America on Israel’s Altar

[sandinista! 1,816]

Yes Israel should be held liable to the terrorists they harbor and train.

Hahaha!!

Jewish gunman was no terrorist, Israel rules

Chris McGreal in Jerusalem

The Guardian, Thu 1 Sep 2005 00.00 BST

Four Arab Israelis shot dead by a soldier opposed to the closure of the Gaza Strip settlements are not victims of "terror" because their killer was Jewish, Israel's defence ministry has ruled, and so their families are not entitled to the usual compensation for life.

The ministry concluded that the law only recognises terrorism as committed by "organisations hostile to Israel" even though the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, described the killings by Private Eden Nathan Zaada, 19, as "a despicable act by a bloodthirsty terrorist."

He shot dead four people on a bus in the Arab Israeli town of Shfaram on August 4 and was then lynched by a mob.

Arab Israeli leaders have condemned the decision. Mohammed Barakeh, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament who lives in Shfaram, said: "The decision raises a strong scent of racism, which distinguishes between a Jewish terrorist and an Arab terrorist."

The defence ministry proposes to pay the families of the Shfaram victims an undisclosed lump sum instead of a lifelong monthly amount.

But Mr Barakeh says that denies the dead their recognition as victims of terrorism. He noted that Arabs who had committed individual attacks but were not members of armed organisations had still been branded by the Israeli government as terrorists.

Mr Barakeh has proposed an amendment to the law, recognising anyone harmed by "hostile activities by a terrorist organisation" as a victim of terror and therefore entitled to full compensation.

There was pressure to amend the law in 1990 after a 21-year-old Israeli soldier, Ami Popper, shot dead seven Palestinian workers. But it was not approved by parliament.

Another Israeli who killed Arabs in the run-up to the Gaza pullout was charged with murder yesterday. Asher Weisgan appeared in court in Jerusalem after he was declared mentally fit to stand trial for shooting dead four Palestinians, including two of his own employees, and wounding a fifth near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Shiloh.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/01/israel?cat=world&type=article

From several years ago, but it hasn't changed. Some people dont count equally there, and never will.

[sandinista! 1,816]

again with the hate speech sources. garbage.

[AMP 54]

hate hate you want me off of this world, I'm the insect under your boot. hate come on most of the ####### you put up is hate. if tou go to the page you can click in the links and see that everything is backed up.

[Ban Hammer 13,343]

one post removed that violates tos by

Post Content intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a broad demographic or group of people identified by a unifying trait or characteristic (discrimination). For instance, racist or sexist content may be considered hate speech.

do not post a link or content to this site again or face administrative action.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Since 1999, the Creative Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon University's English Department has organized the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Writing Awards. The guidelines call for poems or personal narratives that "reflect on encounters with race and difference in their own lives." The competition is open to students from local high schools and Carnegie Mellon.

Twenty-six students were honored for their work this year. Here are the two essays that shared first place in high school prose.

The complete works are published online here. Winners will read the work during CMU's Martin Luther King Day celebration, Monday, 1:30 p.m. in the University Center.

Fighting a Forbidden Battle:How I Stopped Covering Up for a Hidden Wrong

By Jesse Lieberfeld

I once belonged to a wonderful religion. I belonged to a religion that allows those of us who believe in it to feel that we are the greatest people in the world -- and feel sorry for ourselves at the same time. Once, I thought that I truly belonged in this world of security, self-pity, self-proclaimed intelligence and perfect moral aesthetic. I thought myself to be somewhat privileged early on. It was soon revealed to me, however, that my fellow believers and I were not part of anything so flattering.

Although I was fortunate enough to have parents who did not try to force me into any one set of beliefs, being Jewish was in no way possible to escape growing up. It was constantly reinforced at every holiday, every service and every encounter with the rest of my relatives. I was forever reminded how intelligent my family was, how important it was to remember where we had come from, and to be proud of all the suffering our people had overcome in order to finally achieve their dream in the perfect society of Israel.

This last mandatory belief was one which I never fully understood, but I always kept the doubts I had about Israel's spotless reputation to the back of my mind. "Our people" were fighting a war, one I did not fully comprehend, but I naturally assumed that it must be justified. We would never be so amoral as to fight an unjust war.

Yet as I came to learn more about our so-called "conflict" with the Palestinians, I grew more concerned. I routinely heard about unexplained mass killings, attacks on medical bases and other alarmingly violent actions for which I could see no possible reason. "Genocide" almost seemed the more appropriate term, yet no one I knew would have ever dreamed of portraying the war in that manner; they always described the situation in shockingly neutral terms. Whenever I brought up the subject, I was always given the answer that there were faults on both sides, that no one was really to blame, or simply that it was a "difficult situation."

It was not until eighth grade that I fully understood what I was on the side of. One afternoon, after a fresh round of killings was announced on our bus ride home, I asked two of my friends who actively supported Israel what they thought. "We need to defend our race," they told me. "It's our right."

"We need to defend our race."

Where had I heard that before? Wasn't it the same excuse our own country had used to justify its abuses of African-Americans 60 years ago?

In that moment, I realized how similar the two struggles were -- like the white radicals of that era, we controlled the lives of another people whom we abused daily, and no one could speak out against us. It was too politically incorrect to do so. We had suffered too much, endured too many hardships, and overcome too many losses to be criticized. I realized then that I was in no way part of a "conflict" -- the term "Israeli/Palestinian Conflict" was no more accurate than calling the Civil Rights Movement the "Caucasian/ African-American Conflict."

In both cases, the expression was a blatant euphemism: it gave the impression that this was a dispute among equals and that both held an equal share of the blame. However, in both, there was clearly an oppressor and an oppressed, and I felt horrified at the realization that I was by nature on the side of the oppressors. I was grouped with the racial supremacists. I was part of a group that killed while praising its own intelligence and reason. I was part of a delusion.

I thought of the leader of the other oppressed side of years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. He too had been part of a struggle that had been hidden and glossed over for the convenience of those against whom he fought. What would his reaction have been? As it turned out, it was precisely the same as mine. As he wrote in his letter from Birmingham Jail, he believed the greatest enemy of his cause to be "Not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who ... lives by a mythical concept of time.... Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

When I first read those words, I felt as if I were staring at myself in a mirror. All my life I had been conditioned to simply treat the so-called conflict with the same apathy which King had so forcefully condemned. I, too, held the role of an accepting moderate. I, too, "lived by a mythical concept of time," shrouded in my own surreal world and the set of beliefs that had been assigned to me. I had never before felt so trapped.

I decided to make one last appeal to my religion. If it could not answer my misgivings, no one could.

The next time I attended a service, there was an open question-and-answer session about any point of our religion. I wanted to place my dilemma in as clear and simple terms as I knew how. I thought out my exact question over the course of the 17-minute cello solo that was routinely played during service. Previously, I had always accepted this solo as just another part of the program, yet now it seemed to capture the whole essence of our religion: intelligent and well-crafted on paper, yet completely oblivious to the outside world (the soloist did not have the faintest idea of how masterfully he was putting us all to sleep).

When I was finally given the chance to ask a question, I asked: "I want to support Israel. But how can I when it lets its army commit so many killings?" I was met with a few angry glares from some of the older men, but the rabbi answered me.

"It is a terrible thing, isn't it?" he said. "But there's nothing we can do. It's just a fact of life."

I knew, of course, that the war was no simple matter and that we did not by any means commit murder for its own sake, but to portray our killings as a "fact of life" was simply too much for me to accept. I thanked him and walked out shortly afterward. I never went back.

I thought about what I could do. If nothing else, I could at least try to free myself from the burden of being saddled with a belief I could not hold with a clear conscience. I could not live the rest of my life as one of the pathetic moderates whom King had rightfully portrayed as the worst part of the problem. I did not intend to go on being one of the Self-Chosen People, identifying myself as part of a group to which I did not belong.

It was different not being the ideal nice Jewish boy. The difference was subtle, yet by no means unaffecting. Whenever it came to the attention of any of our more religious family friends that I did not share their beliefs, I was met with either a disapproving stare and a quick change of the subject or an alarmed cry of, "What? Doesn't Israel matter to you?" Relatives talked down to me more afterward, but eventually I stopped noticing the way adults around me perceived me. It was worth it to no longer feel as though I were just another apathetic part of the machine.

I can obviously never know what it must have been like to be an African-American in the 1950s. I do feel, however, as though I know exactly what it must have been like to be white during that time, to live under an aura of moral invincibility, to hold unchallengeable beliefs, and to contrive illusions of superiority to avoid having to face simple everyday truths. That illusion was nice while it lasted, but I decided to pass it up. I have never been happier.

Jesse Lieberfeld is an 11th-grader at Winchester Thurston.

[sandinista! 1,816]

hate hate you want me off of this world, I'm the insect under your boot. hate come on most of the ####### you put up is hate. if tou go to the page you can click in the links and see that everything is backed up.

i'm going to go out on a huge limb by presuming to speak for others here as well as myself when i say that no one here cares about you or your limp drivel enough to come close to hating you.

[AMP 54]

i'm going to go out on a huge limb by presuming to speak for others here as well as myself when i say that no one here cares about you or your limp drivel enough to come close to hating you.

sure you do, you post day and night about this #######. you think I came here to see a group of people being attacked. I see you like it when I attack you and you call me a war monger, raceist... it's not fun when you get offended. this is how it feels to have someone attacking you all the time, telling your people are wrong and ours are right, now die.

i don't see anyone saying something about the budhiest, christains, and any other religion. but your a Jew then that's fair game.

Edited January 20, 2012 by AMP

[Sofiyya 1,687]

sure you do, you post day and night about this #######. you think I came here to see a group of people being attacked. I see you like it when I attack you and you call me a war monger, raceist... it's not fun when you get offended. this is how it feels to have someone attacking you all the time, telling your people are wrong and ours are right, now die.

i don't see anyone saying something about the budhiest, christains, and any other religion. but your a Jew then that's fair game.

You need to take a chill pill. You are definitely overreacting.

[AMP 54]

You need to take a chill pill. You are definitely overreacting.

how am I over reacting, is slander and breeding hate over reacting. is aggression towards Jews over reacting?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

how am I over reacting, is slander and breeding hate over reacting. is aggression towards Jews over reacting?

You're the one who was cut-and-pasting from hate sites.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

how am I over reacting, is slander and breeding hate over reacting. is aggression towards Jews over reacting?

Amazing how you seem to be turning this around.

[AMP 54]

You're the one who was cut-and-pasting from hate sites.

Yes, from my understanding I was the one that cast the first stone. From my understanding you been at this a long time. Its funny I came here to VJ to get answers about getting my wife to the US. Then I check out other forms and I see you hateful posts. How am I suppose to react. You say its a hate site but I was just referecing many articals that show what terrorsit acts PAL has done and how they think towards israel and jews.

Second, you are doing the same thing! If that is researched material how is it hate. It does not go about stating go kill muslims, it just provides statistial information and spinned truths. The same propaganda you have been putting up.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

how am I over reacting, is slander and breeding hate over reacting. is aggression towards Jews over reacting?

No one here is slandering or breeding hate against Jews, except maybe you. Our target is the Israeli government and the Zionist mentality, not Jews as a whole. I know that has been made clear more than once.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Yes, from my understanding I was the one that cast the first stone. From my understanding you been at this a long time. Its funny I came here to VJ to get answers about getting my wife to the US. Then I check out other forms and I see you hateful posts. How am I suppose to react. You say its a hate site but I was just referecing many articals that show what terrorsit acts PAL has done and how they think towards israel and jews.

Second, you are doing the same thing! If that is researched material how is it hate. It does not go about stating go kill muslims, it just provides statistial information and spinned truths. The same propaganda you have been putting up.

First of all, you need to stop calling us Pals. I'm a Palestinian, WoM's husband is Palestinian. We are not pals.

Second, it's obvious to us, who have been at it longer, that you are emoting rather than posting facts. You have no real knowledge of the sites you use, you don't know the history of Israel's founding, you engage in generalizations of entire groups of people based on the acts of a few. You've even stooped so low as to call those who disagree with you "terrorists" and "rock throwers". Name calling is the highest order of retort you seem to have.

I'm an Israeli, I don't get upset when people criticize Israel anymore than the American part of me gets upset when someone criticizes America. Both are my right.

If you believe that Israel needs defending, then defend it from an objective position, not just with emotional appeals. Whining about how there are "hateful" people who have the gall to disagree with you gets no sympathy here.

I could post hateful stuff from racist, influential Jews, anti-Muslim sermons by bigoted "Christian" pastors, or twisted Stormfront racists here all day; there's plenty of that stuff on the net to see. But, we're talking politics and political processes here, not the rantings of individuals who happened to be on YouTube.

So, post away, expect that your posts will be challenged and grow a thicker skin to deal with it.

[AMP 54]

First of all, you need to stop calling us Pals. I'm a Palestinian, WoM's husband is Palestinian. We are not pals.

Second, it's obvious to us, who have been at it longer, that you are emoting rather than posting facts. You have no real knowledge of the sites you use, you don't know the history of Israel's founding, you engage in generalizations of entire groups of people based on the acts of a few. You've even stooped so low as to call those who disagree with you "terrorists" and "rock throwers". Name calling is the highest order of retort you seem to have.

I'm an Israeli, I don't get upset when people criticize Israel anymore than the American part of me gets upset when someone criticizes America. Both are my right.

If you believe that Israel needs defending, then defend it from an objective position, not just with emotional appeals. Whining about how there are "hateful" people who have the gall to disagree with you gets no sympathy here.

I could post hateful stuff from racist, influential Jews, anti-Muslim sermons by bigoted "Christian" pastors, or twisted Stormfront racists here all day; there's plenty of that stuff on the net to see. But, we're talking politics and political processes here, not the rantings of individuals who happened to be on YouTube.

So, post away, expect that your posts will be challenged and grow a thicker skin to deal with it.

First off I posted to a site that has links to multipe articals of terrorsit activites by Palestinian. Statistical interviews of that the Palestinian people thing about Israel. There was no mention that the site was a hate site noting there that said kill muslims or such. Granted there where articles question the religion, but the reference was to terrorst acts to from Palestinian. You brought up USS Liberty the same view is viewd by the KKK. How should I view that, when I provided evidance that it was settled by the goverment. If the is still a suite have the people of the ship file it leagal.

If you say some country is commtting terrorist acts then are you not call the people terrorist. But how is the Youtubes ranting different then yours.

Also the only thing it seems that you talk about no matter what subject is posted is how israel stole the land from the Palestinian. It always come back to it. Even on the egypt artical it goes back to isreal.

Its fine no skin of my back what you think.