Bush blesses Sharon's apartheid

[Classical_Liberal]

Bush blesses Sharon's apartheid

By C.B. Hanif, Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer
Sunday, April 18, 2004


At least Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the South African Zulu leader, has stopped trying to peddle the hoax that Nelson Mandela's African National Congress is a bunch of bloodthirsty communists. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon still is selling the myth that security is all he wants even as he erects a barrier and annexes large parts of the West Bank. Embodied in the policies he is dictating to the Palestinians, with President Bush reversing decades of U.S. policy to go along, is the new millennium's apartheid.

His real road map was obvious even before The Boston Globe's H.D.S. Greenway wrote in 2002 that Mr. Sharon, "the architect of Israel's land-grabbing Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, essentially envisions a one-state solution with Israel maintaining its occupation and expanding Jewish settlements with, perhaps, one day a Palestinian state relegated to little Bantustan enclaves modeled on the apartheid South African model."

Israel "is ensuring the impossibility of peace by any number of means, should the Palestinians ever decide they are ready to make it," said MSNBC commentator Eric Alterman in February. "Its leaders see the apartheid model of South Africa's defunct regime as a goal to be emulated, rather than a nightmare to be avoided, and they are even willing to soak their taxpayers and bankrupt their treasury to pay for it.".......

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/opinion_0408c50c145a60a9000b.html

[Deja Q]

1. Bless the degenerate divider who dares call himself* a uniter

Hell, the fucker* isn't even human. I'll just refer to it as it....

[Tinoire]

2. Of course he does. Bush is a Nazi.

It would have been surprising if he didn't.

[heidler]

3. We still refuse to admit that our helping the Israelis subjugate the

Palestinians is the basic cause of 9/11. The one simple way to minimize terror strikes in the U.S. is to quit this one sided support of Israel.

[walmartsucks]

20. Where did you hear that?

The reason given by OBL was that we had troops on sacred Muslim soil, like Saudi Arabia. Never was one word mentioned about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

[heidler]

21. When Zogby polled the Saudis the main reason given for the HIJAC suicide

bombers volinteering to do 9/11 was hatred for US because of our our support of Israel.

[Tinoire]

23. Surely you know better than that! Bin Laden quote from 1997 re Palestine

& there are others out there. Bin Laden repeatedly talked about the brutal occupation of Palestine.

And even if he hadn't, which he profusely did, one would have to go to extreme efforts to believe your allegation.

Not many fell for that swill pushed by the US government and the special interest Israeli groups who didn't want two and two added up.
"They hate us for our freedom" was simply not convincing enough.



TRANSCRIPT OF OSAMA BIN LADEN INTERVIEW
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The first-ever television interview with Osama Bin Ladin was conducted by Peter Arnett in eastern Afghanistan in late March 1997. Questions were submitted in advance. Bin Ladin responded to almost all of the questions. CNN was not allowed to ask follow up questions. The interview lasted just over an hour.


<snip>

REPORTER: Mr. Bin Ladin, you've declared a jihad against the United States. Can you tell us why? And is the jihad directed against the US government or the United States' troops in Arabia? What about US civilians in Arabia or the people of the United States?

BIN LADIN: We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of the Prophet's Night Travel Land (Palestine). And we believe the US is directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. The mention of the US reminds us before everything else of those innocent children who were dismembered, their heads and arms cut off in the recent explosion that took place in Qana (in Lebanon). This US government abandoned even humanitarian feelings by these hideous crimes. It transgressed all bounds and behaved in a way not witnessed before by any power or any imperialist power in the world. They should have been considerate that the qibla (Mecca) of the Muslims upheaves the emotion of the entire Muslim World. Due to its subordination to the Jews the arrogance and haughtiness of the US regime has reached, to the extent that they occupied the qibla of the Muslims (Arabia) who are more than a billion in the world today. For this and other acts of aggression and injustice, we have declared jihad against the US, because in our religion it is our duty to make jihad so that God's word is the one exalted to the heights and so that we drive the Americans away from all Muslim countries. As for what you asked whether jihad is directed against US soldiers, the civilians in the land of the Two Holy Places (Saudi Arabia, Mecca and Medina) or against the civilians in America, we have focused our declaration on striking at the soldiers in the country of The Two Holy Places. The country of the Two Holy Places has in our religion a peculiarity of its own over the other Muslim countries. In our religion, it is not permissible for any non-Muslim to stay in our country. Therefore, even though American civilians are not targeted in our plan, they must leave. We do not guarantee their safety, because we are in a society of more than a billion Muslims. A reaction might take place as a result of US government's hitting Muslim civilians and executing more than 600 thousand Muslim children in Iraq by preventing food and medicine from reaching them. So, the US is responsible for any reaction, because it extended its war against troops to civilians. This is what we say. As for what you asked regarding the American people, they are not exonerated from responsibility, because they chose this government and voted for it despite their knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and in other places and its support of its agent regimes who filled our prisons with our best children and scholars. We ask that may God release them.

<snip>

BIN LADIN: I do not know Ramzi Yousef. What the American government and Pakistani intelligence has been reporting is not true at all. But I say if the American government is serious about avoiding the explosions inside the U.S., then let it stop provoking the feelings of 1,250 million Muslims. Those hundreds of thousands who have been killed or displaced in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, do have brothers and relatives. They would make of Ramzi Yousef a symbol and a teacher. The U.S. will drive them to transfer the battle into the United States. Everything is made possible to protect the blood of the American citizen while the bloodshed of Muslims is allowed in every place. With this kind of behavior, the U.S. government is hurting itself, hurting Muslims and hurting the American people.


<snip>

A man with human feelings in his heart does not distinguish between a child killed in Palestine or in Lebanon, in Iraq or in Bosnia. So how can we believe your claims that you came to save our children in Somalia while you kill our children in all of those places?

<snip>

the American army in Saudi Arabia came to separate between the Muslims and the people for not ruling in accordance with Allah's wish. They came to be in support of the Israeli forces in occupied Palestine, the land of the "Israa" of our Prophet (PBUH).


http://www.american-buddha.com/transcript.osama.htm

[gayboy]

4. Guess he has absolutely no idea...

what Apartheid was like....its insulting to all the brave South Africans who fought for many years against an evil regime, to make such comparisons.
Words like apartheid state,nazi state,fascist state...are bandied around all to easily in an attempt to deligitamize the Jewish state.

A lot(my guess is most ) of Jews take `the extreme ` offence to this..and see it as a personal attack on themselves and not so much an attack on their state or government.

[tinnypriv]

5. I know it is difficult

But try and recognise that the comparisons to apartheid are not comparing apartheid South Africa with Israel, but apartheid South Africa with the Israeli Occupied Territories, held under military tyranny.

There is a big difference. The comparison is warranted in the latter case.

There is no comparison between Israel and Nazism, and anybody who uses that analogy is an idiot, and probably an anti-semite.

[Classical_Liberal]

6. Mandela to Tom Friedman on Israel's apartied state

Thomas, if you follow the polls in Israel for the last 30 or 40 years, you clearly find a vulgar racism that includes a third of the population who openly declare themselves to be racist. This racism is of the nature of "I hate Arabs" and "I wish Arabs would be dead". If you also follow the judicial system in Israel you will see there is discrimination against Palestinians, and if you further consider the 1967 occupied territories you will find there are already two judicial systems in operation that represent two different approaches to human life: one for Palestinian life and the other for Jewish life. Additionally there are two different approaches to property and to land. Palestinian property is not recognized as private property because it can be confiscated.

As to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is an additional factor. The so-called "Palestinian autonomous areas" are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system.

The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel's racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a "Jewish" state.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children........

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:JMm1mOJZcTkJ:www.mediamonitors.net/arjan28.html+Nelson+Mandela+Israel+apartheid&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[gayboy]

7. Any idea what APARTHEID was?

Guess its too late for you to find out because its been eradicated...

What it was not was arabs sitting in the same parliament as jews...What it was not was Arabs with Israeli passports..what it was not is freedom of the presses...what it was not is freedom ...what it was not is DEMOCRACY....

And the ANC (my old party) Never killed innocent civilians let alone kids in discos , moms in pizza parlours , grandparents at pesach seder meals...

The ANC never sent 16 yr old kids to kill white kids in Linksfield or Orange Grove suburbs in Johannesburg.The ANC never encouraged sexually frustrated teenage boys (72 virgins) to slaughter white kids so that the would get sex a few hours later.

NOPE it is NOT an Apartheid state...

[Classical_Liberal]

8. Mandela has a pretty good idea what Apartied was.

Black did serve in Parlament under apartied, but like Arabs most weren't recognized as citizens, so the weren't represeted proportionally. That is why the ANC fought for "One man, one vote!"

If the ANC had killed innocence it wouldn't justify apartied.

Israel took land before any of it ever started and they can't justify doing what they did because SOME arabs react badly.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[gayboy]

13. You said...

``weren't recognized as citizens, so the weren't represeted proportionally``

Well NO...they were NOT represented in the South African parliament...PERIOD.

I rest my case ...comparasins are easy when you have NO clue as to what Apartheid really was...

:thumbsdown:

[Classical_Liberal]

16. Indians and colored served in parliament

blacks were denied citizenship altogether.

So you are basically arguing over degree.

[gayboy]

17. Indians and ``coloureds``(as they call themselves in South Africa)

Only served in parliament towards the end as the system was crumbling after the 1st referendum....but through the vast majority of the apartheid years it was WHITES ONLY...

[Classical_Liberal]

18. So if the whtes had given 10 percent of the Black and other

non whites citizenship aparthied would be ok with you huh.

[Jack Rabbit]

19. The comparison to Apartheid

Once again, the very word Israel is ambiguous. If we are speaking of Israel proper, that is the state of Israel inside the Green Line, then you are right to say that the comparison to South African Apartheid is wrong.

However, if we are speaking of Israel's administration of the occupied territories, then that is another matter.

From the BTselem report on Israeli settlement policy:

Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa.
Under this regime, Israel has stolen hundreds of thousands of dunam of land from the Palestinians. Israel has used this land to establish dozens of settlements in the West Bank and to populate them with hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens. Israel prohibits the Palestinians as a group from entering and using these lands, and uses the settlements to justify numerous violations of the Palestinians' human rights, such as the right to housing, to earn a livelihood, and the right to freedom of movement. The drastic change that Israel has made in the map of the West Bank prevents any real possibility for the establishment of an independent, viable Palestinian state as part of the Palestinians' right to self-determination.
The settlers, on the contrary, benefit from all the rights available to Israeli citizens living within the Green Line, and in some cases are even granted additional rights. The great effort that Israel has invested in the settlement enterprise - in financial, legal and bureaucratic terms – has turned the settlements into civilian enclaves in an area under military rule, with the settlers being given priority status. To perpetuate this situation, which is a priori illegal, Israel has continuously breached the rights of the Palestinians.

[gayboy]

9. Nelson Mandela

G-D bless him is getting on in life..
When he met the group `The Spice Girls` he said something to the effect that it was the most important day of his life...

:eyes:

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[gayboy]

14. Huh?

Why?
Its true...And I happened to grow up with a poster of Nelson Mandela above my bed..He was is and always will be MY HERO...
Who are you judging?

[Classical_Liberal]

12. Against Israeli Apartheid Desmond Tutu and Ian Urbina

The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure -- in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s. Over the past six months a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation.

Divestment from apartheid South Africa was fought by ordinary people at the grassroots. Faith-based leaders informed their followers, union members pressured their companies' stockholders and consumers questioned their store owners. Students played an especially important role by compelling universities to change their portfolios. Eventually, institutions pulled the financial plug, and the South African government thought twice about its policies.

Similar moral and financial pressures on Israel are being mustered one person at a time. Students on more than 40 US campuses are demanding a review of university investments in Israeli companies as well as in firms doing major business in Israel. From Berkeley to Ann Arbor, city councils have debated municipal divestment measures.

These tactics are not the only parallels to the struggle against apartheid. Yesterday's South African township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the Occupied Territories. To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar......

http://www.merip.org/newspaper_opeds/Tutu_IU_Israeli_Apartheid.html

[Tinoire]

24. What is insulting is your dismissal of the fact that S. Africans see Israe

see Israel as an apartheid state.

To wit.

Desmond Tutu (you have heard of him right? or do we need to start from square 1?)


Apartheid in the Holy Land

Desmond Tutu
Monday April 29, 2002
The Guardian

In our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were Jewish people. They almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the voiceless ones, fighting injustice, oppression and evil. I have continued to feel strongly with the Jews. I am patron of a Holocaust centre in South Africa. I believe Israel has a right to secure borders.

What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it did to another people to guarantee its existence. I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.

On one of my visits to the Holy Land I drove to a church with the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem. I could hear tears in his voice as he pointed to Jewish settlements. I thought of the desire of Israelis for security. But what of the Palestinians who have lost their land and homes?

I have experienced Palestinians pointing to what were their homes, now occupied by Jewish Israelis. I was walking with Canon Naim Ateek (the head of the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre) in Jerusalem. He pointed and said: "Our home was over there. We were driven out of our home; it is now occupied by Israeli Jews."


<snip>

But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal , and to criticise it is to be immediately dubbed anti-semitic, as if the Palestinians were not semitic. I am not even anti-white, despite the madness of that group. And how did it come about that Israel was collaborating with the apartheid government on security measures? ((that is a whole other story!))

<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,706911,00.html


===

And of course, I am going to assume you know who Nelson Mandela is.


MANDELA'S FIRST MEMO TO THOMAS FRIEDMAN, March 28, 2001


To: Thomas L. Friedman (columnist New York Times) From: Nelson Mandela (former President South Africa)

Dear Thomas,

I know that you and I long for peace in the Middle East, but before you continue to talk about necessary conditions from an Israeli perspective, you need to know what's on my mind. Where to begin? How about 1964. Let me quote my own words during my trial. They are true today as they were then:

"I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."


<snip>

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established "normally" and happened to occupy another country in 1967. Palestinians are not struggling for a "state" but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.


In the last few years, and especially during the reign of the Labour Party, Israel showed that it was not even willing to return what it occupied in 1967; that settlements remain, Jerusalem would be under exclusive Israeli sovereignty, and Palestinians would not have an independent state, but would be under Israeli economic domination with Israeli control of borders, land, air, water and sea.

Israel was not thinking of a "state" but of "separation". The value of separation is measured in terms of the ability of Israel to keep the Jewish state Jewish, and not to have a Palestinian minority that could have the opportunity to become a majority at some time in the future. If this takes place, it would force Israel to either become a secular democratic or bi-national state, or to turn into a state of apartheid not only de facto, but also de jure.

Thomas, if you follow the polls in Israel for the last 30 or 40 years, you clearly find a vulgar racism that includes a third of the population who openly declare themselves to be racist. This racism is of the nature of "I hate Arabs" and "I wish Arabs would be dead". If you also follow the judicial system in Israel you will see there is discrimination against Palestinians, and if you further consider the 1967 occupied territories you will find there are already two judicial systems in operation that represent two different approaches to human life: one for Palestinian life and the other for Jewish life. Additionally there are two different approaches to property and to land. Palestinian property is not recognised as private property because it can be confiscated.

As to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is an additional factor. The so-called "Palestinian autonomous areas" are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system.

The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel's racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a "Jewish" state.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

The responses made by South Africa to human rights abuses emanating from the removal policies and apartheid policies respectively, shed light on what Israeli society must necessarily go through before one can speak of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and an end to its apartheid policies.

Thomas, I'm not abandoning Mideast diplomacy. But I'm not going to indulge you the way your supporters do. If you want peace and democracy, I will support you. If you want formal apartheid, we will not support you. If you want to support racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing, we will oppose you. When you figure out what you're about, give me a call.


http://home.mindspring.com/~fontenelles/arjan/arjan2.htm

((This letter is public domain so copyright rules should not apply. Re-pasting to include the part, in gray, that Classical Liberal quoted, in post no 6, since it was casually dismissed the first time))

===

Winnie Mandela... She should know all about apartheid as well


Apartheid Israel can be defeated, says Winnie
March 26 2004

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former president of the African National Congress Women's League, said on Thursday: "Apartheid Israel can be defeated, just as apartheid in South Africa was defeated."

Madikizela-Mandela <snip> described the killing of Yassin - who inspired a campaign of suicide bombings in Israel - as a "cowardly act that took the life of a brave hero".

Madikizela-Mandela said the United States government's response to the killing was "wishy washy", and she criticised the US for not describing Israel as a terrorist state.


<snip>

He said the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, once described Ariel Sharon, the current prime minister who ordered the assassination of Yassin, as "thirsty for blood".

Among the posters that were displayed read: "Ariel Sharon is a mass murderer", "Zionism equals to Nazism", "Apartheid Israel has weapons of mass destruction", "What's wrong with the single state solution?" and "Expel Israel from South Africa".


<snip>

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=139&art_id=qw1080274862652B243&set_id=1

Declaration by South Africans on Apartheid Israel

<snip>

<snip> the famed violinist Lord Yehudi Menuhin told the French newspaper Le Figaro: “It is extraordinary how nothing ever dies completely. <snip>”.

We, South Africans, extend our hands to the heroic people of Palestine. Theirs is the struggle, slingshots in hand, of David against Goliath. Theirs is the vision of a country shorn of racist dominion. Theirs is the passion for life without oppression. Theirs is the struggle, Arab and Jews to be free from discrimination and injustice. As South Africans we understand these struggles, visions and passions. We pledge ourselves to be part of a new International Anti-Apartheid movement against Israel and we support the demand for :

Immediate and Urgent International Protection for the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank

Dismantling of all Jewish Settlements in the Occupied Territories

Withdrawal of all Israeli Troops from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank

The right of return and reparations for 4,5 million Palestinian refugees

The establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital

The establishment of a secular democratic state in historic Palestine

http://psc.za.org/pscsaourdeclaration.htm

On edit: snipping Yehudi Menuhin's quote in the last article to avoid some overzealous person from having to disturb a mod because of a disconcerting comparison we are forbidden from suggesting here.

[gayboy]

15. AND BTW

it is spelled APARTHEID

With an ``H``

[Tinoire]

25. Let's examine the quote in your sig line

"selfhaters are traitors..."



What on earth could you be talking about here :eyes:


On edit: Deleting something. You're just not worth an admonishment.

[number6]

22. Bush blesses Sharon's apartheid

Bush blesses anything thats evil

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

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