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The New Yorkerin tähtireportteri Seymour Hersh kertoo Yhdysvaltain rahoittaneen ja kouluttaneen salaa iranilaisten maanpakolaisten järjestöä nimeltä Kansan mujahedin, joka on Yhdysvaltain virallisella terroristijärjestöjen listalla. EU poisti järjestön omalta terroristilistaltaan vuonna 2009. Ryhmän jäsenten koulutus olisi alkanut George Bushin presidenttikaudella vuonna 2005.

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Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy wrote, "It is time to raise the white flag, to admit publicly that the two-state solution has been foiled." It was doomed, he says, by "the plundering settlers, the establishment that embraces them and the majority of Israelis, who do not lift a finger to stop them." In Levy's view, this leaves only one long-term option -- the "one-state solution," as the boundaries of Israel are officially expanded to encompass the occupied territory.

There are two versions of the one-state solution. In the left-wing version, Palestinians are given the vote and full citizenship, and Jews and Arabs live in a greater Israel that, given demographic trends, would presumably feature a majority Arab population before long. In the far-right version, the boundaries of Israel are officially expanded but Palestinians who live beyond the 1967 "green line" are never given the vote, so you wind up with an apartheid state.

Iran can never be threatened in its very existencence. Israel can. Indeed, such a threat could even grow out of the current intifada. That, at least, is the pessimistic opinion of Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

"If it went on much longer," he said, "the Israeli government [would] lose control of the people. In campaigns like this, the anti-terror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing. I regard a total Israeli defeat as unavoidable. That will mean the collapse of the Israeli state and society. We'll destroy ourselves."

In this situation, he went on, more and more Israelis were coming to regard the "transfer" of the Palestinians as the only salvation; resort to it was growing "more probable" with each passing day. Sharon "wants to escalate the conflict and knows that nothing else will succeed." But would the world permit such ethnic cleansing?

"That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."

I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/21/israelandthepalestinians.bookextracts/print

YOU

Take my water.
Burn my olive trees.
Destroy my house.
Take my job.
Steal my land.
Imprison my father.
Kill my mother.
Bomb my country.
Starve us all.
Humiliate us all.

BUT

I am to blame:
I shot a rocket back.

Juutalaiset ovat keksineet atomipommin, psykoanalyysin ja kuulakärkikynän. He ovat saaneet joka viidennen Nobel-palkinnon ja päässeet parhaille paikoille Hollywoodissa ja pankkimaailmassa. Heitä on vain 0,2 prosenttia maailman väestöstä.

Juutalaisten menestystä on selitetty esimerkiksi sillä, että keskiajalla katolinen kirkko kielsi kristityiltä koron ottamisen ja jätti rahan lainaamisen juutalaisille. On myös muistutettu, että ympäri maailmaa hajotettu juutalaiskansa oli hyvin verkostoitunut ja puhui samaa kieltä.

Viimeaikaiset tutkimukset viittaavat siihen, että maailman juutalaisilla on kuin onkin yhteiset juuret. Voisiko heillä olla jonkinlaista periytyvää kaupallista lahjakkuutta? Ainakin juutalainen kulttuuri on aina vahvasti tukeutunut kirjoitettuun sanaan ja uskonut koulutukseen.

Vanhassa testamentissa Jumala valitsee juutalaiset omaksi kansakseen, lupaa pitää siitä huolta, antaa sille menestystä ja johdattaa sen takaisin Kanaanin maahan sekä ilmoittaa murskaavansa sen viholliset. Viimeinen selitys on paras. Näin on kiistatta tapahtunut.

With a deep investment in the status quo, Israel is watching what a senior official calls "an earthquake in the Middle East" with growing concern. A minister in the Israeli government said the Jewish state had faith in the Egyptian security apparatus to suppress the street demonstrations that threatened Mubarak's dictatorial rule. "I am not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process," the minister said.

The "Gaza Youth Breaks Out" manifesto does not put forth any clear analysis of the current historical situation, or outline a response to it. It does not invite anyone to join anything. Its tone is denunciatory rather than analytical. Its language is apolitical: the terminology of resistance common to Palestinian manifestos is replaced here by use of the f-word. It lacks any mobilisational dimension.

Without being rooted in any particular or collective vision of change, the demands articulated in the manifesto are meaningless. Perhaps this is why it is so attractive to those who have read it on Facebook, and the European and American media who have taken it up. It caters to western tastes and desires, especially to the fantasy of a digitally connected youth emerging from cyberspace as agents of transformative change in the real world.

In the case of Palestine, this fantasy does a number of things besides soothing guilty consciences. It reframes the issue of justice for Palestine in vacuous and unthreatening terms, casts the method by which change may occur into virtual space, and empties the Palestinian body politic of the thoughtfully articulated demands of its millions of citizens.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2011/01/10/karma-nabulsi/facebook-in-gaza/

Source: Israeli television Channel 2 comedy show "Eretz Nehederet" ("Wonderful Country"), Season 8, Episode 1, skit "Kindergarten Hope".