Tuesday
Sep152009
Transcript: The Latest Bin Laden Statement (September 2009)
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 8:35
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Provided by Juan Cole from the US Government's Open Source Center:
Praise be to God, Who created people to worship Him, ordered them to be just, and permitted the wronged to mete out fair punishment to the wrongdoer.
American people: This address to you is a reminder of the causes of 11 (September) and the wars and consequences that followed and the way to settle it once and for all. I mention in particular the families of those who were hurt in these events and who have recently called for opening an investigation to know its causes. This is a first and important step in the right direction among many other steps that have deliberately gone in the wrong direction over eight barren years that you have experienced.
The entire American people should follow suit, as the delay in knowing those reasons has cost you a lot without any noteworthy benefit.
If the White House administration, which is one of the two parties to the dispute, has made it clear to you in the past years that war was necessary to maintain your security, then wise persons should be eager to listen to the two parties to the dispute to know the truth, so listen to what I am going to say.
At the beginning, I say that we have made it clear and stated so many times for over two decades that the cause of the quarrel with you is your support for your Israeli allies, who have occupied our land, Palestine. This position of yours, along with some other grievances, is what prompted us to carry out the 11 September events. Had you known the magnitude of our suffering as a result of the injustice of the Jews against us, with the support of your administrations for them, you would have known that both our nations are victims of the policies of the White House, which is in fact a hostage in the hands of pressure groups, especially major corporations and the Israeli lobby.
One of the best persons to explain to you the causes of the events of the 11th is one of your citizens, a former veteran CIA agent, whose conscience awoke in his eighth decade and decided to tell the truth despite the threats, and to explain to you the message of the 11th. So he carried out some activities for this purpose in particular, including his book Apology of a Hired Assassin.
As for explaining the suffering of our people in Palestine, Obama has recently acknowledged in his speech from Cairo the suffering of our kinfolk there, who are living under occupation and siege. Things will become clearer if you read what your former president, Carter, wrote about the racism of the Israelis against our kinfolk in Palestine, and also if you listened to his statement weeks ago during his visit to the destroyed and besieged Gaza Strip. He said in that statement that the people of Gaza are treated more as animals than human beings. For us God suffices, and He is the best disposer of affairs.
We should have a lengthy pause at this point. Any person with an iota of mercy in his heart cannot but sympathize with those oppressed elderly, women, and children living under the deadly siege. Above that, the Zionists pound them with US-made incendiary phosphorous bombs. Life there is tragic beyond limits, to the point that children die b etween the arms of their parents and doctors due to the lack of food and medicine and the power outages. It is indeed a disgrace for world politicians who are content with that, and their loyalists, who are behaving as such with prior knowledge and premeditation, and under the influence of the Israeli lobby in America. The details of that are explained by two of your fellow citizens. They are John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their book The Israel Lobby in the United States.
After reading the suggested books, you will know the truth and you will be severely shocked at the magnitude of deception that has been practiced against you. You will also know that those who make statements from inside the White House today and claim that your wars against us are necessary for your security are in fact working along the same line of Cheney and Bush, and propagating the former policies of intimidation to market the interests of the relevant major corporations, at the expense of your blood and economy. Those in fact are the ones who are imposing wars on you, not the mujahidin. We are just defending our right to liberate our land.
If you thoroughly consider your situation, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups. You should have made efforts to liberate it rather than fight to liberate Iraq, as Bush claimed. The White House leader, under such circumstances, and regardless of who he is, is like a train driver who cannot but travel on the railways designed by these pressure groups. Otherwise, his way would be blocked and he would fear that his destiny would be like that of former President Kennedy and his brother.
In a nutshell, it is time to free yourselves from fear and intellectual terrorism being practiced against you by the neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby. You should put the file of your alliance with the Israelis on the table of discussion. You should ask yourselves the following question so that you can determine your position: Do you like the Israelis' security, sons, and economy more than your security, blood, sons, money, jobs, houses, economy, and reputation? If you choose your security and stopping the wars -- and this has been shown by opinion polls -- then this requires that you act to stop those who are tampering with our security on your end. We are prepared to respond to this option on sound and fair foundations that have been mentioned before.
Here is an important point that we should pay attention to with regard to war and stopping it. When Bush assumed power and appointed a defense secretary [Donald Rumsfeld] who had made the biggest contribution to killing more than two million persecuted villagers in Vietnam, sane people predicted that Bush was preparing for new massacres in his era. This was what took place in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Obama assumed power and kept the men of Cheney and Bush -- namely, the senior officials in the Defense Department, like Gates, Mullen, and Petraeus -- sane people knew that Obama is a weak person who will not be able to stop the war as he had promised and that he would procrastinate as much as possible. If he were to decide, then he would hand over command to the generals who oppose this aimless war, like the former commander of troops in Iraq, General Sanchez, and the commander of the Central Command who was forced by Bush to resign shortly before leaving the White House due to his opposition to the war. He appointed instead of him a person who would escalate the war. Under the cover of his readiness to cooperate with the Republicans, Obama made the biggest trick as he kept the most important and most dangerous secretary from Cheney's men to continue the war. The days will show you that you have changed only faces in the White House. The bitter truth is that the neoconservatives are still a heavy burden on you.
Once again, if you stop the war, then that is fine. If you choose not to stop the war, then we have no other option but to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, just as we did with the Soviet Union for 10 years until it disintegrated, with the grace of God. Continue the war for as long as you wish. You are fighting a desperate, losing war that is in favor of others. There seems to be no end in sight for this war.
Russian generals, who learned lessons from the battles in Afghanistan, had anticipated the result of the war before its start, but you do not like those who give you advice. This is a losing war, God willing, as it is funded by money that is borrowed based on exorbitant usury and is fought by soldiers whose morale is down and who commit suicide on a daily basis to escape from this war.
"This war was prescribed to you by two doctors, Cheney and Bush, as a cure for the 11 September events. However, the bitterness and losses caused by this war are worse than the bitterness of the events themselves. The accumulated debts incurred as a result of this war have almost done away with the US economy as a whole. It has been said that disease could be less evil than some medicines.
Praise be to God, we are carrying our weapon on our shoulders and have been fighting the two poles of evil in the East and the West for 30 years. Throughout this period, we have not seen any cases of suicide among us despite the international pursuit against us. We praise God for this. This proves the soundness of our belief and the justice of our cause. God willing, we will continue our way to liberate our land. Our weapon is patience. We seek victory from God. We will not give up the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We hold on to Palestine more than we hold on to our souls. Continue the war as long as you wish, we will never bargain over it (Palestine).
"Endless war will not tire me
For I am now fully grown and strong
For this, my mother begot me (lines of poetry)
Peace be upon those who follow guidance.
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
Provided by Juan Cole from the US Government's Open Source Center:
Praise be to God, Who created people to worship Him, ordered them to be just, and permitted the wronged to mete out fair punishment to the wrongdoer.American people: This address to you is a reminder of the causes of 11 (September) and the wars and consequences that followed and the way to settle it once and for all. I mention in particular the families of those who were hurt in these events and who have recently called for opening an investigation to know its causes. This is a first and important step in the right direction among many other steps that have deliberately gone in the wrong direction over eight barren years that you have experienced.
The entire American people should follow suit, as the delay in knowing those reasons has cost you a lot without any noteworthy benefit.
If the White House administration, which is one of the two parties to the dispute, has made it clear to you in the past years that war was necessary to maintain your security, then wise persons should be eager to listen to the two parties to the dispute to know the truth, so listen to what I am going to say.
At the beginning, I say that we have made it clear and stated so many times for over two decades that the cause of the quarrel with you is your support for your Israeli allies, who have occupied our land, Palestine. This position of yours, along with some other grievances, is what prompted us to carry out the 11 September events. Had you known the magnitude of our suffering as a result of the injustice of the Jews against us, with the support of your administrations for them, you would have known that both our nations are victims of the policies of the White House, which is in fact a hostage in the hands of pressure groups, especially major corporations and the Israeli lobby.
One of the best persons to explain to you the causes of the events of the 11th is one of your citizens, a former veteran CIA agent, whose conscience awoke in his eighth decade and decided to tell the truth despite the threats, and to explain to you the message of the 11th. So he carried out some activities for this purpose in particular, including his book Apology of a Hired Assassin.
As for explaining the suffering of our people in Palestine, Obama has recently acknowledged in his speech from Cairo the suffering of our kinfolk there, who are living under occupation and siege. Things will become clearer if you read what your former president, Carter, wrote about the racism of the Israelis against our kinfolk in Palestine, and also if you listened to his statement weeks ago during his visit to the destroyed and besieged Gaza Strip. He said in that statement that the people of Gaza are treated more as animals than human beings. For us God suffices, and He is the best disposer of affairs.
We should have a lengthy pause at this point. Any person with an iota of mercy in his heart cannot but sympathize with those oppressed elderly, women, and children living under the deadly siege. Above that, the Zionists pound them with US-made incendiary phosphorous bombs. Life there is tragic beyond limits, to the point that children die b etween the arms of their parents and doctors due to the lack of food and medicine and the power outages. It is indeed a disgrace for world politicians who are content with that, and their loyalists, who are behaving as such with prior knowledge and premeditation, and under the influence of the Israeli lobby in America. The details of that are explained by two of your fellow citizens. They are John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their book The Israel Lobby in the United States.
After reading the suggested books, you will know the truth and you will be severely shocked at the magnitude of deception that has been practiced against you. You will also know that those who make statements from inside the White House today and claim that your wars against us are necessary for your security are in fact working along the same line of Cheney and Bush, and propagating the former policies of intimidation to market the interests of the relevant major corporations, at the expense of your blood and economy. Those in fact are the ones who are imposing wars on you, not the mujahidin. We are just defending our right to liberate our land.
If you thoroughly consider your situation, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups. You should have made efforts to liberate it rather than fight to liberate Iraq, as Bush claimed. The White House leader, under such circumstances, and regardless of who he is, is like a train driver who cannot but travel on the railways designed by these pressure groups. Otherwise, his way would be blocked and he would fear that his destiny would be like that of former President Kennedy and his brother.
In a nutshell, it is time to free yourselves from fear and intellectual terrorism being practiced against you by the neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby. You should put the file of your alliance with the Israelis on the table of discussion. You should ask yourselves the following question so that you can determine your position: Do you like the Israelis' security, sons, and economy more than your security, blood, sons, money, jobs, houses, economy, and reputation? If you choose your security and stopping the wars -- and this has been shown by opinion polls -- then this requires that you act to stop those who are tampering with our security on your end. We are prepared to respond to this option on sound and fair foundations that have been mentioned before.
Here is an important point that we should pay attention to with regard to war and stopping it. When Bush assumed power and appointed a defense secretary [Donald Rumsfeld] who had made the biggest contribution to killing more than two million persecuted villagers in Vietnam, sane people predicted that Bush was preparing for new massacres in his era. This was what took place in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Obama assumed power and kept the men of Cheney and Bush -- namely, the senior officials in the Defense Department, like Gates, Mullen, and Petraeus -- sane people knew that Obama is a weak person who will not be able to stop the war as he had promised and that he would procrastinate as much as possible. If he were to decide, then he would hand over command to the generals who oppose this aimless war, like the former commander of troops in Iraq, General Sanchez, and the commander of the Central Command who was forced by Bush to resign shortly before leaving the White House due to his opposition to the war. He appointed instead of him a person who would escalate the war. Under the cover of his readiness to cooperate with the Republicans, Obama made the biggest trick as he kept the most important and most dangerous secretary from Cheney's men to continue the war. The days will show you that you have changed only faces in the White House. The bitter truth is that the neoconservatives are still a heavy burden on you.
Once again, if you stop the war, then that is fine. If you choose not to stop the war, then we have no other option but to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, just as we did with the Soviet Union for 10 years until it disintegrated, with the grace of God. Continue the war for as long as you wish. You are fighting a desperate, losing war that is in favor of others. There seems to be no end in sight for this war.
Russian generals, who learned lessons from the battles in Afghanistan, had anticipated the result of the war before its start, but you do not like those who give you advice. This is a losing war, God willing, as it is funded by money that is borrowed based on exorbitant usury and is fought by soldiers whose morale is down and who commit suicide on a daily basis to escape from this war.
"This war was prescribed to you by two doctors, Cheney and Bush, as a cure for the 11 September events. However, the bitterness and losses caused by this war are worse than the bitterness of the events themselves. The accumulated debts incurred as a result of this war have almost done away with the US economy as a whole. It has been said that disease could be less evil than some medicines.
Praise be to God, we are carrying our weapon on our shoulders and have been fighting the two poles of evil in the East and the West for 30 years. Throughout this period, we have not seen any cases of suicide among us despite the international pursuit against us. We praise God for this. This proves the soundness of our belief and the justice of our cause. God willing, we will continue our way to liberate our land. Our weapon is patience. We seek victory from God. We will not give up the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We hold on to Palestine more than we hold on to our souls. Continue the war as long as you wish, we will never bargain over it (Palestine).
"Endless war will not tire me
For I am now fully grown and strong
For this, my mother begot me (lines of poetry)
Peace be upon those who follow guidance.
tagged 9-11, Central Command, David Petraeus, Donald Rumsfeld, Gaza, George W Bush, Israel, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy, John Mearsheimer, Juan Cole, Mike Mullen, Osama bin Laden, Palestine, Rick Sanchez, Robert Gates, Robert Kennedy, Stephen Walt, US Government Open Source Center, al-Qaeda in War On Terror
9-11, Central Command, David Petraeus, Donald Rumsfeld, Gaza, George W Bush, Israel, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy, John Mearsheimer, Juan Cole, Mike Mullen, Osama bin Laden, Palestine, Rick Sanchez, Robert Gates, Robert Kennedy, Stephen Walt, US Government Open Source Center, al-Qaeda in War On Terror
Reader Comments (11)
"Apology of a Hired Assassin" is probably "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by Perkins:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man
Boy, when Osama is supporting Ricardo Sanchez, things have gotten f*ing weird. . .
Namaste! Aloha!
i don't support U.S. or Osama Bin Laden's violent tactics, but it is worthwhile to learn more about the perspectives of all the combatants... Two (of many) sides of the issue, if you will.
If you're surprised Bin Laden's articulate and well formulated statement from a few days ago.... don't be ever again. All of his statements issued since 9/11 have been equally well thought out, reasoned and clear. He frequently points listeners towards books by prominent progressive american authors. A particularly interesting statement he issued was released right before the 2004 U.S. presidential election. [google "2004 bin laden transcript"] That 2004 statement is very inclusive of many issues that were on his mind at the time. He clearly stated that "your future is in your own hands" and that his goal was to bankrupt the U.S. economy. Also he recommended William Blum's book Rogue State. A trip of a read if you have the guts to open the cover and journey further than a cursory glance. Bin Laden has also recommend Noam Chomsky. [i wouldn't be surprised if he recommended Arundhati Roy sometime soon.... lol... who's "Come September" speech is a worthy listen!]
This guy is smart and well read and well spoken...
I wish to live to see a day when the U.S. is no longer embroiled in foreign conflicts. I hope we disentangle before we're pushed over the brink into disintegration and civil conflict at home.
There's a middle road between isolationism and imperial mandate. Let's hope we find it in our lifetime. I love the land and people here in america.
Peace!
~Shwa
[...] quem tem o estranho hábito de ler comunicados de Bin Laden, o último, divulgado no oitavo aniversário do 11 de Setembro, [...]
What an unbelievable lying tool Bin Ladin is. Yea I should really be scared of the Israeli Lobby because they have so much power. Please what a load!
The entire GDP of Israel is 200 Billion. The US is over 14 trillion. Our economy is 70 times their size yet they are the kingpins controlling ever step we take. Any one who seriously considers this should please email me the cell phone of their drug dealer because what they are on must be good stuff.
And this nonsense that we are at fault is crap. Israel sits back and allows surrogates of the Iranian government to missile them for months at a time without retaliation for no other reason than to make our (US) diplomatic efforts easier. The nutjob dictators that control the Arab countries behind the conflict use any evil means at their disposal and would finish Adolph Hitler's genocide if given the chance. I for one am proud that the US has stepped in to stop that.
But OBL and AhmyDinnerHacket and the Saudi PRinces who hate the US and the dictators in the Sudan have a problem. It is called democracy. MAussavi, the guy I recognise as the President of Iran my hate Israel but was willing to negotiate with them. Seems elected leaders in Arab countries have constituencies that don't like War just like the US has these constituencies. The Iraqui's with their Purple fingers sired the Greens in Iran and you know what I think eventually the Bush Doctrine. (The only PResident in History to actually support creating democracies in a middle eastern nation) has grown beyond the caterwalling communists like Mirtha'sability to stop it. Jeffersonian ideas are taking hold among Arabs even if they don't realize where it is from. The Koran supports Free Will Same as the Bible Same as the Torah and to the Muslims we are all People of the Book.
So UBL and the nihilistic HArvard elites who wish America would die can stuff it. I know the principles of the founding fathers will prevail. Remember the first shot of the Revolution was the shot heard around the world and our Revolution is not yet done. America has never been an imperial power even under Teddy Roosevelt when we were trying to be. We bring Freedom. We are the only nation in history to spend more helping those we defeat than in actually defeating them.
The Freedom Bell will keep ringing. And Osama bin Laden is nothing more than a murdering tool of Satan duped into thinking the devil talking to him is God and I hope he reads this too! Ok sorry my rants done!
Hi Individualist. You make a reasonably coherent strategic argument. You apply facts effectively and draw reasonable conclusions. But your one omission belies the core of your analysis: the Palestinians are a people who, recognized under any ordinary interpretation of international law. Yes, international law. The same law that says El-Al gets to use international airways free from attack by anyone. That's the law and that same law says Israel has violently and intentionally and relentlessly taken Palestinian land under the flag of Zionism. Those people in Gaza rocketed Israel with haphazardly lethal primitive weapons. Yes. But the villages they fired at either are or were built on the ashes of their own villages after the Zionists ran them off at gunpoint. These facts are not controversial in Israel -- do the research (Ilan Pappe; Gilad Atzmon; Uri Avneri; Gideon Levy; B'tselem. And there's so much more.
And really, don't you agree that the outline of Eretz Israel on the map is pretty close to that of an Aircraft Carrier. They say that on aircraft carriers, the complexity of the weapon system and the hostile surrounding environment (open ocean battle) give rise to a community of souls that similar to a large village. The crew shares an experience as a force projection platform at the service 24-7 of corporate interests. Well, maybe Israel is like that aircraft carrier. Maybe its a theme park aircraft carrier, where the people practiced ancient and once-respected religions. They look like us (mostly Europeans), except for the less-desirable Mizrahi. So maybe the Brits and Yanks parked their aircraft carrier on top of Palestinian lands ever since they figured out where the oil was -- about 1920.
Dear Dissillusioned
When America needed air bases in the Iraq war we used fields in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia not Israel. Those rockets if primitive were the best the Iranians can buy. I don't know who lived where when but there have been Jew in the Holy Land since Moses invaded. The fact is that the dictators of Arab countries promote antisenitism to keep their own people from focusing on them. The arabs are never going to push the jews into the sea and the Israelis will never be able to control Palistinians. So this course leands to two cousins (people of the book) continuously killing each other and making God sad in the process. Israel has given in to so many demands in an attempt to obtain peace and has given back land only to have the process denied at the final hour. Why because Iran, Syria and even Saudi Arabia need the Jewsih boogieman.
Has Israel not been just or are there legitimate grievances that Palestinians have, how can there not be. Even if they were tryiing to get aling there would be, they are human after all. Also let us suppose that Palestiniams and Israelis come to an agreement and break the country apart. Two be fair you have to have three governments because the minute the Jewish question is settled the arabs will have a christian question and vice versa. The resulting three countries would be so tiny that even with Israels intellectual properties there economies could not sustain.
No the only answer is that they get along. If they have to be self governing fine, have a Muslim, Christian and Jewish version of Knessets and they can determine how to govern together. Either way the Jews and Arabs in Palestine need each other. They just don't realize it due to the hatred and bigotry that is manufactured. And it is manufactured, that is the one product a totalitarian regime does best.
So either way we have no resolution to the question of Palestine until Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Syria are true democracies. Until this happens the dictators in these countries will ascerbate the problem and never let it be resolved.
This is why I disagree with the protestors who belittle the IRaq war. To my mind it was a great occurance. Now we have Iraq and Turkey as democracies, Iran is under pressure by the Greens, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are beginning oto have local elections and who knows maybe the Sheiks that run them will one day find that like the King of England in the 1200's they too will have to sign a Magna Carta.
I do not know one legitimate grivance of Palestinians. The only thing I know from the Arab street is the holocaust did not happen and if it did so what, all jews should be pushed into the sea, and one not a Muslim is an infidel and can rightfully be enslaved or beheaded. Are there legitimate things that they can demand or that Israel might do. I am sure there are but you know what the Palistinians are going to have to stop putting nails in potatos and throwing them at school children in the name of God and tell the rest of the world what that is.
But I am hopeful despite my President now seeming to be oblivious to what is going on over there. I have faith that people will want freedom. God gave them freel will and intends for people to have it. He told us three times I'm sure in the Torah, the New Testamant and the Koran and many more times too I'll bet. A Muslim friend told me that we are all people of the book and that Muslims can be held to that. I like that idea.
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
God Bless the Greens in Iran they need our prayers most of all.
Have faith Disillusioned!
Hi Individualist
Thanks for your response. There's a lot there, but I feel inclined to address a fundamental issue that I believe gets lost in the advance poly-sci/foreign affairs approach to these issues:
Your repeated suggestions that Jew-hatred is an endemic, age-old problem between Arabs and Muslims is false. It is a common rhetorical feint in US discourse, but it is provably, undeniably false.
Before Europoean Zionists began establishing colonies and that gradually shifted the political center of gravity (with British help) toward Zionists, Jews and Arabs lived in peace together in Palestine. Jerusalem and Haifa and other cities and towns had thriving communities of Jews and Arabs who lived as neighbors, shop-keepers, customers and patients and friends. No problems based on religion or ethnicity.
People alive today know or knew people in those cities who lived that way. We can also surmise that the people alive on Earth in 1900 who were most likely to have descended directly from the Jewish followers of a Rabbi known in Hebrew as Jesu of Nazaret, lived peacefully in Palestine along side those people then alive who were most likely to have descended from the many Jews who remained after the Roman withdrawal. Throughout centuries of European persecution of Jews, Jewish communities thrived in Arab lands stretching from Morrocco to Bagdad.
Today, Tehran, Iran has a thriving Jewish community. Numerous Kosher food stores, and twenty fully-subscribed Synagogues. The Iranian revolutionary constitution guarantees the Jewish people of Iran at least one seat in the Parliment, no matter what. Ahmadinejad publicly praises Jews and the religion, publicly avowing that there is no existential conflict between a devout Shia like Ahamdinejad's idea of the teachings of Islam and the Jews or Judaism. This is a commonly accepted opinion within people knowledgeable about the two religions. It is Zionism and what it does, that this current boogie-man criticizes. He predicts that as a political arrangement it has no future and judging by demographic trends in Israel, many there share his view.
So what about Palestinian grievances? Consider this. Erev Pesach in 1948, Jewish military forces assumed positions in the hills around Haifa. In the preceding days they had scattered leaflets warning the Arab neighborhoods of Haifa that if they did not leave immediately, they would be attacked by Jewish military forces. The Mayor of Haifa, a Jew named Shabtai Levy, publicly begged the Arabs to stay in Haifa and he vainly promised to protect them against Irgun and Hagana violence. When the deadline passed, Jewish forces began shelling the Arab neighborhoods causing many deaths and a panicked evacuation of Arabs from the city. Public records and news acccounts at the time reported that artillery shells fell upon the city docks, crowded with families waiting to board boats. So why in that situation does the Jewish mayor try to protect his Arab constituents agains this criminal onslaught?
Golda Meir toured the areas in the days after the panicked departure. She later wrote that seeing evening meals abandoned on people's tables, with childrens' toys on the floor and shoes left behind reminded her of what her grandparents had told her about pogroms in Russia.
And this went on all over the territories defined as Palestinian by the 1947 UN partition. I was taught to think of this as "The War of Independce." The reality was not the least bit glorious and has all the indications of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In that Israel and the US shared the same maternity ward. 531 villages were destroyed, eleven urban neighborhoods emptied of their inhabitants, all systematically cleansed by techniques used in Haifa. Then the abandoned villages were ground to rubble, leaving no trace. The JNF has extensively funded the creation of "parks" and my own temple plants trees in these areas that are designed and consciously created to erase any residual trace of the people who were cleansed from the areas based on their ethnicity -- non-Jewish.
At the event of the UN Partition of Post-mandate Palestine in 1947, Jews who owned less than six percent of the total land area of Palestine and who contributed no more than 1/3 of the population, were handed more than half of its overall territory. Within the borders of their own UN-proposed state, they owned only 11% of the land and were the minority in every district. In the Negev, Jews constituted one per cent of the total population. The Partition Resolution incorporated the most fertile land in the proposed Jewish state as well as the all of the Jewish urban and rural space in Palestine. Thus on 42% of the land, 818,000 Palestinians were to have a state that included 10,000 Jews while Zionists received almost 56% of the land which 499,000 Jews were supposed to share with 438,000 Palestinians. The third part was an enclave around Jerusalem that was to be divided evenly under UN monitoring.
Look at the numbers for the Jewish state as envisioned by the UN. 499,000 Jews and 438,000 Palestinians. With one vote for one man, this would not long allow the idea of a Jewish state for and by Jews. "Plan Dalet" was the Zionist solution. Israeli Ilan Pappe has written extensively about it and I have borrowed from him for some of these facts. Read his book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" you can find it on Amazon.
Read Pappe's book and consider his sources. I have yet seen no one refute Pappe's claim to have discovered these facts and the existence of "Plan Dalet" in recently declassified documents in the official archives of the State of Israel as he claims and to which he cites. He also cites the correspondence of Ben Gurion and Meir and many others that you've heard of, where they are very explicit about their intentions, their methods, and the deception they are playing in the US to gain support amongst American Jews.
Study this from the Palestinian perspective, even as just an exercise. Find the authoritative people and learn the other side. (search Pappe, Uri Avneri, Gideon Levy, B'tselem, Gilad Atzmon, there are many others) I think then that you would reconsider your statement that you "don't know one legitimate grievance of Palestinians." There's just no excuse for that with all the information available now. It is willful ignorance in the age of the internet. Israelis write about this stuff extensively -- but in the US it's a carefully guarded secret.
Sincerely,
Disillusioned, Still
PS - thanks for posting the Bin-Laden x-script. I appreciate having access to original material.
Hi Disillusioned,
I appreciate your facts about Palestine and I don't disagree that there have been wrongs by the state of Israel. I am a pragmatist in that I can understand that even the best leaders do sometines make horrible mistakes.
However it did start before 1948. The Grand Mufti of Juresalum guided with the Nazi's and one of the reasons was the promise to get rid of the Jews. Now the primary reason was also a resistance to British colonial rule. I don't know the exact reason for the events you describe but I am certain of the emaotion behind it Fear! Is it right, no! But it happened 17 years before I was born so there is not anything I can do about it.
But honestly while I understand the past is important neither should it be our only guide. Clinton negotiated with Arafat and the Jews willingly gave up the west bank. I am told that Arafat got 95% of what he asked and in the end rejected it. Why? Becasue the Palistinean people did not want it. I don't think so. I think if it were just the people of Palistine they would have taken the deal and created the separate state. It was the influence of Iran, Syria and radical elements of Wahabi Islam that put a stop to it. Mind you not the Muslims themselves, not the Imams and the religiouss but rather the dictactors that rule those countries.
Ahkmadinijaad is not the PResident of Iran he is the puppet of a self appointed ruling class. A ruling class that hides behind religion. I saw a story about the execution of a yound iranian girl. She was outspoken and people accused her of being impure. A spoecial group of basij who were supposed to be policing the people's purity started harassing her and raped her. Since she was accused of being of low morales they probably felt it was easy to get away with. She ended up being executed probably to cover up the event. Such things are the norm in a dictatorship becasue there are no checks on power. Iranian jews cow to the ruling regime out of fear. Ahmadenijaad talks of putting Jews into the sea, wiping them out, denies the holocoast. This is not just in IRan he says these things in NEw York city. He shoots his own Mulsim poeple in the streets when they protest his fraudlent election. The Iranian council admitted to the fraud but then had the audacity to say but we don;t think it affected anything. Here in America I here complaints endlessly about Bush who won by 400 votes despite the fact thatevery count even those made by the opposition pary both before and by the newspapers after he was named the winner by the electirial college he won. How does Iran get away this. Only by the power of a gun.
The fact of the matter is if Palistineans do not have representation in the Jewish Knesset if they would vow to use no violence, take the approch of Ghandi and march peacefully in demands for real representation they would get it. It is an irony but the biggest hurdle to getting what they want is the violence. This violence is driven by hatred taught and fucded by Saudi Princes, Iranian mullahs and other totalitarians.
In real democracies you answer to the people. If you abuse your trust you can lie and cheat your way out it but as the saying goes you can't fool all the people all the time.
Let's face it Israel, Lebnon, Jordan and Palestine are all the fictions anyways. Each country is small and in each way the christians, muslims (shia and sunni) and jews are fighting and living in fear. They are all living under the shadow of the dictators who live there who are trying to consolidate their power. It will never happen but I think all those countries would be best served by consolidating into one democacy with three factions one for each religion with a kind of veto power to protect their members from harm.
But again I have to look to the future and the revolution of the greens in Iran gave me so much hope. In Neda Soltan I saw Crispus Attacks, Mousavi I saw a mordern day George Washington. When I was in middle school in Florida duting the hostage crisus of IRan and I tell you I was certin then this would be impossible. The government can stamp there foot on those people all they want but their eyes are open. And I tell you if the dictatorships in the middle east give way to democracies then a solution to Israel will occur as well. It will just happen.
MAchiavelli stated in the Prince that a people will always forgive the patricide of their forefathers but will never forgive the theft of their patrimony. This is the problem in Israel right now. Each group centers on Mine Mine Mine like a three year old with a toy, Jew Christian and Muslim alike. It is by making them realize it is ours that we resolve the issue. I am sorry but I truly passionately believe this. Palesitneans need to be able to come into ISrael through that fence to work, Israelis with money need to be able to cross into Palesitne to build businesses and schools. These things will help every one. Free market capitalism will end up in Paliestineans being successful. They will in turn develop the economy further. The land must be open to all so that there are enough resources to build a vibrant country. As it stands now they all remain poor and there is more terrorism and death.
Mousavi I understand would hold many of the same misgivings you share with me but the man wanted Democracy for his people and he wanted to have a real negotiation with Israel. In that he has my confidnece and I have hope that the injustnces can one day end. I will not lose it. The past is the past. The question is how do we stop repeating it. Have Faith! God is working for us even if it is not the way either of us think we want!
Thank you for your response I will try to see if my library has that book.
At the root of this conflict is a grave injustice.
And the Torah commands: Justice, Justice! shall you seek!
Compassion for the weak and for the wronged is what Jewish morality demands. Nothing less. Treating others as one would be treated is bedrock Judaic morality. Compassion is the only path to peace. Our mishpulka fails to grasp this at its own moral peril.
All else is wind.
Good luck in your reading. If you approach your subject as any good student would, with an open heart and flexible mind, you are in for a shock.
And be sure to share.
Its true Israel does not control the USA, its the other way around. When the American decide that Israel serves no strategic purpose, then they will drop it like its hot.
Meanwhile Jewish people, the world over, will have to live with the fact that their idenity and religion has been hijacked to further American imperialism and then dumped. They will be left with the mess.
Jewish people feel the need to defend Israel and its actions unconditionally, what they dont realise is that they are infact being used.
How long will it take to over come the anti-semitism that has been generated because off Israels criminal actions??
Jewish people in America and Europe find it virtually impossible these days to stand by Israel, when they are naturally liberals and Israel is becoming more and more extremist right wing.
And who do liberal Jews who took part in the civil rights movement and opposed South African apartheid, yesteryear, stand with Israel killing babies in the concentration camp called Gaza, today??
Jewish people need to rise up and reclaim their identity