- Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State: speaking yesterday
at AIPAC:
-
- "For president Obama and for me and for our entire
administration: Our commitment to Israel's security and Israel's future
is rock-solid unwavering and enduring FOREVER!
-
- Benjamin Netanyahu: At the same AIPAC CONFERENCE:
-
- "The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000
years ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today! Jerusalemis
NOT a settlement it's our Capital. Everyone knows everyone
Americans, Europeans; Israeli's certainly, Palestinians: EVERYONE knows
that these neighborhoods will be part of Israel in any peace settlement.
And therefore 'building in them' in no way precludes the possibility of
a two-state solution."
-
- The above treasons and lies were all refuted brilliantly
by Norman Finkelstein on Democracy
- Now, 3-23-10
-
- NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: It didn't really surprise me. I think
one has to look at the framework of the criticism. There is an international
law ruling or opinion on the question of East Jerusalem. In July 2004,
the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice,
it rendered what it called its advisory opinion, and it stated unequivocally
that East Jerusalem is-and I'm using its words-"occupied Palestinian
territory." It's not a question here of conflicting claims to Jerusalem,
let alone an Israeli exclusive right to theEast Jerusalem. The law is clear:
it's occupied Palestinian territory, because it was acquired in the course
of a war, in the course of the June 1967 war. And under international law,
it's inadmissible to acquire territory by war.
-
- I would want to add that's the position of all human
rights organizations, and it was the position of the Goldstone report.
The Goldstone report repeatedly refers to East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian
territory. And Mr. Goldstone, by his own reckoning, is a Zionist, a lover
of Israel. But he also respects the law, and the law is clear.
-
- SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, let's talk about the Goldstone
report. You write about this extensively in the epilogue of your book.
Israel and the US have both rejected that the war crimes allegations in
the report. Talk about what the report is, who put together, Judge Goldstone,
and what the reaction from the US and Israel has been.
-
- NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: The Goldstone report was mandated
by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Richard Goldstone, the distinguished
international jurist, led the mission. And he-at the end, they published
a quite substantial report that ran to some 500 pages, 550 pages. It covered
a lot of ground. And it has to be said, it was quite devastating in its
indictment of Israel. It concluded thatIsrael used a disproportionate force
to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.
-
- Well, Israel was outraged by the report, across the spectrum,
not just the right wing, but people like Shimon Peres, who's said to be
a dove. He called Richard Goldstone a "small man" who knows nothing
about international law. Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United
States, said the Goldstone report is worse than the Protocols of the Elders
of Zion and worse than Ahmadinejad. And the reaction was quite similar
in the United States.
-
- And Goldstein replied after the criticism in the US.
He said, "OK, you say the report is deeply flawed. Show me where."
And to this day-and I've read all the critiques. There have been three
major ones, one by this Israeli and American professor Moshe Halbertal,
there was one by Professor Dershowitz of Harvard, and the Israelis put
out just last week a 500-page rebuttal. And I tried honestly to look at
it objectively, but they were very insubstantial responses. I was quite
impressed by how well Goldstone has held up to the criticism. It was a
very careful, cautious and judicious report.
-
- AMY GOODMAN: And its conclusion?
-
- NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Its conclusion was that both Israel
and Hamas were guilty of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity,
that Israel has now an obligation to investigate, in an independent investigation
of what happened, and if they don't conduct an independent investigation,
they have to go before the International Criminal Court.
-
- AMY GOODMAN: And Obama's response to this?
-
- NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: The Obama administration has called
the report deeply flawed, but not provided any substantive evidence to
support that claim.
-
- SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And this latest flap between the
US and Israel about the expanding Jewish housing in East Jerusalem, it's
been a lot about diplomatic ties, but they have not talked at all about
holding any US military aid or economic aid to Israel.
-
- NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, I'm sure all of your listeners
and your viewers are familiar with the magnitude of US aid to Israel. I
think the important development is what Amnesty International said after
the invasion of Gaza. It put out a very substantial report called "Fueling
Conflict." And it said that transferring weapons to a consistent violator
of human rights is illegal under international law. Israelis a consistent
violator of human rights, and therefore there has to be a comprehensive
arms embargo on Israel. And the report went into each country in the world,
how it supplies and transfers weapons to Israel. But it has to be said,
the focus was on the United States.
-
- And Amnesty International said three main things: number
one, that the US is by far the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel; number
two, supplying those weapons to Israel is not only illegal under international
law, it's illegal under domestic US law; and number three, it said-and
I think it's important for your viewers to hear it-Amnesty International
said what happened in Gaza could-and they describe what happened in Gaza
as twenty-two days of death and destruction-what happened in Gaza could
not have happened were it not for US taxpayer money. If you're appalled
by what happened in Gaza, you're appalled by the death, the destruction,
the systematic attack on mosques, the systematic attack on ambulances,
the systematic attack on hospitals, on schools-
-
- SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And these were detailed in the
Goldstone report?
-
- NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Yes. The 6,000 homes which were all
either completely or nearly completely destroyed, Amnesty International
says all of that was paid for with US taxpayer money.
-
- And now along comes Hillary Clinton, and she's extolling
US military aid to Israel. The part that she left out is, number one, it's
all illegal under international and domestic US law, and number two, it
was that US aid that made possible-you have to bear in mind-I know your
program chronicled the use of the white phosphorus-every white phosphorus
shell they found-you can see it in the Human Rights Watch report on the
white phosphorus-every one was made in the United States. We are responsible
for that war. It's not just a cliché. It's a factual matter. We
made that massacre happen." (1)
-
- No state can be of two minds, never mind two-faces when
it comes to who actually runs their nation. However in the case of the
US Empire not only is this the case in point, but we have taken to speaking
with two different tongues. And too many of this country's leaders have
dual-citizenships with Israel for this country to present a single face
in either foreign or domestic policy-affairs for there to be any credibility
left concerning anything that the traitors at the top of this government
have to say.
-
- We are today 'a nation without freedom, without justice,
and without any clearly defined laws that apply to all our people': and
not just to the disadvantaged, the homeless and the destitute. No 'supposed
nation' can long exist in that condition: which is why this one's days
are fast becoming "numbered" whenever the viability of this place
is mentioned anywhere.
-
-
-
-
- As nation's go, we are not composed of a single people
or a single religion, we have no formal culture as such and most of our
adults are still reliving their highschool years in terms of their habits
and behaviors which leaves our population with far too many people that
are barely housebroken with tendencies toward juvenile desires and habits
that leaves no room for the living of authentic lives. We still rabidly
follow the same games we played as students in school, as if these multi-billion-dollar
entertainments actually mean something beyond huge profits for their owners
and the massive distractions they are capable of manufacturing for the
public. Even our eating and drinking habits are nothing more than expanded
versions of what so many did whenever they took-off on their 'Spring-Break.'
-
- Is it any wonder that we have no time to figure out who
is trying to kill us, or why? Under Reagan's tortured presidency the public
began to learn very simple things that were then inculcated into the psyche
of the body-politic: "Greed is Good" or "He that dies with
the most toys wins!" With slogans like these this society began to
sign its own death warrant a very long time ago. Then there was that infamous
line in Elmer Gantry that maybe came from the Bible: "When I was a
child I played with the toys of a child, but when I became a man I put
away the toys of a child." Too often too many have forgotten this
critical bit of wisdom that could have allowed us to focus on those things
that have locked us into this place where we no longer question any of
the irrational aspects in our 'national character.'
-
- Zionist Israel is today a state of only one religion,
Christians and Muslims have been officially banned, and there is no longer
a functioning 'Democracy' in that place: Zionist Israel is officially an
Outlaw state that rules its inhabitants as a Rogue Entity that observes
none of the national or international laws that once governed the United
States. We should tear off this Judas-face of Zionism that we have allowed
to supplant what we once strove to be. If we cannot do this, then we will
not survive to reach 2011 as an actual state, because by then we shall
have become a captive state that serves only the perverted dreams of others
in The New World Order.
-
- kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net
-
- 1) Norman Finkelstein Responds to Clinton, Netanyahu
AIPAC Commentshttp://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/23/
norman_finkelstein_responds_to_clinton_netanyahu
|
