ÓLAFUR RAGNAR GRÍMSSON.

ÆTLAR VIRKILEGA ENGINN AÐ SKAMMAST ÚTÍ ÓLAF?  ÖÐRUVÍSI MÉR ÁÐUR BRÁ.  KANNSKI HAFI FUNDIST EITTHVAÐ VIÐ OFNÆMINU, SEM HEFUR VALDIÐ ÞESSUM ÞRÁHYGGJUKENNDA PIRRINGI ÚTÍ FORSETA VORN!

Jia-you Is-land

Handbolta grúppía?

"...nú er ég búin að fylgjast með handboltalandsliðinu í áratugi og fylgja þeim eftir á stórmótum."

Íhugar að fara aftur út

Einkaveiða, gera eitthvað! Svo vinirnir og þau sjálf megi græða!

Nei, þetta er ekki stafsetningarvilla,  EINKAVEIÐA!  Hægrimenn eru sífellt á höttunum eftir að redda einhverjum bísniss fyrir sig og vini sína!  Þessvegna er einkaveiðing  réttnefni.  Tilgangurinn er ekki að bæta þjónustuna eða gera hana ódýrari.  Tilgangurinn er að redda bísniss. Heilsuverndarstöðin, "meðferðarbatterí"  einkavinaveiðingarinnar og nú sorphirðan.  Skítt með það þó einkavinirnir eigi ekki húsnæði til að reka meðferðar-bísnissinn og rónarnir norpi enn niðrí bæ.  Í Kópavogi er svona einkaveidd sorphirða.  Þar voru ruslabílarnir lengst af opnir vörubílar,  tunnunum var hent uppá pall og þar stóð strákur og hvolfti úr tunnunum.  Í roki fauk einkaveidda ruslið útum allan bæ.  Kannski er þetta svona enn, og ekki var það ódýrara.  Þetta er samkvæmt trúarjátningu frjálshyggjunnar!  Og Geira aðgerðarlausa dreymir um einkaveiddann póst.  Það verður gaman þegar gluggapósturinn fer að berast mánaðargamall til viðtakenda.  Það verður örugglega of dýrt að bera út daglega eða einu sinni í viku.  Nóg hefur þjónustan versnað.  Er hún ekki nú þegar háeffuð.  En nú skaln hún einkavinaveidd.  Og sorpið verður líka einkavinaveitt.  Er eki bara hægt að slá þessu saman í eitt.  Einkavinaveidda póst- og sorphirðan EHF?

Vilja að sorphirða sé boðin út í Reykjavík

Tvær kjaftakellingar taka tal saman.

  Ekki átti ég von á að hinn umtalsfrómi Svavar Gestsson rataði í dagbækur Matthíasar og það sem heimildarmaður skáldsins um mannkosti félaga sendiherrans í stjórnmálum.  En þegar betur er að gáð, þá hæfir þar kjaftur skel!   Einhver skæðasti baktjaldamakkari á vinstri væng stjórnmálanna og annar samskonar af hægrivængnum.  Pólitísk eftirmæli um Svavar þennan verða nú varla fegruð úr þessu.  Á öðru bloggi er fjallað aðeins um áhrif Svavars á innra starf Vinstri-Grænna, kölluð Svavarsvæðing.  Fyrir ókunnuga lýsir þessi væðing sér í að upp eru teknar hnífstungur og baktjaldamakk í hornum og að hurðabaki með tilheyrandi félagsanda!

 

Svavar dregur dagbækur í efa

Hugsanagangur Mattíasar Jóhannesen ritstjóra.

Það er einkar athyglisvert að lesa fréttir á visir.is um skrif Mattíasar ritstjóra Moggans um lækniskostnað Guðrúnar Katrínar, eiginkonu Ólafs Ragnars.  Vegna þess að Guðrún var gift Ólafi Ragnari sér Mattías ástæðu til að tortryggja læknismeðferð, og kostnað vegna hennar, sem Guðrún þurfti á að halda til að lífi hennar yrði bjargað.  Og dramatíserar um þau meintu "vandræði" og heilabrot, sem málið á að hafa valdið Davíð Oddssyni.  Ég veit ekki hverskonar hugarfar er að baki skrifum sem þessum, en ekki-góðmennskan leynir sér ekki. 

Oft má satt kjurt liggja!

Lesist í framhaldi af næstsíðustu færslu.

Hvar eru allir aparnir?

Tjarga hvern...? Afturgönguna í Reykjavík?

Hefði frekar trúað tilvist tjörupottar á Ráðhússhlaðinu.  Er ekki kominn til að tjarga  borgar"stjórnina", fiðra og reka úr bænum að sið villta vestursins?

Eldur kom upp í tjörupotti í Garðabæ

Hatursglæpamenn á Íslandi?

 

Ætli geti verið, að þeirra á meðal séu taldir Skúli Skúlason (brottrekni hryðjuverkabloggari),  Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson (útlaginn í Köben á "socialnum (?) og nokkrir "málsmetandi" meðlimir Frjálslyndaflokksins ásamt með íslenskum pörupiltum á unglingsaldri?

 

 

 

 

Skýrsla um hatursglæpi á Íslandi

DÓMSTÓLL GÖTUNNAR...(endurbirt)

 

...dæmir og dæmir og dæmir.  Kjaftakjellingar af báðum kynjum setja sig í réttlætisstellingar og þykjast vera þess umkomnar að dæma og dæma og dæma...Nú hefur ein slík kveðið uppúr með það að dæmdir menn skuli halda kjafti og eigi sko ekkert að hafa málfrelsi, einsog við hin.  Ég hef nú leyft mér að hafa ýmsar skoðanir á Árna Johnsen, en mér hefur nú aldrei dottið í hug að svipta eigi hann almennum mannréttindum.  Mínar efasemdir um Árna hafa aðallega snúið að áframhaldandi afskiptum hans af stjórnmálum/landsstjórninni, svo og að siðferðiskennd hans.  En Árni hefur afplánað fyrir brot sín og hlotið uppreist æru.  Á að halda áfram að refsa honum og öðrum í sömu stöðu.  Þangað til nú á síðustu árum hefur verið litið svo á að þegar menn hafi tekið út refsingu fyrir brot sitt væru þeir kvitt við þjóðfélagið og þjóðfélagið kvitt við þá.  Og menn gætu haldið áfram  lífi sínu, einsog hverjir aðrir borgarar.  Enda svolítið grimdarlegt að hengja myllusteina um háls manna ævilangt fyrir hugsanleg eða framin brot.  Hið nýja viðhorf er, að brotlegir menn verði aldrei kvitt við einn né neinn, þeim eigi sífellt að núa um nasir afglöp þeirra, mistök og glæpi smáa sem stóra.  Aldrei að fyrirgefa!  Nú er það Árni, um daginn eldabuskann sem heimsótti forsetafrúnna. Þeim skal sko ekki fyrirgefið og vei þeim sem umgengst þá sem dæmdir hafa verið.  Í eina tíð, ekki fyrir mjög löngu síðan, var heill trúflokkur sem kallar sig þjóð, ofsóttur og hundeltur.  Það endaði með Helförinni sem frægt er orðið.  Þeim skyldi sko ekki fyrirgefið að hafa drepið Krist.  Nú hefur þeim verið fyrirgefið svo rækilega, að þeim fyrirgefst allur andskotinn, m.a. barnamorð!  Rétttrúaðar réttlætiskjaftakjellingar líta bara í hina áttina eða afneita staðreyndum og sannleikanum.  Þær hafa nefnilega fundið sér ný fórnarlömb:  Smábófa sem vegna mannlegra breyskleika hafa gerst sekir um smáglæpi, einsog lítilsháttar hnupl og aðra óknytti.

Kannski við ættum að höggva af þeim hausinn eða bara hendurnar?

Bandarískir þingmenn eru keyptir fyrir Ísraelskt mútufé!

 

__________________________________________________________________________

THE FINEST SENATE THAT MONEY CAN BUY

By Uri Avenim; member: Israeli Knesset

 Will the Americans pay the huge amounts of money Israel is demanding to help alleviate the economic holocaust it has brought upon itself? There is no doubt that the U.S. will pay. Why? Because politically they have no choice.

 Take, for example, the story of Clarence Long, member of the U.S. Congress and Chairman of the Foreign Relations Sub-Committee and also of sections of the Aid Committee in the U.S. Congress. He is the "man in charge" of paying the allocations granted to Israel.

 This man is well-known to hundreds of thousands of Israelis who watched him on their TV screens when Ely Millikh Ram, the Israeli TV correspondent, interviewed him regarding Israel's economic problems. Like other U.S. diplomats, Long expressed the view that Israel must take "steps and measures" -- most important of which are austerity measures and the raising of interest rates.

 Listening to him, I came to the conclusion that the man did not know what he was saying, nor was he saying what he really felt. But the coup de grace came when, concluding his interview, Long hinted -- not very subtly -- that Israel would get all it had asked for, as a result of the careful and very positive spirit in which the US had considered its demands. This will come as a surprise to no-one.

 In order to comprehend full the meaning of what he said, we have to add one very small thing to what Long did not say in his TV interview: that he, Clarence Long, has received, this year alone, the total of $97,500 from Israel to support his election campaign, which means that the above-named is no more than a paid agent employed by Israel. Israel has not paid the amount directly to him; it has been transferred to him, in the manner of all such transactions, by the so-called "Political Action Committees", which play a very important role these days in the Israeli foreign affairs system.

 Where did I get my information? I have not hired spies or detectives, there was no need for that as there is, in the U.S. a law which makes it compulsory duty for all candidates for public office to submit detailed and public statements showing all the donations they receive. Such a law does not exist in Israel. The New York Times has published a detailed press investigation on the methods used by pro-Israeli lobbies to influence presidential elections in the US. The study revealed that pro-Israeli institutions have allocated $4.25m to be spent buying the minds and votes of Senate and Congress members.

 It is the usual practice to spend such sums according to a very precise and carefully calculated procedure, so that every single dollar spent in this respect is guaranteed maximum return. The sum of $576,000 was handed to the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which backed, without any reservation, every single act by the Israeli government. It has also been paid to new candidates, usually running against committee members who have not submitted to the instructions of the Israeli embassy in Washington.

 Other pro-Israeli sums have been spent in 29 of the 33 Senate constituencies scheduled to have had elections this past year, as well as in 154 Congress constituencies of the total 435.

 The largest sum spent in this direction was paid to Paul Simon, a new figurehead who got away with $147,870 from Israel's supporters in the US because he had decided to run in the election against Charles Percy, the former chairman of the Congress Committee who has been consistently critical of the Israeli government and was courageous enough to say that the Palestinians also have their own legitimate rights.

 Another sum of $140,063 was paid to one Carl Levin, not because he is a good Jew, as his name indicates, but because he is a member of the Congress Military Committee.

 Also, conservative Senator Jesse Helms provoked Israel's wrath because he discussed the Palestine issue while he was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. This motivated the pro-Israeli lobby to pay $130,350 to his rival James Hart.

 On one occasion while on a visit to the US and during the outbreak of war in Lebanon, I was advised to hold a meeting with Senator Roddy Posvic to relate to him what happened and what was said during my meeting with Yasser Arafat in Beirut. Small wonder, for Senator Posvic is vice-chairman of the Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on the Middle East. The senator's behaviour and attitude were a surprise to me, but I have since come to know the reasons for his indifferent attitude: from the pro-Israel lobby in the US he had already received $95,100 to help him get re-elected.

 What are these mysterious pro-Israeli circles that buy and sell members of the Senate and Congress in the US? The best-known is "The National Political Action Group", known as the "Israeli lobby".

   Side by side with this openly publicised group, there are many secret bodies active in the field under pseudonyms like "The San Francisco People's Committee for a Better rule", the "Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs", "Desert Conference", and "The Political Conference of Disciplined Citizens".

 In order to conceal the truth, none of these pro-Israeli groups identify themselves by any names that might point to Israel, Jews or zionists, in a clear attempt to avoid antagonising non-Jews. Nor do they stir the issue of anti-semitism, because non-Jews may realise that a small gang of Jews is trading in the American people's votes.

 The aforementioned sums, small as they might appear, are not small at all considering the state of affairs in the US for elections in that country cost far less than they do in Israel. A $50,000 donation to any candidate is considered substantial in the US, considering the far greater advantages and returns the donor hopes to receive from the influence of the fortunate candidate.

 After the Israeli lobby in the US grants a Congress member $100,000 such a member will never dream of backing a motion which contravenes the interests of the government of Israel.

 When Prime Minister Shimon Peres arrives in the US he will expect, of course, to receive a warm welcome. He will meet members of the Congress and the Senate, who will urge him to take austerity measures, to reduce bank interest rates, to reduce spending and to impose new taxation. But Peres, on the other hand, can laugh up his sleeve, having already received a secret report from the Israeli embassy in Washington specifying, in great detail, the sums already paid to every one of those Congress and Senate members who met him, to satisfy the wishes of the Israeli government.

 Israel will no doubt receive the most generous increase in aid from the US in its history. In fact, the US grant to Israel has already exceeded any US grant ever given to any other country anywhere in the world. A simple calculation shows that every single American family pays Israel well over $40 annually, and that every Israeli family receives $2500 every year.

 This would be very natural if Israel were a superpower and the US were one of its colonies. Had there been, in a far-off planet, an intelligence agency monitoring what was going on on planet Earth, and had its researchers "listened" to the US-Israel transactions, they would have undoubtedly believed that the US was no more than an Israeli satellite and that the population of Israel was surely greater than that of the US.

 A few weeks ago the "Voice of America", a US government radio service, arranged an interview with a PLO leader. Israel protested in the strongest possible terms, which forced the US government to apologise publicly to Israel, promising never to let such an event happen again.

 This has been the usual practice of occupying powers; to rebuke countries under their occupation. In the US presidential election campaign, competition between candidates is at its fiercest when trying to win Israel's approval and support.

 Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale lost their breath in that competition, behaving as if they were African colonial chieftains of the last century, who used to compete to win the favours and sympathies of the British or French High Commissioner.

 In the US Congress they talk, not only of granting Israel the money it asks for, but also of exciting initiatives of goodwill as, for example, the transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Such steps are bound, of course, to undermine the US position and prestige in all the Islamic states; but such considerations do not worry most Congress and Senate members overmuch, as their sole aim is to be re-elected.

 The paying of donations to US administration officials is considered one of the most vital sections of Israeli expenditure. Once having paid these tributes to US officials, Israel is thus guaranteed, in return, huge sums of money in the form of US grants.

 For the $4.25m Israel has paid to prime the US Congress, Israel will receive a US grant totalling $2.6bn. for its money, therefore, Israel will have struck the bargain of the century, receiving an interest of 60,000 per cent on its original investment. The extra grant to Israel will increase that interest even more.

 Had it been possible to cure the Israeli economic disease with the flood of US dollars, there would have been no problem. The problem is that all this cash flow is to no avail for, according to many economic experts, such arrangements make the situation even more complicated.

 One thing, however, is quite clear: Israel is not the 51st state of the United States of America, as some would like to think; rather, the US Congress is one of the occupied areas of Israel. [end]

 

Enn bullar Bjössi!

Þótt svo hafi verið, að meirihluti hafi verið með setu "varnarliðs" Kana á Miðnesheiði má samt fullyrða, að málið hafi klofið þjóðina.  Þó að BB sé þeirrar skoðunar að herstöðvamálið hafi ekki klofið þjóðina, eru aðrir á annarri skoðun, þar á meðal Ólafur Ragnar.  Og það er ekki þar með sagt, að Bjössi hafi rétt fyrir sér.  Við hin, sem erum ekki sömu skoðunar og Bjössi, megum hafa skoðun á málinu.  Þó BB, og skoðanabræður hans, hafi einhverja skoðun er ekki þar með sagt, að hún sé sú eina rétta.  BB er engin alsherjardómari í málum, þó svo hann skrifi og tali þannig af sínum alkunnu merkilegheitum.  Skoðanir manna eru mismunandi, það er bara þannig!  Hvort sem Birni líkar það betur eða verr!

Einkennilegt, hvernig Bjössi talar alltaf einsog hann sé alvitur!

Einkennilega að orði komist

Dómstóll götunnar...

...dæmir og dæmir og dæmir.  Kjaftakjellingar af báðum kynjum setja sig í réttlætisstellingar og þykjast vera þess umkomnar að dæma og dæma og dæma...Nú hefur ein slík kveðið uppúr með það að dæmdir menn skuli halda kjafti og eigi sko ekkert að hafa málfrelsi, einsog við hin.  Ég hef nú leyft mér að hafa ýmsar skoðanir á Árna Johnsen, en mér hefur nú aldrei dottið í hug að svipta eigi hann almennum mannréttindum.  Mínar efasemdir um Árna hafa aðallega snúið að áframhaldandi afskiptum hans af stjórnmálum/landsstjórninni, svo og að siðferðiskennd hans.  En Árni hefur afplánað fyrir brot sín og hlotið uppreist æru.  Á að halda áfram að refsa honum og öðrum í sömu stöðu.  Þangað til nú á síðustu árum hefur verið litið svo á að þegar menn hafi tekið út refsingu fyrir brot sitt væru þeir kvitt við þjóðfélagið og þjóðfélagið kvitt við þá.  Og menn gætu haldið áfram  lífi sínu, einsog hverjir aðrir borgarar.  Enda svolítið grimdarlegt að hengja myllusteina um háls manna ævilangt fyrir hugsanleg eða framin brot.  Hið nýja viðhorf er, að brotlegir menn verði aldrei kvitt við einn né neinn, þeim eigi sífellt að núa um nasir afglöp þeirra, mistök og glæpi smáa sem stóra.  Aldrei að fyrirgefa!  Nú er það Árni, um daginn eldabuskann sem heimsótti forsetafrúnna. Þeim skal sko ekki fyrirgefið og vei þeim sem umgengst þá sem dæmdir hafa verið.  Í eina tíð, ekki fyrir mjög löngu síðan, var heill trúflokkur sem kallar sig þjóð, ofsóttur og hundeltur.  Það endaði með Helförinni sem frægt er orðið.  Þeim skyldi sko ekki fyrirgefið að hafa drepið Krist.  Nú hefur þeim verið fyrirgefið svo rækilega, að þeim fyrirgefst allur andskotinn, m.a. barnamorð!  Rétttrúaðar réttlætiskjaftakjellingar líta bara í hina áttina eða afneita staðreyndum og sannleikanum.  Þær hafa nefnilega fundið sér ný fórnarlömb:  Smábófa sem vegna mannlegra breyskleika hafa gerst sekir um smáglæpi, einsog lítilsháttar hnupl og aðra óknytti.

Kannski við ættum að höggva af þeim hausinn eða bara hendurnar?

McCain verður næsti forseti. Auðvitað!

Kristnir íhaldsmenn og lobbyistar gyðinga munu aldrei láta það gerast að Obama verði forseti.  Ef McCain vinnur ekki  ó kosningunum sjálfu, verður talningabrellum beitt og sv0  hæstarétti.  Það má líka alltaf hindra blökkumenn og aðra slíka í að kjósa.  Vera með fáa kjörstaði þar sem Obama er líklegur til að vinna o.s.frv.  Sem sagt, það má beita sömu aðferðum og beitt var í síðustu kosningum til að McCain verði forseti og beitt var til að koma Bush í embættið!  Þarf ekki að fara að senda útlenda eftirlitsmenn til að vakta þessa svikamyllu?

Dregur saman með frambjóðendum

Hvernig Ísrael var grundvallað á þjóðernishreinsunum.

 

Ilan Pappe on How Israel was Founded on Ethnic Cleansing

June 16th, 2008  |  Published in Articles by Ilan Pappé

www.ilanpappe.com

The present dismal reality unfolding in the Middle East has clear historical roots and a journey into the past may help to illuminate what lies behind the destructive policies of Israel in both Palestine and Lebanon.

Zionism arrived in Palestine in the late 19th as a colonialist movement motivated by national impulses.

The colonisation of Palestine fitted well the interests and policies of the British Empire on the eve of the First World War.

With the backing of Britain, the colonisation project expanded, and became a solid presence on the land after the war and with the establishment of the British mandate in Palestine (which lasted between 1918 and 1948).

While this consolidation took place, the indigenous society underwent, like other societies in the rest of the Arab world, a steady process of establishing a national identity.

But with one difference. While the rest of the Arab world was shaping its political identity through the struggle against European colonialism, in Palestine nationalism meant asserting your collective identity against both an exploitative British colonialism and expansionist Zionism.

Thus, the conflict with Zionism was an additional burden. The pro-Zionist policy of the British mandate there naturally strained the relationship between Britain and the local Palestinian society.

This climaxed in a revolt in 1936 against both London and the expanding Zionist colonisation project.

The revolt, which lasted for three years, failed to sway the British mandate from a policy it had already decided upon in 1917. The British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, had promised the Zionist leaders that Britain would help the movement to build a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

The number of Jews coming into the country increased by the day - although even at that point, during the 1930s, the Jews were just a quarter of the population, possessing 4 percent of the land.

As resistance to colonialism strengthened, the Zionist leadership became convinced that only through a total expulsion of the Palestinians would they be able to create a state of their own.

From its early inception and up to the 1930s, Zionist thinkers propagated the need to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population of Palestine if the dream of a Jewish state were to come true.

The preparation for implementing these two goals of statehood and ethnic supremacy accelerated after the Second World War.

For the British the country lost its strategic importance once they were evicted from India.

It was a tense place that required the presence of British forces in equal numbers to those kept by the empire in the Indian sub continent - without obvious imperial rewards.

While the Zionist leadership finalised a plan for taking over the land and expelling the people between 1946 and 1948, the Palestinian leadership hoped the British empire would transfer to them their country in which they were still the vast majority and the indigenous population.

But Britain decided to transfer the issue of Palestine to the United Nations (UN) in February 1947. Palestine was the first conflict in which it was asked to mediate in a significant way.

It offered a pro-Zionist solution, and a very unjust and impractical one at that.

The first obstacle was that since the Palestinians demanded to be treated as any other Arab national movement, they expected the international community to recognise, without any conditions, their natural right to the country.

They did not expect this right to be negotiated with a colonialist movement. They therefore boycotted the process.

The UN ignored this and the special committee it appointed for the question, Unscop (United Nations Special Committee for Palestine) conversed only with the Zionist leadership. It devised a solution that catered for the needs and aspirations of that side alone.

In any case, the Palestinians had a difficult time presenting the moral side of their demands due to the Holocaust.

The Western international community was only too happy to evade any discussions about the implications of the genocide in Europe and to drop the problem on Palestine's doorstep.

The inevitable result of this approach was accepting almost unconditionally the Zionist demands for a state in Palestine.

Territorial

At the end of November 1947, the UN offered to divide Palestine into two states almost equal in their territorial space. The Jews were only one third of the population by 1947 and most of them had arrived in Palestine only a few years earlier.

The categorical Palestinian refusal to go along with this deal, backed by the Arab League, allowed the Zionist leadership to plan carefully the next step. Between February 1947 and March 1948, a final plan for ethnic cleansing was prepared.

The Zionist leadership defined 80 percent of Palestine (Israel today without the West Bank) as the space for the future state.

This was an area in which one million Palestinians lived next to 600,000 Jews.

The idea was to uproot as many Palestinians as possible. From March 1948 until the end of that year the plan was implemented despite the attempt by some Arab states to oppose it, which failed. Some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled, 531 villages were destroyed and 11 urban neighbourhoods demolished.

Half of Palestine's population was uprooted and half of its villages destroyed. The state of Israel was established in over 80 percent of Palestine, turning Palestinian villages into Jewish settlements and recreation parks, but allowing a small number of Palestinian to remain citizens in it.

The June 1967 war allowed Israel to take the remaining 20 percent of Palestine.

This seizure defeated in a way the ethnic ideology of the Zionist movement. Israel encompassed 100 percent of Palestine, but the state incorporated a large number of Palestinians, the people who Zionists made such an effort to expel in 1948.

The fact that Israel was let off easily in 1948, and not condemned for the ethnic cleansing it committed, encouraged it to ethnically cleanse a further 300,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

But the June 1967 war was too short - six days - and the international community more aware. Palestinian society was more experienced. Hence Israel was left with a large number of Palestinians under its control and could not complete "the job".

The Palestinian national movement rose again in the form of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and even if it did not liberate one square inch of Palestine, it did relocate the Palestinian issue and the 1948 Nakbah (catastrophe) in the centre of world public attention.

The ethnic cleansing operation was also defeated by the persistence and resilience of those Palestinians that were allowed to stay in Israel.

They became one quarter of the population.

Demography thus became the major issue in Israel's national security agenda. It overshadows any other concern, be it for social equality, democracy or human rights.

The educational system, the media and the politicians all stress the "danger" Palestinians constitute for the state's existence and the Jewish citizens' wellbeing.

In this situation the Israeli "left" urges downsizing the territory, the right calls for downsizing the Palestinians.

But the moral and ideological distance between the two poles of the political system is very short indeed.

After two uprisings in the occupied territories and a failed international diplomatic effort that totally ignored the root of the conflict as represented above, we are now back to the very basics of the conflict.

Impose

For the last six years, with the full backing of its Jewish electorate, successive Israeli governments have tried to impose by force what for them is the ideal solution.

It consists of imprisoning large numbers of Palestinians in enclaves in the West Bank and the Gaza strip, controlling thorough an apartheid system the Palestinian minority in Israel, and rejecting categorically any repatriation of the Palestinian refugees.

This plan is fully backed by the US.

Bush's neo-conservative presidency pursues its own unilateralism, trying to impose by military means and intimidation its economic and strategic values on the rest of the world.

Only two movements in the area resist Israel and the US.

Sadly for people of the left, like myself, they are not from "our school", but we should respect their steadfastness and will to resist occupation and colonisation. These are Hamas and Hizbollah.

Israel feels it has now a window of opportunity to eliminate these forces in Gaza and in Lebanon - and beyond in Syria and Iran.

The regional war that is developing may in the short run undermine these two forces, but in the long run it may mean Israeli confrontation not only with the Arab world but with the Muslim world as a whole.

At that point, the US might abandon it, and the Jewish state would end like the crusaders' kingdom of medieval times.

A disaster thus is looming for us all - Jews and Arabs - and it is only Europe that could avert it, if it would stop slaving its interests and ours, to the interests of the US and Zionism.

 

 

Big Mac Mac Dóna.

Alltaf hefur mér þótt þetta óætt, klént og ómerkilegt, þetta Mac Dóna-fóður.   En krakkinn er hrifinn af þessu og ég læt þetta stundum eftir henni.  Hún verður reyndar svöng fljótt aftur, þannig að næringainnihaldið er varla mikið.

Annars borða ég ekki Mac Dóna fóður af pólitískum ástæðum.  Stefna Mac Dóna gagnvart verkalýðsfélögum fer í taugarnar á mér.  Stefna fyrirtækisins er að hundsa verkalýðsfélög og borga laun undir taxta.  Í hve mörgum löndum borgar Mac Dóni laun yfir lágmarkslaunum?  Gaman væri að vita það!

Ísland tapar efsta sætinu í Big Mac vísitölunni

Forseti Íslands og Saving Iceland. Kvalræði rugludallanna!

Tvennt er það sem fer mest í taugarnar á pirruðu bullskjóðunum þessa dagana.  Forseti Íslands ætlar til Kína og Saving Iceland reynir að bjarga ásýnd Íslands (þessu sem eftir er).  Forseti Íslands á auðvitað að fara til Kína og það á að hlusta á Saving Iceland, sem og aðra umhverfisverndarsinna.  Að halda öðru fram er kerlingaraus og rugl! 

Auðvitað er ekki þægilegt fyrir öfgasinnaða hægrimenn og krata að viðurkenna að Hr.  Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson er sá forseti, sem gert hefur Íslendingum mest gagn, að öðrum ólöstuðum.  Hann var fínn í pólitíkinni.  Það sést best á því hvað hægriöfgamennirnir þola hann illa.  Hann var jafnframt góður greinandi á menn og málefni.  Hver man ekki, þegar hann sagði um Davíð Oddsson, að hann hefði skítlegt eðli.  Betri greining á DO hefur ekki verið gerð.  Þetta geta öfgamennirnair ekki fyrirgefið Ólafi. 

Það er ábygglilega vont fyrir þá, sem vilja ganga gegnum lífið með lokuð augun, að viðurkenna að varðveita og vernda þurfi náttúruna.  Saving Iceland, Al Gore, Ólafur F. o. fl. trufla vitanlega sofanda- og aulagang okkar gagnvart náttúru jarðar.  Við viljum að ekkert trufli okkur í græðgi okkar og neysluæði.  Þar til við drepumst í eigin skít!  Far vel, mannkyn!

(Fyrir þá sem ekki muna, þá var Ólafur F. Magnússon hrópaður niður á flokksþingi öfga hægrimanna.  Kallaður föðurlandssvikari og eitthvað fleirra ljótt!  Það sem hann gerði af sér var, að hann vildi halda ræðu um náttúruvernd!  Hann yfirgaf flokksþingið undir hrópum skrílsins.  Ókvæðisorðum rigndi yfir hann flokksmönnum til ævarandi skammar (vonandi).  Ólafur sagði sig úr flokknum eftir þetta).

Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman:

 

• עברית

 

Balaq: Human Rights and adhering to a democratic process

By Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman on July 10, 2008 - ז' תמוז תשס"ח

This week's Torah portion is Balak, full of dramatic stories as Balak calls upon Balaam to curse the Israelites. Only able to do what God tells him to say, Balaam blesses instead of curses. However, the Israelites manage to curse themselves by allowing the Moabite/Midianite women to entice them into engaging in idolatry. At God's command, Moses calls on the people to kill all those who have worshiped Baal. As Moses and the children of Israel weep apparently powerlessly, Aaron's grandson Pinkhas takes a spear and, as God commanded, kills an Israelite man and a Midianite woman "in the act."

As I mentioned last year, we liberals label Pinkhas as a vigilante, but he is actually doing exactly what God and Moses commanded. At the same time, we all know the dangers of a society in which people take the law into their own hands. We live in one.

When we started our Olive Tree Campaign back in 2002, Palestinians and those of us trying to protect them were being shot at, beaten, stoned, etc., while the Israeli security forces didn't show up, came late, or stood by. When we met with the commander and senior officers in the Ariel police station, I told them that their inaction was endangering Israelis as well as Palestinians. When the message to Palestinians was that there were no acceptable channels to deal with this kind of violence, what did the officers think would happen next? Some of you may also recall the stickers we handed out for several years "HaTokhnit HaKalkalit=P'tzatzah Khevratit." (Israel's Economic Policy is a Social Time Bomb."

Moses still has some moments of greatness to come, but we see him faltering here after almost 40 years of leadership. He too wrings his hands as evildoers flauntingly violate God's will. I still recall the former commander of the Shomron Brigade in the Nablus Region quoted in the newspaper shortly after moving to another position, saying that the thing he most regretted was not being more firm with those settlers who were behaving violently and out of control. He didn't do it while in a position to do so. When those with authority do not even uphold the laws and principles which they themselves proclaim, they both allow the lawless to run wild and they invite vigilantes to step into the vacuum. The danger is that the vigilantism is often worse than the actions/lack of action the vigilantes are opposing.

Today, the private companies running the Israeli Wisconsin plan lord it over those forced into their clutches, and there is no government oversight. A government appointed committee can set a deadline for the government to find a solution for the Holocaust survivors hungry for bread, and the govetment ignores it. The Knesset can pass all of the social legislation it wishes, but the Finance Ministry guts it via the Ecconomic Arrangements Law. At Elad's bidding the Israeli Antiquities Authority countenances archaeological digs in Silwan causing homes to crack and roads to collapse, shipping out skeletons against all regulations, etc., and nobody says a word. The police jail Palestinians who complain about Elad violence and break into the homes of those who dare to appeal to the High Court. There is a resounding silence from those in authority. Today I photographed more Palestinian land being fenced in by settlers in the South Hebron Hills. We spoke with others asking our help to return to their lands after all their complaints to the police about being forced off their land had been ignored. Will any government body take action? Hard to believe as we drove by location after location where settler crops or buildings were on land in which their had been explicit rulings in the favor of Palestinians.

. It is true that in some cases, there are issues where what is just and right is a matter of opinion. Here there must be a democratic process to determine how to act, as frustrating as it is when the right way seems so clear to us.

Where there are those who flaunt their disregard for what those in authority clearly state are the norms and those in authority either wring their hands or stay silent altogether, our society is in great danger.

As to those situations in which we must adhere to a democratic process because there are no clearly obvious norms, let us pray and work so that our society will internalize the final words of this week's Haftarah:

God has told you, humanity, what is good,

And what Adonai requires of you:

Only to do justice

And to love goodness

And to walk humbly with your God;

(Micah 6:8)

Arik Ascherman: Rabbíi og mannréttindabaráttumaður! Rabbis for Human Rights.

 

Arik Ascherman: Rabbi-activist for the rights of Israelis, Palestinians, and foreign workers in Israel

By Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman on June 4, 2007 - י"ח סיון תשס"ז

"Sometimes, when you have tried everything else, and particularly when you see the values that we are sworn to uphold as rabbis being trampled on, you have no choice but to stand in front of the bulldozers, to exercise that democratic right of civil disobedience to try to have the opportunity in court to show that it's the law, the policy, that's really illegal and immoral."

Arik Ascherman is Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel. His personal journey has evolved from acquiring a Harvard education to standing trial in Israel for blocking home demolitions.

Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Ascherman graduated from college in 1981. From then until 1983, he worked for Interns for Peace, a community work program in Israel involving Jews and Arabs. For most of this time, Ascherman lived in the Arab village of Tamra.

In 1989, he was ordained as a rabbi in the U.S. at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. During his training, he worked with soup kitchens and homeless advocacy in Israel. Following his ordination he worked as a rabbi and with Hillel chapters in the U.S. In Israel, he was director of Congregation Mevakshei Derech and was the part time rabbi of Kibbutz Yahel, a Reform kibbutz near Eilat.

He became a citizen of Israel in 1994, where he lives with his wife, Einat Ramon, the first Israeli-born woman to be ordained as a rabbi, and their two children.

Beginning in 1995, Arik Ascherman became co-director of Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR); becoming executive director in 1998. RHR is the only organization in Israel made up of rabbis and rabbinical students from all denominations of Judaism. It promotes justice and human rights for Israelis, Palestinians, and foreign workers. In May 2006, RHR received the prestigious Niwano Peace Prize.

Over the next few years, his commitment to human rights led him to nonviolent resistance to block bulldozers from destroying Palestinian homes. As a result of his actions, Ascherman was charged with "interfering with police performance of duties on two different occasions in 2003, and the intention to commit acts to prevent police from performing their duties." During his trial Ascherman explained his actions,

"I arrived at the homes for which I am on trial today carrying in my heart all the families in whose name I stand before you - the families that suffered and continue to suffer because of the home demolition policy. I held in my heart the looks of the children in Shufafat who had gone off to school in the morning and returned to discover their home demolished, with a toy or book peaking through the rubble ... I held in my heart the frightened looks of families sitting on packed suitcases waiting for the bulldozers to arrive, the grown men crying and the tens, if not hundreds of families whom I have spent time with before, during and after home demolitions."

In March 2005, a magistrate court found Ascherman guilty but said that he wouldn't have a criminal record. Upon his conviction, Ascherman said that he was disappointed the court did not address the injustice of home demolitions in its verdict.

"For us, this trial really was about the people who have no voice here, the victims of home demolition," Ascherman said. "And that's why we're going immediately from the courthouse...to begin the rebuilding of one of these homes."

Recent protests by Ascherman and Rabbis for Human Rights have focused on the separation wall. In 2006, RHR achieved a major victory when it won a lawsuit to prevent the wall construction from dividing the village Sheikh Sa'ad.

from Profiles of Peace: http://www.afsc.org/israel-palestine/profiles-of-peace/arik-ascherman.htm

Viljálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson stóryrtur að vanda og vandar fólki ekki kveðjurnar!

Þar sem Vilhjálmur ritskoðar allar athugasemdir áður en birtir þær verða ég að skrifa honum hér.  Sem sagt:  Hefur þú Vilhjálmur lesið nýjustu "lygasögurnar" hér á blogginu mínu.  Ég er rétt að byrja.  Það er af nógu að taka á heimasíðum mannréttindasamtaka í Ísrael.  Þessar færslur eru allar þaðan!  Áfram með smjerið!  Nornin, sem þú nefnir svo og hefur greinilega flett henni upp í símaskránni (veit konan þín hvað þú ert að bralla), þarf engu að ljúga um ástandið í Palestínu eða Ísrael, eða um illa meðferð Ísraelskra yfirvalda á sínum eigin þegnum og Palestínumönnum.  Það þarf engu að ljúga uppá þau yfirvöld.  En stundum er sannleikurinn lyginni líkastur!

Í hvaða tímariti?

Þetta er náttúruleg háalvarlegt mál, sem gott væri að fræðast meira um, þannig að mbl.is hefði mátt geta þess í hvaða tímariti niðurstöðurnar verða birtar.  Þó sjálfsagt megi finna það út  Mig hefur reyndar alltaf grunað að Færeyjingar væru svolítið eitraðir á sinn ljúflega hátt!

P.s. En er ekki öllum fjandans sama, hvort Snorri Bergs étur fisk eða ekki?

Eiturefni berast úr hvölum í Færeyinga