©2008-2012 Roedy Green, Canadian Mind ProductsQuotations are selected from this pool (and other quotation pools) in a pseudorandom way every hour and inserted at the top and bottom of some of the major pages on this website. Feel free to copy any of these quotes and paste them for whatever purpose you please.
We can have peace, but if we continue to hold out, we can obtain more.
~ General Haim Bar-Lev (born: 1924-11-16 died: 1994-05-07 at age: 69) quoted on page 166 of Hegemony Or Survival, where more meant the Sinai.
I would have joined a terrorist organization.
~ Ehud Barak (born: 1942-02-12 age: 70) Prime Minister of Israel 1999—2001, in response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha’aretz newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian.
If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force…
Ehud Barak (born: 1942-02-12 age: 70) Prime Minister of Israel 1999—2001, quoted in Associated Press, 2000-11-16.
The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more.
Ehud Barak (born: 1942-02-12 age: 70) Prime Minister of Israel 1999—2001, 2000-08-28, Reported in the Jerusalem Post 2000-08-30.
The establishment of such a school is a foul, disgraceful deed. You can’t mix pure and foul. They are a disease, a disaster, a devil. The Arabs are asses, and the question must be asked, why did God did not create them walking on their fours? The answer is that they need to build and wash. They have no place in our school.
~ Rabbi David Bazri speaking about a proposed integrated school in Israel.
[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs.
~ Menachem Begin (born: 1913-08-16 died: 1992-03-09 at age: 78) Prime Minister of Israel 1977—1983, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, Begin and the Beasts New Statesman, 1982-06-25
The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized… Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever.
~ Menachem Begin (born: 1913-08-16 died: 1992-03-09 at age: 78) Prime Minister of Israel 1977—1983, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.
In strategic terms, the settlements (in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza) are of no importance.
~ Ze’ev Binyamin (Benny) Begin (born: 1943-03-01 age: 69) son of the late Menahem Begin and a prominent voice in the Likud party writing in 1991. (Quoted in Findley, Deliberate Deceptions p 159) Paul Findley notes that Begin added that their importance was that “they constitute an obstacle, an insurmountable obstacle to the establishment of an independent Arab State west of the river Jordan.”
The trebling of the population in this small and impoverished country, flowing with milk and honey but not with sufficient water, rich in rocks and sand dunes but poor in natural resources and vital raw materials, has been no easy task: Indeed, practical men, with their eyes fixed upon things as they are, regarded it as an empty and insubstantial utopian dream.
~ David Ben-Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) Prime Minister of Israel, 1963-03-28
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
~ Rita Mae Brown (born: 1944-11-28 age: 67) Sudden Death often misattributed to Benjamin Franklin.Persistence is great, but you must persist with something that works.
Terrorism : killing civilians with the intent of changing their political affiliation.
~ Caleb Carr (born: 1955-08-02 age: 56), military historian
If I were president, I’d be very glad to see the Palestinians have a nation recognized by the United Nations. There’s no downside to it.
~ President Jimmy Carter (born: 1924-10-01 age: 87) 2011-09-18
The pre-eminent obstacle to peace is Israel’s colonization of Palestine.
~ President Jimmy Carter (born: 1924-10-01 age: 87) 2006-03-16
We consider these settlements to be contrary to the Geneva Convention, that occupied territory should not be changed by establishment of permanent settlements by the occupying power.
~ President Jimmy Carter (born: 1924-10-01 age: 87) 39th President of the United States 1980
In Israel, the maximum legal penalty for denying the existence of God is one year in prison, while the punishment for denying the existence of the Holocaust is up to five years’ imprisonment.
~ Ward Churchill (born: 1947-10-02 age: 64) A Little Matter of GenocideIt is hard to believe a modern democracy would have laws left over from the middle ages.
Israel is working on a biological weapon that would harm Arabs but not Jews, according to Israeli military and western intelligence sources… In developing their “ethno-bomb”, Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying genes carried by some Arabs, then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus. The intention is to use the ability of viruses and certain bacteria to alter the DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) inside their host’s living cells. The scientists are trying to engineer deadly micro-organisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes. The programme is based at the biological institute in Nes Tziyona, the main research facility for Israel’s clandestine arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. A scientist there said the task was hugely complicated because both Arabs and Jews are of Semitic origin. But he added: “They have, however, succeeded in pinpointing a particular characteristic in the genetic profile of certain Arab communities, particularly the Iraqi people.” The disease could be spread by spraying the organisms into the air or putting them in water supplies. The research mirrors biological studies conducted by South African scientists during the apartheid era and revealed in testimony before the truth commission. The idea of a Jewish state conducting such research has provoked outrage in some quarters because of parallels with the genetic experiments of Dr Josef Mengele, the Nazi scientist at Auschwitz.
~ Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin , The Sunday Times [London, 1998-11-15]
Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.
~ Moshe Dayan (born: 1915-05-20 died: 1981-10-16 at age: 66) Defense Minister of Israel 1867—1974, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, 1969-04-04.
Take the American declaration of Independence. It contains no mention of territorial limits. We are not obliged to fix the limits of the State.
~ Moshe Dayan (born: 1915-05-20 died: 1981-10-16 at age: 66) Defense Minister of Israel 1867—1974, (Jerusalem Post, 1967-08-10)
Without [the settlements] the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) [Israeli Defense Force] would be a foreign army ruling a foreign population.
~ Moshe Dayan (born: 1915-05-20 died: 1981-10-16 at age: 66) Defense Minister of Israel 1867—1974, (quoted in Aronson, Geoffrey, Settlements and the Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations Institute for Palestinian Studies)
… we have no solution, that you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave — and we will see where this process leads? In five years we may have 200,000 less people — and that is a matter of enormous importance.
~ Moshe Dayan (born: 1915-05-20 died: 1981-10-16 at age: 66) Defense Minister of Israel 1967— 1974, encouraging the transfer of Gaza strip refugees to Jordan (from Noam Chomsky’s Deterring Democracy, 1992, p.434, quoted in Nur Masalha’s A Land Without A People, 1997 p.92).
In our country there is room only for the Jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they don’t agree, if they resist, we shall drive them out by force.
~ Professor Ben-Zion Dinur (born: 1884-01-02 died: 1973-07-08 at age: 89) Israel’s First Minister of Education, 1954, from History of the Haganah
One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all.
~ Abba Eban (born: 1915-02-02 died: 2002-11-27 at age: 87) Foreign Minister of Israel, 1966— 1974.
For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions, and the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything chosen about them.
~ Albert Einstein (born: 1879-03-14 died: 1955-04-18 at age: 76) from a letter to Eric Gutkind, translated from German.
We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel… Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours … When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do will be to scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle.
~ Rafael Eitan (born: 1929-01-11 died: 2004-11-23 at age: 75) Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot, New York Times 1983-04-14
Israel should keep the Araboushim [derogatory slang for Arabs] on a short leash, so that they recognise a whip is over their head. As long as not too many people are being visibly killed, then Western humanists will accept it all peacefully, and even ask “What is so terrible?”.
~ Boaz Evron Yediot Ahronot, 1982-12-02, Israeli writer and commentator.
God here. I have been asked to rule on what would be a fair way to settle the Palestinian question since you humans seem incapable of reasoning it out. The most basic rules are these. Don’t kill and don’t steal, and especially don’t kill in order to steal land, which is precisely what the Jews have done. Therefore I rule that all Jews must leave the area known as Palestine/Israel within 5 years. They must pay a rent of per month per acre that they occupied those territories. Jews who have married Palestinians or who are the children of such marriages may stay. It should have been obvious I strongly don’t approve of holding people in bondage/apartheid. Remember what happened to Pharaoh? Let this be a lesson to you all. Had the Jews bargained in good faith, rather than just trying jerk the Palestinians around, they would have ended up with considerably more than half the pie. I’m God. I can say jerk or you instead of “thou;” if I feel like it.
~ God
Here lies the saint, Doctor Baruch Kapal Goldstein, blessed be the memory of the righteous and holy man, may the Lord revenge his blood, who devoted his soul for the Jews, Jewish religion and Jewish land. His hands are clean and his heart is clear. He was killed as a martyr of God on the 14th of Adar, Purim, in the year 5754.
~ inscription on the grave (made as a shrine visited by pilgrims), of the mass murderer Baruch Goldstein. An American Physician and an Israeli settler of Hebron, Goldstein shot to death 29 worshippers kneeling in a mosque in 1994 before the crowd overpowered and killed him. As a doctor, he had been court-martialed for refusing to treat anyone who was not a Jew.
If I was an Arab leader I would never make [peace] with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country.
~ David Ben Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) Prime Minister of Israel 1948— 1963, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99
If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?
~ David Ben Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) Prime Minister of Israel 1948— 1963
It’s not a matter of maintaining the status quo. We have to create a dynamic state, oriented towards expansion.
~ David Ben Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) Prime Minister of Israel 1948— 1963
Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.
~ David Ben Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) Prime Minister of Israel 1948— 1963, Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.
~ David Ben Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) Prime Minister of Israel 1948— 1963, writing to his son, 1937
We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return
~ David Ben Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) Prime Minister of Israel 1948— 1963, in his diary, 1948-07-18, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar’s Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.
We must expel Arabs and take their places.
~ David Ben Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) Prime Minister of Israel 1948— 1963, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.
We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.
~ David Ben Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) Prime Minister of Israel 1948— 1963, 1948-05, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.
~ David Ben Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) Prime Minister of Israel 1948— 1963, 1948-05, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country… expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.
~ Theodore Herzl (born: 1860-05-02 died: 1904-07-03 at age: 44) The founder of Zionism, (from Rafael Patai, Ed. The Complete Diaries of Theodore Herzl, Vol I)
One of the major problems with Israeli democracy is that it has no constitutional guarantees of human rights. To my knowledge it’s the only functioning democracy without such provision.
~ Asa Kasher (born: 1940-06-06 age: 71) Israeli philosopher
We are doomed to co-exist.
~ Henry Kissinger (born: 1923-05-27 age: 89)
If power corrupts, the reverse is also true; persecution corrupts the victims though perhaps in subtler and more tragic ways.
~ Arthur Koestler (born: 1905-09-05 died: 1983-03-03 at age: 77)
Defending the occupation has done to the American Pro-Israel community, what living as an occupier has done to Israel — muddied both its moral compass and its rational self-interest compass.
~ Daniel Levy Ha’aretz, former adviser to Ehud Barak
It would be better to drown these prisoners in the Dead Sea if possible, since that’s the lowest point in the world.
~ Avigdor Lieberman (born: 1958-06-05 age: 53) 2003-07-07
How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.
~ Golda Meir (born: 1898-05-03 died: 1978-12-03 at age: 80) Prime Minister of Israel 1969— 1974, (quoted in Chapter 13 of The Zionist Connection II: What Price Peace by Alfred Lilienthal )
There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.
~ Golda Meir (born: 1898-05-03 died: 1978-12-03 at age: 80) Prime Minister of Israel 1969— 1974, Statement to The Sunday Times, 1969-06-15
This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.
~ Golda Meir (born: 1898-05-03 died: 1978-12-03 at age: 80) Prime Minister of Israel 1969- 1974, Le Monde, 1971-10-15God had nothing to do with it, Golda. You used God to legitimise your land theft. Your arrogance is nauseating, expecting non-Jews to bow before your master race crap.
We can forgive you for killing our children, but we can never forgive you for making us kill your children.
~ Golda Meir (born: 1898-05-03 died: 1978-12-03 at age: 80) Prime Minister of Israel, 1969—1974, 1973 to Egyptian President Sadat.This is insane thinking. She was obligated to protect Israeli children, but killing innocent Arab children did utterly nothing to that end; it just creates more justification to kill more Israeli children. Are Iraqis obligated to kill American children just because American soldiers have killed Iraqi children? Are you obligated to kill the family of a serial killer? That is crazy thinking. Killing children is pure emotional vengeance. Nobody made her kill children. She freely chose evil. The killing did nothing at all toward defense.
I don’t sign orders to destroy the houses of Jews, only of Arabs,
~ Haim Miller deputy mayor of Jerusalem and acting mayor in Olmert’s absence, quoted in Yediot Aharonot, 1998-02-07.
The very point of Labor’s Zionist program is to have as much land as possible and as few Arabs as possible!
~ Yitzhak Navon (born: 1921-04-09 age: 91) (moderate ex-Israeli president and a leading labor party politician.) Cited on p.179 of Nur Masalha’s A Land without a People who cites Bernard Avishai’s The Tragedy of Zionism 1985 p.340.
Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories.
Binyamin Netanyahu (born: 1949-10-21 age: 62) Prime Minister of Israel then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, 1989-11-24.
The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.
~ Barack Obama (born: 1961-08-04 age: 50) 2011-05-19
The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security. … Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.
~ Barack Obama (born: 1961-08-04 age: 50) 2009-06-04
Israeli lives are worth more than Palestinian ones.
~ Ehud Olmert (born: 1945-09-30 age: 66) acting Prime Minister of Israel 2006 — 2006-06-23
There is no ceasefire. There will not be any ceasefire.
~ Ehud Olmert (born: 1945-09-30 age: 66) acting Prime Minister of Israel 2006-
We can never totally return to the indefensible pre-1967 borders, … We simply cannot afford to make Israel 14.48 km (9 miles) wide again at its center. We can’t allow the Palestinians to be a couple of [miles] from [Tel Aviv’s] Ben Gurion Airport in the age of shoulder-fire missiles with the capacity to shoot down jumbo jets. But that doesn’t mean we must remain in every corner of the West Bank or in Gaza, where fewer than 10,000 Jews, living next to 1.3 million Palestinians, have been protected by twice as many soldiers.
~ Ehud Olmert (born: 1945-09-30 age: 66) acting Prime Minister of Israel 2006
On the eve of yet another round of peace talks with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has invited the leader of the Moledet Party to join his coalition government. The Moledet (Homeland) Party is not just another far-right Zionist grouping. Its founding principle, as stated in its charter, is the call to transfer Arabs out of Eretz Israel: [the land of Israel in Hebrew is Eretz Yisrael] “The sure cure for the demographic ailment is the transfer of the Arabs to Arab countries as an aim of any negotiations and a way to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict over the land of Israel.” By Arabs, the Modelet Party means not only the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza: its members also seek to cleanse Israel of its Palestinian Arab citizens. And by “demographic ailment”, the Modelet means not only the presence of Arabs in Israel’s midst, but also the “troubling high birth rate” of the Arab population.
~ Al-Ahram Weekly Online 1998-04-30 — 1998-05-06 Issue No.375
If I’m sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp down… No one (in the Israeli army) expressed any reservations against doing it… I found joy with every house that came down… I have no mercy… I say if a man has done nothing, don’t touch him. A man who has done something, hang him, as far as I am concerned. Even a pregnant woman — shoot her without mercy, if she has a terrorist behind her. This is the way I thought in Jenin…
~ bulldozer operator at the Palestinian camp at Jenin, reported in Yedioth Ahronoth, 2002-05-31
[Three quarters of a million young people who have served in the IDF ] know that the task of the army is not only to defend the state in the battlefield against a foreign army, but to demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are Araboushim living in territories that God promised to us.
Yaram Peri in Davar, 1982-12-10. academic specialist on Israeli affairs. Araboushim is Israeli slang that is roughly equivalent to niggers or kikes.
One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.
~ Rabbi Ya’acov Perin in his eulogy at the funeral of mass murderer Dr. Baruch Goldstein (Cited in the New York Times, 1994-02-28)
It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.
~ Yoram Bar Porath Yediot Aahronot, 1972-08-14, responding to public controversy regarding the Israeli evictions of Palestinians in Rafah, Gaza, in 1972. (Cited in Nur Masalha’s A land Without A People 1997, p98).
Anything moving in the zone, even a three year old, needs to be killed.
~ The Israeli Captain R. who murdered 13-year old Imam Al-Hamas 2004-11-04.
We walked outside, Ben Gurion (born: 1886-10-16 died: 1973-12-01 at age: 87) accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, “What is to be done with the Palestinian population?” Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said “Drive them out!”
~ Yitzhak Rabin (born: 1922-03-01 died: 1995-11-04 at age: 73) Prime Minister of Israel 1974— 1977 and 1992— 1995, leaked Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 1979-10-23
All those now living in South Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hizb’allah.
~ Haim Ramon (born: 1950-04-10 age: 62) Israeli Justice Minister, explaining why it was OK for Israel to target children in Lebanon. Hans Frank was the Justice Minister in Hitler’s cabinet.
120,000 years ago the Dead Sea dried up entirely. Today from man diverting fresh water away from the Dead Sea, its level is rapidly dropping. Without the Dead Sea, the area will be much more arid than in it now. The bone the Israelis and Palestinians fight over may become useless.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
A hypocrite avoids noticing his own sins by focusing on the minor transgressions of others. The Israelis are masters of this. They blind themselves to the fact they have set up an apartheid system to oppress Palestinians every bit as nasty as the one the Boers set up in South Africa. They are unaware they have killed 20 times as many Palestinians, as the reverse. They imagine Palestinians are squatting on their land rather than the reverse. The deliberate self deception is loathsome. They remind me of fundamentalist Christians who act as if telling a lie sufficiently often makes it true.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Binyamin Netanyahu (born: 1949-10-21 age: 62), Prime Minister of Israel criticised Barack Obama for calling for a two state solution to the Palestinian problem based on the 1967 borders. Justice demands the solution should be based on the 1948 borders, prior to the illegal invasion. You don’t normally allow a mugger to keep the proceeds of his crime. This, of course, is politically infeasible because the US has propped up the Israeli invaders with billions of dollars year after year. It is now a matter of might makes right. The problem with might makes right is it does not create a permanent peace, only fairness does.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Binyamin Netanyahu is letting his hatred for Muslims cloud his judgement. He is ignoring the advice of his generals. He is ignoring common sense. Just what is he ignoring?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- China is an ally of Iran. It gets its oil from Iran. If Netanyahu destroys Iran’s ability to export oil, China will not be pleased. China has the ability to squash Israel like a bug.
- If Israel attacks Iran, that will prove to everyone in Iran the prime necessity of acquiring nuclear weapons or other equivalent weapons of mass destruction, either by building them or buying them on the black market to deter future attacks. It works for North Korea to keep the USA at bay. Expect escalated retaliation with WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction)s smuggled into Israel.
- Consider that to get to market, oil from the middle east must go through the narrow Straits of Hormuz, for all practical purposes territorial waters of Iran. Iran has Sunburn missiles capable of sinking any ship, commercial or military. The shipping lane is so narrow just a couple of sunken or scuttled ships will block it. All the countries whose oil is blocked, including the USA, who pays Israel’s allowance, will be hopping mad at Israel.
Both Israel and the USA have abandoned the rule of law. Israel imprisons people for up to six months without charge and without evidence. The USA allows indefinite secret detention without charge and without evidence. Yet both nations have the gall to condemn others for civil rights abuses.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Even though I used to enjoy working for the Israeli government, a have since lost all patience with them because they refuse to take any responsibility for the predicament they have got themselves into by mistreating Palestinians and driving them off their land.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
For mediation to work, both warring parties have to share the pain roughly equally. In Israel, the Palestinians have lost their country, their homes, their lands, their water and their livelihoods. Israel wants them to accept apartheid and still deeper economic degradation. The Israelis have taken the entire country of Palestine by force (an international war crime encouraged by the USA and Britain) and forced Palestinians out of their homes, stolen their orchards and forced them to work at slave wages. Israelis kill 20 times as many people as the Palestinians, yet the Israelis have successfully painted the Palestinians as the villains in the international media. There is no way a peace can ever be achieved based on maintaining the status quo. The status quo is simply too unfair.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
For the last 64 years Canada and the USA have employed a policy of always siding with Israel in the Palestinian conflict. Clearly it has not worked to bring peace. It is time to try something else, such as playing the role of utterly fair, scrupulously unbiased peace broker. We need to give both sides a chance to air their grievances in a global forum. We need to stop vilifying the Palestinians for violent behaviour and praising the Israelis for the exact same behaviour. I suggest copying the way Canada resolved land conflicts with the indigenous people where the government paid reparations for land stolen and past cruelty and granted some autonomy in government.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
From the beginning there has been such an imbalance of power with the USA and the Israelis ganging up on the Palestinians, the temptation to bully and cheat has been irresistible. The Israelis get a deep joy out of breaking their word, just because they can get away with it. It is a way of thumbing their noses at the Palestinians. It is a way of humiliating them. It the school yard bullies writ large.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I have little sympathy for Jews complaining about Palestinian violence against them for the following reasons.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- The state of Israel has killed 20 times more Palestinians than Palestinians have killed Jews.
- The Jews illegally invaded Palestine in a first strike illegal aggressive war in 1948 and have occupied it ever since. I certainly would not submit quietly to an invasion of Canada. I don’t see why the Palestinians should.
- The Jews have imposed an apartheid scheme on the Palestinians.
- The Jews have repeatedly made agreements then broken their promises. They do not bargain in good faith.
- In other parts of the world, we encourage oppressed people to rebel.
I heard Dr. Gabor Maté talk about treating drug addiction and the other psychological problems of native Canadians. He explained they escape to drugs in a desperate attempt to avoid psychological pain. The whole society is still reeling from the blow we whites gave it when we invaded North America and set up an apartheid system, one the South Africans later copied from Canada. Abuse perpetuates through the generations. Yet for two centuries we whites clamed the indigenous peoples were the villains in this drama. We accused them of the very crimes we had perpetuated on them. Israel has a similar, but much younger, problem. It may take them another couple of centuries before they can acknowledge the atrocities they committed against the Palestinians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I object to the way Jews have treated the WWII (World War II) holocaust as unique. If I lose my entire family to madmen, that is just as horrible whether I live in Rwanda, Darfur or Berlin.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I often argue that Israel has an apartheid system. I offer as evidence:
- There is a giant Berlin-like wall separating the places where Jews and Palestinians live.
- There are checkpoints that Palestinians must cross to visit the Jewish areas, more security that crossing the average international border.
- The dominant Jewish population for many years put the Palestinians in lockdown, unable to leave their homes to work or shop or any other purpose for one day in three. This decimated the Palestinian economy.
- Public figures in Israel frequently make extremely racist remarks about Palestinians.
- The Jews have squeezed the Palestinians from their lands into smaller and smaller reservations, on the driest, least arable land.
but they would just dismiss my arguments with a disdainful sniff. Maybe this odd story on the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) News will convince you. An Arab man had a one-night stand. Later it dawned on the woman her date was not Jewish and freaked. She charged the man with “rape by deception” even though at no point did he say he was Jewish, or use any force. The court sentenced the man to 18 months effectively for having sex with a Jewish woman while Arab. Come on! That could only happen in a Jim Crow society. Remember To Kill A Mockingbird where the white folk wanted to lynch a black man simply because they had a shred of evidence that he had sex with a white woman.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I think Americans underestimate how much they are asking from the Palestinians. To them, the star of David represents ultimate evil, much as the Swastika does for us. The people of the star illegally invaded and kept them in subjugation and apartheid for 64 years. Asking them to accept Israel as legitimate would be like asking the Poles to declare Hitler’s invasion as legitimate.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I think the Israelis have quite a bit of cheek to complain the Palestinians won’t acknowledge the legitimacy of the state of Israel when it was formed via an illegal invasion and when the Israelis in turn refuse to acknowledge the right of Palestinians to live, much less have their own country.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I went to a lecture about he history of BC Canada in the 1860s. The British made land settlement treaties with the natives, then cheated, whittling down the lands over and over until they were less than 10% the original size. They would steal a chunk for a railroad. They would steal a chunk for a new municipality. I thought, where have I heard this story before? Ah yes. Israelis and their illegal encroachments into the Arab territories.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
I wonder how much AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) had to donate to Newt Gingrich’s campaign to get him to say that Palestinians were all terrorists, pretending to forget that Jews had invaded their country and set up an apartheid scheme and had killed many more Palestinians than the Palestinians had managed to kill in revenge.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
If a criminal took a page from Israel, he would mug his tenants and neighbours, and when he got caught he would plead self defence on the grounds they refused to hand over their wallets without a fight.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine if the world’s Mormons converged on New Jersey and expelled or killed all the residents, settling there, quoting the Book of Mormon as justification. This is what happened in Palestine when, in 1948, Jewish Zionist cultists expelled the Palestinians quoting the Jewish holy book as justification.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine what would have happened to American independence had France told them to have still more years of endless talks on the grounds they did not deserve freedom until absolute security for Britain could be guaranteed. That is how the USA taunts the Palestinians today.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Imagine you lived on a property that had been in your family since the Mayflower. One day a group of people burst in with machine guns and told you that God told them they were the legitimate landholders. They locked you in the garage and would not let you out and kept you on a starvation diet working as servants for them. They killed several members of your family. One by one they expelled members of your family. The police would not help because these loons had bribed and threatened them to look the other way. Now you understand why the Palestinians are not keen or recognising the state of Israel as legitimate.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In Canada, the European settlers and the native people had stopped killing each other for quite some time before they could get serious about negotiating land claims settlements. This suggests the Palestinian problem may be solved by first working primarily to stop the killing, waiting a generation or two for tempers to cool, then working on the land claims issues. The one thing that we in the west don’t realise is that the Jews kill far more Palestinians than the reverse, so we have to mainly clamp down on the Jews. The Jews use soldiers, helicopters and bulldozers. The Palestinians use the more dramatic and newsworthy suicide bombers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
In Israel, the Jews kill 20 Palestinians for every Jew the Palestinians kill. Or put another way, the Palestinians kill one Jew for every 20 Palestinians the Jews kill. Who then is defending and who is offending?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Israel is like the spoiled son of a rich businessman. The USA invariably uses its power and UN Security Council veto to protect Israel from ever being prosecuted for its crimes.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Israel is so paranoid that it completely misunderstands Iran’s desire for nukes. Israel conveniently forgets that both the USA (Bush-43 in his axis of evil SOTU (State Of The Union) speech) and Israel announced they planned to annihilate Iran with a pre-emptive strike. The only way to deter nuclear nations is to have a nuclear deterrent yourself. Iraq did not have a deterrent. North Korea did. Iraq was destroyed and plundered. North Korea is still standing. That is why Iran is convinced it needs one. A surprise nuclear attack by Iran on Israel would be suicidal because of retaliation from the USA. Further is would kill millions of fellow Muslims living in Israel and in nearby countries. It will not happen. However, Israel could nuke Iran in a fit of paranoia and get away with it, protected by the American nuclear umbrella. That is by far the bigger threat to world peace.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Israel is such an unfair and unreasonable country. They invite Jews from all over the world, who have never lived in the region to immigrate. But they won’t let the Palestinians return whose families lived there for centuries until expelled by the Israelis as part of apartheid. That sort of arrogant behaviour generates intense hatred in others.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Israel promised it would not allow any more settlements in the occupied territories. Then it went right ahead and tripled them. What outrageous, arrogant, bastards! No wonder the Palestinians can barely restrain themselves from murdering them all.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Israeli Jews feel no guilt at all about invading Palestine and setting up an apartheid system in 1948. They even feel offended that neighbouring Arabs tried to evict them. They justify their illegal act on three grounds:
- Their holy book says they are god’s chosen people and as such have right to other people’s lands. Yet they have no right to impose their delusions of grandeur superstitions on others.
- People who shared the same religion, but not the same genetic stock, along with dozens of other groups, millennia ago lived in Palestine.
- Britain said the invasion was ok. What business has Britain offering up other people’s land?
It other words, they have no moral justification at all. It is purely a case of might makes right. I find the arrogance of the Jewish position nauseating. It is so outrageous, so patronising, so vain, so dishonest, so out of touch with reality, that it guarantees perpetual war.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Israelis behave like petulant girl friends who demand we approve of everything they do, including outrageously bad behaviour, or else that is proof we have betrayed their friendship.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Israelis complained about Obama’s speech in Egypt on 2009-06-04, because he dared to suggest the suffering of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government is comparable to the suffering of the Israelis at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. That is like Germans complaining their suffering was not sufficiently recognised when they invaded Poland or the Boers complaining their suffering was not acknowledged as infinitely greater than the blacks they oppressed with apartheid in South Africa. The Israelis kill 200 Palestinians for every Israeli the Palestinians kill. The difference is the Israeli killers wear uniforms. In 1948, Zionists invaded and occupied Palestine unprovoked, justifying this illegal act with religious boosterism. The Israeli Zionists believe they are the master race, aka God’s chosen people, so the killing they do does not count and the suffering of non-Jews does not matter. The horrible truth is the Zionists have become much like the preposterously conceited Nazis who so horribly oppressed the Jews in WW II. Let me make it clear, not all Jews and not all Israelis hold these such bigoted beliefs, but enough of them do for the Israeli government to behave in this racist manner. Israel could not be so cocky without generous contributions and low interest bond sales from Zionists living all over the earth, not to mention the lion’s share of America’s foreign aid budget. That gift should be cut back, even if purely on economic grounds. The USA is running massive deficit. Israel is running a surplus. Israel is the last country that needs a handout.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Israelis direct computers to telephone their victims to notify them of bombing raids. I can see those fiends congratulating themselves for their exemplary consideration and humanity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Israelis remind me of a man who starves and beats his dog from puppyhood, then complains bitterly when it bites him.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It is no surprise that the USA and Israel are such tight allies — they both share the same character flaw, namely monumental conceit. Each have been seduced by their religions to believe they are better than everyone else, and that they are God’s chosen people. This creates an odious sense of entitlement. The Jews believe it gave them the right to confiscate the lands of the Palestinians. The Americans believe it gave them the right to plunder Iraq’s oil. Both believe it gives them the right to pre-emptively strike their enemies, based purely on a paranoid hunch that their enemies might some day attack. It makes them label their victims who resist their thieving not as opponents, or the resistance, but as criminals and terrorists. Both have such a ridiculously high opinion of themselves that they truly believe anyone who does not roll over and give them exactly what they want has committed a crime. The amusing thing is none of them are in the least aware they are suffering from an absurd delusion.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
It seems so odd that the people who invented wildly happy Klesmer music, the sensuous perfection of the smoked meat sandwich, the delight of the Apfel strudel, and of course the bagel’s perfect texture, who suffered under centuries of extreme abuse culminating in Hitler’s death camps could be so obstinate, unfeeling and cruel to the Palestinians they conquered.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Obama explained his odd stance on Palestinian nationhood that he is in favour of nationhood, but only via direct peace talks with Israel. A similar argument in the time of American slavery would have been, “I oppose slavery, but only if the slave owners voluntarily free their slaves.” Basically, Obama is saying Palestinians may not have their freedom until the spirit moves Israel and the USA to grant it to them, in other words until you can ice skate on the Dead Sea. What a hypocrite, pretending to support nationhood!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64) source
On 2011-04-16 I asked some activists protesting apartheid in Israel why Canada had such a strong bias toward the Israelis and against the Palestinians in the conflict, especially since everyone knows the Israelis where the invaders. They answered that, just as in the USA, the pro-Israel lobby is very powerful. They tell every candidate that if they don’t follow the pro-Israeli party line, they will pour huge amounts of money into defeating them. Since nearly every candidate caves, they don’t need all that much money to defeat the rebels. Further, the newspapers and TV networks in Canada are all owned by pro-Israel forces. Canadians almost never hear any criticism of what the government of Israel is doing. Further, the pro-Israel forces have successfully characterised any criticism of the government of Israel a-/s tantamount to Nazi-style anti-Semitism. This is preposterous, but they get away with it. It is like saying any criticism of the US president is a call to kill all Christians.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
On NPR (National Public Radio) I heard a smug Israeli say that Jews and Palestinians had agreed in 1993 that they would split up via negotiation. Since now the Palestinians are attempting to go for U.N. recognition, they have broken the bargain, so now the Israelis are free to do anything they please to the Palestinians. What a prick! After 18 years of the entire world being jerked around in negations since that agreement, it is clear the Israelis have no intention of ever giving up an acre of ground to a Palestinian state. Pretty much the whole world has lost patience with Israel and its intransigence, blind selfishness and exaggerated sense of superiority.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One of the blocks to peace in the middle east is the odd way Israelis have of counting the dead. Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers with bulldozers, tanks, bombs, rifles etc. count 0. Israeli civilians killed by suicide bombs count double. No wonder Jews are convinced they are innocent victims, receiving terrible, completely irrational hatred similar to the treatment their grandparents received in Nazi Germany. The system probably derives from Rabbi Ya’acov Perin’s assertion that “one million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail”, echoed by Ehud Olmert when he asserted “Israeli lives are worth more than Palestinian ones”. This is an odd thing for a politician to say about his constituency. If you count in a straight-forward way, 20 Palestinians are killed for every Jew.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
One way to understand the middle east conflict is to recall that Zionists invaded Palestine on 1948-05-14. The war has been waging ever since, for 64 years . The Zionists believe they had Jehovah-granted title to the Palestinians’ land. I have argued elsewhere why this claim is utterly bogus, even if you accept the Old Testament as authorative. The Zionists also believe the war was soon over and they won and thus the Palestinians should meekly accept their subjugated status and do what the master race (aka god’s chosen people) tell them to. The Palestinians understandably find the invaders insufferably high handed, and they are not about to surrender to such unjust treatment. Under apartheid they are effectively slaves. They have nothing to gain by further surrender. The Zionists have swallowed their own propaganda (In Israel, as in the USA, deaths of Palestinians at Zionist hands are not reported) so they feel surprised and hurt when the Palestinians attack them, even though Zionists slaughter twenty times as many Palestinians. In this protected view, it is how dare these vermin assault one of god’s chosen perfectly innocent people!
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
People are terrified of sharks. Sharks killed one person in the last year, and people killed 100 million sharks. People feel vicitimised by sharks. This same strange logic infects Israelis over their fear of Palestinians and Americans of Muslims.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said that the 1967 borders are indefensible He wants a buffer around Israel. Let’s say he got it. That too would be indefensible since the new borders would also bump up against Arab territory. He would insist on defending the entire expanded territory. This is a bogus argument.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Prime Minister Netanyhu of Israel, Barack Obama and their predecessors have tried the same policies over and over and over without success to create peace is Palestine, each time expecting a different results. I guess they have not heard that is the definition of insanity.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Stephen Harper dishonestly equates criticising the government of Israel with anti-Semitism. Making disparaging comments about all Jews is anti-Semitism. It is not bigotry to criticise the actions of any individual or any government. The degree of Jewishness is irrelevant. It makes no sense to disparage all Jews because they are all different. It is valid to criticise the government of Israel because it has a single coherent set of policies, just like any other government. Bigotry is about making broad over-generalisations ignoring the details of the case at hand.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The biggest roadblock to peace in Israel is Israelis understanding why Hamas sent rockets at them. The Israelis naïvely believe themselves utterly blameless for the escalating violence. This feigned innocence leaves them helpless to remedy situation.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The chutzpah of the Israelis leaves me gasping. It was evil enough of the Israelis to invade Palestine unprovoked and enslave its inhabitants with an apartheid scheme, but then they arranged to have the Palestinian ambassador thrown out of Canada for complaining about it and saying they need to defeat the Zionist occupiers.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The European settlers drove the indigenous Americans off their land. They set up an apartheid system. They held racist notions that made them see themselves as the victims. This reminds me of what happened in Israel, except that what happened in Israel was illegal, not just immoral. Canada decided to make restitution with formal apologies, money, land and political independence. I think it has worked. I suggest Israel try the same approach.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The fundamental fact about Israel is the Jews attacked illegally and unprovoked back in 1948 and have occupied Palestine illegally ever since. The Jews thus legally have zero right to be there. The practical question is, how to undo this mess. Many Jews were born in Israel. They have no country they could even theoretically return to. The other fact is the Jews have the numerical, financial and military upper hand and have used it to gleefully torment the Palestinians. The Jews are not going to give up any privilege without a fight. The Jews fear the Palestinians who have every reason to want to slit every Jewish throat. The Palestinians hate the Jews for occupying their country and mistreating them for 64 years. After all that bad blood, I think they need to be separated. That implies a two-state solution.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The greatest propaganda coup of the last 100 years is AIPAC convincing the public that any criticism of the Israeli government is tantamount to anti-Semitism.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatens the entire region. It has gone on for 64 years. The two parties have been utterly unwilling to resolve it. They are far more interested in revenge. The UN created this mess by improperly telling Jews from around the world they had the legal right to invade Palestine even when that was counter to the UN charter. Like a firm parent, the UN should impose a fair solution, and the USA should help to enforce it, since they helped prolong the conflict by giving billions of aid to Israel each year to fund its apartheid program. US media cryptically refer to this aid as “close relations with Israel” when explaining why the Palestinians don’t trust the USA as a peace broker. A parent does not care if both children whine about the solution. That is a good sign it is fair.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Israelis announced they are freeing 1000 Palestinian captives on 2011-10-16 in return for the Palestinians freeing one Israeli captive. What are we to make of this?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
- The Palestinians are much better bargainers.
- The Israelis have a vastly inflated opinion of their own worth relative to the Palestinians.
- The Israelis have captured so many Palestinians, freeing 1000 won’t make any difference.
The Israelis are in deep denial. They want to pretend the Palestinian violence is the work of ordinary criminals. The Israelis imagine the Palestinians surrendered when they invaded in 1948. But the Palestinians have done no such thing. They are still fighting to oust the occupation, and the Israelis are still behaving like occupiers. The war is still on simmer.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Israelis have a tiger by the tail. They are afraid to let Palestinians go, claiming the Palestinians will then be in a better position to attack them. (I find this excuse bogus. It is a lot easier to attack a town from within the castle walls that without. The Israelis are just stalling, sneaking by more illegal settlement encroachments.) Yet the longer the Israelis hold the Palestinians in bondage, the angrier the Palestinians get. The Israelis are apparently well aware of the hideous things they did to the Palestinians starting back in 1948, though they rarely admit it. Perhaps they are imagining what they would do in the Palestinian position, e.g. nuke Israel. In Jewish mythology, Moses lead his people from bondage even though Pharaoh did not want them to leave. Surely the Palestinians have served long enough in bondage to the Israelis. “Let my people go!“ applies both to Jews and Palestinians. The Jews have no right to interfere with the freedom of Palestinians. Jews have no more standing than the slave owners had over letting the slaves go.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Israelis have behaved so badly for the last 64 years, about the only way you can defend what they have done is by jumping up and down and shouting “anti-Semite!”.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The major block to peace in the middle east is the Israelis imagine they are 100% innocent. In their eyes, they are pure victims. Yet they started the war by invading Palestine without provocation. They set up apartheid. They confiscated Palestinian lands. They killed huge numbers of Palestinian civilians. That is hardly innocent. Unfortunately, the USA treats them as if they truly were 100% innocent, exacerbating the problem by claiming over and over that Palestinian strikes against the Israelis have no motive other than irrational hatred. They refuse to acknowledge there are elements of revenge and self defence. Think how needlessly infuriating this pretense is. Those promoting this lie are not serious about negotiation. They must have some vested interest in prolonging the war.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Palestinians have put up with a terrible injustice for 64 years . They have patiently endured round after round of fruitless talks. All that happens is the Israelis stall, break their promises from the previous round, and encroach further onto the land on which the Palestinians live. Apartheid gets stronger. The wealth gap between Jew and Palestinian yawns. Soldiers kill more Palestinian children. The world press completely ignores Jews killing Palestinians, but reports in great detail Palestinian violence, even though Jews kill many more Palestinians than the reverse. And now Obama, after pretending to support statehood, asks Palestinians to let the Jews jerk them around some more. How insulting! The Jews have behaved like Lucy van Pelt and the football. They simply cannot be trusted to bargain in good faith. The only way the Palestinians will get their freedom is if they take it, without first getting Israel’s permission. World opinion has turned against Israel. Only the US is left, and that is only because AIPAC has corrupted US politics and because the USA selfishly uses Israel as a proxy military presence.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The Palestinians have two major grievances.
- 64 years ago Jews from all over the world invaded Palestine and stole their country, using the excuse Jehovah said it was ok.
- Israelis set up an apartheid system very similar to the one blacks suffered under in South Africa.
It is naïve to expect peace without some financial/property restitution or at least formal apology for those two grievous assaults.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The reason peace in Israel has been so hard to achieve is each group has been indoctrinated with a completely different set of facts.
The Israelis are fully aware of every bombing attack on them by the Palestinians, but are completely unaware of Israeli attacks on Palestinians. They see Palestinians as madmen, attacking them for no reason. (I discovered this talking to an Israeli Jewish friend, when I spent 2 weeks talking him out of his extreme hatred of Palestinians.) The Israelis believe they have legitimate title to Palestine and merely evicted Arab squatters. The Israelis see Palestinians who resist them as terrorists. Israelis deny there is any sort of apartheid system, just necessary security to protect them from the mad dog Palestinians.
On the other hand, the Palestinians see the Israelis as crazy Zionists who invaded in 1948, and then evicted the Palestinians from their ancestral lands, and set up a harsh apartheid system where they were locked down 1 day in 3 unable to earn a living. The Zionist occupiers kill with helicopters and bulldozers. The brave Palestinians resist with great restraint, killing only one Jew for every 20 Palestinians killed. This was an illegal invasion. Surrender to such Zionist criminals would be craven.
Each side believes itself to be faultless and the other side the spawn of Satan. Negotiation is bound to fail in such a situation. The solution is for the USA or some other powerful country two dress down both sides for their bad behaviour, and make sure everyone hears it, and the evidence to back up the charges. For example, but sides brutally take out their hatred of each other on innocent children. Only once the pride of both sides has been shamed can they possibly begin to think about a practical end to hostilities.
The problem is the USA always excuses or ignores Israeli bad behaviour and soundly condemns Palestinian violence. A peace broker has to project impartiality. The USA refuses to do so. It even funds Israel’s apartheid system to the tune of $4 billion a year. Here we are 64 years later, with the USA doing the same thing over and over insanely expecting a different result. Surely American presidents realise they are just spinning their wheels. Why are they being so stupid? The answer is AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the USA. It successfully threatens any politician who is not sufficiently deferential to Israel and who fails to sing its praises sufficiently loudly and to condemn the wicked terrorists — the Palestinians. Oddly, the American constitution permits foreign countries to control American foreign policy through such lobbies. How ironic, the pro-Israel lobby is a root cause of the misery in Israel.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The retribution the Palestinians and the Arab world have rained on the Jewish people in Israel is actually quite mild for the unprovoked invasion of Palestine in 1948, enslaving the population under an apartheid system, stealing ancestral lands and killing children with helicopters.
It is a similar situation to Europeans invading North America and badly mistreating the indigenous peoples.
The solution is similar — many symbolic formal apologies, compensation and land claims settlement.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The US media report every Jewish death at the hands of Palestinians, but never reports any Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Jewish state, even though there are 20 times as many of them. This deception makes it impossible for Americans to broker a peace in the middle east.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
The USA blockaded Cuba back in 1962. Israel blockaded Gaza starting in 2007-06. I wonder how the USA or Israel would react if some country illegally blockaded them?
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) voted 107 to 14 to admit Palestine. Israel, the USA and Canadian voted against. This is hypocritical since all three countries are on record as supporting Palestinian statehood. In a fit of pique, the USA then announced it would stop paying its dues to UNESCO. It reminds me of a bratty kid who would take his football home if the ref ever ruled against his team.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When I look at the history of who is mistreating whom, it seems to me Israel is about 95% to blame for the conflict with the Palestinians. Yet others tell me it is 100% the Palestinians’ fault. Are we drawing different conclusions from the same facts or are we looking at different facts? I suspect most people get all their information from the Israelis or from American media, which is pretty much the same thing. It could also be a religious bias. Many Christians share the same nutty beliefs as Israelis about the Jews being God’s chosen people with special privilege to confiscate other people’s real estate. That ought to be as reprehensible as subscribing to Hitler’s master race theory, but in America it is quite respectable.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When someone questions the Israeli occupation of Palestine, a Jewish citizen will defend it saying, “But how we have suffered! We deserve a homeland!” Of course they do, but not by making the Palestinians suffer, not by repeating the sins of the Nazis with aggressive, unprovoked invasion. They should have set up their homeland legitimately, gradually acquiring territory, the same way the USA did, by purchasing it.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
When white people took over North America, they villainised the people who were living there already. They entertained their children with movies of genocide of the original inhabitants. I imagine colonisers from outer space might behave the same way, villainising humans for refusing to hand over their lands, and for resisting the invasion. Israelis did the same thing to the Palestinians. The odd thing is how easily children swallow the lies when the facts are so obvious that the invaders are the ones behaving badly.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
You’d think that people who have experienced great suffering would be unusually sensitive to the suffering of others. But it does not work that way. Children who are sexually or physically abused are likely to grow up and abuse their own children. Jews persecuted by the Nazis persecute Palestinians in Israel. People who were dirt poor then made it rich often have no compassion for the poor. Blacks who suffered from slavery and discrimination, line up to enlist to mindlessly slaughter people in the middle east even though they did nothing to America.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
Zionists always talk of how they came to hold sway in the middle east as the birth of Israel rather than the invasion of Palestine because harming a baby would be wicked whereas opposing an invasion is all but mandatory.
~ Roedy (born: 1948-02-04 age: 64)
(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers… heads smashed against the boulders and walls.
~ Yitzhak Shamir (born: 1915-10-15 age: 96) Prime Minister of Israel 1983— 1982, in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times 1988-04-01
The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya [immigration], and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country.
~ Yitzhak Shamir (born: 1915-10-15 age: 96) Prime Minister of Israel 1983— 1982, (Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service, 1990-11)
The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It’s that simple.
~ Yitzhak Shamir (born: 1915-10-15 age: 96) Prime Minister of Israel 1983— 1982, (Maariv, 1997-02-21)
A lie should be tried in a place where it will attract the attention of the world.
~ Ariel Sharon (born: 1928-02-26 age: 84) Prime Minister of Israel 2001—2006, 1984-11-20
Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us, to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will be forced to run to us crying. Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there, I don’t care.
~ Ariel Sharon (born: 1928-02-26 age: 84) Prime Minister of Israel 2001—2006, daily Davar, 1982-12-17.
Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours… Everything we don’t grab will go to them.
~ Ariel Sharon (born: 1928-02-26 age: 84) Prime Minister of Israel 2001—2006, Israeli Foreign Minister at the time, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, 1998-11-15
I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him.
~ Ariel Sharon (born: 1928-02-26 age: 84) Prime Minister of Israel 2001—2006, magazine Ouze Merham in 1956. Disputed as to whether this is genuine.
Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.
~ Ariel Sharon (born: 1928-02-26 age: 84) Prime Minister of Israel 2001—2006, to a U.S. commission investigating violence in Israel. 2001-03-25 quoted in BBC News Online
Is Zionism racism? I would say yes. It’s a policy that to me looks like it has very many parallels with racism. The effect is the same. Whether you call it that or not is in a sense irrelevant.
~ Bishop Desmond Tutu (born: 1931-10-07 age: 80) South African Archbishop
The elephant does not know it no longer owns the ancestral lands.
~ Laotian game wardenThe warden was explaining why elephants raid the gardens of villagers. It don’t think the elephants recognise the legitimacy of this alleged transfer of lands purely for human use. It would be similar to the way Palestinians don’t recognise the Jewish claim to their territory in what the Jews now call Israel.
It must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country. If the Arabs leave the country, it will be broad and wide-open for us. If the Arabs stay, the country will remain narrow and miserable. The only solution is Israel without Arabs. There is no room for compromise on this point. The Zionist enterprise so far… has been fine and good in its own time, and could do with “land buying” — but this will not bring about the State of Israel; that must come all at once, in the manner of a Salvation [this is the secret of the Messianic idea]; and there is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer them all; except maybe for Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem, we must not leave a single village, not a single tribe. And only with such a transfer will the country be able to absorb millions of our brothers, and the Jewish question shall be solved, once and for all.
~ Joseph Weitz (born: 1890 died: 1972 at age: 82) Directory of the Jewish National Land Fund, 1940-12-19, The Question of Palestine by Edward Said.
There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance; and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry out surveillance over the activities of a neighbor than over those of a tenant. [I] tend to support the latter view and have an additional argument:…the need to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish…with a non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this fundamental position as early as 1940 [and] it is entered in my diary.
~ Joseph Weitz (born: 1890 died: 1972 at age: 82) head of the Jewish Agency’s Colonization Department. From Israel: an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5.
Palestinian Arabs [are] people who breed and bleed and advertise their misery.
~ Ruth Wisse (born: 1936-05-13 age: 76) Professor of Yiddish Literature at Harvard University.
The problem is the Palestinians don’t recognize the legitimacy of Israel.
~ Ruth Wisse (born: 1936-05-13 age: 76) Professor of Yiddish Literature at Harvard University.What legitimacy? The only case you can make for the legitimacy of Israel is might makes right. The Zionists had no legal claim or title to the land. They or their ancestors had never lived there even in Biblical times. Granted some unrelated Sephardic Jews lived there 2000 years ago, but the territory has changed hands about 20 times since then and who knows how often prior to that. At the time of the invasion, aggressive war had been a capital offence for two years.
Zionism, like other self-determination movements…
~ Ruth Wisse (born: 1936-05-13 age: 76) Professor of Yiddish Literature at Harvard UniversitySelf determination is about the right to self government where you are living now or have been recently expelled from. The Zionists had no link to Palestine, except a shared religious delusion that their god had given them dispensation to steal the land and kill its occupants, that they used as an excuse to take land without paying for it and set up an apartheid system to exploit its original citizens.
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