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 AN ASSOCIATED PRESS STORY

“Major escalation“?

Talk about bias in reporting!

This is it, big time.

Israel has pounded Gaza for three days, and it has killed 28 people at last count.

It also ruthlessly assassinated a leader of the government, and did so right as he was negotiating a long-term ceasefire with them.

Netanyahu is simply a madman for whom the lives of Palestinians mean nothing.

All of this savagery by Israel is really for two purposes, neither of which is ethical or honorable.

One, Netanyahu faces election, and he uses the blood of the people of Gaza to fire up support.

Two, Netanyahu clearly is getting ready to steal more land from the Palestinians by annexation. This kind of activity acts a screen and preparation.

Israel’s behavior is completely unacceptable to all fair-minded people.

Please understand, those who know no history, Gaza is essentially a giant refugee camp dating to the 1948 days when Israel’s army and terror squads – the Irgun and Stern and Lehi – fanned out through Palestine to murder many people, hoping to frighten them away.

It is densely populated, and its population is about half children. Every Israeli Prime Minister has hoped to put end to its existence one way or another.

No one but a madman or psychopath would bomb such a place.

Remember too, the last time Israel invaded, it killed 400 children plus about 1400 others.

Ever since that atrocity it has kept a blockade to prevent normal life, and it has murdered unarmed people on the high seas to enforce its bully behavior.

At first, it even calculated what starvation calories would be and only allowed enough food to enter to just barely prevent starvation, not even chocolate bars were let in, nor were the building materials needed to repair the damage from Israel’s ruthless bombing.

After quiet diplomacy from outside, there has been a slight let-up in calories.

Just ask yourself what you would do if treated in this way? I know what most gun-owning Americans would feel like doing against repression, savagery, and abuse.

What are the poor people of Gaza to do? Just all leave? If so, for where? Or are they to lie down and just accept virtual slavery from Israel?

Meanwhile, Israel steals the homes and farms of others week after week in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

American politicians, cowards all, say nothing for fear of being smeared and losing valuable campaign contributions from the Israel Lobby.

 

 

 

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 YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

A truly uninformative and self-serving article, as it was intended to be – that is, after all the nature of propaganda. It deals with none of the genuine issues, only with Israel’s demands.

You can never make progress with any problem by pretending its reality is only what exists in your mind, and that is precisely what this ridiculous article does. The reality includes the perceptions and feelings of all the parties affected.

Negotiations are about different views compromising, but Israel compromises on nothing. It just makes demands and preconditions, endlessly while it continues to take what it wants to take.

The article begs a gigantic question: how does one – anyone – recognize a “Jewish state”?

Apart from the fact that such an entity is no different in concept to a Muslim state or a Hindu state or a Christian state – all of which are formulations Western minds reject as backward and unhelpful to progress.

Israel – in addition to the more than four million who live under seemingly endless occupation and abuse in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank – has about a million non-Jews who technically are citizens, Israeli passport holders.

It wasn’t that Israel wanted them, far from it: they were the Palestinians who refused to run from the waves of terror in 1948 when Irgun, the Stern Gang, the Lehi, and the rag-tag Israeli army of that day worked to terrorize and kill Arabs, chasing them off the land their families owned for centuries.

What happens to that million – who already under Israeli law are treated in many ways as second-class citizens – if Israel is formally recognized as “the Jewish state”?

I think we can all guess, something pretty unpleasant. Just listen to the words of Israel’s Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, a nasty piece of work who indeed is rather moderate compared to the extremists who burn down homes, destroy orchards, and deface mosques.

And what are the borders of “the Jewish state”? Israel has changed its borders continuously since 1948. How do you recognize a state with no borders? Isn’t that one of the main points of negotiation, to settle borders?

Indeed, while Israel’s leaders never openly talk to the Western press about the matter, Israel has pursued a constant policy of expansion and ethnic-cleansing, its only mercy being that it is done in slow motion so that there is never too much trouble at any one time.

Israel’s aims come hidden under the obscure references to Eretz Israel and Judea and Samaria – terms not ten percent of Western readers understand. They are the words which cover Israel’s expectation of eventually seizing all the land of the Palestinians and even other bits like Southern Lebanon, and they are the words which ipso facto mean endless hostilities.

The entire 1967 war was engineered by Israel to achieve the occupation – and gradual theft of property and expulsion of people – we see now.

Since 1948 and especially since 1967, Israel has broken every international law and convention we have, including those of the UN and Geneva Conventions.

If you have no respect for the laws and rights of others, how can you ever expect others to respect your laws and rights? It’s simply insane to believe otherwise. We have here a lawless state, lawless in all its external relations, demanding that others respect not just its laws, but its every wish.

Israel steals whatever it desires and it pretty much kills any opponent it doesn’t like.

Israel has utter contempt for all of its neighbors, as it has shown on countless occasions.

Israel attacks everyone who does not accept its self-proclaimed truths.

Yet it is somehow Palestinians who prevent their own statehood by denying “the Jewish state”? If ever there was a case of an illogical vicious circle this is it.

The poor Palestinians are told they must achieve statehood only by dealing with their oppressors – not by negotiating, although that word is used as a euphemism, because Israel in fact never negotiates, it only makes preconditions and demands.

Imagine blacks in apartheid South African being told they must deal only with their the apartheid government? Imagine Ukrainians or Byelorussians being told they must only deal with the Soviet Union?

It is itself a laughable demand, laughable because it is so completely irrational and arbitrary.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

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

Israel was indeed created by force.

And a good deal of that force was the purest form of terror from gangs like Stern and Irgun.

Innocent villagers were murdered to terrify the Arab population into running.

And they did run, but not far enough for Israel.

Later, Israel engineered the Six Day War to grab still more of the Palestinians’ land, and it was a black operation that was hugely successful.

Ever since, despite countless UN Resolutions, Israel has continued a program of slow-motion ethnic-cleansing in those occupied lands.

Gaza, essentially a giant refugee camp from Israel’s terrors and wars, by the testimony of at least one former prime minister, has always been an Israeli nightmare. Israel seems now to have discovered the solution: starve and bomb them till they leave, using the pathetic excuse that a democratically elected government, many of them professional men of high repute, is nothing but a gang of terrorists.

Israel’s intentions are clearly to take over virtually all of the land that was Palestine, minus the Palestinians.

Israel also coveted Southern Lebanon, and made every effort to hold on to it for years after invading until the Hezbollah drove them away.

Neither Hezbollah in Lebanon nor Hamas in Gaza has ever invaded Israel (nor are they even capable of doing so), but as we all know Israel has invaded them repeatedly, murdered thousands and seems ready to do so again.

And we are all supposed just to watch quietly while violent crimes are committed over and over again, and our illustrious prime minister actually threatens us with treating criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism.

It is simply a human-rights nightmare.