@cicerone imposter,
Quote: ISRAEL IS NOT A DEMOCRACY
"The Illusion of Shared Values
One of the most widely held and harmful fallacies about the U.S.-Israeli relationship is that the two countries share ideals, democratic structure and respect for human rights. This is a delusion that complicates our quest for peace. Israel is not a democracy. It does not have a constitution. It discriminates broadly on the basis of religion and is harsh and often brutal in its treatment of minorities. It is an exclusionary and expansionist state. For nearly a half century Israeli practice have been repeatedly condemned by the world community as violations of international law. Although these practices contradict American law, the United States, to its great discredit, has usually acted to protect Israel.
"Israel practices as state policy a number of measures that are illegal in the United states and other western countries. These include assassination, kidnapping, expulsion, detention without charges or trial, land confiscation, and collective punishment––not to mention Israel's long-standing practice of espionage against the United states (Jonathan Pollard as one example), its principal benefactor. Moreover, Israel is the only country that officially sanctions torture.
"Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin, leaders of the two largest Jewish terrorist groups in Palestine before the formation of Israel, never expressed any remorse about their bloody activities. In fact, Shamir went out of his way at the Madrid peace conference in 1991 to say in response to charges about his earlier terrorist days: "I have always said, I always say, I m proud of everything I have done in my past. I do not disown a single step…I am proud of what I have done and I do not owe an accounting to anyone."
"Some years earlier Shamir had told an interviewer: "There are those who kill [an individual] that is terrorism, but an attack on an army camp is guerrilla warfare and to bomb civilians professional warfare. But I think it is the same from the moral point of view….It was more efficient and more moral to go for selected targets."
"Such an attitude has led to Israel's practice of assassinating its enemies. Among the operations that are documented, in the early 1960s Israel carried on a campaign of terror against German scientists working for Egypt, including at least five persons killed by letter bomb. An Egyptian scientist that killed in 1979 while working for Iraq. In 1990 Gerald Vincent Bull, a Canadian artillery expert was killed outside his Brussels apartment after being publicly linked to Iraq's weapons program. Bull was reported to be the victim of Israeli assassins.
"Over the decades Israel has wage an unrelenting assassination campaign against Palestinians belonging to the Palestine Liberation Organization, including the mistaken killing of an Arab waiter in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1973, and the 1991 assassination of the PLO's military chief Khalil Wazir, better known by the nom de guerre Abu Jihad (Father or Struggle), at his home in Tunis.
"Israel's state policy condoning kidnapping has affected U.S. security and cost American lives. The best-known and most recent example of this practice was the 1989 abduction of Shiite Sheikh Abdul Karim Obeid from his home in southern Lebanon. In retaliation, a U.S. hostage held in Lebanon, Marine Lieutenant Colonel William R. Higgins, was hanged by his Shiite Muslim captors.
"After Higgins hanging ,President Bush said publicly: "On Friday, I said that the taking of any hostage was not helpful to the Middle east Peace Process. The brutal and tragic events of today have underscored the validity of that statement. Tonight I wish to go beyond that statement with an urgent call to all-–all––parties who hold hostages in the Middle east, to release them forthwith as a humanitarian gesture to begin to reverse the cycle of violence in that region.
"Israel refused to release Obeid and hundred of other Palestinians held hostage. This provoked criticism from Senate Republican leader Bob Dole, who charge that Israeli actions "endanger American lives." He added that "a little more responsibility on the part of the Israelis one of these days would be refreshing."
"Israel also routinely imposes such barbaric measures as collective punishment, "administrative detention," torture, and expulsion in its attempt to suppress the Palestinian uprising. Book burning is another mark of Israel's occupation. Israel Shahak, an Israeli scholar who survive a Nazi extermination camp and now campaigns for Palestinian rights, reports: "Israeli soldiers enter a Palestinian library, public or private, gather up all the books put them in a pile outside and set them on fire. because they cannot read Arabic, they say them must burn all books, just to make sure the evil ones are destroyed."
_______
Excerpts from the book "Deliberate Deceptions"
