A ceremony to honor the Israeli army was held by extremist American Jews at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, in which the keynote speaker was General Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli chief of staff who, as his name betrays, is not from our region. The extremists were supporting war criminals and the murders of children and women, and perhaps I would have not paid any attention to them had it not been for the fact that one of their websites crossed the line in supporting the murders and attacking the owners of the occupied lands, i.e. all of Palestine, and all those who defend them. Nor would I have returned to the subject which I raised here a week earlier, had I not read a subheading and two paragraphs in a report published by a Likudnik website about the above-mentioned ceremony, written by Phyllis Chester. The subheading read: “Pro-Palestinians, All in Black, Stage a Nazi Rally”. Briefly, the extremists wanted to honor the Israeli army, i.e. the Nazi occupation army, and the chief of staff who exemplifies all the crimes of this army, but the International Solidarity Movement – “the very group responsible for the death, martyrdom, and exploitation of Rachel Corrie” (that's what Phyllis called them, literally) – staged a protest that saw the participation of the National Lawyers Guild, Adalah-NY, Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews Say No! Code Pink, Women in Black-Union Square, and other feminist groups. These groups all accused Israel of having committed war crimes in Gaza, but according to Phyllis, “This is a Big Fat Lie”, and “Israel has the legal, moral, and human right to defend herself and that is precisely what she has done” (just like this, literally). Israel does not even have the right to exist. It is a biblical myth. Nonetheless, we accepted 22 percent of Palestine, but the neo-Nazis and fascists who rule Israel did not accept to give us back more than a quarter of this land… […] I made the above observation in order to connect the previous paragraph to the one that preceded it; however, I want to address the fanaticism of the extremists in the order of their lies. The subheading talks about a Nazi rally in black clothes. Of course, these clothes are mourning clothes. If there are any Nazis involved here, these would be none other than the cabinet members of the Israeli government and its occupying army, from Ashkenazi down. If everything black is related to Nazism then does this also apply to penguins which look like they are wearing black tuxedos over white shirts? Does this also apply to the New Zealander team All Black, one of the most famous rugby teams in the world? The next phrase said that the International Solidarity Movement killed Rachel Corrie. This is a lie that only the Likudnik criminals are capable of, and which is tantamount to saying that Jesus Christ had committed suicide, for example. How can peace advocates from all around the world have killed an American peace activist in Gaza? It is perhaps unfortunate for the Likudniks that while they were lying in New York, the British witness Richard Purssell told a court in Haifa how he had watched an Israeli military bulldozer run over and kill Rachel Corrie. His testimony was given in the course of the suit brought before an Israeli court, and which accuses the Israeli army of either killing the young American woman through criminal negligence or deliberate murder. Rachel Corrie's shoe itself is nobler than all the Likudniks combined, from Israel to New York City, and equally nobler are the organizations that defend the rights of the Palestinians, which the extremists attacked. This latter is the main, or most important, point. The reader must have noticed that I attacked the government of Israel, its army and the advocates of the crimes against the Palestinians in the strongest terms possible while still being fit for publication. Nonetheless, I call on the reader to also observe that there is a Jewish majority in the pro-Palestinian groups. These are peace seeking Jews with whom we can coexist, and hence, the problem lies instead in the extremists such as the Likud, Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu, or the parties ruling Israel today, not to mention the settlers. Here, I might add the following names: Richard Goldstone, the eponym of the famous report and the man who called for an inquiry into possible war crimes by Israel, amounting to genocide, and Professor Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Both of these gentlemen are Jewish; the first is a judge from South Africa, and the second is a professor emeritus in Princeton University. They both said that Israel was not defending itself, and as a result, they are now the target of Likudnik attacks as though they were members in Hamas. I want to ask the reader here, if there is a ‘big fat lie' involved, then who is more likely to be the liar, a judge or a professor on the one hand, or an extremist that murders women and children or who justifies their murder, on the other hand? I have more material in this same vein that dwarfs all of the above, but I am running out of space. I just want to note down that peace groups are now touring England to gather support for the Palestinians, and that these groups are similar to the ones being attacked by the extremists in the United States. Also, these extremists attacked the J-Street lobby group, which, while being pro-Israeli, is opposed to AIPAC and extremism, in addition to attacking Professor Judith Butler. I had not heard of her before, until I read a long Likudnik attack against her because of her calls for boycotting of Israel. Israel is the only apartheid – racial segregation - state remaining in the world today; but ultimately, it will have the same fate as that of the former South African apartheid. [email protected]
