"Defying Israel, Jewish activists sail for Gaza" Reuters

 "I want to raise my voice against evil and draw attention to 1.5 million people under siege. This is inhuman," said Rami Elhanan, an Israeli peace activist who lost his 14-year-old daughter Smadar to a Palestinian suicide bomber in 1997.  Reuters

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People of conscience.   Good to see it.  I watched an interesting film last night.  Titled "Amriika," it is a tale of the move to the mid-west of a Palestinian Christian divorced mother and her teen aged son. I recommend it highly.  From Bethlehem to Indiana may not seem like a big transition to many, but this production moved me.  pl 

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68P0TV20100926

Comments

[Anna-Marina]

Albert Einstein, 1938: "I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from practical consideration, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain -- especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state."
Einstein, 1946: "The [Jewish] State idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-minded and economic obstacles. I believe it is bad. I have always been against it."
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But the half-wits prevailed...

[Fred]

Another Harvard lawyer with way too much time in academia with yet another take on the problems of the Democratic Party.

"Republicans destroyed the New Deal coalition by appealing explicitly to white working-class culture in many instances..." She should read up on LBJ. This has been happening at least since the Eisenhower administration. The biggest change was with the passage of the civil rights act of '64.

These are the kind of policies that non-working class Americans come up with:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/us-firms-dodge-billions-taxes-moving-profits-overseas/story?id=10641219

She's welcome to run for office any time, but then that would mean giving up tenure and all the benefits a couple of non-profit directorships bring.

[Retired (once-Serving)Patriot]

COL,

Agree 100% with the movie recommendation! Muna's struggle has been repeated millions of times over in our history. Too bad it had such a limited distribution; as a nation we could use a reminder of her promise and a mirror of its actual state.

As for the Israeli Flotilla, any bets the IDF will snipe the passengers from US-supplied Blackhawks? I didn't think so.

RP

[steve]

Yes, it was a good movie. Saw it a few months back.

[Fred]

Looks like I posted my comments on the wrong article, sorry for that one.

[John Howley]

To characterize Albert Einstein as an ardent anti-Zionist may be stretching things a bit. More research is needed.

Here's a review of a book on the topic.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4866/einstein_and_israel/

[FB Ali]

The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time, that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos. - Gareth Porter in Truthout (Sept 27).

Not a single story on the UN report has appeared in the US media.

The full article is at:

http://www.truth-out.org/un-fact-finding-mission-says-israelis-executed-us-citizen-furkan-dogan63609

[J]

FB,

Our U.S. media is Israel-firster 'controlled', and we won't seen anything 'derogatory' regarding Israel on U.S. media print and screens, particularly Israel's thug IDF's execution slaying of an un-armed American 19 yr old kid. Member of our U.S. Congress are compliant stick-figures when it comes to towing the Israeli-firster lines. Sooner or later this is going to back-fire on the Israel-firsters, and when it does it'll be katy-bar-the-door.

Israel murders in cold blood with impunity and the U.S. msm and our U.S. leadership looks the other way.

[confusedponderer]

FB Ali,
look at what happened about Rachel Corrie. Nothing.

The Israelis are literally getting away with murder, and their apologists in the US unblinkingly say that those the Israelis killed had brought it on themselves by bringing themselves into a situation where they would face off with the IDF - if they don't outright call them terrorists.

And then, adding insult to injury, crap like this comes out of it.

[confusedponderer]

Or look at the story of the American girl who lost an eye to an Israeli tear gas round, probably from an aimed shot. Again - nothing happened.

[J]

confusedponderer,

And I would imagine that any American that was fed up with Israel's cold blooded murder of Americans, decided to take it to Israel's doorstep would then be labeled as a terrorist and then subject to the Patriot Act where they could be shoved down a black-hole never to be seen nor heard from again. Remember that the Patriot Act was an Israeli 'suggestion' among other Israeli 'suggestion' we now see ('profiling' at airports, etc.).

[J]

Remember this face, a face of a 19yr old 'unarmed' American kid who was murdered in cold blood by the thugs known as the Israeli IDF -- Furkan Dogan:

[confusedponderer]

J,
as far as profiling at airports is concerned you are probably right. In general, I wouldn't be so sure.

In my understanding the Patriot Act was in important parts the realisation of long held wish list items from federal security bureaucracy. Of course they also served well as a an ass cover (i.e. had we had these powers we could have prevented 9/11! - questionable IMO).

The fact that most Patriot Act powers nowadays appear to primarily be used against drug offenders and other 'ordinary crimes' in my view only and simply confirms that, and the pre-9/11 emphasis in the bureaucracy. They probably use the tools of the Patriot Act as originally designed.

Sources:
Anti-Terror Laws Invoked Against Crimes Unrelated to Terror, Report Says
'Sneak and Peek report [PDF]
Feingold Questions Department of Justice Officials on use of PATRIOT Act powers

[J]

confusedponderer,

The Patriot Act was both (collecting dust in a desk drawer) and an Israeli inspired idea. Remember that Israel is a police-state, and those whose quest for total control/authority over the American citizenry within certain halls of American government were quick to perk-up to the Israeli police-state idea.