Embattled Palestinian Knesset Member Fights for Her People’s Rights

In this interview with Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, Dennis J. Bernstein discusses Zoabi’s feminism, the struggle in Gaza and life in the Israeli parliament.

By Dennis J Bernstein

Haneen Zoabi is a member of the Israeli Knesset and the first woman elected to the Israeli Knesset on an Arab party list. She’s an unrelenting advocate for equal citizenship rights for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, and despite repeated attacks of all kinds, she remains unrelenting in her call for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Lands.

Zoabi considers herself a straight up feminist. She says “real feminism must acknowledge the discrimination against Arab women in Israel, and real feminism must know to identify with and struggle alongside them, at the national, civil and social levels.”

Zoabi joined forces with the Balad Party a year after it was founded in 1997. A key guiding principle of the Party is to maintain a one-third quota for women candidates. The party advocates for the rights of Palestinians, legally designated as ‘Arab Israelis’. Zoabi has been banned from the Knesset five times for taking strong stands in support of Palestinian rights.

Bernstein spoke to Haneen Zoabi on April 17th in Berkeley California at the Flashpoints studios of Pacifica Radio/KPFA

Dennis Bernstein: We are honored to have in the studio a member of the Israeli Knesset, Haneen Zoabi. She tells me she has been suspended from that body five times but she is back again, trying to make lives more livable for Palestinians in the state of Israel. What went through your mind, Haneen Zoabi, when you got first-hand reports of the killings along the border fence?

Haneen Zoabi: Palestinians have long been suffering from the siege. Almost daily, bombers fly over Gaza. Israel wants to break the will of the Palestinians, to prevent Palestinians from fighting for their freedom. I would describe the Palestinian struggle as an heroic one. After eleven years of siege, 75% of children in Gaza suffer from anemia. Fisherman are shot on a weekly basis. Farmers coming to work on their land are shot. Employment rates and poverty rates are extremely high. 95% of the water is unsafe to drink. The United Nations has determined that the living situation in Gaza is not suitable for human life. But the Palestinian people do not want to die a silent, slow-motion death under the siege. If Israel is determined to kill them and continues to evade accountability for this crime, the Palestinians will die struggling for their liberation. This terrible, indiscriminate killing we are seeing now at the border is meant to deter others from struggling. This is the plan for Gaza: either to let it die slowly or to inflict more and more suffering, without breaking the silence concerning the siege. 70% of the inhabitants in Gaza are refugees Israeli expelled from their homes and villages in 1948. They want freedom and they want to return home.

DB: Some people have compared the lives of Arabs inside Israel with the lives of Blacks living under Jim Crow.

Zoabi: Relentless

HZ: First of all, most people don’t understand the meaning of being a Palestinian and being a citizen of Israel. First of all, we didn’t choose to be Israelis. It was Israelis who immigrated to our homeland and established here a Jewish state. It was in order to be recognized in the UN that Israeli granted citizenship to those Palestinians who remained in their homeland. We who remained in historical Palestine continue to struggle for our people’s rights–the right to return and an end to the occupation. Israel doesn’t perceive us as citizens, they perceive us as obstacles to the Jewish state. The purpose of having a Jewish state is to give privileges to Jews at the expense of Palestinians. There are 95 racist laws on the books in Israel today. As a Knesset member, I have been suspended five times because of my political views and for speaking out against these racist laws.

DB: What sort of things got you suspended?

HZ: I participated in the Freedom Flotilla to break the siege of Gaza in 2010, when Israel killed nine Turkish activists in an act of piracy on international waters. For daring to be a part of this flotilla I was labeled a traitor. Since last year, Israel has now passed a new law which gives the Knesset the ability to permanently suspend any Knesset member. Our struggle for freedom and democracy clashes directly with the concept of a Jewish state. We cannot struggle for our equality within this construct.

DB: To be clear, you are calling for a one-state solution. For one person one vote.

HZ: I am calling for a state which represents all of its citizens. For Israel, this struggle for democracy is a strategic threat. Equality and justice are strategic threats. As a member of the Knesset, I am asked to be loyal to racism, loyal to apartheid laws, loyal to my oppressor. In Arab schools, we cannot study our own history, our own literature. We cannot control our own textbooks. We learn that we don’t have any special relation to our homeland. We pay taxes so that our children can learn how inferior we are in our homeland. We must thank Israel every day for not expelling us in 1948. Citizenship in Israel is not something that is meant to empower us. In a poll conducted three or four years ago, 65% of Israelis said they would like to be perceived as part of the West and not as part of the Middle East. If you don’t want to be seen as part of the Middle East, if you don’t want to respect the history and the culture, why did you come here? You hate my language, you destroy over 500 villages and cities, develop over 700 cities and villages for the exclusive use of Jewish citizens. You came here without any respect for my identity or my history. You came not to live beside me but to replace me. Our response to this position is so democratic , so simple, so humanitarian: to decolonize the regime and to decolonize the people of Israel. It is not only a battle for equality, it is also a vision that frees the Israelis from their colonialist perceptions.

Knesset: Where Zoabi is asked to be loyal to racism.

DB: Could you describe the relationship between Palestinians inside the state of Israel and those in the occupied West Bank and Gaza?

HZ: I am forbidden to travel to Gaza. Gaza is now the biggest ghetto in the world. They restrict the movement even of patients, even of students. In Gaza there are hundreds of women with cancer who cannot to be treated in the West Bank. It is not so uncommon that people with illnesses die waiting at checkpoints. As a politician, I don’t see myself as just struggling for the rights of Palestinians within the borders of 1948. I am struggling for the rights of the Palestinian people.

DB: So your constituency includes all Palestinians.

HZ: One strategy of control at play here, apart from occupation and the siege, is citizenship as a way to tame and control Palestinians within Israel. I don’t have the right to even identify myself as Palestinian in Israel. I must identify myself as Arab-Israeli. I must accept my dual marginalization: I am not 100% Palestinian and I am not 100% Israeli because I am not Jewish. It is not that we have a normal state occupying another state. We have a colonialist state which perceives me as an invader. Still today Israeli is confiscating our land. Already they have confiscated 85% of our land. Is it really the case that you need more? When I pose this question in the Knesset, the answer I get is: “We are a Jewish state and you are invaders.” We must fight against the whole system, of which occupation is one part. Occupation is part of the Zionist ideology.

DB: What is your primary purpose in coming to the US at this time?

HZ: It is so important to speak directly to the American community. Israel could not continue its criminal policies against the Palestinians without the full support of the US government. We do not ask the Americans to like the Palestinians, nor do we ask them to love the Palestinians. We ask them to examine their sense of justice, equality and freedom. You cannot be a liberal without embracing the Palestinian cause. I meet US politicians who sympathize with our cause but explain that they may lose their positions if they support us openly. Washington politicians need to be liberated from the Zionist lobby if we are ever going to succeed at liberating ourselves.

DB: It is interesting that some of the strongest support for the Palestinian cause has come from those who fought against the apartheid regime in South Africa. They are saying that it is worse now in the occupied territories than it was in South Africa.

HZ: The Palestinian struggle is a struggle for justice. You cannot support justice in the world without supporting the Palestinian cause. And again, American citizens cannot see themselves as being neutral in this struggle, because of the total blind support of Israel by the United States. Israel is not held accountable for its crimes and this is why it is able to continue with this murderous oppression. It is time to send a clear message to Israel that it is not above international law.

Dennis J. Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom.  You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net. You can get in touch with the author at [email protected].

30 comments for “Embattled Palestinian Knesset Member Fights for Her People’s Rights

  1. Vesuvius
    April 22, 2018 at 12:50

    My deep admiration for Ms Zoabi.

    There is a book by Alison Weir, “Against Our Better Judgment, How the U.S. was used to create Israel” (2014).
    I recommend it to every American. In 1947, American Statesman Dean Acheson said: “Creating Israel on land already inhabited by Palestinians would ‘imperil not only American but all Western interests in the Near East.'”

    Then, why has this Palestinian disaster been going on for now 70 years? Palestinian land stolen, civil rights for Palestinians denied ever more, etc.

    Answer: AIPAC. And Israeli propaganda all over the world is very rich, strong and effective.

    The Palestinian cause is betrayed, worldwide. Israeli Apartheid is worse than original South-African Apartheid.
    Palestinians have no supporters left.
    Their future is very dark.

  2. April 21, 2018 at 12:07

    Thanks for this interview with a very brave and moral woman daily facing immoral hypocrites who know only the Iron Rule. They have their Iron Dome, too, to keep out “the dogs”. I wish there were more in the interview to reveal Israeli citizens’ criticism of their own government’s cruel policies against the Palestinians. Herman mentioned Jews for Peace and there are others.

    My knowledge of Israel’s history is limited but i understood its creation by the Balfour Declaration was instigated by the Rothschilds soon after WWI as a buffer to the Arab states set up by the Sykes-Picot Accords, years before the state of Israel came into being. This may not be directly relevant here, but it does fit with maintaining colonial control of ethnic groups through confrontation and conflict.

    Realist, i second that your comments are constantly full of pearls!

    • JWalters
      April 22, 2018 at 00:29

      Jessika, I’ll add my thanks also for this extraordinary interview. It’s a brilliantly succinct account of the situation today and its history.

      If you’d like to look at the history in more depth, including the Rothschild role, a clear and well-documented account (suitable for sharing with skeptical friends and family) is at
      “War Profiteer Story”
      http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com

      Hope you find it useful.

  3. mike k
    April 21, 2018 at 10:23

    From the article linked to below:

    Has the universal spread of tainted ideas doomed us all? Maybe it has, and maybe this explains why me and my colleagues cannot convince more people to simply “think” about world crises. Maybe they are thinking! Maybe the diseased ideas and ideals make people immune to the truth? This is where I think we are, doomed by ideas sutured into our minds by the mad doctors of world domination.

    https://journal-neo.org/2018/04/21/doomed-to-the-hegemony-by-an-ebola-of-ideas/

  4. mike k
    April 21, 2018 at 10:13

    By all means read this article, the long version of what I am saying:

    https://journal-neo.org/2018/04/21/doomed-to-the-hegemony-by-an-ebola-of-ideas/

  5. mike k
    April 21, 2018 at 10:05

    We need to wake enough people to the truly evil nature of our government and media. From there, positive change is possible. As long as most people are asleep to what these power addicts are doing to all of us, nothing truly constructive can happen. The Rulers have become really adept at keeping their game going – unless enough people decide to rudely upset their applecart.

    So get used to people calling you doomers, downers, pessimists, conspiracy theorists, whatever. And keep on pointing out the obvious in as many ways as you can. This work is crucial to our survival.

    • Steve Naidamast
      April 22, 2018 at 13:08

      Unfortunately, as Max Blumenthal cited to Abby Martin in a recent interview, the sociology of Israel and her population is completely lost to any rational discussion on anything that may allow the Palestinian People any semblance of Human Rights.

      As much as I admire people like Haneen Zoabi and her courageous fight for her people, her efforts are now futile as there is no one within Israel that will listen to her beyond the relatively ineffective Israeli few that understand what is plaguing their nation…

  6. Joe Tedesky
    April 21, 2018 at 01:38

    Haneen Zoabi, just makes too much sense.

  7. April 21, 2018 at 00:55

    I feel great shame in the knowledge that my country, Australia, is persistently “sucking up” to the U.S.; making Australia a “Target” with its ill-considered support of the U.S., with military bases, all around the Globe, and their frequent deposing of democratic Governments, accompanied with the installation of despotic, unelected, undemocratic “regimes”. However the warning bells should sound very loudly, whenever that Nation, calling itself Israel, has any involvement in World affairs. Israel is totally without legitimacy; it has usurped the lands and lives of the whole Nation of Palestinians, and even blind Harry and his dog can see the literal extermination of Palestinians, proceeding exactly as this Jewish Peoples have been advocating over this past century; plus this so called state of Israel is in breach of every United Nations resolution calling upon them to desist. And if you are one of those that trots out the propaganda subterfuge that this is God’s Will, then, I demand that you explain, and justify, all the evils that God’s “chosen” are perpetrating on the “Lives” of millions of God’s children, the Palestinian’s. Taken in isolation, the Jewish Peoples Israel, is but a tiny inconsequential speck of the World’s populations, they should not be a “guiding” or controlling force determining the fate of other Great Nations of peoples; The Jewish State of Israel was conceived and created through bribery (Winston Churchill’s biographer) and the illegal actions of their own terrorist organisations, using terror, murder and destructive force. The names have changed, but the terror processes are still there for all to see. The Jewish state of Israel will never be allowed to bury all this infamy, they will be known as pariahs for ever. Finally,in respect of China; it is the U.S. spending billions on armaments and destructive mayhem around the World; it is China spending/financing billions of development infrastructures, material, concrete and steel, functioning additions to the World’s economies, not randomly bombing and destroying the towns and cities of whole Nations. Which would you rather support?

    • April 21, 2018 at 08:49

      “Finally,in respect of China; it is the U.S. spending billions on armaments and destructive mayhem around the World; it is China spending/financing billions of development infrastructures, material, concrete and steel, functioning additions to the World’s economies, not randomly bombing and destroying the towns and cities of whole Nations. Which would you rather support?’

      Thomas, a great point heard frequently in comments on CN. America could do the same thing but it has been captured by the military approach to influence, really, bully the rest of the world. I think it is the Society of Friends who have adopted the slogan War is Not the Answer. It is pasted on the rear window of my 2003 Ford Ranger pickup. Their advocacy for a Department of Peace may sound Orwellian but the goal of seeking peace and reconciliation is not.

      As to the Palestinians, I think Ms. Zoabi is on the mark by insisting for equal rights for Palestinians within a single state It has the strongest resistance by Jewish lobbies but the most cogent argument which can mobilize people inside and outside the region once called Palestine.

      On this point, the most promising avenue for success is the mobilization of those in the Jewish community who see apartheid antithetical to fundamental Jewish values. I would commend anyone who wants to address this injustice to join forces with such organizations as Jews For Peace. They have a website and have a great deal of commitment and the energy to address injustice toward the Palestinians.

      • Antiwar7
        April 22, 2018 at 13:05

        America could even try to cure cancer and Alzheimer’s with its trillions of dollars spent, directly and indirectly, on the offense budget (defense is obviously not the main product). Then people wouldn’t mind all the taxes. And then after that, space colonization. There’s no end to useful things we could throw trillions of dollars at, and still allow the usual graft and feather-bedding (to get buy-in from the current cronies).

    • April 24, 2018 at 07:43

      Dear Thomas:

      Assuming that what looks like a real name is your actual name I want to commend you for not hiding your identity behind a pseudonym as the vast majority of commentators on a myriad websites does. Why are you hiding the identtiy of your conscience, folks? Afraid of loosing your job? Afraid of standing up for justice and the liberation of brothers and sisters native to this once beautiful place called Palestine?

      As a German citizen I am suffering from a similar pain inflicted upon me by my own country, resulting from wide-spread ignorance about the century-long tragic history of the Jewish/Israeli-Palestinian relationship and, what I call, the Germans’ Holocaust neurosis that seems to be an incurable afliction. It pains me that my country sells, and even donated, weaponry such as nuclear-capable submarines to apartheid Israel. It pains me to learn that the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, living in exile in the UK, was prevented by the city council of Munich, my home town, from educating people on the reality of history and life in Israel proper and the Occupied Territories by canceling a public venue. It pains me when the Childrens’ Healthcare of Atlanta [CHOA}, the academic institution in Atlanta, Georgia, whose weekly grand rounds I am attending invites a speaker addressing the global malnutrition of children yet omits the realities of Gaza and the Occupied Territories. That same speaker, when criticized about his omission, refused to offer feedback explaining his silence. Why is it that in these exceptional, reportedly free-speech enthusiastic, United States Palestinian advocacy groups on university campuses are prevented from engaging fellow students in a necessary and long overdue conversation about one of the longest-lasting brutalization of a people in modern history?

      Dear Ms. Zoabi: It pains me to know that the few courageous voices pleading for justice get treated as unfairly as you are, suffering humiliation and, I wouldn’t be surprised, threats in and outside of the Knesset, the parliament of a supposedly democratic country. My heart is with you all, men, women and children of Palestine and heroes such as Allison Weir and freedom fighters such as Ilan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein, Miko Peled, Gilad Atzmon and others. I am disgusted about you, Germany, ou ugly US bootlicker; NOT IN MY NAME! And you be damned, United Sates of Arrogance and malfeasance, source of massive evil on this planet, you can wait forever to add my citizenship to your register of immigrants.

  8. April 21, 2018 at 00:54

    PALESTINE FOR EVER.

    The only hope for anything resembling a peaceful solution is for the World through the United Nations to insist, by force if necessary, that the Jewish People be removed from the Palestinian State allotted area, and allow the Palestinians to occupy their birthright, even as it is so thoroughly diluted. Legitimacy cannot be secured from anything that was stolen or illegitimately gained; that is close to the maxim of British Common Law; it must be upheld because the Palestinians have an iron-clad entitlement. Unless this occurs, the Jewish Peoples will be forever condemned to live in a State of imminent war and insecurity; Palestinians and Arabs will never “Let this go”, and one day the Middle Eastern Nations will have new leaders and Governments that collectively will demand restitution and restoration; much safer and sanely to get it done now. My belief is that the great diaspora of displaced Palestinians must immediately make their way peaceably back to the borders of their birthright, and the World of sympathisers will force the Jewish Peoples to get out of the way; and should the Jewish Peoples try to stop this return using force of arms, they will be signing their own departure warrants. We must end the pathological suffering being meted out to the Palestinians; they have suffered enough already. Nuclear weapons will not count and only the most foolish of men would continue to rely on support from the U.S.A.

  9. April 21, 2018 at 00:52

    It is not anti-semitism or bigotry to recognise the abominations that Jews in Palestine are inflicting upon the Palestinian Nation, every hour, every day,every week, year upon year without respite. It is not anti-semitism or bigotry to recognise the equally abominable War Crimes and Human Rights atrocities that the Palestinian Peoples are forced to endure at the hands and diabolical minds of their occupier, oppressor, invader. Claims asserted by the Jewish Peoples in Palestine, maintaining their unmatched standards of democratic humanitarian credentials, when considered against their actual psychologically deluded realities, must surely qualify as definitive oxymoron delusions.

    Jews are the criminals, not all Semites, so my statements are anti-Jewish.

    If, as we claim, this is all permitted and approved by the G_d of Abraham, then it seems to me that the Devil has usurped our minds, and we are blindly following this devil back to hell. Our lord Jesus Christ saw the extent of our disobedience and lawlessness, and this is why he appeared to correct our sins; all Jews ignored Abraham’s “call” and G_d’s admonitions, calling us to return to sanity, the punishment will be another exodus, for the survivors, and the concomitant wandering in the wilderness for the others. Amen.

  10. Paul Easton
    April 20, 2018 at 21:40

    I don’t think it is helpful to fulminate against the Zionists. They were traumatized by their history and allowed and encouraged to put themselves in a position where they couldn’t recover from it
    They are abusers and also victims. If we need to cast blame we should blame the governments that enabled them and we should make them stop.

    • Paul Easton
      April 20, 2018 at 22:00

      I’m not saying that this article or the comments are fulmanating. I mean other things I’ve seen.

  11. Gregory Herr
    April 20, 2018 at 21:38

    I applaud Haneen Zoabi for her clear and direct thoughts and values. And thanks to Dennis Bernstein for bringing us this interview.

    “Israel could not continue its criminal policies against the Palestinians without the full support of the US government. We do not ask the Americans to like the Palestinians, nor do we ask them to love the Palestinians. We ask them to examine their sense of justice, equality and freedom.”

    • Realist
      April 21, 2018 at 00:39

      America has a lot of useful advice and assistance to offer to the Israelis, which the Likudniks charmingly demand even if we don’t volunteer it. We already did to the native Americans what the Zionists are still carrying out against the native peoples of Israel, and we did it on a continental scale not on just one little parcel of land.

      We killed off most of them, rounded up the rest and forced them to live on tiny reservations with the worst terrain, crappiest climate and precious few resources many hundreds of miles from their original homelands. Their kids were forcibly separated from their parents and indoctrinated in boarding schools to love the “red, white and blue” and worship the White Man’s god, even though there would never be jobs with a living wage for them and they’d never be integrated without prejudice into the greater society. Those resources that exist on the reservations, such as oil, gas and fresh water, the big corporations were allowed to monopolize with the Indians ruthlessly cast aside if they attempt to interfere with the White Man’s grand plans. The essentials of life in the Dakotas, like clean air, land and water, are still currently denied the natives so that a handful of foreign investors can make a profit while Mother Earth gets raped as collateral damage.

      I suppose we expected our Indians to stop complaining because we graced them with the right to run gambling casinos and sell cigarettes and tobacco tax-free, but the ingrates never stopped complaining, just like those troublesome Palestinians. No wonder Uncle Sam and Uncle Shlomo need to compare notes and practice more of that solidarity stuff so efficiently practiced by the NATO countries. Frankly, since there is money involved, I doubt the Israeli mafia (which is undoubtedly as real as AIPAC) would be willing to share any of their gambling revenues or income from the other “sin industries.” More likely, lessons learned in the Middle East will some day be turned against our beloved sports team mascots.

      • Joe Tedesky
        April 21, 2018 at 07:45

        Realist Your writing inspires me to suggest that the U.S. redirect it’s billions in aid money given to the racist state of Israel, and instead give it to the Native-Americans or to those in socioeconomic need. I’m not exactly sure to how the U.S. could better qualify itself to serving a more deserving need than Israel, but we sure as hell could give it a try. This should be an easy lift for a country who calls itself Christian, or do we dare ask a Native-American what they know of Christian justice. Joe

        • Realist
          April 21, 2018 at 14:08

          Yes, indeed, Joe. White Americans have even come full circle in again casting onerous discrimination against their own brethren on the lower end of the economic scale, just like the immigrants from continental and Catholic Europe received in the 19th and early 20th centuries from “Nativists” (See “Gangs of New York.”) They are sneeringly referred to as red necks and meth heads by the beautiful people and blamed for not pulling hard enough on their boot straps. (Remember when Dumbya praised a woman working three separate jobs for being so “typically American” and thinking that was a good thing rather than an indictment of cutthroat capitalism?) This after we all ostensibly buried the hatchet and sang kumbayah during the era of our two world wars, which were supposed to have functionally transformed us into a genuine, fully certified lovey-dovey “melting pot,” at least according to Hollywood and all those William Bendix movies. John Steinbeck wouldn’t win any Nobel Prizes today, he’d be trolled as a whiny snowflake by the “right” and probably a Putin apologist by the self-serving “left.” We can start the task you set for us, Joe, by simply funding our public schools, including our state universities, to historical levels and not continuously looking for excuses to cut Medicaid and food stamps. If something’s to be cut, let the princelings heading the “death for profit” MIC corporations take the hit. Read the history (not the propaganda), 19th century Germany was more progressive than this country is today.

          • Joe Tedesky
            April 21, 2018 at 21:45

            Jessika recommend this to me, so I will recommend it to you or those interested in furthering their education of this subject. Read, “White Trash: The 400 Year Untold History of Class in America” by Nancy Isenberg.

            I find it sad that for all the things you mentioned, such as funding public schools and stabilizing our Medicaid, that we Americans are swayed to see these issues otherwise. Instead though we find it very suitable and right to bomb other countries, as we also prop up a security industry which seeks to take our civil rights away. Utterly astounding that we Americans buy into such nonsense.

      • Bob Van Noy
        April 21, 2018 at 08:47

        Realist, I’m quickly becoming one of your greatest fans, thank you for this really brilliant comparison. Yes, it is an equivalent comparason, the US treatment of Native Americans and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
        In my self-directed research and love for those magnificent scholars of Concord Mass., I ran up against the very clear reality that as brilliant and scholarly as they were, they were almost totally indifferent to the Native population they were displacing. Once I realized that fact, I could no longer embrace them with near total respect. So it is with Israel, a very appropriate comparison. Many thanks…

        • Bob Van Noy
          April 21, 2018 at 09:10

          I’ve told this personal story on this wonderful site before, but I think it’s worth telling again, here: My dear Friend who I literally grew up with has a name that I interpreted as being Hispanic, and recently I asked him where his family came from, anticipating that he would say Mexico or Spain, instead he said “here” and I thought “what”? and he said, “I’m a Shoshone, my family has always been here.”

          We may be born innocent of our heritage, but at some point we must embrace what we are, and learn to realize the impact of our cultural past and find ways to mitigate the wrongs that may be a part of that past…

        • Realist
          April 21, 2018 at 13:21

          Bob, If my memory serves correct, I believe that our founding fathers referred to the native Americans as “merciless savages” in the Declaration of Independence.

          Wait, since the world now has Google, let me just look it up.

          Sure enough, see for yourself: https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/opinions/the-declaration-of-independence-except-for-indian-savages/

          • Bob Van Noy
            April 21, 2018 at 13:42

            Perfect!

          • Broompilot
            April 23, 2018 at 14:46

            Long before I heard the term “ hasbara”, It seemed obvious to me that when the Israelis were using the terms “settlers” and “animals” that they we pandering to Americans through their own creation myth. I can’t imagine those terms having a weighted meaning elsewhere.

  12. Sally Snyder
    April 20, 2018 at 21:07

    As shown in this article, there is one significant health issue associated with Israel’s long-term “punishment” of Palestinians:

    https://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2018/01/israel-palestine-and-use-of-tear-gas.html

    It is interesting to note that the United States has completely ignored this human rights issue at the same time as it vilifies anti-human rights violations in Iran, North Korea and its other Axis of Evil states.

    • April 24, 2018 at 23:32

      Unbeknownst to even most pediatrician colleagues is the epigenetic effect – sometimes lasting post-exposure over four generations – of long-term stress, famine and malnutrition as a result of war and strife of all sorts on a victimized population. I strongly recommend reading Richard Francis’ excellent book – written for non-scientists – “The Ultimate Mystery of Inheritance EPIGENETICS” ISBN-13: 978-0393070057. No author I am aware of has ever mentioned these epigenetic illnesses in their articles and treatises, illnesses such as diabetes, schizophrenia, diabetes, cancer, autism, to name just a few.
      ISBN-10: 0393070050 .

  13. mike k
    April 20, 2018 at 19:49

    Those who created “Israel” were colonial criminals. It has persisted in awful criminal activities ever since. The Israelis are criminals created and abetted by criminals. Justice demands that these criminals be evicted from the lands they have stolen.

  14. mike k
    April 20, 2018 at 19:44

    The state of Israel needs to be dissolved. There is no basis for such a “state”. The idea that it is a state is a total fabrication. Israel is an illegal terrorist entity that pretends to be a state. Human justice demands that it be dissolved, and make reparations to those it has harmed.

Comments are closed.