On Terrorism

By American history and precedent terrorism against state-supported violent racism is completely justified. Palestinian terrorism against Israeli Zionist racists is exactly as justified as hacking slavers to death with swords in Bleeding Kansas. Reverend Professor Ralph Waldo Emerson (HDS, HC 1821) and Henry David Thoreau (HC 1837) raised money in Harvard Yard to support John Brown in Bleeding Kansas. All patriotic antiracist Americans and decent human beings in general should support Palestinian terrorism against Israeli Zionists, who are the enemies of the whole human race.

The only downside to Palestinian terrorism is the death of the Palestinian attacker. There have been no innocent Zionist civilians since the Zionists began their war of ethnic cleansing in December 1947. Suicide attacks against Zionist civilians are no more problematic than suicide attacks against German Nazi civilians during the Hitler period. Even though most Zionist factions effectively collaborated with Nazis from 1933-39 under the Haavarah or Transfer Agreement, Jabotinskians undertook assassinations against German Nazi civilians, and Jabotinsky called for suicide attacks against Germans.

Zionists are waging a dirty demographic war against Palestinians and do not respect the status of protected noncombatants under the Geneva conventions. Racist Zionist invaders, thieves and interlopers have been brutalizing, raping and murdering the native population (including women and children) of Palestine at least since the 19-naughts. Moreover, Zionists have frequently stated since the beginning of the 20th century that every single Jew in Palestine is a weapon or foot soldier in the demographic war against Palestine. The defenders always have the right to destroy the weapons or kill the soldiers of the invaders. Under such conditions Palestinians have no recourse but proportionate response to purposeful and indiscriminate IDF murder of Palestinian civilians.

Americans have been conditioned to believe that Israeli Zionists as Jews could not possibly do the horrible things that anyone will see and experience if he or she lives among Palestinians for a few weeks. (Joshua Hammer, former Jerusalem bureau chief for Newsweek and later a Nieman fellow, made such a statement at Harvard.) In fact, during the 30s many Americans refused to believe that the German Nazis were committing Nazi crimes because such criminality was inconceivable for Germans, a people that had produced Goethe, Lessing, Schiller, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach etc. The idea that German Nazis or Israeli Zionists could not perpetrate the crimes of Nazism and Zionism is simply racist prejudice based in an assumption of German or Israeli Jewish superiority to the people they are victimizing.

Israeli Zionists are the most militarized people on the planet. There is hardly a square centimeter of Israel that is not a legitimate military target, and buses are dual use civilian military vehicles that are used as troop carriers and that service illegal settlements. By US rules of engagement attacking such vehicles is certainly allowable, and during the Kosova war the USA attacked similar and to my mind far less military targets.

Every weapon that the Israeli Zionists criminals use against the native population is bought or provided by the USA. Without the USA Israeli Zionism would just be a bad memory. Palestinians are in fact at least as much at war with the USA, which as been manipulated into a satanic foreign policy by traitorous ethnic Ashkenazi American Neoconservative racists like Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith and Wurmser and by irredentist neo-Confederate white racists like Jerry Falwell, Pat Roberts and Richard Land.

Israeli Zionists are the bad guys and represent an evil in the world today just as the German Nazis did in the 30s. Nowadays, we Americans are the bad guys because we are allied with Israeli Zionists. We Americans have to accept that Americans and Israeli Zionists may be subjected to attacks by billions of people justifiably enraged at our policies, just as Germans whether military or civilian were subject to attacks by the French, Polish, Russian and Yugoslav resistance during WW2. As the bad guys and allies of the bad guys we Americans have no more right to criticize the tactics of the resistance than the German Nazis had. In retrospect and to this day we consider the anti-Nazi resistance heroes that fought for all of humanity. Likewise the Palestinian resistance today is heroic and fights for all of humanity.

The mephitis that is Joachim Martillo's moral compass and intellectual contortions/casuistries has entered the fray. Arguing with a Joachim Martillo is similar to arguing with a brick wall, a brick wall at a sewage treatment site that hasn't been cleaned up in decades.

"Not only did the panelists portray Hamas as a guiltless, peace-seeking, unjustly provoked organization, they also bashed Israel, her motives, her character, her birth and conception and led the excited audience into chanting "Zionism is Nazism," "F---, f--- Israel," in the best tradition of rhino liturgy..."

If any more proof were needed that the "Human Rights and Gaza" symposium was an evil, reactionary exercise in Goebbels' propaganda tactics, here comes Martillo and nails it for us.

Irwin Cotler: "And so it is then that Israel is delegitimized - if not demonized - by the ascription to it of the two most scurrilous indictments of twentieth-century racism - Nazism and apartheid - the embodiment of all evil. . ."

http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/2009/02/judenstaatrein-qua-judenrein-natural.html

except for Martillo and his criminal ilk, there is no pretense that it is "Israel" but all Jews.

Are you an antisemite, Martillo? You must know that Himmler never considered himself to be antisemitic. Are you any wiser than Himmler?

Interestingly one of the things Sarah Palin was attacked for in a campaign interview is her black/white world view - to wit Israelis are the good guys period.

Most of us would say this is a more nuanced situation - even supporters of Israel like me.

In particular instances Israelis have needlessly harmed Palestinians and vice versa though on balance I think it's pointless to blame entire nations for having been trapped in a struggle they don't really control.

Indeed beyond the obvious religious and ethnic biases long in place in the region, one should look historically at the manipulation of the Arabs by the British in order to get rid of the Turks.

And subsequently we need to study the Cold War that left so many bodies on the ground all over Africa and the Middle East and Central Asia - Latin America too - none of the little players really had the power in those situations. They were all victimized and I don't think people even know why to this day. But it's coming back to bite the great powers in the rear isn't it.

Look at Afghanistan - how did that situation start? What did the Soviets hope to accomplish? Why did they invade in the first place? But my G*d look at the results:(

The film "Charlie Wilson's War" should have ended with a shot of the Twin Towers collapsing in smoke and flame but I guess that would have been a downer huh.

Meanwhile because there was plenty of money for arms for the mujeheddin but none for schools destroyed in the war - well you can fill in the blanks for yourselves. Just look at the Swat Valley now, look at the grip the Taliban still have on Afghanistan.

Regardless the Left laughed bigtime at Sarah Palin (this includes me) for her simplistic ideas.

So guess what - in the face of these complex facts along comes this Martillo fellow sounding exactly like Sarah Palin upside down.

Swell.

This kind of stupidity we don't need regardless of its source.

All patriotic antiracist Americans and decent human beings in general should support Palestinian terrorism against Israeli Zionists, who are the enemies of the whole human race. The only downside to Palestinian terrorism is the death of the Palestinian attacker.

J. Martillo, you're not just anti-semitic and morally retarded. You are also confused.

Terrorists are not freedom fighters. Most people who are not Islamist or Islamist supporters are repulsed by terrorism for the same reason we’re repulsed by cannibalism and incest. It’s taboo, a crime against humanity, abhorrent because it destroys entire societies, not just individual lives.

Society can survive war. War follows the established rules. Resistance movements target enemy combatants and their infrastructure. Resistance movements like the American Revolution don’t destroy a society. Frequently they create a better society.

But, as French philosopher Andre Glucksman says:

A society built on terrorism or genocide becomes a culture of death. We saw what life was like under Taliban rule. We saw Palestinian society under Arafat, we see it under Hamas, where sewers explode, drowing children in filth because maintaining the infrastructure is Hamas' last priority. In Gaza, people are terrorized by their own government. We see the effects of a Sharia-based terrorist governments on a society in the Sudan, where millions have died or have been enslaved.

Terrorism can succeed as a propaganda tactic, but a society built on terrorism will inevitably fail. This is not just due to the brutality of terrorism. Many successful societies (ie. Rome) have been brutal.

Terrorism isn’t just ‘brutal’, it doesn’t just accept the outpouring of self-destructive nihilistic rage, it demands it. Islamic sharia laws make terror and apartheid the backbone of their society. Hamas' Gaza is ruled by Sharia law, and imposing sharia is the goal of most Islamist-supported groups worldwide.

Most religions teach that God cherishes life. Most legal systems are built around the idea that preserving life is a desired goal. Islamist governments like Hamas take the opposite view. Terrorists who hide behind the illusion that they represent religion or civilization are proud of the fact that they choose death while we choose life. If we believe that God and civilization are created to cherish life, then the reasons for condemning terrorism, and the reasons to prevent terrorists from attaining political power are clear.

oops - that should have been:

But, as French philosopher Andre Glucksman says:

A society built on terrorism or genocide becomes a culture of death.

We saw what life was like under Taliban rule. We saw Palestinian society under Arafat, we see it under Hamas, where sewers explode, drowing children in filth because maintaining the infrastructure is Hamas' last priority. In Gaza, people are terrorized by their own government. We see the effects of a Sharia-based terrorist governments on a society in the Sudan, where millions have died or have been enslaved.

Interestingly one of the things Sarah Palin was attacked for in a campaign interview is her black/white world view - to wit Israelis are the good guys period.
Most of us would say this is a more nuanced situation - even supporters of Israel like me.

If you are a supporter of Israel why do you hold it to a different standard?
Very nuanced if one considers what those Jews went through from the 19 th century to present contending with British and French duplicity, Arab League skullduggery and Islamic bestiality.

On balance they are the good guys especially if one considers all the wealth that Israeli R&D has brought to America, and health and agricultural improvements to the world.

If you follow Joachim Martillo's comment back to the source -- his blog, Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel -- you'll find a lot more. Among other things, the piece quoted here was published (at greater length) in al-Jazeera, March 8 2005. You'll also find his bio:

Joachim Martillo
Boston, MA, United States

I run a hi-tech company. I am an inventor and created a key technology that makes it extremely hard for governments and mega-corporations to control the Internet (see Routing in a Bridged Network). Americans can probably thank me that they have any access over the Internet to news reports that have not been sanitized by US corporate media. Because of my business in the Middle East, I have become concerned about US Israel policy and have begun to apply my background in Eastern European and Jewish studies on behalf of pro-Palestinian anti-Israel and anti-Zionist activism.

So let me be the first to say it: thank you, Joachim.

- - - - -

Diatribes such as Mr. Martillo's are difficult and time-consuming to answer, particularly given the large number of half-truths, innuendoes, sly implications, outright falsehoods, and erroneous unconscious assumptions that permeate it. Nonetheless, in my humble opinion, it is just such people that need to be answered -- for Mr. Martillo is articulate and eloquent, and as such his arguments will seem persuasive to many if no rebuttal is forthcoming.

So let's give it a try.

Mr. Martillo, your arguments -- based on documentation you neglect to provide -- are so blatantly erroneous that it's difficult to know where to begin. So let's begin at the beginning.

We can start, perhaps, with your novel use of language in your blog, Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel. But Zionism is defined as the national movement of Israel -- the movement to establish the State of Israel before 1948, and the movement to support Israel's right to exist and to thrive since then. As such, "Zionist Israel" makes about as much sense as "the American USA". Perhaps this makes sense to you; to the rest of us it's a redundancy.

By American history and precedent terrorism against state-supported violent racism is completely justified. Palestinian terrorism against Israeli Zionist racists is exactly as justified as hacking slavers to death with swords in Bleeding Kansas. Reverend Professor Ralph Waldo Emerson (HDS, HC 1821) and Henry David Thoreau (HC 1837) raised money in Harvard Yard to support John Brown in Bleeding Kansas. All patriotic antiracist Americans and decent human beings in general should support Palestinian terrorism against Israeli Zionists, who are the enemies of the whole human race.

That's a nice role model you've got there, sir. Do you really believe Bleeding Kansas is a model worth emulating? If so, I suspect you'd find very few modern-day Americans to agree with you.

I'll refrain from addressing your unsupported statements and innuendoes: "Israeli Zionist racists", "enemies of the whole human race", and so forth. Rather, I'll point out that since it's you who makes these claims, it should be you who backs them up. "Enemies of the whole human race" is a grandiose claim; any argument you advance to back that one up ought to make for interesting and/or entertaining reading.

There have been no innocent Zionist civilians since the Zionists began their war of ethnic cleansing in December 1947.

You disappoint me, sir. To accuse the Zionists of ethnic cleansing in 1947 -- when it is well documented (by historians such as Walter Lacqueur, Martin Gilbert, Samuel Katz, and many others) that it was the Arabs who proclaimed that they would "push the Jews into the sea", and it was the Jews who did their best to persuade Arabs to stay, in Haifa and Jerusalem and elsewhere -- is, at best, inadequate. If you're going to invent a claim of ethnic cleansing, why not start it with the land purchases at heavily-inflated prices by the Jewish Agency, starting in the early 1900s? Why not begin with the first and second Aliyot, in the 1880s and 1907?

Perhaps you'd rather not begin there because then you'd need to refer to the massive anti-Jewish pogroms under the British Mandate, in 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936, and so on. Or perhaps you have some other way of ignoring these events, which come a lot closer to "ethnic cleansing" than anything the Jews of Palestine ever did.

Zionists are waging a dirty demographic war against Palestinians and do not respect the status of protected noncombatants under the Geneva conventions.

Nonsense. It is the Palestinian terrorists you so revere that ignore the Geneva conventions, by fighting without uniforms, by deliberately attacking civilian populations, by hiding their fighters and munitions behind non-combatants. Israel, by contrast, has repeatedly and consistently done all it could to protect non-combatants on the other side, even at the cost of the lives of Israeli soldiers.

This should be self-evident, even without digging into the details of Jenin, the recent conflict in Gaza, and others. Israeli cities and towns were shelled in 1967; yet Israel's famous pre-emptive strikes in Egypt and Syria attacked only military bases and airfields. Israel has never engaged in saturated-bombing attacks, the way the United States did in Dresden and elsewhere, although this would be cheap and effective by military standards; instead, Israel has always chosen to commit ground troops, risking Israeli lives in order to save non-combatant lives on the other side. Is there another military force in the world as punctilious about such matters as Israel is?

Racist Zionist invaders, thieves and interlopers have been brutalizing, raping and murdering the native population (including women and children) of Palestine at least since the 19-naughts.

Now that's just laughable. Can you provide any evidence for this, any at all? (Contrariwise, evidence is abundant of indigenous raids and attacks against the early Zionist frontier towns, resulting in the establishment of the Shomrim and their successors.)

I'd be intrigued if you could provide even one documented example of Zionist rape. Heck, as brutal as the Palestinian terrorists have been -- murdering children in front of their parents, sending their own children to be human shields, and so on -- I can't recall them ever being accused of that. So this accusation of rape doesn't even seem to be a case of projection; it appears to be another of Mr. Martillo's inventions.

Moreover, Zionists have frequently stated since the beginning of the 20th century that every single Jew in Palestine is a weapon or foot soldier in the demographic war against Palestine.

Again, nonsense. What Zionists have claimed, particularly at the time of the 1948 war, was that to destroy Israel, it would be necessary to kill every last Israeli. This does not make every last Israeli citizen a military target, except to those who are themselves attempting ethnic cleansing. That would be you, sir, and the terrorists you support.

Israeli Zionists are the most militarized people on the planet. There is hardly a square centimeter of Israel that is not a legitimate military target, and buses are dual use civilian military vehicles that are used as troop carriers and that service illegal settlements.

Now this is a fine example of projection. Have you ever visited Israel, sir? Have you not seen the miles upon miles of open parks, of unspoiled forest? Do you seriously consider Israel's malls and shopping centers, her shoe stores and McDonald's franchises, to be military targets?

As for Israeli buses, sure, they carry soldiers. They also carry schoolchildren, pensioners, Arab citizens of Israel, Palestinians looking for work, and anybody else who can afford a ticket. (That's just about everybody; the Israeli bus companies are subsidized.) Sure, Israeli buses have been used, now and then, to transport soldiers to the front; that's a case of civilian materiel pressed into temporary service during wartime, just as French cabs were used for the war effort in WWI, or the American railroads were used by the Union during the American Civil War.

And if that use of buses is enough to scandalize you, what, I can only wonder, do you have to say about the common Palestinian tactic of using ambulances as combat vehicles? Israelis have died because it didn't occur to them to check ambulances for armed terrorists.

Enough for now. Although some of your arguments are based on a misreading of history, which requires historical research to refute, most of what you have to say can be countered simply -- by the simple expedient of visiting Israel while awake.

If you're the sort who sees further evidence for your conspiracy theories under every rock and every tree, then no doubt you'll find "evidence" in Israel too. But if your mind is open to rational arguments, willing to reach logical conclusions based on what you see -- even if they go counter to your preconceived notions -- then a trip to Israel will speak for itself.

Daniel in Brookline

Great post, Daniel.