UN APPROVED DESTRUCTION OF PALESTINE

PALESTINE SERIES: 4/4

Palestine Is Still Bleeding!

 (Part 4 of 4)

Remembering 29^th November, 1947 - The Destruction Day

Here’s The Truth! Anybody Listening?

(Compiled by: M. Javed Naseem)

“On 29^th November, 1947, the United Nations General

Assembly voted 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions and one

absent, in favor of the modified Palestine Partition Plan."

Joseph Weitz:

In 1948, Joseph Weitz , director of the Jewish National Land Fund and head of the 3rd “Transfer Committee” stated:

“ We must direct our war towards the

removal of as many Arabs as possible

from boundaries of our state.”

Between 1947 and 1949, there were 45 reported massacres including the Yehida Massacre, Al-Sheikh Massacre, Beit Daras Massacre, Dahmesh Massacre, and the better known Deir Yassin Massacre, in which more than 250 people were murdered (25 pregnant women were bayoneted in the abdomen and 52 children were beheaded) as well as the Dawayma Massacre in which 100 people were killed, including children who were murdered by fracturing their heads with sticks.

In 1948, about 935,000 Palestinians (85% of the indigenous population of Palestine at that time) were forced off their land, in some cases at gunpoint, in other cases through massacres or threats of massacres like the massacre at Deir Yassin. As a result, 530 of an estimated 550 total villages were completely destroyed or depopulated. Over 78% of Palestinian land was confiscated for the establishment of a state for Jewish people. The “State of Israel” was established in May, 1948 and the colonial system, put in place by the British, was transferred to the new Zionist settlers’ state.

Excerpts From Interview With Jimmy Carter

By Elisabeth Braw,

Senior Reporter, Metro International

“Israelis' policy is to confiscate Palestinian territory”

– Jimmy Carter

Israel and Gaza are again attacking each other, Syria is descending into civil war, four American diplomats killed in Libya: the Middle East is more fragile than ever. "Both sides should cease all hostilities," says former US President Jimmy Carter. "Israel should end its blockade of Gaza, and Western countries should work to facilitate reconciliation between Hamas and their Palestinian rival, Fatah. As long as Gaza remains isolated, the situation in and around Gaza will remain volatile."

Israel's leaders don't want a Palestinian state, Carter tells Metro in an exclusive interview with Metro. Carter, who still conducts international negotiations and is now a member of The Elders, won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. He just returned from a visit to the Middle East.

The chances of a Palestinian state are fading. Whose job is it to fix this situation?

The peace process has been pretty well dormant for the past three years. Of course, in the past we played a key role in being the mediator and conveyor of meetings, but that's not happening either. The first priority would be for the Israelis and Palestinians to take the initiative. But the Israelis have continued with their massive settlement program in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Palestinians say they won't negotiate as long as Israel is continuing to take over their territory, so there's deadlock. The United States is looked upon by the rest of the international community as the primary interlocutor, so the European Union members don't take action. As a result, there's no intermediary who can move things forward and initiate peace talks.

President Obama says he supports a Palestinian state, but even so there's a deadlock. Does it take even more than the support of a US President to get a Palestinian state?

I think the big change is that the Israeli leaders have decided to abandon the two-state solution. Their policy now is to confiscate Palestinian territory, and they've announced publicly that it the Palestinians have to recognize not just Israel but Israel as a Jewish state, even though 20% of the Israeli community are non-Jews. Netanyahu has also decided that even the Jordan valley has to be under Israeli control. So, those factors indicate quite clearly that Netanyahu has decided that the two-state solution is not what he wants. He wants what is being called Greater Israel, Eretz Israel. That's a new development, and I think everyone recognizes this.

(Courtesy: The Huffington Post and Metro)

(www.huffingtonpost.com/elisabeth-braw/jimmy-carter-israelis-pol_b_2144182.html)

Excerpts from:

“The Inconvenient Truth About Israel”

By: Ben Cohen,

Editor of the Daily Banter.com

The Obama Administration's continued refusal to criticize Israel for its ruthless killing of aid workers off the coast of Gaza highlights a fundamental problem with the way in which the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in America is portrayed.

The premise upon which the debate is based on is fundamentally flawed, and in some cases overtly racist. The American media and the intellectual classes operate within the logic that Israel is the victim of Arab aggression and is simply defending itself from hostile neighbors --the Muslim countries are anti-Semitic and hell bent on the destruction of Israel and cannot ever be negotiated with. Israel, the story goes, is a democracy and an ally of the United States, and therefore justified in anything it does to protect itself.

There is one inconvenient truth that shoots a deadly arrow in this narrative, and it isn't an easy one to swallow.

The truth is that the creation of the Jewish state was based on the theft of land from an indigenous people. While Jews would prefer to believe that their country is a 'miracle in the desert,' for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, it is an everlasting nightmare.

The pro-Israel narrative continues with its portrayal of Arab aggression, noting the wars in 1948, 1967 and 1973 as proof that the country was under perpetual attack. While it is true that the Arab nations attacked Israel after it declared itself a nation in 1948, it must be remembered that if Mexican immigrants declared a state of Mexico in Arizona, it is unlikely the U.S government would not see it as an act of aggression and take immediate military action.

The wars in 1967 and 1973 were started by Egypt and Syria, not the Palestinians, and the Israelis used it as an excuse to annex more Palestinian land (Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and the West Bank), an act illegal under international law. The Palestinians, as always, suffered the consequences of competing empires.

The continued occupation of the Palestinian people and the relentless expansion of the Israeli state is a text book definition of colonization. The Palestinians have a right to resist this occupation, and the onus is on Israel to stop it so that peace talks can resume.

From: Veterans News Now – VNN:

George Galloway: Free Palestine

"Free Palestine, Free Afghanistan, Free Speech" - George Galloway

(Speech made at St. Andrew's Wesley United Church, Vancouver, Canada, Monday, November 21, 2010).

George Galloway Speaking in Vancouver, British Columbia :

“The Palestinians are the victims of one of the greatest crimes of

the 20th century now bleeding into the 21st century”, he notes.

“Israel has broken more U.N. Security Council Resolutions

than all the other countries of the World combined. They

have broken more international law than all the countries

of the world put together.
The Palestinians who are the victims of terrorism

are called the terrorists, and the Israelis who are

the ‘Terrorists’ are referred to as the victims by

Zionist-controlled politicians and Zionist-controlled

media in the West.”

“THEY ARE NEVER punished. SHAME, SHAME ON THE WEST.”

See the video (sponsored by stopwar.ca) at: http://vimeo.com/17139623

(Courtesy: www.veteransnewsnow.com/2013/11/01/george-galloway-free-palestine/)

From ‘Goodreads.com’:

Noam Chomsky:

“Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus'—blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable.”

“The new crimes that the US and Israel were committing in Gaza as 2009 opened do not fit easily into any standard category—except for the category of familiarity.” 

– Noam Chomsky (Gaza in Crisis).

“Israel's demonstration of its military prowess in 1967 confirmed its status as a 'strategic asset,' as did its moves to prevent Syrian intervention in Jordan in 1970 in support of the PLO. Under the Nixon doctrine, Israel and Iran were to be 'the guardians of the Gulf,' and after the fall of the Shah, Israel's perceived role was enhanced. Meanwhile, Israel has provided subsidiary services elsewhere, including Latin America, where direct US support for the most murderous regimes has been impeded by Congress. While there has been internal debate and some fluctuation in US policy, much exaggerated in discussion here, it has been generally true that US support for Israel's militarization and expansion reflected the estimate of its power in the region.

The effect has been to turn Israel into a militarized state completely dependent on US aid, willing to undertake tasks that few can endure, such as participation in Guatemalan genocide. For Israel, this is a moral disaster and will eventually become a physical disaster as well. For the Palestinians and many others, it has been a catastrophe, as it may sooner or later be for the entire world, with the growing danger of superpower confrontation.” 

– Noam Chomsky.

“People who call themselves supporters of Israel are actually supporters of its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction.” 
― Noam Chomsky

Susan Abulhawa:

“They had bombed and burned,killed and maimed,plundered and looted. Now they had come to claim the land.” 
― Susan Abulhawa, (Morning in Jenin).

“Israeli occupation exposes us very young to the extremes of our emotions, until we cannot feel except in the extreme.” 
― Susan Abulhawa, (Morning in Jenin)

“For if life had taught her anything, it was that healing and peace can begin only with acknowledgment of wrongs committed.” 
― Susan Abulhawa,

Christopher Hitchens:

“You can't have occupation and human rights.” 
― Christopher Hitchens

A.J. Deus:

“The custom to put others in the line of fire is a recurring theme in Judaism. It boils down to the Levite Korahites’ willingness to sacrifice their ordinary Jewish subjects in order to ensure their own survival. This should be a historic warning to modern-day Israelites: their orthodox government would not hesitate to risk the lives of the many for the sake of the survival of the few in the orthodox elite. The citizens of Israel will have to think about how to remove the systemic threat that comes from within their own ranks.”
― A.J. Deus

Norman G. Finkelstein:

“Goldstone has done terrible damage to the cause of truth and justice and the rule of law. He has poisoned Jewish-Palestinian relations, undermined the courageous work of Israeli dissenters and—most unforgivably—increased the risk of another merciless IDF assault.” 
― Norman G. Finkelstein, 

(Goldstone Recants: Richard Goldstone Renews Israel’s License to Kill).

Isaac Asimov:

 
“I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (#92 ff.)” 

– Isaac Asimov, (Asimov Laughs Again).

Nelson Mandela:

"If you want peace and democracy, I will support you.

If you want formal Apartheid, we will not support you.

If you want to support racial discrimination and

ethnic cleansing, we will oppose you."

(Nelson Mandela's memo to Thomas Friedman about Israel & Palestine, by Nelson Mandela, in Jefferson Corner - America's Speaker's Corner, 28 March 2001.)

Dear Thomas,

I know that you and I long for peace in the Middle East, but before you continue to talk about necessary conditions from an Israeli perspective, you need to know what’s on my mind. Where to begin? How about 1964? Let me quote my own words during my trial. They are true today as they were then: “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Today, the world, black and white, recognize that Apartheid has no future. In South Africa it has been ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. That mass campaign of defiance and other actions could only culminate in the establishment of Democracy.

Perhaps it is strange for you to observe the situation in Palestine or more specifically, the structure of political and cultural relationships between Palestinians and Israelis, as an Apartheid system. This is because you incorrectly think that the problem of Palestine began in 1967. This was demonstrated in your recent column “Bush’s First Memo” in the New York Times on March 27, 2001.

You seem to be surprised to hear that there are still problems of 1948 to be solved, the most important component of which is the right to return of Palestinian refugees. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established “normally” and happened to occupy another country in 1967. Palestinians are not struggling for a “state” but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.

In the last few years, and especially during the reign of the Labour Party, Israel showed that it was not even willing to return what it occupied in 1967; that Settlements remain, Jerusalem would be under exclusive Israeli sovereignty, and Palestinians would not have an independent state, but would be under Israeli economic domination with Israeli control of borders, land, air, water and sea.

Israel was not thinking of a “state” but of “separation”. The value of separation is measured in terms of the ability of Israel to keep the Jewish state Jewish, and not to have a Palestinian minority that could have the opportunity to become a majority at some time in the future. If this takes place, it would force Israel to either become a secular democratic or bi-national state, or to turn into a state of Apartheid not only de facto, but also de jure.

”Thomas! If you follow the polls in Israel for the last

30 or 40 years, you clearly find a vulgar racism that

includes a third of the population who openly declare

themselves to be racist. This racism is of the nature of:

“I hate Arabs” and “I wish Arabs would be dead”.

If you also follow the judicial system in Israel, you

will see there is discrimination against Palestinians, and

if you further consider the 1967 Occupied Territories,

you will find there are already two judicial systems in

operation that represent two different approaches to

human life: One for Palestinian life and the other for

Jewish life. Additionally there are two different approaches

to property and to land. Palestinian property is not

recognized as private property because it can be confiscated.”

As to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is an additional factor. The so-called “Palestinian autonomous areas” are Bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli Apartheid system.

The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel’s racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a “Jewish” state.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

The responses made by South Africa to human rights abuses emanating from the removal policies and Apartheid policies respectively, shed light on what Israeli society must necessarily go through before one can speak of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and an end to its Apartheid policies.

Thomas, I’m not abandoning Mideast diplomacy. But I’m not going to indulge you the way your supporters do. If you want peace and democracy, I will support you. If you want formal Apartheid, we will not support you. If you want to support racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing, we will oppose you.

When you figure out what you’re about, give me a call.

(Courtesy: http://www.keghart.com/Mandela-Palestine)

  

From :  1948 – Lest We Forget Palestine

(www.1948.org.uk/)

British Foreign Office, June 1920:

The Balfour Declaration “has also been interpreted as giving priority to a small minority of Jews over the mass of people in Palestine. It is idle to propose that preference should be given to one-tenth who has gone to the country (Palestine) only lately over the nine-tenths who have been there, from father to son, for generations”.

Lord Sheffield:

Commenting on the possible appointment of Herbert Samuel as the first British High Commissioner to Palestine: “there is no doubt that the people of the country (Palestine), when you select a man of the religion of only one-tenth of the inhabitants and send him to rule the whole country, must feel suspicious”.

(Lord Sheffield as quoted in a Foreign Office document, June 1920).

Yoram Kaniuk, Israeli Writer:

“The state I took part in founding had ended long ago and I am not interested in what it has become. It is ludicrous, blunt, vile, dark, sick and it will not last”.

Yoram Kaniuk, Israeli writer (May 1930-June 2013):

In 2011, Kaniuk won a milestone ruling in Israel’s constitutional law when the district court in Tel Aviv accepted his appeal to change the clause in his Israeli identity card from “Jewish” to “No Religion”. His grandson followed suit.

Theodor Herzl, Founder of Political Zionism, May 1896:

"Without preparation, I told [Michael von] Newlinsky that we imagine that Palestine would be given to us for £20 million ($100 million [in 1896]). Two million would be given to Palestine on the basis of the capitalization of its present [1896] yield of £80,000 annually. With the other £18 million, we should free Turkey from the Control Commission”.
(Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism, 1860 - 1904, from a Personal Diary entry 18^th May, 1896).

"We shall endeavor to expel the poor population [of Palestine] across the border unnoticed, procuring employment for it in the transit countries, but denying it any employment in our country”.
(Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism, 1860 - 1904, from a Personal Diary entry 12^th June, 1895).

Matityahu Peled, Israeli General:
"If we keep these lands, popular [Palestinian] resistance to the occupation is sure to rise, and Israel's army will be used to quell that resistance, with disastrous and demoralizing results”.
(Israeli General Matityahu Peled, 1923 - 1995, addressing Israeli cabinet meeting under Levi Eshkol, immediately after the June 1967 war).

Mohandas Gandhi, 1938:

"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and in-human to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”
(Mohandas Gandhi, 1938)

Ronnie Kasrils, Jewish S/African Minister:

"Apartheid was an extension of the colonial project to dispossess people of their land. That is exactly what has happened in Israel and the occupied territories; the use of force and the law to take the land. That is what apartheid and Israel have in common.
(Ronnie Kasrils, the Jewish South African cabinet minister and former ANC guerrilla, on a visit to Jerusalem, February 2009).

Hendrik Verwoerd,

S/African Prime Minister, 1958-1966):

"The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state."
(Hendrik Verwoerd, the South African prime minister from 1958 until his assassination in 1966, and architect of the "grand apartheid" vision of the Bantustans).

Atlas of Palestine, 1948:

"If the Israelis and others want to know why the conflict still persists today, they can review the information here [The Atlas of Palestine 1948] and wake up from their collective amnesia about what really happened in Palestine in 1948".
Dr Salman Abu-Sitta, author of the impressive 400-page "Atlas of Palestine, 1948" (published  by The Palestine Land Society, 2004)

George Antonius, Lebanese Diplomat:

"No code of morals can justify the persecution of one people in an attempt to relieve the persecution of another”
(George Antonius 1891-1942, Lebanese-Egyptian author and diplomat).

Dr. Haider Abdul-Shafe’e:

"The Zionists have not changed their objectives since the Basel Conference of 1897”.
(Dr. Haider Abdul-Shafe'e, Former Head of The Palestinian Delegation to The Madrid Peace Conference - In Conversation, (Just Before He Died September 2007) with Professor Francis Boyle).

Bertrand Russell,

British Philosopher, Historian:

"Every new conquest [by Israel] becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression”
(Bertrand Russell 1872 - 1970, Philosopher, Historian & Social Critic - Excerpt from his last letter written in 1970 just before his death).

Bertrand Russell, British Philosopher, Historian:

“No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate?”
(Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician, historian, social reformer, and pacifist, 1970).

Beshara Doumani, UCLA, California:

"It's really quite an amazing fact that [the Palestinians] are such a household name but we know so little about them: who they are, how they came to be, what do they want, how they live."
(Beshara Doumani, Associate Professor of History at UCLA – California).

Arnold Toynbee, Universal Historian:

"The Arabs have been there [in Palestine] for thirteen centuries - that is to say, for as long as the Jews during their first occupation of a patch of the country and for nearly twice as long as the Ten Tribes that constituted the ancient Kingdom of Israel”.
(Arnold Toynbee 1889 - 1975, Universal Historian (from the foreword to "The Transformation of Palestine").

Martin Levi van Crevel, Israeli Historian:

"We [Israel] possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets...most European capitals are targets of our air force.”

”The Palestinians should be deported. Two years ago, only 7% or 8% of Isarelis were of the opinion that this would be the best solution. Two months ago [January 2010] it was 33%. Now, according to a Gallup Poll, the figure is 44%.”
(Martin Levi van Crevel, (b 1946) Israeli Military Historian and Theorist).

Ben Gurion, First Prime Minister of Israel:

"Erect a Jewish State at once, even if it is not in the whole of the land [of Palestine]. The rest will come in the course of time. It must come.”
(Ben Gurion, accepting Lord Peel's Commission recommending, in 1936, that Palestine be partitioned).

Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Prime Minister, 1993:

"No return to the 1967 borders. No discussion on the Permanent Status [of a Palestinian State]. No withdrawal from the Jordan Valley. No negotiations with the PLO. No to a Palestinian State”.
(Yitzhak Rabin. Israeli Prime Minister – 1993)

Lord A.J. Balfour, British Foreign Secretary:

"Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”
(Lord Arthur James Balfour, British Foreign Secretary (1916-1919). The 'Balfour Declaration' was named after him).

Moshe Dayan, Israeli General:

“Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.”
---
“We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house”
---
“There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population”
(Moshe Dayan, Israeli General).

Farid Esack, S/African Minister:

"My dear Palestinian brothers and sisters, I have come to your land and I have recognized shades of my own."
(Farid Esack - South African Writer and Political Activist - Minister in Nelson Mandela's Government).

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine’s National Poet:

"My homeland is not a suitcase, and I am no traveller"
(Mahmoud Darwish - Palestine's national poet).

Barack Obama, US President:

“There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but also morally justified.”
(No, not Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld, but President Barack Obama in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize 2009).

Barack Obama, US President, 2009:

"The settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward".
(Barack Obama, U.S. President, 2009).

Jimmy Carter, Ex-US President:

“The pre-eminent obstacle to peace is Israel's colonization of Palestine. Israel's occupation of Palestine has obstructed a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land, regardless of whether Palestinians had no formalized government, one headed by Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, or with Abbas as president and Hamas controlling the parliament and cabinet."
(Jimmy Carter, U.S. President who negotiated the Camp David peace accord, 1979).

Miguel Brockman,

President, UN-General Assembly, Nov. 2008:

“More than twenty years ago, we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a non violent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations.
Today, perhaps we and the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generatipon of civil society who are calling for a similar non violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations.”
(Miguel D'Escoto Brockman, President of the U.N. General Assembly, 29th November, 2008).

Israel Katz, 2009:

The U.S. gave $2.4 billion in aid to Israel in 2008. However, "the cash does not entitle a U.S. President to tell us how to live."
(Israel Katz (Efrat Illegal Settlement), 2009).

David Cameron, British PM:
"Let me be clear! The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable...we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous.”
"Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."
(British PM, David Cameron, 27 July 2010, Ankara, Turkey).

Arie Lipo, Jewish Spiritual Leader:

"We build small havens here. We are the people of the Bible. If Obama fights what God has done in bringing the people of th Bible here...he will fall. Now the question is: Who is the boss? God? or Obama?"
(Arie Lipo, Spiritual Leader of Havat Gilad Illegal Settlement, 2009).

Ariel Sharon, Israeli PM:

"Grab the hilltops and stake your claim. Everything we don't grab will go to them (the Palestininans)".
(Ariel Sharon, Israeli PM, 1998).

Paul Craig Roberts, Economist:

“The reason that Israel has been able to appropriate Palestine unto itself with American aid and support is that Israel controls the explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At least 90% of Americans, if they know anything at all of the issue, know only the Israeli propaganda line. Israel has been able to control the explanation, because the powerful Israel Lobby brands every critic of Israeli policy as an anti-semite who favors a second holocaust of the Jews.”
(Paul Craig Roberts, economist, 2007)

Nelson Mandela, S/African President:

“The so-called ‘Palestinian autonomous areas’ are Bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system.”
(Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa, 2001)

Howard Zinn, Jewish, American Historian:

“I think the Jewish State was a mistake, yes, (…) it was probably the worst thing that the Jews could have done. What they did was join the nationalistic frenzy, they became privy to all of the evils that nationalism creates …”

Ehud Barak, Israeli PM:

“I imagine that if I were a Palestinian of the right age, I would, at some stage, have joined one of the terror organizations.”
(Ehud Barak, Israeli general and prime minister 1999 – 2001).

Edward Herman, Economist, Analyst:

"If Jews in France were required to carry identification cards designating them Jews (even though French citizens), could not acquire land or buy or rent homes in most of the country, were not eligible for service in the armed forces, and French law banned any political party or legislation calling for equal rights for Jews, would France be widely praised in the United States as a "symbol of human decency" (New York Times) and paragon of democracy? Would there be a huge protest if France, in consequence of such laws and practices, was declared by a UN majority to be a racist state?"
Edward S. Herman, economist and media analyst, 1994

Moshe Dayan, Israeli General, 1956:

“What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.”
(Moshe Dayan, Israeli general, 1956).

Anthony Eden, British PM:

"For the simple reason, we, who have not been through the horrors of an occupation by a foreign power, have no right to pronounce judgment upon what that country does which has been through all that".
(Anthony Eden (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 7 April 1955 – 10 January 1957, interviewed in the "Sorrow and the Pity", a documentary on WWII directed by Marcel Ophuls).

(Courtesy: www.1948.org.uk/)

***********