John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY EVA BARTLETT IN MINT PRESS

 

“Under Fire from Ukraine and Misperceived by the West, The People of the DPR Share Their Stories

“Eva Bartlett traveled to the besieged Donetsk People’s Republic to see firsthand how residents are faring amidst a western-backed Ukrainian incursion”

__________________________

Response to a comment saying, ‘”There is a Nazi state in the middle of Europe in the 21st Century. They are dangerous both for us and for the Western world” ‘Give me a break. Ukraine is basically run by Jews.’ In the length of his comment, the reader was essentially saying it was a contradiction in terms to speak of Nazis in a place run by Jewish people.

 

First, as to the article author’s observation of “a Nazi state in the middle of Europe,” something to which this commenter takes exception, see the interesting discussion and photos at: https://southfront.org/the-saker-zelenskii-in-free-fall/ 

But the focus of my response here is Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, a people whose numbers in the occupied territories and in Israel proper, are on the order of six million.

 

So, Jews can’t possibly behave as Nazis?

A ridiculous assertion when we see millions of people held against their will with no rights and no votes and no hope by Israel for over half a century. Not just held but frequently abused and wounded and killed.

The people, the Palestinians, are left in a kind of perpetual institutionalized hell, modelled from the words of the conquering general in the Six Day War, Moshe Dayan, who said publicly afterward that it would be necessary to make the Palestinians miserable enough so they’d want to leave voluntarily.

Dayan’s advice has been Israel’s unspoken policy ever since.

Frequently, there are even voices in Israel advocating such measures as driving the Palestinians off their land entirely. Quite prominent figures have thoughtlessly and angrily advocated that.

To where? Who cares? is basically the attitude.

And while they are held by Israel in a form of modern bondage, confined to Apartheid-style Bantustan districts, often, we see yet more homes and farms just openly stolen. Families are assaulted and, sometimes, killed. Farmers’ orchards and vines are often uprooted or vandalized. Streets are patrolled and homes are raided by heavily-armed Israeli soldiers.

The ugliest possible insults are used by some Israelis. Prominent voices have used the most savage language in describing Palestinians. Words like “vermin.” Gigantic concrete walls, with high observation and gun towers, have been constructed across some areas, always with their foundations laid on Palestinian land, walls which, apart from their dreariness, break up traditional routes and patterns, making life that much more difficult.

And where there aren’t walls, there are the many checkpoints at which people must stand in line sometimes for hours to speak to a rude soldier before being able to proceed to their destination. And if they don’t have their required identification in order, they won’t proceed at all.

Regular Israeli practices include improper imprisonment – that is, imprisonment with no proper legal charges or trial – for thousands. The arrest of children. Torture. Assassination of leaders and potential leaders. Brutally unfair laws and arbitrary restrictions, even around such humble, everyday matters as a small home improvement or repair. Harshly limited opportunities for employment and business growth. And really, just no opportunity for millions of people to thrive and develop as in a normal society.

That’s going on three entire generations of massive repression.

And the situation in the separate enclave of Gaza, a place whose very dense population reflects its having become a refugee camp for those driven from their homes and farms by the advancing terrors of 1948?

Gaza is one of the most appalling human situations on the planet. A giant, unsanitary, open-air prison surrounded by fences and automated radar-operated machine-gun towers and armed patrol boats on the water. Fishermen, in their tiny old-fashioned boats, straying at all from the tight distance limits imposed on the water have often been shot over the years.

Many of Gaza’s buildings and sanitary facilities have been left in ruins for years now after several successive Israeli attacks, attacks which killed several thousand people, some of the streets’ open gutters literally ran red with blood at the time. Supplies needed for repairs are not permitted under a years-long, war-like blockade.

And when residents protest in marches, invariably without guns, Israel’s “moral army” kneels behind a fence and shoots into the crowd, killing men, women, and children.

Over the last year and a half of protests, more than 300 have been killed and thousands wounded, some very seriously wounded because part of the “moral army” was using illegal butterfly-type ammunition, which, like dum-dums, blows big holes in limbs with even a slight contact.

The badly wounded only immensely compound the problems of poor sanitation, broken facilities, shortage of supplies, and no ability to receive adequate assistance from outside.

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MARKO MARJANOVIC IN CHECKPOINT ASIA

 

“Donald J. Trump’s Brilliant, Hilarious Rebuke of the War Party”

 

“Trump is a lazy, demented degenerate.”

Indeed.

He’s almost unbelievable. You have to rub your eyes watching him.

An American original grotesque. Like something strange escaped from a zoo. Or Victor Frankenstein’s creature lurching around.

But, despite his ghastly nature, getting out of Syria was a good thing, although he did it very badly, costing many lives.

I actually did not think it would happen. After all, it very much goes against Israel’s wishes.

I think the key considerations for Trump were that he felt he had done enough for Israel’s desires in other matters that he could afford to oppose them here, and, the really important thing for this ultimate narcissist, that he was convinced he needed a “withdrawal” somewhere to get re-elected.

And, I’m inclined to think him right in that. Biden or Warren running against him is just the same old, same old, undeviating support for Pentagon and Empire. He won’t have done much, but his opponent will have done nothing.

Of course, this for that other segment that supported him in 2016, not the base wearing red MAGA caps on shopping trips to Walmart, the folks who love walls and hate anyone kneeling near Old Glory or speaking Spanish.

His opponent will say he did Putin’s work for him, but I don’t think that charge carries any weight with those opposed to America’s insane wars.

He has created an extraordinary political situation.

Readers might like:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/10/15/john-chuckman-comment-trump-and-northeastern-syria-withdrawal-turkeys-invasion-putins-success-notes-on-saudi-arabias-crown-possibly-endangered-prince-irans-new-pride-in-its-capabiliti/

 

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY HAMZA ABU AL-TARABEESH IN MONDOWEISS

 

“Five years on, a reporter from Gaza remembers the 2014 war”

 

Just a note on words.

Sorry, but I can’t help it, I am always offended when anyone calls one of Israel’s periodic savage attacks on Gaza a “war.”

“War” generally implies two forces of at least some rough equivalence. Otherwise, no conflict would take place, as the greatly weaker side would avoid a fight and retreat.

But you can’t retreat when your home and neighborhood are being assaulted. And where do you run to when you live in a giant open-air prison surrounded by fences and automated machine-gun towers?

No, you cannot dignify Israel’s ruthless assaults on Gaza with the word “war.”

One side has jets, guided missiles, tanks, artillery, armored soldiers, and satellite intelligence while the other has hand-held weapons?

That is the work of the worst kind of cowards, the work of heavily-armed men who kill trapped opponents and women and children and who blow-up homes.

John Chuckman

SERIES OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS (SOME REMOVED)

 

“U.S. to end exemptions on Iranian oil sanctions for 5 nations, including China

“China, Japan, South Korea, India and Turkey had previously been allowed to keep importing, but no more”

 

Here are arrogant men trying to control what they call American foreign policy, deciding who may buy and sell things across an entire planet.

Some dedication to human freedom, freedom of speech and choice and commerce. To say nothing of contempt for the rule of law in attempting to apply American law to all countries on earth.

Can you imagine the manpower committed to this lunatic sanction enterprise, those keeping track of the thousands of arbitrary sanctions set against any number of countries? Literally, an American Bureaucracy of Apparatchiks.

Just unbelievable. Meanwhile, the same men have sold blood-soaked Saudi Arabia tens of billions in armaments.

And the same men bomb a dozen lands, make constant new threats, create piteous masses of refugees, overturn governments, and just generally try telling everyone what to do.

They support human freedom and democratic ideals nowhere that I can see, including at home, where spying on everyone and working to restrict free speech have become norms, along with repressive and brutal police tactics.

They are, by far, the world’s largest weapons merchant, spreading still more death and destruction.

They are, by a huge measure, the planet’s biggest investor in death. Their combined military and security budget is greater than those of all other major countries, and they now burn through about a trillion dollars a year.

And that from a country with $22 trillion in accumulated debt? Talk about irresponsible. How are they fit to tell anyone else what to do? They are not. Their financial behavior alone endangers the futures of us all.

They are now publicly committed to spreading belligerence into space, a place they once pretended wanting to keep peaceful.

And poor dear old Canada has the team of Trudeau and Freeland not only going along with every bit of it but actively supporting and cheerleading substantial portions.

I’m sure, Pierre’s spirit does not rest comfortably with that.

_________________________

 Response to a comment about the American coup in Iran which destroyed democratic government and created the situation now:

Intelligence services have a word for such results.

It’s called “blowback.”

They’ve experienced it in other places, too, such as Afghanistan.

But they really do not seem to learn.

That’s the nature of ideologues, like the folks running America.

They are just like religious fanatics. They never learn either.

________________________

 Response to a comment referring to the difficulties of democratic government:

Where do you see democracy?

America has a minority president.

And it is often said that it has the finest Congress money can buy.

In Canada, governments rule having the support of a high-thirties per cent of voters.

Regularly.

The British Parliament works exactly the same way.

That’s why we needed the vote reform Trudeau so let us down on.

_____________________________

Response to a comment about people defending Iran in the comments here:

That’s a mischaracterization of what I read here and what I write.

No one said anything about Iran as a “bastion of freedom.”

That’s actually what’s called a red herring or straw man argument in logic.

The Iranians mind their own business for the most part. Also, Iran has started no wars, not one. The United States starts them all the time, as does Israel.

Indeed, Iran has been, instead, attacked several times, including the major, horrible war of the 1980s started by Saddam’s Iraq with lots of American encouragement and assistance.

And there is only one country in the Middle East with genuine illicit nuclear weapons, not make-believe ones. Can you guess which one? Here’s hint, it isn’t Iran.

And the United States in fact loves tyrants and dictators in the Mideast, as in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, etc. That is, so long as they are ones who toe the American policy line.  They keep the people suppressed. Israel very much appreciates that too.

But a single world dictator is surely the worst of all possibilities, and that’s what the US works towards now vigorously. It’s our greatest threat to peace and freedom and fairness.

________________________

Response to a comment about religion causing these problems:

Religion is often cited as the cause of the Mideast’s turmoil, but I think it actually plays a rather small role.

In reality, power politics and geopolitical drives control international affairs. Religion is just a convenient cover. Almost used as a kind of disinformation item in the West.

The United States sees Israel as its pied-a-terre in the Middle East.

Effectively a kind of colony, a colony quite different than any other.

It is kept afloat by immense subsidies, unlike any other situation we can find in the world.

The closest comparison might be France and Algeria before de Gaulle.

Algeria was viewed for a very long time literally as a part of France.

The final break-up was extremely bloody and dirty.

_______________________________

Response to another reader comment:

That’s exactly the case.

The United States so resented Iran that it secretly encouraged and assisted a huge and terrible war against it in the 1980s.

Why did it so hate Iran? Because Iran resented the bloody, torture-employing Shah installed by the United States in the 1950s after a coup toppled the country’s genuinely democratic president, a man hated by Western oil interests.

The pressures in Iran rose to fever pitch and the revolution was the result. When the creepy Shah fled Iran for American protection, people only became angrier. Iranians embarrassed the United States by patiently piecing together numbers of shredded embassy secret documents – the remarkable work of Iranian carpet weavers – documents which were very revealing about American manipulation.

America resented losing Iran as its important foothold in the region. The Shah was America’s man there, and he was encouraged to buy large volumes of American weapons with his oil revenue, much as we see happening in Saudi Arabia today.

America’s government has never forgiven Iran, and today, Israel’s pleas for overturning Iran only add pressure. Israel, a nuclear power, is not really threatened by Iran as it pretends to be, but Israel does not want this huge country to be a competitor in the region for influence. It wants to be the key regional power, serving the US and reaping many benefits.

And the United States did more than just encourage Saddam. It saw to it that Iraq was supplied with chemical weapons so that it might overcome Iran’s huge manpower advantage of nearly four-to-one.

Saddam used these chemical weapons, horribly killing tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers caught not expecting such things. No one in the United States said one word against the atrocities. America’s elites were pleased with the results of bleeding and weakening Iran.

The war was literally the equivalent of a world war for Iran with loss of about a million people.

______________________________

Response to a comment complaining about the anti-American tone of many comments:

In case you hadn’t noticed, in most societies, there is dislike for bullies, dislike for would-be dictators, dislike for killers, and dislike for liars.

It has nothing to do with Canadians in particular.

Remember, the United States, which is ramming all this down everyone’s throat, represents less than 5 percent of the world’s population.

Very democratic in spirit, right?

The same less-than 5 percent has eviscerated parts of the UN, the ICC, the WTO, and many other international forums from which the other 95 percent of humanity might get to speak.

Actually, of course, it really isn’t America’s 5 percent or so of the globe doing all this. It’s the very privileged American power establishment, something like the 1 per cent of its own nation.

Ordinary Americans have virtually no say. And their Congress has been, rightly, described as the best that money can buy.

 

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY GIL TROY ON CBC NEWS

 

“The BDS movement is nefarious, but it’s better to push back politically — not legally

“Anti-BDS legislation in the U.S. is unhelpful. BDS should be fought subtly, without giving it too much oxygen”

 

“The BDS movement is nefarious, but it’s better to push back politically — not legally”

 

The first part of that statement is simply insupportable.

Boycotts changed the landscape of Nationalist South Africa, peacefully. They played a big role in the American civil rights movement, too. What’s nefarious about that?

A boycott is a peaceful expression of disapproval, one with some economic bite, for the unacceptable acts of states. Free expression by millions.

The word “nefarious” has no place in the discussion. It actually could only fairly be applied to the author himself, for his effort, more roundabout than most, to equate criticism of a well-armed state with a form of prejudice.

Advocating a grant of exceptional status to any state – as in seeking to absolve it of blame or consequences for its wrongdoing – represents genuine prejudice.

It doesn’t matter whether the method used to obtain that status is constant social pressure, as we get with countless articles like this one, or lobby-driven, anti-democratic legislation. The result is the same, the suppression of the rights of millions to express their disapproval of something they regard as seriously wrong.

Would any clear-thinking person regard that as a suitable goal? Guaranteeing a powerful state that it may do as it pleases without objection or consequences?

“Anti-Semitism” claims about criticism of Israel’s actual behavior – not its identity, not its religion, not its ethnicity, but its actual behavior – are precisely parallel with someone’s having claimed that criticism of the Soviet Union – and we all know there was a great deal, both at home and abroad, to criticize in the practices of the Soviet Union – was the same thing as hating Russians, what today we would call “Russophobia.”

Anyone can understand the absurdity of that.

The only thing different in Israel’s case is the charged, threatening atmosphere that always accompanies accusations of “anti-Semitism,” an atmosphere that has been deliberately cultivated by apologists over many years.

_____________________

Response to another comment:

Well said. Exactly the case.

The United States government was long in Nationalist South Africa’s corner because South Africa was viewed as such a strategically important place during the Cold War.

Only the acts of millions of individuals and some companies, voting with their pocket books, finally drove the American government to act against South Africa.

And we all know the story after that. Apartheid died a welcome death.

Nothing about the Israeli situation is any different. Not a thing, except names and location.

We see open abuse and oppression. We see millions of people with no citizenship and no legal rights being held against their will. We see unequal laws and unequal treatment under the law.

For more than half a century. Good God. It’s appalling, but our governments and public figures are intimidated, afraid of being labelled “anti-Semitic,” in what itself is an unfair and genuinely nefarious campaign.

____________________

Response to another comment:

Well said.

Of course, it is not anti-Semitic.

Calling people who are concerned with human rights names like that is abusive and unacceptable.

By the way, concerning your reference to “building bridges,” perhaps the most famous Zionist writer, a Russian named Ze’ev Jabotinsky, regarded as a founder of modern Israel, wrote of the need for building “an iron wall.”

And that approach, from the beginning has characterized modern Israel, it maintains an iron wall.

It even keeps extending the area which the iron wall covers.

Albert Einstein offered a completely different approach to Palestine, but he was ignored.

_______________________

Response to another comment:

That is true about weapons and South Africa and Israel.

It is also true that Israel secretly assisted Apartheid South Africa to become, for a brief while, another small nuclear power.

The nuclear weapons were given up and dismantled after the fall of the Nationalists.

But the very fact Israel was assisting the Apartheid government in such a fashion tells us something about its feelings and attitudes of the time concerning human rights and democracy.

There have been relatively few cases of genuine proliferation in the history of nuclear weapons, and Israel’s was perhaps the most dramatic.

The story has always been downplayed in the mainline press, but over time, we have received enough information, here or there, to know some truth.

The United States in those days was definitely in Apartheid South Africa’s corner for Cold War strategic considerations.

And South Africa was then always playing up its anti-Communist credentials for America’s benefit. Of course, they could also say what a terrible threat the ANC and Nelson Mandela were to “the West” since they were regarded as having communist sympathies.

A few years back, we had an old secret document from top government officials in Israel released by South Africa, a document which concerned Israel’s willingness to sell “a package” to Nationalist South Africa. We know the Nationalists had at least six nuclear warheads when their government collapsed. Israel wanted to keep strong ties with South Africa for its long-term supplies of strategic materials.

Israel also assisted the Nationalists in building nuclear-capable missiles, South Africa having several such missiles at the time of its collapse.

____________________

Response to another comment:

Your tone is reasonable, but there is no such thing as an “Israel-Palestine conflict.”

That term is a creation of the mainline press. It hides far more than it reveals.

What we have is an occupation with constant abuse of five or six million people who have no rights at all and live under laws written and interpreted by their occupier.

The “conflict” could be over swiftly were Israel just to return to its original borders and tear down walls and fences and machine-gun towers built on the property of others.

But that is not going to happen any time soon. The government of the United States, which could enforce it – indeed, would have to enforce it – simply will not do so. Lobby interests hold the American government in a dark place regarding fairness or peace or rights in the region.

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PETER F COHEN IN MONDOWEISS

 

“Why we can be hopeful on Palestine”

 

I very much wish the title represented something more than a new version of Candide’s optimism.

The single state solution is an idea that has been around a long time.

If I’m not mistaken, the late Edward Said embraced it many years ago.

It’s perfectly rational, but that is part of the reason that the bitter, brutal men running Israel will never accept it.

They are harsh ideologues, embracing a dark fantasy, the re-creation of an ancient land based on doubtful religious texts of 2,500 years, or more, ago. Texts in which people are stoned for doing things we do every day. Texts in which certain kinds of cloth and certain kinds of food, things we all use, are forbidden. Texts in which a great many events are either fantasies – Jonah and the whale or Lot’s wife as a pillar of salt or the Tower of Babel or Noah’s Ark – or things which never occurred – Israel’s captivity in Egypt and the reign of King David.

Those are hardly a sound basis for modern political affairs and the founding of a state which is heavily armed. But the truth is they provide only the start of a grim list of problems associated with today’s Israel.

Jews in fact flourish in a number of places in far better situations than they do in Israel. It seems to me that there is something in the Israeli temperament resembling the reclusive religious institutions of the Middle Ages, the ones where self-flagellation and other extremes were the norm – not the kind of people ready to embrace large numbers of outsiders with different ways. We find the same qualities in cults sometimes, the desire for separateness and unwillingness to mingle with others.

If Zionists had taken Albert Einstein’s advice, embracing the native people and living among them without iron walls, there could have been something harmonious and peaceful and constructive for everyone over the last 70 years.

But they did not embrace that vision. They embraced instead a bitter and hostile vision of iron walls and racial segregation. And militarism and police and security forces everywhere.

Moreover, Israel is the most heavily subsidized entity on earth, counting both government and private subsidies, and we all know the highly debilitating effects of subsidy over time. And subsidies cannot continue indefinitely. People do not endlessly give away money and resources, particularly when they see the recipient makes absolutely no progress at creating an improved situation.

It would be wise to seriously start making peace with the neighbors and cooperating because what we see today in Israel simply is not a situation which can be sustained long term, that is, without the kind of endless harshness we see, much the same kind of harshness we saw in the old Soviet Union, a state whose circumstances also were not sustainable. But fanatics, like the men who run Israel, do not look at hard realities.

Israel deliberately maintains an embattled situation, making life far more difficult for most there than in, say, Canada or the US or France or many other places.

Israel’s open abuse of millions causes its citizens to be greatly disliked in the world, too, and I don’t really think most people enjoy being disliked.

The place is an armed camp, a crusader fortress. The level of military and security services make it in many ways resemble the old USSR. A state top-heavy with military and police and spies is not a healthy one for the long term. A recent book revealed that Israel’s security services have conducted 2,700 assassinations. Serial murder, then, is a founding value of the nation.

The cost of living in Israel is very high, houses are hard to buy, and career opportunities are quite limited. It is a small place, with about half the population of Ecuador. It can never enjoy great economies of scale, and its international trade literally is force-fed by American subsidies and pressures on others.

People only voluntarily live that way – having actually gone out of their way to create the circumstances – when a fantasy or a fanatical belief dominates rational thinking. Fanatical beliefs provide no sound foundation for anything.

I wouldn’t care if Israelis wanted to indulge their fantasies, providing they could do so without hurting and abusing millions of others.

But they are hurting and abusing millions of others. That fact is at the heart of the matter.

It is not a matter of a war or conflict, as it is so often inaccurately and lopsidedly presented in our press and by our politicians, when you have a situation where other people’s farms and houses are regularly stolen. It represents a state where the rule of law does not apply, a kind of ongoing criminal enterprise with no justice for its victims.

The rule of law simply is not to be found in Israel and the territories it occupies. Something called the law exists, but it is the same kind of law we saw in places like the American Confederacy and in Nationalist South Africa. It is law to protect only a specific group of residents, and it is law which oppresses all others.

You simply cannot have a viable country in the long term without the stability of the rule of law, yet the people running Israel appear to believe that you can.

You know, it is impossible to look at images of Gaza and not immediately think of a giant concentration camp. And what we see there is Israel’s doing completely. Penning people in with fences and guard towers, including towers with automated, radar-activated machine guns. Bombing them frequently, invading them periodically, blockading their imports, even the materials required for repairs and rebuilding. Curtailing all their natural rights such as how far fishermen can go out in their boats and whether people can travel anywhere, even for medical care or education.

Just imagine how Israel would thrive treated the same way. Of course, it wouldn’t. It couldn’t. It would stagnate and begin to rot. In a way, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians provides a self-fulfilling prophecy for them. Many Israelis really do believe it is only themselves capable of making a thriving place. You can very much see that notion on display in propaganda films and lobbying efforts. It surely represents a form of racism which just jumps out at us periodically.

And when peaceful, desperate people protest for rights to which they are entitled by all the reckonings of Western tradition, Israel can only think of lining up firing squads of soldiers to shoot into the crowds from behind fences. Where in God’s name does such behavior take you? It is a one-way trip to nowhere.

The idea of a mixed state is abhorrent to a great many Israelis because it violates the confused dream that dominated the founders’ thinking.

It would only be possible if the United States used its inordinate power and authority to push for justice. Indeed, that is the reality for any settlement, whether two states or one. But how likely is that? It is not only unlikely, it is impossible given the political realities of America with its money-driven elections and its tolerance for powerful lobbies to supply money along with other assistance such as favorable press treatment.

The lobby for Israel in the United States is one of the most powerful and well-run in the country. It is for many a political death sentence to oppose it. It will maintain the status quo so long as the leaders in Israel want it to be so. There is a kind of vicious circle involved in all discussions of Israel-Palestinian peace.

Only in the remote case of American Jews becoming convinced that Israel should no longer be supported so vigorously, or in the equally remote case of America changing its terrible laws around money in politics and the governance of political lobbies, would there be a possibility for America to use its strength and influence for justice. Well, it’s gone on the way it is for seventy years, and there seems little reason to expect change in either of those American circumstances which support Israel.

Further contributing to Israel’s distaste for a single-state solution is the fact that, in general, Arab birth rates are higher, considerably, than Israeli ones. Of course, keeping Palestinians in relative poverty only helps to extend that reality since we know birth rates invariably drop with prosperity. So, how long would it be before Jews became a minority? I know Israel’s leadership is keenly aware of this reality and greatly fears it.

Israel plays an intellectual game around the concept of democracy, always trying to gain plaudits as the “only democracy in the Middle East.” But what kind of democracy is it where only certain people can immigrate, become full citizens, and vote? Yes, there is a minority population of Palestinians who are citizens (now about 20% of total population), but their status was an accident of history, of events around 1948.

It was never intended to be so, and many Israelis would like to change their status. Prominent people have addressed that very subject. Netanyahu once described them as a “demographic bomb,” such are his fair-minded views.

And this minority is treated unfairly with specialized laws against their interests. It is even spoken out against and threatened by some Israeli politicians, men of the caliber of Avigdor Lieberman, of which Israel has considerable numbers, their presence being consistently required in the formation of governments under Israel’s political system.

In effect, some of the darkest voices in Israel always have a seat at the table of government. They provide the required margin to form a government, and they employ that margin to maintain disproportionate influence.

As well, whenever Israel meets democracy in the Arab world around it, it treats it with open hostility. It loved the long-term dictator of Egypt, Mubarak, hated and worked against Egypt’s one brief democratic government, and now embraces the new Egyptian dictator, el-Sisi. It embraces the bloody tyrant in Saudi Arabia. It embraces the King of Jordan.

It tried to totally destroy democratically-elected Hamas in Gaza, whose original non-corrupt and democratic ways only got it labelled as “terrorist.” It somewhat supports the so-called President of Palestine, Abbas, a man whose legitimate mandate ended many years ago and who has not faced an election since. Its tepid tolerance for Abbas is based only on his relative ineffectiveness and his opposition to Hamas in Gaza.

Israel has little prospect for healthy future in-migration of Jews. Indeed, it experiences some years with net out-migration. Jews are a relatively small group in the world, and not many would trade their prosperity and opportunity and freedom for the intense stress and unpleasant realities of Israel.

The Russians were the world’s last remaining large source for serious immigration, and now that’s used up.

It is important for understanding Israel’s political psychology to realize that many of its leaders and leading economic citizens have dual citizenships, as American or British, and they are secure in the backs of their minds that they can always pack-up and leave should the situation become too nasty. That is not the case for many ordinary citizens now born there. They are stuck.

Israel’s prospects, with relatively low birth rates and limited in-migration are for population decline and a whole lot more of the same grief and violence, given the extreme ideologue beliefs of its leaders and the inherent instability of its situation.

It’s a bleak long-term outlook.

But accept Palestinians? Whew, that’s like telling devout, old-fashioned Catholics they should accept abortion and married priests and stop reciting the Rosary.

Modern Israel, by all objective evidence, is, in fact, a pretty racist society, too. We’ve seen ugly controversy and manipulation at every turn involving race. Black refugees were treated terribly. Black Jews from Africa, too, were not even allowed to live in some neighborhoods. Of course, the same is true for Arabs who cannot rent or buy in many places and face open hostility. Some national laws, too, are different for Jews versus non-Jews.

I just do not see how a hopeful future can come from that.

It really was a hopeless enterprise from the beginning, creating a nation based on ancient myths and mumbo-jumbo texts, an enterprise based on anger and desperation with no larger guiding vision. But, again, if it could have been done without hurting millions of others, that would be only Israel’s’ business. But it cannot be done without hurting millions of others, and things continues along that path without any signs of let-up.

There can be no repeat of the Holocaust. It was a unique event under unique circumstances, not to be repeated, which is indeed the case with all truly terrible events. New horrors will happen somewhere to someone, but they won’t be a repeat of the Holocaust. A brilliant ancient Greek compared history to a flowing river into which you could never step into the same place twice.

Yet the Holocaust is used almost as raison d’etre for Israel. It truly is not since most of the world’s Jews do not live there. Of course, this also ignores the fact that the Holocaust was an event in another continent, involving one group of Germans against another. The Ashkenazim who created Zionism and who dominate Israel are a Germanic, Eastern European people. The word Ashkenazi means German.

So, what are they doing in the Middle East generating misery for still another people, people who had nothing to do with the Holocaust? Well, again, who would care about them being in the Middle East so long as they respected their neighbors and lived in peace. But they do not.

It’s nonsense to believe that the Holocaust could be repeated, but holding it over people’s heads serves much like the threat of hell does in American Christian fundamentalism or did in the Catholic Church for centuries of the Dark Ages.

The phrase “never again” contains no hint of reality, both because history never repeats itself and because the very people uttering it have demonstrated insincerity and hypocrisy in their efforts. Again, just look at images of Gaza and see what Israel has consciously created while uttering the words. It’s beyond shameful.

I regret to say that I see virtually nothing in the entire situation about which to be optimistic.

 

 

 

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY FATHI NEMER IN MONDOWEISS

 

Pretty good piece.

But there is a major flaw in starting from the question, “So, in the end, who was there first?”

You are playing Israel’s own crooked game by even trying to answer.

The fact is that that is a totally irrelevant question for any territory or country you care to name.

Should Turkey be Greek owing to the Trojan War three thousand years ago?

Should Israel be Lebanese owing to the ancient Phoenicians who were there before Hebrews?

If you want to get ridiculous, you could say Europe belongs to descendants with Neanderthal genes (and there are such).

What possibly could be more ridiculous than basing anything in modern affairs on words from old manuscripts which speak of turning a woman into salt and a big fish swallowing a man?

It’s not only intellectually obtuse, it is guaranteed formula for conflict.

The fact is that the people running and populating most of today’s Israel are of European descent, the Ashkenazi.

Their native language, Yiddish, is related to German, and their food and physical culture point to central and eastern Europe – Latkes, schmaltz, bagels, etc. None of it is Middle Eastern.

DNA testing indicates two origins. One, a group arising near Italy about a thousand years ago which migrated north into Germany. Other tests support the old Khazars hypothesis, a people from around Ukraine about a thousand years ago.

At some point, it seems clear that the Hebrews became evangelical, seeing the immense success of Christianity which started as an obscure Hebrew cult. The two groups above both were converts.

Ashkenazi DNA shows some admixture of Semite people, but that is to be expected with movements in and out of various Jewish groups over the centuries.

The Hebrew language, except among some scholars and religious students, died. It was artificially revived by modern Israel.

The bottom line is that the Ashkenazi of Israel are not descendants of the Hebrews.

Indeed, the great irony is that the Palestinians have the best claim to that title. The Romans who were excellent record keepers recorded no expulsion of Jews in the conquest of the Holy Land. Indeed, it was not their habit to expel local populations in their various conquests.

The whole story of the wandering Jews of the last two thousand years is a myth, as complete a myth as Jonah being swallowed by a big fish or Noah and the Ark.

The Hebrews in Palestine themselves suffered conquests, conversions, and migrations, but that body of people is as close as we have to the ancient Hebrews.

 

 

John Chuckman

COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

‘Iran seeks to annihilate Israel, it seeks to conquer the Middle East, it threatens Europe, it threatens the West, it threatens the world. And it offers provocation after provocation’

Thus, the fetid imaginings of a proven street thug, thief, murderer, and serial liar (Presidents of two major Western countries having so described him a few years back).

Thus, Iran, which has attacked no one in its entire modern history, is characterized by the sick leader of a country which has attacked every neighbor that it has, some more than once.

Iran, which has been busy truly fighting ISIS alongside Russia, while we know Israel has always secretly supported the terrorists in Syria.

Iran, which knows full well, just as we all do, that Israel possesses a totally illegal nuclear arsenal which it uses to intimidate the entire Middle East, only seeks with its missiles to defend itself.

Were the Israel Lobby not so important in British and American politics, Netanyahu would be laughed out the door for making such insane, ranting claims.

We know also that Netanyahu was ready to strike Iran with no declaration of war some while back. Israel spent a lot of time and money practicing just that.

He was reportedly only stopped by Obama telling him he’d shoot Israel’s planes out of the sky if they attacked in one of Obama’s few sound moves in foreign policy.

_____________________________

Response to another reader:

Your bundling the names together is simply wrong.

Well, Trump Farage and Le Pen have yet to kill a single person.

Netanyahu has literally killed thousands, including hundreds of Palestinian children.

Trump Farage and Le Pen have yet to steal so much as a basket of apples.

Netanyahu has brazenly stolen the homes and farms of thousands.

______________________________

 Response to another reader:

Iran is hated by Israel for one simple reason.

It is a large country which happens to be Muslim, and it is potentially a powerful and influential one.

Israel, bristling with weapons out of all proportion to its economy or population, strives to be the miniature replica of the United States in the Middle East.

It wants to tell everyone in the region what to do and to keep anyone who does not agree with it intimidated.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN YOURNEWSWIRE

 

I think Kennedy is right only in small part. The pipeline is indeed something the establishment would like to create and that Assad has opposed.

But war in Syria, like Iraq, is part of a grand plan to re-mold the Middle East into Israel’s liking and secure its hegemony there.

Politicians like Kennedy would never discuss it for fear of offending America’s powerful Israel Lobby.

A kind of giant cordon sanitaire has been abuilding around Israel for years, and at an immense cost in human lives.

We have comments over the years from high American officials suggesting support for the concept.

Condi Rice once brutally called the screams of the hundreds of thousands killed in Iraq something to the effect of the screams of a new-born Middle East.

George Bush once candidly remarked on how much more Sharon demanded in the Middle East, saying something like I already invaded Iraq for him and how much more does he want?

In Iraq, American forces directly invaded, blatant aggression, and to the shock of much of the world.

In Libya and Syria and Yemen, surrogates – mercenaries and fanatics – were used with secret support, a very dirty business.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHAN COOK IN INTIFADA PALESTINE

 

There is little doubt that Arafat was murdered, and by the agency of Mossad.

About that time, Israel had reached a huge head of steam over Arafat. He wasn’t permitted to attend even Christmas services, and then his compound was partly wrecked by Israeli tanks in the clearest personal threat.

Sharon had a meeting with George Bush, and he was reported by a few sources as asking Bush if he could be released from Israel’s promise to not harm Arafat.

Bush, always the insipid and obsequious fool with Sharon, was reported as having readily agreed. It wasn’t a great deal of time after that that Arafat died.

The Israelis may well have employed a dissident Palestinian to do the actual job, something which is a common practice with outfits like the CIA, who for example once used a reputed Castro insider to try killing Castro.

But please, there are only a tiny number of sources on the planet for radioactive Polonium, and one of them is Israel’s nuclear industry.

I think it more than likely here with his suggestions about who killed Arafat that the unelected Abbas wants to point the finger at a political rival rather than reveal any truth.

Abbas is pretty much a sad creature of Israel’s. He is allowed, every once in a while, to do or say some seemingly challenging thing to reinforce his “creds” with his own people, but, in the end, Israel is quietly happy with him.

Of course, Israel would prefer there were no Palestinian government at all and, indeed, no Palestinians, but so long as it must keep up pretenses, Abbas is their man.

Readers may just have noticed that Israel never likes democratic leaders in its neighborhood. It likes unelected strongmen, while pretending otherwise, Arab “irrationality” and penchant for dictatorship being great propaganda phony talking points with the outside world for “the Mideast’s only democracy.”

That is why it hates Hamas. That was why it hated the elected Morsi government in Egypt and undoubtedly had it put on a CIA list for restorative action, restorative of military dictatorship.

And that is why it such great secret ally of the Saudi Princes, with whom it shares so many interests, especially an aversion to human rights and genuine democracy as well as a preference for only one kind of people living in each country.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LIZZIE DEARDEN IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

Really crap, almost laughable, propaganda which tries to tell the world ISIS is not Israel’s friend.

ISIS has never once attacked Israel or Israeli interests, which, if you believe in the fantasy stories about what ISIS is, should be their number-one target.

No, Israel has always been one of the sponsors of ISIS and Al Nusrah.

And ISIS has done virtually all of its filthy work against the countries Israel hates most, Iraq and Syria. It is a very convenient arrangement.

Saudi Arabia, under American auspices, is one of the main sponsors and suppliers of ISIS, and Saudi Arabia and Israel basically have been secret allies for years.

They share many common interests, both essentially being privileged powers in the region and both representing very regressive interests against any form of popular government near them or even genuine democracy within their borders.

The Saudis would do absolutely nothing important that would harm Israel. Moreover, the overseer of both countries, the United States, would simply not allow it, but it has very much tolerated ISIS while pretending not to do so.

ISIS was the creature of America, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Israel – each of these having its own reasons for supporting it.

It was born in the insane tumult created by America’s illegal invasion of Iraq (which was largely for Israel’s benefit) and was fostered by these countries in a number of covert and overt ways. American servants like Britain and France also assisted, while pretending to fight them.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

 

There are, of course, no guarantees, but Trump at least offers possibilities.

With Clinton, you have certainty, certainty of hostilities and aggression generated by her “America (and Israel) first” attitudes.

The woman started as a Barry Goldwater supporter many decades ago, and that’s pretty much the political territory to which she still clings, albeit with minor adjustments.

She is owned, completely owned, by the neo-cons, the same ugly bunch whose members in the State Department recently circulated a call for war on Assad.

The last decade and a half has been a disaster with America sinking, quite literally, to the level of National Socialist Germany in its international affairs.

The country is devoid of ethical or moral purpose, although the same tired platitudes fall off the lips of folks like John Kerry.

America’s overwhelming international purpose today is control, control of Europe, control of Asia, control of the Middle East, etc. It is all quite sickening and very tiresome.

Frankly, I’d take a chance with the devil if he were running.

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RINF

 

You simply cannot say that Jews are not Jews as some do here in comments – that is rather ridiculous.

What you can say is that most of today’s Jews are not the descendants of the Hebrew people – and that is a very different thing.

The origin of the Ashkenazi has not been definitively shown.

DNA tests suggest a people who arose near Italy about a thousand years ago and later moved north to Germany.

Other DNA tests do suggest the Khazaria (an empire above the modern Black and Caspian Seas) hypothesis, again going back roughly a thousand years.

Quite likely, owing to reasons cited below, today’s main Jewish population contains bits of both.

There is in fact some Semitic DNA in some Ashkenazi people, but that is only natural as intermarriage among various early Jewish groups likely took place.

It is important to remember that the Ashkenazi – the dominant group of Jews today and the people who rule re-created Israel – speak as their native tongue a language which is a mix of German and other elements – Yiddish – and the word Ashkenazi means German.

Hebrew is a technically dead language artificially revived in re-created Israel, much as Welsh has had some revival in the UK. Hebrew knowledge was preserved over many centuries mainly by two activities: the work of Biblical scholars, including many non-Jews, and the practice of teaching young Jews some Hebrew in Hebrew schools. Hebrew is an almost intrinsic part of the religion of Judaism in much the same fashion that Arabic is for Islam.

Indeed, Judaism has many of the aspects of an Asian religion in which ancestor worship is important, the Old Testament being mainly a collection of historical fragments and myths about Hebrew ancestors. That shouldn’t surprise because Judaism is thought to have first arisen in the region around Mesopotamia or Persia, key parts of Western Asia.

Today’s Jews – again, overwhelmingly the Ashkenazi – have little to no relationship with that ancient people other than sharing some of their beliefs and using bits of the preserved language as part of religious celebrations.

Parts of the Old Testament such as Leviticus suggest a harsh original people with extreme fundamentalist views, perhaps the very nature of their beliefs being why they left their region of origin, much as a small cult like the Mormons trekked out to Utah. The most typical Jews of today – even most of the Orthodox – have very little to do with those ancient views, and the Jewish people we think of typically are quite worldly in outlook. The population of Israel is extremely so, except for small minority sects, Judaism much as other religions over time having become less an intense faith than a cultural affiliation. We see the same thing with Christians who go to church only on Easter or Christmas.

What happened to the ancient people called Hebrews, the ones discussed in the Old Testament? Their main descendants are certainly the Palestinians. There is no record of Imperial Rome’s having expelled the Hebrews upon conquest of their territories. Indeed, we know that it was not Rome’s practice to expel people almost ever from conquered territories. It wanted them to go on working and even practicing their religion, Rome being extremely tolerant of non-Roman beliefs so long as the people accepted Rome’s authority and paid their taxes (recall Jesus’s admonition about rendering unto Rome).

But two millennia of history in a region of the Mediterranean which has long been very active in trade and migrations and cultural changes has produced a largely non-Jewish people called the Palestinians, people who are Christian as well as Muslim.

Of course the great and bitter irony of re-created Israel is that a largely European people, the Ashkenazi, have driven out the descendants of the Hebrews whose original religion they claim as their own.

What is almost certain is that, following the great evangelical success of Christianity – after all, Christianity even eventually took over the Roman Empire – which originated as a Jewish (Hebrew) sect other Jews (Hebrews) became evangelical, a quality we do not associate with Jews today.

That period of evangelicalism resulted in groupings of Jews arising in a number of places including Khazaria (a region above today’s Black and Caspian Seas), bits of Europe, and pockets of Africa. It is interesting that in re-created Israel, the descendants of Jewish converts from Africa are not generally welcome by the descendants of other Jewish converts, the Ashkenazi.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

And I very much hope it’s true.

Assad is a highly intelligent and decent leader for this part of the world.

Independent-minded and rather brave.

A defender of religious minorities in a land with many of them.

Only America’s gaggle of mindless followers keeps reciting the pre-written lines about his being unfit or unacceptable – as if it were any of their business anyway.

Where are these people’s critical words when it comes to genuinely vicious madmen like Erdogan, King Salman, and Netanyahu?

We never hear a peep.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JONATHAN FREEDLAND IN THE GUARDIAN

 

Sorry, this article is effectively just a kind of low-key propaganda for Israel.

This is not a conflict between two parties, and as soon as you portray it that way, you are saying nothing meaningful.

This is a case of an overwhelmingly more powerful group holding another group in something close to perpetual bondage, all while pretending not to do so and having enough influence in the West to keep the pretence going.

There is no equality between the parties, of any description.

Palestinians do not regularly steal tranches of Israeli land.

Palestinians do not destroy Israeli houses.

Palestinians don’t build walls on Israeli land and walls which prevent Israelis from going about their business.

Palestinians do not hold thousands of Israelis in illegal detention, including children.

Palestinians do not spray swaths of Israel with chemical herbicides.

Palestinians have never sprayed Israelis with sewerage.

Palestinians do not prevent the importation of cement into Israel, cement needed for basic housing and sanitation.

Palestinians do not surround Israel with robot-operated machine gun towers.

Palestinians do not shoot up Israeli fishing boats or beaches.

Palestinians do not prevent Israelis from moving or travelling around.

Palestinians do not impose harsh regulations and checkpoints for Israelis just going about their lives.

Palestinians do not steal the homes of Israelis living in Jerusalem.

Palestinians do not hold hostage monies and assistance from abroad intended for Israelis.

Palestinians have never killed 500 Israeli children in an invasion of Israel.

 

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

Udi Aloni could not be more correct in describing the government of Israel as fascist, and he is a brave Israeli to speak out. His welcome home will be less than enthusiastic without a doubt.

The whole Western world watches this monster Netanyahu at work and does nothing, hardly ever saying a word.

The only man on the planet right now who can compete with Netanyahu for stupid brutality and nonstop lying is Turkey’s Erdogan.

The grotesque irony of Western countries supporting these two – along with the brutal, senile King Salman of Saudi Arabia – while vilifying Putin and Assad is breathtaking.

__________________________

Response to another comment:

 

I’m sorry, but today’s Israelis are not the descendants of the Hebrews.

That has pretty much been proved by DNA tests.

The Ashkenazi people are Germanic, in every respect including their original language which is Yiddish.

Tests show they arose a thousand years ago near Italy and then migrated.

Judaism in the centuries after Jesus became a much more evangelical religion than we think of it today.

Bits of Africa were also converted, as was the kingdom of the Khazars, a people from the area near Ukraine who were Turkic people. They too adopted the Hebrew ways.

Christianity itself rose up as a cult-like offshoot of Judaism, and its success was startling. At the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there were numbers of such cults or sects, much like we see today in Protestantism.

The Bible is a history of the Hebrew people only in the loosest possible sense of the word ‘history.’

Archeology teaches us the Jews were never in Egypt (Moses by the way is an Egyptian-origin name). There is absolutely no record of them in a land which kept superb records.

There is not an ounce of evidence too for the existence of King David. Even Israeli archeologists, determined as they are, cannot find any.

The Romans too were great record keepers, and there is no evidence at all of the Hebrews being expelled after the Roman conquest. It is almost certain that the Palestinians are in fact what is left of the ancient Hebrews. They have of course in two millennia undergone many changes, including in language and religion.

By the way, modern Israel’s claim to the Holy Land, tenuous as it is when you know some history, is even weaker when you extend the history of the region.

Egypt once ruled there before the Hebrews, so Egypt could have a claim. The Phoenicians ruled there before the Hebrews so Lebanon too could have a claim. Italy, through the Romans, could have a claim. Iraq and/or Iran could also have a claim since their ancestors also ruled for a time.

The entire idea of basing a claim today on an ancient document full of errors and myths is self-evidently ridiculous. Or maybe you believe in Jonah or Lott’s wife or Noah or Daniel or the burning bush or the ten plagues – all complete fantasy nonsense.

Given that the notion of a wandering people is also pretty much a fantasy – again, remembering the Ashkenazi are not the Hebrews – the entire official narrative means about as much as the Greek myths.

By the way, using modern Israel’s strange logic, Turkey should belong to Greece owing to victory in the Trojan War.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON SPUTNIK

 

What many readers in Russia undoubtedly do not understand is Washington’s election campaign finance rules and their relationship to special interest groups like the Israel lobby and the never-ending turmoil of Israel-Palestine.

There are basically – despite a complex web of rules – no limits on money given to candidates for election to office.

The Supreme Court, under the influence of decades of conservative appointments, has ruled that money is free speech.

Well, you could not come up with a more corrosive rule for democracy if you tried.

The best organized and financed special interest in the United States – the Israel lobby – is able essentially to buy the loyalty of most congressmen and senators and presidential candidates.

That sounds like exaggeration, but it absolutely is not.

Money is so important in Washington elections because you must travel extensively, buy television air-time, have professional commercials produced, commission endless polls and studies, and purchase the services of costly experts. It all precisely resembles the marketing and selling of a product by a great multi-national company rather than an exercise in democracy.

This is especially true of American presidential elections, which effectively stretch out over a year including primaries and caucuses.

A year of spending like a drunken sailor!

Imagine the vast costs?

That is the American presidential campaign system in a nut shell.

This system achieves several things. One, an entrenched, well-financed special interest can stay entrenched indefinitely. Two, all the serious candidates – those with hundreds of millions in their pockets from donors and the promise of more (the Hillary Clintons or Jeb Bushes) – are effectively vetted by their existing establishment donors. They are safe bets on key matters. Nothing can really change, including major policies. The system is built to achieve that result.

Then along comes an ambitious character like Donald Trump who can finance his own campaign, there being very few people who have or are willing to spend a billion dollars of their own on a campaign.

This is part of what makes the Israel lobby in the U.S. extremely suspicious of him. Then add the fact that he is very independent-minded and says America should get along with Russia and China and that it shouldn’t be in places like Syria, and a form of panic ensues.

I dislike most of Trumps’ views, but on the Middle East and some foreign policy he could represent important and overdue change. The Israel lobby understands that and already on many fronts is getting ready for one ugly fight. We see former New York Mayor, and billionaire, Bloomberg talk of running as an independent, The Weekly Standard, voice of Neo-cons and the Israel lobby is screaming about Trump, and some newspapers have already engaged in underhanded stuff like reporting that a distant relative of Anne Frank’s says “Trump sounds like Hitler.”

If Trump gets the nomination, there’s going to be a really dirty fight with the Middle East at its center, but Trump’s opponents will not openly make the Middle East the issue as it is much safer with the general public and easier to talk about Trump’s sometimes wild words and more extreme ideas. But the intensity of the fight will be about the Middle East.

It will be an interesting political year.

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN

Kerry says the United States is sending fifty (special forces) troops to fight ISIS?

Fifty stinking troops? That surely is a joke.

But fifty troops to assist and advise ISIS and sister terror organizations such as al-Nusra, that makes some sense.

And since special forces use sabotage and covert operations, it is likely they would be involved in attacking Syrian infrastructure to help make the lives of Syrians still more miserable. After all, America’s jets, supposedly fighting ISIS, have in fact bombed targets such as Syrian power plants. The troops can serve as target spotters. That too makes some sense if you have the kind of twisted goals America has.

Or the fifty troops could form a human shield around some of America’s hardworking terrorist-mercenaries against Russian bombing, that too makes sense.

Of course, there is the overlooked fact that Russia works in cooperation with, and at the invitation of, the government of Syria. The United States does not, conveniently having declared with the wave of the imperial hand that longstanding government, known to be supported by a majority of its people, to be illegitimate.

How convenient, but its troops remain, no matter how small the number, simply invaders, and the United States violates international law putting them there. But international law has never hindered the United States or its Middle East colony (aka, Israel) when either of them wanted to do something.

What is it exactly that these invaders would advise and assist in?

Bringing down the legitimate government of Syria. It can’t be anything else because that is the mission of the very people they are assisting and shielding.

Now, if that isn’t being involved in “the civil war”, what is?

Kerry just keeps going in circles, but that is precisely the path of American foreign policy.

Just using that term, “civil war,” is ridiculous because it is not a civil war.

It is an invasion by terrorists, secretly assisted by Kerry’s government and some of its allies to remove a leader they do not like and reduce yet another peaceful country to what America produced in Libya and Iraq.

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Mark Steel is just a second-rate propagandist.

Of course, China has its flaws, and some serious ones.

But perspective is everything.

After all, let’s not forget that Britain did help mightily in killing about a million people in Iraq, the creation of a couple of million miserable refugees, and the destruction of large parts of an advanced society for generations.

And Britain happily supports America’s horror in Syria, the letting-loose of tens of thousands of well-equipped cutthroats in an effort to destroy a beautiful land.

I haven’t heard any public cries from Downing Street over the Saudi terror campaign in Yemen, including the use of cluster bombs on civilians. Perhaps I missed something?

No, I don’t think I did. There was nothing either about all the Saudi beheadings and a sentence of crucifixion either. But there was a huge secret arms sale and a project for building prisons in one of the world’s great tyrannies.

Please, stuff like this of Mr. Steel’s is just clap-trap. I doubt very much he raised his voice on such other atrocities as Israel’s murderous abuse of several million Palestinians for half a century. This remains the world’s single greatest example of a complete squashing of human rights and decency: the Palestinians have no votes, no rights, no future, and they can’t even enjoy their homes and farms with any security. Again, that is a matter about which we never hear from good old David or Mr. Steel for that matter.

After all, for David to do so, even slightly, would seriously harm relations with Rupert Murdoch, a man, by the way, whose British publishing empire was built in part on hacking the intimate telephone conversations of hundreds of unfortunate people, including victims of violent crime. To say nothing of casting a pall over those delightful country weekends with Rupert’s designated creature in Britain, red-haired bombshell Rebekah Brooks

Interesting, despite China’s shortcomings in human rights, it has pretty well lived in peace with its neighbors for its entire modern existence.

That certainly cannot be said of the United States or its colony in the Middle East, the two most dangerous states in the modern world, both of whom get David’s unlimited support and affection.

______________________

America has given us nothing but wars and coups and “interventions” since the end of the Second World War. The toll of their attempts to control the planet, including such glorious episodes as the Vietnam War, has been literally as many people killed – mostly civilian, as is the case in all modern war – as were killed in the Holocaust.

Three million victims just in Vietnam, another million in Iraq, a million in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Chile, Guatemala, and on and on.

Israel, America’s colony in the Middle East, has behaved as a miniature replica of the mother country. It has done nothing but kill and suppress people for 65 years, having invaded every neighbor that it has, many of them two or three times.

I don’t see how anyone can write what Mark Steel writes without being entirely ignorant of modern history or deliberately ignoring it. In either case, the result is not worth publishing.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

EXPANSION OF A POSTED RESPONSE TO AN INTERVIEW WITH SYRIA’S PRESIDENT ASSAD IN INTIFADA PALESTINE

I am no great defender of unelected leaders like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, but in the case of Syria’s current troubles I support him and wish him success against the forces responsible for murder and destruction on a large scale in his country.

The great writer, Graham Greene, said:
“…the writer should always be ready to change sides at the drop of a hat. He stands for the victims, and the victims change.”

Syria is the victim in this case, and the bloody bullies attacking Syria are the United States and Israel, both too cowardly to attack directly and both dishonestly claiming that the Free Syrian Army represents a genuine popular revolt.

The aim of the United States and Israel in all this violence is to wipe Syria off the Middle East chessboard, leaving it a divided society with no central direction.

Their efforts are designed to serve Israel’s drive to dominate the Middle East, just as America’s invasion of Iraq served the same drive. Israel aspires to be a miniature replica in the Middle East of what the United States has become globally, and the United States’ government, compromised by its corrupt election financing system and the central role of special interests in that system, is more than willing to grant Israel the role.

The brutality and hypocrisy involved in creating a pseudo-popular uprising and putting millions of innocent people at risk are breathtaking. The United States and Israel have gathered, armed, and supported a gang of thugs and injected them (through Syria’s border with Turkey, Turkey also offering refuge and re-supply) into what was a peaceful country, the very kind of cut-throats neither the U.S. nor Israel would allow to cross their own borders.

The recent death of an American ambassador in Libya at Benghazi, an event which no American official will discuss honestly, was part of the same dark scheme and involved the ambassador working with the CIA to gather killers and arms for export to Syria. The operation badly backfired when some of the thugs being dealt with turned on the Americans, something American officials will not acknowledge out of embarrassment and the desire to hide the dirty business in which they are engaged.

The world is not the simple place of angels and devils as America’s propaganda efforts ceaselessly proclaim it – great camps of goodness and evil ready to do battle for the soul of humanity. No matter whether a government is democratic in origin or not – and given the utter corruption of America’s politics, its claims to authentic democracy are tenuous – powerful insiders are fully capable of bloody, ruthless behavior in secret, destroying the lives of others.

While the United States loves hearing itself talk about being a bastion of freedom and rights, the fact is that over the last 40 or so years, it has been, quite simply, the most murderous nation on earth, killing 3 million in Vietnam plus a host of victims in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and in many, many other places either invaded or toppled in bloody coups. It still runs an international torture gulag, of which Guantanamo is only a part.

The world can support a bloody global dictator even less than an individual country can support a local one. So, in Syria we see a stark choice, and the ethical balance favors for once a local dictator.

If you want the rule of law, you must abide by the rule of law, a principle which neither the United States nor Israel makes even a pretense of embracing although they sure like talking about it between bombing runs and terrorist activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

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

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad quit on Saturday after months of tension with President Mahmoud Abbas

We may safely assume that when the likes of John Baird care about a political figure such as the Palestinian prime minister staying in office, the resignation means absolutely nothing to the Palestinian people.

Apart from the fact that John Baird has no stature whatever in world affairs and no credibility as a statesman, the simple fact is that he is an ignoramus on affairs in the Middle East.

Baird is also a man – perhaps a reflection of his argumentative and destructive life as a domestic politician – who has proven he has no concern for the terrible situation of the Palestinians.

He is in addition a pathetic figure whose only objective in the region is to loyally serve American-Israeli positions – resembling in the act a wagging dog waiting for his master to hand out a treat.

Palestinian politicians like Abbas and those associated with him are pleasing to Israel because they maintain a totally submissive demeanor. There is almost something in them of the nature of the old minor Hollywood black actor known as Stepin Fetchit.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

What possibly is the value of an apology from an inveterate liar?

We do have, after all, the public words of the presidents of two major countries that Netanyahu is exactly that, an inveterate liar.

It only took a couple of years plus immense outside pressure to have him even offer this poor excuse for an apology.

And I’ll bet a great many pirates, killers, and thieves wish they could get off by muttering a few cheap words.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

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

Ignatieff yet again proves what a remarkably thoughtless person he is for someone who enjoyed the status of an intellectual concerned with human rights.

But then, even in his old sinecure at Harvard, Ignatieff frequently defended American imperial interests and displayed no concern for America’s increasing violence and authoritarianism in the world.

The horrors in Syria exist for one reason only, and that is America’s effort to determine the future of most of the countries of the Middle East for the benefit of its imperial satrapy in the region, Israel, itself a country which regularly kills, tortures, kidnaps, imprisons, and steals.

Turkey’s behavior in offering the “rebels” refuge and border access and its threats against Syria are all at the behind-the scenes behest of the U.S.

The American Ambassador recently killed in Libya – another American disaster – was involved in smuggling weapons and Islamic fighters into Syria. That’s why no one in Obama’s government can give an honest accounting of the event.

Some of the thugs fighting in Syria are the kind of people the U.S. wouldn’t even admit through its own border, yet it seems perfectly okay for them to go to Syria and murder and destroy.

The hypocrisy and lack of ethics are stunning.

Israel’s murderous thug of a prime minister of course just chuckles at Syria being tied down in such a bloody mess.

The aim here is to destabilize Syria, perhaps dividing it into parts, and removing the Syrian army as a piece on the Middle East chessboard.

The fact is that Assad, like Hussein, provides a secular government in a region torn with religious hostilities. That’s why Islamists hate him. Treatment of women too is better than in many parts of the Middle East.

But none of that counts when the U.S. decides in private that it is time for change in your region of the world.

The country which has killed millions over recent decades now feels entitled to control events anywhere its fancy takes it.

And flacks like Ignatieff – for that is what he is – help form the chorus of support for evil.

He’s trying desperately, I think, to reclaim his sinecure at Harvard.

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 RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

And a well-earned attack it is.

Abuse and contempt for a people only can go so far before the people respond.

Unless, that is, you are a country like Israel with a demonstrated capacity to slaughter those you abuse.
______________________________

“JOHN CHUCKMAN and many other fools, are mistaking the handful of backsliding, non practicing, moderate ‘muslims’ that they think they know, for the real thing.

“What makes them think that such pseudo ‘muslims’ speak for Islam?”

It doesn’t get more fanatical and ignorant than that comment.

You cannot summarily characterize more than a billion people.

It is precisely the mindset you display that allowed certain people in the late 1930s and the 1940s to do what they did to whole groups in Europe.

Precisely.

Just as it is precisely Mr. Netanyahu’s demands and violence and irrationality that closely parallel those of the German leader in the Munich Crisis.

Just examine your own beliefs by doing a thought experiment.

If the Muslim people are as awful and hopeless as you believe, why did the Zionist leaders want to found Israel in the middle of them?

Surely that renders the leaders stark-raving mad?

And why have several million Europeans and Americans and others gone there to claim Israeli citizenship?

Seems a wholly irrational, almost suicidal act if Muslims are as you and several other mad barkers here claim.
______________________________________

“His real name is John Phuckedupman”

As soon as people start writing nasty adolescent things like this man, you know their quality of intellect and ethics, in an instant.

By the way, he does such things using a pseudonym.

A genuine coward.

Like Netanyahu.

Like the creator of the film.

Pathetic.
_______________________________________________

“I have a proposition for all you lefties who hate jews and love islam. After you marry your boyfriend in the spring, why not spend your honeymoon in the Middle East? I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to have visitors who despise jews as much as they do.”

“Lefties” do not hate Jews.

“Lefties” do not love Islam.

“Lefties” just happen to care about truth and reason and ethics.

Qualities you clearly are missing.

And qualities you in fact hate them for.
___________________________________

Again, if you hate Muslims as much as some people commenting here, it clearly is the most irrational act in the contemporary world to found a state and live surrounded by a couple of hundred million of the people you hate.

Kind of like a believing member of the Klu Klux Klan buying a house in the center of Detroit or on the South Side of Chicago.

Not brave, just irrational.

As far as ancestral homeland, well the world of 2,000 years ago has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the world today.

Nor should it have.

Otherwise, Rome would still rule Palestine. Greece would rule Turkey owing to the Trojan War.

So many states ruled Palestine if you go back several thousand years that you could say Egypt should rule it today or Lebanon (the Phoenicians) or Iran (Persia), and on and on.

By the way, an idea of long speculation – the actual origin of Ashkanazi European Jews – has now been demonstrated scientifically through extensive DNA sampling by researchers at Johns-Hopkins University.

Their origin is not the Hebrew people of Biblical lore but the Kazahr people who live in the Caucasus one thousand years ago.

The idea has long been a source of speculation – there are many subtle but not definitive non-DNA bits of evidence – and some of the Zionist founders were well aware of it.

Now it is demonstrated.

Ancestral claim to Palestine?

Pretty clearly not.

And there is also the idea, with a growing body of evidence, that it is the Palestinians themselves who are the descendants of the ancient Hebrews.

The Romans never followed the practice of scattering a whole people out of a homeland they conquered. They would kill leaders and stubborn opponents, but those willing to accept the relatively mild yoke of Rome were always left to be.

Rome even tolerated all religious practices in their conquered lands, so long as the people were not opposed to Rome.

Of course centuries and centuries of history changed the religious identity of these descendants of the Hebrews, as it did so many others in many parts of the ancient world.
____________________________________________________

“you think these countries are the only ones with negative influences in that cess pool you should add a few of those european countries to your list, espeacially france and england.’

No, of course not.

Abuse has occurred throughout human history.

Organized Christianity’s history of abuse and horrors is largely behind us, but it was an immense and complex history of horrors.

But these are the people today before our eyes as it were – a world of television, cell phones, and the Internet.

And I sympathize with the little guy, the victim, always.

And I really tire of the flood of prejudiced and ignorant statements about a whole people.

For those who want a tale of Christianity’s history of bloodshed, see:

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/of-war-islam-and-israel/