Zionism and the Land of Israel

Map of Eretz Israel in 1695 Amsterdam Haggada

Shaul Goldstein, Mayor of Gush Etzion:

"We belong to this place. We belong to Jerusalem, we belong to Bethlehem, we belong to..euh..Hebron. This is our heritage. This is our history. Without it, we are not a nation. After sixty years of the Holocaust (sic!), the world must recognise our right to have our jewish state and to help us to make it."

BBC Reporter: "All the way from the Mediterranean to the the River Jordan?"

SG: "From the Mediterranean to the the River Jordan. Israel cannot defend its self with the borders which is the '67 borders. Now we're asking Olmert 'what do you want to acheive? Don't tell me what you want to give! Tell me what you're goin to get!' It's zero.
We don't believe that anyone want's peace with us. The Arabs..want to occupy Israel."

And this is basically what he means:

We don't want anyone to want peace with us (that way we can hold on to Eretz Israel).

And this maybe an 'extremist' settler talking, but let us remember, that settlers are not generally the most religious. They are proof of the idea, that religious imagery is in actual fact an expression of nationalistic fervour. In Israel 'proper' there are religious zealots who claim divine right of Eretz Israel for the jews, and there are secular politicians who in effect do the same. Ariel Sharon was not an exception. All PMs have allowed settlements to expand although this has always been in violation of international law.
As we can see in the links above, noteably the Mafdal link, the idea of Eretz Israel in mainstream zionism is a confusion of secular and religious. Ben Gurion was a socialist, and Herzl was an assimilated (non-religious) austrian Jew. Yet, the idea of Eretz Israel is based on the promise made by 'god' to the jewish people.
In fact, certain ultra-orthodox jewish movements take that promise to have meant, that 'god' would lead the jews to their land, at the time of the coming of the messiah, and only then.

And then there are those who believe in this!:



Since this is an issue full of paradox, I am open to any comments/corrections!

Back to Court

Return to court

Posted (in french) on November 23rd by Caillou

This time around many more people turned up. If every time this tribunal expresses the law there are this many witnesses, it will no longer be able to do it's dirty work in secret. The room is full.

Men and women of Toulouse, unemployed, mothers, pensioners, people from Ariège, all here to support the young minor-adults. The latter are young people who, having entered the country have been integrated into foster families, are studying, even learning a trade...They have no or little family in their home countries. They cannot be sent back while minors, but as a birthday present, upon coming of age, they get a notification of deportation. The prefectures (translator's note: sub-regional jurisdiction) leave nothing out! And the departmental quota (translator's note: sub-regional quota set by the government) must be reached!

Then there's the young north african lady, shivering alone on a bench in the hall outside the courtroom. Married to a frenchman she came to our beloved country and recieved a resident's card, but after divorcing and moving, upon advising the Lot prefecture of her change of situation and address, a zealous employee nicked her card and so she became, on the spot "sans papier" and subject to expulsion.

There's also the young congolese man, who came to France with his mother and brother for the funeral of his father, who died "brutally" in a police station of the 18th arrondissement of Paris. His lawyer shows a letter from the interior minister of the time (our present president) authorising him to reside in the country "for the duration of the inquest". The family lodged a complaint, but one can imagine how long it takes for an inquest against the french police to proceed...So now, the prefect of Haute-Garonne is asking for the expulsion of the son.

Many more await their turn. It's the "justice" square before or during the detention center, a kind of washing machine of which the role is not so much to judge the content but rather the legal form of expulsion, armed with a law, more and more repressive and discriminatory. That morning, there were many slices of life and suffering, kneaded by this soulless machine, which obeys to the sole criteria that is the "legal" expulsion of 25 000 men, women and children by the 31st of December.

I have re-read Erich Maria Remarque. Love one another (Liebe deinen nächsten). It's a book published in 1939 and which tells of the incredible journeys of german jews, stateless, "Heimatlose", fleeing through Europe the Nazis in power in Germany. But this novel tells us about what is going on, right now, in the french tribunals, in the french detention centers, on the french streets...in the country of the declaration of "human rights" which our our marvelous elites revel in.

Lesson in democracy from Zapatero and his boss

¿Por qué no te callas?
envoyé par joraupa

Explanation in spanish, french, english and portuguese

Burmese Junta Propaganda Film

Ko-htike
Burmanet

Around 200 members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, Swan Arr Shin and township police have taken part in the filming in the grounds of Prome airport in Bago division, according to a source who had access to those involved in the shoot. A number of people posing as monks have also been involved in the filming.

Holocaust Denial (fiction?)

Source


Jewcy

Today, New Germany rejects the verdicts of the Nuremberg Trials that found members of the Nazi party guilty of war crimes, pointing out that Germans admitted to those crimes under duress from the prosecuting Allies. "No document has ever been produced that shows that Hitler ordered the extermination of Jews," Sommer said. "Indeed, many attempts were made by Germans at the time to find a safe harbor for Jews, including some negotiations with Zionists in Europe. It is a total fallacy that there was anything resembling genocide."

Terror and justice

How could people bomb innocents like those who were victims in Madrid on 3/11 asks one of the survivors? They were 'normal' people, he says. One can only agree with such a sentiment. How could one disagree? One has to however, seek answers. It's not about feeling sympathy for bombers, but it's about trying to understand in order to prevent further suffering.
Of course, for the sake of decency, as well as honesty, one should before anything else put things into perspective. On march 11th 2004 in Madrid, 191 people were killed and 2050 wounded. On september 11th 2001 in New York, 2974 died. On July 7th 2005 in London, 52 people were killed and 700 were wounded (source: Wikipedia). If we were to count the numbers of people killed in bombings by western forces and others supported financially as well as militarily by western nations, where would one start? In the Second Lebanon War of 2006 over a thousand lebanese lost their lives under israeli fire. In the invasion phase of the 2003 Iraq war, 7,299 iraqi civilians were killed. 290 Iranian civilians were killed when the airliner they were travelling was downed by USS Vincennes during the Iran-Iraq war. (Source: Wikipedia).
Coincidentally perhaps, today in Spain, some of those responsible for the March 7th attacks were condemned while simultaneously a bill has been approved which formally condemns Franco's dictatorial and terrorist regime. Though of course the mainstream media does not link the two events, what comes to mind is a certain paradox. We all accept justifiably, that those responsible for the deaths of 191 innocent civilians in Madrid should be brought swiftly (and democratically) before the law, and yet condemning an equally (in numbers no doubt more) horrifying period of spanish history, takes over thirty years, and still there are those who complain (mainly right-wing conservatives). This seems to me to be a fitting example of the double-standards with which our media and authorities treat history and contemporary events.
On this day, the BBC aired a programme dealing with the upcoming Annapolis Israel/Palestine peace conference. Several commentators from the region or elsewhere were questioned. None of whom I had personally heard of. None but one palestinian commentator mentioned the hypocrisy of the 'offers' made by Israel and the US to the palestinians. Commentators such as Amira Hass, the israeli journalist who lives in and reports from Gaza, Robert Fisk, the British journalist who has spent thirty years living in and reporting from Beirut on the middle east and the arabo-muslim world, Noam Chomsky, who has written extensively and with excellent sourcing about the 'conflict' and US-Israeli rejectionism, Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery, or Meron Benvenisti, former Jerusalem mayor and proponent of a binational state were not interviewed.
Recently, the US congress was censored in it's attempt to officially recognise the ottoman genocide of Aremenians in 1915 by Turkey and it's lobby. At least it's relatively uncontroversial to speak of a turkish lobby in the US. Meanwhile, Israel continues to deny the Armenian Holocaust and the Ukrainian Holocaust (for example). It is up to historians to decide what is holocaust and what is not, and not politicians, according to Israel. Maybe it should apply this wisdom to all holocausts.
Mr Zapatero has claimed, that justice has been done. But where are Bush, Blair, Howard, Aznar, Berlusconi and all the others before them? Are they behind bars?