OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: Countering Benjamin Netanyahu's Orwellian Spin at the UN

E: What about this summer's proposal of a law by Avigdor Lieberman's party that would strip Israeli Palestinians of their citizenship unless they pledge loyalty to a Jewish state, essentially legitimizing Zionist racism?

On June 6, 2009, Hannen Zoubi, the first woman representative of an Arab party to be elected to the Kennest, said, "From 1948 until now, loyalty to Zionism was enforced by policy. With the introduction of the loyalty law, anyone who would say Israel is not a Jewish State and a democracy would be jailed for three years"In 1948, the Jews had 4% of the land and they have confiscated 93% more and we have 3% of our homeland"There are three times more settlements now than in 1995. Today there are 600,000 settlers and 800 checkpoints. Israel negotiates only to block a peace agreement. Hamas won because after 13 years of negotiations the people wanted a change. The rockets are stupid and illegitimate, but they carry a political meaning; we want our freedom"Resisting occupation is legitimate and our goal is not one or two states, our goal is to end the occupation. The goal is freedom, equality and justice." [8]

N: The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death. The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially. It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

E: We almost agree; but the depth of reality is that:

"We live in an insecure, uncertain world; it is also a time of opportunity. It is a time to put aside many of the old ways and with creativity and imagination, develop new thinking, ideas, institutions, etc. Young people and women will help this process; they know that Nuclear weapons belong to the cold war thinking, and can never be used. To do so, would be immoral, illogical and destroy the Environment.

"They know our real problems, are: Poverty, Environment, unethical globalization, abuse of Human Rights and International Laws, gender inequality, ethnic/political conflict, State and paramilitary acts of terror. They know that spending trillions on weapons that can never be used, while each day over 30,000 children die of preventable disease, is immoral and unacceptable.

"We are all aware that we are living in an increasing Culture of violence, and if we are to survive we need to build a Culture of Non-violence. Choosing not to kill another human being is the greatest contribution each of us can make to peace. This is not a hard choice when through prayer, meditation, morality, or logic, we come to realize that our lives are sacred as is the life of all our brothers and sisters, and there are always alternatives to violence which work. Human beings are evolving and there is a new consciousness that we must choose non-violence and build strong relationships and community." - Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Mairead Maguire, in Hiroshima on May 2008. [9]

N: What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances -- by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.

But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after a horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind.

E: And fear and paranoia also kill!

In 2007, Naomi Klein, in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, illuminated those with eyes to see that the military industrial complex was driving Israel's tremendous economic growth, and Israel had the largest GDP growth of any Western country.

"Klein theorized that the source of Israel's tremendous economic growth in the past five years cannot be attributed simply to its encouragement of high tech entrepreneurship and basic science. Its success must be understood, rather, as a product of its ability to use the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as a laboratory for defense industry innovation -- and to showcase their wares."

After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel's economy was devastated, but then came 9/11, and "suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any company that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders from attack and extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners"Many of the country's most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel's status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom--a living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war"Israel now sends $1.2 billion in "defense" products to the United States--up dramatically from $270 million in 1999" That makes Israel the fourth-largest arms dealer in the world. Much of this growth has been in the so-called "homeland security" sector. Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. The key products and services are precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the "global war on terror" Israel's policy of erecting walls and checkpoints to seal off the occupied territories are also "laboratories where the terrifying tools of our security states are being field-tested Palestinians--whether living in the West Bank or what the Israeli politicians are already calling "Hamasistan"--are no longer just targets. They are guinea pigs." [10]

N: That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction, and the most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

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