dinsdag 8 oktober 2013

The ...... Lobby

For many years now the American foreign policy has been characterized by the strong tie between the United States and Israel. Does the United States in fact keep Israel on its feet? And how long will it continue to do so? In March 2006 the American political scientists John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Steve Walt (Harvard) published the controversial article 'The Israel Lobby and US foreign policy'. In it they state that it is not, or no longer, expedient for the US to support and protect present-day Israel. The documentary sheds light on both parties involved in the discussion: those who wish to maintain the strong tie between the US and Israel, and those who were critical of it and not infrequently became 'victims' of the lobby. The question arises to what extend the pro-Israel lobby ultimately determines the military and political importance of Israel itself. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's former chief-of-staff) explains how the lobby's influence affects the decision-making structure in the White House.
With political scientist John Mearsheimer, neocon Richard Perle, lobby organization AIPAC, televangelist John Hagee, historian Tony Judt, Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Democrat Earl Hilliard, Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy and investigative journalist Michael Massing


endgame ; a future scenario for israel  


The Zionist Story

"I used to be in the Israeli elite paratroopers, but after what I saw and was forced to do, I vowed that I would never go back to the Army and act as a tool for enslaving 3.5 million people in their own land without any basic human rights. As a soldier refusing to go to the reserve duty (I am a member of the Courage to Refuse group of IDF officers), I live with the constant threat of imprisonment." - Ronen Berelovich

The Zionist Story, an independent film by Ronen Berelovich, is the story of ethnic cleansing, colonialism and apartheid to produce a demographically Jewish State.


"I have recently finished an independent documentary, The Zionist Story, in which I aim to present not just the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but also the core reason for it: the Zionist ideology, its goals (past and present) and its firm grip not only on Israeli society, but also, increasingly, on the perception of Middle East issues in Western democracies.These concepts have already been demonstrated in the excellent 'Ocupation 101′ documentary made by Abdallah Omeish and Sufyan Omeish, but in my documentary I approach the subject from the perspective of an Israeli, ex-reserve soldier and someone who has spent his entire life in the shadow of Zionism.I hope you can find a moment to watch The Zionist Story and, if you like it, please feel free to share it with others. (As both the documentary and the archived footage used are for educational purposes only, the film can be freely distributed).I have made this documentary entirely by myself, with virtually no budget, although doing my best to achieve high professional standard, and I hope that this 'home-spun' production will be of interest to viewers."- Ronen Berelovich

Ronen Berelovich studied in the Camera Obscura Film School in Tel Aviv, Israel. He made a string of short films (some featured in international film festivals) and his forty minutes drama, 'Shesh-besh', was chosen for public screening by 'Cinemateque', the leading art cinema in Tel Aviv. He also worked as a recording technician in the High Court in Tel Aviv.

"The reason that Israel has been able to appropriate Palestine unto itself with American aid and support is that Israel controls the explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At least 90% of Americans, if they know anything at all of the issue, know only the Israeli propaganda line. Israel has been able to control the explanation, because the powerful Israel Lobby brands every critic of Israeli policy as an anti-semite who favors a second holocaust of the Jews."- Paul Craig Roberts

"The public almost automatically associates Jews and Israel. The press continues to refer to "the Jewish State." Israeli politicians often speak "in the name of the Jewish people." Yet the Zionist movement and the creation of the State of Israel have caused one of the greatest schisms in Jewish history."
-Yakov M. Rabkin


The Alpha Diaries

An unprecedented, groundbreaking and voyeuristic look into military reserve life in Israel, this film was shot over a 5 year period in director and reserve soldier Yaniv Berman’s life. A soldier in the Israeli army reserves, Alpha Company, Berman had unparalleled access and filmed the soldiers as they went about their military service day and night. Crossing over to the Palestinian border the camera captured remarkably every movement of the soldiers from the frenetic night-time house arrests to the quiet moments of self reflection and despair. Capturing the humiliation of both the Palestinians who are subject to the house arrests as well as the Israeli soldiers who had to carry them out, this documentary is the unique story of those who every 30 days in the year drop their normal lives and under the guise of the olive green uniform, perform the toughest, most unsettling tasks, in the heart of an urban Palestinian town. The camera penetrates the steely barriers of the military barracks and gains fresh insight into the views of the soldiers who speak frankly and uncompromisingly on a range of issues including the occupation, the conflict and the Army. A sensitive exploration of the conflict done first hand from an individual caught in the midst of the action, Berman’s film leaves us with no doubt that war leaves scars and victims on both sides of the camp.


Life or Death in the Gaza Strip

" We finally got a rare glimpse of the embattled Gaza Strip and a chance to see what life was like under the rule of Hamas. In 2007 we tried and failed to get into Gaza through the Israeli-controlled Erez Crossing. Back then the rival Palestinian factions of Hamas and Fatah were engaged in a bloody war for control of this tiny strip of land. Hamas won. When the post-Mubarak government of Egypt decided to start letting small numbers of folks into Gaza through their Rafah Crossing, we knew we could finally enter the region."
A rare glimpse of the embattled Gaza Strip and a chance to see what life was like under the rule of Hamas. In 2007 VICE tried and failed to get into Gaza through the Israeli-controlled Erez Crossing.
Back then the rival Palestinian factions of Hamas and Fatah were engaged in a bloody war for control of this tiny strip of land.
Hamas won. When the post-Mubarak government of Egypt decided to start letting small numbers of folks into Gaza through their Rafah Crossing, VICE knew they could finally enter the region


Checkpoint - every day life in Israel

Checkpoint (original title: Machssomim) is a 2003 documentary film by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir, showing the everyday interaction between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians at several of the regions Israel Defence Forces checkpoints. The film won five awards at various film festivals, including Best International Documentary at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
Dozens of checkpoints lie scattered throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, manned by the Israeli Defence Forces. Thousands of Palestinians pass through them every day, making them one of the major meeting points between both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many different encounters occur at these checkpoints each and every day, revealing a reality with its own rules and regulations, a reality that has a destructive impact on both societies.

Filmed over two years, 'Checkpoint' depicts the harsh and banal routine of these crossing points and documents the day-to-day situations that form a microcosm of the situation. The cameras film in a pure and non-manipulative manner so that the viewer feels part of the experience of 'checkpoint culture'. The film is an attempt to show the more human side of the situation, and, as with any such depiction, will show all aspects of the human condition - from the 'jobsworth' IDF recruits refusing to allow any variation from their 'orders', from the most obnoxious of members of the border security police at the Bethlehem checkpoint through to the very humane IDF soldier at the Nablus South checkpoint, we are presented with young men who are ultimately responsible for the overseeing of their country's security. Balanced by this is the terrible plight of how the situation affects 'ordinary' Palestinians. An ambulance stopped and searched, ditto a school bus - both will ensure a lot of anger at such depictions - until it is understood that both modes of transport have been used in the past for the carrying of explosives. It does not alter the impact on the Palestinians themselves - the checkpoints are mostly unacceptable. BUt the film at least humanises the process and delves behind some of the headline news.


Flipping Out - Israel's Drug Generation.

After being discharged with a bonus of 15,000 shekels (about $4,300) after three years of compulsory military service, an estimated 20,000 former Israeli soldiers travel to India. About 90 percent take drugs and 2000 of the Israeli ex-soldiers living in India 'flip out' each year. This documentary's introductory scenes of soldiers breaking into Palestinian homes land and non-directive interviews with these soldiers and professionals trying to help them suggest that the military service has damaged them resulting in post-traumatic stress disorders. Yet as distinct from the fate of U.S. soldiers coming back form Afghanistan and Iraqi with similar mental problems and cannot get adequate help from official agencies. Israeli public and private organizations take responsibility for the problems the army service created.

In India the ex-soldiers live in small communal settings and hotels segregated from the Indian population, in locations, they identify as Kasol sin or crime city. The winter months are spend in Himalayan mountain areas and for the summer months the Israelis migrate to Goa to continue enjoying a lifestyle of large parties, use of virtually all drugs, including to marihuana, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy and other hard drugs. Relations between Indians and Israelis are pragmatic but not friendly. As one Israeli points out, the Indians are like Arabs. Conversely Indians consider the Israelis to be noisy, drug addicted and out of control. Yet with an average income of $500 per year they depend on the funds provided by the Israeli expatriates.

From the perspective of one former soldiers who has been living in India for more than six years and served as a commander of an Israeli elite unit there is a fine line between sanity and madness, a borderline condition that can be discerned in the portraits of this documentary. There is a frenzied look of people, incoherent statements suspending the reality context and rapid motion activities. Yet at the same time others seem to be in a state of drug induced bliss, totally cooled out, and regressed to childlike states The former commander suggests that, military service destroyed the identity and meaning of life, and that staying on drugs rehabilitates former soldiers by getting 'the crap' out of their system. In the army he faced disgraceful things and his hand caused death and destruction. Yoav Shamir presents none of the female ex-soldiers who live in Israeli communities in India and also take drugs and seems to imply that females adapt better to the stress of military service.

The documentary shows the response of Israeli agencies to the growing problem of settlements in India with ex-soldiers involved in drug use. The Israeli government has funded through its anti-drug authority Warm House drop in centers, a sort of community place run by a former Israeli officer which welcomes all Israelis living there. An Israeli fundamentalist group has established Chabad Houses trying to recuperate drug using and addicted ex soldiers while also running a search and rescue mission for Israelis freaking out on drugs. This work is carried out by former army officer, Hilik Magnus whose task is to bring back to Israel those soldiers who have suffered from psychotic and other violent breakdowns. He suggests that many of the ex soldiers living there have no center, are dislocated, and alienated and that drugs provide only a temporary respite.

One telling encounter in FLIPPING OUT is the meeting between the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Eli Ishay and former soldiers. One female soldier tells him that she is on her second trip to India and that "...here one can feel normal again .no bombings, no corruption, none of that pressure [faced] back in Israel.... one comes here and feels normal again". Another soldier hopes not to return Israel soon; he does not belong to that country any more and considers having an Israeli passport to be a problem since he feels more at home in India.

Isahy considers these as sad stories but emphasizes that Israeli has to fund efforts such as the Warm House, since "...these former soldiers are our children, our boys and girls... thousands come here and come home mentally devastated" thus placing the onus on the experience in India rather than on the military service.

On the plane going back to Israel the deputy prime minister is in the company of Magus and one flipped out former soldier who belies that he can save humanity since he is a friend to the US president. While the plan disappears on the Horizon, images of a gigantic techno beach party with several hundred ex-soldiers high on drugs provide the coda to this disturbing yet superb documentary.




Renegade Jewish Settlers

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAfZ4_EGqEoeMv9Hhepc-za7pZ7Ut6TRE

This is my land hebron

Please share this video with all those willing to watch with an open mind. As stated at the end of the documentary, please remember that this this documentary was put together by Jewish people within Israel. Please respect that and not label all Jews with the same brush, as i feel that its the modern day Zionists who are the real criminals and the biggest enemies of the State of Israel.
This video is also an eye opener for the Judeo-christians who are hell bent on supporting Israel at all costs..would Jesus stand for this? The bible talks of a spiritual israel, not this polical entitiy we have today. Israel has a right to exist in peace, but so does everyone else, most especially the palestinians. If they voted Hamas into power, then so be it. Just as the terrorist group Irgun in the 40's and 50's eventually became most of what is now the Likud Party in israel that has produced about 8 Israeli prime ministers and many prominent people. Yet today we have forgotten all that and are made to label Hamas as the main obstacle to peace. the fact is that its the Political powers in Israel who are the biggest obstacles to peace. Which in some way, affects us all
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAfZ4_EGqEochTnRZ4SiZaYknWTbh7pyF

American Jewish Teens Go To Israel For IDF Summer Camp

Summer Camp Teaches U.S. Teens To Fight Israeli Style

Jewish-American teenagers can sign up for an eight-week training course run by the Israel Defense Forces where they fire weapons, live in military barracks and saunter around in an Israeli military uniform.
October 16, 2007  |  
 
If you are a young Muslim American and head off to the Middle East for a spell in a fundamentalist "madrassa," or religious school, Homeland Security will probably greet you at the airport when you return.  But if you are an American Jew and you join hundreds of teenagers from Europe and Mexico for an eight-week training course run by the Israel Defense Forces, you can post your picture wearing an Israeli army uniform and holding an automatic weapon on MySpace.
The Marva program, part summer camp part indoctrination, was launched in Israel in 1981. It allows participants, who must be Jewish and between the ages of 18 and 28, to fire weapons, live in military barracks in the Negev desert and saunter around in an Israeli military uniform saluting and taking long hikes with military packs. The Youth and Education Corps of the Israel Defense Forces run four 120-strong training sessions a year.
"Upon arrival, the participants experience an abrupt change into army life: wearing uniforms, accepting army discipline, and learning the programs and lessons integral to the program," the Let Israelis Show You Israel Web site reads. "The program includes military content such as: navigation, field training, weapons training, shooting ranges, marches and more, as well as educational content such as: Zionism, Jewish Identity, history and knowledge of the land of Israel.  All of this is taught in Hebrew in an intensive eight weeks."
"The participants finish the program after completing a short, intensive, exhilarating military experience that allows them to taste Israel in a way that they never could before -- as part of the Israel Defense Forces," the site reads. "They leave the program with a feeling of belonging and a strong connection to Israel, and many return to Israel to continue the connection that was created in the framework of the Marva course."
There are, of course, gushing testimonials about the program.
"I spent the first few days of Marva doubting my decision, wondering why I had come, wondering if there was any way out.  With all of the running, yelling orders, discipline and Hebrew, I felt horribly out of place, writes Canadian David Roth of his summer.  It was a completely different world from the one I was used to.  All that changed, though, by the end of the first week.  We had our first ‘Masa’ (Hike).  It was very hard, but at the end, we all knew, our M16s were waiting for us at the ‘tekes’ (Ceremony).  We got through the 8 kilometers and had our ‘tekes’ and got our guns.  It felt amazing, and from that point on Marva was incredible.
How have we reacted when we discovered that American Muslims were being taught in a foreign country to fire machine guns at paper figures and simulate military maneuvers?  And what about the summer schools in Gaza organized by Islamic Jihad designed to train young Palestinians in the basics of military life?  These Gaza camps, uncovered in 2001, were widely denounced by Israel as proof that the Palestinians were teaching their children to hate and kill.
The argument in favor of camps in Israel, as opposed to camps in Pakistan, is that these young men and women are not going to come back and use what they have learned to harm Americans.  They are not terrorists.  Muslims, however, have not cornered the market on terrorism and violence.  Radical Jews have also been involved in terrorist attacks in Israel and the United States.
I discovered an American in Israel in 1989 named Robert Manning.  A huge, burly man, Manning was living in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kiyrat Arba.  When I found him he was carrying a pistol, a large knife strapped to his leg and an M-16 assault rifle.  He was part of a Jewish terrorist group called Committee for Protection and Safety of the Highways that set up ad hoc roadblocks and pulled Palestinians from cars to beat and often shoot them.  He was a follower of Meir Kahane, the leader of the Jewish Defense League, who was implicated in terrorist attacks in the United States and Israel.  Manning served as a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank. 
Manning was wanted in California for murder.  He had been charged in a 1980 mail-bomb killing as part of his involvement in the Jewish Defense League.  The bomb was intended for the owner of a local computer firm, but the package holding the device was opened by the firm’s secretary, Patricia Wilkerson, who was killed instantly by the blast. 
Manning, full of bluster and a bitter racism toward Arabs, used as his pseudonym the name of the FBI agent in charge of his case, a bit of humor that backfired on him by confirming my suspicion of his identify.  I obtained the picture from his California driver’s license and showed it to his neighbors at Kiyrat Arba.  They identified him from the photo.  I wrote an article affirming that Manning, heavily armed and an active member of the Israeli army, was living in a Jewish settlement.  The Israeli government, until that moment, said it had no information about his location.  He was extradited in 1993 and sentenced the next year to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 30 years.  He is in a maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo.
Those who go through the Marva summer program are indoctrinated as thoroughly as Muslims who go overseas and are told they are part of a greater jihad for Islam.  The results, given Israel’s close alliance with the United States, may not be negative for those in power in the United States, but it may be very negative for those Americans defined as the enemy, especially Muslims, should we suffer another 9/11.  The program inculcates hatred and a belief in the efficacy of violence to solve the problems in the Middle East.  It identifies Israel with militarism.  It feeds the idea that a Jew born in Brooklyn has a birthright to settle in Israel that is denied to an American of Palestinian descent. 
Jerusalem, aside from being one of the most beautiful cities in the world, is one of the most literate, creative and intellectual.  Do these young men and women really know the best of Israel by spending eight weeks playing soldier and glorifying the military?  Is the cause of Israel advanced by mirroring the twisted militarism of Islamic fundamentalists? 
Terrorists arise in all cultures, all nations and all religions.  We have produced more than our share.  Ask the people of Vietnam or Iraq.  The danger of a military program such as these is that it solidifies a mind-set of us and them.  It romanticizes violence.  It widens the divide that leads to conflict.  It makes dialogue impossible.  There are great Israeli institutions, from the newspaper Haaretz to the courageous Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem to Peace Now.  A summer working for them, rather than wearing an army uniform, unleashing bursts of automatic fire in the desert and singing Israeli patriotic songs, might actually help.


 The Israel lobby in United Kingdom



Israel's Newest Critics: North American Jews
Read our blog "The Flotilla and American Zionism" http://bit.ly/bDAZ7f

The world is still reacting to Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. And some of the most vocal critics to the raid have been North American Jews. Is the reflexive support for Israel -- bound by a legacy of faith, tradition and tragedy -- a thing of the past? Have the realities of modern Zionism fallen out of favour with young North American Jews?

GUESTS:

David Frum is the editor of FrumForum.com, and a former speechwriter for George W. Bush.

Peter Beinart is the author of The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, and a professor of politics and journalism at City University of New York.

Derek J. Penslar is the Samuel Zacks Professor of Jewish History at the University of Toronto. His areas of expertise include modern European Jewry, Zionism, and the state of Israel.

John Mearsheimer is the co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago.



Israel’s Secret Weapon

Which country in the Middle East has undeclared Nuclear weapons? Which country in the Middle East has undeclared biological and chemical capabilities? Which country in the Middle East has no outside inspections? Which country jailed its nuclear whistleblower for 18 years? Vanunu told the world that Israel had developed between one hundred and two hundred atomic bombs and had gone on to develop neutron bombs and thermonuclear weapons. Enough to destroy the entire Middle East and nobody has done anything about it since. It’s thought plutonium is made in Dimona; nuclear weapons are assembled at Yodefat and stored at Zachariah and Eilabun. Three nuclear submarines are based in Haifa and Israel’s biological and chemical warfare laboratories are at Nes Ziona.
Israel never comments on such reports. But evidence continues to emerge. In 1992 an Israeli cargo plane crashed in Amsterdam killing forty-three people. The Israelis claimed it was carrying flowers and perfume. It took six years and a Dutch parliamentary enquiry before they admitted it was carrying DMMP, a key component for sarin nerve gas. The DMMP was bound for The Israeli Institute of Biological Research at Nes Ziona, one of Israel’s most secret defence sites. It is subject to no international inspection and reporting of its activities in Israel is prevented by strict military censorship.
 aired on March 2003

Israel declared over the weekend that it is cutting off ties with the BBC to protest a repeat broadcast of a documentary about non-conventional weapons said to be in Israel.

The program was broadcast for the first time in March in Britain, and was rerun Saturday on a BBC channel that is aired all over the world. The boycott decision was made by Israel's public relations forum, made up of representatives from the Prime Minister's Office, the Foreign Ministry and the Government Press Office.

It was decided that government offices won't assist BBC producers and reporters, that Israeli officials will not give interviews to the British network, and that the Government Press Office will make it difficult for BBC employees to get press cards and work visas in Israel.

Before the broadcast Saturday, Israeli officials tried to pressure the BBC to cancel the broadcast, saying that the program was biased and presented Israel as an evil dictatorship


The Great Book Robbery


70,000 Palestinian books were systematically “collected” by the newly born state of Israel during the 1948 war. The story of the “collected” books is at the heart of this film.
Was the appropriation of Palestinian books and manuscripts in 1948 a case of cultural theft or preservation?
On May 15, Palestinians mark the anniversary of the “Nakba”, the systematic expulsion of the Palestinian people by Zionist militias that began in late 1947 and lasted through 1948 and beyond.
As well as land and properties, a lesser known aspect of that expulsion is that Israel looted Palestinian homes over their cultural treasures, among them books, manuscripts, personal papers, photographs and works of art.


Canada-Israel: The Other Special Relationship
 Seen as an honest-broker in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Canada has become one of Israel's most fervent supporters. Avi Lewis investigates.


Prisoner X


In a painstaking investigation, this report amassed compelling evidence to finally uncover the identity of Prisoner X, sending shock-waves around the world when it broke the story. A unique insight to the case.
In early 2010 a man was escorted to arguably the most secure prison cell in Israel. The guards taking him there had no idea who he was or what he’d done.
“It is simply a person without a name and without an identity who is placed in complete and absolute isolation from the outside world. There is confidentiality surrounding the detainee in every respect” a prison official stated.
When word leaked about the mysterious inmate, Israeli media began to report and speculate but no sooner had a handful of stories been published, than the coverage was shut down by one of the most comprehensive suppression orders conceivable.


Israeli ZIONIST Nazi's Show how Arrogant & DISGUSTING they Really are


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