Category Archives: Commentaries

The Worst President In The History of The U.S.A.

Posted on by

In an article I read recently on the pages of the internet, the author, supported research findings on data, ranked the presidents of the United States from the first one to the current. The ranking was from # 1 (the worst) to # 45 (the best).

Just when I thought that George W. Bush was, and will forever be, the worst president this country has ever had and will ever have, Donald Trump proved me wrong. Congratulation Mr. President, you always want to be #1, now you are.

Not a day goes by without watching on different TV shows and programs,  the hosts and guests dissing and making fun of Donald Trump. You almost want to feel sorry for the guy, but when you hear what he said and see what he did, you would ask yourself, is that all they have to say about him?

If we were to list all the stupid decisions and the blatant lies this narcissistic, full of sh*t person has ever made, we will write a 1000 page book. In his statements, he shows his ignorance, stupidity, racism…. here’s a video to give you an idea.

When Donald Trump was running for President of the United States, he said: I know people, a lot of good people that will help me run the country. When he won the election and became President, he hired in his cabinet, the incompetent, the immoral, the unethical, the liar, the thief, the raciest, and the ignorant, just to name a few of their qualifications. You see….Donald Trump wanted to hire people who have comparable qualities to his own.

Among the most disheartening and saddest things he’s done is ordering the separation of the children from their parents at the southern borders. To make the matter worse, his government kept no records of the kids’ whereabouts, which makes it very difficult, if not impossible to reunite them with their parents someday. How sad!! I wonder, how would he feel if someone takes his grand kids and lock them up in cages?? Not only that he defended this despicable action but he claims that Obama did it and he’s the one who freed them.

The things he and his goons say and do blow my mind and makes me wonder, the people who elected him, what in the world were they thinking? or were they? They were definitely misled, lied to and deceived. Everyone makes mistakes and I hope this was a mistake that they regretted and wished they could take back. Because he is a rich man, some working class people thought that he will change their lives and make them rich like him or at least better off. Hopefully, they realize by now the errors in their thinking and will never do it again. It’s very doubtful that Donald Trump will win a second term after his true color was revealed to the public. It’s doubtful that he will even finish his first term. Hillary Clinton said that half of his supporters should be put in a basket of deplorables. I disagreed with her then, but if he runs for a second term, whether he wins or loses, all his supporters surely belong in Hillary’s basket.

It seems that the president thrives on bad deeds and making people in this and other countries angry and disgusted at his actions. Just hearing the mention of his name or seeing him on TV makes me cringe. His policies and decisions made the United States the laughing stock of other countries. He claims to love this country and the people but he has done nothing but hurt the people he claims to love.

Is the BDS movement facing new challenges in the US?

Posted on by

New bills have barred state governments from contracting or funding entities that support the boycott of Israel.

Demonstrators gathered outside New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office on June 9,
2016 to denounce his executive order targeting the BDS movement
By: 

Last April, more than 350 people travelled to Los Angeles, California to attend a conference against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Organised by the pro-Israel group StandWithUs, attendees gathered to strategise how to combat BDS, which advocates for economic action against Israel to pressure the Israeli government over its human rights abuses.

One of the speakers at the event was Noah Pollak, head of the Emergency Committee for Israel. Pollak had a message for proponents of the BDS movement.

“While you were doing your campus antics, the grown-ups were in the state legislatures passing laws that make your cause improbable,” he said.

Pollak’s message referred to an increasingly effective strategy pursued by pro-Israel groups in the United States.

BDS advocates are facing a barrage of bills that condemn the movement as “anti-Semitic” and bar state governments from contracting or funding entities that support boycotting Israel.

The aim of the bills, say pro-Israel advocates, is to prevent state contracts from funding what they see as a discriminatory movement.

“Israel’s diplomatic missions in the US have expressed full support and appreciation for legislative initiatives to boycott the boycotters,” said Shimon Mercer-Wood, spokesperson for the Consulate General of Israel in New York.

“The BDS movement is racist, discriminatory and hostile to freedom of speech. It is ironic that some try to paint anti-BDS decisions as a limitation of freedom of speech, since the movement itself is dedicated to silencing Israeli voices in the public space,” Mercer-Wood added.

Legislation that prohibits state funds from going to pro-BDS entities has been enactedin 10 states and is being debated in many more. However, in some states such as Virginia and Maryland, coalitions of free speech advocates and Palestine solidarity groups have banded together to defeat anti-boycott bills.

Freedom of speech?

The legislative measures are the most significant challenge the BDS movement has faced in the US.

Palestine solidarity activists say that the BDS movement is not anti-Semitic, and that the measures are an attack on free speech and seek to stigmatise action for Palestinian rights. There is also fear that the legislation could chill free speech by making people fearful of punishment if they support the boycott movement.

“The rash of anti-BDS legislation that we’re seeing is really a frantic attempt to stifle the success of the BDS movement,” said Josh Ruebner, the policy director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, which has lobbied against such legislation.

The BDS movement started in 2005, when more than 170 Palestinian groups endorsed the call for boycott and encouraged people around the world to join their campaign.

The goal of the movement is to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, to ensure equality for Palestinians living in Israel and implement Palestinian refugees’ right to return to communities they and their families were expelled from in 1948, when Israel was founded.

A woman holds up a sign at a protest on June 9, 2016 against the New York governor for issuing an anti-BDS executive order [Sainatee Suarez/Al Jazeera] [Al Jazeera]

The call to boycott Israel has since been taken up by hundreds of progressive organisations in the US.

It has found success on college campuses, where Students for Justice in Palestine chapters have helped pass student government resolutions that endorse divestment from companies supplying the Israeli military.

It has also found success in academic associations and among churches, some of which have voted to divest pension funds held in companies such as Caterpillar and Hewlett-Packard, which sell equipment to the Israeli army.

In 2013, the American Studies Association endorsed the academic boycott of Israeli universities over their complicity in Israel’s control of Palestinians. The move sparked a fierce backlash in the US.

The New York State Senate became the first body to pass a bill to prohibit state colleges from funding academic groups that boycott Israel.

The New York measure ultimately did not become law. But since then, a wave of anti-BDS legislation has swept across the country.

Twenty states have considered anti-BDS laws. Nine have enacted the legislation, and in June, the governor of one state – New York – issued a first-of-its-kind executive order against the movement, according to a count by Palestine Legal, a group that defends the right to advocate for Palestine.

The number of anti-BDS laws debated and passed in the past year is unprecedented in scale, said Rahul Saksena, a staff attorney at Palestine Legal.

“Organizing that’s happening on the ground is not just gaining momentum but winning the hearts and the minds of people in this country,” said Saksena. “Israel advocacy organisations are seeing that, and it’s alarming them.”

While some of the bills are mere resolutions that put a state on record as being against BDS, others have more teeth to them.

States such as Illinois, New York, South Carolina and others have enacted measures that prohibit state pension funds or state contracts from going to companies or institutions that support BDS.

These measures require the state to compile (PDF) a public list – called a “blacklist” by pro-Palestine activists – of institutions that support the boycott. These entities could range from banks that have pulled investments out of the occupied West Bank to church groups that have voted to divest holdings in companies that contract with the Israeli army.

Attacking BDS

Civil liberties groups say that these measures are unconstitutional attacks on the right of activists to boycott Israel, and note that the US Supreme Court has upheld boycotts as protected advocacy under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

But Eugene Kontorovich, a legal scholar who has helped to write some of the anti-boycott laws, told Al Jazeera: “The laws in question do not prevent or punish anyone for engaging in any speech. It is well established that states can require that companies that receive state money do not engage in what the state views as discriminatory activity, even when that activity is motivated by sincere beliefs.”

The dispute over whether anti-BDS bills are constitutional will most likely end up in a US court, Kontorovich said.

READ MORE: BDS is a war Israel can’t win

Meanwhile, the US Congress has also joined the attack against BDS.

Last year, Congress passed a trade law that includes language requiring the US to discourage European boycotts of Israel.

And in February 2016, Democrats and Republicans introduced legislation, backed by the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, that would authorise states to take funding away from companies that boycott Israel.

Ruebner, the policy head of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, expects that more anti-BDS bills will be introduced in the coming months, especially since 2016 is an election year.

Introducing pro-Israel legislation could curry favour with some voters and donors. But, he added, Palestine solidarity activists will continue to advocate and lobby against anti-BDS measures.

“Palestine solidarity activists, First Amendment rights activists, are fighting back against these bills, in many cases successfully,” said Ruebner. “We’re not going to allow our legislations to try to punish civil society for responding to a call for social justice.”

Movement for Black Lives Accuses Israel of Genocide

Posted on by

BY P. DAVID HORNIK AUGUST 11, 2016

CHAT 1118 COMMENTS

The Movement for Black Lives, which encompasses a slew of organizations associated with Black Lives Matter, has issued its platform.

The platform, essentially a Marxist screed, states:

We are a collective that centers and is rooted in Black communities, but we recognize we have a shared struggle with all oppressed people; collective liberation will be a product of all of our work.

A section of the platform called “Invest-divest” deals, among other things, with U.S. foreign policy issues. Not surprisingly, this section features the Palestinians as one of the “oppressed people[s]” with which the Movement for Black Lives claims to have a “shared struggle.”

Anti-Israel Socialists Chosen to Write Official Democratic Party Platform

Calling Israel “a state that practices systematic discrimination and has maintained a military occupation of Palestine for decades,” this part of the platform asserts:

The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people…. Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people. Palestinian homes and land are routinely bulldozed to make way for illegal Israeli settlements. Israeli soldiers also regularly arrest and detain Palestinians as young as 4 years old without due process. Everyday, Palestinians are forced to walk through military checkpoints along the US-funded apartheid wall.

“Genocide,” “apartheid,” “apartheid wall,” and other allegations of monstrous Israeli behavior are, of course, staples of BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) and other movements across the world that seek to delegitimize and ultimately dismantle Israel.

One can only hope. That day will come!!

If one looks at the record, Israelis appear to be inept genocidists. In 1967, when Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza as a result of the Six Day War, there were about half a million Palestinians living in these territories; today there are three to four million.

Do you attribute the increase of population to the generosity of Israel. Or perhaps you credit Israel for not killing them.

As for “apartheid,” the Arabs of Israel enjoy full democratic rights and say Israel is the only country they want to live in; the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza were offered statehood in 2000, 2001, and 2008 and each time turned the offer down flat.

Have you ever visited the occupied Palestinian land or talked to the Palestinians who live there? You should do that before writing such a stupid statement.

The demonization of Israel is, however, a shibboleth of worldwide radical-left movements, and the Movement for Black Lives clearly aligns itself with those.

Demonizing Israel is not a hateful statement. It’s the truth, and comparing Israel to the demons is an insult to the demons.

 

ARE ANTI-ISRAEL BOYCOTTS LEGAL? DOESN’T LOOK LIKE IT

Posted on by
This article was recently published on the YAHOO website. A comment is posted after each paragraph.

BY

05_19_Israel_Boycott_01
Israelis celebrate Israel’s 68th Independence Day with fireworks in the southern city of Ashkelon. The author argues that attempts by educational nonprofits to boycott Israel breaks the law that nonprofits’ funds from members cannot be used to push a political agenda that has nothing to do with the association’s mission.

Israelis try very hard to stifle the voice of freedom not only in the land of Palestine but also in the United States and anywhere in the world they can. We should encourage everyone, specifically college students, to speak their minds and get their opinions heard. But, as the Israelis see it and want everyone to see and believe it that when people’s opinions and the truth is not to the Israelis liking, it’s against the law.

Boycotts against Israel are making headlines again. The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is voting this month on whether to boycott Israel. If the resolution passes, AAA will be the largest and oldest academic association to do so.

The AAA is doing the right thing, and boycotting Israel is the right thing to do. The Israelis need to know that their lies and intimidation are not as effective as they used to be. People in this country are waking up and realizing the reality in the Middle East which’s driving the Israelis off the wall.

In response, many heads of U.S. universities, including MIT, the University of Chicago and all 10 University of California campuses, recently reaffirmed their opposition to academic boycotts, specifically citing ones targeting Israel.

The pressure and intimidation still works on those heads especially when added to the lack of morality on their part. Those heads should be chopped off and replaced by more reasonable and encouraging ones to the freedom of fact finding and opinions’ expression. 

The graduate student unions at University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst and New York University (NYU) just voted to boycott Israel. Both UMass chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy and NYU president Andrew Hamilton responded with unequivocal opposition and condemnation.

Bravo to UMass and NYU for not allowing the chancellor and president of those universities to influence their opinions and votes.

Fierce debate has surrounded boycotts since the American Studies Association (ASA) endorsed an Israel boycott two years ago. Are boycotts antithetical to the mission and values of academia? Do boycotts violate academic freedom?

Boycotts do not violate academic freedom. In fact they have nothing to do with academic freedom. They are a matter of opinions’ and should not be associated with academic value in any way.

Others questioned: Why the obsession with Israel?  Considering all the non-democratic, non-feminist and non-free religion, free speech and free press countries, why Israel? Israel is the only country in the Middle East to provide equal rights to women and all members of the LBGTQ community, to guarantee freedom of press and religion and to safeguard the opportunity to vote, regardless of ethnicity. In fact, Jews, Christians and Muslims all serve in Israel’s government. North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar, Russia and many other recidivist human rights violators are not singled out for boycott. Among the 196 nations in the world, why is the only Jewish state being singled out? Are boycotts of Israel really thinly veiled anti-Semitism?

It is typical of the Israelis and their allies to try to divert the attention of the facts and discussion matter at hand. What does the treatment of women and members of the LBGTQ have to do with boycott of Israel? and why Israel is comparing itself to those counties? We are not discussing any of those countries or  their democracies, we are discussing Israel and it’s illegal occupation of the Land of Palestine and demolishing the homes of Palestinians which prompted the call for boycott of Israel. Incidentally, the statement above is not true. The so called democracy in Israel applies to the Israelis only, not the Palestinians. And only to the Jews, not Christians or Muslims.

Putting those concerns aside, though, there is a new question gaining much traction in legal circles: Are such boycotts even legal? Law professors Eugene Kontorovich and Steven Davidoff Solomon on the Wall Street Journal opinion page recently concluded they are not. And days ago, a group of distinguished American Studies professors and longtime ASA members, two of whom were recipients of the highest ASA award for outstanding teaching and program development, sued their Association.

Boycott of Israel is not only legal but necessary. I challenge all those so called Law Professors to show me where it’s stated in the law that it’s illegal to boycott Israel. The Israelis need to know that the days of suppressing the truth and forcing their lies on the American people are over. Those so called professors prove that not only goods can be bought, people can be as well.

The American Studies professors describe how a handful of radicals, including founding members of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, hijacked their academic association to ram through a personal and political mission having absolutely nothing to do with American Studies. This new legal question is probably the most relevant.  Let me explain. Nonprofits incorporated in D.C. are governed by the D.C. Non-Profit Corporations Act. It provides that an organization is limited to the terms of its charter. Knowing that nonprofits are often run by a handful of active members, the law was created to protect the entire membership from officers and directors who abuse their positions and coopt an organization for political purposes.

Let me ask you a question “Mr. know it all”, if those so called, according to you, announced their unconditional support to Israel, would you call them radicals, and more importantly, would you call them “Law Brakers”? and in your opinion, would they be abusing their positions for political reason? Of course not. That’s the divination of hypocrisy which Israel and its supporters demonstrate on daily bases.  

Funds from members cannot be used for purposes beyond activities authorized in the charter. Activists cannot legally trade on an academic association’s reputation to push a personal political agenda that has nothing to do with the association’s mission. At the time the boycott was initiated, ASA’s constitution clearly stated that “[the object of the association [is] the promotion of the study of American culture through the encouragement of research, teaching, publication…about American culture in all its diversity and complexity.” According to the American Studies professors, for 60 years, ASA has been an association focused on American Studies. It is not a social justice organization, nor is it a foreign policy organization. Indeed, according to the professors, boycotting a foreign nation has absolutely nothing to do with ASA’s mission and is therefore illegal.

How much does it cost for someone to endorse someone else or agree with an idea or a philosophy? When a political candidate is endorsed by someone or some group or organization, does the endorser start packing to move into the poor house? Or does he or do they have to spend any amount of money for the endorsement? Of course not. So, why are you accusing the ASA of misappropriating the organization’s funds for the purpose of pushing a personal political agenda? You know something, even if they were, it will be well worth it using those funds to promote the boycott. Whether you admit it or not, the US is very much involved in the Middle East and this falls in the category of American studies.

I agree, which is why my organization has assembled a team of lawyers to represent these esteemed American Studies professors in this significant and pivotal case.The question of whether an arguably anti-Semitic academic boycott of Israel violates academic freedom continues to be debated. But whether it violates the law seems pretty clear.

Yes it is. It clearly does not violate the law in any form or fashion.

 

The Israelis Just Can’t Stand it!!

Posted on by

Bernie’s Israel-Bashing: How Symptomatic Is It?

BY P. DAVID HORNIK APRIL 12, 2016

It’s a strange spectacle from the vantage here in Israel: of the five remaining U.S. presidential candidates, one, lately, has been bashing Israel—and it’s the only one of the five who’s Jewish.

Bernie Sanders’s “recollection” that “over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza” during the summer 2014 war was, as many have noted, five times beyondHamas’s claims. Sanders then changed it to “the number was I think 2100”—which is actually the figure that the UN, not known as a pro-Israel body, came up with, and even the UN said about one-third of that total were terrorists.

That’s a lie. According to the UN report, the vast majority of the people killed were civilians of which 495 were women and 253 children. Assuming that the writer’s figures are correct, that means 1400 civilian people were killed for no reason, not to mention the numerous buildings that were destroyed which housed thousands of people.

For the record, Israel’s Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center carried out a name-by-name analysis of the 75% of the Gaza fatalities who could be identified, and found that, of those, 55% were combatants. (Here former U.S. Chief of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey says that Israel went to “extraordinary lengths” to limit civilian casualties in Gaza.)

Another lie. Israel did not go to “extraordinary lengths” to limit civilian casualties, they actually targeted civilians by destroying their homes and apartment buildings.

Sanders’s astonishing ignorance—he’s been a U.S. senator since 2007—was further revealed when, asked what he thought of Michael Oren’s criticism of his inflated Gaza figures, he answered, “Who is Mr. Oren?” Oren is, of course, the former high-profile Israeli ambassador to the U.S. (2009-2013) and author of the bestselling book Ally on the Obama administration’s hostility toward Israel.

It’s obvious that Bernie Sanders was not ignorant. The only ignorant person is the writer of this article.

But Sanders’s ignorance is not just a personal foible. When it comes to Israeli issues, Sanders is an ideologue. He parrots the standard ideological line of people who do not know what they’re talking about and don’t feel they need to know what they’re talking about, since the ideology comes prepackaged. Trying to add nuance, Sanders said Israel “has a 100%…right to live in freedom,” then added: “we will not succeed to ever bring peace into that region unless we also treat the Palestinians with dignity and respect.”

The last statement of this article, after “then added” is the best and most honest statement that anyone could make. No American President or any member of the congress has the courage to say it but Bernie Sanders did. The Israelis expect to bully their way through the “so called” peace negotiations which the Palestinians long rejected. 

Sanders was not bashing Israel, he was just telling the truth, and the Israelis just can’t stand someone telling the truth when it comes to the Palestinians and Israel!! Why else would a Jew make such unflattering statements about Israel, and bashing Mr. Sanders is not going to change the facts that the Israelis are trying very hard to hide and criticizing Sanders for mentioning them. By the way, only a Jew can get away with such a speech; if someone else said that, he will be branded Ani-Semitic and Israel hater. 

Here’s the rule that the Israelis want everyone to abide by: If the truth is favorable to Israel, which’s rarely the case, announce it to the world; but if the truth condemns Israel, either lie about it or keep it to yourself. That’s why Mr. Sanders does not rank high on their favorite people’s list, because he neither wants to hide the truth nor lie about it.

BERNIE SANDERS ACCUSED OF ‘BLOOD LIBEL’ OVER WRONG GAZA CASUALTY FIGURES

Posted on by

BY

Sanders Israel Gaza
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks at a rally at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 6, 2016. Sanders incorrectly estimated that the Israeli military killed 10,000 Palestinian civilians in the Gaza conflict in 2014.JESSICA KOURKOUNIS/GETTY IMAGES
WORLDISRAELUS

A former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. on Thursday accused U.S. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders of the ancient “blood libel” smear used against Jews after he incorrectly stated that Israel had killed 10,000 Palestinian civilians in the 2014 Gaza conflict.

Michael Oren, now an Israeli lawmaker, criticized the socialist candidate and accused him of endangering Israel’s security with his comments in a recent interview with the New York Daily News in which the Vermont senator overestimated the Palestinian civilian death toll in Gaza by more than 8,000.

“First of all, he should get his facts right. Secondly, he owes Israel an apology,” Oren told The Times of Israel. “He accused us of a blood libel. He accused us of bombing hospitals. He accused us of killing 10,000 Palestinian civilians. Don’t you think that merits an apology?”

Sanders was talking about his belief that the Israeli military had used indiscriminate force during the seven-week conflict on the civilian population of Gaza. The U.N. and human rights groups accused both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes in the conflict.

The Israeli military, in an operation named Operation Protective Edge, killed over 2,100 Palestinians—at least 1,585 civilians, of which 530 were children— according to U.N. and Palestinian accounts, and Palestinian militant groups killed 72 Israelis—all but five soldiers, according to Israeli accounts.

In a transcript of the interview with the New York daily, Sanders said that he cannot remember the figures off the top of his head then proceeds to use the incorrect number. “ I don’t remember the figures, but my recollection is over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza. Does that sound right?”

He added: “I don’t have it in my number… but I think it’s over 10,000. My understanding is that a whole lot of apartment houses were leveled. Hospitals, I think, were bombed. So yeah, I do believe and I don’t think I’m alone in believing that Israel’s force was more indiscriminate than it should have been.”

The Israeli military entered into the coastal enclave controlled by Palestinian militant group Hamas to prevent Palestinian rocket fire into Israeli territory and an extensive tunnel network used for smuggling and cross-border attacks against Israeli targets.

Oren said that Sanders’ claim that Israel had bombed hospitals was untrue. The Israeli military did however conduct air strikes on the Al-Wafa hospital in Gaza during the conflict, saying that it had been used as a base for Hamas militants to conduct attacks on Israeli forces.

Bernie Sanders is one of many Jews around the world who have conscious and good common sense. He does not praise Israel for the heinous crimes they commit on daily bases. He does not try to justify their barbaric actions against the Palestinians but condemns them, and that’s what the Israelis hate more than anything. They want people to kiss their ass and praise them for whatever they do like Ted Cruz and many other scum bags like him, and when they see a Jew speaking his mind and tells as it is, they go crazy. Bernie Sanders is not one they like or support because he has  conscious and integrity. That’s why he is gaining momentum and winning against the Israeli’s puppet Hillary Clinton.

How Israel hardliners like Hillary Clinton are trying to suppress free speech

Posted on by

By: Ryan Cooper

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

March 28, 2016

Over the past several years, Israel has become progressively more isolated from the international community.

A slowly growing storm of international condemnation has gathered over Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands, its wars against Gaza, and its ongoing annexation of the West Bank. While governments the world over (with the important exception of the United States) have voiced outrage, there’s also been a fast-growing independent movement patterned after the international effort against Apartheid in South Africa. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement seeks to disrupt the Israeli economy and thus push it into giving up the occupation.

In response, Israel’s defenders have begun to settle on a familiar rhetorical line: that such action is anti-Semitic. They’ve made similar claims in the past, but the form is beginning to evolve in unsettling ways that infringe on free speech, particularly on college campuses. Where the typical tactic used to be bad-faith readings of criticism of Israel, increasingly the idea is to portray any political activism aimed at Israel as definitionally anti-Semitic.

In the U.S., the most important of the Israel hardliners is undoubtedly Hillary Clinton, who has a good chance to be the next president. She has embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a frankly comical degree, writing how she would reaffirm the “unbreakable bond” with him and would invite him to the White House within her first month in office. (That’s despite the fact that he palpably loathes President Obama, hasworked to elect Republicans in an attempt to undermine the Iran nuclear deal, and has used dog-whistle politics to get elected.)

At the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference last week, Clinton equated BDS with anti-Semitism. Speaking of the movement, she said:

Particularly at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise across the world, especially in Europe, we must repudiate all efforts to malign, isolate, and undermine Israel and the Jewish people… As I wrote last year in a letter to the heads of major American Jewish organizations, we have to be united in fighting back against BDS. Many of its proponents have demonized Israeli scientists and intellectuals, even students. To all the college students who may have encountered this on campus, I hope you stay strong. Keep speaking out. Don’t let anyone silence you, bully you, or try to shut down debate, especially in places of learning like colleges and universities. [Hillary Clinton, via Time]

The final line about shutting down debate on university campuses is an ironic one, since Israel hardliners have been trying to do just that, most recently at the enormous University of California system. Support for Palestinian rights has been growing on many college campuses, and so the UC Board of Regents, under pressure from pro-Israel groups, had been considering a statement which conflated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, both of which “have no place at the University of California.” This would have been the first such statement at any major public university system.

Like any broad political label, Zionism has several contested meanings, but most commonly it means Jewish nationalism — the idea that Jews should have their own state, placed in the traditional Jewish homeland (more-or-less where Israel currently sits). Given that the merits of any kind of nationalism are a worthy subject of debate and the fact that the creation of Israel in 1948 required an extensive campaign of ethnic cleansing, such a concept is at least contestable. Indeed, many Jews identify as anti-Zionist.

MORE PERSPECTIVES

In other words, while there are surely some anti-Zionists who are also anti-Semites, anti-Zionism in itself is not inherently bigoted. As the Los Angeles Times editorial board noted, “It’s difficult to read [the UC statement] as anything other than a warning to those students or faculty members who have fundamental disagreements with the state of Israel.”

The statement also very likely ran afoul of the First Amendment, as theACLU pointed out, and so the regents changed it at the last minute before passing it through, removing the equation between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. (They still kept in a condemnation of “anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism.”)

All this is only one small part of what has become a general campaign of political repression against BDS advocates, from America to the U.K. and France.

At any rate, hair-trigger deployment of “anti-Semitism!” would be a lot easier to take seriously if Netanyahu’s defenders evinced any worry at all about the bigotry of Donald Trump. He is running the most racist campaign in decades, has many overt anti-Semites among his supporters, and gave a speech before the Republican Jewish Coalition riddled with anti-Semitic stereotypes. (“I’m a negotiator, like you folks,” he told the audience.) But the conservative Anti-Defamation League defended him, and a later speech before AIPAC was greeted with wild applause. It’s as if George Wallace was enthusiastically cheered by the NAACP in 1968.

Make no mistake, anti-Semitism is a real problem that must be combated. But I can think of no worse way to fight it than by lashing the world’s Jews to the political fortunes of de facto apartheid.

WHY WE SHOUD NOT SUPPORT ISRAEL!!

Posted on by

By: Hank Hardy

It’s the human nature to support the underdog, and we, the American People, love to stand behind and support the poor, the under privileged, the sick, and people who are just down on their luck. We have proved over the years that we are soft hearted, sympathetic, and ready to help such people. When a natural disaster strikes a country, we are the first to jump to their aid with food, medicine, blankets and basically everything the stricken country needs to survive.  We are also gullible to a fault and tend to believe what we see, hear and read on TV, radio, newspapers and the internet.

For many years, the Israelis took advantage of our good nature and soft hearts and led us to believe that supporting Israel is not just common sense but it’s our duty to do so. I am here to dispel all the myths and lies they planted in our hearts and minds. So, why should we NOT help and support Israel. Here are a few reasons:

  • THE UNDERDOG MYTH: For many years, the Israelis and their supporters in the US successfully convinced a large numbers of us that they are just trying to survive, and they are surrounded by the evil Arabs who vowed to throw them in the sea. The truth is that the Israelis are the ones who go around killing innocent Palestinians, demolishing their homes and stealing their land and resources.

This is the Israeli bravery. 6 heavily armed Israeli soldiers gather to beat up a Palestinian boy.

  • THE ISRAELI STRANGLE HOLD ON OUR COUNTRY: There has never been in the history of the world that a very small country like Israel controls a very big and powerful country like the United States. The Israelis and their supporters in the US control our news media, banking, economy and most importantly, our government. It’s frightening to know that our president and both houses of the congress can do nothing that contradicts the best interest of Israel, even if it’s the right thing.
  • THE ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS: What are the settlements? The Israeli government wants to out-number the Palestinians, so they took the Palestinians’ land and built housing for the Israelis on it. This land was never purchased; it was taken from its rightful owners. Every so often they take another piece of land and build housing for the Israelis. The government supplies those settlements with water and electricity that they steal from the Palestinians villages nearby, and builds the best roads for the settlers to travel on. The Palestinians are not allowed to drive or even walk on these roads. If they do, they risk being arrested or even shot and killed. Those settlements are not built to house the homeless Israelis; they stay empty until the government finds some people to fill them. Those people are often brought to Israel from other countries by the plane full. The government promises them jobs and the good life in Israel but when they realize that they’ve been lied to, they attempt to leave but the Israeli government stops them. Some of the settlers often consist of the murderers, the thieves and the hoodlums who just love to kill Palestinians for no reason, just like the ones who burned a Palestinian baby along with both his parents. I saw a story once on TV about an Israeli family who was given a house to live in on a local farmer’s land in Hebron. The house was very close to the farmer’s house where he and his family live. The two families were constantly arguing and fighting. To solve this problem, the Israeli government built a high chain-link fence around the farmer’s house claiming it’s for their protection. They were prisoners in their own home while the Israeli family was allowed to come and go as they please with no restrictions. Whose money do you think was used to build those settlements? Our money of course!! I remember when George H. Bush, the father, was a president, told the prime minister of Israel, Manahan Begin, at the time; not to use the $3 Billion in economic aid that the US is sending to Israel for building settlements. Begin replied by saying, we will use this money anyway we want. You can’t dictate to us what to do with it. Bush was offended and said: you will not get the money if you are going to use it to build settlements, to which Begin said: I will go to the congress and force you to give us the money. At that time Bush said: I will veto the bill and you will never get the money. Begin backed down after that and promised not to build settlements with the money. Of course he lied like all Israelis do. When our president objects to the settlements, the Israeli government tells him to mind his own business.
  • THE FRIENDSHIP MYTH: Some ignorant people think that we should support Israel because it’s “our only friend and ally in the Middle East”. It’s true that the United States, has no friends in the Middle East. We have followers like Jordan and Egypt and countries with whom we have treaties like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but no real friends. Why? Because that’s what Israel wants. I remember when George W. Bush, the son, sent his top assistant, Karen Hughes to the Middle East shortly after the invasion of Iraq. Her mission was to find out why the Arabic countries don’t like us. How stupid can that man be?? After all that he’s done to the Arabic countries, he still does not know why they hate us? Jon Stewart of the Daily Show answered that question. He said: maybe because we keep bombing them!!
  • THE REPEATED BACK STABBING: After all the money, weapons, technology and countless other ways in which we help Israel, the Israeli government seizes every opportunity to stab us in the back, and every time that happens, we, the American government, instead of getting angry at the Israelis, we just “turn the other cheek”. Remember the Liberty? Our ship that went to help the Israelis in the 6-day war was deliberately and viciously attacked by the Israeli torpedoes and fighter jets that we gave them. The torpedoes tried to sink it but it won’t go down, however, 34 of our sailors lost their lives.

Jonathan Pollard, an Israeli spy stole and sold valuable secret and highly classified information to the Israeli government. Some radicals like Alan Dershowitz tried to justify this treason by saying: at least he was spying for a friendly country not the enemy. Dershowitz does not realize that it hurts much more to be stabbed in the back by a friend than by an enemy. Pollard is one of many spies the Israeli government employs to steal our military secrets. Some were caught and some are still operating inside our different governmental departments.

  • HELPING OTHERS: As much as we, the American people, love to help other people who are in desperate need for help, we are not allowed to help the Palestinians who lost their homes to the Israeli bulldozers, their land to the Israeli government, their resources to the Israeli authorities. The Israeli army would stop anyone from any country who tries to help the Palestinians. Not only that but we keep sending them very expensive war planes, missiles, tanks and every other kind of weapons to kill more innocent Palestinians. In addition to all the atrocities they commit in Gaza and the West Bank, we are forced to defend them in the United Nations and in the news all the time. The Israeli army has been surrounding the Gaza strips for years in an effort to strangle them economically, and when the people of Gaza build tunnels underground to bring food and medicine to their people, the Israeli army tries to destroy them, and every few years they declare an all out massacre on the people of Gaza killing hundreds and thousands of them in the process and destroying their building and burning their food supplies.

The Israelis have no intention to establish peace in the Middle East. Every American president in recent history claims to be the one that will finally get the Palestinians and the Israelis to agree to a peace treaty and everyone of them falls flat on his face when he opens his mouth. The Israelis simply tell him to sit on the side line and shut his mouth, and we, the American people are either brainwashed or afraid to speak up. The Israelis are robbing us blind and we just keep giving them more. It’s time to stop this madness and stand up for what’s right. It’s time to tell the Israelis, enough is enough. It’s time for our president to have a back bone and stand up to those Israeli bullies.

IT’S NO LAUGHING MATTER!!

Posted on by

By: Hank Hardy

It almost makes me laugh when I hear on TV or read on the internet or in the newspapers that the Israelis are blaming the Palestinians for the problems in the land of Palestine, a big part of which is now called Israel. The criminal blames the victim. It’s like when a judge asked the rapist, why did you rape this woman? The rapist replied: your honor, it’s her fault. She’s just too pretty and I couldn’t help myself.

The audacity and shamelessness of those Israelis are unbelievable. It’s no wonder, just look who their leader is. The most arrogant and stupidest looking man in the world named Netanyahu.

I read an article on the internet by one of Israel’s supporters in the US. He was trying to justify building settlements on Palestinian land. He said that the land was undeveloped and now it’s all green with nice houses to look at and nice streets leading to those houses; so, what’s wrong with that? The writer added that the settlements are not the problem to peace in the Middle East. The Palestinians were offered peace twice in the year 2000 by Ehud Barak and in 2008 by Ehud Olmert but they refused it.

Well, Mr. ignorant. Consider this scenario: you are a poor man, living with your family in a run-down house. One day a couple of people come to you and say: your house is old and in bad condition, we are going to tear it down and build a big nice house in its place, but… we are going to live in it, not you. And your land, we are not going to buy it from you, we’re just going to take it. Isn’t that wonderful?

The Israeli settlements are built on Palestinian land that was not purchased but taken from its owners. Our beloved government provides all the financing for the construction of these settlements. Palestinian homes are being demolished every day, and the people who lived in those homes are either exiled to Jordan to live in Refugee Camps or just told to go away and find another place to live. If at any time those people protested and tried to fight back, they are called terrorists and should be killed. This is the Israeli and American justice.

As to the peace offering that the Palestinians refused; Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader at that time was not invited to negotiate the terms of the agreement, he was told: here’s what we want….sign on the dotted line. The so called agreement dictates that the Palestinians would have sovereignty over the major cities in the west bank excluding Jerusalem and the Israelis would control the all the major roads leading to those cities. Bill Clinton was scheduled to go on an overseas trip which he cancelled in an effort to force Yasser Arafat to sign this so called agreement, but the latter refused as anyone in his right mind would.

Recently, there has been a barrage of Israeli soldiers stabbed by Palestinians who are just fed up and couldn’t take it anymore. The stabbers are not arrested or tried in court; they were shot by the Israeli police and killed on the spot. Just imagine the uproar in this country if this happens on American soil; but it’s OK for the Israelis to shoot Palestinian people anytime and anywhere they want, right Mr. President? The Palestinians are stripped of all kinds of weapons. They are using the only thing accessible to them, rocks and kitchen knives.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT SEASON IT IS???

Posted on by

By: Hank Hardy

Everyone is familiar with the four seasons but actually the calendar year is full of seasons. Some are as short as one day like the FORTH Of JULY and THANKSGIVING, and others are longer like the CHRISTMAS SEASON which lasts for a couple of months, but the longest season which comes once every four years is called THE ASS KISSING SEASON, commonly known as the PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SEASON.

Every candidate in this season, without exception, tries to kiss the ass of the Jews in the US in general and the Israelis’ and their supporters’ in particular. Some candidates receive millions of dollars from rich Jews like Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire owner of the Sands Hotels and Casinos who donated millions of dollars to Newt Gingrich in the previous elections after a huge ass kissing from the latter. Hillary Clinton prefers to kiss the asses of the Jews in New York who helped her get elected to the US senate representing that state. Some candidates go overboard with the ass kissing; for example Mike Huckabee who doesn’t only kiss the Israeli ass but he licks it, fondles it and takes it to bed. He recently went to Israel for a fund raising project to his campaign for the presidency, after which he came back with millions of dollars to spend in the US. During his visit to Israel he made several speeches dissing the Palestinians and calling them “invented people” and saying that he agrees with Israel to not allow Palestinians to return to their homeland. His fellow Republican Ann Coulter said that he sounded like he was running for mayor of Tel-Aviv. This Moran thought that he can revive his campaign and move ahead to the front. Instead, his campaign decided to settle in a comfortable spot, right in the toilet.

More recently, Ben Carson decided to try his ass kissing technique. He made a statement on a talk show saying that he would not support a Muslim for a president. A few days later he realized how stupid and outrageous his statement was, so he retracted it and tried explaining it in a different way saying that he would not support a member of ISIS for president…How clever, he thought that ISIS would send a representative to run for the US President so he can destroy the country from the inside. That’s how genius Carson is.

And now, here comes the grand poopa of geniuses, his name is Donald Trump. He probably thought to himself …oh, I almost forgot to kiss the Jews’ ass. Let me go big time and make a statement to please them and let everyone remember it, so he made the most outrageous statement of all, calling on a ban of Muslims entering the US for any reason, even banning Muslim American citizens who live and/or were born in the US from returning to their homes if they travel abroad. What’s next Mr. Idiot? Are you going to demolish their homes like the Israelis do in Palestine? Or you are going to go around shooting them in the streets like the Israelis do in Palestine? This A.. Hole did not care whom he hurts with a statement like that. He did not think about something called discrimination or the American Value which we all cherish. He only cared about kissing the Israeli ass. Well, Trump boy… you succeeded. He was denounced by everyone, even his fellow Republican candidates; but the sad thing is not for an idiot like Trump to make a stupid statement like this but that a small minority of his supporters who agree with him proving that they are as much of airheads as he is. This group is lead by non other than the queen of Morons, Sarah Palin. In her infinite wisdom she said: if this could save lives, profile away.

A reporter from NBC asked Trump this question: you said you wanted to keep a data base on all Muslims in the US, how is that different from requiring the Jews to register in Nazi Germany? Trump asked the reporter who he’s with; ignoring his question even after the reporter repeated it.

In a huge lie a couple of weeks ago, Trump said that thousands and thousands of Arabs in New Jersey cheered as the Twin Towers were coming down. All networks refuted his claim; even the reporter who was there in person and reported the story said it was a lie. When Trump was asked how does he remember that? He said: I have the best memory in the world, but when he was asked when and where this event took place he said: I don’t remember.

I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Idiot thought about what he was blabbering. Did he think about the backlash from everyone especially the Muslims in this country and around the world? Did he think that the only group of people he would be helping is ISIS? Was he trying to put his campaign to bed or even 6 feet under? Although he is supported by some minority followers, the rest of America is not going to tolerate such bigotry and racism. That’s not what our country stands for. Not Donald Trump or ten Donald Trumps could change that.

There you have it, the leading Republican candidate for president. What does that tell you about this party in general and Trump in particular??