“The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel”
Atrocities in the Promised Land
By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
former CIA analyst
Words fail; ordinary terms are inadequate to describe the horrors Israel daily perpetrates, and has perpetrated for years, against the Palestinians. The tragedy of Gaza has been described a hundred times over, as have the tragedies of 1948, of Qibya, of Sabra and Shatila, of Jenin — 60 years of atrocity perpetrated in the name of Judaism. But the horror generally falls on deaf ears in most of Israel, in the U.S. political arena, in the mainstream U.S. media. Those who are horrified — and there are many — cannot penetrate the shield of impassivity that protects the political and media elite in Israel, even more so in the U.S., and increasingly now in Canada and Europe, from seeing, from caring.
But it needs to be said now, loudly: those who devise and carry out Israeli policies have made Israel into a monster, and it has come time for all of us — all Israelis, all Jews who allow Israel to speak for them, all Americans who do nothing to end U.S. support for Israel and its murderous policies — to recognize that we stain ourselves morally by continuing to sit by while Israel carries out its atrocities against the Palestinians.
A nation that mandates the primacy of one ethnicity or religion over all others will eventually become psychologically dysfunctional. Narcissistically obsessed with its own image, it must strive to maintain its racial superiority at all costs and will inevitably come to view any resistance to this imagined superiority as an existential threat. Indeed, any other people automatically becomes an existential threat simply by virtue of its own existence. As it seeks to protect itself against phantom threats, the racist state becomes increasingly paranoid, its society closed and insular, intellectually limited. Setbacks enrage it; humiliations madden it. The state lashes out in a crazed effort, lacking any sense of proportion, to reassure itself of its strength.
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Lebanon: the world looks on
. EU criticism of Israel removed
‡ Statement diluted following British pressure
‡ Death toll passes 200
Western leaders remained paralysed yesterday as Lebanon suffered one of its bloodiest days since Israel began its bombardment a week ago.
For the second time in 48 hours western governments declined to intervene as Israeli forces, on the sixth day of aerial attacks, killed 47 people and wounded at least 53. Hizbullah, the Iranian-backed militia, also stepped up its attacks, launching 50 rockets against Israel, the highest number in a single day. The death toll since Israel began its attack has risen to 210 in Lebanon and 29 in Israel.
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, dismissed hopes of a quick resolution to the conflict last night, vowing his military would continue operating at full intensity. He said Israel would not stop until two of its captured soldiers were freed, the Lebanese army deployed to protect Israel’s northern border and Hizbullah forced to disarm.
He said both Hizbollah and Hamas, the Palestinian group, were working with the support of “the axis of evil that stretches from Tehran to Damascus. When missiles rain on our cities, our response will be to wage war with greater determination, courage and sacrifice,” he said. “We don’t seek war or head-on confrontation but if necessary we shall not flinch from them.”
After the failure of the G8 meeting in St Petersburg at the weekend to step in, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels yesterday also settled for a bland joint statement that exposed divisions between European governments.
EU foreign ministers called on Israel not to resort to “disproportionate action” but criticism of Israel in an original draft was diluted after pressure from Britain and Germany, Israel’s closest EU allies.
War in north: Support in New York, condemnation in Berlin
Thousands demonstrate in support of Israel in front of UN headquarters in New York, but in Berlin more than 1,000 Lebanese, Palestinians chant ¥death to Israel, while some carry placards bearing the image of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah
Thousands of people demonstrated in support of Israel in front of the UN headquarters in New York Monday.
Among the speakers at the demonstration were Senator Hillary Clinton and Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Gillerman.
Lebanon: U.S. blocking call for cease-fire
UNITED NATIONS ‹ Lebanon accused the United States on Saturday of blocking a U.N. Security Council statement calling for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, saying the impotence of the United Nations’ most powerful body sent the wrong signal to small countries and the Arab world.
Rice Defends Israel, Calls Criticisms of Bush Policy ‘Grotesque’
July 16, 2006 ‹ Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended Israel’s right to counter the terrorist group Hezbollah’s deadliest rocket attacks in a decade, and resisted calls for an immediate cease-fire.
She told “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” “We support, at this point, an effort to make certain that when there is a cease-fire that it is one that is sustainable.”
Rice rejected the notion that U.S. operations in Iraq have shaken Middle East stability, arguing, “Those hostilities were not very well contained, as we found out on Sept. 11, and so the notion that somehow policies that finally confront extremism are actually causing extremism, I find grotesque.”
“For all of those who believe that we somehow had stability in the Middle East over the last 60 years and it’s now been disturbed: Where do we think Hezbollah and Hamas and these other extremist forces came from?”
Some of us know very well where they come from.
Bush doubts Lebanon peace plan
…Mr Bush appeared to fault Mr Annan for pushing for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon and for exercising insufficient pressure on Syria, which the US and many of its allies allege has colluded in Hizbollah’s actions.
‘I don’t like the sequence of it,’ Mr Bush said to Mr Blair before the G8 leaders sat down to lunch. ‘His attitude is basically ceasefire and everything else happens.’
‘What they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over,’ Mr Bush said. ‘I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with [Syrian president Bashar al-] Assad and make something happen.’