1. I hate writing about Israel. The accusations of anti-semitism which necessarily go along with literally any criticism of that nation are gross enough, but even worse are the assholes who take my criticisms of the Israeli government as an invitation to actually be anti-semitic. They really do hate Jews, they really do think that every problem in the world is because of Jews and they post Jewish caricature memes and calls for genocide in the comments section on social media and it’s incredibly gross and I hate it. It feels exactly as intrusive, jarring and violating as receiving an unsolicited dick pic. But the Israeli government keeps committing war provocations and massacring Palestinians, so it’s something I’ve got to talk about.

2. Anti-semitism (or whatever word you prefer to use for the pernicious mind virus which makes people think it’s okay to promote hatred against Jewish people) is a very real thing that does exist, and I denounce it to the furthest possible extent. Anti-semitism is also a label that is used to bully the world into accepting war crimes, apartheid, oppression, and mass murder. Both of those things are true.

3. There were dozens of Palestinians killed and well above a thousand injured in the Gaza protests over the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem yesterday. I haven’t found any report of so much as a single Israeli injury. The only way to spin this as the fault of the Palestinians is to dehumanize them, to attribute behaviors and motives to them that we all know are contrary to human nature. To paint them as subhuman orc-like creatures who are so crazy and evil that they will keep throwing themselves at a hail of bullets risking life and limb just to have some extremely remote chance of harming a Jewish person for no reason. This is clearly absurd. A little clear thinking and empathy goes a long way.

4. Trump could have prevented all this violence by doing what previous administrations had done and keeping the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Experts warned that this would happen. Trump ignored them. He is ultimately responsible for the mounting pile of corpses resulting from this provocation.

5. The Trump campaign was given $25 million by billionaire oligarch Sheldon Adelson (the largest campaign donation made by anyone to any candidate), who provided a further $5 million for Trump’s inauguration. Adelson is a sociopathic pro-Israel hawk who once called on the US to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. He was present at the opening of the Jerusalem embassy, getting what he paid for.

6. Any position on Israel that is determined by words made up by dead men thousands of years ago is intrinsically invalid. Saying the Jewish people are more entitled to Israel than those who were living there seven decades ago because of some superstitious voodoo written in obsolete religious texts is not an argument. Religious freedom is important, and it’s important to be able to believe whatever you like, but your beliefs do not legitimize your actions upon other people. If you murder someone in the name of Allah, you have murdered someone. If you kill 58 people because you feel some ancient scripture entitles you to a particular section of dirt, you have killed 58 people. Your internal beliefs do not give you a free pass for your egregious actions upon others.

7. Israel is very dangerous and completely unsustainable, but its interests are aggressively promoted by powerful plutocrats and lobby groups. It’s like if fracking was a place.

8. A nation that can’t exist without nonstop war and violence is like a house that can’t stand without nonstop construction work. If your house needs a large construction team working around the clock seven days a week to keep it from collapsing, you should probably either move or consider a new architectural design.

9. A nation that can’t exist without nonstop war and violence is not a nation at all, it’s a decades-long military operation with a few suburbs sprinkled on top. And that is exactly how Israel has functioned since its creation: as a nonstop disruption campaign that the post-World War Two western victors dropped on top of the Middle East just as humanity hit new heights of oil dependence. By 1967 Israel came within inches of a possible third world war with America’s only rival superpower, the Soviet Union, and today we have Israel leading the charge in the western empire’s regime change agendas against Iran and Syria. It’s been a consistent pattern.

10. There’s good conspiracy theory and there’s bad conspiracy theory. People who say America controls Israel or Israel controls America are engaged in bad conspiracy theory. We don’t live in a world where the lines between nations mean anything to those with real power; in reality “Israel” and “America” are both purely conceptual constructs which only exist to the extent that people believe in them. There is no actual “Israel” which can exert control over an actual “America”, and vice versa. It isn’t nations and governments pulling the strings of real power in the world, it’s a class of plutocrats who aren’t ultimately answerable to any government. This class of plutocrats uses governments like Israel, the US, the UK, and the KSA to advance its agendas to exploit, loot and plunder the rest of humanity.

11. The western empire is a cluster of tightly allied nations held together by contracts and manipulation which often function more or less as a single unit on foreign policy, war, intelligence, trade, etc. What we call Israel is functionally just the Middle Eastern disruption wing of this empire. The people in control of this alliance place no special value on Israel beyond its usefulness in advancing plutocratic agendas in the Middle East.

12. People make a big deal about Zionism in conspiracy circles, but Zionism is just one more tool of manipulation used by the elite class which only ever cares about power. The people who are actually calling the shots in this world don’t care about Judaism or the Jewish people; Zionism is just a set of ideas they use to move people around. They use Christian fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism, white supremacy and secular liberalism in the same way. It’s always about acquiring more power for the western oligarchs, and their insatiable drive in this pursuit is how they wound up at the top of the western power structure. They’ll use any set of beliefs to manipulate the masses toward this end.

13. Since Israel plays such a crucial role in the agendas of the western power establishment for such a key strategic region, it should be no surprise that the people who lived on that land before Israel was dropped upon them get trampled underfoot. As far as the powerful are concerned, the Palestinians are no different from the animals whose habitats are destroyed by a new military base, or the whales that get killed by navy sonar experiments. They’re a nuisance to be swatted away.

14. The reason for the extreme brutality that is being used against the Palestinian demonstrators appears to be the same as that used by the Chinese government in the Tiananmen Square massacre or the lynchings of the segregated American south: to send a message. That message is “Here is how we will deal with you whenever you hold these demonstrations.” They’re quashing the protests so violently and so aggressively not out of self defense, but to dissuade such protests in the future. All they have to do is be brutal enough to convince the Palestinians that such protests aren’t worth the cost of life, and whole generations could be dissuaded from future protests.

15. This brutality is exposing the true face of the western empire, a trend that we are seeing all over the globe in myriad ways. Despite the best efforts of the mass media machine, people are waking up to what’s really going on.

________________

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61 responses to “Fifteen Thoughts About Israel”

  1. Boy, lots of interesting comments, I especially like it that the thinking goes in all directions, be a real boring place if we all thought alike in a hive mind….Well I am going to get to the heart of this planets problems, and it is this: A deadly, communicable, infectious disease know as “GREED and the LUST for POWER. It is an insatiable disease, because in the very end it is left with nothing to consume but its self. Do what we will, until a cure is found it will always be: Business As Usual, nothing will change until the last gallon of oil, the last ounces of Gold, Copper and Coal, the last fish in the Ocean, and the last dollar in the poor person’s pocket is in the Rich Mans wallet. Examples abound. Mr. W. Buffet age 88, wealth 88+ billion, still working on that next Billion bucks. His partner Charlie Munger, age 95, wealth unknown (Not on Forbes 400 list) Still after more. B. Gates, who supposedly gave 1/2 his wealth away years ago when he was worth approx. 60 Billion, now lists with 97 + Billion, and top dog for the moment J. Bezos age ? 167+ billion, and still trying to squeeze out every penny from his suppliers and workers. Amazon earned about 35 billion last year, paid no taxes at all and even got a tax refund of 123 million. Anybody ever known or heard of a billionaire ever standing up and saying ” I’ve got enough” ? Greed is like Ebola, it consumes everything from the inside out. By the time this disease dies from consuming it’s self, it will be because it has run out of victims. So people look for a cure, and good luck, you’ll need it……On this particular article of Ms. Johnstone Go to my blog site: https://Alaskamanspeaks.org@wordpress.com and scroll down to Hypocrisy…..

  2. Hey Caitlin, you missed a point. A nation that cannot survive without the annual injection of piles of US taxpayer cash every year for perpetuity is not a valid country. If it cannot stand up on its own without permanent outside (US) aid then it is not a valid, nor viable country.

  3. Ok, I’ll leave a message hoping Caitlin will find it. So I agree with some of your comments which actually contradict some of your other comments but hey–no one’s perfect especially when discussing the tail [that you say] doesn’t wag the dog–I suggest you do a little more research.

    But I’m not going to go there. Here’s where I am going to go. I think most us would admit that there is an issue between the Jew and the Gentile [the Jew will tell you that he is hated by the gentile because of his g-d given gifts–whereas the truth is that the Jew hates the Gentile–most Gentiles could give a rat’s ass about the jew because they really don’t understand what he’s up to].

    So, again, we must assume there’s a major–given the growing incidence of anti-semitism [European Jews attacking actual semitic people], numerous laws which make it illegal to criticize Israel and/or the holocaust, and of course the brutal genocide of the Palestinians [and other Arabs] that we have been watching on our TVs for 70 years. Caitlin you might find it interesting that these people have been expunged from 110 geographical regions since 240AD [I wonder why?].

    So, anyway, we have a problem. How do we fix–well we don’t fix it by pertaining we don’t have a problem–which is what the Jews would ironically prefer. We [Gentiles and Jews] have different agendas and competing interests. As such we need to have a discussion: The Jews and the Gentiles need to meet in a neutral arena and we have to discuss this issue that will take us all down if not dealt with.

    So, Caitlin, what I am saying–and asking those who can hear what I am saying–is that we have to publicly declare that there are some very serious issues between the Jews and the Gentiles and that we need to see if we can resolve the issues–by publicly admitting that the issue exists [the Jews will scream and shout that they are merely victims and not to blame, i.e., “they made us shoot them”] and then creating a forum where the discussion can take place. It’s assuming what a little bit of communication can do.

    1. That’s dumb superstitious bullshit.

      1. What’s superstitious–the need for a discussion–didn’t you mention that they murdered 60 unarmed–non-threatening Palestinians–please explain–I am simply [or not so simply as you seem to understand]–suggesting that we have a conversation about an issue that goes back at least 2000 years–or do you believe that various recent stories about the chosen [Saker, Roberts, Hedges, Koenig] are merely supersititions?

      2. Caitlin more superstitions from a man who is running for the US senate against Dianne Ester Feinstein as it relates to Israel–Enjoy!

      3. That’s ill mannered and quite unresponsive to several points politely made.

  4. malgré la traduction automatique, je saisis le sens de votre analyse. elle est parfaite, et est en suite logique du livre de serge Halimi, le grand bond en arrière. effectivement, ces ploutocrates qui nous dirigent en réalité mettent la terre entière en coupe réglée. je constate que malgré une richesse pétrolière connue, le Vénézuela connait une tragédie envers ses enfants digne de cette du Biafra il y déjà longtemps. je ferai une petite remarque, vous êtes bien trop focalisée sur le moyen-orient, élargissez vos critiques à l’ensemble de la planète, ces nouveaux maîtres l’ont fait depuis longtemps

  5. Joe Van Steenbergen Avatar
    Joe Van Steenbergen

    Caitlin: I love you more than you know and look forward to reading every word you print. But, I stopped reading this one at “[Donald Trump] is ultimately responsible for the mounting pile of corpses resulting from this provocation.” Only the people who commit the violence are responsible for its consequences. Palestinians chose to protest; Israel chose to react violently. Both are responsible for the choices they made, not Mr. Trump.

    1. The Palestinians are not responsible for their being murdered. Israel had many different ways to respond that did not involve shooting children.

  6. DEFINITIONS OF ZIONIST TALKING POINTS

    Since there has been a lot of confusion about the Gaza conflict, I’m going to define some of the terms used in the media.

    ANTI-SEMITISM. Any criticism of the Israeli government’s actions by non-Jewish people.

    SELF-HATING JEW. Anyone who is Jewish who criticizes the actions of the Israeli government.

    HAMAS. A terrorist organization responsible for all deaths in the Gaza conflict.

    HUMAN SHIELD. A term used to blame Hamas for any Palestinian man, woman, or child killed by Israel Defense Forces.

    VICTIM OF VIOLENCE. Any Jewish person killed by Palestinians.

    ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCE. The world’s most moral military force, who are forced to commit genocide by Hamas, and are therefore not responsible for any deaths.

    TERRORISM. Any act of violence committed by a Palestinian.

    SELF DEFENSE. Any act of violence committed by the Israeli Defense Forces.

    ISRAEL. A territory given to the Jewish people by God.

    PALESTINE. A nation taken away from the Palestinians by God.

    CASUALTY. Any Jewish person killed in the conflict, either by Hamas or from friendly fire from the Israeli Defense Forces.

    SURGICAL STRIKES. Indiscriminate carpet bombing of Gaza by Israeli Defense Forces.

    GODLINESS. Anything Israelis do.

    WICKEDNESS. Anything Palestinians do.

    ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF. . Any type of aggression committed by the Israel Defense Forces.

    AGGRESSION. Any act of self-defense by Palestinians.

    AIPAC. An organization founded to promote Zionist racism.

    SENATE RESOLUTION SUPPORTING ISRAEL. A unanimous vote by the United States Senate congratulating the Israeli government for its war crimes and crimes against humanity (see “Israel’s right to defend itself”).

    PROPAGANDA AND LIES. Anything that contradicts the official position of the Israeli government.

    TELEGENICALLY DEAD. Photos of dead and dismembered Palestinian civilians that Israel claims are being used by Hamas to make it look like Israel might be doing something wrong.

  7. Given points 10 and 12, why elsewhere do you persist in pretending that Israel is anything other than a public sector subsidiary of the Anglo-Euro-American banking cartel and its corporations? The wars in Gaza, Yemen, and Syria are coordinated by the cartel. As long as you perpetrate the notion that the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc., are independent countries, folks will never focus on the root cause of global dysfunction: private control over money creation. http://coloradopublicbanking.blogspot.com/2018/04/signs-of-000001s-desperation.html

  8. timothy jerzyk Avatar
    timothy jerzyk

    Very well said Caitlin. I’m not going to argue with this or that point, like may be going on below. Well done.

  9. George Tirebiter Avatar
    George Tirebiter

    Caitlin,

    Thanks for an excellent assessment of the current reality. Just wanted to add a bit to the overview.

    #3. “The only way to spin this as the fault of the Palestinians is to dehumanize them, to attribute behaviors and motives to them that we all know are contrary to human nature.”

    That’s exactly the racist spin, based on long-standing religious beliefs such as these:

    “The non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres , while the Jewish soul comes from holiness”.
    The Chabad-Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson

    “Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world;only to serve the people of Israel.”
    Israeli Sephardic leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

    #4. “Trump could have prevented all this violence by doing what previous administrations had done and keeping the US embassy in Tel Aviv.”

    Trump was directed to move the embassy by his puppet-masters in the Rothschild cartel, which was instrumental in the creation of the pseudo-state of ‘Israel’ and bailed him out of impending financial collapse in the 90’s.

    #5. “Adelson is a sociopathic pro-Israel hawk”.

    Adelson is an agent of the Rothschild cartel. When Trump was selected by them to be president, agents such as Adelson were used to funnel money to Trump’s campaign.

    #6. “Saying the Jewish people are more entitled to Israel than those who were living there seven decades ago because of some superstitious voodoo written in obsolete religious texts is not an argument.”

    Israel is currently inhabited almost completely by Ashkenazic ‘Jews’. Ashkenazic (and Sephardic) Jews are themselves the Gentiles that many rabbis warn their congregations not to marry. To further the re-branding, they also call themselves Semites or Shemites when they’re JAPHETITES, which means they’re not Hebrews either. This re-branding is much like the way most of them – if not the majority of them – keep changing their last names every time they settle in a new country. The reason is simple and quite pragmatic. It’s a survival mechanism.

    #7,#9 & #11. “Israel is very dangerous and completely unsustainable, but its interests are aggressively promoted by powerful plutocrats and lobby groups.”

    A primary reason for planting ‘Israel’ where it is in the Middle-East, was to give their Zionist puppets a strategic position to prevent the Islamic nations from forming a powerful alliance that would end the Rothschild control of the oil resources. Thus constant war and disruption to disable any movement to consolidate non-western power.

    #8. ” If your house needs a large construction team working around the clock seven days a week to keep it from collapsing, you should probably either move.”

    Yes. And the current reality underscores the reason why the ‘Jewish’ people have been kicked out of more than 100 countries.

    #10. “It isn’t nations and governments pulling the strings of real power in the world, it’s a class of plutocrats who aren’t ultimately answerable to any government.”

    You’re on target here. The agents in these governments, are following an agenda determined by a small number of immensely wealthy families, with the Rothschilds being the most visible.

    #12. “People make a big deal about Zionism in conspiracy circles, but Zionism is just one more tool of manipulation used by the elite class which only ever cares about power.”

    Zionism gets a lot of focus because many conspiracy researchers are now aware that Zionists, many of which are Israeli/US citizens, have been and are currently in key positions of the US government, driving US foreign policy and US military objectives.

    “Zionism is just a set of ideas they use to move people around.”

    Indeed. The Zionists in Germany worked directly with Hitler under the “Transfer Agreement’, to move/force German Jews to Israel, since they couldn’t get these Jews to leave Germany and move to the Mid-East desert hell-hole.

    #14. “They’re quashing the protests so violently and so aggressively not out of self defense, but to dissuade such protests in the future.”

    And to send a clear psychological message to the rest of the world that ‘We’ll do whatever it takes, no matter how inhumane, to keep you under control”, and after all, the Zionists have made it clear that they’ll blow up everything with their ‘nuclear’ weapons, if they are seriously attacked by anyone.

    #15. “This brutality is exposing the true face of the western empire”.

    Actually it’s exposing the agenda and brutality of the New World Order, with the ultimate goal being to get the world masses to beg for their own enslavement in the name of security. See Orwell.

  10. George Tirebiter Avatar
    George Tirebiter

    An “anti-Semite” is no longer someone who hates Jews, but someone the Talmudic Jews hate. Any soul who dares to mention aloud any aspect or plank of their sick and ghoulish anti- European death creed now leveled against us is likened to a Nazi goose-stepper sans the arm band and brown shirt. This would include a sizeable cross-section of the population who are now awakened and becoming hyper-aware of the reality of Jewish supremacist perfidy.

  11. Would you argue that the Native American may have valid land claim in America? That the Aboriginal may have a more legitimate claim to Australia? Or that ‘Africa is for Africans’? If you do, then you must be consistent in order to be credible; “superstitious voodoo” or not. For like it or not, the historical accounts in those “obsolete religious texts” have been largely verified as accurate by most historians.

    1. Sebastian Crankshaw Avatar
      Sebastian Crankshaw

      That strikes me as a false analogy. Those peoples didn’t come from elsewhere and try to lay claim to those lands on the basis of ancestry, they were actually there when westerners arrived and took their land from them. Indeed, a more workable analogy would be the native Americans as the Palestinians, with the religious claim being analogous to something like ‘manifest destiny’, say.

    2. The Ashkenazi, as DNA tests done by John Hopkins University have proven, originated in the Caucasus. The Palestinians are genetically identical to the ancient graves found in Palestine (including the part that the Golden Calf is currently squatting on.)

      As the Golden Calf squatting in Palestine (aka the State of Israel) was founded by, and is controlled by, Ashkenazis, the Golden Calf in Palestine is a European colonial settler apartheid state, no different than South Africa was before the ANC gained control.

      The Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine, most of them are descended from those who converted to Christianity or Islam from Judaism (or any of the MANY other religions that originated in Palestine) somewhere during history.

      Of course, your claim that historians have validated the accounts in the ancient religious texts is no more honest than the rest of your claim. For one, at the time that Moses allegedly led the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan, Canaan was an Egyptian territory.

      (Actual historians also recognize that, for instance, that the Al Aqsa Compound (Called Temple Mount by those who follow the racist ideology of Zionism) pre-dates the mythical Solomon’s Temple that Zionists claim it is the base of. It was even mentioned in Sumerian texts that are older than the Torah claims the Earth is. Incidentally, the Torah’s myth claims that Abraham was from the Sumerian city of Ur, where the tablets talking about the Al Aqsa Compound were found.)

      Did you really think you could spout forth lame discredited Hasbara talking points and NOT get called out for spreading easily discredited lies?

  12. Arabs are Semites, Caitlin. And who hates Arabs? …yes, you are correct, they too are anti-semites. ..can’t make this crapola up!

    1. Palestinians are a Semitic people with a Semitic language.
      Ashkenazi are a European people with a Germanic and a Syncretic language.

      To claim that supporting Palestinians is somehow “anti-Semitic” is indicative of a severe case of anti-Semanticism.

  13. Caitlin wrote: “People who say America controls Israel or Israel controls America are engaged in bad conspiracy theory.”

    “I want to tell you something very clear. Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.”
    Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001 (recounted by the BBC and apparently vanished down the memory hole)

    So are we to believe then that Ariel Sharoni is a bad conspiracy theorist?

      1. Yes , I think Caitlin is a little too dismissive about the control dynamic that exists between the two countries. The US doesn’t have the equivalent influence on Israel’s elections , media , and finance sectors that Israel has in the U.S. , via AIPAC , Zionist plutocrats and think-tanks , etc. Not to mention the collection of “Epstein Island” blackmail videotapes Israel likely has on hand. Israel wouldn’t work so hard and spend so much to influence politics and public opinion in the US if the “Empire Club” was just one big happy family with common interests , all pulling in the same direction.

        The US would appear to have leverage over Israel given the huge yearly “allowance” we provide to them , but I think that’s an illusion. Israel tells us how much they want , and we give it to them. They lever us.

        1. You miss her point entirely.
          Her point is that “America” and “Israel” are fictitious entities, and it is the Oligarchs (for whom such fictitious entities as nation-states are toys for them to play around with).

          1. You missed entirely that I addressed her point about the oligarchs and “fictitious entities” , though I called it the “Empire Club” , which may have been a stretch for you to comprehend on the first go. Think about it again , and see if it takes.

    1. Also, given this quote is from 2001, one can only imagine how much more power Israel has acquired over the US since then. To wit, Bibi’s 29 standing ovations from the US Congress.

      Dig deep. There are TONS more examples of how the US is as occupied as Palestine.

      Name names!!! Out these evil rulers of the Apartheid State of Israel. They are harming all of us, jews and gentiles alike.

    2. Sebastian Crankshaw Avatar
      Sebastian Crankshaw

      I would think so, yes. I’m sure it made him feel all suitably big and important to imagine himself as all powerful but I think Caitlin is spot on. In this sense countries are no different from religions – they’re constructs used by the powerful to manipulate people. This necessarily includes useful idiots within the political/clerical or corporate classes who actually believe the propaganda.

      Such figures are especially useful because they are simultaneously the most zealous promoters of narratives useful to power, while simultaneously acting as handy lightning rods attracting the ire of people who’d be better served by seeing if there’s a big curtain behind that hiding the real power. Just look at Trump. The criticism of him doesn’t include any meaningful criticism of the system whatsoever.

  14. Great article. I’ll add that the so-called “Jewish history” found in the Torah (and Christian bibles) is almost entirely a fabrication, per the research of ancient historians and linguist, archeologists, etc.

    Characters like Moses, David and even Christ are not found in the historical record. These fabled characters and the bloody, brutal, extremely violent wars resulting in tens of millions of deaths now around the world are not responsible for the gross human suffering inflicted – but they’re “believers” in these myths most definitely are.

    Read the research of experts Dr. Richard Carrier, Bart Ehrman and many, many others. The entire world has been sold a bill of goods that is not based upon historical facts but fiction, a “story” to elevate a place, a time and a people that has now become slick propaganda for the ignorant masses that don’t even read their own bibles.

    The world has suffered long enough under these delusions, but facts, evidence and real history don’t seem to matter much to people who operate under emotions, deception and ignorance.

    Israel is a brutal military occupation. The stack of bodies, assassinations and evil manipulation of events is almost – but not quite – unmatched by any nation on Earth. It’s heavily supported by it’s 1st place cousin – the United States of America.

    1. Gwaredd Thomas Avatar
      Gwaredd Thomas

      Evidently, you’ve never read Flavius Josephus–a first-century Romano-Jewish scholar, historian and hagiographer–who wrote extensively about Christ and Christans–not favourably I’ll admit–but to state that such people “are not found in the historical record” is pure rubbish.

  15. Israel exists as another trojan horse for the oligarchs and their merchants of War. Jews are mere dramaturgy providing a staging and rationale for the profits and revelry and sport of murdering folks. Television is our seat in the colosseum we watch it from. Like Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, on and on forever… We are numb to it. I wish I could stack the 150,000 corpses of children Bush “saved” in Iraq by bombing and starving them to death all around his fucking house. I wonder if he would even see them. Or care. Do you? Do I? I mean, really? How can I prove it? Tell me.

    1. No – we don’t “really” care, as evidenced by what we actually “do”.

      Consider how little time, effort and money we devote to the subjects we allegedly “care” about. Be brutally honest about it. Add it all up. How does that compare to the rest of your life, in terms of time, money and effort? What you REALLY spend your time, money and effort on?

      As an activist myself, sick of the lies and deceptions, I’ve experienced the frustration of trying to “care” – engaging in efforts on and offline, donating money, getting involved, etc., only to realize that there was almost nothing to show for all of it. THOUSANDS of hours of effort and thousands more in dollars. It was as if there was no resistance at all.

      That’s why so many people have burned out (including me). Exhausting ourselves upon a world of deception, delusion, indifference and apathy. All this online “engagement” is not activism, it’s part of the deception. Real activism isn’t online. Its just too easy to ignore bits and bytes, mere words that do nothing. The real world goes on – no matter what is found or said online.

      Those that really “care” – live the life, fully. Immersed. Those that don’t, don’t. The rest are all simply fooling themselves, appeasing their conscience and pretending to what isn’t true. It works – for them. But it accomplishes next to nothing.

      And no, Bush doesn’t care. He’d simply have the bodies burned while he went to Aspen or something. Then he’d come back and spread the ashes to fertilize his ranch.

  16. Here is my personal dilemma regarding Zionism. Zionism as manifested today by the State of Israel with its racist, fascist and militarist character is an abomination, I wish for it to change radically or disappear. But at the same time, I cannot imagine where else the traumatized Jews of Europe who managed to survive numerous pogroms and ultimately the Holocaust would have gone for refuge if not to a designated Jewish homeland in Palestine/Israel. The fact is that no other nation wanted them–not in Europe and not in the United States. This is a fundamental question that precedes questions of how such a Jewish refuge might have been better structured, and it is one that anti-Zionists completely ignore.

    1. That’s actually utterly ridiculous. They didn’t need to “go” anywhere. People, whatever race, creed, color or religion, simply need to be protected from persecution, wherever they are.

      Designating an occupied land as their “new homeland” by theft and murder of its current occupants because of their persecution doesn’t make it right – or justify (ever) what they did. While the world watched – and did nothing.

      Much like refugees “go” now – they simply need to be dispersed (just like the rest of the world actually is) – if they need to leave. Otherwise, they should be treated exactly the same as any other person or group is today. The people of Israel today do not deserve or merit any special preferential treatment over anybody else.

      We’re not making a black continent, are we? Or repatriating the descendants of slaves? The answer is to stop giving them special protection as any kind of preferred or special people, because they’re not and never have been.

      The special status, special treatment, special privileges they’ve been given are not given to the rest of the world. Anybody else that asks for this is just ignored. This special treatment that endures to this day was all based upon historical misinterpretation and deception and continues to be perpetuated.

      And the destruction and death that has followed this “special status and privilege” has also been ignored. They are not exempt from being prosecuted for genocide and war crimes. This has to stop, forever.

      1. I don’t think that you understand my question. Given that the Jews of Europe were not welcome anywhere in the world, including western Europe and the US, where exactly were they supposed to be “dispersed” and protected from persecution? Or perhaps you think that they might have remained in or returned to the lethally hostile environments whence they came. Is that what you would have done had you been in the same circumstances following the Holocaust? To suggest, as you do, that dispersal of the Jews would have been a relatively routine matter of refugee relocation reveals your own serious lack of understanding of the historical context.

        I consider myself to be a recovering zionist, but I have never received a satisfactory answer from any anti-zionist to the questions that I have posed. All that I get is the same sort of self-righteous non-answer that you just splooged on the rest of us.

        1. When you believe and tell “everyone” you alone are the Chosen People of God….well.
          Take a little responsibility, a little empathic overview, of your Dilemmas.
          Not wanted? Huh?
          imagine that.
          Good luck out there, I guess.

          1. So, the Jews of Europe deserved to be persecuted and isolated, because of something that they believed of themselves. Talk about blaming the victim. Is it not true that Christians believe that they too are chosen by God, as they alone will be able to enter the kingdom of heaven? I think it is fair to characterize your sentiments as genuinely anti-semitic. So, fuck off.

    2. Colleen McGuire Avatar
      Colleen McGuire

      SORRY I POSTED THIS IN WRONG PLACE BELOW. SORRY FOR RE-POST.

      How many died in WWII? 40 million? 50 million? Many suffered. Once the Allies occupied Germany there was absolutely nothing for Jews to fear. Indeed, it was the German people who lived in fear. Are you aware that more Germans died after the war than during the war. Zionists were an integral part in terrorizing the population while Allies turned a blind eye. With the Allied occupation of Germany (which has really never ended), Jews could have easily stayed in Germany and prospered again. Jews did not have to go to Israel for refuge nor did they want to.

      Alison Weir in Against Our Better Judgment quotes a survey showing that 65% of Jews in Displaced Persons camps wanted to go home to where they had lived before the war. 20% wanted to go to America. Only 15% wanted to go to Palestine. Many DPs were forced to go to Palestine by Zionists thugs who held sway in the camps. Zionists kidnapped Jewish babies from orphanages and sent them to populate their new political entity. General Yossi Peled was one such kidnapped baby.

      1. I am well aware that most Jews did not want to go to Palestine after the war, but the fact remains that they were not wanted or not allowed in the countries where they preferred to go. So, it was a combination of aggressive Zionists and bigoted western nations that funneled Jews into Palestine. Some Zionist leaders regarded Jew-hating Europeans as their natural allies in the project of transferring the Jewish population of Europe to Palestine. Even the Balfour Declaration can be seen as part of that plan. All of this explains why Palestine/Israel was, in fact, the only available refuge for Jews needing a place to live. Unfortunately, there were already other people living there, meaning that a second wrong had to be committed to mitigate the first.

    3. You seem to be basing your question on a misunderstanding of history. It was the Zionists who lobbied the US and UK to not allow Jews in, because the Zionists wanted to only leave the option of invading and ethnically cleansing Palestine for the Jewish people.

      This even happened as the Holocaust was ongoing.

      Jews were also offered an unpopulated part of Uganda to go to, which was, at the time, also a British colony, but the Zionists refused.

      This has been well documented. I would recommend looking into Neturei Karta and True Torah Jews, both of which have websites with extensive archival documentation of this.

      Also, prior to the Ethnic Cleansing that created the Golden Calf in Palestine (commonly blasphemously referred to as “Israel”), Jewish people were loved and welcome throughout the Muslim world. During the Inquisitions, the Ottoman Empire threatened to go to war with Spain if Spain injured any of its Jewish population. It was Zionism that caused some Muslim nations to begin seeing their Jewish people as potentially genocidal Fifth Columnists. To this day, Iran has a substantial Jewish population, which gets a disproportionately large representation in their parliament. In Iraq, which used to have a large Jewish population, the Jews fled from a series of bombings of Jewish meeting places – forensic investigation showed that the “Jews get out” fliers that accompanied the bombings were typed on the same typewriter that typed up the fliers for the Zionist organization’s meeting.

      This question you raise is not something anti-Zionists ignore, it is simply something that anyone who has honestly researched the issue sees as a question based on false assumptions.

      1. I do not disagree that ultra-aggressive Zionists wanted a Jewish homeland in Palestine. That is indisputable, and nothing I have written challenges that fact. What I do challenge is the presumption by others that it would have been a simple matter for Jews to have remained in Europe, especially Germany, after the war. Those who make such a presumption clearly cannot understand how traumatized the survivors were and how hate-filled they were for the German people—justifiably so. It is easy for us to comprehend the hatred that Palestinians have for Israeli Jews. Well, the Jews felt the same way towards Germans and other Europeans who participated in the genocide.

  17. “A nation that can’t exist without nonstop war and violence is not a nation at all, it’s a decades-long military operation with a few suburbs sprinkled on top.”

    Excellent description. That is what this culture has evolved to become. A giant cake that the oligarchs are going to destroy as they go out of this world, uncaring as to what mess they leave behind for every other living thing. Thank toxic masculinity, christianity, capitalism, economic chicanery, etc.

    Caitlin, you should see Democracy Now’s interview with Yanis Varoufakis this week–Amy Goodman had to have him clarify that yes, oligarchs do actually exist in the US, but it had to be laid out for the viewers who believe that the term ‘oligarchs’ only applies to Russia. As if Russia is the only place to have oligarchs. Sheesh. Thanks for your great and daring journalism. Now, how do we get Julian out of the embassy and into a safe place?

  18. Thank You! You have said and wrote my thoughts on Israel better than I could have ever hoped too. I am a Humanist who is appalled by our Perpetual Wars culture and see that the people of Palestine and Israel are just pawns used badly. Semetic people’s, both. Hating each other is semetic antisemetism. Madness! An Old Testament adage “don’t move the boundary stones of your forefathers” wasn’t listened to by any. SMFH

  19. Caitlin said: “Israel is very dangerous and completely unsustainable, but its interests are aggressively promoted by powerful plutocrats and lobby groups. It’s like if fracking was a place.”

    In both cases (Israel & Fracking): The only dangerous minority is the rich.

    Tell everyone you know …

    The only dangerous minority is the rich.

  20. Colleen McGuire Avatar
    Colleen McGuire

    Bravo Caitlin. Now it is time to Name Names. We know who the Plutocrats are. Don’t keep their names/identifies out of the sunlight. Bring on the perp walk! Caitlin.

  21. Barry Kirkwood Avatar
    Barry Kirkwood

    Correction : The 9/11 operation almost certainly a combined Israeli – US Deep State operation. Follow Fletcher Prouty’s (CIA) advice : to identify the perpetrators study the cover up, do not be concentrate too much on the event itself. The fact that the US generals responsible for air defence of the USA on 9/11 were never disciplined but instead were promoted, that the FBI seized all surveillance camera records of the day, that the Federal Trade Commission destroyed the records of financial transactions showing put options taken on relevant airline stocks before the event, that NIST after claiming that jet fuel fires or furniture fires could collapse steel framed buildings, but never modified the building codes…the list goes on and on.

    1. Hmmm

      I was trying to emphasis a point, and in so doing failed to give full credit where credit was due…..

      Without question 9-11 could never have happened without US Deep state support. Obviously Israel didn’t hand over a big share of one of largest oil/gas finds in the Middle East in the stolen Golan heights to Dick Cheney for his charm and good looks…..And the complete failure of the US government to ever carry out any credible investigation while failing to put either the President or Vice President under oath, let alone testify in front of the American people says it all. Equally telling was that all the recordings of the Air Traffic Controller’s tapes were destroyed almost immediately after the attacks. Then there was the mysterious last minute inclusion in the obviously pre-written “Patriot Act” that provided immunity to the security company ICTS, owned by an Israeli Ezra Harel who has well known ties to the Mossad. All further investigation was blocked. By rights they were directly responsible given it was their failed security that allowed the alleged hijackers on the planes. Instead the US government allows bogus lawsuits against Saudi Arabia to go forward even though there is zero evidence (not secured directly or indirectly from Israel) that the Saudis had a thing to do with 9-11. How about the cell phone calls the FBI and the media breathlessly reported ad nausem which were used to establish the bogus “box cutter” nonsense. It worked right up until someone pointed out the fact that cell phone communication was technically impossible at that time from a hi speed aircraft……

      But my favorite, perhaps because I watched this in real time that day was the brief interview of what the media presented as a random passer by in NY City that morning who managed in the space of 90 seconds to fully articulate, using the very same terminology and parroting precisely what years later became the official explanation for the collapse of the Towers; namely that the heat of the fires melted the support structure etc. He gave this to the American people less than 2 hours after the attacks. We found out later the guy was an actor, who had zero engineering background imagine that….Or the fact that the media declared that Ben Laden was the prime suspect within minutes of the attacks and continued to repeat his name endlessly over the coming weeks. Which is obviously odd considering the US refused to even begin an official investigation for a full year meaning it was impossible for anyone to have a clue who was responsible that early on. Never mind that his brother, a partner of the Carlyle Group was having breakfast with his friend and business associate that morning named George Bush Sr. You can’t make this stuff up.

      Who can forget the dancing Israeli Mossad Agents posing as movers driving around in their Van with mural of a plane crashing into the Towers painted on the side. And of course lest there remained any doubt: the infamous dancing Israelis in the Park who set up their video camera with a perfect view of the towers BEFORE the attacks started who then danced in celebration as the towers went down. Sadly Trump showed his true allegiance to Israel when he claimed publicly that it was dancing Muslims in the park that day and refused to correct himself after being told of his mistake.

      1. John Allen aka Ol' Hippy Avatar
        John Allen aka Ol’ Hippy

        Interesting that mention of Israel gets back to the attacks of September 11, ’01. Americans will have to wait many years if ever, before anything remotely comes forward on the orchestrated event by the plutocrats responsible for this crime. The facts that I believe: 1.) Those three buildings were wired with demolition materials, the most sophisticated too. 2.) The planes that struck New York were allowed to proceed unimpeded by air defense, the others too as best I can tell. 3.) These were a joint venture by several power structures; most likely Israel, The US, and Saudi Arabia. The identity of the pilots are highly suspect. They were the patsies along with terrorists in general. 4.) Things have never been the same since. 5.) Most Americans want to believe the lies. (They can’t believe their government would do this).
        Now Israel is engaged with business as usual with killing Palestinians and the US and allies tun a blind eye to the carnage.

      2. Off topic, redundant, summarized with; If you are a criminal do you authorize your minions to properly investigate your crimes? Or is there more wisdom in killing off key witnesses? Preaching to the choir.

        1. Hmmm

          Obviously, I strenuously disagree with your opinion.

          However, let me summarize your rebuttal in 3 words; Attack, deflect, redirect.

          Have a great day!

    2. Colleen McGuire Avatar
      Colleen McGuire

      How many died in WWII? 40 million? 50 million? Many suffered. Once the Allies occupied Germany there was absolutely nothing for Jews to fear. Indeed, it was the German people who lived in fear. Are you aware that more Germans died after the war than during the war. Zionists were an integral part in terrorizing the population while Allies turned a blind eye. With the Allied occupation of Germany (which has really never ended), Jews could have easily stayed in Germany and prospered again. Jews did not have to go to Israel for refuge nor did they want to.

      Alison Weir in Against Our Better Judgment quotes a survey showing that 65% of Jews in Displaced Persons camps wanted to go home to where they had lived before the war. 20% wanted to go to America. Only 15% wanted to go to Palestine. Many DPs were forced to go to Palestine by Zionists thugs who held sway in the camps. Zionists kidnapped Jewish babies from orphanages and sent them to populate their new political entity. General Yossi Peled was one such kidnapped baby.

  22. Another well made article. I like the balanced approach to describing prejudiced language from both sides and the humanistic middle ground that can be found. Someone made a really succinct point on a forum today.

    The interventions in Syria and Ukraine were both justified because unarmed protestors were killed and injured. Unfortunately in those cases there was no clear guilty party to blame, but blame was certainly dealt out according to an all too frequently occurring plan.

    In this case it is abundantly clear who did the damage. The rebels in Syria have tanks, the terrorists in Gaza have slingshots. It seems we bombed Libya into the stone age for less than we saw in the “holy” land yesterday. No?

  23. Hmmm

    I think you threw parts of the baby out with the wash on this one…..

    Specifically the most egregious false statement: “…People who say America controls Israel or Israel controls America are engaged in bad conspiracy theory…” Horse poop. Israel has had a stranglehold on US foreign policy since the attack by Israel against the United States on 9-11.

    There are other examples interlaced among the truths and half truths. At this point I question your underlying motives here.

    1. If you read the whole paragraph it makes a hell of a lot more sense than what you wrote.

      1. Hmmm

        I read her entire article. And quite frankly, no it does not, and neither do you.

  24. Barry Kirkwood Avatar
    Barry Kirkwood

    Excellent article. A side issue : Israel functions like Milgram’s Prison Experiment where young people are forced into military service where they are encouraged to bully Palestinians. This in turn brutalizes the Israeli population. This has been going on for generations now and will be very difficult if not impossible to reverse.

  25. I disagree with you often, but I find your writing extremely well thought and challenging. Thank you.

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