J. William Fulbright: Israel controls the U.S. Senate. The great majority of the Senate of the U.S. - somewhere around 80% - is completely in support of Israel; anything Israel wants; Israel gets. This has been demonstrated time and again, and this has made foreign policy difficult for our government. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
John Mearsheimer: The real reason why American politicians are so deferential to Israel is the political power of the Israel lobby. The lobby is a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively works to move U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction... In its basic operations, the Israel lobby is no different from interest groups like the farm lobby, steel and textile workers, and a host of ethnic lobbies, although the groups and individuals who comprise the Israel lobby are in an unusually favorable position to influence U.S. foreign policy. What sets it apart, in short, is its extraordinary effectiveness. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michael Collins Piper: The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a Thought Police. It is designed to prevent anyone from saying anything critical about the state of Israel, unless it's approved by the ADL in advance. Anyone who even dares to mention the fact that the Israelis have immense power in this country is considered anti-Semitic. So that's what the ADL is. It is a Thought Police. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Douglas Reed: By what means has America (and the entire West) been brought to the state that no public man aspires to office, or editor feels secure at his desk, until he has brought out his prayer-mat and prostrated himself to Zion?... The power of money and the prospect of votes have demonstrably been potent lures, but in my judgment by far the strongest weapon is this power to control published information;... and so to be able to give any selected person a "good" or a "bad" press. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Yeshayahu Leibowitz: In Israel, the Arabs are the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police - mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel. The administration would suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab Quislings on the other. There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Forces, which has been until now a people's army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Brandon Martinez: Israel sits atop a coalition from hell which is carrying out a Machiavellian divide and rule stratagem to weaken the remaining impediments to unbridled Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. The ultimate goal is to overthrow the Syrian and Iranian governments and to neutralize their militaries. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Norman Finkelstein: Benjamin Netanyahu is an obnoxious, racist, Jewish supremacist. And on all of those descriptives: obnoxious, racist, Jewish supremacist, he's wholly representative of the Israeli population. And the reason they keep reelecting him despite the scandals is because when they look at Benjamin Netanyahu, most of the Israeli population see themselves. And they vote for him because in his mental outlook, contempt for Arabs, contempt for Muslims These are Jewish supremacists The Israeli people can't conceive Arabs or Muslims as being on the same moral order as themselves. They're terrorists or they're savages. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Ariel Sharon: Tell me, do the evil men of this world have a bad time? They hunt and catch whatever they feel like eating. They don't suffer from indigestion and are not punished by Heaven. I want Israel to join that club. Maybe the world will then at last begin to fear us instead of feeling sorry. Maybe they will start to tremble, to fear our madness instead of admiring our nobility. Let them tremble; let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a savage country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go wild, that we might start World War Three just like that, or that we might one day go crazy and burn all the oil fields in the Middle East. Even if you'll prove to me that the present war is a dirty immoral war, I don't care. We shall start another war, kill and destroy more and more. And do you know why it is all worth it? Because it seems that this war has made us more unpopular among the civilized world. We'll hear no more of that nonsense about the unique Jewish morality. No more talk about a unique people being a light upon the nations. No more uniqueness and no more sweetness and light. Good riddance. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Thomas Sankara: Popular masses of Europe are not opposed to popular masses of Africa. Those who want to exploit Africa are those who exploit Europe, too. We have a common enemy. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Clarence Lusane: Israel is the fifth largest exporter of arms in the world, up from its seventh place ranking in 1980. Israel remains the largest supplier of arms to sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Gilad Sharon: We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn't stop with Hiroshima -the Japanese weren't surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too. There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they'd really call for a ceasefire. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Thomas Sankara: From imperialism's point of view, it's more important to dominate us culturally than militarily. Cultural domination is more flexible, more effective, less costly. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Robert Parry: In the world of neocon propaganda, Iran - a treaty signatory that has no nuclear weapons and insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes - must be endlessly badgered, but Israel - an undeclared rogue nuclear state with a vast arsenal - must be shielded from similar criticism and pressure. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Justin Raimondo: Israel's goal in the Middle East has been to gin up as much conflict and chaos as possible, keeping its Islamic enemies divided, making it impossible for any credible challenge to arise among its Arab neighbors, and aiming the main blow at Tehran, while paying lip service to the awfulness of ISIS and al-Qaeda. Their quarrel isn't really with the Arabs, anyway, it's with the Persians, whom they fear and loathe, and whose destruction has been their number one objective since the days of Ariel Sharon. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Thomas Sankara: No altar, no belief, no holy book, neither the Qur'an nor the Bible nor the others, have ever been able to reconcile the rich and and the poor, the exploiter and the exploited. And if Jesus himself had to take the whip to chase them from his temple, it is indeed because that is the only language they hear. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Fidel Castro: Revolution is the sense of the historical moment; it is changing everything that must be changed; it is full equality and freedom; it is being treated and treating others like human beings; it is emancipating ourselves, by ourselves and with our very own efforts; it is challenging the dominant powerful forces within and outside of the social and national arena; it is defending the values one believes in at the cost of any sacrifice; it is modesty, selflessness, altruism, solidarity and heroism; it is fighting with audacity, intelligence and realism; it is never telling a lie or violating ethical principles; it is the profound conviction that there is no force on earth that can crush truth and ideas. Revolution is unity, it is independence, it is fighting for our dreams of justice for Cuba and the world that is the basis of our patriotism, our socialism and our internationalism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Gilad Atzmon: A controversial bill that officially defines Israel as the "Nation-State of the Jewish People" was approved by the Israeli cabinet. Finally Israel has acknowledged its true Jewish nature. Instead of pretending to be a 'Jewish Democracy" - a contradiction in terms, the Jewish State admits that it is a theocracy guided by Jewish racial supremacist ideology. The bill, which is intended to become part of Israel's Basic Laws, recognises Israel's Jewish character, institutionalises Jewish law as an inspiration for legislation and delists Arabic as an official second language. As if until now Arabic had been equal to Hebrew. According to some Israeli critics, the new Israeli bill would weaken the wording of Israel's declaration of independence, which states that the new state would "be based on the principles of liberty, justice and freedom expressed by the prophets of Israel (and) affirm complete social and political equality for all its citizens, regardless of religion, race or gender." Israel has always been the Jewish State, it has never been a liberal place nor has it been committed to justice or equality. The deepest truth is that universal humanism and ethical culture is foreign to Judaic thinking that is tribal and legalistic. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Oded Yinon: The dissolution of Syria and Iraq into ethnically or religiously unique areas is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run, it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Fidel Castro: Bombs may kill the starving, the ill and the ignorant, but they cannot kill hunger, disease or ignorance. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Chris Hedges: The corporations that profit from permanent war need us to be afraid. Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear permits the government to operate in secret. Fear means we are willing to give up our rights and liberties for promises of security. The imposition of fear ensures that the corporations that wrecked the country cannot be challenged. Fear keeps us penned in like livestock. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lisa Pease: The American press has gone to extraordinary lengths to demonize Venezuelan President Hugo) Chávez, to portray him as a dictatorial monster, or worse, a crazy man. Of course, if Chávez had given American-based businesses control over his country's oil supply instead of nationalizing it to benefit his countrymen, no doubt the press for Chávez would have been glowing. Historically, the American government and media have both been kind to dictators who allowed the United States to get cheap deals on resources in their country at the expense of the natives there. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
John Pilger: Any truth about Israel/Palestine or, more generally, the Middle East is not going to come from the mainstream media. Those of us who know this should rather stop beating our heads against a brick wall, asking why they don't tell the truth. That's not what they're there for. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michael Collins Piper: We have this powerful Israeli lobby, and the people who finance them are a very wealthy, highly influential group of people who happen to be Jewish. We effectively have an elite few who can dictate our foreign policy. It's a foreign policy that's trying to advance the interests of another country - Israel. These people do not care how many American kids get butchered in Iraq. This is of absolutely no concern to them. They are fully ready to get us into a war against Iran, against Syria. They know that American kids will be cannon fodder, and their kids won't be. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
