Use a Palestinian Car Mechanic, Go To Prison

Eric Garris, April 12, 2008

Email This | Print This | Share This | Comment

For 3 Years!

On Monday, the Israeli Knesset passed a law imposing a penalty of three years imprisonment on Israeli vehicle-owners who take their vehicles to mechanics in the West Bank.

I cannot even guess at the justification.

Email This | Print This | Share This | Send a letter to the editor | Letters

Comments to “Use a Palestinian Car Mechanic, Go To Prison”

Thomas Good
April 12th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

Maybe they are worried the Palestinian “mechanic” will put a bomb in the car?? More likely, they are trying to starve the palestinians out of “Their Land”. If you think that the NO merchanics law is bad, LOOK AT THIS!!! Rabbi issues fatwa? http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/892/re72.htm or I guess they call it something else in Israel; To wit Israeli Jews should kill all the palestinians. When you read it, think if this sounds like what the nazis did to the Jews….

Eugene Costa
April 12th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

Legislation to tackle dangerous auto repair black market in territories
[Gutman Haaretz July 18, 2007]

A bill initiated by MK Moshe Kahlon (Likud) proposes to make repairing automobiles outside the borders of Israel a criminal offense, punishable by three years’ imprisonment.

According to Kahlon, placing a prohibition on car maintenance outside of Israel will ensure that such work is carried out only by regulated auto repair shops.

An average of 84 cars are stolen in a single day in Israel, according to data collected by TheMarker. Of these, 22 are returned to their owners, 32 are dismantled, ten go back on the road bearing false licenses, 12 are sold to residents of the Palestinian Authority, and eight are offered to their original owners in exchange for ransom.

Kahlon said the bill does not address auto theft specifically, but rather the broader industry of unregulated auto repairs and is aimed at drying up the source.

“The burden of proof of the location and quality of maintenance of cars will be on the owner,” Kahlon said, adding that the proposed legislation will benefit a number of sectors. “The public will benefit from well-maintained cars, insurance premiums will be lower, auto theft will be reduced, and auto repair shops in Israel will gain more business,” he says.

Commander Chico Menashe, head of the Etgar unit, commenting on the scope of illegal transactions in the automobile sector in Israel, emphasized the safety issue involved in the dismal statistics.

The vehicles repaired in the territories, he says, are described in the unit as “death machines” because “they don’t hold up in accidents. In a number of cases people have been critically injured and even killed because their car fell apart on the road while driving.”

The black market for used cars in Israel costs the state NIS 3 billion annually – a figure that includes the 15-percent increase in insurance fraud since the beginning of the year. Menashe tells of one used car business in Nes Tziona recently found to have sold 470 faulty vehicles.

The owners reported revenues of NIS 600,000, but in fact earned more than NIS 10 million. “An assessor estimated repairs on a faulty vehicle at NIS 40,000. In fact, the car was repaired in the territories for NIS 3,000.”

Chairman of the Israel Garage Association, Ronen Levy, who supports the legislation wholeheartedly, added that thousands of automobiles are sold every year to agents who arrange for inexpensive and unprofessional repair work in the territories.

At the end of the questionable process the cars are returned to Israel and sold to unsuspecting customers. These cars, he added, are also often used to forge the identity of stolen cars, by transposing identifying parts.

Eugene Costa
April 12th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

Mechanics of “Politicide:” Palestinians since 1967

[The Palestine Center November 1, 2007 Summary]: The Palestine Center’s annual conference was entitled “the ‘Politicide’ of the Palestinian People.” Baruch Kimmerling’s book Politicide: Ariel Sharon’s War against the Palestinians, and his definition of ‘politicide’ “a process that has, as its ultimate goal, the dissolution of the Palestinian people’s existence as a legitimate…political…entity,” was the theme of the conference. In the first panel Dr. Adi Ophir focused on control through space, Mrs. Tal Arbel focused on control at the checkpoints, and Dr. John Quigley focused on manipulation of law in order to keep control.

Dr. Adi Ophir said the two ways Israel maintains control in the occupied territories are submission and separation. Ophir explained that submission and separation are working in opposite directions; submission requires constant contact, best illustrated by the checkpoints, whereas separation requires a lack of contact. This is why, he argued, submission and separation are in constant flux to balance each other out. When new lines of separation are drawn a new form of submission is needed, and visa versa. This is why, Ophir argued, there are two possible outcomes; ethnic cleansing, or a political resolution. Ethnic cleansing would spell the end of the occupation, and the end of the need for both separation and submission. A political resolution, on the other hand, would have to end submission to create two states and eliminated the need for separation.

Tim R.
April 12th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

Well, let me proffer an explaination. When the Palestinians were given their first free and fair elections, who did the elect? Hamas. Hamas is an organization that has sworn to see the complete destruction of the State of Israel, that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, and has carried out numerous acts of terrorism, acts of terrorism that specifically and willfully targeted innocent civilians. Perhaps the Jews living in Israel consider the Palestinians their enemy and in a war you generally don’t do business with your sworn enemies that want to kill you.

And yes, I know I will get a hundred emails saying how bad Israel is to the Palestinians. Well, I never said Israel was perfect, far from it. They have done some pretty bad things and should treat the Palestinians a lot better. There is certainly plenty of blame to go around and Israel has their share of it. But two wrongs don’t make a right. And according to polls large numbers of Palestinians support the wicked terrorist actions of Hamas. When they recently went in and killed 8 Jewish teenagers, in cold blood, what was the reaction on the street in Gaza or the West Bank? They shot guns in the air, yelled, danced and celebrated. When a ruthless terrorist gets assassinated, I don’t see Jews cheering and dancing in the streets. Their is a certain ruthless, animal mentality that some of the Palestinians have. It is a thirst and lust for blood that is almost hard to comprehend. But in any event, just get with it already. There is a state of war between Israel and her Arab enemies and so what if Israel does not want to do business with her enemies? I don’t even see what the question is.

Tim R.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:12 pm

Occupied territories! Occupied territories! Occupied territories!

I’m getting so sick of hearing that term already.

Question: Who controlled the “occupied territory” of the West Bank prior to 1967.

Answer: Jordan

Question: Who fired the first shots in 1967? Israel or Jordan? Did Israel attack Jordan to seize the West Bank? Or did Jordan, at the behest of Gamel Nasser, attack Israel first?

Answer: Jordan attacked Israel. Jordan was the aggressor. And Israel siezed the so called occupied territories in the course of defending herself. Don’t take my word for it, go and research it for yourself.

Question: Why is Israel held to a higher standard? Why does Israel have to give back land she won in the course of defending herself, while many other countries get to keep land that they aquired in wars of aggression.

Answer: Because some people hate Israel and want to hold Israel to a higher standard than all other countries.

Question: If you believe that Israel has a moral obligation to give up all lands aquired in 1967, do you also believe that the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada (just to name a few) have to also give back all the land they stole from the Natives? Should America have to give back land gained from Mexico in a war where America was the aggressor? (ie the Mexican American War, 1846-1848)

Answer: Only Israel is held to this exceptionally high standard. All other countries get to claim the law of conquest that has existed from time immemorial. No one is clamoring for these countries to give the land back, only Israel is held to this higher standard.

Eugene Costa
April 12th, 2008 at 3:16 pm

Ever since SCOTUS first opened Pandora’s box in the late 1970’s by carving out a 4th Amendment loophole for immigration checkpoints, the use of suspicionless checkpoints across the country has continued to proliferate at an alarming rate. Today, it’s not uncommon to find enforcement agencies across the country utilizing roadblocks of one form or another to control local communities and create new revenue streams for politicians and bureaucrats.

While roadblocks are conducted under a number of different guises, they all share a common set of traits. Specifically, they:

*
Operate with no individualized reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing
*
Seek to control and intimidate local communities as opposed to serve and protect them
*
Raise revenue for expanding government programs through fines, citations & arrest

The links below explore some of the more common types of roadblocks being wielded against the traveling public through first hand accounts, newspaper articles, case histories and documentation. Many of the specific incidents provided below show a pattern of contempt for individual rights and the rule of law as enforcement agencies setup roadblocks under the false premise of public safety while conducting dragnet enforcement operations indistinguishable from general crime control….

[checkpointusa.org]

Gee, I wonder what the Yoo Doctrine is on Federal Home Security Checkpoints and car repairs in Tijuana?

Eugene Costa
April 12th, 2008 at 3:41 pm

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate[1] and total documented prison population in the world[2]. As of 2006, a record 7 million people were behind bars, on probation or on parole. More than 1 in 100 American adults were incarcerated at the start of 2008.[3] The People’s Republic of China ranks second with 1.5 million, though China has over four times the population of the US.

[wikipedia]

Now I call that a thriving Service Economy, yessir!

Eugene Costa
April 12th, 2008 at 3:48 pm

Each morning, the 16,000 students in the Spring Independent School District in suburban Houston swipe their ID tags as they climb onto the school bus. A radio frequency tag tracks them, as it does when they arrive at school and as they leave the building.

Nearly 1,000 cameras watch them all day. Every visitor — parents, volunteers, the guy who fills the Coke machine — must surrender his or her driver’s license to a secretary who checks it against a national database of sex offenders. This fall, nearly one in three schools literally trap visitors inside a “secure vestibule,” a bulletproof glass room, until they’re checked out.

Welcome to the brave new world of school security

[USA Today Toppo October 10, 2006]

Eugene Costa
April 12th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

What was that phrase in Juvenal, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes–”Who will the security guards have left to guard?”

And what did that Israeli politician say to Americans after 9-11–oh, yeah, “You are all Palestinians now!”

Did I get that right?

Eugene Costa
April 12th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

Never have so many been put into concentration camps by so few.

Arbeit macht frei!

Jason Ditz
April 12th, 2008 at 3:57 pm

If the Jews living in Israel didn’t want to do business with Palestinians, they wouldn’t need the Knesset passing a law threatening to throw them in prison for doing so, would they?

Putting aside the specifics of the conflict, it is totally inappropriate for the Israeli government to be threatening its own citizens with imprisonment for the “crime” of voluntary exchange.

Switalla
April 12th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

No wonder Israel needs foreign aid.

Use a Palestinian Car Mechanic, Go To Prison - The Political Hotwire
April 12th, 2008 at 4:58 pm

[...] a Palestinian Car Mechanic, Go To Prison Use a Palestinian Car Mechanic, Go To Prison [...]

Kenneth
April 12th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

Your historical illiteracy leaves me in stitches.

Jordan did not “attack” Israel. Israeli patrols hit a mine they believed had been planted by militants from Es Samu and launched Operation Shredder in response, killing fifty Jordanian soldiers. Hussein ordered a mobilization in response to a firestorm of domestic and foreign criticism. The Six Day War itself was based on a fabrication about Nasser’s military intentions, something which Abba Ebben, the then- Israeli ambassador to the US, denounced, as American intelligence failed to support them.

Answer: Only Israel is held to this exceptionally high standard. All other countries get to claim the law of conquest that has existed from time immemorial.

No, acquisitions that were made centuries if not millenia ago can’t be altered unless there is some kind of social basis for independence- which exists, indeed, thrives in Israel’s occupied territories. If you accept the legitimacy of conquest as a mode of national expansion, you must logically opposed Tibetan independence.

Irene
April 12th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

Somehow the victims of Holocaust took on the worst qualities of their oppressors.

Fascist Nation
April 12th, 2008 at 8:23 pm

Wow, that is harsh. In more civilized Arizona, we only get one year and a $25,000 fine for taking our cars to a Mexican.

John
April 12th, 2008 at 8:49 pm

Israel Ubber Alles!

SW
April 12th, 2008 at 8:50 pm

Actually, Hamas supports the 1967 borders.

Kenneth
April 12th, 2008 at 9:12 pm

Sieg heil!

peace
April 12th, 2008 at 10:20 pm

Re Israel’s justification raised by Eric Garris above, Israel is an apartheid state, not a democracy, that defies the United Nations and international law, not to mention common decency expected of civilized human beings.

peace
April 12th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

I did not know about this security detail in some schools, described by Eugene Costa above. Yikes!

daveg
April 13th, 2008 at 2:02 am

If Israel wants to keep that territory they need to incorporate it and give the people who live their full rights as Israeli citizens.

The objection people have is that the won the territory but will neither let it go back nor incorporate it. And this has been going on for 40+ years. Horrible.

Also, Jordon attacked Israel in response to the Israel attack of Egypt, I believe, which makes the situation a little more complex then you state.

justicenoapart
April 13th, 2008 at 3:48 am

It is the occupation stupi

John Dowser
April 13th, 2008 at 4:32 am

The Haretz article states:

“…50 Israeli vehicles are dismantled by mechanics in Palestinian territories each day after accidents, and their parts are then transferred to Israeli mechanics or used-car dealerships. ”

There you have it. A smart scheme in an economical weak area: tow the car away across state borders so police won’t follow. Dismantle, repair and sell parts back with profit.

Not sure if this always constitutes to theft, some cars might be abandoned or the owner goes with the cheapest rates to get rid of the total-loss thing. The article is not clear here.

So the measure seems to me a form of another economical blockade perhaps combined with crime fighting. And also it shows what would happen if the borders would open up at some imaginary moment in the future: cheaper labor and services will hurt Israel’s economy quite hard. A fence a la Mexico will be needed.

And everyone thinking that the destruction of the state of Israel had something to do with military force. Hah! It’s always the money that’s the health of any state (if not perpetual militarization).

richard vajs
April 13th, 2008 at 5:37 am

Tim R,
Put me down on your list of people who hate Israel. What makes me hate Israel is that it is a war-mongering, racist, land-stealing criminal enterprise and through pressure and bribes has gotten the American Government to be complicit in its evil. Please note that none of its hateful characteristics has anything to do with its Jewish population. I would despise Israel just as much if it was Luthern.

lester
April 13th, 2008 at 6:28 am

Buchanan is now a member of the Knesset?

xearther
April 13th, 2008 at 7:25 am

This isn’t surprising. It is a logical expression, revealing what I recognized 40 years ago. Those 8-foot high fences lining the perimeter of the high school weren’t there to keep people out. They were there to keep the prisoners IN. The HS I attending in my “junior year” even had a frickin’ moat! It was enough for me, as I approached my “senior year” to say, “I am not going back. I CAN’T go back.”

My wife and I didn’t need “religion” as a motivator to keep our children from experiencing such oppressive, indoctrinating bullshit and a total waste of time.

With such a POV, it should be no surprise that this “geeky” 15 year old’s favorite TV show in ‘68 was NOT Star Trek. It was “The Prisoner”.

Thank God my parents didn’t listen to the shrink who wanted to “check me in” to Marin County’s finest to “study me”. If they had I would still be in the Village. Wait a minute! I AM still in the Village! Damn it!

My God, it is so EASY to imagine Hillary wearing a cloak and hat.

Be Seeing You!

MetaCynic
April 13th, 2008 at 9:06 am

It seems to me also that money and not security is the real issue here. I bet that Israeli mechanics were lobbying hard to get this law passed to criminalize Palestinian competition and grant them a legal monopoly in their trade. Nothing new here. It happens all the time and everywhere. The public face of such laws always treats consumers like idiots unable to make intelligent decisions. The matter of inferior repairs causing breakdowns and subsequent traffic accidents can be easily handled by insurance companies announcing in advance that they will not honor claims resulting from such repairs.

Goyim-American
April 13th, 2008 at 11:31 am

Gotta love the double-standards when it involves our frenemy, Israel! We`re not allowed to boycott Israel, but it`s fine for Israel to boycott others. Israel is not a signatory to the
nuclear NPT, and does not allow any outside inspections of their nuclear programs, but sees no hypocracy in howling for the never-ending harrassment, increasing sanctions, and threats
against Iran, who IS a signatory to the NPT and does allow outside inspections. Incredible.

Mace Price: The Despised Redneck of Barstow
April 13th, 2008 at 12:42 pm

“…Use a Palestinian Car Mechanic?—Go to Prison.” This is yet another Jewish clarification of the, well known “Roadmap’s” projection of “Two Nations living side by side in peace.”

Skulz Fontaine
April 13th, 2008 at 1:31 pm

When the mechanics are outlawed, only outlaws will have mechanics!

Mace Price: The Despised Redneck of Barstow
April 13th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

…Who in the long run, be he Peasant, Bourgeoisie or Potentate, really thinks he needs a fabricated exchange of Nuclear Weapons? Because that’s how I see all of this irreconcilable business ending…It is a present threat that is increasingly becoming an eventuality.

Nergol
April 13th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

The answer as to why Israel is held to a higher standard is that it insists that it is *of* a higher standard. “We’re not like those loony, savage Arabs”. Then, when they are like those loony, savage Arabs, they complain about being held to a higher standard.

Mace Price: The Despised Redneck of Barstow
April 13th, 2008 at 3:56 pm

…”Higher Standard” or no my good Negrol…Netanyahu et al should be advised: The clock is running.

Bill Rood
April 13th, 2008 at 5:23 pm

Tim R, we insisted on elections. Possibly the Palestinian people would have re-elected Fatah, in spite of its well-known corruption, if they had seen any possibility at all that Fatah would be able to negotiate an end to the occupation and their suffering at the hands of the IDF. But, no-o-o! Israel failed to follow even the lame “roadmap” Bush had laid out for them, continued to expand settlements, harass Palestinians at checkpoint, assassinate Palestinians without trial (and with callous disregard for any civilians who might be standing nearby). All of this completely discredited Abbas, Fatah and the peaceful road they were attempting to follow.

Is it any wonder that under those circumstances the Palestinian people felt compelled to turn to an alternative? The only viable alternative was Hamas. Keep in mind that at the time of the election, Hamas had declared a long-standing cease fire and was apparently an alternative acceptable enough to the US and Israel to be left on the ballot. So what was the Israeli and American reaction to the Hamas victory? Israel began immediately to kidnap Hamas leaders. We attempted to strangle the Palestinians economically. Israel even withheld taxes collected from the Palestinian people and refused to turn those revenues over to the duly elected government! We armed and supported Fatah against Hamas, attempting to instigate a civil war among Palestinians (divide and rule). All this eventually resulted in a relatively bloodless coup that brought Fatah back to power, then a bloody counter-coup in Gaza that brought Hamas back to power there.

Meanwhile, Hamas continues to offer a ceasefire if Israel will stop dropping bombs and rockets on Gaza, massacring Gazan families at the beach and shooting Gazan children who play near the border. Although they continue to refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a pre-condition for negotiations, they haven’t ruled it out as a negotiated outcome of a settlement. They have also offered a 100 year truce. I just heard on tv this morning that Hamas has agreed to recognize any settlement reached by Abbas as long as it is ratified by a vote of the Palestinian people.

But enough about Hamas. It’s not the issue here. It’s just a red herring you threw into the discussion to distract everyone. You see, Tim R., the law under discussion here is not directed against Hamas or Gaza. The law as described prohibits auto repair in the West Bank where Fatah is in control. It’s another attempt by Israel to strangle the Palestinian people economically. The goal is to force as many Palestinians as possible to emigrate, and to push those who remain into desperate conditions where they’ll see violence as the only alternative. The Likudnik policy and strategy is to keep as much pressure on the Palestinians as possible, to provoke the Palestinians to violence so Israel can justify the checkpoints and other controls, to maintain the Israeli presence in the West Bank and expand the settlements, access roads and control points until the West Bank is reduced to a series of Gazas. The ultimate goal is to make life so miserable for Palestinians that they will emigrate or fail to reproduce, to the point where Israel can safely annex the entire West Bank without fear of the “demographic bomb”.

You say you’re not aware of hateful actions by Israeli Jews. What about the Israeli schoolgirls who wrote “love letters” on Israeli ordinance to be dropped on Lebanon in 2006? What about the Israeli movers who were observed celebrating at Liberty State Park in New Jersey during the 9-11 attacks? They were celebrating because they thought that now the US would understand terrorism and give Israel unwavering support against the Palestinians and other Arabs. What about Israeli references to Palestinians as “two-legged cockroaches”? The Israelis are every bit as bloodthirsty as the average Palestinian, and the Israelis are the ones who control the situation.

Johanna Swaag
April 13th, 2008 at 10:20 pm

If my husband, daughter or son after a car breakdown had their car fixed by the wrong race and went to prison for it I would bang my head against the wall too!

subHuman
April 14th, 2008 at 4:14 am

Israeli Nazis are the GOOD Nazis, God is on their side and they are on God’s side!
Of course they are also shining example and the ONLY democracy in the Middle East!

Ryan
April 14th, 2008 at 6:26 am

I agree with you, Tim R. Israel can do whatever to whomever in the occupied territories. If they want to engage in “transfer” or something else like extermination against the Palestinians, fine. There is one caveat. I don’t want to pay for it, nor do I want US troops involved in even an indirect way with the occupation. Let Israel be totally responsible for her actions. This might even benefit the US. Without the 3+billion dollars a year in military aid, loan guarantees and other forms of rip offs against the US, Israel would be forced to fend for itself by raising additional revenue from the Diaspora. The benefit for America would be that it wouldn’t have its own money used against it in the form of bribes known as “campaign contributions” from the satellites controlled by AIPAC.

Oh yes, one other thing. I want Israel to take the repulsive Joe Lieberman off our hands. He belongs in the Knesset, not the Senate.

Eugene Costa
April 14th, 2008 at 7:20 am

Israel can do whatever to whomever in the occupied territories.

It may not be obvious but that is not the case.

That is certainly, however, what some Israelis would like you to think, just as the American Imperialists would like you to think the same about American power in Iraq or against Iran.

It may be, upon reflection, a surprise just how weak and fragile Israel and the United States are.

This is, by the way, an old argument, that the American warmongers used, supposedly as a sign of their own generosity, virtue, and “restrain”, also in Vietnam.

Eugene Costa
April 14th, 2008 at 7:20 am

corr: “restraint”

Re
April 14th, 2008 at 8:19 am

@ Tim R.
I will not call you ignorant but you are brainwashed as hell.
Of course, your lack of sensitivity and empathy to the palestinian cause stems from the manipulation of language , the sophistry used by MSM, your main source of “facts” to convey information. Calling the blatant murders of palestinian civilians, yes women and children included, whether by air , artillery shelling, poisoning gas or incursions a “targeted strike” or an IDF “operation” or a ” target cancellation” invites the reader or watcher to think “bloodless” “totally sanitized”. In your view ‘civilized violence’. No matter how horrible, bloody or destructive it may be.
And what is palestinian retaliation called?…a bloody, calculated and ruthless attack against jewish civilians by murderous palestinian terrorists. See the difference?
Probably not.

Steve
April 14th, 2008 at 9:41 am

On the contrary, when the Jewish settler-terrorist went into the Tomb of the Patriarchs and machined-gunned about 60 praying Arabs, back in the early 90’s, there was plenty of settlers on TV hooping and hollering.

The Israelis, and their american zionist supporters, have a far better propaganda machine.

By the way, if you want to see the problem with zionist liars, this is beautiful example. Jews should not go into the West Bank and use Arab mechanics because they are At War. OK, but somehow Hamas, the legally elected Arab representative, is supposed to recognize a state that has NEVER admitted that Arabs are human beings with human rights. Why should Hamas recognize someone who does not even believe they are human??

When the Israelis admit that Arabs have human rights, including the right to be safe in and on THEIR OWN PROPERTY, then Arabs can recognize Israel’s much-ballyhooed “right to exist”.

Steve
April 14th, 2008 at 9:46 am

No I am quite consistent.

The European settlers who founded US stole land from Native Americans and from Mexico, stole labor from blacks, stole overseas possessions from Spain, and now is stealing Iraq’s oil (or attemtping to).

But we cannot right all the sins of the past without creating new human rights outrages.

But the Israelis are going toward a regressive, apartheid state while the rest of the world is marching forward, sometimes fitfully, but attempting to make progress. And, more importantly to me as a US citizen, the other agressors in the worlds are not getting the huge financial and moral blank check that has been extended to Israel.

Criticism of Israel? Look at any resolution passed recently in Congress. Generally, any time an issue dear to Israel comes up, the votes go hundres to one for Israel. No, the poor dear is in no danger of losing the propaganda war, nor on keeping it’s stranglehold on it’s puppet government in Washington.

masmanz
April 14th, 2008 at 10:44 am

And who did the Israelis elect? Sharon a well known terrorist after they murdered Yetzhik Rabin because he was not terrorist enough for them. Now they still have Ehud Olmert who bombed innocent civilians in Lebanon.

jameswobler
April 14th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

Ignorant fools.

1. The West understanding of Democracy is like waving for one of the two Taxies then the Taxi driver takes you wherever he wants and you are paying the fares.
2. What does “With us or against us” mean? Does that mean I m right and the rest of humanity is wrong, doesn’t that what a dictatorship base upon……Ironic……”for fellow Americans you need to look in the dictionary for that”.
3. Why when we talk about Iran we automatically regard them as an enemy, just because they don’t jump when we say jump, or because they know how the west think, and its weakness and we can’t fool or scare them like we have done to the Arabs, and in return terrifies us……….what they know and have that we don’t……….. Think Freely please………. you might get it…………… I think they want to help us from self harming ourselves by our ignorance, short term policies based on greed, arrogance, ego and shallowness….. by bullying ……..just be honest with ourselves … is a virtue …… bless………

Karl Rohm
April 14th, 2008 at 4:46 pm

Two words: Nuremberg Laws

Don’t like being compared to Nazis, Israel? THEN DON’T ACT LIKE THEM!

Tim R.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:27 pm

For a person with even a rudimentary understanding of history to compare Israel to Nazi Germany is preposterous and laughable.

Care to explain how Israel is as bad as Nazi Germany? Germany invaded Poland, Russia, Denmark, France, Holland, Belgium, Luxumborg, Austria, Hungary, and many other countries. They also bombed the hell out of England. How many nations has Israel invaded?

Nazi Germany continually attacked and harrassed ships on the highs seas. How many ships has Israel attacked on the high seas?

Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union and killed almost 10 million Russians. The siege of Leningrad alone resulted in over a million civilian deaths. What comparison can you offer to Israel? How many tens of millions has Israel killed?

Nazi Germany specifically and deliberatly targeted for death hundreds of thousands of her own German citizens, as well as the citizens of countries she took over that had mental retardation, mental illness, or physical handicaps. How many mentally ill, mentally retarded, or physically handicapped people has Israel deliberatly put to death?

Nazi Germany put to death millions of Poles, gays, gypsies, and other undersireables. They operated numerous concentration camps to do this. What evidence can you offer that Israel has a simiilar policy?

Nazi Germany, is a deliberate attempt at genocide, murdered over 6 million Jews. That is the equivalent of 1/3 of the entire Jewish population at that time. For sake of comparision that is like killing 100 million Americans today. How many millions of Palestinians have been killed? 1 million? 2 million? How many concentration camps does the Israeli government operate where they kill Palestinians?

If you want to disagree with Israel and their treatment of Palestinians, that’s fine. But stop with this historically and factually inaccurate comparison to Nazi Germany. The comparison is a total fraud. It is a complete distortion and perversion of history.

Mace Price: The Despised Redneck of Barstow
April 14th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

…Hey? Dude…Not so fast with Selective Judgements-Denunciations of “Fraud and Perversion.” What you term and feel to be anti-Israeli bias posted here amounts to legitimate Hyperoble in a Political context, and founded on a catalogue of incontrovertible facts. Moreover it is indicative of a front guard element of a people more than fed up with 60 years of subsidizing Israeli depredations…and the present War of Occupation in Iraq thrust upon The United States by long term Israeli interests implemented by Cabal of powerful and influential Jews in positions of authority and determining US Foreign Policy. —That, and I for one don’t respond well to thoughtless individuals, spouting the neo-Conservative Party Line about what is, and is not acceptable in terms of demonstrating the slightest objectivity about The Zionist State of Israel…No, the Israelis are not National Socialists. But their protracted ethnic cleansing, murder, imprisonment, relocation, and general oppression of the indigenous Palestinian population there—Funded by US tax dollars—Sure as hell bring the Nazi’s to mind—As well as other realities of Jewish Atrocities…Say as an example: The brain trust and Administrators of Stalin’s dreaded NKVD…which is seldom, if ever discussed…Now, if you dislike fraud, distortion, perversion, and false comparisons so intensely…Consider every word I’ve told is true.

Eugene Costa
April 14th, 2008 at 8:09 pm

Actually the list of nations that have been unilaterally attacked by the State of Israel is a long one, including attacks on civilian airliners.

There have also practiced assassination.

The more important point is that there different ways to kill, and that the British toll is surely comparable to the German under the Nazis, if some of the methods were slightly different or better played to history and the press.

The British invented both the concentration camp and and deliberate genocide as government policy (Kitchener wrote openly about it) in the Boer War. Earlier they used economic genocide against the Irish, including starvation, and they tried starvation and famine also in India. They innovated also in the way of attacking civilians and systematic terror as ways of winning wars.

The British, in fact, were the first to use poison gas against villages in Mesopotamia, and as a tactic of pure terror and with no military goal.

The United States now, in the interests of Israel, has committed a Holocaust in Iraq, and has neither the frankness to admit it, nor the ethics to stop.

Eugene Costa
April 14th, 2008 at 8:13 pm

Only by attributing a modicum of sincerity to the statements of the specimen might one consider it ignorant or brainwashed.

Systematic disinformation is more likely the explanation.

Mace Price: The Despised Redneck of Barstow
April 14th, 2008 at 9:24 pm

…Well put and irrevocable. Also, let’s not forget the most recent aggressive Israeli incursion, i.e., the July ‘06 invasion of Southern Lebanon, and the corresponding use of US made CBU’s strewn about the entire south by the Air Arm of The IDF. This as well as the Strategic Bombing Offensive against Beirut, including the Airport, other Towns, Oil Refineries [the latter purposefully leaving the the entire Lebanese coast an ecological disaster that still remains] and to my mind even worse? The infliction of 1,000 plus Lebanese casualties: These mostly unarmed women, children, and old men not known for their Triple A Capabilities…So then, just more “anti-Semitic” distortion? or hard fact? Think about it.

abraham
April 15th, 2008 at 12:54 am

Tim R.,

Why are you so dumb?

lear k
April 15th, 2008 at 9:12 am

Settlers celebrate tenth anniversary of Rabin murder:

“These are the Jewish extremists who annually celebrate the 1994 slaughter of 29 Palestinian worshippers by their fellow settler Baruch Goldstein, and admire Eden Natan-Zeda, the anti-disengagement deserter from Tapuakh who shot dead four Israeli Arabs on a bus in August. Their stark outlook is rooted in religious certainty that dismisses democracy, peace treaties and negotiations as the works of man, irrelevant beside God’s biblical promise of the Land of Israel to Abraham and his descendants.

Many are American immigrants loyal to Meir Kahane, the assassinated New York rabbi whose outlawed Kach movement, advocating the expulsion of Palestinians, lives on in groups such as Revava and Gdud Haivri (The Jewish Legion). Well known to Israel’s intelligence services, his adherents relish the notoriety conferred by police summonses and confinement orders that they produce with grins from within voluminous prayer shawls. Newly arrested for putting up posters of Natan- Zada, the killer on the bus, 26-year-old Yaakov Fauci insists that Rabin was a traitor. ”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article586206.ece

An even greater example ofJewish fundamentalism’s influence upon the secular part of the Israeli establishment can be detected in the official arrangement of Goldstein’s elaborate funeral at a time that the deliberate character of the massacre could not be denied. The establishment was affected by the fact, widely reported in the Hebrew press but given little place in the foreign press, that within two days of the massacre the walls of religious neighborhoods of west Jerusalem (and to a lesser extent of many other religious neighborhoods) were covered by posters extolling Goldstein’s virtues and complaining that he did not manage to kill more Arabs. Children of religious settlers who came to Jerusalem to demonstrate sported buttons for months after the massacre that were inscribed: “Dr. Goldstein cured Israel’s ills.” Numerous concerts of Jewish religious music and other events often developed into demonstrations of tribute to Goldstein. The Hebrew press reported these incidents of public tribute in copious detail. No major politician protested against such celebrations.

In the days and weeks after the massacre, appreciation of Goldstein and his deed spread throughout the Israeli religious community and among its supporters in the United States. The initial expressions of that appreciation may be most significant, because they were spontaneous and because they illustrated the influence, even beyond the messianic community, of an ideology that approved indiscriminate killing of Gentiles by Jews. Avirama Golan described in her February 28, 1994 Haaretz article how news about Goldstein on the day of the massacre became known in the overwhelmingly Haredi city of Bnei Brak and how the next day a religious Jewish crowd reacted with praise of Goldstein during a mass entertainment event. The massacre occurred on Purim, the festival during which religious Jews are merry and sometimes drink alcoholic beverages to the point of drunkenness. Bnei Brak streets were filled to capacity by joyful celebrants that day; a special security force, comprised of religious veterans of the Israeli army’s elite units, had been hired by the mayor to enforce order and modesty. Golan described the response in the streets to the spreading news of the massacre:

http://theunjustmedia.com/the%20real_significance_of_baruch_goldstein.htm#bottom

British film crew threatened by jewish settler in Hebron

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSAvaYY-y7Q

lear k
April 15th, 2008 at 9:26 am

From where do Jewish extremists come!??

“…These are the Jewish extremists who annually celebrate the 1994 slaughter of 29 Palestinian worshippers by their fellow settler Baruch Goldstein, and admire Eden Natan-Zeda, the anti-disengagement deserter from Tapuakh who shot dead four Israeli Arabs on a bus in August. Their stark outlook is rooted in religious certainty that dismisses democracy, peace treaties and negotiations as the works of man, irrelevant beside God’s biblical promise of the Land of Israel to Abraham and his descendants.

…”Far from showing remorse, the family of Rabin’s killer have called for his release, issuing a petition. “The security situation in Israel has proven that Yitzhak Rabin committed a crime against his people when he surrendered our lives and safety to our most bitter enemy,” a statement on their website read…”

U.S. List of Known Kahanist Groups and Aliases:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/israel/extreme/uslist.html

lear k
April 15th, 2008 at 11:52 am

Apartheid Legislation in South Africa :

http://africanhistory.about.com/library/bl/blsalaws.htm

Tim R.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

Kenneth,

I wish you would get your facts straight. The incident you speak of happened the preceding year, 1966. In June of 67 Jordan was told by Israel to stay out of the way. They did not want another military front to deal with. Israel already had her hands full dealing with Egypt to her south and Syria to the north. Why would Israel or any rational nation want to have to fight a three front war? And Jordan’s King Hussein, at Nasser’s urging, attacked Israel. Repeat after me Kenneth, Jordan attacked Israel first. There its not so hard to say, now is it? There is not one shred of evidence to indicate that Israel attacked Jordan first. You might be entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to make up your own facts.

Tim R.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:13 pm

Richard Vajs,

Ok, I will put you down as someone who really hates Israel. I understand it. And that is your right. And by the way, I might disagree with you strongly but I don’t think your an anti-semite for hating Israel. And I do believe you when you say you would hate it just as much if it was Luthern.

Kenneth
April 15th, 2008 at 12:24 pm

Israel had the military capabilities to demolish its opponents, a fact that became clear during the Suez Crisis. The Six Day War was as much a propaganda coup as it was a military operation.

And Jordan’s King Hussein, at Nasser’s urging, attacked Israel. Repeat after me Kenneth, Jordan attacked Israel first.

Nope. Israel launched the pre-emptive strike on the Egyptian Air Force that initiated the war. Jordan did not begin anything, and entered the war only reluctantly. King Hussein ordered a mobilization months before, but did not actually fight with Israel until the Six Day War itself.

Tim R.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

Good heavens! Talk about omitting relevant information! Yes, Israel did, indeed, launch a pre-emptive strike on Egypt. And just what were they trying to preempt? Nassar and declared in intention of utterly destroying Israel and “driving her into the sea.” King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and other Arab leaders all joined in a chorus of bellicosity and repeated the same sort of language. Nasser threw out UN peacekeepers from the Sinai. Nasser ordered a ffull scale mobilization of his military. Finally, Nasser closed off the Straits of Tiran, a violation of international law. This amounted to a naval blockade against Israel and under international law a naval blockade is itself an act of war.

Kenneth, to be fair don’t you think the above-mentioned facts are relevant to the discussion? Why did you selectively omit them?

And by the way, last time I checked Jordan was a sovereign country King Hussien had the authority to make his own decisions. And he decided to go along with Nasser and, I repeat, for the millionth time, Jordan attakced Israel first. You keep repeating yourself about Jordan attacking first, but I defy you to provide evidence, from a reputable source for that fallacious assertion. Show me a NY Times or Washington Post article from June of 67 that mentions Israel attacking Jordan first. You won’t show me such an article because no such article exists because what you are offering is a fairy tale.

Kenneth
April 15th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

American intelligence does not collaborate the claim of Egyptian aggression. You have no hard evidence with which to support your assertions, merely the rhetoric of Arab leaders. Stop taking everything at face value.

Kenneth, to be fair don’t you think the above-mentioned facts are relevant to the discussion? Why did you omit them?

These facts comprise a diplomatic crisis, not a causus belli. They aren’t relevant because Israel’s justification for strikes on Egypt were Egyptian troop movements that later turned out to be defensive. It is true that Egypt was entirely responsible for the diplomatic crisis, but that’s a pretty poor rationale for war and territorial expansion.

And he decided to go along with Nasser and, I repeat, for the millionth time, Jordan attakced Israel first.

Indeed, after Nasser had lied to Hussein by promising him an easy victory and because Hussein would not be able to long maintain his political position had he not done so. Refraining from aggression would have likely resulted in civil war in Jordan.

You keep repeating yourself about Jordan attacking first…

Quit putting words in my mouth. I said Israel struck Egypt first, and this precipitated the war. Hussein was then mislead into attacking Israel. I never once argued that Israel attacked Jordan first.

lear k
April 16th, 2008 at 9:30 am

Is Israel’s version of the facts universally accepted?

Israel’s claim of an impending Egyptian attack has been widely accepted in the West. The Israeli public had been led to believe that it faced a threat of imminent attack, and perhaps even annihilation. However, the veracity of Israel’s claim is increasingly questioned.

A number of senior Israeli military and political figures have subsequently admitted that Israel was not faced with a genuine threat of attack, and instead, deliberately chose war. Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli army chief of staff during the war, later stated: “I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.” (i) General Mattityahu Peled, a member of Israel’s general staff in 1967, opined that “the thesis according to which the danger of genocide weighed on us in June 1967, and that Israel struggled for its physical existence is only a bluff born and developed after the war.” (ii) Menachem Begin, not yet prime minister but a member of the Israeli cabinet, allowed that: “The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.” (iii)

http://imeu.net/news/article005371.shtml

In order to understand the biuld up to the war the best place to begin is November, 1966. There was an Israeli retaliatory, as they call it, attack on a Jordanian village called Samu. In the course of this attack on Samu they blew up around 125 buildings and killed a large number of Jordanian soldiers.

When that attack happened the Jordanians and also the Syrians began to attack Nasser for not coming to their defense. Here was this Egyptian president claiming to be the leader of Arab nationalism and Pan-Arabism and he was doing nothing. Nasser was being taunted for his, as it were, impotence in the face of Israeli aggression.

And there were various incidents in the Syrian Golan Heights and also by Syrian-backed Palestinian commandos. Now there there’s a certain amount of confusion which is important to clarify. Moshe Dayan, who became the defense minister during the June ‘67 war, gave an interview in 1976 in which he acknowledges, and now I’m more or less quoting him, that 80%, he said at least 80%, but I’ll say 80% of the incidents with the Syrians were instigated by us. That we were engaged, now I’m using my language, but it’s I think a correct paraphrase, we were engaged in a land grab in what were called the demilitarized zones between Syria and Israel. And in the course of this land grab there were conflicts arising with the Syrians. And it was only as a result of these conflicts that the Syrians then would fire artillery from the Golan Heights on the Israelis. So Moshe Dayan himself acknowledged that was instigated by the Israelis.

In April, just let me get right up to the point where the count down, as it were, begins. In April 1967 one of those incidents instigated by the Israelis then unfolded into an aerial battle with the Syrians. And the Israelis knocked down 6 Syrian planes, 6 Syrian Migs, including 1 over Damascus. And it was at this point again when Nasser is being taunted that “you’re not doing anything.”

Things then start deteriorating between Israel and the Syrians. Come the beginning of May Israel is making clear that it’s going to engage in a large scale strike against Syria and now the test is for Nasser. Are you going to do anything about it? The Israelis are announcing over and over again, the generals, the statesmen, that we’re going to give Syria now a serious blow. And it’s at that point that Nasser announces, or Nasser tells Secretary General [not "of State"] U Thant, that the peace keeping force which had been stationed between Israel and Egypt in the Sinai, that peace keeping force should be withdrawn. And that’s the beginning of the count down to the war.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1067

Tim R.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:38 pm

Baruch Goldstein was a terrorist and a murderer and a shame and disgrace to the Jewish people. Most Jewish people totally repudiate and condemn his actions. The ones who celebratred are a very small minority.

Tim R.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:05 am

Lear K,

A very interesting analysis. The only problem is, your sources are quite suspect. I mean really, can you do any better than norman finkelstien.com? He is not exactly neutral. And the other site, the center for middle east understanding, they are totally pro-palestinian and everything on that site is slanted and biased. If you had provided more reputable, neutral sources your thesis would be much stronger. There may be truth in what you wrote but I can’t make that determination because I can’t trust your sources. Incidentally,I teach a course in critical thinking, and I devote at least one lecture to understanding sources and figuring out if they can be relied upon. I should print this out and discuss it as a case in point.

Kenneth
April 17th, 2008 at 12:02 pm

Why not simply check the citations in each, then? If these are robust, then there is no reason to dispute the analysis.

Kenneth
April 17th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

Incidentally, the admission was in Moshe Dayan’s autobiography.

Use a Palestinian Car Mechanic, Go To Prison « Moderate Observer
April 17th, 2008 at 7:44 pm

[...] (Continue reading: Antiwar.com Blog) [...]

term life insurance traffic
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:30 am

term life insurance traffic…

Hello,…

Highlights

Breaking News