 48, 67 and 73 by armies (variously) from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Israel risked being annihilated in all these wars.

Read some history – don’t parrot what you’ve read on far-left hate sites.”

Your comment is arrogant and uninformed. It simply repeats the David and Goliath myths manufactured by the Israeli Ministry of Truth for American consumption.

It is you who should read some history.

The 1967 War was engineered by Israel. Yes, some Arabs attacked, but only after an elaborate series of aggressive and provocative acts by Israel. It was what Israel wanted because its government had made an elaborate calculation ahead and was sure it would win fairly quickly. The prize was all of Palestine and part of Syria.

In the War, Israel also betrayed its best allies.

De Gaulle, a defender of young Israel, warned that he wouldn’t support conquest, but he was ignored.

The United States told Israel not to turn their armor north after defeating Egypt, but that’s just what Israel did because the entire intent of that war was to conquer what Israel still occupies to this day. Just ask yourself why else it still holds millions of people captive and has worked so hard to make their lives miserable as an incentive for their leaving?

In order to turn the armor in the Sinai quickly, Israel had to eliminate its Egyptian prisoners, and that is what it did. It shot hundreds of POWs, much as WWII Germans sometimes did.

To cover this up from the United States and to cover up turning armor north, it attacked the American surveillance ship, USS Liberty, trying desperately for two hours to sink it with everything the pilots had. This was not an error as Israel claimed later, the ship was not only well-marked, Israel had been told of its presence, and the Israeli attack pilots who first buzzed the ship waved to the waving crew.

As to 1948, well, please, it was Israel who was slaughtering Palestinians, driving them out of their own land to seize their farms, homes, and villages – all re-named afterward. There were several documented mass atrocities by people like the Stern Gang, Irgun, and other Jewish terror organizations. Hundreds of civilians were shot and Palestinian women were raped. The hope was that all Palestinians would simply run away as the rumors spread. I should hope some Arab states responded with anger, but they made only a half-hearted effort.

1973 was indeed an attack by Egypt against Israel, but it happened in light of all I’ve written above and far more.

Israel has demonstrated not an ounce of ethics in its 65 years. Duplicity and killing have been the chief features of Israeli policy over the entire period. Let’s not forget several invasions of Lebanon, killing tens of thousands, creating a years-long occupation (against which Hezbollah was formed, an army of genuine freedom-fighters, not terrorists), and using such horrible weapons as large numbers of cluster bombs on civilians.

And then America invaded Iraq, largely on Israel’s behalf, killing a million. Now Israel and America have terrorists doing the same thing in Syria.

It has been a completely destructive and destabilizing history.

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Shamir was an old Irgun and Lehi terrorist with lots of blood on his hands.

Among other terrorist acts, he authorized the assassination of the UN’s representative in the region, Count Bernadotte.

It is odd that Israel, with many such leaders in its past, whines constantly about terrorists.

Given slightly different circumstances, Shamir would have been hung.

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

The photo of Netanyahu included with this piece is surely the very picture of evil.

A man who is at one and the same time a bellicose blowhard and a coward.

He’s determined to attack an innocent country, knowing full well the United States will have to go to his assistance when Iran responds, as it should.

And all for what?

So that Israel can keep stealing the homes and farms of others, killing anyone it doesn’t like, and starting any war it pleases.

I do believe that is the very definition of a rogue state.

We cannot have a peaceful world with psychopathic politicians like Netanyahu determining affairs.

And beware, Canada, with Netanyahu’s loyal retainer in office in Ottawa, we could well get dragged into it this time.
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“If this is a precursor to war, when many of the Israeli intelligence and military experts have denounced the folly of it, then we will know who to blame for the consequences.”

And knowing whom to blame changes precisely what?

We know Bush and Cheney were responsible for perhaps a million deaths.

But our knowing saved no one.

And here we go again.

It is well past time for all citizens of democratic countries to speak up about the ugly excesses of Israel.

Not even North Korea generates more threats and death and nastiness than Israel.

It will only stop when our governments pressure Israel instead of allowing themselves to always be pressured by Israel.

We could have peace tomorrow, were Israel willing.
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“We were right to stay out of Iraq, but we should support Democratic Israel in all ways possible.”

Democratic Israel?

Just where do you see that, except in their politicians’ speeches?

A country which steals the property of others weekly?

A country which constantly engages in extrajudicial murders?

A country which keeps thousands in prisons with no proper legal process?

A country which keeps 4.5 million people in apartheid bondage?

A country where citizenship, and the right to vote, are based on ethnic identity?

A country which has attacked every neighbor that it has, many twice?

If that’s what you call democracy, the world would be a far better place with fewer such democracies.
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“It is both interesting and revealing that under every article about Israel, no matter the content, the most popular comments are always the hateful ones.”

I think you have the cart before the horse, apart from several other errors in logic and coherence.

Could it just happen to be the case that every article about Israel is about some hateful act or threat?

I honestly cannot recall a single news story about something good Israel has done.

And for such an insignificant country – in size and in population – it manages to be in the news regularly.

People who have the courage to speak against pointless wars and human rights atrocities are only anti-barbarism.
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“Yet, Israel, a tiny country on the other side of the globe seems to generate so much hate and condemnation especially considering that almost 21% of Israel’s population are Arabs”

Actually, it’s closer to 19%.

And just who are those Arabs?

The men and women who failed to run from Israeli terror in 1948 – the Irgun, The Lehi, the Stern Gang, and the ragtag Israeli army of the time whose ranks were full of foreigners.

Israel didn’t succeed in scaring them off, so what was it to do? Murder them? And there were advocates even for that.

As to their citizenship, you leave out far more than you tell.

Israel treats them in every regard as second-class. Many prominent Israelis speak publicly of expelling them sooner or later.

Their papers are marked to distinguish them from Jews.

They cannot enjoy many rights and privileges of Jewish Israelis.

Israel always insists on being recognized as “the Jewish nation.” Were that ever to become the case, what would happen to these non-Jewish, second-class citizens? I think we all know.

Some citizenship.

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY MARGARET WENTE IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

This is the second trashiest thing Margaret Wente has ever written, and that is saying something because she occupies herself with a great deal of trash.

Apart from insulting brave humanitarians, the underlying theme here is a quieter re-statement of the idiotic assertion that the very selectivity of people’s interest in Israel-Palestine displays their anti-Semitism.

People should show more concern about North Korea? First, North Korea is an absolute government. Israel claims to be a democracy, and with that word “democracy” goes a lot of associated concepts about human rights and ethical government, else it wouldn’t be a claim worth making, but we plainly see endless abuse and refusal to honor human rights by Israel.

Ms Wente truly ought to register as a lobbyist for Israel.

Readers may be interested in the following.

Ms Wente’s all-time great piece of idiocy critiqued at:

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/the-iraq-wars-trashiest-piece-of-propaganda/

A critique of the moral-trash theme of selectivity buried in her current piece:

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/the-peculiar-state/

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“Nor should the people of Gaza be punished for the incompetency of its leaders as Ms Wente so kindly suggests.”

True, except that no one has ever demonstrated Hamas as incompetent.

Quite the opposite appears to be the case, Hamas has held its people together after more than three years of brutal, illegal blockade and that after Israel’s inhuman assault called Operation Cast Lead, in which Israel killed 400 children and a thousand others.

I’d say Hamas has shown the qualities of British leadership during The Blitz.

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“Could someone quote a reliable source giving the total of Israelis killed by Hamas rockets or incursions? In the game of numbers, numbers matter.”

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NtgXlrcvXZA/SWfEpYDqzwI/AAAAAAAAZm0/v8qp2yKvyVo/s1600-h/ROCKET+qassam37.jpg

The rockets – overgrown homemade fireworks – have never been proven to have killed anyone, although while Israel was wading through the blood of 400 children and a thousand others in Operation Cast Lead, it claimed that about ten Israelis were killed, a claim like so many from Israel never substantiated.

By the way, just one fact is most telling here. The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Richard Falk, a distinguished American academic and a Jew, only recently published the fact that Israeli forces have killed 1,335 Palestinian children since the year 2000 in their various incursions, suppressions, and brutal policing.

Now, there is a real record of achievement of which to be proud, Ms Wente.

The stuff of democracy to be sure.

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“And it is interesting that in UK, France and Canada you have Conservative governments and then all of them including US Congress and Senate creating special committees to fight anti-Semitism.”

“…anyone even tangentially linked to it can kiss his/her career or life good-bye.”

Apologists for Israel use the term “anti-Semitism” in exactly the way the late Senator Joe McCarthy used “communist” or “pinko.”

The technique is called demonizing and intimidating your opponent, and the intention is to stop people from even considering your opponent’s arguments and observations.

Never mind dealing with the facts and arguments of your opponent, just label him as something filthy.

Israel does this with the word “terrorist” also.

It labels people who oppose its ghastly policies as “terrorists,” conveniently forgetting that Israel itself was founded in the terror of the Irgun and Stern and other murderous gangs and forgetting, too, that there is only one source of regular assassination, illegal arrest, property theft, and constant abuse of 4 million people in the Middle East, and that   source is Israel.

We have all heard of narco-states, but I believe today it is right to describe Israel as a mafia-state, a state where the government itself murders whoever it thinks worth murdering and steals whatever it thinks worth stealing.

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“Meanwhile the country is bounded on all sides by hostile nations, much larger than itself.”

Who chose this troubled location?

Who established their beach head, as it were, with the horrors of the Irgun and Stern gangs?

Who has attacked every neighbor it has, and some two or three times?

Who keeps 4 million people in a state of abuse and a lack of any rights at all?

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“Since ceded to the Israels after WWII, a land of mostly wandering shepherds has been transformed into a modern, vibrant, productive land.”

First, no one ceded that land to Israelis.

What authority did the British Empire have giving away the homes and farms of others?

Transformed into a vibrant, productive land?

First, Israel is the most subsidized entity on earth.

It has received hundreds of billions – yes, billions – in subsidies from the United States and others.

The U.S. government gives about $500 per year per Jewish citizen of Israel, and it has done so for decades.

The U.S. also gives priceless technical assistance and access to intelligence and cooperative projects of every description.

Germany has poured tens of billions in reparations into Israel, rightly so in view of past crimes, but still an immense subsidy.

American Jewish organizations have also poured tens of billions into Israel.

Israeli Americans enjoy the special privilege of dual citizenship, something the United States is averse to for others, and this means they can freely travel back and forth transferring technology and other huge benefits.

Its economy only flourishes because half of its trade is with the United States, enjoying as it does a privileged free-trade agreement that would be the envy of any small country.

Its agriculture only flourishes because it diverts the water of others in this dry region.

Then what does it do with the stolen, precious water?

It grows things like tomatoes and clementines to send all the way to the United States, a place with tons of capacity to grow such things.

The real economic cost of this agricultural nonsense is immense. The replacement cost of water in Israel is reflected in its desalination plants (also subsidized) which produce some of the world’s most costly water.