Dennis Miller

For those who don't know, Dennis Miller is a comedian who has a show called Dennis Miller Live on HBO. He is not Jewish. He recently said the following about the Midest situation:

"A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need. Here we go:

The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in the 1967 war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians." As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians, "weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation." So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" anymore to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths, until someone points out they're being taped.

Instead, let's call them what they are:
"Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death."
I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters." Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David but if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course --that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel. Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity"as their textbooks call it --for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth . . . you know that's really saying something. It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Midleast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

Chew this around & spit it out: 500 million Arabs; 5 million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that, if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals... Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding. My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers. Imagine 500 million Jews and 5 million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor bladesand dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generationsto drive a tiny Arab State into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death. Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that, with vital operations in Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of super models who've just had their drugs taken away. However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight. We've already lost some. After September 11th, our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day), start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint. If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterraneanand east of the Jordan.

Please feel free to pass this along to your friends!

Walk in peace! Be Happy! Have a wonderful life !

A Homemade Genocide

The Arab world is subject to genocide, it is true. It's just that it's mostly self-inflicted, and Israel has nothing to do with any of it.

An article by Ben Dror Yemini, Ma'ariv correspondent
26/9/2006 13:33

Fact no. 1: Since the establishment of the State of Israel a merciless genocide is being perpetrated against Muslims and/or Arabs.
Fact no. 2: The conflict in the Middle East, between Israel and the Arabs as a whole and against the Palestinians in particular, is regarded as the central conflict in the world today.
Fact no. 3: According to polls carried out in the European Union, Israel holds first place as “Danger to world peace”. In Holland, for instance, 74% of the population holds this view. Not Iran. Not North Korea. Israel. Connecting between these findings creates one of the biggest deceptions of modern times: Israel is regarded as the country responsible for every calamity, misfortune and hardship. It is a danger to world peace, not just to the Arab or Muslim world.

The finger is pointed cleverly. It’s difficult to blame Israel for the genocide in Sudan or for the civil war in Algeria. How is it done? Dozens of publications, articles, books, periodicals and websites are dedicated to one purpose only: Turning Israel into a state that ceaselessly perpetrates war crimes. In Jakarta and in Khartoum they burn the Israeli flag, and in London, in Oslo and in Zurich hate articles are published, supporting the destruction of Israel.
Any request in Internet search engines for the words “genocide” against “Muslims”, “Arabs” or “Palestinians”, in the context of “Zionists” or “Israel” – will give us endless results. Even after we’ve filtered out the trash, we are left with millions of publications written in deadly seriousness.
This abundance brings results. It works like brainwashing. It is the accepted position, and not just a fringe opinion. Only five years ago we were witness to a international anti-Israeli show in the Durban Convention. Only two years ago we were shocked when a member of our Academia blamed Israel of ‘symbolic genocide’ against the Palestinian people. Much ado about nothing. There are thousands of publications blaming Israel of genocide, and not ‘symbolic’.
Under an academic and/or journalistic umbrella, today’s Israel is compared to the damned Germany of yesteryear. In conclusion, there are those who call to terminate the ‘Zionist project’. And in more simple words: because Israel is a country that perpetrates so many war crimes and engages in ethnic cleansing and genocide – it has no right to exist. This, for instance, is the essence of an article by the Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder (author of “Sophie’s World”), who wrote, among other things: “We call killers of children by their name”). The conclusion is that Israel has no right to exist.

How the deception works
The tragedy is that in Arab and Muslim countries a massacre is happening. A genocide protected by the silence of the world. A genocide protected by a deception that is perhaps unparalleled in the history of mankind. A genocide that has no connection to Israel, to Zionism or to Jews. A genocide of mainly Arabs and Muslims, by Arabs and Muslims.
This is not a matter of opinion or viewpoint. This is the result of factual examination, as precise as possible, of the numbers of victims of various wars and conflicts that have taken place since the establishment of the State of Israel up till this time, in which the massacre continues. It is, indeed, death on a massive scale. A massacre. It is the wiping out of villages and cities and whole populations. And the world is silent. The Muslims are indeed abandoned. They are murdered and the world is silent. And if it bothers to open its mouth, it doesn’t complain about the murderers. It doesn’t complain about the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity. It complains about Israel.
This great deception, that covers up the real facts, endures and even grows because of one reason only: The Media and Academia in the West participate in it. In endless publications, books, periodicals and websites Israel is portrayed as a state that perpetrates “war crimes”, “ethnic cleansing”, and “systematic murder”. Sometimes it is because this is fashionable, sometimes it is mistakenly, sometimes it is the result of hypocrisy and double standards. Sometimes it is new and old anti-Semitism, from the left and from the right, overt and covert. Most of the classic blood libels were refuted not long after they came into being. The blood libel of modern times, against the state of Israel, continues to grow. Many Israelis and Jews are accessories to the nurturing of the libel.

The Arab-Israeli conflict
The Zionist settling of this country, which began at the end of the 19th century, did indeed create a conflict between Jews and Arabs. The amount of those killed in various clashes up till the establishment of the State of Israel was no more than a few thousands, of both Jews and Arabs. Most of the Arabs killed in those years were killed in armed struggles of Arabs amongst themselves; such as, for example, in the days of the Great Arab Uprising of 1936 – 1939. That was a sign of things to come. Many others were killed as a result of the harsh hand wielded by the British. Israel never did anything comparable.
Israel’s War of Independence, known also as the War of 48’, left between 5,000 to 15,000 dead from among the Palestinians and citizens of Arab countries. In this war, as in any war, there were indeed atrocities. The attackers declared their goal, and if they had won, a mass extermination of Jews would have taken place. On Israel’s side there were also barbarous acts, but they were on the fringe of the fringe. Less, far less, than in any other war in modern times. Far less than what is being perpetrated every day in these very times, by Muslims, mainly against Muslims, in Sudan and in Iraq.
The next event of importance was the Sinai War of 1956. About 1,650 Egyptians were killed, about 1,000 at the hands of the Israelis and about 650 by the French and British forces. Next came the Six Day War (1967- IJ). The highest estimates talk of 21,000 Arabs killed on all three fronts – Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The Yom Kippur War (1973 – IJ) resulted in 8,500 Arab dead, this time on only two fronts – Egypt and Syria.
Then there were ‘smaller’ wars: The first Lebanon war, which was initially mainly against the PLO and not against Lebanon. This was a war in a war. These were the years of the bloody civil war in Lebanon, a war we will discuss further later on. And thus also in the second Lebanon war, in which about a thousand Lebanese were killed.
Thousands of Palestinians were killed during the Israeli occupation of the territories, that began at the end of the Six Day War. Most were killed during the two Intifadas, the one that commenced in 1987 and resulted in 1,800 Palestinian deaths, and the one that commenced in 2000 with a Palestinan death toll of 3,700. In between, there were more military actions that caused further Arab fatalities. If we exaggerate, we can say that these were a few hundred more who were killed. Hundreds. Not hundreds of thousands. Not millions.
The total count reaches about 60,000 Arabs killed in the framework of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Among them only several thousand Palestinians, although it is because of them, and only them, that Israel is the target of the world’s anger. Every Arab and Muslim death is regrettable. And it is okay to criticize Israel. But the obsessive and demonic criticism emphasizes a far more amazing fact: The silence of the world, or at least relative silence, in the face of the systematic extermination of millions of others by Muslim and Arab regimes.

The blood price of the Muslims
From here on we must ask: How many Arabs and Muslims have been killed in those same years in other countries, for instance, in Russia or in France, and how many Arabs, Muslims and others, were killed in those same years by Arabs and Muslims. The information gathered here is based on various research institutes, academic bodies, international organizations (such as Amnesty and other bodies that follow human rights), the UN, and governmental agents.
In many cases the different organizations present different and contradictory numbers. The differences sometimes reach hundreds of thousands, and sometimes even millions. We will probably never know the precise number. But even the lowest agreed numbers, that are the basis for the tables given here, present a staggering and horrific picture. In addition, time is too short to survey bloody conflicts that are not even covered in these tables, although these conflicts took a higher human toll than the blood price of the whole Arab-Israeli conflict.
Algeria: A few years after the establishment of the State of Israel, there began another war of independence. This time it was Algeria against France, between the years 1954-1962. The number of victims on the Muslim side is a subject for controversy. According to official sources in Algeria it is over a million. There are research institutes in the west that tend to accept that number. French sources have tried in the past to claim that it is only a quarter of a million Muslims, with an additional 100,000 Muslim collaborators with the French. But these estimates are regarded as tendentious and low. Today there is no question that the French killed nearly 600,000 Muslims. And these are the French, who do not stop preaching to Israel, the Israel that in the whole history of its conflict with the Arabs failed to reach even one tenth of that number, and even then, according to the more severe assessments.The massacre in Algeria continues. In the 1991 elections the Islamic Salvation Front was voted in. The results of the elections were cancelled by the army. Since then a civil war has been raging, between the central government, supported by the army, and Islamic movements. According to various estimates, there have been about 100,000 victims so far. Most of them have been innocent civilians. In most cases it has been horrific massacres of whole villages, women, children and old people. A massacre in the name of Islam.
Algeria summary: 500,000 to 1 million in the war of independence; 100,000 in the civil war in the 90’s.

Sudan: the worst series of crimes
A country torn by campaigns of destruction, almost all of them between the Arab-Muslim north, that is control of the country, and the south, populated by blacks. Two civil wars have taken place in this country, and a massacre, under government patronage, has been taking place in recent years in the district of Darfur. The first civil war spanned the years of 1955-1972. Moderate estimates talk of 500,000 victims. In 1983 the second civil war began. But it wasn’t a civil war but a systematic massacre suitably defined as ‘genocide’. The goals were Islamization, Arabization and mass deportation, that occasionally becomes slaughter, also for the need to gain control over giant oil fields. We are talking about an estimated 1.9 million victims.The division between Muslim and other victims is unclear. The large district of Noba, populated by many black Muslims, was served its portion of horrors. The Muslims, should they be black, are not granted any favors. Since the rise to power of radical Islam, under the spiritual guidance of Dr. Hassan Thorabi, the situation has worsened. This is probably the worst series of crimes against humanity since WWII. We’re talking about ethnic cleansing, deportations, mass murder, slave trade, forcible enforcement of the laws of Islam, taking children from their parents and more. Millions have become refugees. As far as is known, there are not millions of publications about the Sudanese ‘Right of Return’ and there are no petitions by intellectuals negating Sudan’s right to exist. Recent years have been all about Darfur. Again Muslims (Arabs) are murdering (black) Muslims and heathens, and the numbers are unclear. Moderate estimates are talking about 200,000 victims, higher estimates say 600,000. No one knows for sure. And the slaughter continues. Throughout the atrocities of Sudan, the slaughter has been perpetrated mainly by the Arab Muslim regime, and the great majority of victims, if not all, are black, of all religions, including Muslims.
Sudan summary: 2.6 million to 3 million.

Afghanistan: This is a web of nonstop mass killing – domestic and external. The Soviet invasion, which began on 24th December 1979 and ended on 2nd February 1989, left about a million dead. Other estimates talk of 1.5 million dead civilians and an additional 90,000 soldiers.After the withdrawal of the Soviet Forces, Afghanistan went through a series of civil wars and struggles between the Soviet supporters, the Mojahidin and the Taliban. Each group carried out a doctrine of mass extermination of its opponents. The sum of the fatalities in civil war, up to the invasion of the coalition forces under American leadership in 2001, is about one million.There are those who complain, and rightly so, about the carnage that took place as a result of the coalition offensive to overthrow the Taliban regime and as part of the armed struggle against al Qaida. Well, the invasion into Afghanistan caused a relatively limited number of deaths, less than 10,000. Had it not taken place, we would have seen a continuation of the self-inflicted genocide, with an average of 100,000 fatalities a year.
Afghanistan Summary: One million to one and a half million, as a result of the Soviet invasion; about one million in the civil war.

Somalia: unending civil war
Since 1977 this Muslim state in East Africa has been immersed in an unending civil war. The number of victims is estimated at about 550,000. It is Muslims killing mainly Muslims. UN attempts to intervene, in the interest of peace keeping, ended in the failure, as did later attempts by American Forces. Most of the victims died not in the battle fields, but as a result of deliberate starvation and slaughter of civilians, in bombardments aimed at the civilian population (massive bombardments of opponent districts, such as the bombardment of Somaliland, that caused the deaths of 50,000 ). Somalia Summary: 400,000 to 550,000 victims in the civil war.

Bangladesh: 1 of the 3 greatest genocides
This country aspired to gain independence from Pakistan. Pakistan reacted with a military invasion that caused mass destruction. It was not a war, it was a massacre. One to two million people were systematically liquidated in 1971. Some researchers define the events of that year in Bangladesh as one of the three greatest genocides in (history - IJ) (after the Holocaust and the Ruanda genocide). An inquiry committee appointed by the government of Bangladesh counted 1.247 million fatalities as a result of systematic murder of civilians by Pakistan’s army forces. There are also numerous reports of ‘Death squads’, in which “Muslim soldiers were sent to execute mass killings of Muslim farmers”. The Pakistani army ceased only after the intervention of India, which suffered from waves of refugees - millions – arriving from Bangladesh. At least 150 thousand more were murdered in acts of retaliation after the retreat of the Pakistan army.
Bangladesh summary: 1.4 million to 2 million.

Indonesia: The massacre commenced with a communist uprising
The biggest Muslim state in the world competes with Bangladesh for the dubious title of ‘The biggest massacre since the Holocaust’. The massacre commenced with a communist uprising in 1965. There are different assessments (of the number of fatalities - IJ) in this case as well. The accepted estimate talks of as many as 400 thousand Indonesians killed in the years 1965-1966, although stricter estimates claim the number is higher. The massacre was perpetrated by the army, led by Hag’i Mohammed Soharto, who seized power in the country for the next 32 years. An investigator of those years points out that the person who was in charge of suppressing the rebellion, General Srv Adei, admitted: “We killed 2 million not 1 million, and we did good work”. For this argument, we will stick to the lower, more accepted estimates. In 1975, after the end of the Portuguese rule, East Timor announced its independence. Within a short time it was invaded by Indonesia, who ruled the area until 1999. During these years about 100,000 to 200,000 people were killed, along with the complete destruction of infrastructure.
Indonesia summary: 400,000 killed, with an additional 100,000 to 200,000 in East Timor

Iraq: the destruction of Saddam Hussein
Most of the of the last two decades was the doing of Saddam Hussein. This is another case of a regime that caused the deaths of millions. Nonstop death. One of the highpoints was during the Iran-Iraq war, in the conflict over the Shat El Arab River, the river that is created by the convergence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. This was a conflict that led to nothing but large scale destruction and mass killing. Estimates are between 450,000 and 650,000 Iraqis, and between 450,000 and 970,000 Iranians. Jews, Israelis, and Zionists were not around, as far as is known.
Waves of purges, some politically motivated (opposition), some ethnic ( the Kurdish minority) and some religiously motivated (the ruling Suni minority against the Shiite majority), yielded an astounding number of victims. Estimates vary from one million, according to local sources, to a quarter million, according to Human Rights Watch. Other international organizations quote an estimate of about half a million. In the years 1991 - 1992 there was a Shiite uprising in Iraq. There are contradictory estimates about the number of victims. The numbers vary from 40,000 to 200,000. In addition to the Iraqis that were slaughtered one must add the Kurds. During Saddam Hussein’s reign, between 200,000 to 300,000 of them were killed in a genocide that continued all through the 1980’s and the 1990’s. Over half a million more Iraqis died from diseases because of the shortage of medicine, which was the result of sanctions imposed after the first Gulf War. Today it is clear that this was a continuation of the genocide perpetrated by Saddam on his own people. He could have purchased medicine, he had enough money to buy food and to build hospitals for all the children of Iraq, but Saddam preferred to build palaces and to distribute franchises to many in the west and in Arab states. This issue is being exposed in the corruption of the UN’s ‘Oil for Food’ project. The Iraqis continue to suffer. The civil war that is raging there now - even if some would rather not give that name to the mutual massacre of Sunis and Shiites – is costing tens of thousands of lives. It is estimated that about 100,000 people have been killed since the coalition forces took control in Iraq.
Iraq Summary: 1.54 million to 2 million victims.
Iran Summary: 450,000 to 970,000 victims.

Lebanon: The Lebanese civil war
The Lebanese civil war took place from 1975 to 1990. Israel was involved in certain stages, by way of the first Lebanon War in 1982. There is no disagreement that a considerable part of the victims were killed in the first two years. The more assessments talk of over 130,000 killed. Most of them were Lebanese killed by other Lebanese, on religious, ethnic grounds and in connection with the Syrian involvement. Syria transferred its support between various parties in the conflict. The highest estimates claim that Israeli activities were the cause of around 18,000 people, the great majority of which were fighters.
Lebanon summary: 130,000.

Yemen: In the civil war that took place in Yemen from 1962 to 1970, with Egyptian and Saudi involvement, 100,000 to 150,000 Yemenites were killed, and more than a thousand Egyptians and a thousand Saudis. Egypt committed war crimes by incorporating the use of chemical warfare. Riots in Yemen from 1984 to 1986 caused the deaths of thousands more.
Yemen summary: 100,000 to 150,000 fatalities

Chechnya: Russia turned down Chechen Republic demands for independence, and this led to the first Chechen war of 1994 to 1996. The war cost the lives of 50,000 to 200,000 Chechens. Russia put a great deal into this conflict, but failed miserably. This did not help Chechens, because although they had gained autonomy there republic was in ruins. The second Chechen War began in 1999 and officially ended in 2001, but it has not really ended, and number of the victims is estimated at 30,000 to 100,000.
Chechnya summary: 80,000 to 300,000 fatalities.

smaller confrontations
From Jordan to Zanzibar: In addition to the wars and the massacres, there have also been smaller confrontations, that have cost the lives of thousands and tens of thousands, of Muslims and Arabs (killed) by Muslims and Arabs. These confrontations are not even taken into account in the tables presented on these pages, because the numbers are small, relatively speaking, even though the numbers of those killed are far higher than the numbers of the victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Here are some of them:

Jordan: 1970 to 1971 the Black September riots took place In the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. King Hussein was fed up of the Palestians use of the country and their threatened to take control of it. The confrontation, mainly a massacre in the refugee camps, took thousands of lives. According to estimates provided by the Palestinians themselves - 10,000 to 25,000 fatalities. According to other sources - a few thousand.

Chad: Half of the population of Chad are Muslims: In various civil wars 30,000 civilians have been killed.
Kosovo: In the mainly Muslim area of Yugoslavia about 10,000 were killed in the war there from 1998 to 2000.
Tajikistan: Civil war from 1992 to 1996 left about 50,000 dead.
Syria: Hafez Assad’s systematic persecution of the Muslim Brotherhood ended in the 1982 massacre in the city of Hama, costing the lives of about 20,000 people.
Iran: Thousands were killed in the beginning of the Humeini Revolution. The precise number is unknown, but is somewhere between thousands and tens of thousands. The Kurds also suffered at the hands of Iran, and about 10,000 of them were murdered there.
Turkey: About 20,000 Kurds were killed in Turkey as part of the conflict there.
Zanzibar: In the early 1960’s the island was granted independence, but only for a short time. At first, the Arabs were in power, but a black group, made up mainly of Muslims, slaughtered the Arab group, also Muslim, in 1964. The estimates are that 5,000 to 17,000 were killed.

Even this is not the end of the list. There were more conflicts with unknown numbers of victims in former USSR republics with Muslim majority populations (like the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagurno Karabach), and a disputable number of Muslims that were killed in mixed population countries in Africa, such as Nigeria, Mauritania or Uganda (in the years of Idi Amins reign in Uganda, in the decade that began in 1971, about 300,000 Ugandans were killed. Amin defined himself as Muslim, but in contrast to Sudan, it is hard to say that the background for the slaughter was Muslim, and it certainly wasn’t Arab.

"to liquidate the Jewish entity"
To all the above, one can add this data: The great majority of Arabs killed in the framework of the Israeli-Arab Conflict were killed as a result of wars instigated by the Arabs and as a result of their refusal to recognize the UN decision regarding the establishment of the State of Israel, or their refusal to recognize the Jews’ right of self-definition.
The number of Israelis killed by Arab aggression has been relatively far than the numbers of Arabs killed. In the War of the Independence, for example, more than 6,000 Israelis were killed out of a population that was then made up of 600,000. This means: One percent of the population. In comparison with this, Arab fatalities in the war against Israel came from seven countries, the populations of which were already tens of millions. Israel did not dream, did not think and did not want to destroy any Arab state. But the ostensible goal of the attacking armies was “to liquidate the Jewish entity”.
Obviously, in recent years, the Palestinian victims have received most of the attention of the Media and the Academia. In actual fact, these make up just a small percentage of the total sum of all victims. The total sum of Palestinians killed by Israel in the territories that were conquered is several thousand. 1,378 were killed in the first Intifada, and 3,700 since the start of the second Intifada.
This is less, for instance, than the Muslim victims massacred by former Syrian president, Hafez Assad in Hama in 1982. This is less than the Palestinians massacred by King Hussein in 1971. This is less than the number of those killed in one single massacre of Muslim Bosnians by the Serbs in 1991 in Srebrenica, a massacre that left 8,000 dead.
Every person killed is regrettable, but there is no greater libel than to call Israel’s actions ‘genocide’. And even so, the string ‘Israel’ and ‘genocide’ in Google search engine leads to 13,600,000 referrals. Try typing ‘Sudan’ and ‘genocide’ and you’ll get less than 9 million results. These numbers, if you will, are the essence of the great deception.

not enlightened, but not brutal
Another fact: Since WWII, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the national conflict with the lowest number of victims, but with the world’s highest number of publications hostile to Israel in the media and in the Academia.
At least half a million Algerians died during the French occupation. A million Afghanis died during the Soviet occupation. Millions of Muslims and Arabs were killed and slaughtered at the hands of Muslims.
But all the world knows about one Mohammed a-Dura (whose death was regrettable, but there is some doubt whether he was killed by Israeli gunfire at all).
It is possible and acceptable to criticize Israel. But the excessive, obsessive, and at times anti-Semitic criticism serves also as a coverup, and in some cases also as an approval, of the genocide of millions of others.
Occupation is not enlightened and can’t be enlightened. But if we try to create a scale of ‘brutal occupation’, Israel will come last. This is a fact. This is not an opinion.
And what would have happened to the Palestinians if, instead of being under Israeli occupation they were under Iraqi occupation? Or Sudanese? Or even French or Soviet? It is highly probable that they would have been victims of genocide, at worst, and of mass killings, purges, and deportations at best.
But luckily for them they are under Israeli occupation. And even if, I repeat, there is no such thing as an enlightened occupation, and even if it is acceptable and possible, and at times necessary, to criticize Israel, there is no occupation and there has never been an occupation with so few fatalities (indeed, there are other injuries that are not manifested in the numbers of fatalities, such as the refugee problem. This will be discussed in a separate chapter).

Television screen ethics
So why is the impression of the world the direct opposite? How come there is no connection between the facts and the numbers and the so very demonic image of Israel in the world?
There are many answers. One of them is that western ethics have become the ethics of television cameras. If a Palestinian terrorist or a Hizballah man tries to shoot a rocket from the midst of a civilian neighborhood, and Israel retaliates with fire - causing the death of two children - there will be endless headlines and articles all over the world that “Israel murders children”. But if entire villages are destroyed in Sudan or whole cities are erased in Syria, there will be no television cameras in the area.
And so, according to television ethics, Jose Saramago and Harold Pinter sign a petition protesting ‘genocide’ and ‘war crimes’ perpetrated by Israel. They have never read the Geneva Convention either. They probably do not know that, aside for very few exceptions, the actions of Israel against military targets hitting civilians is allowed according to the Geneva Convention (protocol 1 paragraph 52.2). And because these people are so submerged in television ethics, they will not sign any petitions in protest of the genocide of Muslims by Muslims. Murder for the sake of it. They are allowed to do it.
Television ethics is a tragedy for the Arabs and the Muslims themselves. Israel pays dearly because of it, but the Arabs and the Muslims are its real victims. And as long as this blue screen morality continues, the Arabs and the Muslims will continue to pay the price.

Epilogue
There are those that claim that Arab and Muslim states are immune from criticism, because they are not democratic, but Israel is more worthy of criticism because it has democratic pretences. Claims like this are Orientalism at its worst. The covert assumption is that the Arabs and the Muslims are the retarded child of the world. They are allowed. It is not only Orientalism. It is racism.
The Arabs and the Muslims are not children and they are not retarded. Many Arabs and Muslims know this and write about it. They know that only an end to the self-deception and a taking of responsibility will lead to change. They know that as long as the west treats them as unequal and irresponsible it is lending a hand not only to a racist attitude, but also, and mainly, to a continuation of their mass murder.
The genocide that Israel is not committing, that is completely libelous, hides the real genocide, the silenced genocide that Arabs and Muslims are committing mainly against themselves. The libel has to stop so as to look at reality. It is in the interest of the Arabs and the Muslims. Israel pays in image. They pay in blood. If there is any morality left in the world, this should be in the interest of whoever has a remaining drop of it in him. And should it happen, it will be small news for Israel, and great news, far greater news, for Arabs and Muslims.

An Open Letter

(Julius Hansen, Horsens Folkeblad, Denmark Mark 25, 2004)

An Open Letter to the Palestinians from an Agnostic
by David White Friday, Jul. 28, 2006 at 4:51 PM
Auckland, New Zealand

Greetings to any Palestinian who may be reading this. My name is David White. I am a citizen of New Zealand, a small, Western, nominally Christian country in the South Pacific Ocean. I am not Jewish, or Christian; I guess I'm vaguely agnostic. Writing this letter is a good way for me to discuss the horrible mess in the Middle East, spell out as many relevant points as possible concerning the state of the Palestinian people, and to see what can be made of them. I don't speak Arabic, so I can only communicate with English-speaking Palestinians. There aren't many here in NZ, though, and I haven't yet met any. I don't know how many will ever see these words, but here's hoping someone does. I have a post-graduate university education, and I suppose I could be called an intellectual. Unfortunately, many such people have supported abhorrent ideologies such as Nazism, and they continue to support Communism, so I refuse to describe myself in this way. I don't want to considered as just another "trendy leftie" academic.

(Corky Trinidad, The Honolulu Star-Bulletin March 25, 2004)

My perspective of Palestinians is something like this - you're Arabs (of course), mostly Muslim, but with a Christian minority. Many of you live outside Gaza/West Bank, mostly in Jordan and other Muslim countries, with some groups living in Western countries as well. You feel that you have been wronged by Israel and are fighting to destroy them. As for my perspective on Israel, I see them like this. They are a mainly Jewish, small, free-market democracy with a large Arab minority surrounded by hostile Arab dictatorships. They have an ancestral claim to Israel, their state was created as a refuge from persecution, they have a right to exist, and, having survived a holocaust in Europe, they should not have to sit still and wait for another one in the Middle East.

(Bruce Beattie, Florida -- the Daytona Beach News-Journal March 29, 2004)

A Down Under Overview:
Over the last few months, the conflict in the disputed territories of Gaza and the West Bank has turned into a war between the Palestinian people and Israel. (I will not apologize for using the term "disputed", as I believe it) Put bluntly, the Palestinian people are buggered. Munted. Stuffed. Rooted (American equivalent = screwed. British equivalent = done over). It's like this: Yasser Arafat turned down the Israeli offer of a Palestinian homeland in Gaza and the West Bank. You want, or Arafat claims that you want, a Palestine "from the river to the sea;" in other words, "all or nothing". There is one insuperable obstacle to this- Israel. No matter how eloquent you r arguments or numerous your martyrs, no matter how many European diplomats are angered by, or UN resolutions are passed against, Israel, the Israelis are not going to pack up and leave. The only way you will get the Palestinian state that you want is to destroy Israel. This is what you have been trying to do since 1948, and the current "intifada" launched in 2000 is your latest effort. However, the Israelis are not standing there and letting you kill them. They are fighting back, and if they have to choose between their own survival and yours, guess which choice they'll make.

(Bill Schorr, United Media March 30, 2004)

A Vast Wringing Of Hands, A Great Fluttering Of Diplomats.
That has been The Unbearable Burden of Life. How did you get into such a mess? As you yourselves would say, and have indeed said on many occasions, it isn't your fault. It's always the "Great Satan" America, and it's "Lesser Satan", Israel, that you blame for all your woes. Everything that you do, such as your "martyrdom operations", are described as the products of your "rage" at being "dispossessed of your land" and of your "helplessness" in the face of "Zionist" might. There are only 300 million Arabs against over 5 million Jews! How unfair! How unjust, that so many can do so little against so few! A number of Western commentators have put Arab failures down to numerous cultural factors, not the least being Islam. Your religious beliefs in martyrdom and jihad, coupled with a total inability to accept any blame for your own predicament, have combined to do you great and lasting damage. Look closely at why Western countries such as Israel have succeeded, and Muslim countries have not. Western countries are free-market democracies. Muslim countries (other than Turkey) aren't. Surely that should tell you something.

(Dana Summers, Orlando, FL, The Orlando Sentinel March 29, 2004)

Where I Stand.
As I said, I do not, and I will not, support the Palestinian cause. Why not? I have a number of reasons, and here they are:

( Robert Ariail, The State, South Carolina March 29, 2004)

1. You have made it clear beyond any shadow of doubt that you intend to destroy Israel and kill or drive out its Jewish population. This is genocide, pure and simple. You justify this by saying that Israel has committed many crimes against your people, and that you seek "justice". I say this in response: NOTHING WHATSOEVER is an acceptable justification for genocide. Loss of land, humiliation at being militarily defeated - others have suffered these and moved on to create new nations and opportunities for themselves. Examples abound: the Germans thrown out of East Prussia in Europe, 1945, the Nationalist Chinese who fled to Taiwan in 1949, to name but two. Germans and Taiwanese have coped with military defeat and the loss of land. They haven't warred with their neighbours, nor have they launched terrorist attacks upon them. Both countries have more wealth than any Arab nation. Why can't Palestinians cope? Are Germans and Chinese better able to deal with adversity than Arabs?

(Robert Ariail, The State, South Carolina January 14, 2004)

2. You have accused the Israelis of "genocide" against you. Here's a question for you: Israel has atomic bombs and powerful military forces. If they really, truly wanted you all dead, they could easily do it. Why haven't they? If the Israelis went all-out, you would be, as we say in New Zealand, "dog tucker". Why did they spend so much time negotiating with your leaders? Because Israel wants peace and secure borders. You refuse to give them even those. You plan genocide and accuse Israel of the same crime. Prove it!

(Steve Kelley, The New Orleans Times-Picayune March 24, 2004)

3. The use of terrorism. Killing people for being Jewish is despicable. Terrorist attacks on innocent civilians are also despicable. (At this point, I'd like to pause and get a question of nomenclature cleared up, regarding those Palestinians who kill themselves and others with explosives strapped to their bodies). You call them "martyrs". Western media sources and academics debate the precise term to use in describing them. Others, including the Israelis, call them terrorists. I have a better, more appropriate term. I prefer to use the word "kamikazes".

(Signe Wilkinson, Pennsylvania, The Philadelphia Daily News March 26, 2004)

The original kamikazes appeared in 1944, in the war in the Pacific. They were Japanese Navy and Army pilots, organised into "Special Attack Units" with orders to crash their planes into American warships, in the hope of destroying them - "one plane, one ship." Their initial impact was similar to that of the Al-Quaeda attacks on New York and the Pentagon- shock and horror. (I noted that many Palestinians appeared on Western TV celebrating the September attacks) Note: The American response, in both cases was not the one hoped for. Once the shock had worn off, the US set out to destroy the kamikazes, and terrible destruction was rained down on Japan, ending only with 2 atomic bombs. You know what is happening right now in Afghanistan to the Al-Quaeda group).

(John Cole, Durham, NC -- The Herald Sun)

4. Using children as suicide bombers. Anyone who teaches children to kill themselves in suicide attacks is not worth supporting under any circumstances. For you to do this to your children is an abomination. A commentator on a Web magazine said that if the Palestinians laid down their arms, they would get peace and land. If the Israelis laid down their arms, they would be killed. You know that is true, even if most of Europe doesn't. Your cause is evil, because it seeks destruction at any price. Genocide is not justice. Sacrificing your own children for the sake of your leader's personal ambitions is wicked. That's why I cannot support you. That's why I stand with Israel.

(Corky Trinidad, The Honolulu Star-Bulletin March 29, 2004)

Palestinian Past or Future?

The Second World War in Europe ended with Hitler's suicide. He was replaced by Admiral Doenitz who quickly made peace with the Allies. Japan's leader, Emperor Hirohito, decided on surrender rather than see his nation destroyed. If Arafat chooses surrender, though, will the rest of the Palestinians go along with it? If he dies, will the war end? If the answer to both of these questions is no, then the Palestinian people are doomed. Do you really prefer death as a people? Do you fully comprehend what you are doing? If you are indeed aware that the path you have embarked on leads to destruction, and if you have freely chosen to walk in that direction, then as a people you are truly beyond hope. Are Palestinians really going to be a "Kamikaze Nation?" Are you really going to give Israel no other option except your destruction? If they must choose, then as Israeli historian Martin Van Creveld said, "better a terrible end than terror without end". Do not think that kamikaze tactics can get you what you want. The Israelis can tell you all about Masada, if you ask them. Remember what happened to the Japanese at places like Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

(Chuck Asay, Colorado -- The Colorado Springs Gazette March 26, 2004)

Palestinians deserve better than the current mess you are in now - but before you can be given anything, you must offer a sincere peace, you must stop teaching your children to hate, you must stop believing that "victim hood" justifies everything and - above all other things - GIVE UP ISRAEL! Accept that you will never go there again except perhaps as workers or tourists. Accept that Jews are human beings. Accept the verdict of 1948 and learn to live with it. Invest in banks, not bombs. Build computer chips, not Kalashnikovs. Teach science and mathematics, not hate. Look to the future, not the past. Stop blaming Americans and Jews for all your problems and take responsibility for your own actions. Read those parts in the Quran on living with the "people of the Book."

(Chris Britt, Springfield, IL -- From the State Journal-Register March 29, 2004)

Golda Meir, the former Israeli Prime minister, is quoted as saying "there will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel." Every time I see pictures of Palestinian children waving guns and wearing dummy explosives, then I can only say she is right. The alternative to peace is not victory but death. Think about it- before it's too late.

(John Cole, Durham, NC -- The Herald-Sun March 29, 2004)

From an Infidel to Those Who Submit, and are living in the Holy Land -
May God grant you steadfastness in the face of things that cannot be changed
The capacity to cope with those that can be changed
And the wisdom and the ability to tell the difference.

(Daryl Cagle, Slate.com, March 30, 2004)

Ali Salem - An Apology from an Arab
September 11, 2002, TIME

An Arab intellectual apologizes, and explains

As an Egyptian, I find myself compelled to apologize to the American people for what happened to them on Sept. 11. I apologize because one of those involved in that horrible disaster was Egyptian. As a man of letters, I declare myself innocent of having any part in the creation of the culture that spawned these individuals. A long time before New York City's Twin Towers were destroyed, many towers in my country were brought down by this same brand of perpetrators. They killed President Anwar Sadat, who initiated peace with Israel and liberalism in Egypt; they killed the Egyptian writer Farag Fouda, a defender of freedom and secularism; they stabbed our Nobel laureate, Naguib Mahfouz, when he was 82 years old, after discovering that 30 years earlier he had written a novel they considered the work of an infidel. They said they had not read the novel. Who told them it was sacrilegious? Someone living in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan, or sitting in a London cafי or a mosque in New Jersey, told them so. In Egypt alone, these fundamentalists have killed more than 1,000 policemen and ordinary citizens, Christian and Muslim alike. In one of the most beautiful places on earth, the temple of Queen Hatshepsut in Luxor, they slaughtered nearly 60 tourists in 1997. In Algeria their sickles endlessly harvest the souls of the poor and helpless. They have committed all these crimes with the purpose of establishing the kingdom of God on earth and have succeeded only in turning our lives into hell.

In my country, art, education and the economy have all been leveled to a ground zero. I'm convinced, though, that the problem we face is not religious but political. And so it will never be solved with a religious summit. If you hold a meeting of Muslim sheiks, Christian pastors and Jewish rabbis, they inevitably come out with blissful smiles and report that they have found their values to be mostly identical, and they are right.

Extremism may claim God as its redeemer, but it's really the selfish product of lunacy. In America, the most free and modern nation of our time, you see it too. You saw it with Jim Jones, who told his flock in Guyana to follow him into death by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid, and you saw it when David Koresh created his own small hell in Waco, Texas.

In my part of the world, the Arab Middle East, a great tragedy results from our governments' well-intentioned attempts to cure society of extremism through education. These leaders, however, don't teach what they should to produce the values they want. They seek moderation and enforce piety. They seek citizens who value life, yet their school curriculums exalt the value of science and ignore philosophy and history and the liberal, humanistic values they embody. That is why those who excel in such a system are no less immune to the call of extremism.

Our governments assume that people need to understand Islam in its purest form to stay religiously moderate. The result is the mass production of true believers, not good citizens. Because people initially welcome the imposed piety but then gradually realize it doesn't equip them to meet the challenges of getting through life, life becomes a morbid burden. To shake off this burden, some of them, usually young men, can't wait for natural death and decide instead to take a short cut to heaven.

Before ascending, they must have a cause that's canonized by their community- the greatest cause on earth, capable of justifying their sacrifice in the eyes of their kin. It's not enough to die fighting for their country; they must be fighting for God. Once they have secured that cause, they search for a way to ennoble it in the eyes of ordinary people who do not share their holy delusion but whose admiration they crave. They know that most people respect logic and reason. So they go looking for a nationalistic cause: this is what Osama bin Laden did when he claimed the Palestinian cause as a justification for the destruction of Sept. 11.

But beneath their claims is a sadder truth: these extremists are pathologically jealous. They feel like dwarfs, which is why they search for towers and all those who tower mightily. We must admit that we failed to teach these people that life is worth living. These extremists exist now, and will exist forever, so the question before us must be, How can we defend both our lives and theirs? We in the Arab world love freedom and want the chance at a decent life. We are not different from you, as it sometimes seems. We may be just temporarily backward. Working together, our governments must decide how, with what culture and by what actions, they will combat the influence of those who hate life.

Ali Salem is a playwright and the author of several books, including "Journey into Israel." He lives in Cairo.

Emilio Karim Dabul - One Arab's Apology
Tuesday, September 12, 2006, New York Post

WELL, here it is, five years late, but here just the same: an apology from an Arab-American for 9/11. No, I didn't help organize the killers or contribute in any way to their terrible cause.

However, I was one of millions of Arab-Americans who did the unspeakable on 9/11: nothing.
The only time I raised my voice in protest against these men who killed thousands of innocents in the name of Allah was behind closed doors, among the safety of friends and family. I did at one point write a very vitriolic essay condemning their actions, but fear of becoming another Salman Rushdie kept me from ever trying to publish it.

Well, I'm sick of saying the truth only in private - that Arabs around the world, including Arab-Americans like myself, need to start holding our own culture accountable for the insane, violent actions that our extremists have perpetrated on the world at large.

Yes, our extremists and our culture.

Every single 9/11 hijacker was Arab and a Muslim. The apologists (including President Bush) tried to reassure us that 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam, but was a twisting of a great and noble religion. With all due respect, read the Koran, Mr. President. There's enough there for someone of extreme tendencies to find their way to a global jihad.

There's also enough there for someone of a different mindset to find a path to enlightenment and peace. Still, Rushdie had it right back in 2001: This does have to do with Islam. A Christian who bombs an abortion clinic in the name of God is still a Christian, at least in his interpretation, and saying otherwise doesn't negate the fact that he has spent a goodly amount of time figuring out his version of the one true and right thing to do.

The men who killed 3,000 of our citizens on 9/11 in all likelihood died saying prayers to Allah, and that by itself is one of the most horrific things to me about that day.

And, while my grandparents never waged a jihad, their attitudes toward Jews weren't that much different than Mohammed Atta's. No, they didn't support the Holocaust, but they did believe that Jews were trouble in many different ways, and those sorts of beliefs were passed on to me before I'd ever actually met a Jew.

I'm sorry for that, for ever believing that anything that my grandparents or other relatives had to say about Jews or Israel, for that matter, had any real resemblance to truth. It took me years to realize that I'd been conned into believing the generalizations and stereotypes that millions around the Arab world buy into: that Jews, America and Israel are our main problem.

One look at the average Arab regime should alert us to the fact that the problem, dear Achmed, lies not overseas or next door in Tel Aviv, but in the brutal, corrupt despots that we have bred from country to country in the Mideast, across the span of history. That history and its corresponding economic devastation is the main reason I reside on New York City's West Bank - New Jersey - not the one near Jerusalem. On my worst day, I'm happy about that fact. I'd rather be here than there, and experience the freedom and boundless opportunities that were mostly unknown to so many generations of my family in the Mideast.

For as long as I live, the image of those towers falling, as I watched in horror and disbelief from the corner of 40th and Fifth, will be for me my Pearl Harbor, for in that instant I recognized that not only was our city under attack - so was our freedom.

It still is. And will continue to be for years to come. And the threat is not from within, but from Islamic fascists who desperately want to destroy the freedom and opportunities that millions the world over still seek.

Five years after that awful day, it's time for all Arab-Americans, and Arabs around the world, to protest against Islamic fascism, to raise our voices - and, where necessary, our arms - against these tyrants until their plague of terror has been driven from the face of the earth forever.

Emilio Karim Dabul is a freelance writer and PR consultant living in New Jersey.

Kamal Nawash - We're sorry for 9/11
September 11, 2004, Free Muslims Coalition

This September 11 marks the third unforgettable anniversary of the worst mass murder in American history.

After September 11, many in the Muslim world chose denial and hallucination rather than face up to the sad fact that Muslims perpetrated the 9-11 terrorist acts and that we have an enormous problem with extremism and support for terrorism. Many Muslims, including religious leaders, and ?intellectuals? blamed 9-11 on a Jewish conspiracy and went as far as fabricating a tale that 4000 Jews did not show up for work in the World Trade Center on 9-11. Yet others blamed 9-11 on an American right wing conspiracy or the U.S. Government which allegedly wanted an excuse to invade Iraq and ?steal? Iraqi oil.

After numerous admissions of guilt by Bin Laden and numerous corroborating admissions by captured top level Al-Qaida operatives, we wonder, does the Muslim leadership have the dignity and courage to apologize for 9-11? If not 9-11, will we apologize for the murder of school children in Russia? If not Russia, will we apologize for the train bombings in Madrid, Spain? If not Spain, will we apologize for suicide bombings in buses, restaurants and other public places? If not suicide bombings, will we apologize for the barbaric beheadings of human beings? If not beheadings, will we apologize for the rape and murder of thousands of innocent people in Darfour? If not Darfour, will we apologize for the blowing up of two Russian planes by Muslim women? What will we apologize for? What will it take for Muslims to realize that those who commit mass murder in the name of Islam are not just a few fringe elements? What will it take for Muslims to realize that we are facing a crisis that is more deadly than the Aids epidemic? What will it take for Muslims to realize that there is a large evil movement that is turning what was a peaceful religion into a cult?Will Muslims wake up before it is too late? Or will we continue blaming the Jews and an imaginary Jewish conspiracy? The blaming of all Muslim problems on Jews is a cancer that is destroying Muslim society from within and it must stop. Muslims must look inward and put a stop to many of our religious leaders who spend most of their sermons teaching hatred, intolerance and violent jihad. We should not be afraid to admit that as Muslims we have a problem with violent extremism. We should not be afraid to admit that so many of our religious leaders belong behind bars and not behind a pulpit. Only moderate Muslims can challenge and defeat extremist Muslims. We can no longer afford to be silent. If we remain silent to the extremism within our community then we should not expect anyone to listen to us when we complain of stereotyping and discrimination by non-Muslims; we should not be surprised when the world treats all of us as terrorists; we should not be surprised when we are profiled at airports. Simply put, not only do Muslims need to join the war against terror, we need to take the lead in this war.

As to apologizing, we will no longer wait for our religious leaders and ?intellectuals? to do the right thing. Instead, we will start by apologizing for 9-11. We are so sorry that 3000 people were murdered in our name. We will never forget the sight of people jumping from two of the highest buildings in the world hoping against hope that if they moved their arms fast enough that they may fly and survive a certain death from burning. We are sorry for blaming 9-11 on a Jewish or right wing conspiracy. We are so sorry for the murder of more than three hundred school children and adults in Russia. We are so sorry for the murder of train passengers in Spain. We are so sorry for all the victims of suicide bombings. We are so sorry for the beheadings, abductions, rapes, violent Jihad and all the atrocities committed by Muslims around the world. We are so sorry for a religious education that raised killers rather than train people to do good in the world. We are sorry that we did not take the time to teach our children tolerance and respect for other people. We are so sorry for not rising up against the dictators who have ruled the Muslim world for decades. We are so sorry for allowing corruption to spread so fast and so deep in the Muslim world that many of our youth lost hope. We are so sorry for allowing our religious leaders to relegate women to the status of forth class citizens at best and sub-humans at worse.

We are so sorry.

Kamal Nawash began life as a Palestinian refugee. One of six children born in Bethlehem, Kamal was nine years old when his family arrived in New Orleans in 1979. Today Kamal is a successful attorney with degrees in business and law and international legal studies. He is the founder of Free Muslims Coalition.

Youssef Ibrahim - To my Arab brothers: The War with Israel Is Over - and they won. Now let's finally move forward
July 12, 2006, Jewish World Review

Dear Palestinian Arab brethren:

The war with Israel is over.
You have lost. Surrender and negotiate to secure a future for your children.
We, your Arab brothers, may say until we are blue in the face that we stand by you, but the wise among you and most of us know that we are moving on, away from the tired old idea of the Palestinian Arab cause and the "eternal struggle" with Israel.
Dear friends, you and your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years. Struggle means less land and more misery and utter loneliness.
At the moment, brothers, you would be lucky to secure a semblance of a state in that Gaza Strip into which you have all crowded, and a small part of the West Bank of the Jordan. It isn't going to get better. Time is running out even for this much land, so here are some facts, figures, and sound advice, friends.
You hold keys, which you drag out for television interviews, to houses that do not exist or are inhabited by Israelis who have no intention of leaving Jaffa, Haifa, Tel Aviv, or West Jerusalem. You shoot old guns at modern Israeli tanks and American-made fighter jets, doing virtually no harm to Israel while bringing the wrath of its mighty army down upon you. You fire ridiculously inept Kassam rockets that cause little destruction and delude yourselves into thinking this is a war of liberation. Your government, your social institutions, your schools, and your economy are all in ruins.
Your young people are growing up illiterate, ill, and bent on rites of death and suicide, while you, in effect, are living on the kindness of foreigners, including America and the United Nations. Every day your officials must beg for your daily bread, dependent on relief trucks that carry food and medicine into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, while your criminal Muslim fundamentalist Hamas government continues to fan the flames of a war it can neither fight nor hope to win.
In other words, brothers, you are down, out, and alone in a burnt-out landscape that is shrinking by the day.
What kind of struggle is this? Is it worth waging at all? More important, what kind of miserable future does it portend for your children, the fourth or fifth generation of the Arab world's have-nots?
We, your Arab brothers, have moved on.
Those of us who have oil money are busy accumulating wealth and building housing, luxury developments, state-of-the-art universities and schools, and new highways and byways. Those of us who share borders with Israel, such as Egypt and Jordan, have signed a peace treaty with it and are not going to war for you any time soon. Those of us who are far away, in places like North Africa and Iraq, frankly could not care less about what happens to you.
Only Syria continues to feed your fantasies that someday it will join you in liberating Palestine, even though a huge chunk of its territory, the entire Golan Heights, was taken by Israel in 1967 and annexed. The Syrians, my friends, will gladly fight down to the last Palestinian Arab.*
Before you got stuck with this Hamas crowd, another cheating, conniving, leader of yours, Yasser Arafat, sold you a rotten bill of goods - more pain, greater corruption, and millions stolen by his relatives - while your children played in the sewers of Gaza.
The war is over. Why not let a new future begin?

*I would like to add that according to one prominent Israeli Mideast scholar, Syria will also fight Israel down to the last Lebanese, while Iran will fight Israel down to the last Syrian. I wonder who is next in line to fight Israel down to the last Iranian.


Arab Majority May Not Stay Forever Silent
July 17, 2006, the New York Sun

Yes, world, there is a silent Arab majority that believes that seventh-century Islam is not fit for 21st-century challenges. That women do not have to look like walking black tents. That men do not have to wear beards and robes, act like lunatics, and run around blowing themselves up in order to enjoy 72 virgins in paradise. And that secular laws, not Islamic Shariah, should rule our day-to-day lives. And yes, we, the silent Arab majority, do not believe that writers, secular or otherwise, should be killed or banned for expressing their views. Or that the rest of our creative elite - from moviemakers to playwrights, actors, painters, sculptors, and fashion models - should be vetted by Neanderthal Muslim imams who have never read a book in their dim, miserable lives. Nor do we believe that little men with head wraps and disheveled beards can run amok in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq making decisions on our behalf, dragging us to war whenever they please, confiscating our rights to be adults, and flogging us for not praying five times a day or even for not believing in God. More important, we are not silent any longer. Rarely have I seen such an uprising, indeed an intifada, against those little turbaned, bearded men across the Muslim landscape as the one that took place last week. The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, received a resounding "no" to pulling 350 million Arabs into a war with Israel on his clerical coattails. The collective "nyet" was spoken by presidents, emirs, and kings at the highest level of government in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Morocco, and at the Arab League's meeting of 22 foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday. But it was even louder from pundits and ordinary people. Perhaps the most remarkable and unexpected reaction came from Saudi Arabia, whose foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, said bluntly and publicly that Hezbollah's decision to cross the Lebanese border, attack Israel, and kidnap its soldiers has left the Shiite group on its own to face Israel. The unspoken message here was, "We hope they blow you away."
The Arab League put it succinctly in its final communique in Cairo, declaring that "behavior undertaken by some groups [read: Hezbollah and Hamas] in apparent safeguarding of Arab interests does in fact harm those interests, allowing Israel and other parties from outside the Arab world [read: Iran] to wreck havoc with the security and safety of all Arab countries." As for Hezbollah and its few supporters, who have pushed for an emergency Arab summit meeting, the response could not have been a bigger slap in the face. Take a listen: * Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of Al-Arabiya, possibly the most influential Arab opinion-maker today, was categorical yesterday: "We have lost most of our causes and the largest portions of our lands following fiery speeches and empty promises of struggle coupled with hallucinating, drug-induced political fantasies." As for joining Hezbollah in its quest, his answer was basically, "you broke it, you own it." * Tariq Alhomayed, editor in chief of the Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, stuck the dagger in deeper: "Mr. Nasrallah bombastically announced he consulted no one when he decided to attack Israel, nor did he measure Lebanon's need for security, prosperity, and the safety of its people. He said he needs no one's help but God's to fight the fight." Mr. Alhomayed's punch line was, in so many words: Go with God, Sheik Nasrallah, but count the rest of us out. Several other Arab pundits, not necessarily coordinating their commentary, noted that today Sheik Nasrallah has been reduced to Osama bin Laden status, a fugitive from Israeli justice, sending out his tapes from unknown locations to, invariably, Al-Jazeera, the prime purveyor of Mr. bin Laden's communications. All in all, it seems that when Israel decided to go to war against the priestly mafia of Hamas and Hezbollah, it opened a whole new chapter in the Greater Middle East discourse. And Israel is finding, to its surprise, that a vast, not-so-silent majority of Arabs agrees that enough is enough. To be sure, beneath the hostility toward Sheik Nasrallah in Sunni Muslim states lies the deep and bitter heritage of a 14-century Sunni-Shiite divide, propelled to greater heights now by fears of an ascendant Shiite "arc of menace" rising out of Iran and peddled in the Sunni world by Syria. The sooner this is settled the better.

Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former New York Times Middle East Correspondent and Wall Street Journal Energy Editor for 25 years, is a freelance writer based in New York City and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

good Jewish boy, bad Jewish boy

Clearly this is Israel - and pretty prophetic, if a little ironic.
Why do they hate the Jews? It suits them - just as it always did.


Neighbourhood Bully by Bob Dylan
album: Infidels (1983)

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.
He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.

doi soldati?

Am crescut intr-o tara care isi dispretuia profund fortele armate, pentru ca regimul insusi era criminal si isi dispretuia cetatenii. Aberatia despotismului comunist in Romania a intrecut, cred eu, umilinta si batjocorirea la care a fost supusa tara in care m-am nascut si a carei limba ramane limba mea materna (desi mama mea vorbea de fapt poloneza), de Poarta care instala pe tron domnitori fanarioti. Am crescut, deci, intr-o tara unde definitia armatei populare era "cind merge - cinta, cind sta - pute". Pentru ca regimul odios in fruntea caruia se instalase o clica de degenerati avea posibilitatea sa calce in picioare timp de 2-3 ani tineretul, sa-l niveleze, sa-l disciplineze si sa-l remodeleze/uniformizeze pentru a-l folosi mai tirziu in orice scop afara de cel militar. Daca ma insel, va rog sa ma contraziceti fara intirziere.
Soldatul roman era folosit la cules cartofi, constructii, drumuri - nu ma refer la acele urgentze (la cutremur, sau inundatii) cind era nevoie de interventie masiva si neintirziata, ma refer la viata de zi cu zi. Soldatul roman era prost hranit, prost echipat, prost instruit. Ce noroc ca Romania nu a fost atacata de nimeni si nu a fost nevoita sa se apere.

Dar nu a fost intotdeauna asa. Armata romana moderna, creata de altfel de Carol I, a adus independenta Romaniei in 1877, i-a batut pe nemti in primul razboi mondial (Marasti, Marasesti si Oituz), si s-a cam bilbiit in al doilea razboi mondial, dar dupa 23 august a intors armele si a luat-o spre vest. Cimitirele militare de toate natiile impinzesc toata Europa, dovada a "pretului" platit de continentul NOSTRU pentru a trai intr-o oarecare libertate, democratie, prosperitate. Cimitirele soldatilor romani ramin marturia contributiei romanilor la libertatea Balcanilor (de sub turci) si a tarilor aflate la vestul Romaniei (de sub nazisti). Au platit cu viata, cu singele, cu trupurile lor ciopartite. Erau tineri sau mai putin tineri, frumosi sau uriti, destepti sau prosti, dar erau fara doar si poate eroi. Care s-au gindit ca urmasii lor au dreptul la o soarta mai buna.

In mod mai mult sau mai putin explicabil, acest pret a fost platit si de americani, a caror interventie a pus capat celor doua razboaie mondiale. E banal, dar va ginditi cam cum ar fi aratat Europa (si nu numai) daca planul lui hitler (sic) ar fi reusit? Citi soldati americani si-au dat viata pentru a elibera Franta, Belgia, Olanda? Francezii, fara sa clipeasca, si-au dat jos chilotii si i-au fluturat pe post de steag alb in fata nemtilor! Polonezii au iesit in fata tancurilor nemtesti cu cavaleria, pentru ca asta aveau, cavaleria era corpul lor de elita. Curaj de sinucigas, onoare dusa la absurd... dar datoria lor de soldati, de a-si apara patria, de a face totul pentru a nu lasa inamicul sa se apropie de femeile, copiii si batrinii din spatele frontului nu i-a lasat sa dea bir cu fugitii. Mult nu le-a ajutat, fireste, dar nimeni nu-i poate acuza pe polonezi de lasitate.

De ce va scriu toate aceste platitudini? Pentru ca vreau sa vorbesc putin despre soldati, pe care este la moda sa-i dispretuim si sa ii categorisim de nazisti, criminali de razboi, etc, etc, etc. Dar cine sint acesti soldati? Unde cresc ei in pom si cam pe unde am putea sa-i cumparam la cintar sau la legatura? Nu cumva sint tatii, fratii, sotii si copiii nostri? Si unde mai pui ca in fortele armate moderne se inroleaza si femei (chiar si in Siria si Libia).
In SUA armata nu este obligatorie. Dar in foarte multe tari, printre care Marea Britanie si Israel, la 18 ani vine ordinul de recrutare. Care e situatia in Romania?

Hai sa vedem putin (si in mod simplist, pentru ca webul este plin de analize, comentarii, specialisti - eu vreau sa va impartasesc gindurile si sentimentele mele) cam care este situatia soldatului israelian vis-a-vis de arabi (in Gaza, West Bank si Liban) pe de o parte, si a soldatilor americani, britanici, romani, polonezi etc. in Afganistan si Iraq, pe de cealalta parte. Toti se lupta cu himere. Teroristii nu au uniforme si nu au vehicole care pot fi identificate ca militare. Ei se deplaseaza de regula in vehicole civile, si de multe ori in ambulante, vehicole de presa si chiar ONU. Deci daca armata ii loveste, "victimele" sint civile, ba mai mult, armata este acuzata ca "ataca" convoaie civile, Crucea Rosie, presa si ONU. Hezbollah paraziteaza pozitii ONU in Liban, punind-si steagurile linga steagurile ONU. Guvernul libanez, ONU, comunitatea europeana tac milc si colaboreza (gen colaborationism francez din WWII), simpatizeaza cu acest organism odios care isi mascheaza activitatea criminala in "rezistenta" - rezistenta la ce? la insasi existenta statului israelian, stat recunoscut de ONU in 1948, dar nerecunoscut oficial de arabi, mai putin Egipt si Iordania (cu care avem tratate de pace, deci de jure) si citeva state Nord-Africane si emirate din Golf cu care avem relatii comerciale (de facto). Hezbollah, Hamas, PLO (da, PLO, Arafat, care a semnat o intelegere de pace si s-a sters cu ea la fund) nu recunosc si nu vor sa auda de Statul Israel, ar vrea sa ne vada victime al unui atac nuclear lansat de Iran, sau cel putin cu statul desfiintat si pe noi aruncati in mare (vorba bancului, daca stiti sa inotati, Ciprul e incolo, daca nu, thank you for flying Lufthansa). Si acum ajung eu la soldatul israelian. Soldatul israelian este recrutat la 18 ani. In functie de arma, dupa 6-9 luni este bun de trimis pe front. Pentru comandouri si trupe speciale instructia este mai lunga. Deci la 18 ani si jumatate soldatul israelian stie ca daca el nu da tot ce are, curaj, discernamint, spirit de sacrificiu, suport pentru fratii lui de arme, teroristii vor trece de el si vor ajunge la parintii lui, la fratii lui, la vecinii lui, s.a.m.d.

Soldatul israelian nu este neaparat evreu. Druzii, beduinii si un numar mic de arabi crestini si musulmani se inroleaza si ei. Druzii in special sint extrem de curajosi si se inroleaza cu entuziasm. Druzii accepta sa existe fara o patrie definita. Religia lor este secreta si este cunoscuta numai de cei care se hotarasc la un moment dat sa o invete si sa o practice. Druz nu poti sa devii, poti doar sa te nasti daca ambii tai parinti sint druzi. Ei sint arabi, fara sa fie musulmani sau crestini. Druzul care se casatoreste cu cineva care nu este druz inceteaza sa mai fie membru al comunitatii druzilor. Numarul druzilor ramine constant, zic ei, iar ei cred in reincarnare, si sint convinsi ca un copil se naste numai cind cineva moare. Multi dintre ei sustin ca isi amintesc viata anterioara (mai ales soldatii care mor tineri). Interesant e faptul ca ei accepta aceasta filozofie de viata si o urmeaza cu seninatate - un gen de karma. Am vizitat un sat druz acum vreo 2-3 ani, si ghidul ne-a spus ca lor le convine sa traiasca in Israel, pentru ca au cetatenie si drepturi egale , nimeni nu-i supara in satele lor, isi fac datoria fata de stat fara ezitare si stiu ca se vor intoarce repede chiar, sau mai bine zis mai ales daca mor tineri si de moarte violenta. Go figure! Beduinii se inroleza si ei si sint cele mai bune calauze prin desert. Faptul ca armata le da drepturi egale cu evreii si cu druzii le ridica moralul, pentru ca in general arabii ii desconsidera pe beduini - beduinii inca sint nomazi, au viata tribala si traiesc in corturi. Au un cod de onoare si de vendetta neegalat nici de mafia. De exemplu, orice om care vrea sa se ascunda poate gasi refugiu la beduini. Daca ai intrat intr-un cort de beduini si te-ai asezat sa bei cu ei cafea, seful familiei largite (trib) este obligat sa te apere cu pretul propriei sale vieti. Timp de trei zile nici nu are dreptul sa te intrebe de ce ai intrat la el in cort. Trebuie insa sa-ti asigure mincare, bautura si culcus. Bineinteles ca nimeni nu profita de ei in asemenea masura, dar asta este traditia si obiceiul lor nascut din conditiile vitrege de viata in desert. Iar daca trebuie sa se razbune, razbunarea poate sa vina si dupa 100 de ani.


Soldatul israelian stie precis care este misiunea lui: nu atit sa apere un teritoriu, cit sa apere populatia civila. Asta fara sa pericliteze populatia civila de pe partea adversa. Numai ca el se lupta cu civili care se ascund dupa alti civili, femei, copii, batrini, care de multe ori sint propria lor (a teroristilor care nu imbraca uniforma) familie, vecini si de multe ori ostatici. Hezbollah se lupta de la el de acasa (vezi House of Hezbollah). Care dintre voi ar acumula un asemenea arsenal de arme acasa si si-ar lasa copiii sa se plimbe nestingheriti printre automate si lansatoare de rachete?
Tineti minte articolul lui Michael Behe? Arabii n-au intirziat sa sara in sus - Michael Behe nu exista, nu e libanez, nu e arab. Sa zicem. Dar cine a vazut pozele cu vacile si cu bunkerul poate sa nu faca legatura cu un articol publicat in The Guardian? Si cum ramine cu Joseph Farah? Si Youssef Ibrahim? Si Kamal Nawash? Si Ali Salem? Dar Emilio Karim Dabul ? Ca sa nu mai vorbim de Brigitte Gabriel.

Crede cineva ca eu ii consider pe toti arabii sau musulmanii teroristi? Dar ce te faci cu pakistanezii (fucking pakis, dupa cum i-au poreclit englezii insisi) care dupa 2-3 generatii nascute si crescute in UK pun la cale sa arunce in aer simultan 10 avioane cu destinatia US? Cu ce drept vin doi fucking pakis dotati cu pasapoarte britanice in regula sa arunce in aer o cafenea din Tel-Aviv?

Cit despre America... Bush, de care am ris cu totii la inceput, a inteles care si unde este pericolul. Nimeni nu spune ca toti arabii, toti musulmanii en masse, ci doar islamofascismul, islamoterorismul si adeptii lui sint de vina. Din pacate, acestia trebuie urmariti si stirpiti fara mila, pentru ca nici in lexiconul lor nu exista termenul mila, dupa cum au dovedit in 9/11, la Londra, la Madrid, in Rusia, si dupa cum o dovedesc in Israel. Si deja si in Danemarca, Norvegia, dar mai ales in Suedia.

Acesta este mesajul de pace al Islamului. Acesta este Califatul.

Fete si baieti, nu este vorba de simpaticul si inteleptul Harun-al-Rashid (un fel de King Solomon, daca vreti), califul Badgadului, care ne incinta din paginile celor 1001 de nopti, (eu personal preferam varianta completa, aparuta acum vreo 20 de ani, cu povestiri picante a la Decameronul). E vorba de Califat dupa modelul Iran si Afganistan, condus de un ayatollah dezechilibrat mental, care ar trebui dus de urgenta la psihiatru. In Afganistanul sub regim Taliban stadioanele de fotbal gazduiau, in loc de derbiuri gen Steaua-Dinamo, executii publice. Suporterii entuziasti strigau Allah-u-Akbar in timp ce zeci si sute de femei vinovate de cine stie ce crime, gen - nu erau destul de pioase, aveau vreun iubit, au iesit din casa neinsotite - erau spinzurate sumar si fara drept de apel. Ce daca aveau copii mici acasa si barbatii lor fusesera si ei ucisi de Taliban?
In Iran tot asa, femei care au fost violate sint ingropate pina la briu in pamint si omorite cu pietre a caror marime este stabilita prin lege, pentru a nu omori din prima lovitura (prea mari) sau a ramine fara efect (prea mici); in Iran sint spinzurati barbati suspecti de homosexualitate si alte pacate capitale, femei nemaritate indecente - vine macaraua in centrul orasului si ridica fara prea multa ceremonie in aer, cu latul de git, victime care de multe ori habar nu au de ce li se pregateste - inclusiv fete de 16 ani.

As putea sa invoc principiul neamestecului in treburile interne ale altui stat suveran - si il invoc. In definitiv, sa faca ce vor la ei acasa, cui nu-i place sa se plinga la ONU, precis Kofi Annan o sa-si exprime regretul, ingrijorarea sau indignarea, si probabil ca o sa aiba ceva de spus ca ocupatia israeliana e de vina, sau cluster bombs folosite de americani si israelieni, in razboaiele lor de cotropire si oprimare ale unor biete tarisoare arabe nevinovate si bine intentionate care nu vor mai nimic, decit sa ne puna iar iataganul si hangerul la git - ati uitat rezistenta romanilor in fata Imperiului Otoman? Ati uitat ce faceau turcii in Tara Romaneasca si Moldova? Ati uitat ca intrau cu caii in biserici si faceau din ele grajduri? Unde si cind v-ati pierdut idignarea, dragi crestini ortodocsi? Ati uitat baietii luati cu sila pentru corpul de ieniceri? Fetele furate pentru haremuri? Asta este Islamul, numai ca azi nu mai vin calare pe cal sa-ti taie gitul, vin calare pe avion si ataca WTC, unde pot taia mii de gituri deodata. Azi vin cu dinamita la briu si cauta unde sint mai multi civili, femei, copii, batrini, pasageri in autobuze sau metro, consumatori la cafenea sau la restaurant, oameni care fac cumparaturi la mall.

Numai ca aceste state suverane de mai sus vor sa se amestece in treburile interne ale statului meu suveran, si chiar si in treburile mele particulare de persoana suverana, se baga in farfuria mea si scotocesc in chilotii mei, si ar vrea sa platesc cu vietisoara mea pentru ceea ce nu le place lor - ca nu ma imbrac cum trebuie, ca nu ma rog destul, sau ca m-am pupat cu fostii colegi de liceu (de persuasiune masculina), ba chiar cu unii de mai multe ori, si m-am si imbratisat cu ei, ca deh, ne cunoastem de o viata si ne era dor unul de altul. Sa nu mai zic de cintecele pe care le-am cintat spre delectarea celor care au rezistat pina la acele ore tirzii...

Si atunci, cum sa ma apar eu de aceste state suverane ostile? Sa ies eu, la virsta mea de 50 de ani, cu coasa, furca sau securea in mina sa ma bat cu ei? Sau sa-i las pe soldatii antrenati special pentru asta sa o faca in locul meu, asa cum o face omenirea de la inceputurile ei, asa cum o fac si animalele? (Afara de hiene si poate elefanti, care sint "amazoane"). Si cind acesti soldati se intorc morti si raniti, sa-i scuip? Sa-i injur? Sau sa strig in gura mare ca ii iubesc si ca le datorez viata zi de zi si clipa de clipa? Si nu numai viata, ci si stilul de viata. Cei dintre noi care traiesc in vest, America, Europa, Canada - de ce ati plecat din Romania? Ca si mine, banuiesc, pentru ca groaza de a continua sa traiesti sub o abjecta dictatura era mai mare decit groaza de necunoscut (si mai ales de a-ti condamna copiii la asa ceva). Ne-am dorit sa traim potrivit valorilor si normelor vestice, libertate, democratie, dreptul la cuvint, dreptul la protest, prosperitate, dreptul la informatie. Il ma tineti minte pe nea Ceasca? Era bine cu el? Nu ne rugam sa vina americanii sa ne ocupe?


Dragutilor, aceste drepturi nu vin pe gratis - aceste drepturi se cuceresc prin lupte singeroase, cu pret greu pe care l-au platit America si Europa de-a lungul sutelor de ani. Cine le-a platit? Toti, soldati si civili, oameni care au considerat ca merita sa-ti dai viata pentru principii si pentru valori, si mai ales pentru a lasa urmasilor o lume mai buna. Si eu sint contra razboiului din Iraq, si a pierderii de vieti omenesti, mai ales de soldati americani, britanici, romani si care or mai fi pe acolo. Si in Afganistan. Si in special in Liban.

Doi soldati, ziceti voi? merita toata tarasenia asta pentru doi soldati? Ia hai sa numaram un pic:
in anul 2000 Hezbollah rapeste trei soldati israelieni - doi evrei si un beduin. Asta dupa retragerea trupelor din Liban, conform hotaririi ONU 425, daca nu gresesc. Hezbollah nu implementeaza hotarirea, ONU si Kofi Annan nu se pronunta, adica se fac complici cu teroristii, care au folosit insemne si vehicole ONU in operatiunea de rapire a celor trei soldati de pe teritoriul Israelului. Numai ca Hezbollah ii da de gol. In scopuri de propaganda, Hezbollah filmeaza toate operatiunile de teroare impotriva Statului Israel. De curind s-a difuzat filmul cu aceasta rapire, bineinteles ca orice urma de ONU a fost stearsa de pe film, numai ca Israelul reusise sa obtina casetele originale filmate de trupele ONU, unde se vedea clar duplicitatea sau complicitatea soldatilor indieni. Confruntat cu dovezile, Annan reuseste sa mormaie niste scuze bilbiite, dar nici vorba sa lanseze vreo ancheta sau sa redefineasca rolul trupelor ONU in Liban (Unifil). Sa-si dea demisia? Have you lost your mind? Pai cum sa-si mai faca beizadea Kojo avere? Cum sa se mai distreze reprezentantii ONU in Africa cu fetite de 8 ani? Sa se deplaseze ei pina la Darfur sa opreasca genocidul de acolo? Are you crazy? ONU este "la meilleure chose dans le meullieur des mondes possibles". Dar sa revenim la rapirea din anul 2000. In filmul Hezbollah unul dintre soldati este viu, nu se vede clar daca e ranit, sau socat, dar merge pe propriile sale picioare si este imbrincit intr-un vehicol. Deci cel putin unul dintre soldati a fost capturat viu. Atunci de ce citiva ani mai tirziu Israelul a primit inapoi trei sicrie? Hezbollah nu a putut sa tina in viata un soldat israelian tinar si sanatos in virsta de vreo 20 de ani? Si voi considerati asta normal?
Unde este Ron Arad, un navigator/aviator israelian luat prizonier in Liban in 1986 si care a disparut pur si simplu de pe fata pamintului? Parintii lui Ron Arad erau din Romania. Ron Arad a fost transferat de la Amal la Hezbollah si cei care l-au tinut in prizonierat l-au infometat si torturat dupa cum se vede in poza, dupa cit este de cahectic si terorizat. Mai mult decit atit, cei care l-au tinut prizonier il plimbau in portbagajul masinii lor si il aratau ca pe un freak de circ. Voi considerati asta normal?
Nu mai vorbesc ca Hezbollah lanseaza rachete spre nordul Israelului mai tot timpul, ne-am obisnuit. De regula nu fac victime, doar pagube. Zicem merci ca scapam cu viata. Dar oare cum ar reactiona Romania, America, Franta, etc la asa ceva? Tot ar zice bogdaproste c-au scapt si si-ar vedea de treaba?

12 iulie 2006. Hezbollah violeaza granita internationala cu Israelul, ataca o patrula de granita pe teritoriul israelian, omoara OPT soldati, rapeste DOI soldati. Concomitent lanseaza atacuri cu rachete asupra noua orase din Nordul Israelului. Despre cei doi soldati nu se stie daca sint vii, morti, raniti, etc.
Vreo 4000 de rachete au aterizat in Israel in timpul conflictului. Au omorit soldati si civili, evrei, arabi (crestini, musulmani), beduini, druzi. Au lovit spitale, scoli, case, centre comericale, zone rezidentiale, au distrus strazi si masini. Multe dintre aceste rachete contineau bile de rulment (cel putin 10,000 fiecare) minjite cu otrava de soareci - anticoagulant de tip Coumadin - si materii fecale, pentru a agrava ranile si a exacerba suferinta ranitilor, prin prelungirea singerarii si prin infectii (cineva a stat si a balacarit bilele de rulment in cacat, pardon de expresie - saracii arabi!!!).

Internetul e plin de asemenea filme, de pe ambele parti, adica israeliana si libaneza. Numai ca cauza (sic) arabilor e sustinuta si aparata de presa, de ONU si de Eurabia. Cine? Si mai stiti ceva? Am ajuns pina aici si nu am subliniat suficient ca acest conflict nici macar nu exista intre Liban si Israel, ci intre o organizatie terorista controlata si finantata de Siria si Iran, care actioneaza de pe teritoriul libanez si care a luat statul si poporul libanez ostatici. Daca am mai spus-o, o repet si bine fac, pentru ca vreau sa intelegeti foarte bine acest aspect. Voua vi se pare normala aceasta situatie? Ati accepta ca statul in care traiti sa fie atacat de o organizatie terorista dintr-un stat vecin, care stat sustine ca nu are nici un control asupra acelei organizatii si asupra teritoriului pe care aceasta organizatie il ocupa? Pentru ca Sudul Libanului nu a vazut picior de soldat libanez de 30-40 de ani (stiu, exista un asemenea stat european, Franta, unde politia nu pune piciorul in anumite cartiere locuite de? de? de? tot n-ati ghicit? arabi din Africa de Nord, parca, nu?, dar eu ma refer la state normale). Deci voua vi se pare normal?

Doi soldati israelieni vs 1000 de civili libanezi? Stai sa vedem. Astia sint mortii nostri, unul cite unul. Au nume, au chip, au trecut. Cine sint mortii libanezi? Cine i-a numarat? Cine stie daca sint de acum sau de alta data? Cita vreme lumea crede in mascarada de la Qana, eu refuz sa cred datele care vin Liban. Cita vreme Fuad Siniora a plins cu lacrimi de crocodil, in fata ministrilor de externe ai Ligii Arabe, jelind cele 40 de victime de la Hula, unde tocmai atacase aviatia israeliana, si care pina la urma, ca in cei zece negri mititei, s-au redus la un singur cadavru (regretabil, fara indoiala), cita vreme deci guvernul libanez, purtatorul de cuvint de la Hezbollah, crucea rosie libaneza, sau alta asemenea organizatie mincinoasa, neserioasa sau de-a dreptul terorista, raporteaza ceva, eu refuz sa cred, sau aplic formula Siniora - x:40. Nu neg ca au fost victime, dar as vrea sa vad un raport corect, obiectiv, autentic. Arabii prea mint ca sa-i mai pot crede, sorry.

Lumea inca nu poate sa creada ca Israelul are dreptul si datoria sa se apere, sa-si apere cetatenii si soldatii, si infrastructura. Cu avioane, tancuri, torpile. E greu de crezut dupa ce timp de peste 2000 de ani evreii au fost umiliti, persecutati, exterminati, izgoniti, jefuiti, batjocoriti, convertiti cu forta la islam sau la Crestinism. Cite acte de terorism au comis evrei indignati impotriva celor ce le-au facut rau? Dar de-acum, de cind exista Statul Israel, gata, ajunge! Israelul traieste intr-o mare de arabi, fara gluma. Palestina Antica, unde se aflau Iudeea si Israelul, sint Israelul de azi, parte din Iordania, parte din Liban, poate chiar si din Siria, parte din Sinai, nu-mi dau seama si nu prea are importanta, pentru ca Israelul nu are pretentii la aceste teritorii. Dar vrem sa fim lasati in pace intre frontierele care ni s-au recunoscut.

Mi-am ilustrat "dizertatia" cu poze de soldati israelieni si americani, whom everybody so loves to hate and slur, comitind crime de razboi inimaginabile si atrocitati de nedescris, pe care si mass-media se sfieste sa le dea publicitatii. Eu am mai mult curaj.

Este cert ca printre soldati, ca si printre civili, exista "uscaturi" care de multe ori se dedau la tot felul de acte care nu corespund standardelor morale ale armatelor moderne si ale soldatilor produsi de societati democratice. Numai ca societatile democratice iau masuri impotriva acestor soldati care abuzeaza de puterea si de autoritatea lor. Israelul, USA si Marea Britanie, printre altele, aduc acesti soldati in fata justitiei si ii pedepsesc. "Curajosii militanti" de la Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, PLO, etc, cu cit comit atentate mai josnice si mai singeroase, cu atit sint mai bine rasplatiti, ei si familiile lor. Organizatiile palestiniene sint finantate de petrodolari din Golf, uniunea europeana, donatii particulare. Sinteti siguri ca nu donati bani pentru a-i sprijini in activitatea lor terorista impotriva voastra?

Nu pot sa inchei fara Charlot, in "the Great Dictator": Demokratie? Stunk! Libertie? Stunk! Und die Chutten!!! Ja, Die Chutten!!! - zicea Adenoid Hynkel.

Constat ca dupa o vreme unele articolele nu mai sint accesibile pe net. Din care cauza le voi copia separat, pentru posteritate.