<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">I like the Juan Cole article, too, for all the reasons stated, including the map going from white to green, extremely effective -- it's like the US going from all white (indigenous) to all green w/ a very few white streaks (non-indigenous w/ reservations).<br><br>--- On <b>Tue, 11/27/12, Stuart Levy <i><stuartnlevy@gmail.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy@gmail.com><br>Subject: [Peace-discuss] Juan Cole - Ten myths about the Israeli attack on Gaza<br>To: "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss@anti-war.net><br>Date: Tuesday, November 27, 2012, 8:35 AM<br><br><div id="yiv48319479">
<div>
At AWARE on Sunday we talked about having a flyer for this
Saturday's demonstration which talked about Israel/Palestine.<br>
<br>
Carl had found a good one from Max Ajl, but here's another, from <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.juancole.com/2012/11/top-ten-myths-about-israeli-attack-on-gaza.html">Juan
Cole on 11/17</a>, which may be a better introduction to people
who haven't been paying close attention to the subject. (See the
original article too - there's an interesting map summarizing
Palestinian refugee migrations.)<br>
<br>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.juancole.com/2012/11/top-ten-myths-about-israeli-attack-on-gaza.html">http://www.juancole.com/2012/11/top-ten-myths-about-israeli-attack-on-gaza.html</a><br>
<br>
<b>Top Ten Myths about Israeli Attack on Gaza</b><br>
<br>
Posted on 11/17/2012 by Juan<br>
<br>
1. Israeli hawks represent themselves as engaged in a ‘peace
process’ with the Palestinians in which Hamas refuses to join. In
fact, Israel has refused to cease colonizing and stealing
Palestinian land long enough to engage in fruitful negotiations with
them. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/06/us-palestinians-israel-settlements-idUSBRE8A50I820121106?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews">Tel
Aviv routinely announces new, unilateral house-building on the
Palestinian West Bank</a>. There is no peace process. It is an
Israeli and American sham. Talking about a peace process is giving
cover to Israeli nationalists who are determined to grab everything
the Palestinians have and reduce them to penniless refugees (again).<br>
<br>
2. Actions such as the assault on Gaza can achieve no genuine
long-term strategic purpose. They are being launched to ensure that
Jewish-Israelis are the first to exploit key resources. Rattling
sabers at the Palestinians creates a pretext for further land-grabs
and colonies on Palestinian land. That is, the military action
against the people of Gaza is a diversion tactic; <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2012/11/16/john-mearsheimer/a-pillar-built-on-sand/">the
real goal is Greater Israel, an assertion of Israeli sovereignty</a>
over all the territory once held by the British Mandate of
Palestine.<br>
<br>
3. Israeli hawks represent their war of aggression as in
‘self-defense.’ But the UK Israeli chief rabbi admitted on camera
that that <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/16/bbc-apologises-chief-rabbi-jonathan-sacks-gaza">the
Gaza attack actually ‘had something to do with Iran.’</a><br>
<br>
4. Israeli hawks demonize the Palestinians of Gaza as “bad
neighbors” who don’t accept Israel. But 40% of the people in Gaza
are refugees, mostly living in refugee camps, from families in
pre-1948 Palestine that had lived there for millennia.<br>
<br>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://suite101.com/article/gaza-refugee-camps-1948-present-a211374">They
were expelled from what is now Israel in the 1948 Zionist ethnic
cleansing campaign</a>. Israelis are now living in their homes and
farming their land, and they were never paid any reparations for the
crimes done to them. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR26/FMR2624.pdf">[pdf]
“Israel’s failure to provide reparations to Palestinian refugees
over the past six decades is in blatant violation of international
law.”</a> Israel does not accept Palestine’s right to exist, even
though it is constantly demanding that everyone, including the
displaced and occupied Palestinians, recognize Israel’s right to
exist.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
5. Israeli hawks and their American clones depict Gaza as a foreign,
hostile state with which Israel is at war. In fact, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&ved=0CG8QFjAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.leidenuniv.nl%2Fbitstream%2F1887%2F13159%2F2%2FWhat%2BConstitutes%2BOccupation.pdf&ei=KDenUNOoMM6EygHbwYHYAQ&usg=AFQjCNFEJ_8IvIn6alResmt0iVO6Q-hFrg&sig2=IaQzbH1IV5V3KlnaR9F5Jw&cad=rja">the
Gaza strip is a small territory of 1.7 million people militarily
occupied by Israel</a> (something in which the UN and other
international bodies concur). Israelis do not allow it to have a
port or airport, nor to export most of what it produces.
Palestinians cannot work about a third of its land, which is
reserved by Israel as a security buffer. As an occupied territory,
it is covered by the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva
Convention of 1949 on the treatment of occupied populations by their
military occupier. Indiscriminate bombing of occupied territories by
the occupier is clearly illegal in international law.<br>
<br>
6. Israeli hawks see themselves as innocent victims of bewildering
Palestinian rage from Gaza. But Israel not only has kept
Palestinians of Gaza in the world’s largest outdoor penitentiary,
they have them under <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.juancole.com/2012/10/creepy-israeli-planning-for-palestinian-food-insecurity-in-gaza-revealed.html">an
illegal blockade</a> that for some years aimed at limiting their
nutrition without altogether starving them to death. I wrote
earlier:<br>
<br>
“The <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.ibtimes.com/israels-blockade-gaza-puts-palestinian-childrens-health-risk-report-702821">food
blockade had real effects. About ten percent of Palestinian
children in Gaza under 5</a> have had their growth stunted by
malnutrition. A recent <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.map-uk.org/files/1052_gaza_health_report_web_version.pdf">report
[pdf] by Save the Children and Medical Aid for Palestinians found
that</a>, in addition, anemia is widespread, affecting over
two-thirds of infants, 58.6 percent of schoolchildren, and over a
third of pregnant mothers. “<br>
<br>
If any foreign power surrounded Israel, destroyed Haifa port and Tel
Aviv airport, and prevented Israeli exports from being exported,
what do you think Israelis would do? Oh, that’s right, it is rude to
see both Palestinians and Israelis as equal human beings.<br>
<br>
7. Israeli hawks demonize the Palestinian residents of Gaza as
followers of Hamas, a party-militia of the Muslim religious right.
But half of Palestinians in Gaza are minors, who never voted for
Hamas and cannot be held collectively responsible for that party.<br>
<br>
8. Israeli hawks justify their aggression on the Palestinians on
grounds of self-defense. But Israel is a country of 7.5 million
people with tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, helicopter gunships
and F-16s and F-18s, plus 400 nuclear warheads. Gaza is a small
occupied territory of 1.7 million which has no heavy weaponry, just
some old guns and some largely ineffectual rockets. (Israelis cite
hundreds of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza in 2012; but until
Israel’s recent attack they had killed not a single Israeli, though
they did wound a few last March when fighting between Palestinians
and Israelis escalated.) Gaza is a threat to Israel the way the
Transkei Bantustan was a threat to Apartheid South Africa. As for
genuine asymmetrical threats from Gaza to Israel, they could be
dealt with by giving the Palestinians a state and ceasing the
blockade imposed on them, or in the worst case scenario
counter-terrorism targeted at terrorists rather than indiscriminate
bombing campaigns.<br>
<br>
9. Israeli hawks maintain that they were provoked into the attack. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-peace-activist-hamas-leader-jabari-killed-amid-talks-on-long-term-truce.premium-1.478085">But
actually Ahmad Jabari, the Hamas leader the Israelis assassinated
earlier this week, had been engaged in talks with the Israelis
about a truce</a>. Assassinations achieved by the ruse of openness
to peace talks are guarantees of no further peace talks.<br>
<br>
10. Although most American media is a cheering section for the Likud
Party, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2012/11/16/john-mearsheimer/a-pillar-built-on-sand/">in
fact the world is increasingly done out with Israel’s
aggressiveness</a>. Boycotts and sanctions will likely grow over
time, leaving Israeli hawks with a deficit…<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
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