Following World War II, the United Nations created two independent states in Palestine, one Jewish and one Arab. The city of Jerusalem was intended to be international with UN oversight. At the time of the UN partition plan, Jewish people owned 6% of the land and were 33% of the population, yet the UN ceded 55% of Palestine to the Jewish state.
In 1948, Israel declared itself to be independent, and a Palestinian-Arab war ensued. By the war's end, the Palestinians no longer had a nation. Israel controlled 78% of Palestine and between 700,000 and 900,000 Palestinians became refugees, fleeing primarily to Syria and Lebanon. To discourage their return, Israelis confiscated or destroyed the property of those who fled. Of those Palestinians remaining in what had been their homeland, about 130,000 Palestinians remained in the area the UN had designated as the Jewish state, while approximately 500,000 settled in the West Bank and Gaza.
Preying on the divisions amongst the Palestinians, and the ambiguity of their national identity, Israeli leaders like Golda Meir fueled the Zionist cause with absurd propagandistic statements like:
"There was no such thing as Palestinians. It was not as thought there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist."
Until the 1967 War, France was Israel's chief source for weaponry. However, it was at that time that the US began taking a significant interest in Israel's cause. It became Israel's chief enabler as it supplied it with money, weapons and powerful diplomatic support. By the 1970's the international community was calling for an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, but the United States threw its weight behind Israel's rejection of this possibility.
In 1982, Israeli forces launched an invasion of Lebanon (which the UN Security Council condemned) to strike at the Palestine Liberation Organization. They killed approximately 20,000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the process. Utilizing the assasination of Lebanese president Bachir Gemayel as a catalyzing event (it was later discovered he was killed by a Syrian rather than the PLO), Ariel Sharon (Bush's so-called "man of peace"), urged the Lebanese Phalangist militia to enter the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps to eradicate the PLO while he sealed the perimeters with Israeli forces. The Phalangists massacred anywhere from 700 to 2,000 Palestinian civilians (depending on whose count one believes). Israel's own government determined that Sharon bore "personal responsibility" for the massacre because he knew it was taking place and did not act to stop it. As a result, Sharon resigned his post as Israeli Defense Minister in 1983.
What are the conditions for the Palestinians who chose to remain in the West Bank and Gaza? According to CIA data, over half of the labor force is unemployed. One of five Palestinians subsists on the equivalent of $2.10 per day. As a result of Israeli military actions, restriction of Palestinian movement, and border closings, over 100,000 Palestinians are now former employees of businesses in Israeli settlements. Despite the window-dressing of the recent withdrawal of Jewish settlers in Gaza, Israel continues to expand its number of settlements in Palestinian territory (which is illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention). Israel persists in demolishing Palestinian homes without permits (utilizing colossal American-made Caterpillar armored bulldozers purchased with US funds).
In the West Bank, Israel is building the Apartheid Wall, an 8 meter tall monolith which is twice the height of the former Berlin Wall and will eventually be four times the length. This barrier encroaches on Palestinian territory and will displace still more Palestinians as its construction continues.
Palestinians are essentially prisoners in their own lands (Gaza and the West Bank) as Israel segregates Palestinians into isolated "bantustans" (similar to those of Apartheid South Africa) and maintains an iron grip on natural resources (like water). The IDF (Israel's military) consistently employs US supplied F-16 fighters and Apache helicopters to terrorize a Palestinian people with no organized military or state (killing an average of 1,000 Palestinian civilians per year). Yet Israel and their enablers label the Palestinians who lash out against the unbearable oppression and injustice as "terrorists". Who is truly terrorizing whom?
Taking home the prize regardless of the cost
History repeats itself. The United States "won the West" through committing genocide and has facilitated Israel's "winning the West Bank" through their own ethnic cleansing. Since 1949, the US has supplied Israel with over $100 billion in aid. With a population of only 6 million people, Israel receives more annual US aid than Asia, Latin America and Africa (excluding the nations of Egypt and Colombia). The Palestinians who engage the Israelis violently wield the equivalent of rocks and sticks against some of the highest tech weaponry on the planet in their pitiful effort to prevent their annihilation. Sound familiar?
US imperialists conquered the West and now employ their proxy in Israel to justify conquering their next "frontier" inhabited by "savages" who possess the coveted resource of oil. Dehumanizing Arabs, Persians, and Islamic people in the psyches of average Americans through a variety of propagandistic means allows our criminal leaders to participate in a genocide in Palestine similar to the one they perpetrated against the Native Americans. As they routinely kill innocent civilians throughout the Middle East and support the Palestinian genocide, members of America's ruling elite blithely dismiss these murders with platitudes like "war is hell".
Radical? Yes. Irrational? No.
In December, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told Iranian television:
"If European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II... why don't they provide the Zionist regime with a piece of Europe.....Germany and Austria can provide the... regime with two or three provinces for this regime to establish itself, and the issue will be resolved."
Let's consider the logic and tremendous potential benefits afforded by Ahmadinejad's proposal for a moment....
In 1948, Israel declared itself to be independent, and a Palestinian-Arab war ensued. By the war's end, the Palestinians no longer had a nation. Israel controlled 78% of Palestine and between 700,000 and 900,000 Palestinians became refugees, fleeing primarily to Syria and Lebanon. To discourage their return, Israelis confiscated or destroyed the property of those who fled. Of those Palestinians remaining in what had been their homeland, about 130,000 Palestinians remained in the area the UN had designated as the Jewish state, while approximately 500,000 settled in the West Bank and Gaza.
Preying on the divisions amongst the Palestinians, and the ambiguity of their national identity, Israeli leaders like Golda Meir fueled the Zionist cause with absurd propagandistic statements like:
"There was no such thing as Palestinians. It was not as thought there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist."
In 1982, Israeli forces launched an invasion of Lebanon (which the UN Security Council condemned) to strike at the Palestine Liberation Organization. They killed approximately 20,000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the process. Utilizing the assasination of Lebanese president Bachir Gemayel as a catalyzing event (it was later discovered he was killed by a Syrian rather than the PLO), Ariel Sharon (Bush's so-called "man of peace"), urged the Lebanese Phalangist militia to enter the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps to eradicate the PLO while he sealed the perimeters with Israeli forces. The Phalangists massacred anywhere from 700 to 2,000 Palestinian civilians (depending on whose count one believes). Israel's own government determined that Sharon bore "personal responsibility" for the massacre because he knew it was taking place and did not act to stop it. As a result, Sharon resigned his post as Israeli Defense Minister in 1983.
What are the conditions for the Palestinians who chose to remain in the West Bank and Gaza? According to CIA data, over half of the labor force is unemployed. One of five Palestinians subsists on the equivalent of $2.10 per day. As a result of Israeli military actions, restriction of Palestinian movement, and border closings, over 100,000 Palestinians are now former employees of businesses in Israeli settlements. Despite the window-dressing of the recent withdrawal of Jewish settlers in Gaza, Israel continues to expand its number of settlements in Palestinian territory (which is illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention). Israel persists in demolishing Palestinian homes without permits (utilizing colossal American-made Caterpillar armored bulldozers purchased with US funds).
In the West Bank, Israel is building the Apartheid Wall, an 8 meter tall monolith which is twice the height of the former Berlin Wall and will eventually be four times the length. This barrier encroaches on Palestinian territory and will displace still more Palestinians as its construction continues.
Palestinians are essentially prisoners in their own lands (Gaza and the West Bank) as Israel segregates Palestinians into isolated "bantustans" (similar to those of Apartheid South Africa) and maintains an iron grip on natural resources (like water). The IDF (Israel's military) consistently employs US supplied F-16 fighters and Apache helicopters to terrorize a Palestinian people with no organized military or state (killing an average of 1,000 Palestinian civilians per year). Yet Israel and their enablers label the Palestinians who lash out against the unbearable oppression and injustice as "terrorists". Who is truly terrorizing whom?
Taking home the prize regardless of the cost
History repeats itself. The United States "won the West" through committing genocide and has facilitated Israel's "winning the West Bank" through their own ethnic cleansing. Since 1949, the US has supplied Israel with over $100 billion in aid. With a population of only 6 million people, Israel receives more annual US aid than Asia, Latin America and Africa (excluding the nations of Egypt and Colombia). The Palestinians who engage the Israelis violently wield the equivalent of rocks and sticks against some of the highest tech weaponry on the planet in their pitiful effort to prevent their annihilation. Sound familiar?
US imperialists conquered the West and now employ their proxy in Israel to justify conquering their next "frontier" inhabited by "savages" who possess the coveted resource of oil. Dehumanizing Arabs, Persians, and Islamic people in the psyches of average Americans through a variety of propagandistic means allows our criminal leaders to participate in a genocide in Palestine similar to the one they perpetrated against the Native Americans. As they routinely kill innocent civilians throughout the Middle East and support the Palestinian genocide, members of America's ruling elite blithely dismiss these murders with platitudes like "war is hell".
Radical? Yes. Irrational? No.
In December, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told Iranian television:
"If European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II... why don't they provide the Zionist regime with a piece of Europe.....Germany and Austria can provide the... regime with two or three provinces for this regime to establish itself, and the issue will be resolved."
Let's consider the logic and tremendous potential benefits afforded by Ahmadinejad's proposal for a moment....
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