Vatic Opinion Piece - by Jim Kirwan

                                                             Vatic Opinion Piece
                                             By Jim Kirwan

The Zionist Face
Of American Government
An Interview with Norm Finklestein
Jim Kirwan
3-23-10


Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State: speaking yesterday at AIPAC:

“For president Obama and for me and for our entire administration: Our commitment to Israel’s security and Israel’s future is rock-solid unwavering and enduring FOREVER!

Benjamin Netanyahu: At the same AIPAC CONFERENCE:

“The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today! Jerusalem is NOT a settlement it’s our Capital. Everyone knows – everyone – Americans, Europeans; Israeli’s certainly, Palestinians: EVERYONE knows that these neighborhoods will be part of Israel in any peace settlement. And therefore ‘building in them’ in no way precludes the possibility of a two-state solution.”



The above treasons and lies were all refuted brilliantly by Norman Finkelstein on Democracy Now, 3-23-10

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: It didn’t really surprise me. I think one has to look at the framework of the criticism. There is an international law ruling or opinion on the question of East Jerusalem. In July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice, it rendered what it called its advisory opinion, and it stated unequivocally that East Jerusalem is—and I’m using its words—“occupied Palestinian territory.”

It’s not a question here of conflicting claims to Jerusalem, let alone an Israeli exclusive right to the East Jerusalem. The law is clear: it’s occupied Palestinian territory, because it was acquired in the course of a war, in the course of the June 1967 war. And under international law, it’s inadmissible to acquire territory by war.
I would want to add that’s the position of all human rights organizations, and it was the position of the Goldstone report. The Goldstone report repeatedly refers to East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory.

And Mr. Goldstone, by his own reckoning, is a Zionist, a lover of Israel. But he also respects the law, and the law is clear.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, let’s talk about the Goldstone report. You write about this extensively in the epilogue of your book. Israel and the US have both rejected that the war crimes allegations in the report. Talk about what the report is, who put together, Judge Goldstone, and what the reaction from the US and Israel has been.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: The Goldstone report was mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Richard Goldstone, the distinguished international jurist, led the mission. And he—at the end, they published a quite substantial report that ran to some 500 pages, 550 pages. It covered a lot of ground. And it has to be said, it was quite devastating in its indictment of Israel. It concluded that Israel used a disproportionate force to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.
Well, Israel was outraged by the report, across the spectrum, not just the right wing, but people like Shimon Peres, who’s said to be a dove. He called Richard Goldstone a “small man” who knows nothing about international law. Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the Goldstone report is worse than the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and worse than Ahmadinejad. And the reaction was quite similar in the United States.

And Goldstein replied after the criticism in the US. He said, “OK, you say the report is deeply flawed. Show me where.” And to this day—and I’ve read all the critiques. There have been three major ones, one by this Israeli and American professor Moshe Halbertal, there was one by Professor Dershowitz of Harvard, and the Israelis put out just last week a 500-page rebuttal. And I tried honestly to look at it objectively, but they were very insubstantial responses. I was quite impressed by how well Goldstone has held up to the criticism. It was a very careful, cautious and judicious report.

AMY GOODMAN: And its conclusion?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Its conclusion was that both Israel and Hamas were guilty of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, that Israel has now an obligation to investigate, in an independent investigation of what happened, and if they don’t conduct an independent investigation, they have to go before the International Criminal Court.

AMY GOODMAN: And Obama’s response to this?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: The Obama administration has called the report deeply flawed, but not provided any substantive evidence to support that claim.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And this latest flap between the US and Israel about the expanding Jewish housing in East Jerusalem, it’s been a lot about diplomatic ties, but they have not talked at all about holding any US military aid or economic aid to Israel.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, I’m sure all of your listeners and your viewers are familiar with the magnitude of US aid to Israel. I think the important development is what Amnesty International said after the invasion of Gaza. It put out a very substantial report called “Fueling Conflict.” And it said that transferring weapons to a consistent violator of human rights is illegal under international law. Israel is a consistent violator of human rights, and therefore there has to be a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. And the report went into each country in the world, how it supplies and transfers weapons to Israel. But it has to be said, the focus was on the United States.

And Amnesty International said three main things: number one, that the US is by far the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel; number two, supplying those weapons to Israel is not only illegal under international law, it’s illegal under domestic US law; and number three, it said—and I think it’s important for your viewers to hear it—Amnesty International said what happened in

Gaza could—and they describe what happened in Gaza as twenty-two days of death and destruction—what happened in Gaza could not have happened were it not for US taxpayer money. If you’re appalled by what happened in Gaza, you’re appalled by the death, the destruction, the systematic attack on mosques, the systematic attack on ambulances, the systematic attack on hospitals, on schools—

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And these were detailed in the Goldstone report?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Yes. The 6,000 homes which were all either completely or nearly completely destroyed, Amnesty International says all of that was paid for with US taxpayer money.

And now along comes Hillary Clinton, and she’s extolling US military aid to Israel. The part that she left out is, number one, it’s all illegal under international and domestic US law, and number two, it was that US aid that made possible—you have to bear in mind—I know your program chronicled the use of the white phosphorus—every white phosphorus shell they found—you can see it in the Human Rights Watch report on the white phosphorus—every one was made in the United States. We are responsible for that war. It’s not just a cliché. It’s a factual matter. We made that massacre happen.” (1)

No state can be of two minds, never mind two-faces when it comes to who actually runs their nation. However in the case of the US Empire not only is this the case in point, but we have taken to speaking with two different tongues. And too many of this country’s leaders have dual-citizenships with Israel for this country to present a single face in either foreign or domestic policy-affairs for there to be any credibility left concerning anything that the traitors at the top of this government have to say.

We are today ‘a nation without freedom, without justice, and without any clearly defined laws that apply to all our people’: and not just to the disadvantaged, the homeless and the destitute. No ‘supposed nation’ can long exist in that condition: which is why this one’s days are fast becoming “numbered” whenever the viability of this place is mentioned anywhere.

As nation’s go, we are not composed of a single people or a single religion, we have no formal culture as such and most of our adults are still reliving their highschool years in terms of their habits and behaviors which leaves our population with far too many people that are barely housebroken with tendencies toward juvenile desires and habits that leaves no room for the living of authentic lives. We still rabidly follow the same games we played as students in school, as if these multi-billion-dollar entertainments actually mean something beyond huge profits for their owners and the massive distractions they are capable of manufacturing for the public. Even our eating and drinking habits are nothing more than expanded versions of what so many did whenever they took-off on their ‘Spring-Break.’

Is it any wonder that we have no time to figure out who is trying to kill us, or why? Under Reagan’s tortured presidency the public began to learn very simple things that were then inculcated into the psyche of the body-politic: “Greed is Good” or “He that dies with the most toys wins!” With slogans like these this society began to sign its own death warrant a very long time ago. Then there was that infamous line in Elmer Gantry that maybe came from the Bible: “When I was a child I played with the toys of a child, but when I became a man I put away the toys of a child.” Too often too many have forgotten this critical bit of wisdom that could have allowed us to focus on those things that have locked us into this place where we no longer question any the irrational aspects in our ‘national character.’

Zionist Israel is today a state of only one religion, Christians and Muslims have been officially banned, and there is no longer a functioning ‘Democracy’ in that place: Zionist Israel is officially an Outlaw state that rules its inhabitants as a Rogue Entity that observes none of the national or international laws that once governed the United States. We should tear off this Judas-face of Zionism that we have allowed to supplant what we once strove to be. If we cannot do this, then we will not survive to reach 2011 as an actual state, because by then we shall have become a captive state that serves only the perverted dreams of others in The New World Order.

kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net

1) Norman Finkelstein Responds to Clinton, Netanyahu AIPAC Comments http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/23/norman_finkelstein_responds_to_clinton_netanyahu

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