Dissident Veteran For Peace

US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger commenting to Israeli Defense Minister General Moshe Dayan on Israel's proposed disengagement plan with Syria: It is like Admiral Moorer presenting a SALT [Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty] plan. It is probably exactly what you have got there now. Our military have discovered that arms control is a way to expand armaments; you build up to a compulsory ceiling.

Dayan: At least I am in good company.

Kissinger: Do you have that much there [in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights] now?

Dayan: We don't have that much there now. [Laughter] That is why we want more tanks.

Later in the memo (pp. 16-17) the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Simcha Dinitz, and other jokingly remark on his ability to manipulate the American media.

Source: Declassified secret White House "Memorandum of Conversation." The memo documents a high-level discussion which took place on March 29, 1974. p. 4.

Labels: Israel, militarism, quotations, War, Zionism

Dr. Sami Al-Arian--a Palestinian activist and US political prisoner for 1,491 days--has now been on a hunger strike for 60 days, he has lost 53 pounds, and is now in a prison medical facility. Al-Arian is protesting his imprisonment on contempt charges stemming from his refusal of the government's demand that he testify before a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va.

The Tampa, FL-based Friends of Human Rights is calling for a "rolling hunger strike" in solidarity with Al-Arian. Those who would like to join are asked to please send an e-mail to tampabayjustice@yahoo.com with the day they will fast.

Also, keep an eye out for, or better yet arrange a showing of, the new Norwegian documentary film, USA vs Al-Arian.

Labels: Al-Arian, Justice, Palestine, political prisoners, Zionism

Last night I watched the documentary film Paradise Lost (checked out from my local library) about the trial of three young men convicted for three murders in West Memphis, Arkansas. The film is long and a bit slow-paced but engrossing nevertheless. It is hard to believe that anyone can watch it and come away thinking these guys (pictured above right) got a fair trial, let alone that they are actually guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Here's a synopsis of their story from a West Memphis Three support web site:

Shortly after three eight-year-old boys were found mutilated and murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, local newspapers stated the killers had been caught. The police assured the public that the three teenagers in custody were definitely responsible for these horrible crimes. Evidence?

The same police officers coerced an error-filled "confession" from Jessie Misskelley Jr., who is mentally handicapped. They subjected him to 12 hours of questioning without counsel or parental consent, audio-taping only two fragments totaling 46 minutes. Jessie recanted it that evening, but it was too late— Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were all arrested on June 3, 1993, and convicted of murder in early 1994.

Although there was no physical evidence, murder weapon, motive, or connection to the victims, the prosecution pathetically resorted to presenting black hair and clothing, heavy metal t-shirts, and Stephen King novels as proof that the boys were sacrificed in a satanic cult ritual. Unfathomably, Echols was sentenced to death, Baldwin received life without parole, and Misskelley got life plus 40.

For over 13 years, The West Memphis Three have been imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. Echols waits in solitary confinement for the lethal injection our tax dollars will pay for. They were all condemned by their poverty, incompetent defense, satanic panic and a rush to judgment.

But there’s still hope for them, and you can help.

Labels: Justice, video, West Memphis Three

How in the world is Congress supporting the troops by continuing to send them to kill and die in an illegal, immoral, unwinnable quagmire?

--Nancy Lessin, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out. Quoted in "Frustration Marks Another War Anniversary" by Haider Rizvi. Inter Press Service News Agency. March 19, 2007.

Labels: anti-war movement, Iraq, quotations, War

Last week, members of the German Roman Catholic Bishops Conference had the audacity to speak truthfully and forthrightly (momentarily, at least) about what they saw on their recent tour of Palestine. Here's an excerpt from a report by Tim Butcher in the Telegraph (UK):

Several of the bishops were upset by the Jerusalem Wall, the 30-ft high concrete barrier illegally built by Israel to separate Palestinian suburbs from the rest of the city."

While crossing one of the checkpoints into East Jerusalem, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, said he had been particularly incensed.

"This is something that is done to animals, not people," he said referring to the wall and heavily fortified checkpoints where Palestinians are subjected to intrusive questioning and demands for Israel-approved documentation.

The Archbishop was brought up in Communist-controlled East Germany.

"For me it is a nightmare. I didn't think I would see such a wall again in my life," he said.

"Just like they brought the Berlin Wall down, so too will this wall come down. It will not endure."

The bishops visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, before heading to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the occupied West Bank.

"This morning we saw pictures of the Warsaw ghetto at Yad Vashem and this evening we are going to the Ramallah ghetto," Bishop Gregor Maria Franz Hanke said.

Of course, despite the fact that more than one survivor of the Nazi holocaust (see also below) has pointed out the similarities between Nazi and Zionist behavior and despite the fact that Israeli army officers studied German tactics against the Jewish denizens of the Warsaw Ghetto from the perspective of the Nazis in preparation for military operations against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, leaders of the Holocaust Industry were livid that the bishops would dare to make such a comparison. For instance, Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham H. Foxman bleated: "... any comparison between the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is inappropriate and a breach of church teachings[!]." Thanks Father Abe for lecturing us on church teachings.

Unfortunately, the Zionist thought police seem to have achieved their desired effect with at least some of the bishops lacking the courage of their convictions. Deutsche Welle quotes the head of the international department of the German Bishops Conference as saying "it is, of course, impermissible to make any connection between Nazi policies directed at Jews and the current Israeli policy towards the Palestinians." Of course. This is Orwellian "thoughtcrime" stuff, folks.


"The [Washington] Post's April 10 front-page account and photos of the devastation in Jenin, West Bank, remind me of my childhood years in the Warsaw Ghetto. There, too, innocent civilians were shot on sight, houses were blown up indiscriminately, and humanitarian aid was blocked. At the end of that horrendous Holocaust, we said, 'Never again.' But now, it is we who are doing it again. For shame!"

Source: Alex Hershaft, Bethesda, MD. The Washington Post. Apr. 16, 2002. p. A18.

See also:

• The ADL Spying Case Is Over, But The Struggle Continues
• The Changing Role of B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League
• Quotable: "... inflicting Nuremberg crimes on the Palestinians"

Labels: Abraham Foxman, Christianity, Israel, Palestine, thoughtcrime, Zionism

Labels: Carlos Latuff, Iraq, War

Saree Makdisi has a brilliant op-ed piece in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times entitled "In the war of words, The Times is Israel's ally." He manages to simultaneously expose the absurdity of the demand that Palestinians "recognize Israel" and how the media colludes in the Zionist enterprise by uncritically propagating the Zionist rhetorical framework. I'd quote Makdisi's piece here but you really ought to read the whole thing yourself. The article is mirrored here at CommonDreams. Thanks to F. for the tip-off.

Labels: Israel, media, Palestine, Saree Makdisi

Ammianus Marcellinus, a Latin historian of the fourth century, truly says: "No wild beasts are such enemies to mankind as are most of the Christians in their deadly hatred of one another."

--Marjorie Strachey. Saints and Sinners of the Fourth Century. (London: William Kimber & Co., 1958) p. 7.

Labels: Ammianus Marcellinus, Christianity, quotations