Modern Day Slave Auctions in Israel

Israel Pays a Bounty of $5,000 and Arms for Each African Asylum Seeker Expelled’; Israel was the main driver behind the 1951 UN Convention on the Rights of Refugees, but after signing it, it has never respected the rights of refugees. In fact, it has created one of the biggest refugee crisis the world has seen, says Journalist and Filmmaker Lia Tarachansky.  (the transcript of the 21 minutes is here, but the visuals and voices are of prime importance, imo.)

Other related interviews are on the right sidebar:  ‘Israeli Lobby’s Bill in German Parliament: ‘Critique of Israel is Antisemitism’; ‘22 Years After Rabin’s Murder’, ‘Israel Even Further From Peace’; ‘Israel Flouts International Law While Targeting Its Defenders’; ‘Emmett Till in Israel: How False Allegations of Rape Are Used to Lynch African Refugees and Palestinians’; ‘The Only Realistic Choice – A Better Occupation?’ (oy; i might have to check that one out), ‘Modi’s Israel Trip Continues India’s Rightward Drift’, etc.

Ethnocracy in the Promised Land: Israel’s African Refugees is on youtube; 53+ minutes

Via 972mag.com, Feb. 10, 2018: ‘Sent to Rwanda by Israel: ‘We have no food or work. Don’t come here’; Ahead of a mass planned deportation, +972 Magazine joins two members of Knesset on a trip to Rwanda and Uganda to investigate what happens to the asylum seekers Israel is sending there. The one thing that remained most elusive: a future for asylum seekers pushed out of Israel, by photo-journalist Oren Ziv (similar stories are listed to the right of this one)

Of course Rwanda and genocidaire Paul Kagame makes total sense, as in ‘Israel’s African Darling: Paul Kagame’, Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report.  (spoiler alert: bring along an air-sick bag)

‘Israel Announces Expansion of West Bank Colonization Amid Rise in Corruption Scandals’;  Political economist Shir Hever says the consequences of recent legislation will lead to a deterioration in foreign relations and deliver a major blow to the nation’s culture industry, TRNN, Feb. 8

“The Israeli right wing government is pushing a wave of legislation leading to the deterioration in Israeli foreign relations. The Knesset is also very close to finalizing a law, to bar entrance to the country, for anyone caught supporting a boycott against any institution in the area under control of Israel.

On Monday night, the Knesset passed the controversial Law of Regulation, to retroactively legalize colonies built on stolen Palestinian land. In response, Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, announced that he will ask France to recognize the State of Palestine. The European Union has already decided to postpone a summit meeting with Israel, dismayed by the new law.”

From Counterpunch February 12, 2018:  ‘On Resistance: BDS and Israel’s Declining Support Among Diaspora Jews’ by Stanley L. Cohen, a Jewish voice for peace.

“For a generation of Jews born against the pall of the atrocities of Deir Yassin and a hundred other ravaged, age-old Palestinian villages, the Hollywood classic “Exodus” proved to be a quixotic lure.  After all, who could withstand the good looks and charisma of Paul Newman or Sal Mineo”.

[less Exodus, more Mavi Marmara and Rachel Corrie, if you will]

“For them, the desperate flight from the strangle of genocide to the welcome and safe arms of their own “homeland” was a tale that echoed throughout Jewish communities of the day with scant second thought or challenge. To do so was rank heresy.

For those of us who came of age later, during the militant days of the US civil rights and anti war movements, the journey from obedient cheer to unbridled challenge proved to be an essential leap of faith that moved many from complacency to confrontation. For some Jews of the time, the ring of challenge necessarily meant a de nova look at long settled misconceptions about just what Israel was, indeed, had always been. It was not a pretty picture.

For more than a few, it set in motion a life-long examination that often stumbled for want of fresh eyes or reliable information. Decades away from cell phones, YouTube, the internet, and alternative news sources, we were largely driven by information cast by but a hand full of structured reports within acceptable margins controlled by a few major media outlets.

Indeed, when it came to Israel, ours was not a generation moved by the reality of bombings, assassinations or collective punishment that unfolded in virtual time for all to see. To the contrary, we were force-fed the dreamy tempt of socialist kibbutzim bringing forth life from a barren desert… only later to learn that its sanded base was but a thin windblown veneer over the rubble of destroyed Palestinian villages and the skeletal remains of children.”

“Whether it’s the reality of Jewish picnickers overlooking Gaza and applauding with the blast of each phosphorous bomb exploding on civilians below, the death of infants for want of energy for incubators, mass incarceration of Palestinian children without formal charge or trial, the murder of defenseless unarmed demonstrators, rampaging “settlers” screaming death to Arabs or elected Palestinian “Israelis” ejected from the Knesset for daring to challenge the political rampage of  its Jewish majority, the daily nightmare that is Palestine increasingly resonates with anger and resistance among millennial Jews who shout, “not in our name.”

The closure of Gaza is now more than a decade old as millions are held hostage, daily, to a cruel and systematic attack on their very existence. The occupation is more than fifty years old. Throughout Palestine, not a day passes without a new and very public Israeli outrage.

For Diaspora Jews, the battle against ruthless Israeli hegemony will neither be easy nor painless. At times, it will echo with the determined and peaceful call of BDS. Some will be drawn to the barricade of militant resistance and, perhaps, pay a terrible price for that step. Still, others will preach to the uncertain through prose or poetry that resonates with the sweet lyric of freedom.”

May I say I was  quite the little Zionist decades ago…before my eyes were opened by the advent of the internet.

…and lest we forget Peter, Paul and Mary, Jewish voices for peace; from 1982:

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
That anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to find us together
With peace as the song in our hearts

Don’t let the light go out!
It’s lasted for so many years!
Don’t let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears.

What is the memory that’s valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What’s the commitment to those who have died
That we cry out they’ve not died in vain?
We have come this far always believing
That justice would somehow prevail
This is the burden, this is the promise
This is why we will not fail!

And other Jewish voices for peace: Mondoweiss.net’s I/P tab: (two among the most recent):

‘54 Palestinians died while waiting for Israel to approve their medical permits’, Feb.14; ‘Kindergarteners in Hebron protest Israel’s detention of 350 children’, Feb. 5 (including videos)

“The kindergarteners rallied for three child prisoners in particular, a young girl named Razan Abu Sal, 13, who was sentenced to 13 and a half months and a fine of $870 (3000 NIS), Shadi Farrah, 12, who has already served two years of his three year sentence, and the infamous Ahed Tamimi, 17, who was detained (at age 16) on charges of incitement and slapping an Israeli soldier. She has become a worldwide symbol of child imprisonment and the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

And from Telesur English today: ‘Palestinians Held Without Charges Boycott Israeli Courts’ (with related videos)

“We declare a comprehensive and categorical boycott of all administrative detention courts, which seek to beautify the ugly face of [Israel’s] occupation,” Palestinian administrative detainees said in a statement issued collectively by 450 prisoners. 

Urging the Palestinian public to support the move, detainees warned that “dozens” of Palestinians had remained in custody for over 14 years, without trial or charge, under the administrative detention policy.

“Administrative detention is the sword hanging over the necks of all Palestinians,” the statement read. “This [the Israeli] judicial system faithfully serves the policies of the Israeli occupation and its intelligence services using the pretext of ‘secret evidence’.”

Israel’s administrative detention law allows authorities to imprison suspects for renewable six-month periods without trial or charge while investigators “gather evidence.”

Note to Alexis Tsipras: this is the regime with which you’ve made your recent and dangerous alliance.  May you live to regret it..


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Anja Geitz's picture

To deport Sudenese asylum seekers from the 'Holy Land' are tragically repeating a karmic pattern that will only cause misery and suffering. Politicians who are monetarily supporting this ignore their own history in an upside down logic that defiles the dignity of long ago asylum seekers to Israel when there was no Israel.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

it's so good to see that so many around the globe are pushing back on all of this. but not nikki haley at the UN, of course. (i'm sure you've read her almost-hilarious comments there.)

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EdMass's picture

You should really delete this screed and come back with something that recognizes both sides are aggrieved and both deserve justice.

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Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!

Firesign Theater

Stop the War!

wendy davis's picture

@EdMass @EdMass

on edit: unless JtC asks me to. but obviously you're free to say what justice should like from the 'other side'. yeppers, this is the touchiest subject on the internet, isn't it? so touchy some sites won't allow it, or wouldn't in the past, at any rate. reminds me of the old acronym 'PEP': 'progressive except palestine'.

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Outsourcing Is Treason's picture

@wendy davis “Progressive Except Palestine” is just a weasely way of saying “Jews not allowed”.

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"Please clap." -- Jeb Bush

wendy davis's picture

@Outsourcing Is Treason

as i'd said, if you want to imagine justice for the other side, please do. i will say that i may not be able to answer what you bring, though.

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wendy davis's picture

@Outsourcing Is Treason

i did try to demonstrate just how many jewish voices for peace there are in the OP, and used stanley cohen to show that no matter how much money bibi pours into his add campaign against BDS, etc., it's clearly not working.

here are a couple other essays that indicate the same thing, although i'm usually pretty unimpressed with polling numbers:

The Boomerang Effect: How Netanyahu Made Israel an American Issue, and Lost’ by Ramzy Baroud / February 14th, 2018, dissident voice

Burying Canada’s Anti-Palestinian Consensus’ by Yves Engler / February 15th, 2018, also dissident voice

"Two weeks ago I received an email on behalf of party leader Jagmeet Singh titled “all people deserve the same human rights”, which listed the party’s recent support for Palestinian rights. It noted, “the NDP shares your concerns about Palestine. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his team of New Democrats have a consistent record of defending Palestinian rights as well as raising concerns over Islamophobia.”

A progressive party worth its salt campaigns on an international issue in equal measure to its government/society’s contribution to that injustice.

Today, Ottawa regularly votes against Palestinian rights at the UN and subsidizes dozens of charities that channel tens of millions of dollars to projects supporting Israel’s powerful military, racist institutions and illegal settlements. Additionally, Canada’s two-decade-old free trade agreement with Israel allows settlement products to enter Canada duty-free and over the past decade Ottawa has delivered over $100 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority in an explicit bid to advance Israel’s interests by building a security apparatus to protect the corrupt Palestinian Authority from popular disgust over its compliance in the face of ongoing Israeli settlement building."

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Anja Geitz's picture

@wendy davis

if those who are suggesting you delete this essay spend some time informing our readership by factually rebutting Israel's policies with Sudanese asylum seekers (as well as their incarceration policies for minors) in an effort to better illustrate the "both" sides argument they are advocating.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

but i'd add 'rwanda' as well to the list of places that are inhospitable, as per several links above. too weird it is to see paul kagame as BFFs with the Imperium now, all due to clinton/rice and friends. oh, and bibi, of course.

but this my tickle you an be the amerikan preferable to others here: lord luv a duck: ‘Sponsor An Immigrant Yourself; No, really: A new kind of visa would let individual Americans—instead of corporations—reap the economic benefits of migration’, by eric posner and glen weyl, politico, feb. 13, politico (h/t b at MOA)

“Editor’s note: This article, and particularly its original headline (“What If You Could Get Your Own Immigrant?”) [ya think, and this is preferable??] , was offensive to many readers. We changed the headline on Tuesday night to better reflect the authors’ intent, and asked them to respond to the criticism, but they declined. POLITICO Magazine has always been a platform for a wide range of views, and we do not endorse the opinions expressed in any article we publish.”

“Here’s how the program would work: Imagine a woman named Mary Turner, who lives in Wheeling, West Virginia. She was recently laid off from a chicken-processing plant and makes ends meet by walking and taking care of her neighbors’ pets. Mary could expand her little business by hiring some workers, but no one in the area would accept a wage she can afford. Mary goes online—to a new kind of international gig economy website, a Fiverr for immigrants—and applies to sponsor a migrant. She enters information about what she needs: someone with rudimentary English skills, no criminal record and an affection for animals. She offers a room in her basement, meals and $5 an hour. (Sponsors under this program would be exempt from paying minimum wage.) The website offers Mary some matches—people living in foreign countries who would like to spend some time in the United States and earn some money. After some back and forth, Mary interviews a woman named Sofia who lives in Paraguay.”, yada, yada.

how many elite were discovered to have wage slaves or 'immigrants' in their basements, never being allowed even out of the house? but maybe 'mary' could start her own marriage bureau, as well, so some could stay in the USA permanently, lol.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@wendy davis

Can be abused is horrifying. Apparently being a psychopath doesn't hinder ones ability for inventing monetary ways to brutally exploit the most vulnerable among us, does it?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

but yanno, social services could check on the immigrants every year...

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@EdMass

Because it's laughable to think there is some sort of moral equivalence here.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

wendy davis's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger

"some sort of moral equivalence here.' thank you.

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@EdMass

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Flyswatterbanjo's picture

@EdMass @EdMass The Magnes Zionist has a nice response to this type of argument:

"although both both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered from violence, only one side has controlled the lands, lives, and resources of the other side for over fifty years. Israelis do not live under Palestinian military occupation; their lands are not expropriated for Palestinian settlement; their freedom of movement is not restricted. Israelis collect their own taxes; are governed by their own elected representatives; are subject to their own civilian justice system....

...there is nothing complicated about denying human rights to an entire people on the grounds of security and the desire to construct settlements on their land. No partisan of Israel can seriously argue that its security requires denying fundamental human rights to Palestinian civilians on a permanent basis. No country’s security can be defended in that manner."

http://www.jeremiahhaber.com

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Outsourcing Is Treason's picture

@Flyswatterbanjo
you can’t deny the fact that the Jewish homeland was under military occupation by Muslim and Christian armies for 1,900 years while the Jews for the most part were forced to live in exile, not allowed to collect their own taxes, have freedom of movement, self government et cetera. During all that time the Jews didn’t attack their neighbors with rocks, cars, knives, suicide bombers, or aerial bombs carried by Qassam missiles. So there’s that.

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"Please clap." -- Jeb Bush

Flyswatterbanjo's picture

@Outsourcing Is Treason Yes, following their invasion (circa 1184 BCE) Jews established a minor kingdom (the United Kingdom of Israel) between the River Jordan and the Sea that lasted a mere 77 years (about 1004-927 BCE) and never controlled the coast from Jaffa to Gaza. Even the Hasmonean Dynasty under the Maccabees lasted only 70 years (about 140 – 70 BCE) and it was under Roman tutelage. 

By way of comparison, apart from about 200 years when the Crusaders occupied Palestine in whole or in part, Egyptians ruled the region between the River and the Sea for 615 intermittent years, including the era of the Muslim Mamelukes and the Romans ruled the region for 677 continuous years. It was also ruled for several centuries by two other peoples: the Arabs (Muslims), for 447 continuous years (638-1085) and the Ottoman Turks (Muslims), for 401 uninterrupted years (1517-1918.)

To quote renowned historian/anthropologist and “Holy Land” specialist, Professor Ilene Beatty: “When we speak of ‘Palestinians’ or of the ‘Arab population [of Palestine]‘, we must bear in mind their Canaanite origin. This is important because their legal right to the country stems… from the fact that the Canaanites were first, which gives them priority; their descendants have continued to live there, which gives them continuity; and (except for the 800,000 dispossessed refugees [of 1948 along with the further hundreds of thousands expelled before and after the war Israel launched on 5 June 1967]) they are still living there, which gives them present possession. Thus we see that on purely statistical grounds they have a proven legal right to their own land.” (“Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan,” 1957)

In other words, Jews were invaders then, and all but 3% of Israeli Jews were invaders in the modern era.

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wendy davis's picture

@Flyswatterbanjo

proving that i wouldn't have had an answer to the claim you've deconstructed so agilely. my thanks to you.

from stanley cohen's essay: "And who can forget the grandmotherly smile of Prime Minister Golda Meir wrapped in her apron preparing blintzes for guests only later to proclaim, “there is no such thing as a Palestinian…[it’s] not as though there was a Palestinian people… and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them… they did not exist.”

somehow i'd breezed by this, and it was one of the horrors i'd remembered: permitting the minimum numbers of calories by food to be allowed in:

"A brutal occupation became a necessary, but tempered, security step; apartheid a misunderstood gesture to enable Jews and Palestinians to pursue and strengthen their unique identities and faith, among themselves, in safety; embargoes of food, medicine and water a minimal construct to prevent the introduction of weapons of terror.

and of course, the belief that the mavi mamara and the rachel corrie were bring in weapons, not food and medicine, led to the boardings of both on the high seas, where none were found, but resulted in 'by provocation' deaths and injuries of some aboard. oh, yes, israel offered to pay the turks for the confiscated ship. pffft.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@Flyswatterbanjo

To quote renowned historian/anthropologist and “Holy Land” specialist, Professor Ilene Beatty: “When we speak of ‘Palestinians’ or of the ‘Arab population [of Palestine]‘, we must bear in mind their Canaanite origin. This is important because their legal right to the country stems… from the fact that the Canaanites were first, which gives them priority; their descendants have continued to live there, which gives them continuity; and (except for the 800,000 dispossessed refugees [of 1948 along with the further hundreds of thousands expelled before and after the war Israel launched on 5 June 1967]) they are still living there, which gives them present possession. Thus we see that on purely statistical grounds they have a proven legal right to their own land.” (“Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan,” 1957)

In other words, Jews were invaders then, and all but 3% of Israeli Jews were invaders in the modern era.

Thank you for putting the objection in far better than I could.

The view of a literal interpretation of the Bible -- that the Israelite Kingdoms controlled most of the Levant for nearly 300 years -- is historical crap. And if you want a Bible beLIEver really bolloxed up, ask him/her for reliable, religion-independent evidence that either King David or King Solomon ever lived. Reliable evidence for the historicity of these gentlemen is in very short supply indeed.

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@Outsourcing Is Treason

And that justifies their ancestors doing the same to another people in a different time?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Ellen North

And that justifies their ancestors doing the same to another people in a different time?

I believe the term is "descendants".

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides

Thank you - not sure how I managed that without even noticing, but I haz skillz.

And I need a lot of help! I'd better try for some sleep...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

wendy davis's picture

@Flyswatterbanjo

and your avatar is...mesmerizing as all-giddy-up. whoooosh.

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@EdMass

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

wendy davis's picture

@Ellen North

a per my comment on AIPAC somewhere in this thread: 'Netanyahu to meet with Trump in March

“WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Donald Trump next month when he is in Washington to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference.

“The President has a tremendous relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu and looks forward to meeting with him,” a White House official said Friday.
AIPAC earlier in the day announced that Netanyahu would speak at its annual March 4-6 policy conference in Washington. Also speaking is Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The meeting will come after what appeared to be the first serious rift between the Trump and Netanyahu governments. Netanyahu stated earlier this month that the Trump administration was ready to greenlight Israel’s annexation of some settlements, but the Trump administration promptly and forcefully denied the claim. Trump recently said he disapproved of the extent of settlement expansion in the West Bank.
The Trump administration has indicated that its proposal to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks will be released soon, although it has not set a date."

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@wendy davis

Have an awful feeling that Trump's probably just holding out for a raise from the appropriate billionaires... and that he probably learned that little 'stall until 'donations' are made' trick from Sec of State Hilary, that being the area she was expert in... some governments really should be drowned in a bathtub, shouldn't they?

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0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

wendy davis's picture

@Ellen North

but my thing was more i) what the hell would trump know about peace? ii) it would likely be a spin-off of his 'reality show', and iii) bibi don't want peace, but...i admit he'd announced at one of the papers that he'll never give up the golan heights!' so, who knows, but i'm almost totally cynical about any efforts they'd make.

plus, stir in Trump against daca, the wall, etc. and you might see what's cookin' in his brain pan.

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wendy davis's picture

I will be speaking about “What’s Wrong with NDP Foreign Policy?” on the sidelines of the convention, the convention being the AIPAC (amerikan israeli public affairs committee) one coming up during the first week in march (i checked their twitter acct.)

but that the articpants love, love, love having fundies like pastor john hagee's CUFI (christians united for israel) speak and raise boatloads of money for them, no matter that they believe that jews will go to hell unless they convert to christianity. but the point of their support is somewhere between revelations eschatology and dispensationalism, in which they believe that the bible says that 'until israel stands alone' or something, christ will not return. and that may be after the 'end times' and the Rapture.

but in any event, i just grabbed this from electronic intifada. ‘Palestine in Pictures: January 2018’, 2 February 2018

the photos are large enough to hurt one’s eyes, hideous enough to break one's heart, but they’re accompanied by damning stories...in words.

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