Tzipi Hotovely: "We expect as a matter of
principle of the international community to recognize Israel's right to
build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere."
Tzipi Hotovely
…by Jonas E. Alexis
Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s new deputy foreign minister, is a new Zionist gangster on the block. She has come out and declared that Israel needs start getting to “the basic truth.” The “basic truth,” says Hotvely, is that “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We did not come to apologize for that.”
What Hotovely indirectly ends up saying is that Israel does not need to apologize for slaughtering the Palestinians[1] and even for saying that the regime could send countries like Iran “to the stone age.” Israeli ministers do not have to apologize for saying that they have the potential to bring a Palestinian “holocaust.”[2] Gilad Sharon, son of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, does not need to apologize for saying in 2012 that
“We need to flatten entire
neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza…There should be no
electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing.”[3]
The 36-year old Hotovely continues to expand on this “basic truth” this way:
“We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognize Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.”
Quoting Rabbi Yehuda Ashkenazi, Hotovely said, “If Jews will convince themselves when facing the world that they are right in their ways, they will get along fine.”[6] What if the international community objects to the plan?
Well, Hotovely would certainly grab her anti-Semitism card and slam it on the back of the international community. After all, Jewish ideologues have been doing this for years, both directly and indirectly.
For example, instead of addressing the real reason as to why there is much anti-Jewish reaction in the Middle East, Sam Harris pulls out the Protocols of the Elders Zion from his bookshelf and argues that it is one of the main sources of “anti-Semitism”[7] in the Middle East.
Harris’ book came out in 2005, and the author had enough evidence on the palm of his hand which clearly disproved this ridiculous argument. Keep in mind that the Iraq invasion was still fresh in everyone’s mind when Harris published his book. In fact, Harris supported the invasion and even defended Bush on many occasions. In 2005, Harris wrote an article in the Huffington Post saying,
“However mixed or misguided American intentions were in launching this war, civilized human beings are now attempting, at considerable cost to themselves, to improve life for the Iraqi people.
“The terrible truth about our predicament in Iraq is that even if we had invaded with no other purpose than to remove Saddam Hussein from power and make Iraq a paradise on earth, we could still expect tomorrow’s paper to reveal that another jihadi has blown himself up for the sake of killing scores of innocent men, women, and children.
“The outrage that Muslims feel over U.S. and British foreign policy is primarily the product of theological concerns. Devout Muslims consider it a sacrilege for infidels to depose a Muslim tyrant and occupy Muslim lands—no matter how well intentioned the infidels or malevolent the tyrant.
“Because of what they believe about God and the afterlife and the divine provenance of the Koran, devout Muslims tend to reflexively side with other Muslims, no matter how sociopathic their behavior. This is solidarity born of religious delusion, and it must end—or a genuine clash of civilizations will be unavoidable.
“Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere have been traumatized by war and by decades of repression. But this does not explain the type of violence they wage against us on a daily basis. War and repression do not account for suicidal violence directed against the Red Cross, the U.N., foreign workers, and Iraqi innocents.”[8]
There you have it. According to Harris, it is not really the double standards which are inherent in our foreign policy that Muslims are concerned about. It is not that we kill their innocent civilians and destroy their homes virtually every single day with drones.[9] No, Muslims are upset, says Harris, because they “consider it a sacrilege for infidels to depose a Muslim tyrant and occupy Muslim lands—no matter how well intentioned the infidels or malevolent the tyrant.”
One needn’t be an intellectual to realize that this argument is historically risible and dumb. Harris has to abide by this formula because that is the only game in town. As we have seen in numerous articles, Saddam had no intention whatsoever to attack America. Long before the war, much of the Islamic world respects America. After the war, things changed completely upside down.[10]
Moreover, there was a peaceful harmony between Christians and Muslims in much of the Muslim world before the invasion.[11] Both Iraq and Iran wanted to cooperate with the West, most specifically America.[12] However, Bush, as a puppet serving the Neoconservatives, literally destroyed that peaceful harmony. Now, if you talk to Iraq veterans, most of them will declare that they are “heartbroken as civil war overtakes Iraq.”[13]
There are more facts that Harris and his circles need to consider. From 2003 to 2012, over two thousand doctors and nurses, and over four hundred academics, have been assassinated in Iraq. Others have immigrated due to violence in the region. In 1990, there were about thirty thousand registered doctors in Iraq. By 2008, more than fifteen thousand had already left the country. Then there was the high unemployment that has been ravaging sections of the reigion, combining with the fact that educational institutions have been in decline.[14]
This is the freedom that the Neoconsertivates/Neo-Bolsheviks have brought to Iraq; this is the sort of heaven these intellectual and political geniuses were and are still seeking.
If Harris wants to be honest, he simply cannot wiggle out of the Iraq disaster that easily. Furthermore, Harris certainly cannot deny the fact that it was Israel that put pressure on the United States to strike Iraq.[15] It was the “Jewish Neocons,” to use journalist Carl Bernstein’s own words, who brought the complete disaster in the same country:
Lest we be accused of something weird, it is pertinent to bring in flaming Zionist Thomas Friedman, who said unapologetically:
“That ardent faith [the war in Iraq] was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history.”[16]
Welcome to Gaza
As it turns out, Harris’ feet is firmly planted in mid-air. He wrote then,
“The gravity of Jewish suffering over the ages, culminating in the Holocaust, makes it almost impossible to entertain any suggestion that Jews might have brought their troubles upon themselves. This is, however, in a rather narrow sense, the truth.”[17]
Steven Pinker is of the same opinion, arguing that Christianity is largely responsible for the long history of “anti-Semitism” in Europe and elsewhere.[18] I personally don’t know why people take Harris and Pinker seriously anymore on these issues. Both Jewish ideologues know that there is a concentration camp in Gaza. Yet they continuously complain ad nauseam that anti-Jewish reaction has virtually little or nothing to do with Jewish behavior. Recently, the New York Times itself has reported,
“Gaza’s
war-battered economy is on the “verge of collapse,” dragged down by
soaring unemployment rates that followed last summer’s war with Israel,
border restrictions and government dysfunction, the World Bank says in a new report…
“The report, issued late Thursday,
said Gaza’s unemployment rate now stood at 44 percent, 11 points higher
than before the war — and the world’s highest level. The youth
unemployment rate, at 60 percent, is the highest in the Middle East, the
report noted. The report said that 40 percent of Gaza’s nearly 1.8
million Palestinians lived in poverty, even though around 80 percent
received some sort of aid.
“‘These numbers, however, fail to
portray the degree of suffering of Gaza’s citizens,’ the report said,
citing frequent power failures, limited access to clean water,
‘war-related psychological trauma’ and limited movement because of the
difficulty of importing materials for rebuilding.”[19]
“Netanyahu drew accusations at home and abroad of racism two months ago when he warned on election day that Arab citizens were voting in ‘droves.’”
The LA Times has reported,
“Hours after announcing the launch of separate buses for Palestinians and Jews in the West Bank, Israel’s government was forced to back down Wednesday in response to a wave of domestic outrage that included comparisons to apartheid-era South Africa. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, whose department created the plan, said he was still determined to enact it after making revisions.”[20]
Netanyahu wasted no time saying that the plan was wrong, even though it was his administration that actually started the project in the first place.
Netanyahu realized that sometimes you cannot have your cake and eat it too. It is no accident that Henry Siegman, a former head of the American Jewish Congress and president of the U.S./Middle East Project, seems to be tired of Netanyahu’s nonsense. He himself said in an article entitled “Give Up on Netanyahu, Go to the United Nations”:
“America has made an unconditional commitment to Israel’s security — and rightfully so [absolutely ridiculous]. But that commitment is in danger of eroding if the Obama administration continues to prevent the Security Council from pursuing a two-state agreement while continuing to provide Israel with the military assistance that helps it keep the occupation in place.
“America would then be seen as collaborating with Mr. Netanyahu’s government in the continued subjugation of the Palestinians. That would irreparably damage the United States’ honor and its national interests.
“America’s commitment to Israel’s security obliges it to push the Security Council to seek an end to the occupation and pave the way for Palestinian statehood.”[21]
[1] See for example Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford: One World, 2007); The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).
[2] Israeli minister warns of Palestinian ‘holocaust,’” Guardian, February 29, 2008.
[3] Gilad Sharon, “A Decisive Conclusion Is Necessary,” Jerusalem Post, November 18, 2012.
[4] James Orr, “Israel threatens to kill Palestinian PM,” Guardian, May 22, 2007.
[5] Dan Ephron, “Explosive Allegations against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Daily Beast, January 16, 2013.
[6] Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu, “Foreign Minister Hotovely: Tell the World ‘God Gave Israel to the Jews,’” Jewish Press, May 22, 2015. The Guardian itself declared that Hotovely’s move was quite “defiant.” “Israel’s new deputy foreign minister: ‘This land is ours. All of it is ours,’” Guardian, May 22, 2015.
[7] Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 93.
[8] Sam Harris, “Bombing Our Illusions,” Huffington Post, October 10, 2005.
[9] See for example Matt Sledge, “The Toll Of 5 Years Of Drone Strikes: 2,400 Dead,” Huffington Post, January 23, 2013.
[10] See for example John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007).
[11] For similar studies, see for example Doug Bandow, “The Plight of Christians in Iraq,” National Interest, November 2, 2010; Angela Shanahan, “Christians a Target for Syrian Rebels We Back,” The Australian, October 13, 2012; Alexander Sandels and Patrick J McDonnell, “Syria Christian Refugees in Lebandon Fear Islamist Rebels,” LA Times, August 22, 2012; Mark Field, How Rent-a-Mob Jihadis Are tormenting a Benighted Christian Minority in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria,” Independent, October 14, 2012.
[12] For further studies on this, see for example Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008); A Single Roll of Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012); John J. Mearsheimer, Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).
[13] John Wisely and L. L. Brasier, “U.S. Vets ‘Heartbroken’ as Civil War Overtakes Iraq,” USA Today, June 15, 2014; see also “Veterans Frustrated by Presidential Debate on Iraq War,” NY Times, May 23, 2015.
[14] See for example Irena L. Sargsyan, “Iraq’s Endless Humanitarian Crisis,” National Interest, October 9, 2012.
[15] See for example Jonathan Steele, “Israel Puts Pressure on US to Strike Iraq,” Guardian, August 17, 2002; see also John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007).
[16] Ari Shavit, “White Man’s Burden,” Haaretz, April 3, 2003; for similar studies, see Murray Friedman, The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and Public Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
[17] Harris, The End of Faith, 93.
[18] Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Penguin, 2011), 676-678.
[19] Diaa Hadid, “Gaza Strip Economy on ‘Verge of Collapse,’ World Bank Says,” NY Times, May 22, 2015; see also Mark Weiss, “World Bank says Gaza Strip’s economy on ‘verge of collapse,’” Irish Times, May 22, 2015; Peter Beaumont, “Gaza economy ‘on verge of collapse’, with world’s highest unemployment,” Guardian, May 22, 2015.
[20] Batsheva Sobelman, “Israel enacts, then suspends, plan for West Bank bus segregation,” LA Times, May 20, 2015.
[21] Henry Siegman, “Give Up on Netanyahu, Go to the United Nations,” NY Times, May 19, 2015.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/05/24/new-zionist-gangsters-and-ideologues-on-the-block/
No comments:
Post a Comment