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Category: Israel

Biden: Israel ‘Entitled’ to Attack Iran

From: Antiwar

Biden: Israel ‘Entitled’ to Attack Iran
US Won’t Stand in the Way of a Military Strike

by Jason Ditz, July 05, 2009

In an interview today on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulus,” Vice President Joe Biden said it was up to the Israeli government to decide if Iran constituted an existential threat and that the nation was “entitled” to launch a military strike against the nation if they wanted to.

Biden said the United States would make no effort to dissuade the Israeli government from launching an attack on Iran, but was deliberately evasive on the question of whether the US would provide Israel with access to Iraqi airspace for the strike, saying he didn’t want to “speculate.”

Entire Article Here

Kucinich: WE ACCEPT the Slaughter of the Innocent BECAUSE WE’VE ALREADY Slaughtered the Innocent

No, I’m not talking about abortion (by how I worded this title). That was bad enough—sick enough!

We’ve moved to the next level, risen to the next disgrace, ascended to a far worse sickness—justifying, thinking, saying this is okay. And this is from the same people who cry “abortion is murder!”

Now we kill people who think deeply, who talk, who run and play—who, unlike the unborn, are accountable as to where they’ll spend eternity.

Even one homicide, one remote-controlled, joystick killing in the name of ‘self-defense,’ is too many—and we watch our President’s smugness as he leaves office. What a disgrace—laughing—having led US into impending doom.

What have we become—so high on our horse? Instead of reaching out to our ‘enemies,’ admitting the many ways we have been wrong, how we’ve bullied and spread filth around the world, we just kill them. We drive them away—into hating US.

And “America the Dysfunctional,” the big bully on the block, now sanctions and enables others to do likewise—leading by example.

America is sick, her heart has grown cold, having succumbed to the delusion The Moody Blues proclaimed in 1967:

Cold hearted orb
That rules the night
Removes the colours
From our sight

Red is gray and
Yellow white
But we decide
Which is right
And
Which is an Illusion

Our end is near, because Dennis’ words go unheard, speaking to an empty House, while America amuses herself to death.

______________

From: Congressman Dennis Kucinich

Washington, Jan 15

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza on the House Floor:

“The attack on the United Nations headquarters in Gaza is further proof that a post-legal era in world affairs has taken shape; where law and moral principles are irrelevant, where might makes right, where retribution and vengeance, even against innocent children, fails to shake us from moral lethargy or political paralysis.

Collective punishment, disproportionate use of force, using U.S. planes, helicopters and munitions to attack a wounded, starved and thirsty civilian population of mostly children trapped in a box called Gaza has become acceptable, perhaps because we have already accepted the deaths of over one million innocent civilians in Iraq in a war based on lies.

“There is a way out. We must ask those who were given our armaments for defense to stop the aggression, end the blockade, end the occupation, and reconnect with the high sentiments that rallied their own suffering, wounded people to nationhood generations ago. When we recognize the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, when we come to grips with the reality of suffering on both sides, we may yet find a way to save ourselves.

Related:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: “We were the MOST BELOVED nation on the face of the earth | We are now…the MOST HATED nation & FEARED nation on earth”

One-third of Gaza dead, injured are children

gazsdddss

From: AP

UNITED NATIONS – Palestinian children are dying at a heavy rate in the Israeli-Hamas fighting — about one of every three persons killed, according to Gaza statistics.

As of Thursday, 257 children were among the approximately 760 reported dead in Gaza. There were another 1,080 children among the 3,100 injured in the conflict, according to statistics from Gaza’s health ministry.

Read Entire Article

Ron Paul: The Invasion of Gaza and its Implications for America — Blowback!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z6vMAoFwf4]There’s too much blowback!

From: the desk of Ron Paul, 1/3/09

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=08gTWqWrI4M]”We are going to have to accept some of the moral responsibility for this.”

One Very Brave Palestinian Woman

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SQyIKyd2gqA]

Kucinich: “U.S. Weapons Being Illegally Used to Kill Children”

From: Minnesota Independent

Yesterday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice arguing that Israel is in violation of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA), which says U.S. military exports may not be used to escalate violence. In a statement on his Web site, Kucinich says, the “disproportionate and collective punishment nature of the attacks on Gaza assure an escalation of conflict in violation of the AECA.”

The Ohio Democrat took up the issue again in a floor speech this morning….

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, floor speech on Gaza conflict, Jan. 7, 2009, 1:52[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy-60zSKiGE]

Text of Kucinich floor speech:

“We cannot truly celebrate a New Year, a new Congress and a new administration if all we see is the same old destruction in the Middle East with U.S. weapons being illegally used to kill children.

I oppose Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel. The rocket attacks, even to try to end the blockade, have no moral justification, are illegal and must stop.

But how can Israel claim self-defense when it bombs Gaza which has no army, no air force, no navy and has been under a constant blockade? How can Israel claim self-defense when its bombs destroy UN schools, killing children?

The children of Palestinians and the children of Israel both deserve life. But the lives of the children of Gaza are cynically discounted as “human shields.” Massacres are being rationalized. Israel’s “moral high ground” in Gaza, a growing pile of small bones in a graveyard.

The Administration knows Israel is using U.S. weapons, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, with disproportionate force creating a collective punishment of Gazans, assuring an escalation of conflict, clear violations of the Arms Export Control Act.

Israel was given U.S. weapons on condition they would not be used for aggression or escalation. The outgoing Administration must finally stand for the rule of law, not the rule of force.”

Source

Photo: Those ‘Devastating’ Hamas Rockets

Just one fired rocket is abominable — unless it’s truly fired in self-defense with a high probability of actually killing the perpetrators after all other options are exhausted — including talking, apologizing for past atrocities and freeing innocent captives.

And instead of having a national policy of REMEMBERing the holocaust. Isn’t it time for Israel to forgive and learn to love, instead of hate?

Most Americans have no idea that Hamas’ rockets aren’t even close to military grade rockets, like the U.S.-made ROCKETS that Israel fires back.

Click for Reuters Photo. Road repair not even needed? Compare to the crater a U.S.-made rocket or bomb would have left. And Israel hits the homes they target, having already killing hundreds of innocent residents after the rocket firers are long gone — like what happened in Lebanon.

An Israeli police officer stands guard next to the remains of a rocket that landed just outside the southern town of Sderot January 1, 2009.

Hamas’ Glorified Bottle Rockets

Photo: a Kassam rocket. Hamas’ rockets are “little more than slingshots against Israel’s incredible military might, and they’re used out of desperation by Palestinians who’ve never been accorded the democratic space within which to gain redress of their eminently just grievances.”

Israel’s & U.S.’ Attrocities: May We No Longer Be Silent

(Related)
Michael Franti: “The F-15 is a Homicide Bomber”

From: Counterpunch, May We No Longer Be Silent, By Paul Craig Roberts

The title of my article comes from the sermon of the Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC, John Bryson Chane, delivered on October 5, 2008, at St. Columba Church. The bishop’s eyes were opened to Israel’s persecution of Palestinians by his recent trip to Palestine. In his sermon he called on “politicians seeking the highest office in [our] land” to find the courage to “speak out and condemn violations of human rights and religious freedom denied to Palestinian Christians and Muslims” by the state of Israel. …

Israel’s excuse for its violence is that from time to time the Palestinian resistance organization, Hamas, fires off rockets into Israel to protest the ghetto life that Israel imposes on Gazans. The rockets are ineffectual for the most part and seldom claim Israeli casualties. However, the real purpose for the Israeli attack is to destroy Hamas.

In 2006 the US insisted that the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank hold free elections. When free elections were held, Hamas won. This was unacceptable to the Americans and Israelis. In the West Bank, the Americans and Israelis imposed a puppet government, but Hamas held on in Gaza. After unheeded warnings to the Gazans to rid themselves of Hamas and accept a puppet government, Israel has decided to destroy the freely elected government with violence.

Ehud Barak, who is overseeing the latest act of Israeli aggression, said in interviews addressed to the British and American publics that asking Israel to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas would be like asking the US to agree to a ceasefire with al Qaeda. The terrorism that Israel inflicts on Palestinians goes unremarked. …

The White House put the blame squarely on Hamas.” The British government also blamed Hamas.

For the US and UK governments, Israel can do no wrong. Israel doesn’t have to stop withholding food, medicine, water, and energy, but Hamas must stop protesting by firing off rockets. In violation of international law, Israel can drive West Bank Palestinians off their lands and out of their villages and give the stolen properties to “settlers.” Israel can delay Palestinians in need of emergency medical care at checkpoints until their lives ebb away. Israeli snipers can get their jollies murdering Palestinian children.

The Great Moral Anglo-Americans couldn’t care less.

In his 2005 Nobel Lecture, British playwright Harold Pinter held the United States and its British puppet state accountable for “the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought.” Everyone knows that such crimes occurred in the Soviet Union and in its East European empire, but “US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognized as crimes at all,” this despite the fact that “the United States’ actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.”

Soviet crimes, like Nazi ones, are documented in gruesome detail, but America’s crimes “never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

Read Entire Article

Michael Franti: “The F-15 is a Homicide Bomber”

“The F-15 is a homicide bomber.”

– Michael Franti. from Yell Fire!

Related: Michael Franti’s Feet & Why He Yells ‘Fire’!

Kucinich: UN should investigate Israeli Gaza strikes — “this…is disproportionate indiscriminate mass violence”

From: Raw Story

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called for an independent investigation to be led by the United Nations into the recent eruption of violence between Israel and Hamas along the Gaza strip that has killed scores of innocent civilians.

Monday brought a third day of Israeli bombing Gaza in what the state is calling its “all-out” war on Hamas. So far, 345 people have been killed by the bombs. At least 57 of the dead are civilians, including 21 children, according to the UN.

Kucinich said he wrote to UN General Secretary Ban ki-Moon urging an “independent inquiry of Israel’s war against Gaza.” The Democratic lawmaker said Israel’s attacks are an example of “collective punishment,” which violates the Geneva Conventions.

“The perpetrators of attacks against Israel must also be brought to justice, but Israel cannot create a war against an entire people in order to attempt to bring to justice the few who are responsible. The Israeli leaders know better,” Kucinich said in a news release Monday. “The world community, which has been very supportive of Israel’s right to security and its right to survive, also has a right to expect Israel to conduct itself in adherence to the very laws which support the survival of Israel and every other nation.”

Kucinich compared the latest bombing campaign to Isreal’s earlier strikes at southern Lebanon targeted at Hezbollah. Then too, he said, civilians were killed, infrastructure was destroyed and lawlessness took hold in the country.

“All this was, and is, disproportionate, indiscriminate mass violence in violation of international law. Israel is not exempt from international law and must be held accountable,” he said. “It is time for the UN to not just call for a cease-fire, but for an inquiry as to Israel’s actions.”

President Bush, on the other hand, has signaled a continuation of his firm support for Israel.

Read Entire Article

Related: Slaughter in Gaza: Another Chapter in the Global Elite Master Plan

How Come Israelis Can Criticize Israel, But Americans Can’t?

From: George Washington’s Blog

There has been scathing criticism of Israel’s attack on Gaza in the Israeli press. For example, one of Israel’s leading newspapers, Haaretz, has run the following stories about the attacks:

Whether or not you agree with these opinions, the point is that they can be expressed in Israel.

In America, people are lambasted for even raising the issue of whether Israel could possibly do anything wrong.

Read Entire Article

Father, forgive me, I will not fight for your Israel—Omer Goldman, daughter of a former Mossad chief, tells why she prefers jail to the military draft

From: Times Online

Omer Goldman is a pretty girl, slender as a model. Never still, very restless, she is filled with anxiety by the expected loss of her freedom. For months before she refused to be drafted into the Israel Defence Forces, she went to a psychologist every week to prepare for what was to come: incarceration in a cell in a military prison. …

Omer told me that the crucial moment of her metamorphosis occurred this year when she went to a Palestinian village where the Israeli army had set up a roadblock. Someone she had considered her enemy all her life stood beside her and someone who was supposed to be defending her opened fire at her.

Read Entire Article

Israel admits it will again annihalate civilians, using “disproportional force” if… (with U.S. weaponry, of course)

From: AP

Israel will use “disproportionate force if Hezbollah guerrillas attack Israel, a senior military commander said in published comments Friday, adding that any village used to fire missiles against the Jewish state will be destroyed.

Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, who commands forces along Israel’s northern border, issued a similar threat against Syria. …

Eizenkot said Israel would show no mercy on Lebanese villages that harbor Hezbollah fighters. Israel has repeatedly complained that Hezbollah fighters used residential areas for cover, limiting Israel’s ability to respond.

Eizenkot stressed that this is “not a recommendation,” but a plan approved by the highest levels. “If fire is carried out from Shiite villages in Lebanon, this is the operational plan: Very aggressive fire.”

He said Israel would use what he called the “Dahiya doctrine,”….

Read Entire Article

Related: Israeli Refusenik vs. Israeli Peace Party Member: A Debate on Israel’s Assault on Lebanon

Palin: ‘In MY WORLD,’ ‘it is OBVIOUS to me who the GOOD GUYS…and who the BAD GUYS are’

Christians must be peacemakers. Jesus said: “Blessed are the PEACEMAKERS, for they shall be called the CHILDREN OF GOD.” – Mt. 5:9

Compare these points to Sarah’s ready-to-bomb / won’t-talk-with-Iran / Israel-is-always-right, simplistic conclusion:

“Iran is 100 percent monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and they have a complete understanding of the scale and scope of Iran’s centrifuge program.” – Scott Ritter

• The Supreme Leader, not the President of Iran (who said the incendiary remarks), is the true leader of Iran, having the final say in all matters.

Israel has a never-forget, remember-the-holocaust (never forgive) national slogan that drives them to commit crimes against humanity, multiple atrocities through the Mossad and their U.S. equipped military.

Palin: No Second Guessing Israel’s “Security Efforts”

TPM TV

Second night of Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric on CBS Evening News, September 25, 2008

• • •

“We don’t have to second-guess what their efforts would be if they [equipped with U.S. jets, missiles and bombs] believe that it is in their country and their allies, including us, all of our best interests to fight against a regime, especially Iran, who would seek to wipe them off the face of the earth.

It is obvious to me who the GOOD GUYS are in this one and who the BAD GUYS are. The bad guys are the ones who say Israel is a stinking corpse and should be wiped off the face of the earth. That’s not a good guy who is saying that. Now, one who would seek to protect the good guys in this, the leaders of Israel and her friends, her allies, including the United States, in my world, those are the good guys.”

Related:

Israel admits it will again annihalate civilians, using “disproportional force” if… (with U.S. weaponry, of course)

Scott Ritter on Obama/McCain’s bomb-Iran rhetoric: “Don’t stand tall; stand safe”

Scott Ritter: Fools would BOMB Iran—It could look like this

Chuck Baldwin: Sarah Palin’s Answers—Very Troubling

Skousen: The Real Sarah Palin Emerges — A Bit Too Ambitious To Be Principled

Palin: “This war against extreme Islamic terrorists is the RIGHT THING”

Palin: “In order to stop Islamic extremists…we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink”

Devvy Kidd: Palin is in full lock step with war monger, McCain, cheering on the clever marketing slogan (”surge”). But in reality, Bush invaded a non-threatening country and destroyed it!

Robert Fisk’s War Reality Check: “What on earth are we doing out there? … We even have Mrs. Palin talking about victory in Iraq”

CBS’ transcript of this interview; though, parts are missing without notation

The missing pieces from CBS’ transcript

Scott Ritter on Obama/McCain’s bomb-Iran rhetoric: “Don’t stand tall; stand safe”

From: Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: President Bush praised Arizona Senator John McCain Tuesday for his commitment to the surge in Iraq and described him as a man who “would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war.”

In these last few months of the Bush administration, as we continue to discuss the war in Iraq and the possibility of an attack on Iran, we turn to a man who was a UN weapons inspector inside Iraq in the ’90s. I’m talking about Scott Ritter. He resigned as chief weapons inspector for the United Nations in 1998 and became an outspoken critic of sanctions in Iraq and US interference in weapons inspection programs.

Scott Ritter’s recent articles have focused on Iran. His latest piece on Iran, published earlier this summer on Truthdig.com, is called “Acts of War.” It begins with the lines: “The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood.”

Pat Robertson Advocates Israel Bombing Iran Before 2008 Election

WWJB

Who would Jesus bomb?

Who would the HOLY Spirit lead “pastors”
to encourage Israel or US to bomb (or assassinate)?

Aren’t pastors to call US into loving all of our neighbors (Iran)
& to repent for the last time we didn’t (Iraq/Afghanistan)?

How many years away is Iran from maybe having nukes?

Whatever happened to diplomacy—actually talking?

Where are the anti-missile missiles?

Shalom

From: Think Progress

On yesterday’s edition of The 700 Club, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson sharply criticized the “moderate tone” the Bush administration has allegedly taken toward Iran and its nuclear weapons program. Robertson advocated that Israel look out for the “survival of its nation” and “make some kind of a strike” against Iranian nuclear facilities. He also predicted that it will likely happen before the 2008 elections:

But nevertheless, I think we can look in the next few months for Israel to make a strike — possibly before the next election — because I think George Bush — to use the term an “amber light” — he’s given the amber, the yellow light, saying, “Caution, but go ahead.”

[…]

ROBERTSON: I’ve been very surprised that we’ve taken the moderate tone we have so far. I think we’re making a mistake.

Watch Interview; Read Entire Article

U.S. Will Be Complicit If Israel Attacks Iran

From: Democracy Now!

Is Israel Preparing to Bomb Iran?

The New York Times reported Friday that Israel recently carried out a major military exercise that Pentagon officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. More than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighter planes took part in the maneuvers over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece. …

We’re joined right now by blogger, Quaker activist and veteran journalist Helena Cobban from Washington, D.C. She is a contributing editor for the Boston Review and writes regularly on the Middle East for the Christian Science Monitor and the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat. Her blog is justworldnews.org. Her latest book is called Re-Engage: America and the World After Bush.

…if they are indeed preparing—Israel is really preparing for an attack on Iran—and this is where it gets extremely scary—we, as Americans, need to understand that that has major and very, very catastrophic consequences for us, because there is no way that any kind of an Israeli bombing raid against Iran could reach the targets that they seek there without going through US-controlled airspace either in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, NATO air space in Turkey or whatever. So, the US would be complicit in that attack, would be seen as that, and would therefore be subject to reprisals, because, you know, launching a military attack on another country is an act of war. Maybe we’ve forgotten that. I guess, no, we haven’t forgotten that, because that’s what we did in Iraq in 2003.

So, if we are complicit in Israel’s act of war against Iran, then the 160,000 US military service people in Iraq are sitting ducks for Iranian reprisal. This is very scary stuff. And, you know, obviously the supply lines that support them in Iraq are long and vulnerable and mainly go through the waters of the Gulf. They could be cut off by the Iranians, but, you know, if the Iranians just did a couple of small things in the Straits of Hormuz and shut the Gulf, and that obviously also majorly affects the international oil market. So, one thing we did see when the report came out Friday was that oil prices spiked again, just with this kind of very sketchy report that the Israelis were upping the ante, upping the tension level against Iran. The oil prices spiked again.

So, this has major consequences for us as Americans. And I have a whole bunch of questions as to what was really going on. I mean, I cannot believe that anybody in the Pentagon would seriously be complicit in allowing Israel to use US planes that were given to Israel for defensive purposes only, to allow Israel to go ahead and bomb Iran, knowing that there would be, as the Iranians have promised and threatened—and we have every reason to believe them—major reprisals against everybody complicit in that attack afterwards. You know, so this is really the Israelis being very reckless in matters where it is the US that is primarily vulnerable.

Read, Watch, Listen to the Rest of the Interview

Related: Israeli Prime Minister: Bush Intends to Act On Iran Before the End of His Term. Many Say $10/Gallon Gas Would Result

Preemptive-Striker John Hagee Endorses 100-Years-in-Iraq John McCain

From: Think Progress

McCain ‘Very Honored’ By Support Of Pastor Preaching ‘End-Time Confrontation With Iran’

Yesterday, hard-line conservative Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, endorsed John McCain. Hagee said that McCain “is a man of principle, [who] does not stand boldly on both sides of any issue.” McCain, who had been courting the endorsement for over a year, said that he was “very honored by Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement.” …

In a 2006 address to CUFI, Hagee declared:

The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West… a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.

Click for Story

Related: McCain Hedges on Hagee Endorsement

Pastor Baldwin: Ron Paul’s Israel Problem [Evangelicals Led Astray?]

If evangelical Christians are hesitant to support Ron Paul’s candidacy for the Republican nomination for President, two reasons are usually proffered: he does not support Israel, and he wants to bring the troops home from Iraq.

Unfortunately, many (if not most) of today’s evangelical Christians have bought into the whole neocon warmongering mentality. Somewhere along the way, evangelicals have forgotten the historic Christian understanding of “just war,” not to mention our Savior’s promise of divine blessing upon peacemakers [“For they shall be called children of God” – ed.]. They have allowed President George W. Bush and his fellow warmongers to hijack the legitimate use of defensive war and turn it into a commitment to aggressive and preemptive war.

If the United States continues on its current path of aggressive, preemptive war, incessant nation-building, empire-building, and globalism, our country will collapse. …

However, it is evangelical Christians’ misunderstanding of Ron Paul’s position on Israel that seems to be the most problematic. …

In this regard, it is incredible to me how evangelical pastors and leaders can continue to associate with–and support–radical Israel apologists such as John Hagee. His ranting about Jewish people having a special covenant with God and needing not to come to the Father through Christ–and even that Jesus never claimed to be Christ–is nothing short of blatant apostasy. …

Click for Story

Related:

John Hagee: “Jesus Did Not Come To Earth To Be the Messiah”

John Hagee calls for a preemptive strike on Iran

Other Chuck Baldwin articles

[video] John Hagee calls for a preemptive strike on Iran

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auf-Su-xZVU]

Related: John Hagee: “Jesus Did Not Come To Earth To Be the Messiah”

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