A Tale of Two Deaths Rachel Corrie and Carlos Chavez : AZ IMC

Carlos Chavez was murdered this week, another foreigner who put himself in harm's way and became a casualty of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Of course, the other foreigner I refer to was Rachel Corrie, an idealistic young American student who chose to go to Gaza out of solidarity with the Palestinian people. The differences in the circumstances of their presence in the Middle East, and of their deaths, are noteworthy not only for what they teach us about the conflict itself, but what they teach us about the manipulation of public opinion.

Rachel Corrie of Washington State, as any observer of the issue is undoubtedly aware, has been canonized by the opponents of Israel into an amalgam of Mother Teresa and Joan of Arc. Of course, the fact that she was photographed burning a paper American flag in front of a group of Palestinian children isn't seen as anything detracting from her reputation (or that of the Palestinian children, who are quite used to indoctrination into hatred thanks to their own media). We really don't know much about the political leanings of Carlos Chavez of Quito Ecuador, except that he, unlike Ms Corrie and her memorial choir, thought it perfectly acceptable to spend time in a Jewish state planting potatoes on a communal farm.

Rachel Corrie died while trying to interfere with an Israel Defense Forces action against a house used for smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip. While accounts of the actual incident vary, there is no doubt that she deliberately placed herself in harm's way and was attempting to block the IDF from demolishing the structure. Carlos Chavez, it could be said, also placed himself in harm's way just by being in the state of Israel; he was shot in the back by a sniper while working in the fields near the border with Gaza. His murderer didn't know who he was; didn't care whether he was Jewish, Christian, Buddhist or atheist; didn't ask his opinion on the two-state solution, or settlements, or the so-called "right" of return. Chavez was targeted because he was in the state of Israel. Just like the 12 civilians in Sderot who were killed by Qassam missiles--(of which the raw materials are smuggled in through houses in Gaza like the one Rachel Corrie was trying to protect):

June 28, 2004 - Afik Ohion Zehavi, 4, killed when a rocket lands in his nursery school in Sderot.
June 28, 2004 - Mordechai Yosephus, 49, killed when a rocket lands in a kindergarten in Sderot.
Sept. 29, 2004 - Dorit Inso, 2, killed when two rockets hit her residence building.
Sept. 29, 2004 - Yuval Abeva, 4, killed when two rockets hit his residence building.
Jan. 15, 2005 - Ayala Haya Abukasis, 17, killed when a rocket hits Sderot.
July 15, 2005 - Dana Gelkowitz, 22, killed by a Qassam that strikes a home in Moshav Nativ Ha'asara.
March 28, 2006 - A Bedouin father and son, Salam Ziadin and Khalid, 16, killed when a Qassam rocket they find in the Nahal Oz area explodes.
Nov. 11, 2006 - Faina Slutzker, 57, killed when a rocket hits the street where she is walking near the home of Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
Nov. 21, 2006 - Yaakov Yaakobovich, 43, killed while at work in a Sderot poultry processing plant.
May 21, 2007 - Shir-el Friedman, 35, killed in Sderot when a rocket hits a car she is walking near.May 27, 2007 - Oshri Oz, 36, is killed in Sderot when a rocket hits the car he is driving.

Sderot is a civilian town; there are no Israeli army installations, no missiles are launched from the town. But it's a town full of Israelis, and that's reason enough for Hamas and Islamic Jihad to try to indiscriminately slaughter them.

The Consul General of Israel in San Francisco personally contacted Rachel Corrie's parents to express his country's regrets. As far as we know, nobody from Hamas or Islamic Jihad has contacted the family of Carlos Chavez to apologize (and what would they say? "We're sorry, we assumed he was a Jewish son of apes and pigs so therefore deserved a bullet in his chest; if we had known he was just a Christian infidel then we would have only winged him"?).

Rachel Corrie is the subject of adorational prose, theatre, websites, and even songs. But those in Israel, and those who support Israel, don't like to use tragic deaths for political "gotcha" points. They don't take photos of casualties who then stand up and walk away, and they don't claim that victims of their own mines were the result of attacks from the other side. They don't celebrate the deaths of their civilians as "martyrs" and they don't celebrate the deaths of civilians on the other side, either. So I don't think we're going to see any plays or songs about Carlos Chavez.

In America and Europe, Rachel Corrie's visage is prominently displayed at a variety of anti-Israel events. Of course, those exploiting her death in support of the elimination of Israel wouldn't have cared a whit about her had she been gunned down while planting potatoes at Ein Hashlosha, any more than they care about Carlos Chavez, or about Afik Zehavi and the others who died in Sderot. Because for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, being in Israel is enough of a reason to be killed; and for too many of those around the world who rally around Rachel Corrie's picture, it's enough of a reason not to care.

Club Cruz on Rachel Corrie

Excellent documentary on the truth about Rachel Corrie’s death

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY2ohOsxQIU
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54AvAZkbLgk
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_vlJo3g0Ys

We add that there is very strong evidence that the International Solidarity Movement set up Rachel Corrie to be killed so they could make propaganda.

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live in an odd and oppressive limbo. They have no nation, no citizenship, and no ultimate power over their own lives.

Since 1967, when Israel conquered these areas (the final 22 percent of mandatory Palestine), Palestinians have been living under Israeli military occupation. While in some parts Israel has allowed a Palestinian “autonomous” entity to take on such municipal functions as education, health care, infrastructure and policing, Israel retains overall power.

According to international law, an occupying force is responsible for the protection of the civilian population living under its control. Israel, however, ignores this requirement, routinely committing violations of the Geneva Conventions, a set of principles instituted after World War II to ensure that civilians would “never again” suffer as they had under Nazi occupation. Israel is one of the leading violators of these conventions today.

Israeli forces regularly confiscate private land; imprison individuals without process – including children – and physically abuse them under incarceration; demolish family homes; bulldoze orchards and crops; place entire towns under curfew; destroy shops and businesses; shoot, maim, and kill civilians – and Palestinians are without power to stop any of it.

When a child is arrested, for example – often by a group of armed soldiers in the middle of the night – parents can do nothing. Knowing that their son is most likely being beaten by soldiers on the way to the station, stripped and humiliated in prison, quite likely physically abused in multiple additional ways, and destined to be held – perhaps in isolation – for days, week, or months (all before a trial has even taken place), parents are without the ability to protect their child. Quite often, in fact, they cannot even visit him.

Finally, when the military trial under which their son is to be sentenced – often to years (sometimes decades) in prison – all they can do is hire a lawyer whose efforts, at best, will reduce the ultimate sentence by a few months. Rarely, if ever, can even the most skilled lawyer do more than afford the child a friendly face in court and be an outside witness to the injustice of the proceedings. Meanwhile, the presence of such a lawyer provides Israel cover for its “judicial system.”

Perhaps most significant – and rarely understood by people in the outside world – is the fact that Palestinians live, basically, in a prison in which Israel holds the keys.

They cannot leave Gaza or the West Bank unless Israeli guards allow them to. If they have been allowed out, they cannot return to their homes and families unless Israeli guards permit it.

Frequently, in both cases, Israel refuses such permission.

Academics invited to attend conferences abroad, high school students given US State Department scholarships to study in the United States, mothers wishing to visit daughters abroad, American citizens returning to their families, humanitarians bringing wheelchairs – the list goes on almost without limit – have all been denied permission by Israel to leave or enter their own land.
The “Intifada”

Living under such hardship and humiliation, in the year 2000 the Palestinian population began an uprising against Israeli rule called the “Intifada.” This term – rarely translated in the American media – is simply the Arabic word for uprising or rebellion – literally, it means “shaking off.” The American Revolutionary War, for example, would be called the American intifada against Britain.

This is the second such uprising. The first began in 1986 and ended in 1993 when the peace negotiations offered hopes of justice. (Sadly, in the following years these hopes were crushed after Israel, rather than withdrawing from the West Bank and Gaza, as promised, actually doubled its expansion in these areas.)

During this first uprising, which consisted largely of Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli troops (very few Palestinians had weapons), Palestinians were killed at a rate approximately 7-10 times that of Israelis.

One of the ways Israeli forces attempted to put down this rebellion was through the “break the bones” policy, implemented by Yitzhak Rabin, in which people who had been throwing stones – often youths – were held down and their arms broken. On the first day of this policy alone, one hospital in Gaza treated 200 People for fractures.1

Today’s uprising – termed the “Second Intifada” – was sparked when an Israeli general, Ariel Sharon, known for his slaughter of Palestinian civilians throughout his career, visited a Jerusalem holy site, accompanied by over a thousand armed Israeli soldiers. When some Palestinian youths threw stones, Israeli soldiers responded with live gunfire, killing 5 the first day, and 10 the second.

This uprising has now continued for over five years, as Israel periodically mounts massive invasions into Palestinian communities, using tanks, helicopter gunships, and F-16 fighter jets. Palestinian fighters resisting these forces possess rifles and homemade mortars and rockets. A minute fraction strap explosives onto their own bodies and attempt to deliver their bombs in person; often they kill only themselves.

While the large majority of Palestinians oppose suicide bombings, many feel that armed resistance has become necessary – much as Americans supported war after the attack at Pearl Harbor. Nevertheless, only a small portion take an active part in the resistance, despite the fact that virtually all support its aim: to create a nation free from foreign oppression.

Most Palestinians attempt – with greater or lesser success – to go on with their lives, raise their children, attend school, go to work, celebrate festivals, organize weddings, raise their crops, provide for their families – all the things that preoccupy people around the world.

As Israel constructs a wall around them, however, prevents them at checkpoints from traveling from town to town, destroys their crops, prevents children from traveling to schools and the sick and injured from getting to the hospitals, it is becoming increasingly difficult to live even an approximation of a normal life.

Most Palestinians feel that the Israeli government’s intention is to drive them off the land, and there is a great deal of evidence that this is the goal of many Israeli leaders.

At the same time, however, there is a small but determined minority of Israelis, joined by citizens from throughout the world, who are coming to the Palestinian Territories to oppose Israeli occupation. These “internationals,” as they are often called, take part in peaceful marches, attempt to help Palestinian farmers harvest their crops despite Israeli military closures, live in refugee camps in the hope that their presence will prevent Israeli invasions and shelling, and walk children to school.

They are sometimes beaten, shot, and killed.

Some Israeli soldiers are refusing to serve in the West Bank or Gaza, stating: “We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.”

Meanwhile, the semblance of Palestinian autonomy continues. Elections held in January, 2005, resulted in new Palestinian leadership that will govern under occupation and will attempt to negotiate eventual Palestinian liberation. Yet even this election demonstrated Israel’s power, as various Palestinian candidates were arrested, detained, and sometimes beaten by Israeli forces. This aspect, however, like so much else, was rarely reported by the American media.
End Notes

1. “Under orders from Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin, ‘Soldiers armed with cudgels beat up those they could lay their hands on regardless of whether they were demonstrators, or not, breaking into homes by day and night, dragging men and women, young and old, from their beds to beat them. At Gaza’s Shifa Hospital 200 people were treated during the first five days of the new policy, most of them suffering from broken elbows and knees. Three had fractured skulls.’” (PALESTINE AND ISRAEL: THE UPRISING AND BEYOND, David McDowall, University of California Press, 1989, p. 7.)

You must be one of Gene Roddenberry's queers. You know, the United Federation of Acne-Crippled Fuckwits?

Why should I even begin to want a one world government of any kind? Who watches the watchers?

Palestinians certainly have a fighting chance with *you* on their side, Brainiac.

How much money did Arafat leave in Swiss bank accounts?

And why did the ISM kill Corrie?

rom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Idiot (disambiguation).

Idiot is a word derived from the Greek ἰδιώτης, idiōtēs ("person lacking professional skill," "a private citizen," "individual"), from ἴδιος, idios ("private," "one's own").[1] In Latin the word idiota ("ordinary person, layman") preceded the Late Latin meaning "uneducated or ignorant person."[2] Its modern meaning and form dates back to Middle English around the year 1300, from the Old French idiote ("uneducated or ignorant person"). The related word idiocy dates to 1487 and may have been analogously modeled on the words prophet[3] and prophecy.[4][5] The word has cognates in many other languages.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 History
* 2 Disability
* 3 United States law
* 4 In literature
* 5 Quotes
* 6 See also
* 7 Sources and external links
* 8 References

History

"Idiot" was originally created to refer to "layman, person lacking professional skill", "person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning".[6][7] Declining to take part in public life, such as democratic government of the polis (city state), such as the Athenian democracy, was considered dishonorable. "Idiots" were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters. Over time, the term "idiot" shifted away from its original connotation of selfishness and came to refer to individuals with overall bad judgment–individuals who are "stupid". In modern English usage, the terms "idiot" and "idiocy" describe an extreme folly or stupidity, its symptoms (foolish or stupid utterance or deed). In psychology, it is a historical term for the state or condition now called profound mental retardation.[8]

Disability

In 19th and early 20th century medicine and psychology, an "idiot" was a person with a very severe mental retardation or a very low IQ level, as a sufferer of cretinism, defining idiots as people whose IQ were below 20 (with a standard deviation of 16);

In current medical classification, these people are now said to have profound mental retardation, and the word "idiot" is no longer used as a scientific term.

United States law

The California Penal Code Section 26 states that "Idiots" are one of six types of people who are not capable of committing crimes.[9]

In several states, "idiots" do not have the right to vote:

* Arkansas Article III, Section 5[10]
* Iowa Article II, section 5[11]
* Kentucky Section 145[12]
* Mississippi Article 12, Section 241[13]
* New Jersey (Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 6)[14]

A resolution was passed by the State Legislature in January 2007 to remove "idiot or insane", and to add the qualifying phrase "who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting." As the resolution put it succintly, "This proposed amendment to the Constitution shall be submitted to the people at the next general election occurring more than three months after the final agreement. This constitutional amendment shall become part of the New Jersey Constitution upon approval by the voters." [15] The amendment passed the referendum on November 6, 2007. Hence, "New Jersey" is now crossed out. [16]

* New Mexico Article VII, section 1[17]
* Ohio (Article V, Section 6)[18]

In literature

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2006)

A few authors have used "idiot" characters in novels, plays and poetry. Often these characters are used to highlight or indicate something else (allegory). Examples of such usage are William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and William Wordsworth's The Idiot Boy. Idiot characters in literature are often confused with or subsumed within mad or lunatic characters. The most common imbrication between these two categories of mental impairment occurs in the polemic surrounding Edmund from William Shakespeare's King Lear. In Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, the idiocy of the main character, Prince Lev Nikolaievich Myshkin, is attributed more to his honesty, trustfulness, kindness, and humility, than to a lack of intellectual ability. Nietzsche claimed, in his The Antichrist, that Jesus was an idiot. This resulted from his description of Jesus as having an aversion toward the material world.[19]

In the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, the character of Ben, a man who inhabits Rebecca de Winter's former beach cottage, is referred to as an idiot, because of his childlike behavior, confusion and anti-social behavior.

Quotes

* "It is true of idiots, that the more absurd and foolish they are, and the more their opinions diverge from those universally held, the more likely are they to utter no word which they will wish to recall" - St. Augustine in Letter 143 to Marcellinus (A.D. 412)
* "Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." (Mark Twain, c.1882)[5]

See also

* Traditional terms for mental retardation
* Ignorance

Sources and external links
Look up Idiot in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

* Dictionary.Reference.Com "Middle English, ignorant person, from Old French idiote (modern French idiot), from Latin idiota, from Greek idiotès, private person, layman, from idios, own, private."
* ProphetProphecy Etymonline "c.1300, "person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning," from Old French idiote "uneducated or ignorant person," from Latin idiota "ordinary person, layman," in Late Latin "uneducated or ignorant person," from Greek idiotes "layman, person lacking professional skill," literally "private person," used patronizingly for "ignorant person," from idios "one's own".
* This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. on cretinism
* This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

References

1. ^ Liddell-Scott-Jones A Greek-English Lexicon, entries for ἰδιώτης and ἴδιος.
2. ^ Words, entry idiota.
3. ^ Etymonline.com, entry prophet
4. ^ Etymonline.com, entry prophecy
5. ^ a b Etymonline.com, entry idiot
6. ^ idiot. yourdictionary.com.
7. ^ 10 results for: idiot. dictionary.com. Retrieved on 2007-09-26.
8. ^ idiocy. Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved on 2007-09-26.
9. ^ Penal Code section 25-29. State of California. Retrieved on 2007-09-21.
10. ^ Arkansas Article III, Section 5
11. ^ Iowa Article II, section 5
12. ^ Kentucky Section 145
13. ^ Mississippi Constitution of the State of Mississippi See Article 12, Section 241
14. ^ New Jersey Constitution See Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 6. Note: the text now reads, "No person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting shall enjoy the right of suffrage. Article II, Section I, paragraph 6 amended effective November 6, 2007." It used to read, No idiot or insane person shall enjoy the right of suffrage.
15. ^ Senate of New jersey Concurrent Resolution No. 134
16. ^ http://www.philly.com/inquirer/politics/20071108_N_J__voters_wont_spend__Nutter_reaches_out.html
17. ^ http://vlex.com/vid/309687 New Mexico Constitution, Article VII, section 1]
18. ^ Ohio Constitution, Article V, Section 6
19. ^ Nietzsche, Friedrich (1895). The Antichrist. “To make a hero of Jesus! And even more, what a misunderstanding is the word "genius"! Our whole concept, our cultural concept, of "spirit" has no meaning whatever in the world in which Jesus lives. Spoken with the precision of a physiologist, even an entirely different word would be yet more fitting here—the word idiot.”
{§ 29, partially quoted here, contains three words that were suppressed by Nietzsche's sister when she published The Antichrist in 1895. The words are: "das Wort Idiot", translated here as "the word idiot". They were not made public until 1931, by Josef Hofmiller. H.L. Mencken's 1920 translation does not contain these words.)

How much money did Arafat leave in Swiss bank accounts?

C'mon, we know that dime store faggot nessie never addresses direct questions. Can you?

Why Zionism Is Racism

Zionism is a racist and irredeemable movement, like Bolshevism, Nazism, and Apartheid.

By Rabee' Sahyoun
Posted: 11 Rabi-u-Thani 1422, 3 July 2001

(Note: This article is a direct response, using the same format, on a line by line basis, to an editorial that appeared in the Montreal Gazette on April 26, 2001, written by Gil Troy, a Professor of History at McGill University.)

On this, the 53rd anniversary of the Nakbe' (the Catastrophe of the Palestinian people), it is all too tempting for friend and foe alike to define Israel, and zionism, solely by the Americans' proclamations of its enlightened democracy. To do so is to miss the normal atrocities that occur in Israel daily, the millions who are under curfew and blockade, starving and brutalized, in the Middle East's only colonized state. To do so is to feign the reality of zionism, a racist and irredeemable movement, that survived the twentieth centuries' other genocidal and seemingly passing revolutions such as Bolshevism, Nazism, and Apartheid.

A century ago, zionism extended Western colonialism to Palestine.

The sad truth is that over a century after its founding, zionism seems to be grander and more honorable than its reality. Arabs have suffered from Zionism's belligerence and exclusivity, and many have blamed the United States, and the West, for this because of their unshakeable support of zionism. Israeli aggression over the past seven months has finally renewed international recognition that zionism is racism.

On this anniversary of the Nabke', it is now up to all Jews to follow in the footsteps of the brave few, and denounce the racist and separatist nature of zionism, while the world should encourage them to do so. The world should not allow the torchbearers of zionism to silence and quell the idealism of these few. No nationalism is pure, no movement is perfect, no state is ideal, but today, Zionism persists as a menace, a militaristic and dictatory movement to me and to most Palestinians. A century ago, zionism extended Western colonialism to Palestine; today, as in the rest of the world, colonialism must be ideologically purged from Palestine.

I believe that zionism is racism, because 53 years after being exiled from their homeland, in defiance of the four Geneva Conventions, UN Resolutions 181, 194, 242, 338, and others, and other multilateral and international human rights conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the disinherited refugees of Palestine, continue to endure merciless punishment from the Zionist entity, most recently in the bulldozing of makeshift homes in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza.

I believe that zionism is racism, because I am a Palestinian, and without recognizing the colonialist component in zionism, I cannot explain its racist character, a western movement uprooting the native peoples of Palestine, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Samaritan alike, a people bound to their land, through centuries of raising orange groves, and herding sheep, lending grace to the Hills of God, historically, religiously and culturally.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it fails to appreciate or acknowledge the Palestinians' ties to their homeland, their love for their historical capital, Jerusalem, and the 53-yar plight they have endured as refugees worldwide, in Europe, in North America, in camps Dheishe, Shatila, Wehdaat and others, never giving up hope or struggle in yearning to return home.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it fails to admit the reality that the minority indigenous Jewish community in Palestine, that lived there for the last two thousand years, was an undistinguishable people from its Christian and Muslim Palestinian brethren, and that the leader of the Jewish community of the Jewish quarter of Old Jerusalem, Rabbi Lamram Blau, stood on the side of his Palestinian brothers and sisters being exiled in 1948.

I believe that zionism is racism because in modern times, the promise of liberal democracy and justice is a double-edged sword, preached by the Western powers, yet only paid lip-service to in the case of Israel, where Palestinian are continuously expelled, ethnically cleansed, and subjugated, and in the cases where they are assimilated, they are granted, limited, if any, civil rights.

I believe that zionism is racism, because in establishing the racially exclusive state of Israel, in 1948, and expelling the indigenous Palestinians from the land, the zionists severed a relationship that people had to the land for over 4,000 years, uninterrupted, since before Abraham.

I believe that zionism is racism, because in building Israel, the zionists were revising history, embracing the notion of racial superiority, an ideology that has empowered them to discriminate, with all of its associated social ills, injustices, and moral bankruptcy.

I believe that zionism is racism because it fails to distinguish between the nationalism of the American, based on multi-cultural harmony, and the racial exclusivity, separatism, ethnic cleansing, and brutality of zionism, that stands in clear violation of the most basic elements of international law and human rights practices, as most recently highlighted by reports issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

I believe that zionism is racism because in our world of post-modern identities, I know that we do not have to be "either-ors", we can be "ands and buts" – a zionist and a settler, an American citizen of Polish heritage but a soldier in the Israeli army.

I believe that zionism is racism because it self-propagates itself as a democratic movement. However, a democracy, cannot, by definition, only be representative of one community in a bi-national and tri-religious contiguous geographic area. A democracy cannot exist for one people and not for another. This as called Apartheid in South Africa, and is now called zionism in Palestine.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it espouses an independent and sovereign Jewish state, in a land where there is no Jewish majority. It espouses that such a sovereign state be at peace and harmony with its neighbors without allowing the Palestinian refugees dwelling within their borders, who were expelled from their homes in Palestine by zionist militias, as is clearly documented by numerous sources including the memoirs of David-Ben Gurion himself, to return to their homes, which is a basic human right guaranteed by Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I believe that zionism is racism because it is presented by its champions, from Gil Troy to Elie Wiesel, as a romantic movement, which allowed zionists to reclaim the desert and build a model nation-state. This is racism at its most acute, since there was no desert in Palestine, other than the Negev in the South. This is simply a myth that has been propagated by racists who have supported Israel for the last 53 years, and economic data on agricultural exports to Europe from Palestine dating to medieval times easily rejects and exposes this as a blasphemous claim.

Yes, it sounds far-fetched today. But as Vladamir Jabotinsky, father of revisionist zionism said in a racist boast in 1923, "There can be no discussion of a voluntary reconciliation between us and the Arabs… Any native people…view their country as their national home… They will not voluntarily allow, not only a new master, but even a new partner… Colonization can have only one goal. For the Palestinian Arabs this goal is inadmissible. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible… colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population - an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy."

And thus, Gil Troy and zionists abound are exposed as nothing more than unabashed racists.

[Mr. Rabee' Sahyoun is a economic development policy researcher, human rights activist, and columnist residing in Beirut, Lebanon. He is affiliated with the global grassroots Palestine Right To Return Coalition.]

The Fight for Arafat's Fortune Begins

Ramallah, West Bank -- The wife of Yasser Arafat was locked in a bitter dispute with Palestinian officials over the fate of his vast secret fortune as the Palestinian leader lay apparently near death in a French hospital, according to a report on the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera.

Arafat's secret assets have been estimated at anywhere between $200 million (Forbes magazine) and $6 billion (U.S. and Israeli intelligence). Forbes listed him ninth in its ranking of the world's wealthiest heads of state -- even though he is a ruler without a country and many of his people are refugees.

In Paris, the struggle over Arafat's hidden millions threatened to overshadow his final days. His wife, Suha Arafat, hopes to inherit at least part of his fortune. But, according to Al-Jazeera, Palestinian leaders demand that it be handed over to the Palestinian people.

The assets are managed in a complex network of bank accounts, holding companies and stocks whose details are known only to his closest confidant, financial adviser Mohammed Rashid.

Suha Arafat has access to some of the money, but apparently even she does not know all the ins and outs of the secret accounts. Al-Jazeera reported that she asked Rashid to make out a list of Arafat's assets and that he refused, saying he would report only to the Palestinian Authority.

French officials earlier this year began investigating the transfer of $11.5 million from Swiss bank accounts to accounts in France controlled by Suha Arafat.

With Arafat apparently near death, questions linger about what has happened to the billions in aid money from the international community to build the nascent Palestinian state. Many suspect that Suha Arafat's luxurious lifestyle -- as well as the cars, villas and expensive education of other prominent Palestinian families -- was bought with cash stolen from international donors and tax revenues.

In 1997, the Palestinian Authority's own officials found that $323 million -- more than a third of the total budget -- had gone missing. The International Monetary Fund said last year that $750 million had been "diverted" from the Palestinian budget up to the year 2000.

Identifying Arafat's personal fortune and separating it from numerous secret bank accounts in the name of the PLO and Fatah, his political faction, will be no easy task.

Jean-Claude Robard, a Swiss investment adviser, told Al-Jazeera that Arafat opened his first secret bank account in 1965 with a $50,000 check from the emir of Kuwait. Since then, Robard said, Arafat has set up other accounts in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. Robard said Arafat also owns a number of hotels and holiday resorts in Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland and Austria and is the main shareholder in two cellular telephone companies operating in Tunisia and Algeria.

After the Oslo peace accords were finalized in 1994, tax and customs revenues collected by Israel on Palestinian salaries and goods were transferred to a personal account in Arafat's name held at an Israeli bank branch in Tel Aviv. Between 1996 and 2000, Israel paid more than $500 million in tax revenues on oil sales alone into Arafat's personal account, according to a report by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

In December 2002, an Israeli accountant named Ozrad Lev said in an interview with the Israeli daily Maariv that he was involved in the illegal transfer of $300 million in Palestinian funds to Arafat through a secret Swiss account. The funds were transferred from an official Palestinian account at a branch of the Arab Bank in Ramallah by Arafat and one of his top aides, said Lev.

He also said he helped open and manage the Swiss account with Yossi Ginossar, a former Israeli security official with widespread Palestinian business dealings who died earlier this year.

Lev told Maariv that the account was opened at the Swiss bank Lombard Odier & Cie in April 1997 using copies of Arafat's personal documents, including his passport. The account was opened in the name of a front company, Ledbury, which was later changed to Crouper.

Two years ago, American accountant Jim Prince told CBS' "60 Minutes" that part of the Palestinian leader's wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion, with investments in companies such as a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the United States and the Cayman Islands.

Although the money for the portfolio came from public funds, including Palestinian taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; it was all controlled by Arafat, Prince said, adding that none of these dealings was made public.

Al-Jazeera said some of Arafat's businesses are in partnership with Arab politicians, former officials and entrepreneurs, including Rifaat Assad, a brother of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, and Barzan Al-Takriti, a half-brother of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Al-Takriti now is under arrest in Baghdad.

See:

http://richmond.indymedia.org/mod/comments/display/17176/index.php

So did Rachel Corrie. The ISM killed her for propaganda purposes, which everyone but subsidized terrorist sympathizers knows.

Club Cruz on Rachel Corrie
Excellent documentary on the truth about Rachel Corrie’s death

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY2ohOsxQIU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54AvAZkbLgk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_vlJo3g0Ys

We add that there is very strong evidence that the International Solidarity Movement set up Rachel Corrie to be killed so they could make propaganda.

http://www.standwithus.com/news_post.asp “Recently, the Director of the Solidarity Movement, George Rishmawi, explained to the San Francisco Chronicle that the recruitment of American student volunteers is useful to the Palestinian Movement because “if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice.”

Joseph Smith, who was present when Corrie died and whose highest priority was apparently to take pictures, said, “”The spirit that she died for is worth a life. This idea of resistance, this spirit of resisting this brutal occupying force, is worth anything. And many, many, many Palestinians give their lives for it all the time. So the life of one international, I feel, is more than worth the spirit of resisting oppression.” Right: Rachel Corrie’s life, not Joseph Smith’s life.

A Hamas terrorist said openly that Rachel was worth more dead than alive. “‘Her death serves me more than it served her,’ said one activist at a Hamas funeral yesterday. ‘…Her death will bring more attention than the other 2,000 martyrs.’” Making of a Martyr by Sandra Jordan, Guardian Newspapers

When you are more useful to your friends dead than you are alive, it is time to find new friends.

Only a ghoul would've taken such pictures.

Corrie was not respected at all by those terrorist sympathizers, and her idealistic stupidity got her killed. Never, but never, turn your back on a leftist of any stripe.