This book, The Gun and the Olive Branch, has a lot of good info. David Hirst has added facts about 9/11 and other recent events.David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, Nation Books; 2nd edition 2003 pp. 283-284

Just posted this over at stevegilliard.blogspot.com: "Our entire existence in this Arab region was justified, and is still justified, by our suffering" That is nuts. As far as the killings and humiliations, if you know the ruthless background none of this should come as a surprise. Zionists can't possibly claim the high moral ground and it is perverse to claim they are defenders of Judaism or are "victims" collectively. Zionists murdered Jews that they labeled as "traitors" to the Zionist ideology. As early as 1924 these sick racist Zionists killed Jews because they stood in the way of their racist plan. Even a religious Jew was targeted by Zionists as he left his synagogue. The Holocaust has been exploited to the max but it is important to remember that the Zionist agenda started decades before it and has no right to claim it as some sort of excuse for Zionist activities."

The info about the June 1924 murder of a religious Jew by Zionist Jews comes from page 165 of Fateful Triangle. "a religious Jew organizing among the largely anti-Zionist native Jewish inhabitants of Palestine" was assassinated by two Haganah agents "as he left the small synagogue in the 'Shaarey Tsedek' hospital." (Hagana was a Jewish terrorist group) Chomsky points out "the official history of the Haganah describes this "special activity" matter-of-factly, justifying the order "to remove the traitor from the land of the living" on the grounds of his "pathological character"" Chomsky makes the point that this very same kind of thing, killing a person as they leave their house of worship (for example the assasination of King Abdullah of Jordan) is supposed to prove the "inveterate evil" of Arabs which is supposed to be so different from the fabled "purity of arms" of the Jewish Zionists.

"The report says that "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our policies," adding that "when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy."" - from "U.S. Fails to Explain Policies to Muslim World, Panel Says" By THOM SHANKER Published: November 24, 2004
This article is referred to in Ted Rall's 11/29/04 cartoon: Rall Cartoon The man in the second panel reads the info he got that now explains what the US policies are about: "The U.S. arms Israel as a strategic bulwark against oil-rich Arab states in order to keep oil prices low. It is not our fault that Sharon's goons destroyed your home rather than the suicide bomber's house next door, as intended."

report mentioned at new post

Dear Josef,

I hope you have had time to look into the points I raised. You wrote about supposed "conspiracy theories" on my web site. May I suggest that the term "conspiracy theory" is simply a way to avoid looking at the facts. I have seen it used by people who want to abort discussion of things they don't want challenged. I am not suggesting a conspiracy and I do not write about conspiracies at my web site. The facts I point out are not presented for the most part in mainstream media and popular culture not because of a conspiracy but rather because of the way individuals are inclined to act. Inclined to conform the way people do, ideas that challenge the status quo get marginalized or suppressed. And people not inclined to conform are weeded out by simple factors of selection by hiring or rejection because of incompatibility of views.

I can give you a specific example that points out not just Thomas Friedman's dishonesty but how the example gets suppressed and not because of a conspiracy. What I am saying is I gave this specific example to a Mr. Doug Harper ( http://dougharper.blogspot.com/ ) and he omitted it from the email that he quoted on his blog. See how that worked? Friedman lied and this guy Harper is in effect covering for him. Harper doesn't like the fact and so he omits it, he didn't conspire with Friedman or someone else. Harper doesn't like a fact so he omits it and doesn't deal with it.

Here is the example: Friedman writes in his latest book "Longitudes & Attitudes" that Osama bin LAden had not mentioned Palestine until AFTER 9/11. Here is what I pointed out to Mr. Harper: Thomas Friedman is one of the people deceiving the public. Friedman writes, "the fact is that bin Laden never focused on this issue. He only started talking about "Palestine" after September 11, when he sensed that he might be losing the support of the Arab street." (p311 of Longitudes & Attitudes ) and "Osama bin Laden never mentioned the Palestinian cause as motivating his actions until he felt he was losing support in the Arab world." (p361-362 of Longitudes & Attitudes ) What Friedman has written is a flat out lie. To give just one example that disproves what Friedman wrote: "Your position against Muslims in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful. America has no shame. " - Osama bin Laden May 1998
I also have to wonder how in this invented scenario Friedman knows what bin Laden "sensed" about the Arab street.

The above is another example of Friedman's manipulative lies. What does Harper do when he quotes my email? He leaves the above info out. You could contact him yourself and ask him why he does this. He gets very defensive when his assumptions are challenged, a trait I have seen many people have. As far as how certain facts end up suppressed, George Orwell explained it is not an official ban, facts are kept out of the press "not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact."

I hope that gives you an idea how suppression of facts works for the most part. Friedman suppresses the fact that Osama bin Laden has mentioned Palestine several times before 9/11 by outright lying. Harper does so by omission. He is obviously sympathetic to the same agenda Friedman is and he doesn't want to help expose Friedman so he omits the facts. No central command told him to do so, he wants to keep a lid on it so he does so. Notice how this contributes to the ongoing suppression, once again an opportunity for the truth to be spread is squelched. And no, I don't think Friedman "innocently made a mistake" when he wrote that bin Laden never mentioned Palestine until after 9/11. He has been exposed to too many facts and has easy access to bin Laden's interviews and writings as anyone with an Internet connection does.

I think some people know and "play the game" and others are ignorant and conform with the prevailing views because they are under the impression that they are true. Again, I am not putting forth a "conspiracy theory" as you claim.

So much misery could be ended if people made more of an effort. A critical part of the effort has to be a willingness to examine the assumptions we hold. There are people that see particular wrongs and there are people that can't see them for some reason. If you do the research and take an honest look at the facts, I think you will see that there is a problem.

text of Orwell's Preface to Animal Farm Make sure you buy a copy of Animal Farm with the preface. "Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news — things which on their own merits would get the big headlines-being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals." CLICK HERE: This copy does include Orwell’s proposed but unpublished preface to the original edition

Chomsky has explained (see p 112 of Understanding Power" ) "So take Tom Wicker at the New York Times: when you talk to him about this kind of stuff, he gets very irate and says, "Nobody tells me what to write." And that's perfectly true, nobody tells him what to write-but if he didn't already know what to write, he wouldn't be a columnist for the New York Times." Chomsky explains that people are either in those positions because they have internalized the understanding that there are certain things not proper to say so they "play the game" automatically or of course sometimes there are people who consciously "play the game."

Latest post to Doug Harper:
Did you figure out the motive for the attacks on about a half-dozen Muslim sites yet? Or can you not admit to yourself that there was a motive?

Will he stubbornly delete it and refuse to deal with the facts again?

“I don't think you invented it.”

So you have looked into it? If you have then you have discovered that people like Thomas Friedman are deceiving the public. As Tanya Reinhart, an Israeli scholar has pointed out, “It is still difficult for many to believe that a deception of such magnitude is possible. Deceptions and false declarations have ben the standard in the politics of the powerful, and certainly are in Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians from the start.” Israel/Palestine by Tanya Reinhart P25
“My question to you is then why didn't Arafat take the 2000 Camp David deal?”

Because it was grotesquely unfair. see link And it is incredible how sleazy the Israeli side was, nothing was put in writing and you may have noticed that “maps were carefully avoided in the US mainstream” medialens. See Reinhart’s book Israel/Palestine Robert Malley revealed, after waiting a year, that the 2000 Camp David offer was not as it has been presented in the mainstream media. He pointed out that “strickly speaking, there never was an Israeli offer ... The Israelis always stopped on, if not several, steps short of an offer” Reinhart quoting Malley p25 Israel/Palestine see “Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors” The New York Review of Books August 9, 2001 And there were supposed to be more negotiations, it was the Israeli side that refused to continue the talks.

“And if you want right-of-return so bad, don't you realize that'll kill the Jewish state?”

I think the melodrama and manipulation of using words like “kill” has got to end. As far as a Jewish State, could there be anything more unjust to be imposed upon non-Jews? The whole concept violates basic human rights and is against basic American values. We don’t accept such injustice here in America, we should not be financing it abroad. A state should be of it citizens, not of a privileged class. Do you think Jews in Israel have some special right to set up a discriminatory state? Do you realize Zionists consider equal rights to be “the destruction of Israel” by definition? This is too fanatical an opinion to indulge. All people deserve equal rights regardless of the fact that they don’t belong to a certain religion. At the time the father of Zionism plotted to ethnically cleanse non-Jews, the non-Jews were over 90% of the population of Palestine. In 1947 when the Zionist started the massive ethnic cleansing, non-Jews were approximately 67% of the population. Do you realize that now in America, Christians make up over 76% of the population and Jews less than 2%? But setting up a “Christian State”would be unjust.

"Interesting".

More than interesting I think. Very sad for several reasons. I take no joy in knowing facts that are intentionally omitted or not know because of someone's ignorance, willful or not. It is sad that such misery has continued because of the US veto and it is sad because people are suppressing this fact.

"I read the resolution."

Josef, don't you feel manipulated? The story line that is pushed by those in power isn't true.

"Friedman's point wasn't a silly resolution."

I hope you rethink that. "silly" is an extremely inappropriate thing to say. I can only lay out the facts, I can't make you take them seriously. You are trying to dismiss something that is deadly serious, it isn't silly at all. Josef, what would you have had Arafat do? He agreed to terms considered reasonable by virtually the entire world and accepted peace, and that wasn't the only time he agreed to peace yet had it thrown back in his face. I can't make you change your mind. I could start listing example after example. I can back up my claim that Friedman is a propagandist and liar but if everything I present is dismissed as "silly" where does that get us? If you want to put your hands over your ears and insist that you can't be reasoned with, then obviously you will never admit the facts. Back in pre-civil war days I think abolitionists encountered the same kind of stubbornness with the same kind of patterns of behaviors.
I have other examples about Friedman but to deal with Friedman's claim that "all Arafat did" was "express aspiration." Friedman is lying to his readers. Accepting the terms of a peace offer is not expressing an aspiration, it is agreeing to make peace, it is taking an action that is seen by nearly the entire world as just. It is the US action that prevented peace. Note that this fact is intentionally suppressed in the mainstream media in the US. This is part of a pattern. Friedman lied in 1987 when he wrote that the PLO "refuses to negotiate." He wrote that three years after Arafat issued several calls for negotiations leading to mutual recognition, "eleven years after the PLO supported the Security Council resolution calling for a settlement based on UN 242 modified to include a Palestinian state, alongside Israel, not to speak of the record through these years - all safely buried."

The New York Times is withholding facts from the public. "when Yasser Arafat issued the calls fro recognition in 1984, the NYT refused to print not only the facts but even letters referring to them." When "Friedman reviewed "Two Decades of Seeking Peace in the Middle East" a few months later, the major Arab(including PLO) initiatives of these two decades were excluded and discussion was restricted to various US rejectionist proposals." see Chomsky, "World Orders Old and New" pp. 241-242

Josef, I went to the library to check if this was the case. I have the photocopy right in front of me, it is incredible, just as Chomsky described it. If you aren't willing to do the work and be willing to challenge your assumptions then I don't know what to tell you.

Josef, Friedman is a liar and a propagandist. Friedman asks, "What did he[Arafat] do with all that attention after that[1974]? Very little" That is a gross lie. What Arafat did was accept the Security Council Resolution of January 1976 which "was backed by virtually the entire world, including the leading Arab states, the PLO, Europe, the Soviet bloc -- in fact, everyone who mattered. It was opposed by Israel and vetoed by the US, thereby vetoing it from history.  The Resolution called for a political settlement on the internationally-recognized borders "with appropriate arrangements...to guarantee...the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of all states in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized borders" -- in effect, a modification of UN 242 (as officially interpreted by the US as well), amplified to include a Palestinian state. Similar initiatives from the Arab states, the PLO, and Europe have since been blocked by the US and mostly suppressed or denied in public commentary." US-Israel-Palestine by Noam Chomsky Full Text of 1976 Security Council Resolution

"Secondly, you quote Ze'ev Schiff completely out of context, even for the Chomsky article it comes from. Even in Chomsky's context, it's clear that the problem is terrorists using human shields, not Israel aggression. Please find the original Schiff quote, and a link to the original source. It's your job to substantiate your research, not my job to track down every half-truth and semi-quote you manage to dig up.

No it was in context, you are lying. See Chomsky, Fateful Triangle p181. "In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously, because they desserved it. ...the importance of Gur's remarks is the admission that the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously. ...the Army, he said, has never distinguished civilian[from military] targets. ..[but] purposely attacked civilian targets even when Israeli settlements had not been struck."

T.M.K., what you are doing is outrageous. You are acting like the Zionist Jews have not committed terrorism and that their terrorism has not been on greater scale. Commenting on the PLO's resort to terror, Noah Lucas observed, "There is no escaping the analogy with Zionism in the late forties."

You should know Zionists did not constrain their terrorist attacks to the 1940's, they used terrorism before and after. In addition to Jews killed as a result of Zionist terror against the British and Arabs, Zionist terrorists killed other Jews who dared speak out against their immoral plans. Zionists can't possibly claim the high moral ground and it is perverse to claim they are defenders of Judaism. Zionists murdered Jews that they labeled as "traitors" to the Zionist ideology. As early as 1924 these sick racist Zionists killed Jews because they stood in the way of their racist plan. Even a religious Jew was targeted by Zionists as he left his synagogue. Zionist terrorist groups killed Jews and non-Jews. From the beginning of the Zionist agenda, terrorist force was planned for and used. "In the single month of July 1938" Zionists killed more Arabs "than Arabs had killed Jews in the whole of that year so far." The terrorist bombing of the Arab Melon Market in Haifa was just one of the Jewish Zionist attacks that inflicted horrific casualties and injuries. The explosion set bodies flying through the air, the bodies "dead, maimed and injured." "Among the blood-spattered human remains were the mangled bodies of three horses, several mules and donkeys which had brought the villager's produce to the crowded market." A Jewish terrorist planted the bomb in the same area where another bomb had been set off just three weeks earlier which had killed 18 Arabs. This bomb killed 53 Arabs and 1 Jew.

"Quoting Chomsky. Game. Set. Match."

Joshua, you have got to be kidding if you think that is a rebutal. Zionist historian Dr. Noah Lucas, in the Jewish Quarterly, London, Nos. 3-4, 1984 wrote "Good luck to the reader who may succeed in refuting any of the facts or assumptions or conclusions presented by Chomsky. It will not be accomplished by anyone who approaches the matter as an issue of propaganda or public relations for Israel, but only by the student who matches research with research."
Your little quip refutes NOTHING. Try dealing with the facts.

Israel certainly had a legitimate causus belli under international law in the closing of the Straits at Sharm-el-Sheik.
no it did not. And your attempt at trying to paint only the Arab side as engaged in killing civilians is really dishonest. As Israeli military analyst Ze'ev Schiff summarized, "... the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously" In adittion to that sttlers target and kill civilians too. Stop trying to deny this.

A graduate student at Princeton, Norman Finkelstein, exposed the Peter's book as a hoax. It has been show by others too that Peters fabricated the history. Finkelstein "was interested in the history of Zionism, and as he read the book he was kind of surprised by some of the things it said. He's a very careful student, and he started checking the references — and it turned out that the whole thing was a hoax, it was completely faked." power
Arnold, stop making acusations agianst people, you are seriously ignorant and need to educate yourself. You link to a book that has been exposed as a fraud 20 years ago. Claiming that people "hate Jews" just because they are pointing out facts about Israel's history is a low life tactic. You need to stop wronging people this way.

"Did you just accuse Jews reclaiming their property in a war Egypt and Syria started of being criminals?"

That is absolutely ridiculous. That people actaully spread such extreme falsification of history is absolutely ridiculous. "seriously misinformed" or intentionally lying, something is very wrong when you deny history and turn an Israeli attack into an Egyptian attack. To spread such outrageous lies is really shameful. "It is not even controversial that in 1967 Israel attacked Egypt. Jordan and Syria entered the conflict much as England and France went to war when Germany attacked their ally Poland in 1939. One might argue that the Israeli attack was legitimate, but to convert it into an Arab invasion is rather audacious -- or would be, if the practice were not routine." dd Notice too that a supposedly "liberal" media caters to the distorted version of History that Zionists prefer.

Is terrorism wrong or not?
Kudlow was on Scarborough Country and when Israeli terrorist acts were mentioned, he claimed that it was taken "out of context".

Whn the terorism comitted by Jews is pointed out to Mr. Kudlow, he responds, " But some wars are just.  That‘s the point you are missing.  Some wars are fought on democratic principles.  That‘s the point you are missing. "

So terrroism is justified if Jews are doing it. (Kudlow simply lies when he claims that the Zionist cause was "fought on democratic principles". That is like saying slavery was based on the principle of freedom and equal rights.)

The Zionist agenda from day one was undemocratic. The father of Zionism plotted to ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of people because they were not the appropriate religion. He wanted "purity". Zionism is not simply Jews wanting to live somewhere, Zionism is an ugly system off discrimination that positions anyone no a Jews as a second class citizen. It is racist by definition. To these Zionists, Israel by definition means that Jews must dominate, it is plain and simple an ideology of Jewish supremacy.

We have come a long way in America an white supremacy is see for the ugly reality it is by many but there is a dirty underhanded tactic of labeling people who speak out against Zionism. They are called "anti-Semites". Notice Kudlow tries to be really slick when he says "And the kind of discussion that you are engaging in, which is present in your book and which is unfortunately present in some of your recent writings, comes dangerously close to anti-Semitism."
"Close to anti-semitism"? Would thinking OJ Simpson was guilty of a vicious double murder be close to an anti-black sentiment? No. And what Kudlow is doing is really devious.

"If you want to continue the conversation, come over to LGF."

I suggest that if you do post over at LGF, don't expect any intelligent conversation. What happens is you are angrily attacked and then banned from posting when they can't respond to things they can't deal with.

"where I am violently active"

Whatever collection of political view points a person may consider or hold to be their own, people should not be issuing threats. This immature behavior throws up road blocks to debate and examination. I have seen it too many times. These guys are very quick to jump to playing victim of some "insult" and then they decide they have a right to refuse to respond or to threaten violence. This is as foolish as tolerating a debate participant to show up wearing brass knuckles and saying "he might" hit the other person. It really is a sign of anti-social primitive thinking. Another one of the non-thinkers is this guy "Callimachu" who says things like it was "anti-American" to have been against slavery. When he is proven wrong by a posted comment he simply deletes the comments.

Your version of history omits the fact that Arafat had been agreeing to peace, Israel and the US refused. The Security Council resolution of January 1976, calling for a settlement in terms of UN 242, was backed by virtually the entire world, including the leading Arab states, the PLO, Europe, the Soviet bloc, the non-aligned countries -- in fact, everyone who mattered. It was opposed by Israel and vetoed by the US, thereby removing it from history. The US veto, repeated later, excluded the Security Council from the diplomacy. The General Assembly continued to pass near-unanimous resolutions in similar terms (the US and Israel opposed); a negative US vote amounts to a veto. The US also blocked initiatives from Europe, the Arab states, the PLO and others. Subsequent and similar initiatives from the Arab states, the PLO, and Western Europe were blocked by the US, continuing to the present. That includes the 1981 Fahd plan. That record too has been effectively vetoed from history, for the usual reasons. http://www.alternet.org/middleeast/12956/

Callimachus writes some more stupid bullshit at vernondent.blogspot.com

Callimachus, are you putting us on or what? You can't comprehend what the article said? "Suspected arsonists set an Islamic elementary school on fire Tuesday amid a string of attacks following the killing of a Dutch filmmaker by an alleged Islamic extremist."
It is painfully obvious that the terrorism was in all likelihood motivated by the murder. What in God's name is with you and your mental block?

Notice that the article mentions possible motive in the first paragraph (when the terrorism is directed at Muslims), in the American media most articles and TV news reports never get around to mentioning motives when the terrorism is directed at Americans. How can you possibly not see this?

AGAIN this article is an example of two wrongs. Are you telling me you can't understand this? Does the murder of the Dutch filmmaker make the arson attacks OK? No. Does the attacks mean we can not condemn the murder of Theo Van Gogh? No, saying the murder of Van Gogh was wrong would not be "justifying" the attacks. (you REFUSE to see this when it comes to the 9/11 attacks)

Whoever is behind the attacks on a half-dozen Muslim sites most likely are putting your kind of thinking into action. You thought it was great for someone to say, "All three Abrahamic religions received his wrath, rightly or wrongly. But only one broke out the koummya and sliced his throat."
Guy, the Muslim religion did not slice a mans throat, an individual did. The people that set the fires probably viewed it the way you viewed the "great post" and felt motivated to attack the "only Abrahamic religion" that "broke out the koummya and sliced his throat" . You contribute to misery Callimachus.

Big Business Fucking You as Hard as They Can

Companies Sue Union Retirees To Cut Promised Health Benefits

Firms Claim Right to Change Coverage, Attempt to Pick Sympathetic Jurisdictions
The Process Server Pays a Call

When a deputy sheriff came to his door with a court summons, George Kneifel, a retiree in Union Mills, Ind., was mystified. His former employer was suing him.

The employer, beverage-can maker Rexam Inc., had agreed in labor contracts to provide retirees with health-care coverage. But now the company was asking a federal judge to rule that it could reduce or eliminate the benefit.

Many companies have already cut back company-paid health-care coverage for retirees from their salaried staffs. But until recently, employers generally were barred from touching unionized retirees' benefits because they are spelled out in labor contracts. Now, some are taking aggressive steps to pare those benefits as well, including going to court.

In the past two years, employers have sued union retirees across the country. In the suits, they ask judges to rule that no matter what labor contracts say, they have a right to change the benefits. Some companies also argue that contract references to "lifetime" coverage don't mean the lifetime of the retirees, but the life of the labor contract. Since the contracts expired many years ago, the promises, they say, have expired too.
This Modern World

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110003711129469246,00.html?mod=home%5Fpage%5Fone%5Fus">

Callimachu writes this about the latest bin Laden tape, "What the hell is he talking about? Or was this, too, something I missed by not seeing "F9/11?"

Are you kidding me? 9/11 is too serious for you to play games like this. It is extremely immature of you to try to link it to Moore's movie. What bin Laden said is crystal clear. You have a severe mental block about admitting what the motives were for 9/11. When I pointed out Nat Turner's motives and explicitly stated that Turner's terrorism was not justified you could not see the words right in front of you and assumed I had thought Turner's terrorism was justified. Two wrongs, get it? "aggressive foreign policies" are going to anger a lot of people and some of them will resort to violence. This cannot possibly be too difficult for you to grasp.

I pointed out to you that people like George Bush to Thomas Friedman are lying about the 9/11 motives. Bin Laden's latest tape once AGAIN says that Bush is lying. I showed you where Friedman outright lies by claiming that bin Laden never mentioned Palestine until after 9/11. (you can easily verify for yourself that bin Laden did indeed mention Palestine as early as 1996 and perhaps earlier) You so don't want to accept the truth that you edit out of my letter the part that exposes Friedman's lie. Also, I show you how George Tenet and others chop off the second part (the part that states the motives) from a key sentence from the 1998 fatwa when they quote it. link We were attacked because of the foreign policies, what is with you that you won't admit this? The attempt to exploit the bin Laden letter by claiming that al-Qeada is saying it would not target individual states of the United States is absurd. It shows the ridiculous lengths you and others are willing to go to deny and distort the facts. Clearly bin Laden means if a Nation State doesn't attack them they won't attack a particular Nation State. Do you realize just how ridiculous MEMRI and you are? All the game playing to avoid the main point that bin Laden makes about the real causes. And he mentions the 1982 Israeli terrorist assault on civilians. As Israeli military analyst Ze'ev Schiff summarized, "... the Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously" People in the Middle East live this reality and it leads to, as bin Laden has said, "reactions and reciprocal actions"

Fair Media

(at what liberal media they think they found another example of "liberla media) I reply: What is "liberal" about the column? You think people should not be allowed to ask questions like these? Do you know that Douglas J. Feith was cherry picking inteligence and making his own inteligence estimates? (inteligence estimates are supposed to be done by the Inteligence services not by political hacks) Do you seriously contend that these guys were not pushing for the war? DO you seriousl contend that the war agaist Iraq was necessary or legal? Do you seriously contend that what is happening is not in Israel's interests and that things like a pipleline to Israel is for Israel and not what a majority of Iraqis would support. The media hasn't even told you about the Israeli pipleline talk have they? Have they?! READ:

Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon’s government "views the pipeline to Haifa as a ‘bonus’ the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq," according to Haaretz.

On Sunday, August 24, Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky vowed to discuss the issue with the U.S. secretary of energy during his envisaged visit to Washington next month.

He asserted that the whole project depends on Jordan's consent, adding that the kingdom would receive a transit fee for allowing the oil to flow through its territory.

Note that he didn't say "the whole project depends on the Iraqi people's consent"

U.S. and Israeli policy makers don't plan on democracy for Iraq. (these facts are kept from the American public. The plans for this "bonus" have gone unreported. Reporters know what is "proper" to report and they know that facts like these should not be told to the American public)

"It won't be long when you will see Iraqi oil flowing to Haifa," Mr Netanyahu told a group of British investors in London. "It is just a matter of time until the pipeline is reconstituted and Iraqi oil will flow to the Mediterranean."
Note that Netanyahu does not say "It is a matter for the Iraqi people to decide" what he says is "It is just a matter of time". What is ignored is the the will of the Iraqi people, democracy for them is another crule joke.

Sharon writes,
We had a story last week saying that 380 tons of weapons that can be used in nuclear bombs was missing & that it was the Bush administration's fault (that story has since been refuted & the real number is more like 3). So, were there WMDs in Iraq or not?
And I think the people of Israel would argue that we put their interests above America's. It seems like it was only 4 years ago we had an American president pressing the Israelis to give the Palestinians everything they wanted (short of dismantling Israel), including sharing Jerusalem, but that wasn't enough for those nice Muslims who have always loved America.
And as for this "Iraqi people" deciding every decision in the country, I don't think the government in the U.S. asks "the American people" every time it makes a business deal either. But I'm not "disenfranchised."


So, were there WMDs in Iraq or not?

No for God sakes you guys are so ignorant it is increadible. There explosives are not what are termed "WMDs" which clearly meant nuclear, biological or chemical. Come on, do you pay atttention at all? Bush supporters are EXTREMLY IGNORANT (no one has explained to me why a supposedly "liberal media has refused to report these findings:) link

It seems like it was only 4 years ago we had an American president pressing the Israelis to give the Palestinians everything they wanted

WRONG and you think this because you are ignorant and the media helps make that happen: see FAIR LINK and Israel is seen correctly as a racist and oppressive country, most Arabs don't like it. How dare you play off what the Zionists are plotting with their pipeline as a "business deal". In America, the government SHOULD reflect the will of the people, you have a disgusting attitude about what this country is supposed to be.
These things need to be heard and there was NOTHING wrong with the article, you guys are really ridiculous.


ed writes Actually Tom is right Israel is a racist society. In fact Israel should immediately start treating the Israeli Arabs and Palestinians as well as the Jews are treated in Saudi Arabia. Oops, there are no Jews in Saudi Arabia. Make that as well as the Jews are treated in Oman or Jordan. Oops, there are no Jews there either. Maybe all the Jewish members of the Egyptian or Libyan Parliaments can help us out. Wait, no Parliaments or Jews in the govermenments in either of those countries.

disgusting ed, really disgusting. you are attempting to make excuses for a racist government by pointing to others? you are really a fanatic. So I guess white racists never had to feel guilty for their wrogns because they could always point to others. whay differance does it make how other countries behave? The KKK could have always pointed to Africa and bitch about their internal problems. What kind of freak are you that you think this excuses people that do such horrible wrongs against others.
Jew and non-Jews lived in Palestine for hundreds of years. It was when the Zionists moved in with a plan to ethnically cleanse and set up a descriminatory state that these wrongs started. ed, how about starting to act like a human being?
Clearly it is not what one would expect from an "ombudsman". If the Post wanted to publish this, the best place for it would have been the commentary or editorial page -- not under Getler's usual banner.

Sharon writes, You know, Tom, as stupid, repugnant and ridiculous as your posts are, I have never bothered to attack you personally. I am a Republican because I have looked at the immorality, gross twisting of the law and the ignorance shown by Democrats. You want to disagree, fine, but leave your rantings to some other site. The comment about WMDs was rhetorical. I know the difference between WMDs and explosives, but the materials that were supposedly taken could have been used in WMDs. Democrats constantly say there were NO WMDs, therefore we should have left Saddam alone to rape and kill his own people (oh, I guess that would have qualified as doing the will of the Iraqi ppl to you since Saddam got 90% of the vote there). As for your anti-Semetic crap...give me a BREAK. You think that pointing out the oppression by Arab states doesn't justify Israel protecting itself from its neighbors? Quit bitching about Israel being a country. It's been 60 years and the Israelis have won every single war brought to them by their "peace-loving" Arab neighbors. Palestinians are free to live in Israel if they don't want to go blow themselves up in markets and schools. I don't find that particularly oppressive. Your vitriol has gotten worse the closer the election comes. What a pathetic little man.


You know, Tom, as stupid, repugnant and ridiculous as your posts are, I have never bothered to attack you personally

Sharon, I am not going to dance around the fact that you are ignorant. I would like to add dishonest to that. You played a game that the explosives were "WMD".

The comment about WMDs was rhetorical

yes I realize that sweetheart, and you are being ignorant or deceptive.

As for your anti-Semetic crap

This has got to stop Sharon. I want you to apologize right now. HOW DARE YOU PULL THIS CRAP. all I did was point out the truth. You have proven yourself EXTREMELY ignorant (and that is being polite, you may actually know the facts and are being a devious liar)

To claim that Israel is above criticism because to criticize means someone is "anti-Semitic" is a tactic that is underhanded and disgusting.


Sharon writes, No Tom, I am not ignorant. You are a blowhard idiot who likes attacking people you disagree with. Neither am I a liar. You are anti-Semitic when you pull the crap you did, you bigot. You didn't pull out the truth. Other people have already refuted your "truth." You pulled out the same tired old BS you've pulled in every single thread you've posted on on this site. First you scream and holler about Vietnam, but you can't get anymore heat from that, so you move to a different entry, trying to spread your filth & hatred. Why don't you go find some other like-minded lying jerks to talk to instead of attacking people on this site? It's not "underhanded and disgusting" to call you anti-Semitic when you have accused the Israelis of ethnic cleansing and setting up a "descriminatory state" (get a dictionary while you are at it, idiot). Setting up a Jewish state was not "descriminatory." The Arabs are the ones who want the total annihilation of the Israelis. Thanks for making it crystal clear what a numbskull you really are. I love the way you attack me and call me stupid or a liar, when you are the one showing your total lack of intelligence and civility.

Sharon, you resort to the most dishonest and manipulative tactics you can. I am making it clear that what you are saying is just plain false. If you want to act like a two year old and claim doing this is "attacking" you, that is really pathetic. I thought it was you conservatives that argue all the sensitivity whining was supposed to be an affliction of liberals. It is not an "attack" to point out you are either ignorant or dishonest. Your statement on the WMD was manipulative or ignorant. You tried to play us for fools.

Now you are concocting what MY motives are for presenting information? Knock it off. You are using the most low life tactic of smearing people with very serious accusations in order to cover for your agenda. YES, Israel ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of people because they were not Jews The father of Zionism himself plotted to remove non-Jews from Palestine, he wrote about this in 1895. who they hell are you trying to fool by denying this? And if you set up a state that denies equal rights to people because they are not a certain religion, then that is discriminatory by definition. How brainwashed or fanatical are you that you can't see this basic fact? Setting up a state around a particular religion is certainly not the American way. It is blatantly unjust. The bottom line is that Zionists consider equal rights for non-Jews to be the "destruction" of Israel by definition. This is the ugly little fact that many in this country are blind to. America had a horrific system of slavery in its midst for DECADES, it was denial that allowed it to continue.