With the recent rise of concern in the West and Israel over Iran’s alleged nuclear program and Iran facing accusations of attempting to create highly-enriched uranium to produce weapons-grade plutonium and eventually nuclear warheads, a few reports with questionable accuracy were recently published with the claim of Israeli officials paying secret visits to high-ranking Saudi officials to discuss the possible “threats” of Iran’s nuclear program.

It wasn’t so long ago when Shahram Amiri had surfaced, raising more questions as to whether he was abducted or not, and whether Saudi Arabia was involved in his alleged abduction and smuggling to the U.S. and how this would explain the claims of Saudi Arabia working with U.S. and Israel against Iran.

The Times of London had quoted an unnamed U.S. defense source as saying that the Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way.

“They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the U.S. State Department.”

The report further continued by quoting a Saudi government source saying:

“We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through and see nothing.”

Given Israel would conduct an air strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the four main targets would be uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Qom, a gas storage development at Isfahan and a heavy-water reactor at Arak. Further more, secondary targets may include a Russian-built light water reactor at Bushehr, which could also produce nuclear weapons when complete.

A pass could be done over Iraq to perform the air strike, but it would require consent from the U.S., whose troops are currently occupying the country and so far the Obama Administration has refused to allow it.

Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf, the Saudi envoy to the U.K. speaking to the London-based Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, denied that report, saying such a move “would be against the policy adopted and followed by the Kingdom.” he reiterated the Saudi Arabia’s rejection of any violation of its territories or airspace, adding that it would be “illogical to allow the Israeli occupying force, with whom Saudi Arabia has no relations whatsoever, to use its land and airspace.” Later on this was followed by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accusing Israel and the U.S. of attempting to sabotage the relationships between Saudi Arabia and Iran in his statement which he had said during a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s new ambassador to Tehran.

“Undoubtedly, the U.S. and the Zionist regime are the enemies of Iran and Saudi Arabia, so they are trying to create a gap between Tehran and Riyadh.”

Also declaring in his speech, the Iranian President said:

“If Iran and Saudi Arabia stand together, our enemies won’t dare continue with their aggressive behavior, with occupation and pressure on the Muslim world.”

However, a recent report from the WorldNetDaily news claimed Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan went on a secret visit to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks to discuss the threat of Iran, attributing the story to Arab sources. It also cites an Egyptian intelligence source saying that Saudi Arabia has been passing intelligence information to Israel related to Iran.

Given all this information, and whether it’s not certain if Saudi Arabia is indeed cooperating with the West in an attempt to halt Iran’s nuclear program in fears of it diminishing Saudi Arabia’s influence in the Middle East, this does not deny the fact that with the current sectarian tension between the Sunni and Shia sects, Saudi Arabia – and other Gulf states – share a certain degree of hostility with Iran, the UAE had already expressed it’s support of U.S. policy against Iran’s nuclear program, according to Youssef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s envoy to the U.S. who had reportedly said in a conference in Aspen,

“We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.”

The Sunni-Shiite struggle IS existent, the West is adding fuel to the fire, and whether or not Saudi Arabia is working with the West and Israel against Iran or not, and whether it would – along with other Gulf states – form an alliance with the West against Iran given war erupts, the possibility of Sunnis and Shiites getting along are quite slim, and this diminishes the possibility of the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, ruled by the Sunni Al-Saud family and governed by Islamic Shari’ah Law to have a strong alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which adopts the Shiite sect and enforces a theocratic rule upon the state. And with Saudi Arabia’s past history of giving corridor to U.S. troops to pass through to Iraq during the Persian Gulf War in 1990 [Operation Desert Storm], this entire situation is just starting to look like Iraq 2.0 to me.

I had lately come across this article by Zaid Nabulsi, a Palestinian lawyer who worked for the United Nations in Geneva. And I couldn’t help but agree what the man was saying, it’s the plain truth, a slap in the face of Zionism and how it’s modeled as a “peace initiative” in the Middle East.

The Palestinians are paying the price for the atrocities committed by the Nazi Germans during World War II, and with the establishment of Israel, with Polish-born David Ben Gurion as it’s 1st Prime Minister, who also is the Chief architect of the state of Israel and revered as Father of the Nation. After the war, the Holocaust was a powerfully influential factor in turning World’s public in Zionism’s favor, and was the decisive factor in defeating the policy of the British 1939 White Paper. It’s the Holocaust atrocity that generated a collective sense of guilt in the Western World and in turn blinded them to the suffering that came upon the Palestinian people, the great majority of the Palestinian people, almost 10 million people, had been dispossessed and ethnically cleansed from their homes, farms and businesses.

“We must expel the Arabs and take their places.” – David Ben Gurion

I’d like to share with everybody on here excerpts of Zaid Nabulsi’s article, and it goes as follows:

Zionism is a sickness, for it takes much more than just a twisted ideology to make people think like that. It requires a profound leap of immorality of a higher order to instill this mentality in your followers. Zionism is not merely a political movement, but in its essence represents a deeply disturbed view of the world, which is a reflection of a terrible disease of the mind.

Indeed, to deny the existence of a vibrant community such as the Palestinian society in the early twentieth century and describe Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” is a disease of the mind.

To assert property claims over real estate after the lapse of more than 2000 years with the same certainty of title as if one resided there yesterday is a disease of the mind.

To describe the colonial immigration to Palestine of a European people with no proven historical link to the ancient Israelites – and whose great, great recorded ancestors have never set foot there – as some kind of a “return” to that land is indicative of a perverted misunderstanding and misapplication of the verb to “return” and can only be a result of a disease of the mind.

To blame the Palestinians for being unreasonable in rejecting a partition plan in 1947 which gave the Jews, who only owned 7 percent of the land, an astonishing half of Palestine, is a disease of the mind.

To demand of the Arabs at the time to peacefully succumb to such partition, where 86 percent of the land designated for the proposed Jewish state was Palestinian-inhabited and owned land, is a disease of the mind.

To eventually grab 78 percent of Palestine through war and to force the flight of the population through deliberate massacres and then call it a war of independence is a disease of the mind.

To deny the orchestrated massacres and eradications of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1948 and then denounce the Israeli historians who later exposed this truth as self-hating Jews is a disease of the mind.

To claim that having escaped the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Dachau is a justification for the murder, expulsion, and occupation of another guiltless people is a disease of the mind.

To legislate that any resident of Poland, Hungary, New York, Brazil, Australia, Iceland, or even Planet Mars, who happens to be blessed with a Jewish mother (yet cannot point to Palestine on the map) has a superior right to “return” and settle in Palestine to someone who has been expelled from his very own land, confined to a squalid refugee camp, and still holds the keys to his house, is a disease of the mind.

To blame God for the theft and occupation of someone else’s land by claiming that it was He who had pledged this land exclusively to the Jews, and to seriously promote the myth of a land promised by the Almighty to His favorite children as an excuse for this crime, is a disease of the mind.

To milk the pockets of the world for the atrocities of the Nazis, while stubbornly refusing a simple admission of guilt, let alone compensation or repatriation, for the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people is a disease of the mind.

To keep reminding and blackmailing the world of the plight of the Jews under Hitler 70 years ago, while at the same time inflicting on the Palestinians today the same fate of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, is a disease of the mind.

To impose a collective guilt overshadowing Western civilization for the Holocaust and then to criminalize all legitimate historical debate of the nature and extent of that horrific event is a disease of the mind.

To virtually incarcerate the Palestinian people inside degrading cages, destroying their livelihoods, confiscating their lands, stealing their water and uprooting their trees, and then to condemn their legitimate resistance as terrorism is a disease of the mind.

To believe you have the right to chase the Palestinians into an Arab capital city in 1982 and to indiscriminately bombard its civilians for a relentless three months, murdering thousands of innocent people is a disease of the mind.

To encircle the civilian camps of Sabra and Chatila after evacuating the fighters and to unleash on them trained dogs (while providing them with night-illuminating flares for efficiency) and then deny culpability for the carnage is a disease of the mind.

To publicly declare a policy of breaking the bones of Palestinian stone-throwers to prevent them from lifting stones again and to enact this policy is a disease of the mind.

To have the sadistic streak of exacting vengeance on the innocent families of suicide bombers by punishing them with the dynamiting of their home is a disease of the mind.

To describe the offer of giving the Palestinians 80 percent of 22 percent of 100 percent of what is originally their own land as a “generous” offer is a disease of the mind.

To believe that you have the right to continue to humiliate the Palestinians at gun point by making them queue for hours to move between their villages, forcing mothers to give birth at check-points is a disease of the mind.

To flatten the camp of Jenin on its inhabitants and deny any wrongdoing is a delusional condition which is symptomatic of a serious disease of the mind.

To build a huge separation wall under the pretext of security, which disconnects farmers from their farms and children from their schools, while stealing even more territory as the wall freely zigzags and encroaches on Palestinian land is a disease of the mind.

To leave behind, in the last 10 days of a losing war in Lebanon, more than one million cluster bombs which have no purpose except to murder and maim unsuspecting civilians is a product of an evil disease of the mind.

To believe that the entire world is out to get you and to denounce any critic of the racist policies of the State of Israel as an anti-Semite, the latest victim being none other than peace-making Jimmy Carter, is an acute stage of mass paranoia, which is a disease of the mind.

To possess, in the midst of a non-nuclear Arab world, more than 200 nuclear warheads capable of incinerating the whole planet in addition to having the most advanced arsenal of weaponry in the world while continuing to play the role of a victim is a disease of the mind.

That’s all what it is, ladies and gentlemen: Zionism is an incurable disease of the mind.

If you look at the varied political landscapes of the Middle East you will begin to see a whole host of hidden dangers lurking in the midst. The Mullahs in Iran, for example, have quite a lot on their plate: an angry citizenry demanding change, a weak economy, the onset of international sanctions, and the looming threat of a military attack. Iran’s answer is to pursue nuclear capability, to sponsor terror organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, and to forge new alliances with countries such as Turkey, Syria, and perhaps even Iraq. We may soon see an alliance of like-minded countries which have come together to project influence in the region, and to protect themselves from both domestic and international threats.

What will Western countries do in response? They will have no choice but to react. If left unchecked, a political alliance with Iran at its center could easily develop a nuclear capability, and use that as a means of stifling domestic and international dissent, and consolidating control of the entire region. A nuclear capacity will act as a protective shield to protect nations like Iran from any outside interference with regard to domestic policies and foreign policy agendas. The ability to discourage outside interference is precisely why Iran is so hell bent on producing nuclear weapons.

The West will have to react. Too much is at stake including access to oil, as well as the looming threat of a further radicalization of extremist groups. But what can the West do, short of war, to counter the threats posed by an alliance of the more fundamentalist elements in the Middle East?

The West will have to find a way to ally itself militarily and economically with the Sunni world, with countries that see an Iranian backed alliance as equally threatening to them. How can all of this be accomplished? My guess is that we will soon see a peace deal struck between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Fattah in the West Bank is a lot more worried about an Iranian backed Hamas takeover of the West Bank, than it is about Israel. In fact, Israel is probably the only military force in the region that can actually protect the West Bank from such a takeover. And Israel is a lot more worried about a nuclear Iran, allied with Syria and Turkey, than it is about the West Bank Palestinians, who seem fully committed to growing their economy, consolidating their security, and establishing a Palestinian state within the span of two years.

A peace deal struck between Israel and Palestine will reverberate across the region and around the world. New alliances will be forged, and a massive effort will be launched to revitalize the region as a whole, by consolidating security and growing the various economies. Saudi Arabia, for example, along with the other Sunni states, would likely use the Israel/Palestine deal as a pretext to recognize Israel in accordance with the Arab Peace Plan of 2002. Egypt and Jordan would likely join in, having already signed peace agreements with Israel, and also facing daunting challenges from within and without, including the possibility that a nuclear Iran could foment internal opposition throughout the Arab world.

And how would Western countries react to a realignment of this sort in the Middle East? The U.S. would probably continue to back Israel, especially as a peace deal is consummated, and would probably lend its support to a military/economic alliance which would counter the Iranian threat, and which would include Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and a great many other Arab states.

Will the realignment of the Middle East into two camps necessarily mean war? In my opinion, not necessarily. If a peace deal is forged between Israel and Palestine, and if such a deal is used as a springboard to revitalize the region economically, and if a military/economic alliance is forged between the Western world and much of the Sunni world, then such a result could actually stabilize the region. The Western/Sunni alliance could conceivably be much more powerful than the Iranian alliance, both in terms of military strength, and economic prosperity. As a result, Iran would have to think twice and maybe three times, before taking on such a powerful opponent. Under such circumstances, a certain sense of stability may ensue.

Eventually, if a Vision of Hope is realized in parts of the Middle East, a vision of Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom, then countries which may have had no intention of following suit, would likely reconsider their approach in light of increasing domestic pressure. “Hey, where is our share?” the people on the street would ask. In other words, if the military option is no longer on the table, and if terrorism begin to lose its luster, and if there begins to emerge shining lights of success in the Middle East, then everyone in the region will be forced to follow suit, and jump onto the bandwagon of job creation, including: jobs which grow their economies, jobs which protect the environment, and jobs which help to weaken the hold of extremist thinking.

Granted, there are an awful lot of “ifs” in this scenario, and perhaps a healthy dose of wishful thinking to boot. And granted, people emboldened by an ideological agenda often make the wrong choices. But I would argue that there is at least a pretty good chance that things could work out this way. And given the dismal alternative—a mixed fruit salad of death, destruction, and despair—it is a chance we cannot afford to lose.

The world Zionist movement should not be neglectful of the dangers of Pakistan to it. And Pakistan now should be its first target, for this ideological State is a threat to our existence. And Pakistan, the whole of it, hates the Jews and loves the Arabs. This lover of the Arabs is more dangerous to us than the Arabs themselves. For that matter, it is most essential for the world Zionism that it should now take immediate steps against Pakistan.” Ben-Gurion, the Prime Minister of Israel.

This speech was first published in Jewish Chronicles on 9th August 1967. This statement risen many controversies bloggers like me have quoted it many times; various explanations were also given to disprove this statement, but still we read it on every article related to Pakistan and Israel.

Pakistan and Israel do share some history and ideology. These are only two countries in the world created in the name of Religion; Pakistan for Islam, Israel for Judaism and both countries have taken independence from same British Empire after World War II.

Then why my passport still says, “This Passport is valid for all the countries of the World, except Israel”?

Pakistan claimed its independence from foreign invaders after two centuries of struggle. In 1757 after Battle of Plassey, East India Company started ruling Indian Sub-continent. The first armed resistance was Battle of Independence in 1857 after which the power was transferred to British government. In 1885 the political movement of independence started as Indian National Congress. Some of the Muslim leaders soon separated and launched new movement in 1906 as All India Muslim League for separate Muslim state which led to the creation of independent Islamic state Pakistan on 14th August 1947, which then became Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1973.

For Israel the timings was same and the rulers were also same as of Indian sub-continents, but events and circumstances were totally different. Israel declared its independence on 14th May 1948 from British Mandate of Palestine. But Israel independence movement was not against British Occupation; rather it was a movement of creating a Jewish State by silently invading the markets, trades and areas to make Jewish settlements. Hovevei Zion or Hibbat Zion refers to organizations that are considered the foundations of the modern Zionist movement. These movements led to creation of Rishon LeZion in 1882 which is the first Jewish settlement in Palestine; which was at that time under Ottoman Empire. First Zionist Congress held in 1897 started the unified Zionist Movement which was converted to World Zionist Organisation in 1960. This movement was successful in legalizing its demand of separate Jewish state in Palestine after Balfour Declaration 1917, in which British Mandate of Palestine’s (1917 – 1948) foreign Secretary Arhur James Balfour wrote letter to the leader of British Jewish Community Baron Rothschild, pledging British Empire support of creation of Jewish State in Palestinian Land.

So what kind of relationship does Pakistan and Israel has over period of 60 years?

While writing this blog I also tried to ask couple Pakistanis; their view points about Pakistan-Israel Relationship. Yousaf is Pakistani Engineer living and working in Saudi Arabia. Being in the region, Pakistanis here are emotionally and regionally attached to Middle East crisis. I asked him what kind of relationship both countries have. “Relationship between Pakistan and Israel are tied to the fact that how Israel government treats the Palestinians. In general, as Jerusalem is considered as one of the holiest places in Islam; this fact serves as a thorn in the eyes of Pakistanis.” Yousaf said.

Pakistan is among those 20 UN member nations which do not recognise Israel as an independent state. These 20 countries also include Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Chad, Cuba, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Unofficial media reports say that first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion send secret message to Muhammad Ali Jinnah to formally accept its existence, but no response was given back to him. At the time of independence of Pakistan, it was reported that some 2,000 Jews remained in Pakistan, mostly Bene Yisrale Jews. Many left to Israel after its declaration of independence. Jews from Karachi, Pakistan, now live in Ramla, Israel, and they also built a synagogue they named Magen Shalome after the Pakistani Synagogue which was demolished in 1980.

60s, 70s and beginning of 80s were the decades when for the first time both countries came face to face when Arab-Israel war started. In “Six-day Arab Israeli War” of 1967; Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF) and Pakistan Air Force (PAF) were flying under a joint command. PAF pilot Flt. Lt. Saiful Azam became the only pilot from the Arab side to have shot down 3 IDF/AF aircraft within 72 hours.

In 1973 Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War, 16 PAF pilots volunteered to support Syria and Egypt. On 23 October 1973 Flt. Lt. M. Hatif shot down the Israeli Phantom. On 26 April 1974, PAF pilot Flt. Lt. A. Sattar Alvi became the first Pakistani pilot, during the Yom Kippur War; to shoot down an Israeli Mirage in air combat. He was honoured by the Syrian government. Nur Khan, who was the Wing Commander received praised from Israeli President Ezer Weizman who wrote in his autobiography that: “He was a formidable fellow and I was glad that he was Pakistani and not Egyptian”. Pakistan also sent medical ambulances to Egypt and Syria.

After the Israeli attack on Iraq’s under-construction French-built nuclear Osirak-type reactor, Tammuz-I, south of Baghdad on 7 June 1981, Pakistan’s then President President Zia-ul-Haq directed PAF Air Headquarters (AHQ) to make contingency plans for a possible Israeli attack on Kahuta. Kahuta is noted for its nuclear research studies and nuclear development technologies in Kahuta Research Laboratories. On 10 July 1982, a special contingency plan was issued. In the event of an Israeli attack on Pakistan’s strategic installations, plans were drawn up for a retaliatory Pakistani strike on Negev Nuclear Research Centre. The Negev Nuclear Research Centre is an Israeli nuclear installation located in the Negev desert, about thirteen kilometres to the south-east of the city of Dimona.

On political level many statements were given. As chair of the Second Islamic Summit in 1974, then Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto said: “To Jews as Jews we bear no malice; to Jews as Zionists, intoxicated with their militarism and reeking with technological arrogance, we refuse to be hospitable.”

In of his speeches in National Assembly of Pakistan, before Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged in 1979, he said, “Mr. Speaker Sir! This is not Desi (local) conspiracy, it’s an international conspiracy. Let me make it quite clear for the history, whatever the future and fate of this individual will be; that doesn’t matter, but let me tell you again this is not a desi (local) conspiracy, this is not PNA conspiracy, this is massive, huge and colossal international conspiracy against the Islamic State of Pakistan.” (PNA was Pakistan National Alliance against the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party). Nowadays people like to refer this international controversy as Zionist or Israeli Conspiracy.

A controversial book was published in 2003, named Charlie’s Wilson war which conspire about use of Israeli weapons supplied to General Zia ul Haq to fight Soviets in Afghanistan (1979 – 1989). Famous Hollywood movie Charlie’s Wilson War was also released in 2007. After that the back door politics started between Pakistan and Israel.

The President of Pakistan General Zia ul Haq was assassinated in plane crash on 17 August 1988. Among the conspiracy theories; Mossad (Israeli Intelligence Agency) involvement is also believed to exist. In the fall 2005 World Policy Journal, John Gunther Dean, a former US ambassador to India, blamed the Mossad for orchestrating Zia’s assassination in retaliation for Pakistan developing a nuclear weapon to counteract India and Israel.

Ali is my friend living in Middle East. I asked him, can there ever be any friendship or peace between Pakistan and Israel, to which he replied, “Yes there can be, Israel is a small country with a group of people belonging to a group of faith. And also it is in its interest that it should be at peace with every country, and especially those countries that it feels can threaten its existence.”

It is believed that, at the time of Benazir Bhutto’s Government both countries had very strong relationship especially in countering terrorism. In 1993 Benazir Bhutto, along with her then-Director-General of Military Operations, Pervez Musharraf, intensified the ISI’s liaison with Mossad in 1993, and she too began to cultivate the American Jewish lobby. Bhutto is said to have had a secret meeting in New York with a senior Israeli diplomat, who flew to the U.S. during her visit to Washington, D.C. in 1995.

In 1996, Pakistan’s Intelligence Agency, FIA, started a secret war against Extremist in Pakistan under Rehman Malik. According to sources, FIA also contacted Israeli intelligence agency Mossad to help and send its officers to investigate the extremism. Even after these strong ties, controversies never left the scenario. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on 27 December 2007 in one political rally. This was considered to be typical Mossad Assassination style. It is believed that she was the one knowing the reality of 9/11 being inside job and death of Osama Bin Laden, which she also publicly stated in David Frost TV program. That program was edited before telecasting. But Jewish Journals and Media still believed in the opposite way. According to Jewish media, Miss Bhutto asked for Mossad help to protect her on her return to Pakistan as she was afraid she will be killed.

In 1998 Pakistan and Israel were again on the verge of war. On 27 May 1998, day before Pakistan conducted its nuclear test in Chaghi, Southern Province of Balochistan, Pakistan; unidentified F-16 was found hovering around skies on border areas of Pakistan. Pakistan Air Force; taking is as repetition of Israeli Conspiracy similar to 1981, Air Bourne its fighters to foil any attack. But Pakistan and Israeli UN delegation met in UN soon after Pakistan Nuclear tests in 1998 to give assurance that Pakistan will not transfer its technologies to Iran, the arch enemy of Israel.

Musharraf’s nine years of rule was also golden times for both countries. In 2003, General Pervaiz Musharraf said on television interview, “Mainly Muslim Pakistan must seriously take up the issue of recognizing Israel and avoid dealing with it on emotional grounds”. This statement gave birth to local opposition, esp. among Religious Parties in Pakistan. “Jerusalem is not just an Arab issue, it is linked to the faith of every Muslim” said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, chief of Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan, the largest and oldest religious political party. “Presenting Palestine as a sole Arab issue is a heinous conspiracy of the imperialists and colonists aimed at disintegrating the Muslims and shattering the concept of Muslim unity. It is for the same reason the colonist forces are trying to portray every Muslim issue as regional or bilateral” said Qazi.

In 2005 Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri and his Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom met in Istanbul after Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza, Palestine hoping to start peace talks. However, following the meeting Musharraf said, “Pakistan will not recognise the state of Israel until an independent Palestinian state is established”.

An unofficial Pakistan-Israel Peace Forum was created the next day of the meeting. It was created by 3 friends Waleed Ziad (Pakistan), Dror Topf (Israel), and Michael Berenhaus (US), all currently based in Washington, DC. This forum was an unsuccessful attempt to lobby in UN, US, Israel and Pakistani political establishments, hoping that Pakistani might accept Israel as independent legal state.

Pakistan and Israel are also secretly involved in Weapons and Arms Development Race. Close ties between India and Israel, and arms business between them forces Pakistan to keep an eye on Israel’s weapons industry. Like for example; Pakistan Ordinance Factory (POF) developed POF Eye Gun and exhibited in 2008 to counter the Israeli made Cornershot Rifle which is also known as Jews Gun in Arab World.

Shall Pakistan recognise Israel as an independent state to which Yousaf and Ali shared the same answer, “Pakistan should only consider recognizing Israel if it gives an independent state to the Palestinians with Jerusalem at its capital. And completely cut off itself from the internal affairs of that state, only then Pakistan should even start to consider recognizing them.”

I thought why not to ask some of Palestinians who have been living in exile for almost six decades. Abdul-Rahman is originally from Nabulus, West Bank and Qasim is from Gaza. I asked them what role Pakistan can play any role in solving Middle East Crisis, to which Abdul Rahman replied, “May be or may be not. Pakistan has its own problems with India, in Kashmir and in Afghanistan.” And Qasim said, “Pakistan cannot play any role especially with the current government which is only thinking of business but not Islam or Muslims.” Which actually hit me hard but truth is truth. On inquiring the Pakistan’s nuclear threat to Israel, Abdul Rahman said, “Israelis are even scared of stones so obviously Israel want end to Pakistan’s Nuclear technology, the Islamic Bomb.” But Qasim stuck to his same point, “If Pakistani government wants it can use nuclear technology against Israel, not in war or something but also to play politics.” Then in the end I asked, shall Pakistan Recognise Israel as independent country. Both of them came up with different and interesting answers. Abdul Rahman said, “There is should be a procedure of acceptance. Israel should balance the power and control of every city between themselves and Palestinians, then Pakistan can recognize Israel.” Whereas Qasim said, “Pakistan should recognise Israel. Sitting outside and ending any communication will not resolve the Middle East problem. We need to enter the region to solve the problem and if Pakistan wants it can do that by taking first step of recognising Israel.”

It was interesting journey going through all the historic events which Pakistan and Israel share and knowing different ideas and opinions. All these events which I have mentioned above, cannot be confirmed from any credible or authentic source as all this happened back stage, behind the camera. But whatever governments’ relationship may be it is true that people of Pakistan still want to call every conspiracy as Zionist conspiracy and this will keep on going until some peaceful solution is devised to Middle East crisis between Muslim Palestinians and Jewish Israelis.

August 1st is a sad day in history of the ravaged land. August 1st 1967 is the day that Israel annexed East Jerusalem to hers. But we believe in change; we want this day to be a joyous day in the history of the land. We want Gaza to be freed on this day. We go on strike together for Gaza.

Join and Spread the word.

In some circles, “Zionism” has become a dirty word, like some of the other “isms” which have been discarded on the ash heap of bad ideas. In other circles, however, Zionism is held in high esteem, as the redemption of the Jewish people, and as the fulfillment of the promise made by no other than God himself. So which is it?

What is Zionism? There are many definitions depending on your point of view. I prefer to think of Zionism as the political movement which made real the aspirations of the Jewish people to a homeland of their own in the land of their ancestors, the land of Israel. When Jews are asked to justify why they are entitled to establish a nation in the land of Israel, they often use several types of justifications, including: Biblical, historical, and ethical.

If you accept the Old Testament of the Bible as sacred, and many Christians and Muslims do, then you could say that about 3200 years ago Moses led the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, to freedom in the Promised Land, the land of Israel. And who made that promise? None other than God himself. Using the Biblical approach, Jews justify Zionism as the modern day fulfillment of God’s promise to allow them to settle in the land of Israel.

If you prefer the historical approach, you could argue that there has been a significant Jewish presence in the land of Israel for the past 3000 years. In fact, Jews believe that King David build the city of Jerusalem approximately 3000 years ago, and the city of Jerusalem appears some 600 times in the Old Testament. It is true that in the year 70 C.E. the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and most of the Jews were exiled. However, some Jews continued to live there, generation after generation, which lends historical credence to the legitimacy of a Jewish state in the land of Israel.

The ethical justification for Zionism has to do with how the Jews were treated during their exile from the land of Israel. Anyone who is the least bit aware of Jewish history knows that for the past 2000 years, the Jews in the Diaspora, or exile, were subjected to various forms of mistreatment and persecution: forced conversions, inquisitions, pogroms, inability to own land, discrimination, etc. Such persecution culminated in the Holocaust in which 6,000,000 Jews, or about one third of all Jews, were slaughtered.

In the late 1800’s, people like Theodore Herzl, who is the father of the political Zionist movement, decided that without a homeland of their own, Jews were dead men walking. The Holocaust would end up confirming his worst fears. He and others like him organized a political movement to buy up land, in what was then called Palestine, and to work toward the established of a homeland for the Jews. The immigration by Jews to Palestine began in earnest in the late 1800’s and continues to this day.

What hurt the image of Zionism in the eyes of some is that the establishment of the State of Israel caused approximately 700,000 Palestinians to leave their homes as refugees. Most of them left voluntarily, thinking that Israel would soon be destroyed by the seven Arab armies which invaded Israel just as she came into being. Some Palestinians, however, stayed in Israel, and today 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. In a recent poll, some 77% of Israeli Arabs say that they prefer to remain citizens of the State of Israel. It should also be remembered that while 700,000 Palestinians became refugees after the establishment of Israel, 850,000 Jews were also expelled from Arab countries where they had lived for centuries.

Despite all the justifications for Zionism, however, there is a lot of worldwide pressure being exerted on Jews in general, and on Israel in particular, to bring some semblance of justice to Palestinians. In the wake of such criticism, some people consider themselves to be “anti-Zionist.” Being anti-Zionist could mean different things to different people. Some consider Israel to be illegitimate for the start, and call for the eventual dismantlement of the Jewish state. One version of this approach is to call for a “bi-national” state, which would consist of all the Jews and Palestinian Arabs in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and would therefore destroy the Jewish nation of Israel by creating a state in which the Arabs are a majority. Yet others consider themselves “anti-Zionist” because they disapprove of some of the actions taken by the Israeli government in protecting the State of Israel. The occupation of the West Bank, for example, with its checkpoints and security barriers, evoke a deep seated resentment in the hearts of a lot of people.

To counter the rising tide of criticism of the policies of the Jewish state, Zionist organizations such as AIPAC, or the Zionist Organization of America and the like, work hard to defend Israel in the public eye, and to protect the special relationship that exists between Israel and the U.S. The U.S. is one of the few allies that has consistently defended Israel, from the time that President Truman recognized the Jewish state just ten minutes after she was declared, until today.

So when we talk about Zionism, a whole range of emotions come to the fore, including those rooted in religion, in history, and in our notion of what is fair and just. Different people see things differently, and that is only normal. In the final analysis, I believe that there is plenty of justification for the establishment of Israel as a home for the Jews. However, there is also some measure of validity in criticizing Israel for at least some of the injustices that Palestinian Arab refugees have had to endure.

The answer in my view is not to destroy Israel. Destroying Israel would bring to an abrupt end the dream of Palestinians to live in peace, prosperity, and freedom. The answer is to use Israel’s many talents to help bring justice to Palestinians; to create two states, living side by side, in peace, prosperity, and freedom. It could well be argued that there is no other country on earth that is better able, or willing, to bring a good measure of justice to Palestinians, and to have that become the impetus of a global effort to revitalize the Middle East. Of course, Palestinians would have to become open to that. People on both sides would have to let go of some of the hate, in favor of hope. But if a peace agreement is reached, and if justice is done, then the true promise of the Zionist enterprise will have been realized, and only then could Israel fulfill her Biblical destiny to become a “…light unto the nations…” At such time, and with God’s help, Israel will no longer be considered the problem in the Middle East, but the solution for the Middle East.

You are welcome to visit us at www.sellingavisionofhope.org

Its time to take action!
Let’s go on strike. We believe we can make it change and our voice can tremble a world.
Let’s unite a world to set Gaza free. Check Free Gaza day out to see how we can make a change! Let’s make history!
Join and spread the word!

We know you are also sick and tired of oppressions of Zionist regime toward people of Gaza. We know you are ashamed of inhumanities of your state. We know you are true Jewish and condemn Zionism. We’ve seen you many times; we’ve heard you everywhere; we believe in you and we know you’re numerous. You are also involved.

We will set Gaza together free. Our promise, August 1st.
Join and be prepared.

“How many people have to cry
The song of pain and grief across the land
And how many children have to die
Before we stand to lend a healing hand?”
Michael Jackson R.I.P

Everyone is included. Freedom of Gaza is not an issue to Palestinians, Muslims or Middle Easterners; its beyond the religions and regions; it’s an issue of humanity. Doesn’t matter if you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist, Zoroastrian, Confucian, Taoist, Panentheist, Pantheist, Polytheist and any other ist, before being an adherent you were born as human being. Freedom of Gaza is an issue of humanity. You are involved.

We will together set Gaza free on August 1st.
Join and be prepared.

Instead of opening your Gaza border and letting it breathe, you are suffocating it. You are harming your brothers and sisters; harming humanity. History will judge your vicious act on building steel walls in the Gaza border. Your hand is stained with inhuman and unjustified crimes; it’s a black point in your history. Shame on you.

Egyptian people, activists and those who believe in humanity: Protest and stop Egyptian oppressive regime for its crimes against humanity. You must believe in yourself and your abilities; you can make it change.

We all together will free Gaza on August 1st.
Join and spread the word.

We wouldn’t count on any authority this time, we are on own feet and we believe we can make it change. We are concerned about you and we know you had more than enough. We are serious this time because you are a part of our family; human being family. As Sadi Shirazi, famous Persian poet said it 800 years ago, you are in truth our akin. We are with you; you are not alone.

All human beings are in truth akin;
All in creation share one origin.
When fate allots a member pangs and pains,
No ease for other members then remains.
If, unperturbed, another’s grief canst scan,
Thou are not worthy of the name of man.

We will set you free on August 1st.
Join and spread the word.

Who is Israel that makes decisions for 450,000 people? I wonder what its rights are over these human beings. Why it should have permission to ban goods from these people? Who told her that it has legitimacy to do so?

Israel has no damned rights. We should make it understand its place. It can make decisions just for its civilians. They’re not over Gaza civilians. We condemn her arrogance. We all believe it has no rights. We make her sit.

Join and spread the word.

Six days of continuous interrogation, about what? Only about you Sonia. I lost conscious hundreds times, the blood bruised hot out of my head, cold out of my limbs. I saw God and the Messengers, I saw death. Why? It is just for you Sonia. I started to disbelieve you, in God and the Holy Books. Why? What does it matter for them? I will sleep with all the women of the world. I will make my eternal bed of their bodies. I will suck all the taverns to death. Is there any law forbids you to die drunk, to commit suicide on the velvet body of your love, of your wife? No, no law will ever prevent you to open your eyes, to breath free air. No… Future will ever be so gloomy.

We were five students. Absurdity… nonsense; (where do you sleep? What do you eat? Have you tried Buvaille wine?… What is your accumulative average? Why did you got out with the demonstration? … Do you support …? Why do you oppose to..???… I told you million times I will not change my blood. I can’t ! I will not replace my skin. The attorney says: “They have nothing against you … you will get out today … I am sure.” Absurd abracadabra! What an attorney is he? A slave trader? A judge? A vegetable peddler! Vanity! What did you say?? Auh! I will never change my belief.

We were standing in the courtroom like orphans in a slave market. By Jove! I heard the shouting of the vegetable peddlers coming out from very far; sweet melon! fresh cucumber ! Potato … come along … who outbids takes it! Fifteen! Now !! Over !… I didn’t pay attention when the judges asked us: “Do you have some thing to add?” What? Cucumber! Tomato! Oh! It was hard for me to keep balance. I did a great effort to regain my awareness. The judge looked at me strangely, as if at a lunatic mad. His prudent look had a paternal brilliance that forces you to respect him like a reverent saint. Saint? Peddler? Cucumber! The hell!! What shall I say? I will not keep silent. A little murmur went throughout the whole. Kifah tapped my shoulder encouragingly. I stepped two short strides and collected my courage and said in a confident voice that seemed louder than I wanted it to be: ” You sir judge … We all have a full trust and hope in your impartial justice … We ask for nothing but justice.” I felt a strange easiness as if I put a huge burden off my shoulders. I returned besides my colleagues. There were some students who came to support us but Sonia was shining over them all. She looked at me with her charming smile. Oh Sonia! Why did you come here today? I am dying, don’t kill me more. Don’t you see how I became now, a swaying shadow that can’t stand? My eyes filled with horror like a coward criminal. No…

The Judge! He stood up. He looked at us firmly, then looked throughout the whole searching as if he was looking for something. He knocked three harmonious times on the table before him. The whole court got utterly silent, all the eyes stared at him. I forgot myself looking at him foolishly. In his pose he looked like a Greek god casting his judgment over this lost world. He flitted some papers before him then looked straight ahead and started reciting his decision, like a trenchant sword that cut strait as a string of light: ” after consulting the police reports and hearing the attorney proceedings…the court decided that there is no legal reason to continue detaining them … so we order to release them immediately … ” Kifah jumped kissing me even before the judge ended reciting his decision. I felt a sweeping happiness comes over me. I am free! Yes, for the first time in my life I feel so free. My soul flies highly in the sky.

Judge? Peddler? How come? The hell !!! A courtroom? A small room that is called a courtroom, even smaller than the well-equipped interrogation room, all Zionists around save us. The judge, soldiers, jailers, intelligence officers, and even interrogators, all in all in harmonious unity. Nobody at all was allowed to meet us, not even my mother who had waited since early morning, we were left to face the judge; a sullen faced judge, like a nazi killer, who was looking at us loathingly, talking to an intelligence officer who was holding a file beside him, as he smiled a pale smile then frowned as he looked back at us.

“Sir judge, they are guiltless,” said the attorney, “the police have no charges against them… they have to be released.” The judge shocked his head irritated, and flipped the papers before him. The attorney waited but the judge said nothing. He kept flipping the papers, when an officer, intelligence one probably, aided him and handed him a paper from the file. The judge read it attentively and put it in the file again. He looked at us again in his sunken eyes, as if not seeing us really but through the intelligence file, then said: Do you have something to add other than what the attorney said?”, and his sunken eyes blinked to show a cadaverous face, as if he was ill, weak, about to die. “No, nothing,” said Kifah “we ask for nothing.” Then the judge looked at the attorney saying: “But the report of the Shabak says other than what you say; They are dangerous to the public.” And without giving the attorney any chance to talk he added: “ there are secret evidences that they might induce disorder and riot if released.” The attorney tried to interrupt: “but there’s no…” but the judge kept talking: “ they are to be detained administratively for three months to be renewed if needed,” and held the “secret” file and went out.

Free? What a vanity! Did they release us? Did they leave us? Absurd! A choppy sea of killing futility, crushing despair freezing our blood. They drew us hurrily from the court room as if they wanted to smuggling a precious loot: ” It is just three months and will get out soon.” Said a jailor as they drew us out. But we didn’t get out, we were doomed to wait death, slow death. Hope! What meaningless, barren word! The world got utterly dark in our eyes, vanished like a departing fly in the storm. When evening came, we lost everything, the last trace of hope, the last sense of life, everything swayed in the hazy gloom of nothingness; the dumb walls of the cell, the sullen faces, the stubbornly brooding steel door, all in all became black like death. Screaming? Shouting? Shout if you wanted till you split your though, till your eyes get out of your skull.

Silence! Stillness! The silence of the gloomy tombs in the darkest night, we kept silence until it lost its meaning. We drank stillness in our blood till the walls, tombs and the dead bodies screamed. Death, Oh Merciful God, death, death… !!

The end.

Sami, the bedouin

All world saw how oppressive regime of Israel attacked Flotilla ship on the way to Gaza. This event pissed humanity off. Nine died to wake a world up. A world which has been in three years of sleep and closed the eyes to the Gaza people and their sufferings. That’s enough. Three years gone by and no official authority cared about inhumanity occurred and still occurring in Gaza.

It’s enough. Writing Gaza awareness is enough; wanting UN to take an action is enough; UN after 2001 is no longer UN. Now Israel must finishes its blockade and siege of Gaza; Immediately! Once and forever!

I want 1st August 2010 to be the Free Gaza day. We will protest and spread the word together and force Israel to free it, with or without UN and any other absurd authorities. Now join and take action. Let’s make history! We have just 40 days to be prepared for the freedom!

This article, by Jose Maria Aznar, the former prime minister of Spain, was brought to my attention recently. Mr. Aznar presents a view of Israel that is quite at odds with the view of many others around the world. Do you think he has a point, or is he way off base? Is the fate of Europe, and the fate of the Middle East for that matter, linked so directly to the fate of Israel? What do you think?

José María Aznar

Support Israel: if it goes down, we all go down

June 17 2010

Anger over Gaza is a distraction. We cannot forget that Israel is the West’s best ally in a turbulent region

For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion.
In an ideal world, the assault by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara would not have ended up with nine dead and a score wounded. In an ideal world, the soldiers would have been peacefully welcomed on to the ship. In an ideal world, no state, let alone a recent ally of Israel such as Turkey, would have sponsored and organised a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, or risking the wrath of the world.

In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN. Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology.

Second, owing to its roots, history, and values, Israel is a fully fledged Western nation. Indeed, it is a normal Western nation, but one confronted by abnormal circumstances.
Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbours using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathisers, it faces a campaign of delegitimisation through international law and diplomacy.

Sixty-two years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival. Punished with missiles raining from north and south, threatened with destruction by an Iran aiming to acquire nuclear weapons and pressed upon by friend and foe, Israel, it seems, is never to have a moment’s peace.

For years, the focus of Western attention has understandably been on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. But if Israel is in danger today and the whole region is slipping towards a worryingly problematic future, it is not due to the lack of understanding between the parties on how to solve this conflict. The parameters of any prospective peace agreement are clear, however difficult it may seem for the two sides to make the final push for a settlement.

The real threats to regional stability, however, are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israel’s destruction as the fulfilment of its religious destiny and, simultaneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large.

The core of the problem lies in the ambiguous and often erroneous manner in which too many Western countries are now reacting to this situation. It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Middle East. Some even act and talk as if a new understanding with the Muslim world could be achieved if only we were prepared to sacrifice the Jewish state on the altar. This would be folly.

Israel is our first line of defence in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos; a region vital to our energy security owing to our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil; a region that forms the front line in the fight against extremism. If Israel goes down, we all go down. To defend Israel’s right to exist in peace, within secure borders, requires a degree of moral and strategic clarity that too often seems to have disappeared in Europe. The United States shows worrying signs of heading in the same direction.

The West is going through a period of confusion over the shape of the world’s future. To a great extent, this confusion is caused by a kind of masochistic self-doubt over our own identity; by the rule of political correctness; by a multiculturalism that forces us to our knees before others; and by a secularism which, irony of ironies, blinds us even when we are confronted by jihadis promoting the most fanatical incarnation of their faith. To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Motivated by the need to rebuild our own Western values, expressing deep concern about the wave of aggression against Israel, and mindful that Israel’s strength is our strength and Israel’s weakness is our weakness, I have decided to promote a new Friends of Israel initiative with the help of some prominent people, including David Trimble, Andrew Roberts, John Bolton, Alejandro Toledo (the former President of Peru), Marcello Pera (philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate), Fiamma Nirenstein (the Italian author and politician), the financier Robert Agostinelli and the Catholic intellectual George Weigel.

It is not our intention to defend any specific policy or any particular Israeli government. The sponsors of this initiative are certain to disagree at times with decisions taken by Jerusalem. We are democrats, and we believe in diversity.

What binds us, however, is our unyielding support for Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. For Western countries to side with those who question Israel’s legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel’s vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.

Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.

José María Aznar was Prime Minister of Spain, 1996-2004

I didn’t post anything about the attacks on the Flotilla Ships until I see what is happening in the days after the Israeli massacre.

The Flotilla massacre and in my opinion has broke the siege on Gaza. This time, Israel is losing the war on Gaza….big time. It successfully showed the world that it is the “Pirates of the Mediterranean” because Pirates attack ships in International waters, threaten the people on board. Israel newest version was really a huge lie machine this time. They used helicopters, advanced communication jammers, elite Israeli commandos and claimed that the people on the ship; who were were actually defending themselves; attacked them with sticks, Irons (you know the machine that you iron the clothes with!) and Knives. They then confiscated wheel chairs, medical supplies, Cement and claimed there were rockets and Al Qaida on board! Though the ships were sent by Turkey and Greece who are NATO members.

Enough with the facts, but thanks to Israel foolish acts and its massacre of non Palestinians this time, Turkey and all those brave Peace activists from more than 35 countries and from all religions risked their lives to bring the Gaza siege back on the map. A Holocaust survivor was on board. Once again Arab regimes proved their weak shaky positions and were satisfied with condemnations. America kept one eye folded on what many countries are calling for putting pressure on Israel to remove the siege on Gaza. Obama’s administration failed to do so and issued a very light toned condemnation, and the winds of change that was promised by Obama was spilled like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico! The EU and UK suddenly showed compassion and are calling for the end of the siege, don’t know what kept them from pressuring Israel the past 1030 days!

The ships had people who just wanted to help and ease the life in Gaza. They were not governments, because there governments are the reason people are still suffering and dying in Gaza. After the massacre which was live broad casted on UStream and satellite phones, people on Twitter and Facebook started a campaign to fight the Israeli war machines online. #Flotilla and #FreedomFlotilla became trending topics on Twitter. Videos of the attacks are still popular on You Tube. Demonstrations across the world broke up, especially in front of the Israeli embassies.

Israel lost its propaganda this time!

The situation is still not at ease, and Turkey plans to send more ships accompanied with battle ships to break the siege. In two days an Irish ship “Rachel Corrie” (named after an American activist who got killed in Gaza by Israeli soldiers) is scheduled to arrive in Gaza.

All eyes are on lifting the siege on Gaza.

It is time for governments to react, but at the end its the voice of people that is heard and actions prove more than a 1000 condemnation!

Now since Israeli released the activists and Western Media are not showing interests in interviewing them, I will do my best to post their stories here.

FREE GAZA! FREE Palestine and all who are oppressed!

I saw the responses to my earlier article, and even though some of them only tended to focus on the part where I mentioned the occupation of Palestine by Israel, with the exception of a few who actually discussed the main theme of the article. I thought maybe in response, I should use words written by a man who knows more than what most people – especially here – know, has seen more than what many saw, has heard more than what many heard, and has experienced more than what many had experienced when it comes to the history of Zionism and foundation of Israel.

One of your own people.

The Giladis – now U.S. Citizens – live in New York, they no longer hold Israeli citizenship. Naeim Gilani refers to himself as an Iraqi, with Iraqi Arabic culture, Jewish religion and American citizenship.

This is an excerpt from his book: Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah and Mossad Eliminated Jews.

And yes! You will read all this, because I actually spent the time typing “this” down!

Chapter I: The Jews of Iraq

I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book: to tell the American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called “cruel Zionism.” I write about it because I was part of it.

My Story

Of course I thought I knew it all back then. I was young, idealistic, and more than willing to put my life at risk for my convictions. It was 1947 and I wasn’t quite 18 when the Iraqi authorities caught me for smuggling young Iraqi Jews like myself out of Iraq, into Iran, and then on to the Promised Land of the soon-to-be established Israel.

I was an Iraqi Jew in the Zionist underground. My Iraqi jailers did everything they could to extract the names of my co-conspirators. Fifty years later, pain still throbs in my right toe-a reminder of the day my captors used pliers to remove my toenails. On another occasion, they hauled me to the flat roof of the prison, stripped me bare on a frigid January day, then threw a bucket of cold water over me. I was left there, chained to the railing, for hours. But I never once considered giving them the information they wanted. I was a true believer.

My preoccupation during what I refer to as my “two years in hell” was with survival and escape. I had no interest then in the broad sweep of Jewish history in Iraq even though my family had been part of it right from the beginning. We were originally Haroons, a large and important family of the “Babylonian Diaspora.” My ancestors had settled in Iraq more than 2,600 years ago-600 years before Christianity, and 1,200 years before Islam. I am descended from Jews who built the tomb of Yehezkel, a Jewish prophet of pre-biblical times. My town, where I was born in 1929, is Hillah, not far from the ancient site of Babylon.

The original Jews found Babylon, with its nourishing Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to be truly a land of milk, honey, abundance-and opportunity. Although Jews, like other minorities in what became Iraq, experienced periods of oppression and discrimination depending on the rulers of the period, their general trajectory over two and one-half millennia was upward. Under the late Ottoman rule, for example, Jewish social and religious institutions, schools, and medical facilities flourished without outside interference, and Jews were prominent in government and business.

As I sat there in my cell, unaware that a death sentence soon would be handed down against me, I could not have recounted any personal grievances that my family members would have lodged against the government or the Muslim majority. Our family had been treated well and had prospered, first as farmers with some 50,000 acres devoted to rice, dates and Arab horses. Then, with the Ottomans, we bought and purified gold that was shipped to Istanbul and turned into coinage. The Turks were responsible in fact for changing our name to reflect our occupation-we became Khalaschi, meaning “Makers of Pure.”

I did not volunteer the information to my father that I had joined the Zionist underground. He found out several months before I was arrested when he saw me writing Hebrew and using words and expressions unfamiliar to him. He was even more surprised to learn that, yes, I had decided I would soon move to Israel myself. He was scornful. “You’ll come back with your tail between your legs,” he predicted.

About 125,000 Jews left Iraq for Israel in the late 1940s and into 1952, most because they had been lied to and put into a panic by what I came to learn were Zionist bombs. But my mother and father were among the 6,000 who did not go to Israel. Although physically I never did return to Iraq – that bridge had been burned in any event – my heart has made the journey there many, many times. My father had it right.

I was imprisoned at the military camp of Abu-Greib, about 7 miles from Baghdad. When the military court handed down my sentence of death by hanging, I had nothing to lose by attempting the escape I had been planning for many months.

It was a strange recipe for an escape: a dab of butter, an orange peel, and some army clothing that I had asked a friend to buy for me at a flea market. I deliberately ate as much bread as I could to put on fat in anticipation of the day I became 18, when they could formally charge me with a crime and attach the 50-pound ball and chain that was standard prisoner issue.

Later, after my leg had been shackled, I went on a starvation diet that often left me weak-kneed. The pat of butter was to lubricate my leg in preparation for extricating it from the metal band. The orange peel I surreptitiously stuck into the lock on the night of my planned escape, having studied how it could be placed in such a way as to keep the lock from closing.

As the jailers turned to go after locking up, I put on the old army issue that was indistinguishable from what they were wearing-a long, green coat and a stocking cap that I pulled down over much of my face (it was winter). Then I just quietly opened the door and joined the departing group of soldiers as they strode down the hall and outside, and I offered a “good night” to the shift guard as I left. A friend with a car was waiting to speed me away.

Later I made my way to the new state of Israel, arriving in May, 1950. My passport had my name in Arabic and English, but the English couldn’t capture the “kh” sound, so it was rendered simply as Klaski. At the border, the immigration people applied the English version, which had an Eastern European, Ashkenazi ring to it. In one way, this “mistake” was my key to discovering very soon just how the Israeli caste system worked.

They asked me where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I was the son of a farmer; I knew all the problems of the farm, so I volunteered to go to Dafnah, a farming kibbutz in the high Galilee. I only lasted a few weeks. The new immigrants were given the worst of everything. The food was the same, but that was the only thing that everyone had in common. For the immigrants, bad cigarettes, even bad toothpaste. Everything. I left.

Then, through the Jewish Agency, I was advised to go to al-Majdal (later renamed Ashkelon), an Arab town about 9 miles from Gaza, very close to the Mediterranean. The Israeli government planned to turn it into a farmers’ city, so my farm background would be an asset there.

When I reported to the Labor Office in al-Majdal, they saw that I could read and write Arabic and Hebrew and they said that I could find a good-paying job with the Military Governor’s office. The Arabs were under the authority of these Israeli Military Governors. A clerk handed me a bunch of forms in Arabic and Hebrew. Now it dawned on me. Before Israel could establish its farmers’ city, it had to rid al-Majdal of its indigenous Palestinians. The forms were petitions to the United Nations Inspectors asking for transfer out of Israel to Gaza, which was under Egyptian control.

I read over the petition. In signing, the Palestinian would be saying that he was of sound mind and body and was making the request for transfer free of pressure or duress. Of course, there was no way that they would leave without being pressured to do so. These families had been there hundreds of years, as farmers, primitive artisans, weavers. The Military Governor prohibited them from pursuing their livelihoods, just penned them up until they lost hope of resuming their normal lives. That’s when they signed to leave.

I was there and heard their grief. “Our hearts are in pain when we look at the orange trees that we planted with our own hands. Please let us go, let us give water to those trees. God will not be pleased with us if we leave His trees untended.” I asked the Military Governor to give them relief, but he said, “No, we want them to leave.”

I could no longer be part of this oppression and I left. Those Palestinians who didn’t sign up for transfers were taken by force-just put in trucks and dumped in Gaza. About four thousand people were driven from al-Majdal in one way or another. The few who remained were collaborators with the Israeli authorities.

Subsequently, I wrote letters trying to get a government job elsewhere and I got many immediate responses asking me to come for an interview. Then they would discover that my face didn’t match my Polish/Ashkenazi name. They would ask if I spoke Yiddish or Polish, and when I said I didn’t, they would ask where I came by a Polish name. Desperate for a good job, I would usually say that I thought my great-grandfather was from Poland. I was advised time and again that “we’ll give you a call.”

Eventually, three to four years after coming to Israel, I changed my name to Giladi, which is close to the code name, Gilad, that I had in the Zionist underground. Klaski wasn’t doing me any good anyway, and my Eastern friends were always chiding me about the name they knew didn’t go with my origins as an Iraqi Jew.

I was disillusioned at what I found in the Promised Land, disillusioned personally, disillusioned at the institutionalized racism, disillusioned at what I was beginning to learn about Zionism’s cruelties. The principal interest Israel had in Jews from Islamic countries was as a supply of cheap labor, especially for the farm work that was beneath the urbanized Eastern European Jews. Ben Gurion needed the “Oriental” Jews to farm the thousands of acres of land left by Palestinians who were driven out by Israeli forces in 1948.

And I began to find out about the barbaric methods used to rid the fledgling state of as many Palestinians as possible. The world recoils today at the thought of bacteriological warfare, but Israel was probably the first to actually use it in the Middle East. In the 1948 war, Jewish forces would empty Arab villages of their populations, often by threats, sometimes by just gunning down a half-dozen unarmed Arabs as examples to the rest. To make sure the Arabs couldn’t return to make a fresh life for themselves in these villages, the Israelis put typhus and dysentery bacteria into the water wells.

Uri Mileshtin, an official historian for the Israeli Defense Force, has written and spoken about the use of bacteriological agents. According to Mileshtin, Moshe Dayan, a division commander at the time, gave orders in 1948 to remove Arabs from their villages, bulldoze their homes, and render water wells unusable with typhus and dysentery bacteria.

Acre was so situated that it could practically defend itself with one big gun, so the Haganah put bacteria into the spring that fed the town. The spring was called Capri and it ran from the north near a kibbutz. The Haganah put typhus bacteria into the water going to Acre, the people got sick, and the Jewish forces occupied Acre. This worked so well that they sent a Haganah division dressed as Arabs into Gaza, where there were Egyptian forces, and the Egyptians caught them putting two cans of bacteria, typhus and dysentery, into the water supply in wanton disregard of the civilian population. “In war, there is no sentiment,” one of the captured Haganah men was quoted as saying.

My activism in Israel began shortly after I received a letter from the Socialist/Zionist Party asking me to help with their Arabic newspaper. When I showed up at their offices at Central House in Tel Aviv, I asked around to see just where I should report. I showed the letter to a couple of people there and, without even looking at it, they would motion me away with the words, “Room No. 8.” When I saw that they weren’t even reading the letter, I inquired of several others. But the response was the same, “Room No. 8,” with not a glance at the paper I put in front of them.

So I went to Room 8 and saw that it was the Department of Jews from Islamic Countries. I was disgusted and angry. Either I am a member of the party or I’m not. Do I have a different ideology or different politics because I am an Arab Jew? It’s segregation, I thought, just like a Negroes’ Department. I turned around and walked out. That was the start of my open protests. That same year I organized a demonstration in Ashkelon against Ben Gurion’s racist policies and 10,000 people turned out.

There wasn’t much opportunity for those of us who were second class citizens to do much about it when Israel was on a war footing with outside enemies. After the 1967 war, I was in the Army myself and served in the Sinai when there was continued fighting along the Suez Canal. But the cease-fire with Egypt in 1970 gave us our opening. We took to the streets and organized politically to demand equal rights. If it’s our country, if we were expected to risk our lives in a border war, then we expected equal treatment.

We mounted the struggle so tenaciously and received so much publicity that the Israeli government tried to discredit our movement by calling us “Israel’s Black Panthers.” They were thinking in racist terms, really, in assuming the Israeli public would reject an organization whose ideology was being compared to that of radical blacks in the United States. But we saw that what we were doing was no different than what blacks in the United States were fighting against-segregation, discrimination, unequal treatment. Rather than reject the label, we adopted it proudly. I had posters of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and other civil rights activists plastered all over my office.

With the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Israeli-condoned Sabra and Shatilla massacres, I had had enough of Israel. I became a United States citizen and made certain to revoke my Israeli citizenship. I could never have written and published my book in Israel, not with the censorship they would impose.

Even in America, I had great difficulty finding a publisher because many are subject to pressures of one kind or another from Israel and its friends. I ended up paying $60,000 from my own pocket to publish Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews, virtually the entire proceeds from having sold my house in Israel.

I still was afraid that the printer would back out or that legal proceedings would be initiated to stop its publication, like the Israeli government did in an attempt to prevent former Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky from publishing his first book. Ben Gurion’s Scandals had to be translated into English from two languages. I wrote in Hebrew when I was in Israel and hoped to publish the book there, and I wrote in Arabic when I was completing the book after coming to the U.S. But I was so worried that something would stop publication that I told the printer not to wait for the translations to be thoroughly checked and proofread. Now I realize that the publicity of a lawsuit would just have created a controversial interest in the book.

I am using bank vault storage for the valuable documents that back up what I have written. These documents, including some that I illegally copied from the archives at Yad Vashem, confirm what I saw myself, what I was told by other witnesses, and what reputable historians and others have written concerning the Zionist bombings in Iraq, Arab peace overtures that were rebuffed, and incidents of violence and death inflicted by Jews on Jews in the cause of creating Israel.

The Riots of 1941

If, as I have said, my family in Iraq was not persecuted personally and I knew no deprivation as a member of the Jewish minority, what led me to the steps of the gallows as a member of the Zionist underground? To answer that question, it is necessary to establish the context of the massacre that occurred in Baghdad on June 1, 1941, when several hundred Iraqi Jews were killed in riots involving junior officers of the Iraqi army. I was 12 years of age and many of those killed were my friends. I was angry, and very confused.

What I didn’t know at the time was that the riots most likely were stirred up by the British, in collusion with a pro-British Iraqi leadership.

With the breakup of the Ottoman Empire following WW I, Iraq came under British “tutelage.” Amir Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein who had led the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman sultan, was brought in from Mecca by the British to become King of Iraq in 1921. Many Jews were appointed to key administrative posts, including that of economics minister. Britain retained final authority over domestic and external affairs. Britain’s pro-Zionist attitude in Palestine, however, triggered a growing anti-Zionist backlash in Iraq, as it did in all Arab countries. Writing at the end of 1934, Sir Francis Humphreys, Britain’s Ambassador in Baghdad, noted that, while before WW I Iraqi Jews had enjoyed a more favorable position than any other minority in the country, since then “Zionism has sown dissension between Jews and Arabs, and a bitterness has grown up between the two peoples which did not previously exist.”

King Faisal died in 1933. He was succeeded by his son Ghazi, who died in a motor car accident in 1939. The crown then passed to Ghazi’s 4-year-old son, Faisal II, whose uncle, Abd al-Ilah, was named regent. Abd al-Ilah selected Nouri el-Said as prime minister. El-Said supported the British and, as hatred of the British grew, he was forced from office in March 1940 by four senior army officers who advocated Iraq’s independence from Britain. Calling themselves the Golden Square, the officers compelled the regent to name as prime minister Rashid Ali al-Kilani, leader of the National Brotherhood party.

The time was 1940 and Britain was reeling from a strong German offensive. Al-Kilani and the Golden Square saw this as their opportunity to rid themselves of the British once and for all. Cautiously they began to negotiate for German support, which led the pro-British regent Abd al-Ilah to dismiss al-Kilani in January 1941. By April, however, the Golden Square officers had reinstated the prime minister.

This provoked the British to send a military force into Basra on April 12, 1941. Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, had a Jewish population of 30,000. Most of these Jews made their livings from import/export, money changing, retailing, as workers in the airports, railways, and ports, or as senior government employees.

On the same day, April 12, supporters of the pro-British regent notified the Jewish leaders that the regent wanted to meet with them. As was their custom, the leaders brought flowers for the regent. Contrary to custom, however, the cars that drove them to the meeting place dropped them off at the site where the British soldiers were concentrated.

Photographs of the Jews appeared in the following day’s newspapers with the banner “Basra Jews Receive British Troops with Flowers.” That same day, April 13, groups of angry Arab youths set about to take revenge against the Jews. Several Muslim notables in Basra heard of the plan and calmed things down. Later, it was learned that the regent was not in Basra at all and that the matter was a provocation by his pro-British supporters to bring about an ethnic war in order to give the British army a pretext to intervene.

The British continued to land more forces in and around Basra. On May 7, 1941, their Gurkha unit, composed of Indian soldiers from that ethnic group, occupied Basra’s el-Oshar quarter, a neighborhood with a large Jewish population. The soldiers, led by British officers, began looting. Many shops in the commercial district were plundered. Private homes were broken into. Cases of attempted rape were reported. Local residents, Jews and Muslims, responded with pistols and old rifles, but their bullets were no match for the soldiers’ Tommy Guns.

Afterwards, it was learned that the soldiers acted with the acquiescence, if not the blessing, of their British commanders. (It should be remembered that the Indian soldiers, especially those of the Gurkha unit, were known for their discipline, and it is highly unlikely they would have acted so riotously without orders.) The British goal clearly was to create chaos and to blacken the image of the pro-nationalist regime in Baghdad, thereby giving the British forces reason to proceed to the capital and to overthrow the al-Kilani government.

Baghdad fell on May 30. Al-Kilani fled to Iran, along with the Golden Square officers. Radio stations run by the British reported that Regent Abd al-Ilah would be returning to the city and that thousands of Jews and others were planning to welcome him. What inflamed young Iraqis against the Jews most, however, was the radio announcer Yunas Bahri on the German station “Berlin,” who reported in Arabic that Jews from Palestine were fighting alongside the British against Iraqi soldiers near the city of Faluja. The report was false.

On Sunday, June 1, unarmed fighting broke out in Baghdad between Jews who were still celebrating their Shabuoth holiday and young Iraqis who thought the Jews were celebrating the return of the pro-British regent. That evening, a group of Iraqis stopped a bus, removed the Jewish passengers, murdered one and fatally wounded a second.

About 8:30 the following morning, some 30 individuals in military and police uniforms opened fire along el-Amin street, a small downtown street whose jewelry, tailor and grocery shops were Jewish-owned. By 11 a.m., mobs of Iraqis with knives, switchblades and clubs were attacking Jewish homes in the area.

The riots continued throughout Monday, June 2. During this time, many Muslims rose to defend their Jewish neighbors, while some Jews successfully defended themselves. There were 124 killed and 400 injured, according to a report written by a Jewish Agency messenger who was in Iraq at the time. Other estimates, possibly less reliable, put the death toll higher, as many as 500, with from 650 to 2,000 injured. From 500 to 1,300 stores and more than 1,000 homes and apartments were looted.

Who was behind the rioting in the Jewish quarter?

Yosef Meir, one of the most prominent activists in the Zionist underground movement in Iraq, known then as Yehoshafat, claims it was the British. Meir, who now works for the Israeli Defense Ministry, argues that, in order to make it appear that the regent was returning as the savior who would reestablish law and order, the British stirred up the riots against the most vulnerable and visible segment in the city, the Jews. And, not surprisingly, the riots ended as soon as the regent’s loyal soldiers entered the capital.
My own investigations as a journalist lead me to believe Meir is correct. Furthermore, I think his claims should be seen as based on documents in the archives of the Israeli Defense Ministry, the agency that published his book. Yet, even before his book came out, I had independent confirmation from a man I met in Iran in the late Forties.

His name was Michael Timosian, an Iraqi Armenian. When I met him he was working as a male nurse at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Abadan in the south of Iran. On June 2, 1941, however, he was working at the Baghdad hospital where many of the riot victims were brought. Most of these victims were Jews.

Timosian said he was particularly interested in two patients whose conduct did not follow local custom. One had been hit by a bullet in his shoulder, the other by a bullet in his right knee. After the doctor removed the bullets, the staff tried to change their blood-soaked cloths. But the two men fought off their efforts, pretending to be speechless, although tests showed they could hear. To pacify them, the doctor injected them with anesthetics and, as they were sleeping, Timosian changed their cloths. He discovered that one of them had around his neck an identification tag of the type used by British troops, while the other had tattoos with Indian script on his right arm along with the familiar sword of the Gurkha.

The next day when Timosian showed up for work, he was told that a British officer, his sergeant and two Indian Gurkha soldiers had come to the hospital early that morning. Staff members overheard the Gurkha soldiers talking with the wounded patients, who were not as dumb as they had pretended. The patients saluted the visitors, covered themselves with sheets and, without signing the required release forms, left the hospital with their visitors.

Today there is no doubt in my mind that the anti-Jewish riots of 1941 were orchestrated by the British for geopolitical ends. David Kimche is certainly a man who was in a position to know the truth, and he has spoken publicly about British culpability. Kimche had been with British Intelligence during WW II and with the Mossad after the war. Later he became Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the position he held in 1982 when he addressed a forum at the British Institute for International Affairs in London.

In responding to hostile questions about Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the refugee camp massacres in Beirut, Kimche went on the attack, reminding the audience that there was scant concern in the British Foreign Office when British Gurkha units participated in the murder of 500 Jews in the streets of Baghdad in 1941.

The Bombings of 1950-1951

The anti-Jewish riots of 1941 did more than create a pretext for the British to enter Baghdad to reinstate the pro-British regent and his pro-British prime minister, Nouri el-Said. They also gave the Zionists in Palestine a pretext to set up a Zionist underground in Iraq, first in Baghdad, then in other cities such as Basra, Amara, Hillah, Diwaneia, Abril and Karkouk.

Following WW II, a succession of governments held brief power in Iraq. Zionist conquests in Palestine, particularly the massacre of Palestinians in the village of Deir Yassin, emboldened the anti-British movement in Iraq. When the Iraqi government signed a new treaty of friendship with London in January 1948, riots broke out all over the country. The treaty was quickly abandoned and Baghdad demanded removal of the British military mission that had run Iraq’s army for 27 years.

Later in 1948, Baghdad sent an army detachment to Palestine to fight the Zionists, and when Israel declared independence in May, Iraq closed the pipeline that fed its oil to Haifa’s refinery. Abd al-Ilah, however, was still regent and the British quisling, Nouri el-Said, was back as prime minister. I was in the Abu-Greib prison in 1948, where I would remain until my escape to Iran in September 1949.

Six months later-the exact date was March 19, 1950-a bomb went off at the American Cultural Center and Library in Baghdad, causing property damage and injuring a number of people. The center was a favorite meeting place for young Jews.

The first bomb thrown directly at Jews occurred on April 8, 1950, at 9:15 p.m. A car with three young passengers hurled the grenade at Baghdad’s El-Dar El-Bida Café, where Jews were celebrating Passover. Four people were seriously injured. That night leaflets were distributed calling on Jews to leave Iraq immediately.

The next day, many Jews, most of them poor with nothing to lose, jammed emigration offices to renounce their citizenship and to apply for permission to leave for Israel. So many applied, in fact, that the police had to open registration offices in Jewish schools and synagogues.

On May 10, at 3 a.m., a grenade was tossed in the direction of the display window of the Jewish-owned Beit-Lawi Automobile Company, destroying part of the building. No casualties were reported.

On June 3, 1950, another grenade was tossed from a speeding car in the El-Batawin area of Baghdad where most rich Jews and middle class Iraqis lived. No one was hurt, but following the explosion Zionist activists sent telegrams to Israel requesting that the quota for immigration from Iraq be increased.

On June 5, at 2:30 a.m., a bomb exploded next to the Jewish-owned Stanley Shashua building on El-Rashid street, resulting in property damage but no casualties.

On January 14, 1951, at 7 p.m., a grenade was thrown at a group of Jews outside the Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue. The explosive struck a high-voltage cable, electrocuting three Jews, one a young boy, Itzhak Elmacher, and wounding over 30 others. Following the attack, the exodus of Jews jumped to between 600-700 per day.

Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country. The terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews.

Among the most important documents in my book, I believe, are copies of two leaflets published by the Zionist underground calling on Jews to leave Iraq. One is dated March 16, 1950, the other April 8, 1950.

The difference between these two is critical. Both indicate the date of publication, but only the April 8th leaflet notes the time of day: 4 p.m. Why the time of day? Such a specification was unprecedented. Even the investigating judge, Salaman El-Beit, found it suspicious. Did the 4 p.m. writers want an alibi for a bombing they knew would occur five hours later? If so, how did they know about the bombing? The judge concluded they knew because a connection existed between the Zionist underground and the bomb throwers.

This, too, was the conclusion of Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whom I had the opportunity to meet in New York in 1988. In his book, Ropes of Sand, whose publication the CIA opposed, Eveland writes:

In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel… Although the Iraqi police later provided our embassy with evidence to show that the synagogue and library bombings, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaigns, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had “rescued” really just in order to increase Israel’s Jewish population.”

Eveland doesn’t detail the evidence linking the Zionists to the attacks, but in my book I do. In 1955, for example, I organized in Israel a panel of Jewish attorneys of Iraqi origin to handle claims of Iraqi Jews who still had property in Iraq. One well known attorney, who asked that I not give his name, confided in me that the laboratory tests in Iraq had confirmed that the anti-American leaflets found at the American Cultural Center bombing were typed on the same typewriter and duplicated on the same stenciling machine as the leaflets distributed by the Zionist movement just before the April 8th bombing.

Tests also showed that the type of explosive used in the Beit-Lawi attack matched traces of explosives found in the suitcase of an Iraqi Jew by the name of Yosef Basri. Basri, a lawyer, together with Shalom Salih, a shoemaker, would be put on trial for the attacks in December 1951 and executed the following month. Both men were members of Hashura, the military arm of the Zionist underground. Salih ultimately confessed that he, Basri and a third man, Yosef Habaza, carried out the attacks.

By the time of the executions in January 1952, all but 6,000 of an estimated 125,000 Iraqi Jews had fled to Israel. Moreover, the pro-British, pro-Zionist puppet el-Said saw to it that all of their possessions were frozen, including their cash assets. (There were ways of getting Iraqi dinars out, but when the immigrants went to exchange them in Israel they found that the Israeli government kept 50 percent of the value.) Even those Iraqi Jews who had not registered to emigrate, but who happened to be abroad, faced loss of their nationality if they didn’t return within a specified time. An ancient, cultured, prosperous community had been uprooted and its people transplanted to a land dominated by East European Jews, whose culture was not only foreign but entirely hateful to them.

The Ultimate Criminals

Zionist Leaders.

From the start they knew that in order to establish a Jewish state they had to expel the indigenous Palestinian population to the neighboring Islamic states and import Jews from these same states.

- Theodor Herzl, the architect of Zionism, thought it could be done by social engineering. In his diary entry for 12 June 1885, he wrote that Zionist settlers would have to “spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.”

- Vladimir Jabotinsky, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ideological progenitor, frankly admitted that such a transfer of populations could only be brought about by force.

- David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, told a Zionist Conference in 1937 that any proposed Jewish state would have to “transfer Arab populations out of the area, if possible of their own free will, if not by coercion.” After 750,000 Palestinians were uprooted and their lands confiscated in 1948-49, Ben Gurion had to look to the Islamic countries for Jews who could fill the resultant cheap labor market. “Emissaries” were smuggled into these countries to “convince” Jews to leave either by trickery or fear.

In the case of Iraq, both methods were used: uneducated Jews were told of a Messianic Israel in which the blind see, the lame walk, and onions grow as big as melons; educated Jews had bombs thrown at them.

A few years after the bombings, in the early 1950s, a book was published in Iraq, in Arabic, titled Venom of the Zionist Viper. The author was one of the Iraqi investigators of the 1950-51 bombings and, in his book, he implicates the Israelis, specifically one of the emissaries sent by Israel, Mordechai Ben-Porat. As soon as the book came out, all copies just disappeared, even from libraries. The word was that agents of the Israeli Mossad, working through the U.S. Embassy, bought up all the books and destroyed them. I tried on three different occasions to have one sent to me in Israel, but each time Israeli censors in the post office intercepted it.

British Leaders.

Britain always acted in its best colonial interests. For that reason Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour sent his famous 1917 letter to Lord Rothschild in exchange for Zionist support in WW I. During WW II the British were primarily concerned with keeping their client states in the Western camp, while Zionists were most concerned with the immigration of European Jews to Palestine, even if this meant cooperating with the Nazis. (In my book I document numerous instances of such dealings by Ben Gurion and the Zionist leadership.)

After WW II the international chessboard pitted communists against capitalists. In many countries, including the United States and Iraq, Jews represented a large part of the Communist party. In Iraq, hundreds of Jews of the working intelligentsia occupied key positions in the hierarchy of the Communist and Socialist parties. To keep their client countries in the capitalist camp, Britain had to make sure these governments had pro-British leaders. And if, as in Iraq, these leaders were overthrown, then an anti-Jewish riot or two could prove a useful pretext to invade the capital and reinstate the “right” leaders.

Moreover, if the possibility existed of removing the communist influence from Iraq by transferring the whole Jewish community to Israel, well then, why not? Particularly if the leaders of Israel and Iraq conspired in the deed.

Iraqi Leaders.

Both the regent Abd al-Ilah and his prime minister Nouri el-Said took directions from London. Toward the end of 1948, el-Said, who had already met with Israel’s Prime Minister Ben Gurion in Vienna, began discussing with his Iraqi and British associates the need for an exchange of populations. Iraq would send the Jews in military trucks to Israel via Jordan, and Iraq would take in some of the Palestinians Israel had been evicting. His proposal included mutual confiscation of property. London nixed the idea as too radical.

El-Said then went to his back-up plan and began to create the conditions that would make the lives of Iraqi Jews so miserable they would leave for Israel. Jewish government employees were fired from their jobs; Jewish merchants were denied import/export licenses; police began to arrest Jews for trivial reasons. Still the Jews did not leave in any great numbers.

In September 1949, Israel sent the spy Mordechai Ben-Porat, the one mentioned in Venom of the Zionist Viper, to Iraq. One of the first things Ben-Porat did was to approach el-Said and promise him financial incentives to have a law enacted that would lift the citizenship of Iraqi Jews.

Soon after, Zionist and Iraqi representatives began formulating a rough draft of the bill, according to the model dictated by Israel through its agents in Baghdad. The bill was passed by the Iraqi parliament in March 1950. It empowered the government to issue one-time exit visas to Jews wishing to leave the country. In March, the bombings began.

Sixteen years later, the Israeli magazine Haolam Hazeh, published by Uri Avnery, then a Knesset member, accused Ben-Porat of the Baghdad bombings. Ben-Porat, who would become a Knesset member himself, denied the charge, but never sued the magazine for libel. And Iraqi Jews in Israel still call him Morad Abu al-Knabel, Mordechai of the Bombs.

As I said, all this went well beyond the comprehension of a teenager. I knew Jews were being killed and an organization existed that could lead us to the Promised Land. So I helped in the exodus to Israel. Later, on occasions, I would bump into some of these Iraqi Jews in Israel. Not infrequently they’d express the sentiment that they could kill me for what I had done.

Opportunities for Peace

After the Israeli attack on the Jordanian village of Qibya in October, 1953, Ben Gurion went into voluntary exile at the Sedeh Boker kibbutz in the Negev. The Labor party then used to organize many buses for people to go visit him there, where they would see the former prime minister working with sheep. But that was only for show. Really he was writing his diary and continuing to be active behind the scenes. I went on such a tour.

We were told not to try to speak to Ben Gurion, but when I saw him, I asked why, since Israel is a democracy with a parliament, does it not have a constitution? Ben Gurion said, “Look, boy”-I was 24 at the time-”if we have a constitution, we have to write in it the border of our country. And this is not our border, my dear.” I asked, “Then where is the border?” He said, “Wherever the Sahal will come, this is the border.” Sahal is the Israeli army.

Ben Gurion told the world that Israel accepted the partition and the Arabs rejected it. Then Israel took half of the land that was promised to the Arab state. And still he was saying it was not enough. Israel needed more land. How can a country make peace with its neighbors if it wants to take their land? How can a country demand to be secure if it won’t say what borders it will be satisfied with? For such a country, peace would be an inconvenience.

I know now that from the beginning many Arab leaders wanted to make peace with Israel, but Israel always refused. Ben Gurion covered this up with propaganda. He said that the Arabs wanted to drive Israel into the sea and he called Gamal Abdel Nasser the Hitler of the Middle East whose foremost intent was to destroy Israel. He wanted America and Great Britain to treat Nasser like a pariah.

In 1954, it seemed that America was getting less critical of Nasser. Then during a three-week period in July, several terrorist bombs were set off: at the United States Information Agency offices in Cairo and Alexandria, a British-owned theater, and the central post office in Cairo. An attempt to firebomb a cinema in Alexandria failed when the bomb went off in the pocket of one of the perpetrators. That led to the discovery that the terrorists were not anti-Western Egyptians, but were instead Israeli spies bent on souring the warming relationship between Egypt and the United States in what came to be known as the Lavon Affair.

Ben Gurion was still living on his kibbutz. Moshe Sharett as prime minister was in contact with Abdel Nasser through the offices of Lord Maurice Orbach of Great Britain. Sharett asked Nasser to be lenient with the captured spies, and Nasser did all that was in his power to prevent a deterioration of the situation between the two countries.

Then Ben Gurion returned as Defense Minister in February, 1955. Later that month Israeli troops attacked Egyptian military camps and Palestinian refugees in Gaza, killing 54 and injuring many more. The very night of the attack, Lord Orbach was on his way to deliver a message to Nasser, but was unable to get through because of the military action. When Orbach telephoned, Nasser’s secretary told him that the attack proved that Israel did not want peace and that he was wasting his time as a mediator.

In November, Ben Gurion announced in the Knesset that he was willing to meet with Abdel Nasser anywhere and at any time for the sake of peace and understanding. The next morning the Israeli military attacked an Egyptian military camp in the Sabaha region.

Although Nasser felt pessimistic about achieving peace with Israel, he continued to send other mediators to try. One was through the American Friends Service Committee; another via the Prime Minister of Malta, Dom Minthoff; and still another through Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia.

One that looked particularly promising was through Dennis Hamilton, editor of The London Times. Nasser told Hamilton that if only he could sit and talk with Ben Gurion for two or three hours, they would be able to settle the conflict and end the state of war between the two countries. When word of this reached Ben Gurion, he arranged to meet with Hamilton. They decided to pursue the matter with the Israeli ambassador in London, Arthur Luria, as liaison. On Hamilton’s third trip to Egypt, Nasser met him with the text of a Ben Gurion speech stating that Israel would not give up an inch of land and would not take back a single refugee. Hamilton knew that Ben Gurion with his mouth had undermined a peace mission and missed an opportunity to settle the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Nasser even sent his friend Ibrahim Izat of the Ruz El Yusuf weekly paper to meet with Israeli leaders in order to explore the political atmosphere and find out why the attacks were taking place if Israel really wanted peace. One of the men Izat met with was Yigal Yadin, a former Chief of Staff of the army who wrote this letter to me on 14 January 1982:

Dear Mr. Giladi:

Your letter reminded me of an event which I nearly forgot and of which I remember only a few details.

Ibrahim Izat came to me if I am not mistaken under the request of the Foreign Ministry or one of its branches; he stayed in my house and we spoke for many hours. I do not remember him saying that he came on a mission from Nasser, but I have no doubt that he let it be understood that this was with his knowledge or acquiescence…

When Nasser decided to nationalize the Suez Canal in spite of opposition from the British and the French, Radio Cairo announced in Hebrew:

If the Israeli government is not influenced by the British and the French imperialists, it will eventually result in greater understanding between the two states, and Egypt will reconsider Israel’s request to have access to the Suez Canal.

Israel responded that it had no designs on Egypt, but at that very moment Israeli representatives were in France planning the three-way attack that was to take place in October, 1956.

All the while, Ben Gurion continued to talk about the Hitler of the Middle East. This brainwashing went on until late September, 1970, when Gamal Abdel Nasser passed away. Then, miracle of miracles, David Ben Gurion told the press:

A week before he died I received an envoy from Abdel Nasser who asked to meet with me urgently in order to solve the problems between Israel and the Arab world.

The public was surprised because they didn’t know that Abdel Nasser had wanted this all along, but Israel sabotaged it.

Nasser was not the only Arab leader who wanted to make peace with Israel. There were many others. Brigadier General Abdel Karim Qasem, before he seized power in Iraq in July, 1958, headed an underground organization that sent a delegation to Israel to make a secret agreement. Ben Gurion refused even to see him. I learned about this when I was a journalist in Israel. But whenever I tried to publish even a small part of it, the censor would stamp it “Not Allowed.”

Now, in Netanyahu, we are witnessing another attempt by an Israeli prime minister to fake an interest in making peace. Netanyahu and the Likud are setting Arafat up by demanding that he institute more and more repressive measures in the interest of Israeli “security.” Sooner or later I suspect the Palestinians will have had enough of Arafat’s strong-arm methods as Israel’s quisling-and he’ll be killed. Then the Israeli government will say, “See, we were ready to give him everything. You can’t trust those Arabs-they kill each other. Now there’s no one to even talk to about peace.”

Conclusion

Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that it is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth. Certainly it has been easier for the world to accept the Zionist lie that Jews were evicted from Muslim lands because of anti-Semitism, and that Israelis, never the Arabs, were the pursuers of peace. The truth is far more discerning: bigger players on the world stage were pulling the strings.

These players, I believe, should be held accountable for their crimes, particularly when they willfully terrorized, dispossessed and killed innocent people on the altar of some ideological imperative.

I believe, too, that the descendants of these leaders have a moral responsibility to compensate the victims and their descendants, and to do so not just with reparations, but by setting the historical record straight.
That is why I established a panel of inquiry in Israel to seek reparations for Iraqi Jews who had been forced to leave behind their property and possessions in Iraq. That is why I joined the Black Panthers in confronting the Israeli government with the grievances of the Jews in Israel who came from Islamic lands. And that is why I have written my book and this article: to set the historical record straight.

We Jews from Islamic lands did not leave our ancestral homes because of any natural enmity between Jews and Muslims. And we Arabs – I say Arab because that is the language my wife and I still speak at home – we Arabs on numerous occasions have sought peace with the State of the Jews. And finally, as a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, let me say that we Americans need to stop supporting racial discrimination in Israel and the cruel expropriation of lands in the West Bank, Gaza, South Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

For Chapter II and the rest of the book, you can find it here

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” – Albert Einstein.

A man of knowledge and wisdom I must say, and that statement can’t help but make me wonder, will World War III be coming to our doorstep soon?

Tension is on the rise in the Middle East, centering around Palestine and it’s occupation by Israel.

Syria & Hezbullah vs. Israel:

Israel has it’s eyes set out for possible future aggression against it, by what would be labelled as the “New Axis Powers”; Hezbullah, Syria and Iran. With Syria supplying Lebanon-based Hezbullah with advanced Russian-made 9K38 Igla-S anti-aircraft missiles, arms supply to Hezbullah was marked previously by Israeli officials as a ‘red line’ being crossed by the Syrian Government. Also statements on the internet made by Hezbullah, hinting they might attack Israel soon, coming after an unprecedented trilateral summit/dinner meeting on February 26 in Damascus between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hezbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

Turkey vs. Israel:

Anonymous military sources revealed that Turkey has placed a series of anti-aircraft batteries against Hawk planes in a village near the Turkey-Syria border, with the purpose of protecting and defending Turkish airspace against all aerial incursions in addition to repulsing American and Israeli penetrations in the event that they should launch attacks against Syria or Iran. And with the recent events that happened in the Mediterranean sea, and the deaths of Turkish citizens and peace activists by Israeli Commando forces that had raided the Gaza-aid ship ‘Mavi Marmara’, relations between Turkey and Israel have deteriorated to a point of almost no return. Statements made by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – who is accused by opposition parties of having a secret Islamist agenda – that future aid ships to Gaza would be sent in an attempt to break the siege on Gaza, and that they would be escorted by Turkish naval warships, given it happens, this would have unpredictable consequences as per the relations between Turkey and Israel, and strengthen the relations between Turkey, Syria and Iran. Moreover, the decision by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to refuse an international commission investigation into the flotilla attack – a Turkish condition for normalising relations – as well as issue an formal apology will lead to a further escalation in diplomatic hostilities.

Iran vs. The U.S. & Israel:

Iran, and it’s nuclear stand off with the West. Iran’s refusal to accept the terms of the nuclear exchange deal proposed by the U.N. and it’s choice to already start enriching it’s uranium. Leading to the West resorting to impose sanctions on Iran through the U.N. albeit Iran’s constant statements of it’s nuclear program being peaceful and does not aim to produce war heads and the fact that the only Head of State who had actually showed up in person to talks of Nuclear Disarmament and the review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And now Turkey is stepping in, in an attempt to break the deadlock between Iran and the West, and ease off the sanctions imposed by the United States. Iran agreed to ship most of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in a nuclear fuel swap deal, the main difference from the U.N.-drafted version is that if Iran does not receive the fuel rods within a year, Turkey will be required to “quickly and unconditionally” return the uranium to Iran. However, what repercussions would arise in regards to such an agreement with Turkey’s deteriorating relations with Israel, Israel’s accusations of the Turkish aid ship carrying weapon supplies from Iran, and Iran’s hostility towards Israel?

In addition, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces, General Stanley McChrystal recently said that Afghan insurgents were being trained inside Iran and accused Iran of giving them weapons to fight the coalition forces in Afghanistan in what has recently been described as NATO’s biggest offensive against Taliban forces with an objective of stabilizing Afghanistan, and despise the possible absurdity of such a statement, given Iran’s past aid to coalition forces in their battle against Sunni Taliban insurgents in 1990, one has to wonder if things had changed over the past 20 years in regards to Iran’s policy towards Taliban and Sunni Muslims. Might a possible alliance between Taliban and Iran emerge against the coalition forces in Afghanistan in the name of Islam?

With Iran calling for Muslim unity against Israel, as was expressed by Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, in his meeting with his Indonesian and Syrian counterpart, along with Saeed Jalili, the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who criticized the United States’ support of Israel, saying, “The U.S. should either choose the world of Islam or the Zionist regime.”.

Moreover, Iran’s refusal to consider a prisoner exchange deal of the 3 U.S. hikers that were captured somewhere in the mountains between Iraq and Iran with the Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, a university researcher working for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. In March, ABC News said he had defected and was helping the CIA, recently however, a video was posted by Iranian television, showing of a man who said he was Amiri and had been drugged, abducted and tortured by U.S. intelligence. That and earlier this year’s mysterious assassination of Massoud Ali Muhammadi, an Iranian quantum field theorist and elementary-particle physicist and a distinguished professor of elementary particle physics at Department of Physics of University of Tehran, it was said that he was a “hezbollahi” teacher and a supporter of the Islamic Revolution and the Iranian Government, others said he was an outspoken supporter for the opposition leader, Mousavi. Iran accused the Mossad killing him in a car blast, and with the previous history of mysterious assassinations of Arab nuclear scientists by the Mossad and the CIA, one just can’t help but wonder!

Furthermore, Iran sending out two aid ships to Gaza, which is most probably interpreted as an attempt to boost it’s PR and image – just like Israel’s attempt with it’s aid flotilla for the Kurds – as a ‘good’ country, just adds more to the probability of having a major clash with Israel’s naval forces.

Obama’s speech at the AIPAC that showed the U.S.’s lack of will to compromise Israel’s security as a state in the Middle East, and that the U.S. will keep funding Israel’s military forces. Any attack(s) launched against Israel would be considered as an attack on the U.S. as per their joint-defense pact.

And now…Turkey, Iran and Syria… Is a new Middle East triangle being formed? Would Turkey possibly join the joint-defense pact with Iran, Syria and Hezbullah? Visits of the Iranian and Syrian presidents to Turkey this week have underlined a new sense of solidarity and cooperation that will be followed with much interest and concern in the West and Israel. And if strengthened, the new trio could break up the US imposed moderate-extremist division of the region and instead introduce a diverse, hard to isolate new axis that is fundamentally opposed to the Israeli occupation and committed to breaking the siege of Gaza.

And each of those 3 bring important assets to the table of the Middle East; Iran is an energy rich Gulf power with an important nuclear card in hand; Turkey is an emerging Euro-Asian power with NATO membership; and Syria is an Arab nation with influence in Lebanon, which could as an indispensable partner in the Arab trio, legitimise the new triangle in Arab eyes.

So ask yourselves… Do you really think war is coming? I believe it is.

It’s inevitable.

For decades, no one cared about human rights abuses suffered by the Kurds. Those abuses weren’t minor ones. We are talking about everything from genocide to violent racism and imprisonment. If the recent events involving the flotilla did not take place, the silence would have continued. Why? It is simple! No one gains from supporting the Kurds, so no one ends up supporting their rights to begin with.

In a sudden turn of events, the Israeli media seems to be taking an interest in Kurds. This isn’t because Israel is supportive of the Kurdish quest for peace and freedom. The facts have shown time and again that Israel couldn’t care less about us. We shouldn’t be used to divert attention away from their crimes in Palestine. Their criticism of Turkey is just as hypocritical as Turkey’s criticism of Israel. It is a game, and our innocent people are being repeatedly taken advantage of and abused in it. Gazans are chess pieces for Turkey and Iran, while Kurds are chess pieces for Israel to take a stab at Turkey and Iran. Someone might be victorious in this game, but it will not be the Kurds or the Gazans. The occupations will continue. None of these governments will free us. They are merely involving us in a dirty, shallow political struggle that we must condemn together.

The news about Israeli students sending a flotilla for the Kurds in Turkey is not a surprise, it is shameful and far from heroic. As a Kurd, don’t expect me to thank them. I stand here in absolute disgust watching them turn to me in times of desperation for self marketing and PR. There is no honesty in their eyes, just an overwhelming amount of disrespect.

I ache for a world where honest human rights activism will take the lead and free us from these vile oppressors. All of them. Together. We need you in all your kindness and honesty. Do not come to us and dare to use us to back up your own oppression. You will be turned away, and rightly so!

The aftermath of the Gaza flotilla fiasco in Israel has been telling and depressing at the same time. Israeli media and public opinion mostly followed the line touted by the government, accusing the world of misunderstanding us yet again. As usual, instead of reflecting on what about Israel’s actions brought on international opprobrium, the criticism, if any, was mainly focused to the inadequacy of our public relations (hasbara) efforts.

The IDF raid on a group of boats attempting to break the Gaza blockade by delivering humanitarian aid turned violent on one of the boats (the Mavi Marmara) and resulted in the death of nine passengers. The Israeli government reacted by stating that the responsibility for the death of the protesters on the ship rests on them, since they are the ones who attacked the commandos landing on the ship, which forced the soldiers to fire at the protesters in self-defense. The media coverage in Israel reflected this line and rarely questioned the decision to stop the flotilla from reaching its destination or the blockade of Gaza itself. Headlines in the three popular newspapers (Yediot Ahanoront, Maariv and Israel Hayom) praised the performance of the IDF and lashed at the biased world opinion. The papers published reports under the headlines “A Trap at Sea”, “Soldiers Facing a Lynch”, and “Condemned Abroad, Saluted at Home”. Gradually, as the repercussions of the deadly raid became evident (mass protests around the world, condemnation of the UN Security Council), the criticism of the media increased but was still limited. The leftist Haaretz took a critical tone and there were protests against the flotilla raid across Israel, but this clearly does not reflect the majority opinion.

It’s known that at times of war people “rally around the flag” and tend to be less critical of their government. The same happened in the Second Lebanon War and during Operation Cast Lead (Gaza war). The media, not wanting to be out of pace with the people, focuses on boosting moral and covering losses on the Israeli side. This time, public opinion in Israel was clearly unfazed by the critical media coverage abroad and worldwide condemnations. Hundreds of new facebook groups were launched calling to revoke the citizenship of an Arab member of Knesset who took part in the flotilla, show solidarity with the Commando unit and even boycott Turkish coffee; demonstrations in support of the IDF were held as well. Instead of trying to understand why this raid led to a deterioration in Israel’s (already tarnished) image, the Israeli public rallied behind the IDF, accusing the world of being inherently anti-Israel, or blaming the Israeli hasbara machine. The claim that there’s something wrong with our PR effort is based on the supposition that the problem is in the marketing, not the product. Thinking that Israel can explain to the world that commandos armed with pistols rappelling from helicopters are peaceful and the victims of the situation is absurd.

A reflection of the prevalent mood in Israel is the “satirical” video, “We Con the World” that was produced by the popular right-wing website Latma, which is funded by conservative Americans. The video, which reeks of self-victimization, Islamophobia and insensitivity went viral in Israel, quickly gaining more than 1 million views online. The video compared Islam and terrorism (“If Islam and terror brighten up your mood/ But you worry that it may not look so good”); portrayed the God Muslims believe in – who is apparently a different one than our Jewish God – as deceitful (“As Allah showed us, for facts there’s no demand”); and insisted that there is not humanitarian crisis or hunger in Gaza, (“We must go on pretending day by day/ That in Gaza, there’s crisis, hunger and plague”) even when 80% of Gazans rely on food donations to get by and the unemployment rate is almost at 40%). Israeli media was quick to praise the video (Yediot stated that the video succeeded where hasbara failed), ignoring how awful it makes Israel look.

While I have no doubt in my mind that some of the criticism of Israel and focus on the Palestinian issue is a result of bias against Israel (or Jews), this shouldn’t allow our government to get away with everything and blame it on the biased world opinion. The fact that Turkey is hypocritical in its criticism of Israel when it violently suppresses the Kurdish minority, does not mean that what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians is okay or strategically wise. The fact that the UN did not condemn North Korea after it torpedoed a South Korean ship killing 46 soldiers, and did condemn Israel for killing and injuring civilians on the flotilla, doesn’t mean that Israel’s actions are justified. The death of those civilians could have been avoided if better decision were made. The fact that Hamas which rules Gaza refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist and targets Israeli civilians does not mean that blockading Gaza and collaterally punishing its 1.5 million inhabitants is ethical or beneficial for Israeli goals (other than the harm to Israel’s image the tunnels under the Egyptian border have allowed Hamas to continue rearming itself and strengthen its economic hold on the Gazan populace by taxing the construction of the tunnels and the products coming through them).

The Israeli public and its government continue to stubbornly cling to outdated ideas, refusing to recognize that damage to Israel’s international standing is a damage to its national security. We are a danger to ourselves when every boat carrying toys and expired medicine is seen as a threat that requires Israel to reassert its deterrence. Instead of trying to understand how we got to the point where our action bolster Hamas’ standing in the world and hold over the Gaza strip, most Israelis prefer to con themselves again and believe that we did nothing wrong. The longer we cling to self-righteous and self-victimizing excuses, the more disconnected and isolated from the world we become. In a modern world, this is not an option.

I will first start by revealing that I completely sympathize with the Palestinian struggle for justice and freedom from Israeli oppression. It’s vital for everyone to join forces in exposing Israel’s crimes and systematic abuse. But I refuse to stand by other murderous governments just because they suddenly share this sympathy. Iran and Turkey are everywhere in the Arab media, praised as heroes, with Turkish and Iranian flags held high in almost every flotilla protest. This is disturbing for me, and I’m sure it’s even more disturbing for the millions of individuals who have suffered and continue to suffer under these regimes.

Let us not forget the number of people within Iran and Turkey who are also struggling for justice and human rights, namely ethnic and religious minorities who have been killed, kidnapped, tortured, and oppressed for decades, by the very people who are now being idolized as “peace activists.” Who is the Turkish government referring to when Erdogan says “human rights for all” and “thou shalt not kill?” Who? The gnomes in his garden? Or real people suffering in his name?

The Palestinian crisis is a serious one. It has to be taken in absolute seriousness. This is a real human rights violation, committed by a government (Israel) that has proven itself to have no limitations when it comes to violence, while maintaining their total disrespect and disregard for the international community at large. It is therefore upsetting to see the governments of Iran and Turkey abuse this situation for its own self-serving and political gains. Clearly if either countries had an iota of respect for human rights, if either countries were sincerely run by “peace activists,” things would be different. The world would have sufficient reasons to take Iran and Turkey seriously, and then be able to see Israel for what it really is: a country run by criminal behavior. Until then: two wrongs doesn’t make a right. Just because Iran and Turkey are expressing solidarity with Palestine makes neither of them innocent.

Neither of them are championing the Palestinian cause if they are committing similar crimes at home. There are different motives for their “support.” And there is something very cunning about their words, almost each of which echoes decades of their violence towards innocent minorities.

I stand in these protests and I see the Turkish and Iranian flags being waved in my face, and it conjures up images of dead Kurds and dead Armenians and dead Christians and dead Baha’is and dead political dissidents and dead sincere human rights defenders. These aren’t my heroes! Those they killed were. These abusive governments are using Palestine in an effort for us to dismiss their own human rights violations.

Palestine will live, and it will be fought for. But in what world do we live in if we are forced to support a criminal’s fight against another criminal? They are the same murderers exchanging guns and daggers. They do not have my support. Do they have yours?

Note: Opinions expressed here are my own and they do not represent Mideast Youth as an organization.

In March 2008, a coalition of human rights groups charged that the Israeli blockade of the city had caused the humanitarian situation in Gaza to have reached its worst point since Israel occupied the territory in the 1967 Six-Day War (CNN – 2008-03-06).
After two more years, Gaza is suffering day by day and Israel oppressive regime even doesn’t let the Gaza Aid Flotilla reach the people in need and poverty.

The page “World for Gaza” is for those who want support Gaza people and protest against Israel’s regime; this page is awareness to the world. Let’s make the world aware of what is happening in Gaza strip.

Draw or write your postcards and send them to Gaza children, here.

I know what I want, but I’m not quite sure what the flotilla activists want, although I do have my suspicions.

I want a peace deal to be cut between Israel and Palestine, along the lines of the proposal made by President Clinton and Ehud Barak in the year 2000. I want to turbo-charge and sweeten that deal by having Israel agree to help consolidate Palestinian security, because they need that, and to help grow the Palestinian economy with good paying jobs, including green jobs. I want to end the occupation. I want to see two states living side by side in peace, and partnering together for the sake of a brighter future. And finally, I want this peace between Israel and Palestine, this model, this seed, to be the impetus that gives birth to a new and revitalized Middle East, a Middle East in which everyone has a place at the table, a stake in his or her future, and where every child bears witness to the realization of a Vision of Hope, a vision of Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom.

That’s what I want. Is that what the flotilla activists want? With all due respect to the dead, I tend to doubt it.

Let’s start with the assumption that the activists are peace loving people who simply want to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. OK. But why not allow the ship to be inspected? The other ships were inspected and the humanitarian goods were sent directly to Gaza. Such is the case with the many ships and trucks that deliver aid to Gaza on a daily basis. Why did the activists on the Mavi Marmara not cooperate in this regard? Could it be that they were trying to deliver more than humanitarian supplies?

There are other troubling questions which come to mind. The activists, according to extensive video footage, seemed highly prepared for a violent confrontation. They wielded weapons such as knives, handguns, steel rods, and chains. And when the Israeli soldiers first came on board, albeit by helicopter, they were violently attacked by an angry mob, and in fact, one of them was thrown overboard. This happened before the soldiers started shooting, when they were armed with paint-ball guns. Do peace activists normally resort to violence so easily? Is that what peace is all about?

Other questions come to mind. Why was a prayer meeting held on the ship with the call for the downfall of the “Zionist Entity” and for Shuhad (suicide in the name of Allah)? Why did the Arab Media report that the flotilla activists were writing wills, preparing for martyrdom, and determined to reach Gaza or die? Why was Senanur Bengi, daughter of one of the activists, quoted as saying, “I love my father very much. I miss him a lot. He asked me if I want something. I replied him that I hope he would become a martyr?”

Does this incident strike you as an example of peace loving activists who want to help by delivering humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza? What’s all this martyrdom talk all about? Since when has martyrdom become a pre-requisite for humanitarian aid? Personally, given the choice, I would take a pass on martyrdom. As far as I’m concerned, God put me on this good earth to live, not to kill, and not to die before my time.

Is Israel without blame in all this? No. The violent confrontation could probably have been avoided with better planning on Israel’s part. And some would criticize Israel for imposing the blockade in the first place. But a good case could be made that Israel’s actions do comply with international law. Israel and Gaza have been, and are still, at war. Thousands of missiles and mortars were launched from Gaza into Israel’s cities, putting some 250,000 Israelis in harm’s way. Hamas has stated publicly, over and over again, its determination to liquidate the Jewish State. Hamas gets its funding and weapons from Iran, who has also expressed its desire to “wipe Israel off the map.” Is it that unreasonable to inspect incoming ships for weapons, considering that weapons are being smuggled into Gaza on a daily basis? Would you expect any less of your government under similar circumstances?

Could Israel be doing more to advance the cause of peace? Yes. A lot more. But advancing the cause of peace should not, and cannot, come at the expense of security, especially when a nation is facing existential threats on a daily basis.

My hunch, although I could be wrong, is that the flotilla activists, or at least some of them, were determined to break the blockade, and in so doing, provoke a violent confrontation with Israel. In short, they were looking for a fight. At least some of the people, I hate to say it; do not want an end to the occupation. They do not want a peace treaty. They do not want two states living side by side in partnership and peace. They want; I’ll call it as I see it, nothing less than to dismantle the Jewish State.

And what better way to begin the process of dismantling the Jewish State, than by first undertaking to delegitimize Israel in the eyes of the world? In this public relations war, a war which Israel has failed to win, what better way to delegitimize Israel than to provoke her into attacking a flotilla of humanitarian aid? It’s perfect. Let Israel fall on her own sword, and she did. And such an effort at delgitimization is part and parcel of an international effort to demonize Israel, and to use that platform to call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS).

It is the ultimate irony, however, that Israel is not the problem in the Middle East. She is the solution. Eran Shayshon, who works for a think tank in Israel, wants to rebrand Israel as the fount of “creative energy.” He emphasizes her high tech and science, burgeoning economy, entrepreneurial zeal, energetic lifestyle, and vibrant diversity of opinion and culture. I would add that Israel is a vibrant democracy that for the most part, protects the rights of minorities including her 20% Arab minority. As far as I’m concerned, it would not be an exaggeration to say that if you destroy Israel, you destroy the hope for the Middle East. Israel offers a lot of what the Middle East needs. Israel is one of the few examples in the Middle East that inspires a sense of hope. And for some, that’s exactly the problem. Couldn’t the Middle East benefit from some of what Israel has to offer? And couldn’t Israel benefit from partnering with the Arab world? What keeps us from making that happen except an allegiance to wrong-headed thinking?

I may seem overly cynical to some. I’m not. Hope and peace resonate loudly in the very being of my soul. But I would like to believe that I see things as they are, at least some of the time. I understand that passions run high on both sides of this issue. In the final analysis, however, I cannot help but conclude that the flotilla was not simply an honest effort at humanitarian aid. It was designed and executed as a provocation, with violence and martyrdom as the intended outcome.

Such efforts may make some feel good about themselves, but they will not bring peace. For peace to come we will have to find the courage and the wisdom to let go of some of our closely held beliefs, in favor of ideas we can believe in even more, like Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom

Israel once again committed a criminal act by attacking on Monday a civilian flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza. Nine civilians were killed in this raid.

Since several generations, we have an unsolved conflict in the Middle East, the conflict of Israel-Palestine. It resulted into several conventional wars and many acts of terrorism and violence in this region.

What concerns the role of both Islamic and Jewish fundamentalists, the roots of animosities are not on the shoulder of one or another side, but both belligerent sides:

- In the case of Israel, since its existence in 1948, whoever governs in Israel, the policy is more or less influenced by Zionist ambitions. Zionism propagates the idea that the whole region is a sacred homeland, where allegedly the early Jewish nation originated over 3,200 years ago. As such, Zionism as the first fundamentalist ideology goes so far to claim that the entire region belongs to Israel. It explicitly ignores the rights of many vibrant communities who have been living there during the last 3000 years.

- The counter-pole to the Zionism is the advent of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its protégés in Palestine and Lebanon who all dream of destruction of Israel and creation of God’s state in its place. They regard the territory of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank as an inalienable “Islamic waghf” (Islamic assets), which should never be surrendered to non-Muslims.

It is true, the both Islamists, militant movements fight to push back Israel from their occupied territories, but at the same time sow seeds of Islamism in these territories. They do not intend to free their people, but to impose the yoke of a God’s state on this region. The God’s state dreamed by Hamas is derived from a dictatorial belief system; the one which is now largely rejected by a growing majority of Iranians.

Despite that the Islamic revolution of Iran failed, the Islamic radicalism of which it was a projection continues to be an aggressive ideology and imposes problems for the entire region. What now bothers all Palestine-loving people is the future of this land. In other words, not only Israeli occupation, but also a take-over of Islamists in Palestine is a serious alarm for Palestine. The international community must help Palestine to attend its deserved rights of independence while helping democratic and secular forces of Palestine to dam a rise of new Islamic state in the region.

The plague of Islamism in Palestine was reborn with Hamas founded in 1987 in Gaza by both Shaikh Ahmad Jassin and started its existence with its jihadi attacks on both military and civil targets in Israel.

Though Hamas is a Sunni organisation, but is a protégé of the IRI; it follows a strict charter which is not different from IRI’s official policy towards Israel. According to this charter the State of Israel must be wiped off the region and replaced with an Islamic state.

Furthermore, Hamas will not accept any non-Islamic state in Palestine and is in permanent conflicts with secular forces of Palestine. Hamas, like all Islamists, opposes any peace process with Israel; it regards such a process a “betrayal of God’s will”. This is its fundamental difference with the PLO which in 1988 recognised Israel’s sovereignty, Hamas’s last success in the Palestinian elections is not a consequence of the rise of Islamism linked to the Iranian revolution, but rather a related reaction to the deep frustration of Palestinians who were disappointed from the West. This frustration is characterised by the continued postponement in the resolution of Palestinian conflicts and US foreign policy in their absolute support for Israel.

The Islamists, wherever they are, guided or inspired by the IRI, stage the question of state at the middle of their battleground and the legitimacy of non-Islamic a state cannot be ignored. Therefore in the case of Palestinian independence the PLO or any secular force will not be considered as a legitimate state.

The second IRI’s proxy-movement in this region is Hezbollah. It was formed in 1982 by the IRI’s officials and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. It was to import the “Islamic” revolution of Iran in the region. The movement was logistically helped to fight Israeli occupation following the 1982 Lebanon war. Hezbollah’s ideology is based on the Shiite Islam, specifically in the concept of absolute power of supreme leader or “Welayat-e-Faqih” a totalitarian belief system which has been forth by Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran (the IRI). Hezbollah’s strength is enhanced by the military and financial backing of the IRI. Terror is its principal weapon and Islamism its only ideology. It follows a jihadist and Islamist policy dictated by IRI’s officials.

Lebanon with only 40 percent Shiites is not a cosy cradle of Mullahs. Hezbollah has taken this fact into consideration; therefore, a God’s state, on the IRI’s model, is not officially demanded. However, it claims that an Islamic state requires the consent of the people, and since Lebanon remains a religiously and ideologically heterogeneous society, their political platform favours the introduction of an Islamic state in Lebanon by non-militant means.

All trilateral parts of conflicts, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Zionism, reject constantly peaceful solutions. All of them believe that Palestine is a consecrated land for their future generations and only so it must exist until Judgement Day. If all of them are at the height of their radicalism, they will gender an eternally vicious spiral of war and violence.

The two Islamist movements of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon are along with aggressive Zionism the main obstacle for peace in this region. The two antagonistic poles have different charges and sacred altars. Neither Zionism’s sacred expansionism nor Islamism’s God’s state can guarantee peace and co-existence in this region.

It is to mention that Israel is implicitly authorised by the US to continue its animosity not only against Islamist groups, but also the legitimate rights of all Palestinians.

Now, the least the international community is to encourage both sides to achieve peace and co-existence based on the UN repeated resolutions and bilateral agreements. If this conflict is to be stopped, the international community must defend the historically rights of Palestinians to install their UN proposed state. The Lack of an international consensus can be interpreted as a green light to continue the conflict.

What concerns Israel and Palestine, a durably peaceful co-existence of all peoples in the region can be guaranteed when only the democrats and seculars are the official peace-makers of both sides.

Israeli crimes against civilians date many years. Israel attacked in Jan 2008 Gaza and imposed an embargo on “Hamas-ruled area”. In response to the almost “rocket fire from the territory onto neighbouring Israeli towns and villages”, the border crossings into Gaza was closed. In reality military atrocities and economic embargo cost many lives among the civilian population without considerable casualties among Islamists of Hamas. The main goods crossing into Gaza have been closed and only humanitarian aid has been allowed into the strip since then. However this time Israel has the audacity to attack even the humanitarian goods in the international waters.

Although this outrageous attack provoked last days a UN Security Council’s condemnation, the international community has down little to force Israel to respect the UN resolutions demanding Israel to evacuate Arabs’ occupied lands and respect the right of neighbouring peoples in the region. Otherwise, people will further lose their trust in the “civilised” world what implicitly fuels arguments of Hamas for its acts of terrorism in the region. An immediate breach of Israeli embargo and halt of any military attack on Gaza must be the first and crucial step to approach this region toward a peace and stability based on the UN resolutions.

Hypocrisy. Propaganda. Hate. Bigotry. Abuse. All of these words are being used to bully the world into self-censorship against criticism of Israel. But then, all of these words are being used to describe every other government in the Middle East. And almost none of us would disagree.

We spent years on Mideast Youth struggling against human rights violations shamelessly caused by our regimes in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Egypt, etc. Everyone celebrates these efforts. We are “human rights activists” when we tackle abuse against ethnic, religious and intellectual minorities in these countries. We are “heroes” when we fight against the state-sponsored censorship and challenge our governments by continuing to practice our right to freedom of speech. But we are “hateful racists” when we challenge Israel.

Why?

You’d think most Israelis won’t mind criticism of their governments. We sure as hell don’t mind criticism of ours. In fact, we give you facts exposing the injustices here. All our projects are designed to expose and document regional abuses. Why does it strike a nerve when we document Israel’s, too?

If Israel was a true democracy, wouldn’t it be priding itself on its diversity and tolerance? Claiming that “Israel” is a democracy the way it is currently run is an insult to the term and an insult to the Israelis and Arab Israelis whose lives are in danger the moment they wish to hold a peaceful protest against the inhumane cruelty of their government. No “democracy” in the world relies on mass murder and punishment to exist. No “democracy” in the world prevents an entire nation from the freedom to travel, access to vital resources and the right to live with dignity. No “democracy” in the world shoots and abuses unarmed civilians and journalists.

We all laugh when Iran claims to be a democracy.

We all laughed when Egypt claimed to support freedom of speech at the UN.

We all laugh when Saudi Arabia claims to model itself after true Islamic values.

And the entire world laughs with us. But don’t dare treat Israel as if it is somehow equally deserving of criticism and satirical attacks (which has been our effective strategy for years.) The moment we treat Israel with the same disrespect we treat our own abusive governments, we are suddenly, no longer “heroes.” We are ignorant bigots. We are terrorists.

We have been littered with abusive e-mails concerning the Flotilla posts these past few days here on the site. “Remove them immediately!” People claiming that this site is far from “respectful,” and that we are anti-Semites.

Those attacks don’t bother us, we’re very used to it and it is ironically a form of encouragement for us. When has such criticism ever stopped us from continuing our work for justice? Why did you support us when Iran blocked the site, but justify it when Israelis hacked our site?

We have never stopped Israelis from posting on this site, despite the fact that 2 of them hacked us in 2008 and 2009, during a critical time when we were the only site podcasting from Gaza. You are the ones who decided that we aren’t worthy to share a platform with, and refused to tolerate our opinions. But unlike most other platforms, we never censored you. So why do you want us to censor those who disagree with you?

Respect is earned. It is not given based on your nationality and your history. We have never declared any government in the world as “beyond criticism.” We never attacked Israelis, or prevented them from sharing this platform. But the opportunities for dialogue here have always been fierce. We’re dealing with very controversial topics and targeting every country. No one will be receiving “special treatment.” This remains an open forum. We let people get away with some pretty outrageous posts because we want people to be aware of the realities that circulate around us.

It’s not our problem if you disagree. We do not control the personal opinions of our 400+ authors. And you do not have the right to control ours.