ISRAELI PRESIDENTS RAPE WOMEN, ISRAELI SOLDIERS BEAT THEM….

August 15, 2011 at 08:44

And US Tax Dollar$ pays for it all…..

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There is nothing to say except the American Taxpayers funds this abuse and pays for it with our billions sent to Israel every year. Did we not learn from what we did to the Native American Indian? These people they are beating up are indigenous peoples not some illegal immigrants that came from lands in Europe or elsewhere. Geez us!

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It’s truly an embarrassment at best and, at worst, it speaks to our deepest complicity in the horrible Trail of Tears that continues at this moment while our main stream media keeps feeding US citizens the line sent to it by the those in the corridors of power.
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• How do we get on the wrong side of morality?
• What can we do to stop our hard earned dollars from being used to pay for oppression and abuse?
• Are we hopelessly condemned to pay and watch our moral compass be washed away without a word?

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Shame!

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/israeli-presidents-rape-women-israeli-soldiers-beat-them/

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The Israel Palestinians Know

Joharah Baker

Demonstrators escaping teargas canisters fired by Israeli troops, Bil'in August 13, 2011 The protests over housing prices in Israel have been making headlines for the past two weeks and for good reason. Thousands of people have set up tents, demonstrated against the country’s high cost of living and have camped out on the streets of Tel Aviv, intent on not going home until their demands are met. It’s an admirable sight to see so many people united for a cause and to see just how popular pressure works at its best. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu feels the heat and knows he must do something to satisfy his people. However, the housing crisis in Israel is an internal Israeli issue, not one that directly impacts Palestinians. Still, it is difficult not to draw comparisons, to see the double standards Israel employs when dealing with crowd control when the crowds are Israeli. So far— and we would only expect this of a "democracy"— no one has been injured or killed in Israel’s protests. That is admirable for any society, especially after the atrocities we have all seen being carried out in the Arab world during their revolutions against despotic regimes. Although Israelis protesting their government’s housing policies are not looking to topple Bibi, they are out in unprecedented numbers. Close to 300,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv on August 6, almost double the number of protesters a week earlier. Watching these protests from the "other side of the fence", Palestinians mostly just exhale with resignation. When Israel speaks of itself as a democracy, it is not lying completely. The protests over the past few weeks have proven it does respectfully handle its own citizens, that is, Israeli Jews. But across the line into the occupied Palestinian territories, it’s a different story. Peaceful protests demanding rights are nothing new to the Palestinians. Having lived under Israeli military occupation for the past 44 years (not to mention the loss of homes and exile they experienced in 1948), protests have become second nature to them. During the first Intifada, mass protests took place every week, demanding an end to Israel’s occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Twenty years later, this goal has not changed but thanks to Israel’s policies, the battle has become even more complex. Today, there is the separation wall, over double the number of settlers and settlements, which have encroached on even more Palestinian land. This means the Palestinians have begun to protest, not only the occupation as a whole, but the wall, the confiscation of land and the denial of the simplest of rights to live in dignity. The outcome of these protests, however, is nothing like those in Tel Aviv, though. The face of Israel’s democracy on this side of the tracks is blurred beyond recognition. When Palestinians protest, things don’t end as simply as packing up and going home at the end of the day. Each time the Palestinians go out to protest, they expect the worst and hope for the best. Israel does not adopt a policy of tolerance when it comes to Palestinian protesters, even when the protests are "peaceful." Videos coming out of places like Nabi Saleh, a Ramallah-area village are horrifying. Weekly protests against expropriated land for a nearby settlement, much like those that take place in Bilin and Nilin, have ended in brutal violence against the Palestinians and foreign activists who come in solidarity. Israeli soldiers beat men, women, even children, shoot teargas directly at protesters and rubber-coated steel bullets, many times leading to death. If these kinds of methods were employed in the middle of Tel Aviv, there would definitely be an outrage from Israelis themselves and most likely from the rest of the world. But the world has largely come to know that Palestinians living under Israel’s occupation are delegated to third class citizens (at best) just by their nationality. When Israel quells a Palestinian protest, it is for one purpose only. To show them who’s boss, to silence and intimidate a people so that more land can be taken and less voices demanding basic rights and freedom can be heard. So, when Israeli commentators balk at comparisons between the Arab spring and what some have dubbed the Israeli spring, they should think again. True, the Israeli government does not crush its own people in their protest of housing prices. That sort or repression is what Arab peoples have been rebelling against in the first place. But they shouldn’t balk too much. Just cross the "border" into Palestine and Israel has a whole new face. The sort of crack down seen in Gaza, in Nabi Saleh, in Hebron and in Bilin is not too far from the scenes of repression we all cringed from in Tahreer Square, in Diraa, Syria or in Sana, Yemen. Here, Israel is not the democracy the Israelis praise or the world sees on the streets of Tel Aviv. Here is the Israel the Palestinians know. Here is repression at its worst. Joharah Baker is Director of the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m80469&hd=&size=1&l=e

U.S. Threatens To Cut Off Gaza Humanitarian Aid

Published August 12, 2011.

The U.S. State Department threatened to withdraw more than $100 million in aid to Gaza if Hamas leaders do not end demands to audit American charities working there.

The withdrawal, if enacted, would affect spending in Gaza on health care, agriculture and water infrastructure.

The State Department message, sent Thursday and reported by The New York Times, came after Hamas suspended operations of the International Medical Corps on Sunday for refusing to submit to an audit conducted by Hamas.

Hamas has increased surveillance over nongovernmental organizations for months now, causing rising tension. In June, Hamas demanded that groups allow its officials to audit their finances. United States policy, however, forbids direct contact between NGOs and groups labeled as terrorist by the State Department, as Hamas is, and would lead to an end to humanitarian aid.

In July, the Norweigan goverment sent Hamas a letter saying that if Hamas conducted an on-site audit, charities “might suspend their operations, which will affect significant parts of Gaza’s population.” It also said that Norway would hold Hamas responsible for aid withdrawal.

Taher al-Nounou, a spokesman for the Hamas goverment, rejected both warnings, saying: “These organizations do not recognize and do not want to recognize the Palestinian law. We do not kneel down to any threat. Any organization that wants to operate in the Palestinian territories must respect the laws.”

http://forward.com/articles/141336/

EDUCATION AS A TOOL TO INDOCTRINATE

August 14, 2011 at 10:14

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This Israeli process of educating children to hate and prejudice is, of course, exactly what the Zionists accuse the Palestinians of doing. It turns out that all this time, while leveling charges of incitement at the Palestinian educational process, they themselves have been practicing the same sort of indoctrination on their own children.

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Education and Behavior In Israel and Palestine

Dr. Lawrence Davidson*

Part I – Education as Indoctrination
Over the last ten years there have been periodic outbursts of rage over the alleged anti-Semitic nature of Palestinian textbooks. Most of these episodes have been instigated by an Israeli based organization called the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (AKA the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education). According to one Israeli journalist, Akiva Eldar, the Center does sloppy work. It “routinely feeds the media with excerpts from “Palestinian” textbooks that call for Israel’s annihilation…[without] bothering to point out that the texts quoted in fact come from Egypt and Jordan.” The Center’s conclusions have been corroborated only by other Israeli institutions such as Palestinian Media Watch.

Not surprisingly, almost all independent investigations of the same issue have come up with very different conclusions. Non-Zionist sources such as The Nation magazine, which published a report on Palestinian textbooks in 2001, the George Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, reporting in 2002, the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, reporting in 2004, and the U.S. State Department Report of 2009 all found that Palestinian textbooks did not preach anti-Semitism. Nathan Brown, a professor of Political Science at George Washington University, who did his own study on the subject in 2000, set out the situation this way, Palestinian textbooks now in use, and which replaced older ones published in Egypt and Jordan, do not teach anti-Semitism. However, “they tell history from a Palestinian point of view.” It might very well be this fact that the Zionists cannot abide and purposefully mistake for anti-Semitism.

Here is another not very surprising fact. When it comes to choosing which set of reports to support, which set to take a public stand on, American politicians will almost always go with the Zionist versions. Take then Senator Hilary Clinton who, in 2007, denounced Palestinian textbooks. They “don’t give Palestinian children an education, they give them an indoctrination.” How did she know? Well, Israel’s Palestinian Media Watch told her so, and she did not have the foresight to fact check the assertion before going public. How typical. And, how analytically shallow. While the Palestinian textbooks don’t teach hatred of Jewish Israelis, the reality of daily life under occupation surely does. Those “facts on the ground,”and not the textbooks, supplies the most powerful form of education for Palestinian youth.

Although in 2009 the U.S. State Department found that Palestinian textbooks were not the products of anti-Semites, there will be yet another Department sponsored “comprehensive and independent” study in 2011. This time around the investigation will look at “incitement caused by bias in both Israeli and Palestinian textbooks. When this happens, one can only hope the investigators take a look at the work of the Israeli scholar Nurit Peled-Elhanan. She is a professor of language and education at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and also the daughter of the famous Israeli general turned peace activist, Matti Peled. Peled-Elhanan has recently written a book titled Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education. The book will be published this month (August) in the United Kingdom. The work covers the content of Israeli textbooks over the past five years and concludes that Palestinians are never referred to as such “unless the context is terrorism.” Otherwise, they are referred to as Arabs. And Arabs are collectively presented as “vile and deviant and criminal, people who do not pay taxes, people who live off the state, who don’t want to develop….you never see [in the textbooks] a Palestinian child or doctor or teacher or engineer or modern farmer.” In contrast she finds that Palestinian textbooks, even while telling history from a Palestinian point of view, “distinguish between Zionists and Jews.” They tend to take a stand “against Zionists, not against Jews.”

Peled-Elhanan makes a link between what Israeli children are taught and how they later behave when drafted into the country’s military services. “One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behavior of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering…I think the major reason for that is education.” Historically, the mistreatment of Palestinians and even their periodic massacre is taught to Israelis as something that is “unfortunate” but ultimately necessary and “good” for the survival of state. On the other hand, this behavior of Israelis toward Palestinians must also have its consequences. In Peled-Elhanan’s opinion, Palestinian terrorist attacks are “the direct consequence of the oppression, slavery, humiliation and the state of siege imposed on the Palestinians.”
This Israeli process of educating children to hate and prejudice is, of course, exactly what the Zionists accuse the Palestinians of doing. It turns out that all this time, while leveling charges of incitement at the Palestinian educational process, they themselves have been practicing the same sort of indoctrination on their own children. This revelation fills Peled-Elhanan with despair–”I only see the path to fascism” for Israel.

Part II – Education and Making Choices

Keeping our theme of education in mind, let us shift attention to the unprecedented protests now going on in Israel. For the last two weeks massive demonstrations have hit all of Israel’s major cities. “Tent cities” have sprung up in some 40 locations. All of these protests are demanding “social justice.” What, in this case, does social justice mean? It means addressing all the legitimate, standard of living problems that beset most of the demonstrators: soaring costs of food and housing, declining social services and the like. All the predictable consequences of unregulated capitalism and neo-liberal governments.
A significant number of Israelis have decided that this lack of social justice has gone far enough. A recent poll shows that 88% of the citizenry supports the protests. However, this is not entirely a good thing. In order to maintain such support, coming as it does from almost all sections of Israeli political life, the protest leaders now endeavor to remain “non-political” and “rooted squarely in the mainstream consensus.” This is, of course, naive. They live in an albeit skewed “democratic” political environment. The government, which is a right-wing affair, is not going to acquiesce to their demands, except to throw them an occasional bone, unless they can command the votes to shape the outcome of elections. Like it or not, that is the way their system works.

There are other problems. Also in order to be “rooted in the mainstream consensus” the protest leaders are staying away from the issue of social justice for the Palestinians. In Israel proper, that means turning their backs on the plight of over 20% of the population. What sort of social justice is that? Well, it is social justice as defined by people educated in the system described by Nurit Peled-Elhanan. That is why the protest leaders can happily solicit the support of Naftali Bennett, the thoroughly despicable leader of the colonial/settler movement, but not any of the leaders of the Arab-Israeli community.

By not taking a social justice for all stand the protest movement leaders have registered their acceptance of the “justice for Jews only” system to which they were educated. This in itself is a political act which will make them vulnerable to being picked apart with pseudo solutions that offer some of them a little while denying others a lot. Already, as reported by Haaretz, “dozens of Mks [members of the Knesset]’ have petitioned Prime Minister Netanyahu to “solve the housing crisis by building in the West Bank.” Soon thereafter the government announced approval for “1600 more settler homes” in East Jerusalem, with 2700 more to come later. That is the sort of solution this protest movement will get unless their leaders can overcome their education/indoctrination and go into politics in a way that applies social justice to all citizens.

Part III – Conclusion

In all societies there are two major goals for education: one is vocational and the other is acculturation. So, one important reason for education is to prepare young people for the job market. The other is to educate them to be “good citizens.” What this latter goal means depends on the society one is raised in. In the old Soviet Union becoming a good citizen meant being acculturated to a nationalist brand of communism, as is still the case today in China. In the United States it means becoming a believer in the American version of freedom, both political and economic. And, in Israel, being a good citizen means becoming a believing Zionist.

The objective of acculturation means that education always has, and probably always will have, a strong dose of indoctrination attached to it. That the Zionists should find it shocking that the Palestinians want to use education for their version of indoctrination and acculturation is sheer double standards. And, finally, that the leaders of the on-going protest movement in Israel so pointedly exclude the plight of the Palestinians, is testimony to the success of their own education/indoctrination within the apartheid model.

You see, most of us really are what we are educated to be.

*Dr. Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.
The author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com.More articles can be found on RamallahOnline.com, Logos Journal, and Dr. Davidson also maintains an online blog, you can find it at http://www.tothepointanalyses.com
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From Sam Bahour…
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Nurit Peled-Elhanan’s new book, exposing the racism of Israel’ s education system. 

Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a long time peace activist and an academic, has just got her book “Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education” published by I.B. Tauris. Part of the publisher’s description of the book: “She analyzes the presentation of images, maps, layouts and use of language in History, Geography and Civic Studies textbooks, and reveals how the books might be seen to marginalize Palestinians, legitimize Israeli military action and reinforce Jewish-Israeli territorial identity. 

 

Full story

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and don’t miss  her interview

 

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/education-as-a-tool-to-indoctrinate/

SOUTH AFRICAN YOUTH SAY NO TO ISRAELI APARTHEID

August 15, 2011 at 07:57 

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Don’t patronize us! We lived apartheid, we suffered apartheid, we know what apartheid is, we recognise apartheid when we see it. And when we see Israel, we see a regime that practices apartheid. Israel’s image needs no changing; its policies do! We urge Israeli students to instead join the growing and inspiring internal resistance to their regime, particularly the boycott from within movement, rather than waste time and money on these propaganda trips to deceive us Black students, South Africans have no need for these Muldergate-like trips.
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JOINT STUDENT STATEMENT

There is no doubt, Israel is an Apartheid state; There is only one word, boycott!
We, students and youth of a post Apartheid South Africa, who bear the scars of a racist history and who continue to fight for complete liberation, have a duty and responsibility to stand in solidarity with those facing oppression worldwide. Israeli apartheid is one such form of oppression.

Israeli media boast that a mission of 150 Israeli propagandists will be sent to universities in 5 countries to fix Israel’s “serious image problems”. The Israeli mission will begin on South African campuses on the 11th of August, with a delegation that includes at least two aides from the Israeli parliament. A delegation member was clear about the intention of their trip: “We have to create some doubt in their [South African students’] minds.”

Don’t patronize us! We lived apartheid, we suffered apartheid, we know what apartheid is, we recognise apartheid when we see it. And when we see Israel, we see a regime that practices apartheid. Israel’s image needs no changing; its policies do! We urge Israeli students to instead join the growing and inspiring internal resistance to their regime, particularly the boycott from within movement, rather than waste time and money on these propaganda trips to deceive us Black students, South Africans have no need for these Muldergate-like trips.

A “major focus” of the Israeli trip will be the University of Johannesburg (UJ). On 1st April 2011 UJ’s Senate, with the full backing of UJ’s Student Representative Council, terminated its institutional relationship with Israel’s Ben-Gurion University. Indeed, UJ set an academic boycott of Israel precedent that all other South African and international universities can follow.

Following UJ’s decision, and in response to a letter sent to us by Palestinian students, we urge all SRCs, student groups and other youth structures to strategize and implement a boycott of Israel and its campaigns. We declare that all SA campuses must be Apartheid-Israel free zones.

As with the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, international solidarity is key in overcoming Israeli Apartheid. In Nelson Mandela’s words: ‘It behoves all South Africans, erstwhile beneficiaries of generous international support, to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice….we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.’

FOR THE RECORD

A. On Education

1. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has had disastrous effects on access to education for Palestinians. Palestinian students face poverty, harassment and humiliation as a result of Israeli policy and actions.

2. Israel mounted direct attacks on Palestinian education, including the complete closures of two Palestinian universities in 2003 and the targeting and bombing of more than 60 primary and secondary schools during the Israeli attacks on Gaza in 2009.

3. Israel’s assault on the education of Palestinians is illegal under international law. The right to education is a fundamental human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments.

4. The Israeli blockade of Gaza has had a detrimental impact on students. Gaza’s electricity supply is controlled by Israel and shut-down for several hours most days, making it difficult for students to study. Moreover, the blockade means insufficient quantities of educational equipment, such as paper, desks and books, reach students.

B. On Israeli Apartheid

5. Several of our senior leaders have compared Israel to Apartheid South Africa, including Comrades Kgalema Mothlantle, Blade Nzimande, Zwelinzima Vavi, Rob Davies, Jeremy Cronin, Ahmed Kathrada, Winnie Mandela, Ronnie Kasrils, Denis Goldberg, the late Kader Asmal and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

6. Both the former and current United Nations Special Rapporteurs for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have requested that Israel be investigated for the crime of apartheid.

7. In an official report commissioned by the South African government in 2009, the Human Sciences Research Council confirmed that Israel, by its policies and practices, is guilty of the crime of apartheid.

8. In November 2010, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation called upon the Israeli government “to cease their activities that are reminiscent of apartheid forced removals…”

C. On Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)

8. Palestinian civil society, including student groups, have called for a policy of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel until it abides by international law.

9. This call has the endorsement of the largest and most representative coalition of civil and political society in Palestine. The call also has the support of a growing number of progressive Israeli groups.

10. In 2010, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Professor Richard Falk, said: “It is politically and morally appropriate, as well as legally correct, to accord maximum support to the BDS campaign.”

11. COSATU, South Africa’s largest trade union federation was one of the first unions to endorse the BDS call. Subsequently, numerous other international trade unions have also adopted a pro-BDS position.

12. Several international groups have began to advance the BDS call in the cultural, consumer, sports, economic and academic spheres. Earlier this year the largest student union in Europe, the ULU, passed a motion in support of BDS.”

ISSUED AT WITS UNIVERSITY ON THURSDAY THE 4th OF AUGUST 2011 BY

South African Union of Students, South African Student Congress and the Young Communist League of South Africa

* SASCO is South Africa’s oldest and largest student organization.

** The SA Union of Students (SAUS) comprises all South African university Student Representative Councils and is the most representative student union in the country.

*** The Young Communist League of South Africa (YCL) has local branches at all South African universities

BDS SOUTH AFRICA

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An Israeli mission is being sent to five countries to do pro-Israeli propaganda work at campuses. The mission has been briefed and trained by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israeli Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs. Furthermore, they have received funding from the Ben-Gurion University and Weizmann Institute of Science student unions.

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These youtube diaries document the mission’s attempted propaganda visit to South African campuses.In this installment – Day 1: OR Tambo International Airport – students who planned a creative protest at the arrivals terminal of the airport speak about the measures that the Hasbara group had to take to “sneak into the country like spies”.

 

Palestinian students have written to South African peers asking students to challenge and boycott the upcoming Israeli trip to South Africa which is meant to begin on the 11th of August 2011. In response, the SA Union of Students; South Africa’s oldest and largest student group, SA Students Congress; and the Young Communist League of South Africa have issued a joint statement that slams the “Israeli Apartheid Agents” mission to South African campuses and they encourage all local structures to investigate and implement boycott of Israel campaigns was issued.

All South African students are being called on to boycott the Israeli tour; challenge and counter the tour; and investigate and advance Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel on their campuses. More information:

www.bdssouthafrica.com

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/south-african-youth-say-no-to-israeli-apartheid/