David Versus Goliath in the Middle East

This week brings another round of one-sided battles between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza. I think many Americans are like my 10-year-old self, thinking of Israel as an innocent democracy surrounded by implacable enemies. And no doubt 1973 saw the very existence of Israel threatened. But now it’s Israel as the region’s Goliath, backed by the military and financial might of the United States. The blank check of support that the U.S. gives to Israel emboldens the Israeli state to take the harshest measures against the peoples of Gaza. I read articles that say the Biden administration has to intervene and broker a peace, but how is this possible when the U.S. is so clearly on the side of Israel? Palestinian voices just aren’t heard in the mainstream media here; even alternative media sites tread carefully, knowing the power of Israeli lobbies and fearing the stigma of being labeled anti-Semitic.

I understand the trauma of the Jewish people. For several years I taught a course on the Holocaust, after attending a seminar at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC. Of course, the Jewish people have a right to exist. But so too do the Palestinians, who have legitimate grievances of their land being stolen, among other crimes.

Fear, hatred, aggression, and more and more bombs are not going to bring peace. That’s one thing I do know.

Bracing Views

david and goliath_aaron wolpert

W.J. Astore

When I was a kid, I was a big admirer of Israel.  I saw Israel as being surrounded by implacable enemies bent on its destruction.  Israel was the plucky underdog, David against Goliath, with Goliath being Arab countries like Egypt and Syria, having militaries trained and equipped by the Soviet Union, sworn enemy of the U.S. during the Cold War (or so my ten-year-old mind saw it).  I recall keeping a scrapbook of articles on the Yom Kippur War of 1973.  I cheered the Israeli “blitzkrieg” (What an odd term for a daring Jewish armored attack!) that crossed the Suez Canal and isolated the Egyptian Third Army, as well as the Israeli riposte on the Golan Heights against Syria.

That was 1973.  Forty-one years later, Israel is engaged in yet another assault on Gaza and the Palestinians.  Compared to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the Palestinian militants…

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74 thoughts on “David Versus Goliath in the Middle East”

  1. A certain amount of irony here …
    The Nazis considered the Jews sub-humans and marked them for extermination.
    The Israelis have done the same with with the Palestinians.
    The Nazis wanted “Lebensraum” and were prepared to do anything to achieve that goal.
    The Israelis have been attempting to do that with Gaza for decades.
    Europe and the world stood by and watched the Nazis get that ball rolling.
    Europe and the world have stood by and cheered on the Israelis.
    Who are the “jack-booted thugs” now?

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Yes, the Lebensraum analogy sadly is only too accurate. As is the ‘civilised’ world not just looking the other way, but actually justifying what is happening there. Whether from a twisted sense of guilt towards Israel, or not wanting to ‘offend’ their Jewish voters in the US. Bernie Sanders once more being a shining example of a different attitude.
      I very much suggest to watch Al Jazeera English (for free on line) for proper info about this conundrum. Biased ? Much less than US and European MSM. How many of those interview Palestinian and Hamas executives to hear their opinion ? AJE regularly asks Israeli powerbrokers for their opinion. From their smug police spokesman, to journalists, to ambassadors or generals. I admit that I generally turn off the sound when they speak, as it is too gut wrenching. AJE also shows damage done by Hamas in Israel. A lot of the quality of the live coverage depends of course on the journalist who happens to be the anchor at any time, but I do recommend having them on your computer in the background.
      I think Hamas was stupid to start the rocket attack, when it knows all too well what the cost will be for Gaza’s population and that it cannot possibly win with the Israeli army. But with the whole world on edge by Covid, who am I to judge their nerves having snapped after the blatant provocations in Jerusalem, during Ramadan and Eid of all times … Here’s pictures :
      https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/5/14/in-pictures-death-and-destructions-in-gaza-amid-israeli-attacks

      Liked by 1 person

      1. am dubious that you, pamela, are at all deceived by the duplicitous machinations of ‘hamas’, which you must know is a zionist contrivance of the IDF, who pertinaciously, w/out respiring a lung-full of air, blast w/ insouciant disregard for the odd 3 or 4 israelis their rockets kill. those putatively palestinian-triggered rockets across the border into israeli-purloined palestinian territory.

        given the palestinians are also semites who speak a semitic language that is a verisimilitude of hebrew, and who appear to be simulacra of israelites, it is a no-brainer that the israelite mossad/military factions of netanyahu’s myrmidons can ape, disguise themselves as arabs, launch these supposed hamas-triggered rocket attacks, and manumit themselves from punition, UN sanctions, or most international mass-media vituperations against them.

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        1. It of course has crossed my mind :-), although I would not neccesarily go as far as looking for Israelis disguised as Hamas members, even if such characters are frequent among Palestinian civilians. But it is enough to have truly Palestinian Hamas members who can be manipulated. Whether by exploiting internal feuds, financial corruption or blackmail. Many of them have close family members already in Israeli jails or in areas where they can easily be locked up or summarily killed by some religious extremist settler.
          Such provocations of senseless attacks are nothing new. I am convinced that a fair number of those recently attributed to ‘the taliban’ in Afghanistan – even when there is no proof for that and they more likely might be the work of ISIS – also are instigated by ‘third parties’, including the US. As that will provide ‘justification’ for not withdrawing after all and/or having ‘peace negotiations’ fail, while blaming the taliban for not keeping their part of the bargain …

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          1. …and what an effective ploy it has been in the past, pamela! however, am sensing, tnx to the internet and more international travel, increasing numbers in the neoteric generations who are coming on-stream, are not going to be so easily duped by what was previously an efficacious strategy, engineered by the subreptitious, banked-backed CMIC and all their swamp-slimed troglodytes…. at least compared to the cold-war zeitgeist of gullible, flag-waving americans.

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    2. From what I’ve heard, media coverage within Israel is usually much more critical of the Israeli government than U.S. coverage of the same events. Let that sink in for a moment. It’s almost as if the U.S. mainstream media is acting as an official arm of the Israeli government.

      We can’t have informed opinions if we’re only given one slanted side of the story. Which I suppose is the point. Thus the general sense in the U.S. that Israel is good and all other regional actors are bad. Always.

      And of course we must remember the evangelical Christian attachment to Israel and the holy land, wrapped up in ideas about a Rapture that could come at any moment. Led by Trump, perhaps? God works in mysterious ways, after all. And don’t forget who posed with a Bible outside that church in DC.

      Liked by 2 people

  2. Yasha Levine, who wrote the brilliant book Surveillance Valley , has a good site called
    Immigrants as a Weapon. I’ve been enjoying his series on the campaign to move Soviet Jews from Russia and “use” them on the borders of Israel’s expansion into, “their neighbors” territory. So here is a piece he wrote recently and I would definitely recommend following his storyline on how the leaders in Israel used our countries “luminary’s” to sell, through their propaganda, the false narrative of a coming genocide upon the Soviet Jews that would be equal or greater than the Nazi campaign. Israel needed the bodies and used it’s own people to create the gigantic snake they are trying to control today. Nefarious indeed!

    https://yasha.substack.com/p/pkd-the-zionists-drove-one-million?r=1h26e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Israel and their US Agents provide all expense paid junkets to Republican and Democratic Senators and House Representatives where they’re indoctrinated only in the Jewish side of the conflict. Palestinians can’t afford to compete.

      US Christian Zionists have turned temporal Israel re-created from the Bible after an absence of some 2800 years into an IDOL that can do no wrong, even though it’s increasingly obvious Israel is erecting an Apartheid State treating Palestinians with the same disdain the Nazis treated Jews in another Place and Time.

      Armageddon was derived from Har Megiddo located in the Roman Occupied West Bank of Judea and Samaria in Palestine 2000 years ago. Har Megiddo-Armageddon still exists as a physical place, but is now under the control of temporal Israel.

      After all those Centuries, the Occupation of the West Bank in Palestine is still an unresolved open wound in the Middle East and the World.

      What we are reading and seeing in the Secular, non-religious, Main Stream Media Today, the pictures and possibilities they propagate, is the Revelation of this Biblical Vision of a Future Time that has Finally Arrived as the Final Final Solution.

      And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. (false beliefs about God in Judaism, Christianity & Islam. Written some 500 years before Islam, the 3rd arm from the Jewish Old Testament record appeared. Christianity is the 2nd arm)

      For they are the spirits of DEVILS, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth (Billionaires, Presidents, Prime Ministers, Senators, CEOs, and other Idols of the People) and of the whole world, (the rest of Humanity – us) to gather them to the Battle of that Great Day of God Almighty. (the war is already underway Today between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, leading to the climax of that Great Day. Trump’s War with Islam acted that line out in Real Time and it continues)

      Behold, I come as a thief. (when you least expect it)
      Blessed is he that watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
      Revelation 16:13-16

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      1. Providing “ guided” “unbiased “ tours are part of their playbook most definitely Ray. Yasha has a good article about bringing some respected Jews over to the USSR and providing tours that staged the “horror of life” for the “chosen” in that country. Some real fine stagecraft that begged to stretch one’s imagination! They then came back home to the USA, and wrote some fantastical stuff that drummed up the fears of the “Soviet Genocide “ which was about to go down. It whipped up the sentiment of our bleeding hearts for everything Israel and the push from these fans of Israel created the pressure from Washington to… “set our people free from communist oppression and the looming genocide. Once the Soviet Jews made it home to the motherland; they were placed at the bottom of the food and job chain; no matter how degreed. Yep! They were the new “ human wall” between the Palestinians and the “chosen faithful”! Occupiers on stolen land; sorta like standing on shaky ground!

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  3. No wonder you initially thought of Israel as a David facing a Goliath, Professor Astore: that’s the propaganda the Israelis have always projected. I got the same impression in high school classes.

    The truth, that the persecuted have become the persecutors, is more difficult to internalize, given our collective knowledge of the atrocities of the Holocaust.

    My mother used to say, “They’ve been fighting over there [the Middle East] for a thousand years. We’re never going to fix it, so we should just stay out of it.” I tend to agree; at the very least, we should stop supporting Israel in ANY way, then condition any future assistance on Israel’s acceptance of an independent Palestinian state.

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      2. The Jewish people may account for less than 0.2% of the world’s population, but among the 1,426 billionaires around the globe, 165 or 11.6% of them are Jews, and their joint wealth has reached the incredible amount of $812 billion, according to Forbes Israel.

        They can more than make up for the $3.5 BILLION in weapons + the US gives Israel EVERY YEAR. including the many US Tax Credits and Deductions supporting Israeli causes.

        There is always overwhelming delirious bi-partisan support for any issue concerning Israel in the US Congress, but that bi-partisanship disappears for the many serious issues dividing Americans.

        The Israeli Star of David is on the backside of EVERY US Dollar.

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    2. The roots of Jewish Arab hostilities begins with the Zionist movement in the late 19th century with Herzl. Even in the early 20th century the Jews and Arabs were living in peace because there were only 3% Jews living there then. After Jews started immigrating into Palestine and their population grew is when issues began. In the 30’s with the rise of Hitler the Jews (most of them were in Poland) were communicating with Palestine telling them “we are living on a volcano” and they soon thought something bad would happen. Considering every country basically shut their doors to any Jews coming in, including the US, the European Jews were in a very bad place. So the zionists tried their hardest to bring as many to Palestine as possible. But the British put a limit on the number of Jews allowed in Palestine. Then in 1939 Hitler invaded Poland and we know the results. After the British left Palestine the zionists were ruthless pushing the Arabs out. The roots of this latest fighting is the plan to displace dozens of Arab families from eastern Jerusalem.

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      1. and if they do not succeed in “displacing them” they will summarily bomb, shoot, and bulldoze the palestinians into oblivion, simply b/c the zionist jews have the power to do so, w/ impunity, due to the pervasive international guilt-by-association for the deplorable nazi holocaust… for which most of us had no more responsibility than the scapegoated palestinians, who have been the sacrificial lambs for nazi-implemented iniquities and atrocities for nearly 8 decades.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. it behooves me to add that during our 3 years in the hashemite kingdom of jordan [1988~1991] we witnessed young palestinians, some as young as 9, being brought into the refugee camps where our canadian family volunteered on weekends, outside ferdous where we lived at the time. these children had participated in the intifadah, been grabbed by obscenely-armed, hi-tech israeli ‘defense’ [offence] forces, for the putative “crime” of these children’s throwing impuissant, useless stones at the IDF brigands. they had been bent over outcroppings of large boulders, had their skinny childlike arms outstretched across the boulders, and then smashed w/ the butt-end of IDF rifles until their bones were broken in several places… their humerus, radius, and ulna bones… in order to “prevent them from ever throwing another stone at the IDF again”… as cavalierly asseverated, w/ arrogant hubris, by israeli govt. spokespersons. where were the international human rights groups then, eh? no one cared. no one listened to our pleas for surcease.

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        1. That’s insanely barbaric. My wife says these are the retrogressors; the dark forces who prefer matter over spirit. Their energy of heart is closed. To ask for others to notice this tragedy and provide help to those children to relieve their suffering , and for those in need to to be ignored breaks my faith down a notch or two.

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      3. At the time of the 1st Zionist Congress in 1897, Jews made up only 8% of Palestine’s population.
        That went up to 8.1% by the end of WWI.
        The Jewish population doubled to 16.9% in 1931 and almost doubled again to 30.0% in 1946.
        In 1948, the percentage of Jews in Palestine reached 82.1%.

        The Jewish Virtual Library says the Jewish percentage of all the People in Palestine reached a peak of 88.9% between 1955-1960, and has been in steady decline since then.

        In 2019, Jews made up only 74.3% of the population of Palestine in the Balfour Declaration.
        Even Jews are beginning to see Zionist Israel is NOT the Promised Land of their Faith if the People were doing it the Right Way.

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        1. Many ironies here. Starting, of course, with the original intent of the Zionists to seed settlers in the “promised land” and grow them into a 5th column which would displace, replace and remove the indigenous Palestinians. But it was a tough sell from day one (even now, not so easy) to get Jews across the world to give up their lives, jobs, houses and so forth to head for the ancestral location and start over again.
          So, big irony about Balfour, after whom so many streets are named in Israel (in the manner of MLK streets in the US) including the address of the prime minister. Lord Arthur Balfour was an anti-Semite and came to the attention of Chaim Weizmann when, in 1905, Balfour promoted measures to keep Jewish refugees fleeing pogroms from going to the UK. Weizmann used that to direct Jewish refugees to Palestine. A note or two of cynicism there about what eventually led to the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
          Then, when the Russian revolution got rid the the czar and the communists proclaimed equalities, Jews elsewhere believed in the claims and at least partially because of that the communist party in the US was about 50% Jewish.
          In the meantime, getting Jews, on their own, without a push, to give it all up to start over again in Palestine was still tough. Then the Nazi holocaust and after the war Jews go to Palestine to establish Israel … hold up a tad, not quite. Jews were still not that eager to go there but, as with Balfour not wanting Jews in the UK a lot of nations were not so eager for Jews, despite desperate situations, so, in a type of repeat advantage, Zionists again used the need of the refugees and the inhospitableness of many nations in that moment, to direct refugees to Palestine.
          After that we get the Nakba, another genocide (ethnic cleansing) this time by Jews against a people who had never committed genocide against Jews. Then long term, bit-at-a-time, “cleansing” often in “mow the lawn” operations. Just small enough, each time and short enough each time, to avoid the type of world response they should have gotten.

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          1. thank you, mike strong; your accounting of the european zionist diaspora and their expropriations of palestinian lands, orchards, grazing fields, pre- and post-colonial england, is as accurate as it is elucubrating for the uninformed, the mis-informed, the mislead, the aporic, and the ‘who-cares’ apathetic.

            one of the most dramatic and illuminating publications i have read on this subject is walid khalidi’s 1984 publication, “BEFORE THEIR DIASPORA: A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1846~1948”, written primarily during said’s years as a visiting scholar at harvard university. khalidi’s book is bespattered w/ accompanying text throughout.

            another informative publication is edward w. said’s THE EDWARD SAID READER, published in 2000. professor said is now dead, but he was a palestinian poet, pianist, provacateur, and full professor at columbia university until his death in 2003. said was a gifted scholar who elucidated the relentless process of enantiodromia, i.e. the tendency for processes to transmogrify into their antitheses, particularly in the socio-political ambit of human historical expressions.

            netenyahu and his consociate zionist thugs need brain elutriations from their perfervid hatreds, and they need heart detergements from their toxic excoriations of palestinians, whose primary ‘modus-vivendi’ have been their efforts to reclaim their zionist-purloined lands for nearly 80 years…. for which they have been the victims of unrelenting, remorseless vituperations against them, aimed at the gormless vulgate by the poisonous mass media of europe and america.

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          2. The Sun set on the 247 year British Empire with WWII, and the US took on the Mantle of Empire. It might have been different had the British remained in charge.

            “It has been urged that the expression “a national home for the Jewish people” offered a prospect that PALESTINE might in due course become a Jewish State or Commonwealth.

            His Majesty’s Government do not wish to contest the view, which was expressed by the Royal Commission, that the Zionist leaders at the time of the issue of the Balfour Declaration recognized that an ultimate Jewish State was not precluded by the terms of the Declaration.

            But, with the Royal Commission, His Majesty’s Government believe that the framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intended that PALESTINE should be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population of the country. That PALESTINE was not to be converted into a Jewish State might be held to be implied in the passage from the Command Paper of 1922 which reads as follows,
            “Unauthorized statements have been made to the effect that the purpose in view is to create a wholly Jewish PALESTINE. Phrases have been used such as that `PALESTINE is to become as Jewish as England is English.’ His Majesty’s Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view. Nor have they at any time contemplated …. the disappearance or the subordination of the Arabic population, language or culture in PALESTINE.

            They would draw attention to the fact that the terms of the (Balfour) Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded IN PALESTINE.”
            But this statement has not removed doubts, and His Majesty’s Government therefore now declare unequivocally that it is not part of their policy that PALESTINE should become a Jewish State. They would indeed regard it as contrary to their obligations to the Arabs under the Mandate, as well as to the assurances which have been given to the Arab people in the past, that the Arab population of PALESTINE should be made the subjects of a Jewish State against their will.”

            The Jewish terrorists came out of the woodwork after this British White Paper and emigration by European Jews to Palestine was restricted.

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  4. With apologies to the shade of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his immortal poem “Ozymandias,” I offer here a brief meditation on the current, continuing, and contemplated depredations of the Apartheid Zionist Entity upon those captive Palestinian Arabs who had absolutely nothing to do with the German/Christian persecution of Jews in Europe before and during World War II.

    Cozy, Scandalous

    I met a refugee from Gaza Strip,
    Who spoke to me with empty, staring eyes
    Dumb words whose depth of pain I could not grip
    With all the helping hands the world denies
    While lapping up the lurid lies that slip
    And roll so greasy off the practiced tongue
    Of Zionists whose caged and wounded prey
    Are told to flee and leave their dying young
    To weep beside the corpses of their old
    In darkened shattered former homes where they
    Cannot refute the garbage we’ve been told
    By glib Israeli liars trained to spread
    A veil of darkness over crimes they’ve sold
    As “Peaceful Co-Existence” — with the dead.

    Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2009

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    1. It makes me so angry to see Israel claim it’s defending itself with it’s jet Fighters demolishing huge apartment blocks, displacing hundreds of Families in Gaza, leaving them with no place to go, and feeling powerless to have any immediate effect to stop the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians with impunity.

      They think it’s an act of respect for Human life, to drop their “knock bomb” to tell the Palestinian Civilians to leave their homes within a minute before Israel totally demolishes 16 story apartment residences.

      This describes the reality of that Israeli kindness,

      Running Orders
      By Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

      They call us now.
      Before they drop the bombs.
      The phone rings
      and someone who knows my first name
      calls and says in perfect Arabic
      “This is David.”
      And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass shattering symphonies
      still smashing around in my head
      I think “Do I know any Davids in Gaza?”
      They call us now to say
      Run.
      You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.
      Your house is next.
      They think of it as some kind of
      war time courtesy.
      It doesn’t matter that
      there is nowhere to run to.
      It means nothing that the borders are closed
      and your papers are worthless
      and mark you only for a life sentence
      in this prison by the sea
      and the alleyways are narrow
      and there are more human lives
      packed one against the other
      more than any other place on earth
      Just run.
      We aren’t trying to kill you.
      It doesn’t matter that
      you can’t call us back to tell us
      the people we claim to want aren’t in your house
      that there’s no one here
      except you and your children
      who were cheering for Argentina
      sharing the last loaf of bread for this week
      counting candles left in case the power goes out.
      It doesn’t matter that you have children.
      You live in the wrong place
      and now is your chance to run
      to nowhere.
      It doesn’t matter
      that 58 seconds isn’t long enough
      to find your wedding album
      or your son’s favorite blanket
      or your daughter’s almost completed college application
      or your shoes
      or to gather everyone in the house.
      It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
      It doesn’t matter who you are
      Prove you’re human.
      Prove you stand on two legs.
      Run.

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  5. Caitlin Johnstone, in her inimitable fashion, cuts through received Imperial propaganda regarding the true and ugly nature of the Apartheid Zionist Entity (May 13, 2021) : “Fifteen Thoughts On Palestine”. A few of my favorite excerpts:

    (1) “You don’t get to drop an entire colony on top of an inhabited country, grind those inhabitants into the dirt for generations, and then claim self defense every time they retaliate. That’s not a thing.” …

    (2) “I’m building a new house. There were people living where I wanted to build it, so I just started building it on top of them. They tried to stop me so I had to kill them for being terrorists. If you disagree with my actions you’re basically a Nazi. My house has a right to exist.

    Sound fair?”
    . . .
    (4) “People who condemn Palestinian retaliations against their oppressors have no real answers for what Palestinians should do instead besides “nothing” and “die”.”

    And one more that applies more than anything else to the U.S.-centered Transnational Corporate Oligarchy:

    (5) “A nation that cannot exist without nonstop warfare is not a real nation, it’s an ongoing military operation that happens to have suburbs.”
    . . .
    I recommend the entire list of Ms Johnstone’s thoughts but, for my part, I see Zionist Occupied Palestine as a bank-robber who — regularly and frequently — claims the “right to defend” the loot (s)he has stolen from the bank’s depositors who not only want back what has been stolen from them in the past, but also what the brazen thief clearly has in mind to steal next.

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  6. As Thucydides reported the Athenians said to the Melians: “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

    That’s the way I see it. Pure power politics. If only Israeli and U.S. officials had the bluntness and honesty of Athens.

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  7. “Semite: a member of the group of peoples who speak a Semitic language, including the Jews and Arabs as well as the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, and Phoenicians.”

    Since the term “semitic” applies to Arabs as well as Jews, whenever someone calls my younger brother “anti-semitic” for his criticism of Zionist Jews stealing Palestine from semitic Palestinians, he likes to reply: “On the contrary, I like Arabs.” This usually has the effect of leaving his smug interlocutor — who has most likely never heard of a dictionary — utterly dumbfounded.

    For my part, I neither “like” nor “hate” entire races or linguistic groups but prefer to concentrate on what individual people do to other people as the basis for reaching conclusions about them and their behavior. But I understand the human proclivity for herd-like conformity to “communities,” “associations,” “factions,” “crowds”, “tribes,” and “nations.” But these can become odious in the extreme, especially when reinforced by barbaric Bronze Age mythologies created by self-serving sociopaths and projected upon the universe as “explanations” for what invisible “gods” demand that the poor give up to the rich and powerful “kings,” “princes,” and — especially — “Lords.” Ugh!

    As only one American citizen — and an ex-patriotic expatriate at that — I do not feel the slightest “guilt” for what some Germans and other Europeans did to European Jews before and during the Second World War. Neither myself, nor anyone in my family, nor the semitic Palestinian Arabs had anything to do with that. Furthermore, I reject any demands that Americans and Palestinian Arabs pay some extortionate tribute and/or “reparations” — Americans with their tax-dollars and Palestinians with their lands and lives — to Zionist Jews who claim eternal, fee-simple title to all of Palestine (and beyond) because (they claim) some ancient 99-year-old Semite reputedly “fell on his face” before an invisible Spook and agreed to slice some skin off the end of his penis (Book of Genesis, Chapter 17). As someone said in a movie I saw recently: “That is stupid with TWO ‘o‘s.”

    Which, finally, reminds me of something Dr Ananda W. P. Guruge said to me once when I asked him about these ancient “Abrahamic” Bronze Age scriptures over which people have been butchering each other for millennia: “How can anyone expect me to read this ridiculous stuff?” He just smiled and replied: “You’re not supposed to read it. You’re supposed to worship it.” I sure miss my lunchtime conversations with Dr Guruge.

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    1. In my personal experience reading the Bible, reading the same verses 100 Times, the Spirit and meaning of the letter might not be realized until reading it for the 101st Time.

      The golden nuggets of the Truth and Reality of God interspersed within the bloody History of the Jewish Old Testament you know as you grow in the Practice and Experience of the Faith of Christ.

      I’m now reading once again 2 Kings. One theme I’ve seen in the OT throughout all the blood and gore, the blood and gore in the Islamic Quran, is when the Jewish kings and People did that which was Right, True and Just according to God, they were not at War with anyone, enjoying Peace and Prosperity. When the People departed from doing what was Right, True and Just, they were caught up in War.

      The Jewish kings of of Israel and Judak were in constant Wars, with Palace intrigues and internal Coups. It may not be as violent as it was then, but the Jewish Leaders in Israel Today are just as manipulative, not being able to come together with 4 elections in the last 2 years.

      I still think what we see unfolding in Israel-Palestine Today, is unfolding in the Spirit of the letter spelled out in ‘America Is Programmed for War.’

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  10. this, ‘just’ in from JUST VISION, an organization i would urge anyone on wja’s blog-site to become familiar w/…. as well, to support… anyone who has the viscera and compassion to advocate on behalf of the besieged, disenfranchised, and dispossessed palestinians in gaza, jerusalem, the west bank, and throughout their diaspora since 1948.

    the on-going genocide against them by zionist jews is relentless. the effete responses by both US repugs and etiolated dems who rely on jewish-cntrolled banks, wall street, and the media in order to remain in power is worse than unconscionable; it is criminal. a more vocal and courageous bastion of jews residing inside israel lend far stronger support to their fellow arab semites in palestine than do US politicians in the repug and demon parties. both jews and arabs are semites and speak semitic languages.

    many have miscegenated, even quondam to 1948, and have raised well-balanced families whose generational progeny have maintained the struggle for over 70 years. even indigenous israelis who have not intermarried w/ palestinians, persist in solidarity w/ palestinians, struggling against the zionist jews from eastern and western europe, despite their being bereft of support from the american hoi polloi. please heave an oeillade:

    JUST VISION: by Emma Alpert

    Dear jeanie,

    I’m writing briefly as this difficult week comes to a close to provide resources you may appreciate below. The articles reflect coverage that includes our team at Just Vision, Local Call’s reporting, the community in Sheikh Jarrah, and other colleagues who have been covering recent developments in Israel-Palestine. For those in our community who live in the region as well as those who have family there, our whole team is sending you wishes for safety during this extremely painful time.

    We invite you to read, watch and share the resources below:

    For context on what has been happening in Sheikh Jarrah, watch our 2012 documentary short, My Neighbourhood (co-directed by Rebekah Wingert-Jabi and Julia Bacha). You may also appreciate the film’s discussion guide.

    For a few recent interviews with Mohammed El Kurd, writer, activist and protagonist from My Neighbourhood:

    CNN Newsroom with Robyn Curnow
    MSNBC Reports with Ayman Mohyeldin
    Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman
    NBC News

    For context on why Sheikh Jarrah is so important to what is happening in Israel-Palestine:

    Why So Much Rests on the Fate of a Tiny Neighborhood in East Jerusalem, The New York Times, by Rula Salameh, Just Vision’s Education & Outreach Director in Jerusalem
    Sheikh Jarrah Highlights the Violent Brazenness of Israel’s Colonialist Project, The Washington Post, by Noura Erakat and Mariam Barghouti

    For first person accounts of what life is like in Gaza right now:

    Interview on BBC World Service with Fadi Abu Shammalah, Just Vision’s Outreach Associate in Gaza City
    Interview on the The Mehdi Hasan Show on MSNBC with Fadi Abu Shammalah
    My Child Asks, ‘Can Israel Destroy Our Building if the Power Is Out?’, The New York Times by Refaat Alareer, The New York Times

    For in-depth analysis from our team at Local Call (run in partnership with 972 Advancement for Citizen Journalism) and +972 Magazine:

    WATCH: How mainstream Israeli media incites against Palestinian citizens of Israel, by Rami Younis, Local Call (cross-published in +972 Magazine)
    Israel chooses violence, by Haggai Matar, Local Call (cross-published in +972 Magazine)
    How Israeli police are colluding with settlers against Palestinian citizens, by Oren Ziv, Local Call (cross-published in +972 Magazine)
    Against the horror, Palestinians are still rising, by Amjad Iraqi, +972 Magazine
    In Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinian youth are leading the struggle to defend their homes, by Oren Ziv, Local Call (cross-published by +972 Magazine)
    Interview with Rami Younis on CNN Today with John Vaust
    Interview with Orly Noy on Democracy Now!

    For those who celebrated this week, Eid Mubarak. We’re wishing everyone moments of grounding this weekend.

    With resolve,

    Emma Alpert
    Deputy Director, Just Vision

    Liked by 1 person

  11. How about David AND Goliath vs David’s little semitic cousin throwing rocks (because he doesn’t even have a slingshot) at the tanks bulldozes knocking down his home and family olive orchard?

    Like

    2. Oops. I should have said “tanks, bulldozers, drones, and US supplied fighter-bombers.” That should fix things. David and Goliath, after all, do need all the weaponry America can give them to fight off those little semitic cousins who, for some reason, will not just simply give up and die.

      Liked by 2 people

  12. I think there is much more going on underneath what is being reported in the media.

    Here is a quote from an article in the Christian Science Monitor
    “Ironically, the internecine violence erupted soon after an Islamist Arab political party had been in the midst of unprecedented contacts with Jewish parties to form a new governing coalition. Those contacts were put on hold amid the Israeli crackdown on protests in Jerusalem.”

    So I find it “curious” that things blow up between Arabs and Jews just as a coalition is coming together that might pose a problem for Netanyahu. To me it is highly likely that the unrest was orchestrated to prevent this from happening. Whenever an elite group has its power threatened it tends to use “divide and conquer” as a go to strategy.

    Full article is worth reading.
    https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2021/0514/In-Israel-Arabs-and-Jews-alike-recoil-from-mob-violence

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    1. The New York Times published on April 23, Jewish Supremacists in Netanyahu’s camp, were marching through Arab East Jerusalem shouting “Death to Arabs!”

      ‘Chris Hedges: Israel, the Big Lie’
      Israel, by employing its military machine against an occupied population that does not have mechanized units, an air force, navy, missiles, heavy artillery and command-and-control, not to mention a U.S. commitment to provide a $38 billion defense aid package for Israel over the next decade, is not exercising “the right to defend itself.” It is carrying out mass murder. It is a war crime.

      https://consortiumnews.com/2021/05/14/chris-hedges-israel-the-big-lie/

      Liked by 1 person

      1. there is no other way to dress up or define w/ euphemistic equivoques, rjc, what israel is committing, in collusion w/ the US; it is not only a war crime, it is a genocidal war against humanity. where is the outrage?

        Liked by 3 people

  13. Interesting header you chose for this article Bill, and another segue for me to post this.

    I was unexpectedly BORN AGAIN when I was going on 30 according to the Spirit of God I didn’t believe in since my pre-teens, on February 1, 1975, making me 77 going on 46.

    Attempting to describe a Spiritual awakening to the carnal flesh mind, is no easy task but this was the effort posted to my Blog Christmas Day 10 years ago.

    DAY OF AWAKENING – DAVID vs GOLIATH vs ARMAGEDDON

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  14. The “God” that Israelis worship comes from a belief that combines a God of anger that will punish transgressions, and a God of love who through mercy will forgive the repentant sinner. These two facets of Creative Power, when presented in this light, resemble our human temper. This clumsy anthropomorphic caricature of the cosmic mystery only enhances our self smugness. The Palestinians ask themselves and the world; just how many tyrants can such a “God of judgement “ breed?
    Here’s some wisdom, for “God’s chosen”…..
    Within the Field of Knowing, their exists a divine
    Knower. Within this Knower, subjects and objects are joined to each other in a connection, a relationship, a marriage…..
    Not of antagonism, but of reciprocation, of cooperation. Humanity can fully enjoy this relationship experientially, only by losing oneself and then finding ourselves in the perceived “other” object. It is then that one can begin to live in it imaginatively and constructively. At this point we have begun to transcend the pairs.
    A Taoist Master, Chuang Tzu, delineates this transcendence of the pairs as ‘placing oneself in subjective relation with externals, without consciousness of their objectivity’, or, in other words, ‘transferring oneself into the position of the things viewed’.
    Hey Israel!!!!
    Learn to see as the divine Seer sees
    Learn to know as the unconditioned knower knows
    Chaung Tzu has a tip for you… stop!!!!!!
    ‘wearing out one’s intellect in an obstinate adherence to the individuality of things, not recognizing the fact that all things are one.’

    Liked by 1 person

    1. One more question for “the chosen” ….
      If I may…. for all those Israelites who are scattered around the globe and who are living vicariously through the Israeli war machine….

      Through many dark hours

      I’ve been thinking about this

      That peace, love, and mercy

      Were betrayed by a kiss

      But I can’t think for you

      You’ll have to decide

      Whether the country

      Yer rootin’ for

      Has god on it’s side

      ( my apologies to mr. zimmerman)

      Liked by 1 person

  15. “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the Despot abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.” — Thomas Jefferson

    Boobie Contractual Circumcision
    (from Fernando Po, U.S.A., America’s post-literate retreat to Plato’s Cave)

    Like Abram prostrate on the ground
    In Jewish tribal lore
    George Dubya Bush “fell on his face”
    Thus promising to score
    Some skin from off his penis tip
    So “GAWD” would not get sore

    The Boobies couldn’t get enough
    They cheered and stomped and grinned
    And held their bloody penises
    (Appropriately skinned)
    So “GAWD” and George could see at once
    That none of them had “sinned”

    Thus did the Church and State combine
    In prehistoric days
    And soon the Boobies learned to stage
    Those awful Passion Plays
    Which featured killing Boobies in
    Excruciating ways

    And Cicero in Roman times
    Inquired of something odd,
    “Is there a man so mad who thinks
    He drinks and eats a god?”
    The mack’rel-snapping Boobies blushed
    And answered with a nod

    If eating flesh and drinking blood
    Sounds like a lousy deal
    Consider Neolithic times
    When savages would steal
    A cave man from a nearby tribe
    And make of him a meal

    Since dinners in those bygone days
    Were far apart and few
    A dead piece of organic meat
    Made quite a hearty stew
    To dimwit troglodytic brains
    It seemed the thing to do

    But still some lazy cave man types
    Declined to toil like beasts
    They shunned the work of killing foes
    And serving them at feasts
    So some forgotten con man thought
    Of parasitic priests

    Someone would have to say the words
    Someone would have to curse
    Someone would have to gather beads
    And drop them in his purse
    For later use in living high
    While others fared the worse

    And so the classes formed at once
    With kings and priests on top
    And all the others down beneath
    With nothing left to stop
    The sword and “GAWD” from draining them
    Of every living drop

    Two thousand years of eating fish
    On Fridays hasn’t changed
    The need for human sacrifice
    Felt by the more deranged
    But only caused the ghouls to have
    The menu rearranged

    And so, in time, some Jews returned
    As strangers, like before,
    To claim what local Gentiles owned
    Igniting strife and war.
    But this time, Empire smiled upon
    Apartheid’s viral spore.

    Once more some skin from off the dick
    Proclaims a mythic “deal”
    Between an old Jew and a Spook
    A “covenant” to steal
    From Gentiles who clip their dicks, too,
    Yet still must bow and kneel.

    This Boobie Abraham, it seems
    Refused to take a stand
    And tell The Great Big Spook that IT
    Could go pound desert sand
    And skin IT’s own dick if it wished:
    The knife in either hand.

    But mutual self-interest means
    That Church and State defend,
    In concert, any lie which serves
    The Truth to break or bend.
    And so the Golden Calf prevails,
    Most likely till Time’s end.

    Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2005-2021

    Liked by 1 person

  16. I’m just amazed Jared Kushner’s peace plan didn’t solve all this. Perhaps he might be appointed a peace envoy along with Henry Kissinger? Disinterested seekers of justice they are.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Did Kushner actually ever HAVE a peace plan? Or any semblance thereof?

      I know you were employing your sarcasm font, sir, but wondered if the Orange son-in-law had in fact submitted any thoughts on the matter at any point.

      Like

  17. I’m very grateful to all who have posted and added to the knowledge and passion behind this presentation of historical perspective. I’ve learned a bit more about the the roots of the imbalance. What blows my mind most readily is the fact that an oppressor can have such a profound lesson of genocide served up in their own lifetime; and still continue to behave as the neighborhood bully. Not only was this lesson in deeper understanding most harsh, stark, and personally ghastly; it should still fresh in their memory banks. They even have a bloody recorded history of such occurrences from which to enlighten their approach towards right relationships with all of creation. They also have a rich lineage of extremely wise souls who understood their true nature as living water from loves eternal spring. With all of this rich recorded personal history that is available to them; and the opportunity to study the well documented facts of other nations brutality; one would think that as a group these people would be among the front lines of a world wide peace movement. Instead they traffic in dense archaic self interested thought processes that are way less than enlightening or edifying. Like I said it stops my mind. I don’t understand these belligerent people; how could they remain so stubbornly self destructive in the face of such overwhelming evidence that cries out to them and beseeches them to show a little tenderness.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I speak only from my observations and not from extensive knowledge of Israel’s founding or the nation’s evolution, but it appears to me as if Netanyahu and his ilk are operating on an entitlement mindset. As in, the Jews have been persecuted for centuries, and suffered attempted genocide in WWII, so therefore, they are entitled to claim the land they want, in simple terms. I have no argument whatsoever with the premise; it’s the conclusion with which I take issue.

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      1. I am always appreciative of the observational view you provide from your end of the telescope. The thing that shivers my american timbers is the reality that they could not be pulling off this insanity unless they had some strong backup. Any country that is involved in this has lost all sense of dignity and certainly erodes the trust of their own citizens when they want to remind the faithful that they are matching the lofty principles that are set forth in their countries declarations and constitutional canon.

        Like

        1. “Constitutional canon”??? Pppfffftttt! ‘Merrikins don’t need no Constitution. We got our version of the End Times, and that means having Israel’s back, no matter what. They’re doin’ to the heathens what we’d like to do to ours, over here.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. Israel knows the USA will always veto in the UN security council any action against them. We have given them a blank check and they are running and killing with it.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. not the heartless nasties; it will be an exercise in futility to de-program their endemic animosities and then re-program them such that their spirits swell w/ compassion, charity, and misericordia. pugnacity, acrimony and hostility have twisted their psyches from birth, after which these blameless israeli bairns were summarily dumped into kibbutzes, raised and brainwashed by govt-appointed [non]care’takers’ [care’givers’ is a euphemism].

          when one is bullied, be it by his/her parent, teacher, peer group, or nazies, s/he learns to be a bully in toxic retaliation for those years of impuissance. bullies single out those who are the most vulnerable, b/c they are themselves craven, cowardly poltroons..

          Liked by 1 person

        4. Exposing ….Exposed ….Discovered…
          Uncovered ….Bare…Naked…Shown…Caught
          The Emperor and Empire have no close to hide their shame.
          Our fearless leader as senator in 1986….

          SEN. JOE BIDEN: We look at the Middle East. I think it’s about time we stop, those of us who support, as most of us do, Israel in this body, for apologizing for our support for Israel. There’s no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region. The United States would have to go out and invent an Israel.

          Colonial Outposts are never as satisfying as the enchanting dreams that arise from the power of attraction. The pillage and plunder lie cloaked in the soft intimacy of coital embrace; and when the sperm of the colonizer enters the womb of the colonized, the violation is complete, and the vibrations of abuse reverberate and oscillate throughout the land. The children of these union are wandering our planet cloaked in the garments of shame and disgrace.
          No flag ever created can hide such transgressions.

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          1. your magnificent metaphors have the power to transform the way the non-cognoscenti mentate, utejack. your words offer a metaphysical transcendence to a realm not-yet visited. please carry on w/out defenestrating your optimism for our species’ recrudescence.

            Like

            1. There’s enough of the unknown in your response to keep my friendship with my dictionary kindling. Truth be told, you are throwing gemstones along the path of my understanding; rare and precious words. I’m just sprinkling a few mites at your lectern hoping to stay afloat in your classroom. You always make me smile though through all my quizzical thoughts that seek to decipher what you have written. Did anybody ever tell you that you bring out the Sherlock Holmes in them.

              Liked by 2 people

              1. oh dear… utejaqck and ray… sesquipedalian words aside, you 2 have adumbrated a situation i cannot countenance, as i fear it confers on me a pertinacious pursuit of archaic lexicons that will require unremitting dives into esoteric fountainheads of putative ‘literacy’ going back to medieval conduits of intellectual excrescences.

                Liked by 1 person

          2. UTEJACK, re your reply to Jeanie @ 10:40 am.
            When she and I were so engaged discussing of Pierre Trudeau a few articles back, once email contact was established through her posting a comment in my Blog, I had to confess this in the 1st exchange,
            “I have to object to this description of yourself, ‘i am sufficiently dense.’
            I know a lot of words, and you use them like nobody else I know. I have to look many of them up in the dictionary.”

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Ms. Tlaib continues to impress me immensely. No rational person with one iota of compassion could listen to her speech and not be moved. But then, her immediate audience was the U.S. Congress, so….unwavering support for Israel will be ongoing.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Maybe a synonym for this kind of support could be
                Crimes Against Humanity
                I have also seen some great interviews and perspectives at Amy Goodman’s DemocracyNow. She’s a gem!

                Like

              2. When Ms. Tlaib first showed up in congress and was getting together a group of people to go to Palestine (I don’t remember how that came out), another congress critter, I think his last name was Cohen, disparaged her effort, the usual Israel vs Gaza stuff indicated the “savages” (my substitute smear because I can’t remember now exactly what he said) in Gaza. She came right back at him saying that he should come along and her grandmother (I think) would show him what true Palestinian hospitality was and would give him a hug.
                I thought, holy smokes, I don’t think I would have the grace or presence of mind (which would be steaming) to deal with Cohen(?) so beautifully. Since then, I’ve been a big admirer of hers.

                Liked by 1 person

            1. I don’t know; maybe it’s a bit naive…..
              But I believe there’s a lot to learn from the folks on your site, and since Snowden and Levine made me realize everything is a permanent record; I feel that in the future these threads can be opened up and a great historical perspective can be added to the equation. Probably a lot naive but I’m never going to stop trying to add to the equation and help our collective understanding get to the bottom of the reality of our time here in the good old US of A

              Liked by 1 person

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