Eideard

Israeli settlements built on land stolen by force of arms

The United States vetoed Friday a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said that while the United States agrees about “the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, we think it unwise for this council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians.”

Excuse me while I get me Wellies. This much bullshit demands rubber boots.

The veto is the first to be used under the Obama administration.

Ambassador Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer of Palestine to the United Nations, objected to the veto in a statement following the vote.

“The proper message that should have been sent by the Security Council to Israel, the occupying power, is that its contempt of international law and the international community will no longer be tolerated,” he said. “We fear, however, that the message sent today may be one that only encourages further Israeli intransigence and impunity. This must be remedied.”

Israel praised the veto…

I used a major American media source – CNN – so our regular readers outside the United States could have a look at mainstream American media proving why we don’t need an official US news agency. The Voice of America is still out there being the parrot it always has been; but, the point is they’re not needed for internal consumption.

Hardly any significant American news source would offend traditional US foreign policy by being critical of Israel.

Flying Spaghetti Rapture

Twice a year, American evangelicals show up at a winery in this Jewish settlement in the hills of ancient Samaria to play a direct role in biblical prophecy, picking grapes and pruning vines.

Believing that Christian help for Jewish winemakers here in the occupied West Bank foretells Christ’s second coming, they are recruited by a Tennessee-based charity called HaYovel that invites volunteers “to labor side by side with the people of Israel” and “to share with them a passion for the soon coming jubilee in Yeshua, messiah…”

“These people are filled with ideas that this is the Promised Land and their duty is to help the Jews,” said Izdat Said Qadoos of the neighboring Palestinian village. “It is not the Promised Land. It is our land.”

HaYovel is one of many groups in the United States using tax-exempt donations to help Jews establish permanence in the Israeli-occupied territories — effectively obstructing the creation of a Palestinian state, widely seen as a necessary condition for Middle East peace.

The result is a surprising juxtaposition: As the American government seeks to end the four-decade Jewish settlement enterprise and foster a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the American Treasury helps sustain the settlements through tax breaks on donations to support them.

A New York Times examination of public records in the United States and Israel identified at least 40 American groups that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade. The money goes mostly to schools, synagogues, recreation centers and the like, legitimate expenditures under the tax law. But it has also paid for more legally questionable commodities: housing as well as guard dogs, bulletproof vests, rifle scopes and vehicles to secure outposts deep in occupied areas…

The use of charities to promote a foreign policy goal is neither new nor unique — Americans also take tax breaks in giving to pro-Palestinian groups. But the donations to the settler movement stand out because of the centrality of the settlement issue in the current talks and the fact that Washington has consistently refused to allow Israel to spend American government aid in the settlements. Tax breaks for the donations remain largely unchallenged, and unexamined by the American government. The Internal Revenue Service declined to discuss donations for West Bank settlements. State Department officials would comment only generally, and on condition of anonymity.

And if you donate to Pro-Palestinian charities you can rest assured the Department of Homeland Insecurity will put your name on a couple dozen watch lists.

The history of unquestioning American political support for Israel stretches from a half-century of guilt + a half-century of turning that guilty feeling into complicity = the cabal headed by Israel on behalf of the United States through the Cold War. It stretched from central Russia to apartheid South Africa. Leaving it by the side of the road is overdue.