Let’s get one or two things clear:

1. We are not against Jewish people in general.
2. We are opposed to the actions of some individuals in particular.
3. We are not opposed to their religion in particular.
4. We are opposed to all religious belief (except, of course, the Flying Spaghetti Monster) in general, all religious practice and especially all religious coercion.
5. We are not opposed to the State of Israel.
6. We are opposed to some Israeli politicians, apparatchiks and apologists, their actions and their dishonesty.
7. We are not pro-Hamas or pro-Palestinian
8. …except in the sense that we are pro-humanity and pro-human beings.
9. We are opposed to the killing and harming and exploitation of human beings by any person or any group in the pursuit of political agendas.

So that said…

There is an Israeli election coming up. Tzipi Livni is up against Netanyahu.

Also, George Bush, well-known for being the easy pushover for American Zionists, is about to be stop being President.

Livni has had one last window of opportunity. And, coincidentally enough, she is now claiming that the “Gaza job” is almost complete. Just in time to be over for Obama’s inauguration.

So who is Tzipi Livni? [Most of this from Wikipedia]

Tzipi Livni is a child of the Jewish struggle for a homeland, the daughter of Eitan Livni (born in Poland) and Sara Rosenberg, both prominent former Irgun members.

Irgun was a militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was established as a militant offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah.

The Irgun was the armed expression of the nascent ideology of Revisionist Zionism founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky. He expressed this ideology as

“every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state”.

Some of the better-known attacks by Irgun were the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 [killing 92 people] and the Deir Yassin massacre (accomplished together with the Stern Gang) on 9 April 1948.

In the West, Irgun was described as a terrorist organization by The New York Times newspaper, The Times of London, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry, and prominent world and Jewish figures, such as Winston Churchill, Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, and many others.

Irgun attacks prompted a formal declaration from the World Zionist Congress in 1946, which strongly condemned “the shedding of innocent blood as a means of political warfare”.

Irgun was a political predecessor to Israel’s right-wing Herut (or “Freedom”) party, which led to today’s Likud party. [And Kadima, Livni’s party, is a splinter from Likud.]

“ The symbol of the Irgun, with the motto “Only Thus” alongside a hand holding a rifle in the foreground of all of mandatory Palestine (both sides of the Jordan River), symbolized the striving for Hebrew independence over the entire land of Israel, to be achieved only by the power of Hebrew weapons.

In 1948, Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt and other prominent American Jews signed a Godwin’s-Law-compliant letter that began:

“ Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

Soon after World War II, Winston Churchill said “we should never have stopped immigration before the war”, but that the Irgun were “the vilest gangsters” and that he would “never forgive the Irgun terrorists.”

Are we drawing too long a bow, or is the spirit of Irgun alive in Israel today?

The Times:

“ British anger at terror celebration

July 20, 2006

The commemoration of Israeli bombings that killed 92 people has caused offence.

The rightwingers, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister, are commemorating the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of British rule, that killed 92 people and helped to drive the British from Palestine.

In 2006, Simon McDonald, the British Ambassador in Tel Aviv at the time, and John Jenkins, the Consul-General in Jerusalem at the time, wrote in response to a pro-Irgun commemoration of the King David Hotel bombing:

“ We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated.”

They also called for the removal of plaques at the site which blame the deaths on “ignored warning calls.” The plaques read:

“ For reasons known only to the British, the hotel was not evacuated,”

but McDonald and Jenkins asserted that no such warning calls were made, adding that even if they had,

“ this does not absolve those who planted the bomb from responsibility for the deaths.”

It is hard to think that Livni’s politics are not deeply influenced by her family’s past and by the history, politics and culture of Irgun. There are scarily striking echoes here. To Livni and the Israelis, Palestinians who act militarily for what they believe are their rights are “terrorists” who, along with their children and families, need to be shot, bombed and killed. Israelis, in stark contrast, are “freedom fighters” whose deeds deserve commemoration.

Livni this week blamed the Palestinians for their own deaths, for the very same reason that her political forbears blamed the Brtitish for their deaths at the King David Hotel 62 years ago: the Palestinians had been phoned to warn them that their homes were about to be bombed. It was up to them to evacuate. Ah, yes. The good old game of “blame the victim”.

How would Israelis react if people said of the Holocaust, “Well, you know, you have only yourselves to blame. If you weren’t jewish….” Of course they’d be outraged, and rightly.

“ A military spokeswoman, Maj. Avital Leibovich, said Monday that the army had “no intention of harming civilians.”

The height of the disingenuousness of the Israelis comes in saying they don’t “intend” to kill civilians, while knowing that they certainly will, and proposing that, since they didn’t ‘intend’ the inevitable casualties they will certainly cause, they are not therefore accountable for them. In fact they go further and sheet the responsibility home to Hamas. Or accident. In this way, of course, they kill and maim any number of innocents without, supposedly, troubling their conscience at all. The Israelis seem to be proposing that ‘lack of intention’ is exculpatory. It is not.

Whether they ‘intend’ the deaths of innocent civilians or not, the Israelis are responsible for them and accountable for them. Their squirming avoidance of responsibility and their refusal to admit blindingly obvious agency is the real awfulness in the matter and the true indication of the national character flaw. Not to mention their retreat behind the magic mirror of the past — you know, the one that makes everyone who looks into it turn into an anti-semite at the slightest suggestion of criticism of their ruthless, immoral, bloodthirsty 21st century politicians.

The awfulness doesn’t stop there. Israeli spokesperson, sleazy — and unfortunately and shamefully Australian — Mark Regev, said wtteo “we are sorry a UN truckdriver was killed. We don’t know if Hamas was operating in that area on that day and the UN trucks got accidentally caught in the crossfire, but it is terrible that they were”, sliding from barely plausible scenario to probable fact in the course of a single sentence.

All the people who have acted to shed blood, or failed to act to stop it – Israelis, Hamas, Bush, Tony The Fixer Blair, the UN – must be called to account for the consequences of their actions and inaction, particularly given their sleazy attempts to avoid accountability.

The greatest lie may have been that told by Condolleeza Rice, that a ceasefire was desirable but that it must be sustainable and must include disarming Hamas.

No! That is not what was required.

What was required was for Israel to stop killing people.

That’s all.

Stop killing innocent people, children, babies, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. The rest can be worked out later. It’s like someone saying, “The Indians are attacking, they’re firing arrows at us. Quick, find some wood and nail it across the windows,” and you say, “No, no, if you’re going to alter the appearance of the windows first we need to discuss colour, and call in the interior decorator to make sure it’s done nice. And I want frilly curtains.”

Just stop killing each other. That is not difficult. At all.

The stupidity of the Israeli action in Gaza is that it is blindingly obvious that it ensures that hostility towards Israel and Israeli citizens is perpetuated and increased and not just amongst Palestinians.

Anti-Israeli feeling is growing globally. People are impatient with Israel’s politicians. They are over its immature tantrums, its childish emotions and bullying excesses.

The Israelis have lost much of the grassroots international support they had and it is going to be increasingly difficult in the future for liberal-democratic regimes around the world, – or even America – to carry their populations with a pro-Israeli stance.

But surely that is not what Israelis want – permanently to play the role of self-inflicted victimhood.

If the Israelis should listen to anyone, I plead with them, listen to the great souls amongst you, past and present.

Listen to Daniel Barenboim. Watch what he does; see how he reconciles Israeli and Palestinian. Hear what he says and listen to the music he makes with his Israeli/Palestinian, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

UPDATE:

Oops! Wonder what Regev (née Freiberg) will say about the Israeli shelling of the UN compound in Gaza. How will he blame Hamas for this one? Will it be another case of crossfire or did the gunner swallow a muslim-sympathising fly just as he was pressing the button?

Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, said it was a “grave mistake” and he took it “very seriously”. He assured Ban Ki-Moon that “extra attention” will be paid to U.N. facilities and staff and this will not be repeated.”

Unfortunately the Israeli track record is not good on the “never again” scale. They killed the UN truckdriver just the other day, and during their glorious fight against Lebanon recently, remember they shelled a UN observation post killing at least two UN officials.

“Oops, sorry, I’ll try not to do it again,” isn’t really good enough, is it.