Hadash: the coming elections are about fighting for equality, social justice and a just peace

26 october 2012, The Israeli Communist Party http://www.maki.org.il (Israel) (Israel) info@maki.org.il   Neo-liberal and right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and fascist Foreign Minister Ivette (Avigdor) Liberman have agreed to join forces for a general election in the new year. Netanyahu and Liberman said Thursday they will present a joint list for the January 22 election without merging their respective parties, Likud and Yisrael Beitenu. Foreign Minister Liberman calls for expelling, by means of a land swap, hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens simply for being Arab. He ran an election campaign highlighted by the slogan, "Only Lieberman understands Arabic." He was a member of Kach in the late 1970s, which he understandably denies but which Kach veterans from that era swear to. He’s fantasized aloud in the Knesset about executing Arab MKs and threatened to bomb Egypt’s Aswan Dam. He has been under Israel Police investigation for corruption for nearly 15 years, and could face indictment pretty soon.

(Hadash and Communist Party of Israel demonstrators in Tel-Aviv, June 2012: "For Peace and Social Justice."/Photo: Hadash)

Thursday’s union between the Likud and Yisrael Beytenu parties has resulted in a tie between the rightist and the centrist-leftist blocs, a preliminary poll released after the announcement found. The centrist-left, however, includes Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality – Communist Party of Israel) and two Arab parties. Hadash leader Dov Khenin said that a Netanyahu-Liberman government, would open three war fronts: "One on Iran, a second against the Arab-Palestinians in Israel and another on democracy." Therefore, Khenin continued, "the coming elections are about fighting for equality, social justice and against the occupation and for a just peace with the Palestinian people."

“WAR ON IRAN WILL TRIGGER WORLD WAR III”

September 24, 2012, Global Research http://www.globalresearch.ca (Canada)

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-war-on-iran-will-trigger-world-war-iii/

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

 “Our defensive power has been created on the basis of our defensive strategy and the presumption ruling our defensive strategy is that we will enter an massive battle with a US-led coalition.” Brigadier General Hossein Salami, IRGC Deputy Commander, September 2012)

Both the US and Israel have threatened to implement a preemptive first strike attack against Iran, the consequences of which would be devastating.

Responding to these ongoing threats, Iran’s Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) General Amir Ali Hajizadeh has warned that a US-Israeli military attack against Iran could lead to the outbreak of a Third World War. He also intimated that Israel cannot launch a war without the green-light from the US.

If such a war were to be launched, according to General Hajizadeh, a scenario of uncontrolled military escalation is likely to occur. If attacked, Iran would retaliate against both Israeli and US targets including US military facilities in neighboring countries (ie. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gulf States):

Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force General Amir Ali Hajizadeh warned the US and the Zionist regime [Israel] that an attack on Iran will likely trigger World War III.

Speaking to the Arabic news network, Al-Alam on Sunday, General Hajizadeh said the US and the Israeli regime may not enter war with Iran “independent from each other, meaning that either one of these two starts the war, it will be joined by the other one”.

“We see the US and the Zionist regime standing fully on the side of each other and we cannot imagine the Zionist regime initiating a war without the US backup. Due to the same reason, if a war breaks out, we will definitely wage battle on both sides and will definitely be engaged with the US bases,” he said.

“In case such conditions arise, a series of incidents will take place which will not be controllable and manageable and such a war might turn into a third world war. That means, certain countries may enter the war for or against Iran,” added the general.

The IRGC commander warned that in case such war is waged on Iran, the US bases in “those countries around us and inside the neighboring countries will be targeted and they will even be threatened by the nations of these very states”. (Fars News Agency, September 23, 2012, emphasis added)

The World is at a dangerous crossroads. The statement of General Hajizadeh must be taken seriously.

Active war preparations against Iran have been ongoing for the last eight years. Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America’s NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems. The air defense systems of the US, NATO member countries and Israel are fully integrated. Israel cannot act without the support of its allies.

This is a coordinated endeavor of the Pentagon, NATO and Israel’s Defense Force (IDF) directed against Iran. Several non-NATO partner countries including the frontline Arab states (members of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative) are also involved.

Media Disinformation

Public opinion, swayed by media hype is tacitly supportive, indifferent or ignorant as to the likely impacts of what is upheld as an ad hoc “punitive” operation directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than an all out war.

The war on Iran is presented to public opinion as an issue among others. It is not viewed as a threat to humanity. Quite the opposite: it is viewed as a humanitarian endeavor.

Retaliation

The Western media is beating the drums of war. The purpose is to tacitly instil, through repeated media reports, ad nauseam, within people’s inner consciousness, the notion that the Iranian threat is real and that the Islamic Republic should be “taken out”.

Iran has significant military capabilities. The fact that an attack on Iran could lead to retaliation and escalation which could potentially unleash a “global war” is not a matter of concern.

While the Islamic Republic does not constitute a threat to the security of Israel, Iran’s military brass has emphasized that in the case of an attack on Iran, retaliation against Israel is contemplated, with potentially devastating consequences:

On Saturday, IRGC’s top Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said an enemy invasion of Iran is possible, but such a war would put an end to the life of the Zionist regime of Israel.

….

“War may break out, but if Zionists [Israeli government] start something, that will be the point of their annihilation and the endpoint of their story,” he added.

Jafari, meantime, underlined that “no one dares to wage an extensive ground assault on Iran”.

The General said if the enemy were wise, there wouldn’t be any problem, “but the problem is that there is no guarantee for this rationality and we should be prepared too.

Later yesterday, his deputy, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, cautioned that any possible attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Zionist regime would provide an opportunity for Tehran to wipe the regime off the earth.

“If the Zionists embark on attacking Iran, it will provide a historical opportunity for the Islamic Revolution to wipe them off the world’s geographical history,” Salami said on Saturday night on the state-run TV.

“We are now through with concerns about the Zionist regime’s threats,” he said, adding that Israel has bitter memories of its last-decade wars with the regional allies of the Islamic Republic, including Hezbollah and Hamas Movement.

“(Given the above-mentioned failures) how does it (the Zionist regime) want to be a threat against the Islamic Republic of Iran?” Salami asked.

He, meantime, underlined Iran’s preparedness to confront any aggression against the country, and said, “Our defensive power has been created on the basis of our defensive strategy and the presumption ruling our defensive strategy is that we will enter an massive battle with a US-led coalition.”

On Friday, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi also warned that Tehran would reciprocate any aggression against the country with an “immediate” and “non-stop” response, stressed.

“We do not feel threatened by the boastful remarks of Zionist leaders, because they are creatures with deep fright who continue crying out since they know that Iran’s response to threats will be readymade, immediate and non-stop,” Major General Firouzabadi told reporters on the sidelines of September 21 military parades marking the anniversary of the Week of Sacred Defense here in Tehran on Friday morning.

“The Zionist regime officials have declared in their (military) estimates that military operations against Iran neither can be done by Israel nor is useful for them,” he added.

He also stated that Iran’s armed forces today are unpredictable and their strategy and actions cannot be foreseen by the enemies.

The Sacred Defense Week, commemorating Iranians’ sacrifices during the 8 years of Iraqi imposed war on Iran in 1980s, started on Friday with nationwide parades by various units of the Islamic Republic Army, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and Basij (volunteer) forces in Southern Tehran. (Fars News Agency, September 23, 2012, emphasis added)

Reverse the Tide of War

We call upon our readers to spread the message far and wide.

We call upon people across the land, in America, Western Europe, Israel, Turkey and around the world to rise up against this military project, against their governments which are supportive of military action against Iran, against the media which serves to camouflage the devastating implications of a war against Iran.

The people of Israel are largely united against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s resolve to attack Iran.

A protocol of non-aggression should be reached between Israel and Iran.

* * *

The object of this book is to forcefully reverse the tide of war, challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corporate lobby groups which support them.” (Michel Chossudovsky, Towards a World War III Scenario, Global Research, Montreal, 2012)

Order your copy of

“Towards a World War III Scenario” by Michel Chossudovsky

Reviews

Professor Chossudovsky’s hard-hitting and compelling book explains why and how we must immediately undertake a concerted and committed campaign to head off this impending cataclysmic demise of the human race and planet earth. This book is required reading for everyone in the peace movement around the world.”
-Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois College of Law

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
-John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
-Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute

ISRAELI LEADER PRESSES OBAMA TO SET TRIGGER FOR WAR AGAINST IRAN

18 September 2012, World Socialist Web Site https://www.wsws.org (Australia)

By Peter Symonds

In another provocative move, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on two prominent American TV talk shows on Sunday to press the Obama administration to set a “red line” for military action against Iran over its nuclear program.

While denying that he was intervening in US politics, Netanyahu’s inflammatory language was obviously aimed at generating a nuclear scare over Iran and pressuring Obama to set a trigger for war in the midst of the American presidential campaign. Republican challenger Mitt Romney has already branded Iran’s nuclear program as Obama’s “greatest failure” in foreign policy and accused him of abandoning Israel.

Netanyahu told CNN’s “State of the Union” that: “They [Iran] are moving very rapidly to completing the enrichment of the uranium that they need to produce a nuclear bomb. In six months or so they’ll be 90 percent of the way there.” Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press”, he declared: “They’re in the last 20 yards, and you can’t let them cross the goal line,” adding that would have “grievous consequences for the peace and security of us all.”

Netanyahu’s remarks are a deliberate falsification, designed to create the impression that the country is on the brink of building a nuclear device. Tehran has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and its uranium enrichment facilities are all monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Regular IAEA reports detail Iran’s stockpile of uranium, which has been enriched at no more than 20 percent, well short of the 90 percent required for a nuclear bomb.

Tehran has repeatedly denied any plans to build a nuclear weapon. Moreover, US intelligence agencies have assessed that Iranian leaders have not made a decision to construct a nuclear bomb. Netanyahu provided no evidence to the contrary. His comments are completely cynical given that Israel has a substantial stockpile of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them anywhere in the Middle East.

In his remarks, Netanyahu seized on the wave of anti-US protests in the Middle East to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment. Referring to the Iranian regime, he declared: “It’s the same fanaticism that you see storming your embassies today. You want these fanatics to have nuclear weapons?”

The crude anti-Islamic video produced by elements of the American Christian right may have triggered the protests, but the underlying resentment and hostility throughout the region has been fuelled by decades of oppression and wars by US imperialism and its allies, including Israel. Netanyahu raises the spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran, but it is Israel that has waged brutal wars of aggression in the Middle East.

Netanyahu made similarly provocative remarks last week, implying that Israel would take unilateral military action against Iran if the US did not. “Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” he told a press conference in Jerusalem.

To date, the Obama administration has rejected Netanyahu’s demands. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has bluntly stated that the US was “not setting deadlines” for military action. Appearing on the same talk shows as Netanyahu last Sunday, US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice reiterated that all options, “including a military one,” were on the table. But she insisted that there was still “time and space” to force Iran to bow to international diplomatic pressure and sanctions.

These differences between the US and Israel are purely tactical. Obama is just as willing as Netanyahu to resort to military force against Iran. Since the beginning of the year, the Pentagon has been systematically building up US military presence in the Persian Gulf—doubling the number of aircraft carrier battle groups to two and stationing sophisticated F-22 fighters in the region.

Under the guise of “defence”, Washington has bolstered the anti-missile systems of its regional allies, including Israel, to block possible Iranian retaliation against an American attack. This week, the US navy commenced the largest ever anti-mine exercise in the Persian Gulf, involving warships from 30 countries, including Britain, France and Japan. While the US navy claimed these war games were purely defensive, the clear aim is to be able to neutralise Iran’s capacity to mine the Gulf and thus enhance Washington’s ability to attack with impunity.

The Obama administration has also collaborated closely with the Israeli government in waging a covert campaign of sabotage and assassination against Iran. It is widely acknowledged that the US and Israel were responsible for the Stuxnet computer virus that damaged or destroyed gas centrifuges in Iran’s uranium enrichment plants. In the past two years, four top Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed, almost certainly by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad operating with direct or indirect US support.

On Monday, Iran’s nuclear chief Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani claimed that “terrorists and saboteurs” operating under the cover of the IAEA were responsible for explosions earlier this year that cut power to Iran’s uranium enrichment plants at Fordow and Natanz. While there is no independent evidence for such an attack, it cannot be automatically ruled out, given the close association of IAEA inspectors with foreign intelligence agencies, including the US and Israel.

The Obama administration might have rejected Netanyahu’s demand for a “red line”, for the present at least. But its highly provocative actions, including the imposition of crippling economic sanctions, the military build-up in the Gulf, and its involvement in covert operations inside Iran, have raised tensions throughout the region and greatly heightened the danger of war. The chief target of any American attack will not be Iran’s nuclear program, but the Iranian regime itself, which Washington regards as an obstacle to its ambitions to consolidate its dominance of the energy-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia.

A MESSAGE FROM ROMNYAHU

A MESSAGE FROM ROMNYAHU September 12th, 2012 Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel) Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי ONCE UPON a time, President Richard Nixon wanted to appoint a certain lawyer to the US Supreme Court. “But the man is a complete moron!” one senator exclaimed.

“So what,” answered another, “There are a great many morons in the US, and they have a right to be represented in the court as much as any other sector of society.”

Perhaps the United Morons of America have a right to elect Mitt Romney president. But for the sake of the US and Israel, I hope that this will not happen.

Some people say that Israel is the 51st state of the Union. Some say that it is the first among the 51. Whatever, our lives – and perhaps our deaths – depend to a great extent on the man in the White House.

So, with all my misgivings (and I have a lot) about Barack Obama, I very much hope that he will be reelected.

IN HIS latest seizure of wisdom, Romney did not only disclose that 47% of Americans are parasites, but also that “the Palestinians” want to destroy Israel. According to him, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has no solution, it will go on forever.

I wonder where he got this last piece from.

In Nazi Germany there was a certain Herr Doktor Otto Dietrich, a functionary of the Ministry for Propaganda. Every day, he would gather the editors of the important newspapers in Berlin and tell them what their headline and editorial were going to be the next day.

That was before the Internet and fax. Nowadays, the Prime Minister’s office faxes a daily ‘page of messages” to Netanyahu’s ministers and other stooges, telling them what messages they are to spread.

I strongly suspect that Romney read this page of messages just before he met his audience, composed of billionaires (or mere millionaires). After all, he couldn’t have invented these astounding pieces of insight all by himself, could he?

“THE PALESTINIANS” means “all Palestinians”. All nine million of them in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Israel, not to forget the refugees around the world.

Well, I suppose that if by divine intervention Israel were to disappear from the globe, very few Palestinians would shed a tear. Neither would many Israelis shed a tear if, again by divine intervention, all the Palestinians disappeared. Quite a few Israelis would even volunteer to help God Almighty in this task. Who knows, if Romney’s evangelical friends pray enough, their God may dematerialize all those Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, Iranians and assorted other miscreants.

Alas, such fantasies belong to the realms of dreams and nightmares. In the real world, peoples do not disappear even after gruesome genocides, nor can states which possess nuclear bombs be eradicated by foreign enemies.

I know quite a number of Palestinians, and not one of them believes that Israel can be annihilated. Since Yasser Arafat decided in late 1973 that he must come to terms with Israel, the great majority of Palestinians want a deal that will enable them to set up a state of their own in a part of historical Palestine. This is called the “two-state solution”.

The present government of Israel does not want this, because they are not ready to give up the 22% of historical Palestine which would become the State of Palestine. Since they have no viable alternative, the government’s spokespeople assert that “this conflict has no solution”.

One of the fathers of this slogan is Ehud Barak. After the failed 2000 Camp David meeting, Barak, then Prime Minister, famously declared that “we have no partner for peace”. Since Barak was the main cause for the meeting’s failure, I dubbed him “peace criminal”.

Netanyahu gratefully picked up Barak's cry, and now the great majority in Israel believes this message implicitly. (Recently I was interviewed by a Danish journalist. I told her: When we finish, stop the first taxi. Ask the driver about peace. He will tell you “Peace would be wonderful. I am ready to give back all the territories for peace. But unfortunately the Arabs will never make peace with us,” An hour later the journalist excitedly called me: “I did as you told me, and the driver repeated your words one by one.”)

“No solution” gives an impression of “everything will remain as it is”. That is a mistake. Nothing remains as it is. Things move all the time, settlements expand, Palestinians will rise up, the world is in flux, the Arab world changes, some day an American president will put the interests of the US ahead of those of Israel. Where will we be then?

THE GIST of Romney’s message is that the two-state solution is dead. This reminds me of Mark Twain’s famous: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

It is now in fashion to say so. Quite a trend. However, different people have different reasons for believing that the two-state solution is dead.

Parents, teachers, pedophiles and cannibals all say they love children. But their motives are not the same. This is also true for the would-be undertakers of the two-state solution. They include:

One: Idealists, who wish for people of different nations to live together in harmony and equality in one state. (I would like them to study the history of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Sudan, and the present situation of the French in Canada, Scots in Britain, Flemish in Belgium and Basques and Catalans in Spain.)

Two: Arabs, who really believe that this is a peaceful way to get rid of Israel.

Three: Settlers, who want to turn the whole of historical Palestine into their dominion and, if possible, “cleanse” the country of non-Jews.

Four: Israelis, who believe that the settlements have created a situation that is “irreversible”. (Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, coined this phrase already in the early 1980s, when there were less than 100 thousand settlers. I told him then that nothing was irreversible except death. Situations created by human beings can be changed by human beings.)

Five: Anti-Zionists, including Jewish anti-Zionists, who hate Zionism indiscriminately, with all its good and bad aspects, and for whom the very existence of a “Jewish” state is an abomination.

Six: Muslim fanatics, who believe that Palestine is a Muslim waqf (religious grant), so that allowing any part of it to non-Muslims is a deadly sin.

Seven: Jewish fanatics, who believe that all of Eretz-Israel, from the Nile to the Euphrates, has been promised to the Jews by God, so that conceding any part of it to non-Jews is a deadly sin.

Eight: Christian fanatics, who believe that the second coming of Jesus Christ will be possible only after the ingathering of all the Jews in this country (with no place in it for anyone else.)

Sorry if I have forgotten someone.

SOME OF these people have invented something called the “one-state solution”. That is an oxymoron. There is a one-state problem, there is no one-state solution.

From time to time it is worthwhile to come back to the basic facts of our life:

There are two peoples living in this country.

Neither of the two will go away. They are here to stay.

While the Arab Palestinians living in the country are still a minority, they will constitute the majority quite soon.

Both peoples are intensely nationalistic.

The two peoples have different cultures, languages, religions, historic narratives, social structures, standards of living. At present, after some 130 years of continuous conflict, there is intense hatred between them.

The possibility that these two peoples could live peacefully in one state, serving in the same army and police, paying the same taxes and abiding by the same laws enacted by the same common parliament, is nil.

The possibility that these two peoples could live peacefully side-by-side in two states, each with its own flag and its own elected government (and its own soccer team), does exist.

Such co-existence can take different forms: from a loose confederation with open borders and free movement to closer forms of evolving structures, like the European Union.

I hope that this is not too complicated for Mitt Romney to understand. But this may become irrelevant if – as I fervently hope – he is not elected.

I would hate for an ignoramus to be given the opportunity to learn world affairs on our

backs.

Israel Loves Iran http://www.israelovesiran.com

NOT ready to die in YOUR war

We are millions of people who will be hurt. Will be drafted, will have to fight, loose our lives, our relatives. We, parents from Tel Aviv and Teheran will have to run with our children to the shelters and pray the missiles will miss us.

But they will fall somewhere, on someone.

Those last few days the sound of war is becoming louder.
So once again, load and clear, we are saying NO to this war
We are saying to the people of Iran: We Love You

Hundreds marched in Tel-Aviv denouncing any strike on Iran

17 august 2012, The Israeli Communist Party המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית‎ الحزب الشيوعي الاسرائيلي‎ (Israel)
info@maki.org.il

Thursday evening hundreds protesters marched from the Likud headquarters to the Defence Minister's home in Tel Aviv denouncing any strike on Iran. Among them: MK Dov Khenin (Hadash), former MKs Tamar Gozansky (Hadash) and Mossi Raz (Meretz), and Tel-Aviv Councilman Yoav Goldring (Ir Lekulanu). Several Hadash and Communist Party of Israel activists carried red flags and red banners. "Enough of occupation (of Palestinian territories). No to an attack on Iran," chanted the protesters. Many protesters held up pictures of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak with the caption "arsonists".

After a short march, hundreds of Tel Aviv residents opposed to an attack on Iran gathered under Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Barak's home in Tel Aviv, on August 17, 2012 (Photo: Activestills)

Opponents of an Israeli attack said on Thursday that around 500 academics and retired military personnel had signed a petition calling on air force pilots to refuse to carry out a unilateral strike. "I understand the far-reaching implications of this petition," a statement quoted one of the signatories, Tel Aviv University law Professor Menachem Mautner, as saying. "The possibility of a decision to attack Iran has been keeping me awake for weeks." The statement warns that injury to Iranian civilians as a result of radioactive leakage from any of the targeted facilities could expose pilots to future war crimes charges. "We issue this appeal to you out of a deep sense of concern and anxiety," the petition tells the Israeli airmen. "Our fate, our very future lies very much in your hands." In recent weeks, the Israeli press has been flooded with reports citing anonymous top officials suggesting military action against Tehran's nuclear facilities is imminent.

A poll, meanwhile, indicated that 61 percent of Jewish Israelis opposed a raid on Iran. Te survey, published by the independent Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) think-tank, also said 57 percent of respondents believed talk of a pre-emptive strike is simply a tactic designed to pressure the Americans to take more resolute action against Iran.

Israel Loves Iran http://www.israelovesiran.com

Protesters urge Barak to prevent Iran war

14 August 2012, The Israeli Communist Party המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית‎ الحزب الشيوعي الاسرائيلي‎ (Israel)
info@maki.org.il

Chanting "No to war" and holding signs reading "Bibi, you ruined our lives. Don't end them," hundreds of people gathered every night in front of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s apartment building in central Tel Aviv last night to protest an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Last Friday protest against the war in Haifa (Photo: Al Ittihad)

The crowd, mostly young people chanted slogans against Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu like "Bibi and Barak are dangerous," or the more straightforward, "Get out." Beyond the chants, and an odd series of emotive poems read near the end of the protest, a few public figures lent their support. MK Dov Khenin (Hadash), said a strike on Iran would be "a terrible, horrible tragedy." "We can all understand the costs and sacrifices of it, but few can say what its benefit is," Khenin said.
Daphni Leef, who started Israel’s social protest movement last summer, also spoke at the rally, and admonished Barak for creating tension in Israelis’ everyday existence. "We have no idea if our lives are ending today, tomorrow, next year or in 50 years," she said. The protest leaders returned every night to the same spot to campaign against a strike on Iran. Next Thursday (August 16) will be a massive protest against the war at 20:00, a rally from the Likud headquarters (Metzudat Zeev), near Gan Meir at King George Street, to the Defense Ministry in Tel-Aviv.

More on the next Thursday rally (in Hebrew):
http://www.facebook.com/events/472360036115192

Related:
http://maki.org.il/en/component/content/article/11508-cpi-for-the-future-for-life-stop-the-war-with-iran
http://maki.org.il/en/political/133-news/11517-hundreds-gathered-at-baraks-home-to-protest-the-strike-against-iran
http://maki.org.il/en/political/133-news/11515-haifa-a-protest-against-the-attack-on-iran

CPI: FOR THE FUTURE, FOR LIFE – STOP THE WAR WITH IRAN!

4 august 2012, The Israeli Communist Party המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית‎ الحزب الشيوعي الاسرائيلي‎ (Israel)
info@maki.org.il

The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) warns against the terrible danger of a new regional war that may be inflicted on us due to the programs of Netanyahu-Barak’s government to attack Iran.

Netanyahu and Barak are leading the people of Israel and the peoples of the region to a war whose hazards and severity are deeply unprecedented. Even the heads of Israel's various security systems, past and present, have warned openly that initiating war against Iran would wreak disaster and destruction on Israel. Nevertheless, and despite criticism and opposition from the public and prominent world leaders, Netanyahu and Barak continue to promote precarious programs and may drag the entire region into a horrific destruction.

We determine with great concern that Netanyahu and Barak break any record of political and security adventurism and that they subject the life of Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs, to terrible destruction. Israeli government’s premeditated use of the suffering of the residents of Israel (following the prospective reaction to Israeli offense) in order to drag other powers and forces into the war is particularly rigorous.

Promoting this dangerous and bloody adventure is also made in order to rule out the question of Israeli-Palestinian peace from the agenda in Israel and the region, as well as in order to avoid demands for social justice and social budget in Israel. Instead of tackling these issues, the government of Israel introduces a militaristic and nationalist agenda. Netanyahu's attempt to influence, through plans of war, the elections in the United States is also severely bothersome.

The danger is indeed terrible – but it is not predestined by fate. It is essential, and still possible, to prevent the war. At this crucial time we call the opposition parties, political figures, intellectuals, academics and journalists, movements and forces in Israeli society, and even the sane elements within the Israeli establishment itself, to act together against the war initiative. We call on to create a broad mobilization of public action against the war.

The Political Bureau calls on all party institutions, the Israeli Communist Young League (Banki-Shabiba) and Hadash, all party members and sympathizers, to present the issue of the struggle against the regional war at the top of our agenda.

We urge all social protest activists to speak out clearly against the war, based on the understanding that beyond all other damages, a regional war will infringe on the struggle for social change and social justice in Israel.
Regional war and social justice cannot coexist.

We call on the Left and other progressive forces in the region and the world as a whole to raise a strong voice of opposition to the war and to initiate mass protests in order to mobilize public opinion and worldwide governments against the war that Netanyahu and Barak plan to wage on Iran.

The future of the peoples of the region, including the citizens of Israel, will not do in horrifying wars of annihilation or in aggression but quite the opposite – in a comprehensive and stable peace in the Middle East whose core is an Israeli-Palestinian peace – to be established on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative and the UN resolutions.

Wars cannot eliminate nuclear weapons – only a comprehensive settlement of the demilitarization of the entire Middle East of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in general can. In this regard, we demand that the Israeli government will sign the treaty of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

For the future, for life – stop the war!

Decision of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Israel,

Um el-Fahem, August 3, 2012.

Haifa: A protest against the attack on Iran

11 August 2012, The Israeli Communist Party המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית‎ الحزب الشيوعي الاسرائيلي‎ (Israel)
info@maki.org.il

This past Friday (August 10) dozens rallied in Haifa against the attack on Iran. Last Monday, (August 6) two hundred demonstrated outside the Defense Ministry, with the call: "Do not bomb. Talk! Rather than continuing the rhetoric of intimidation, it is time that the State of Israel will agree to join the regional talks, due to be held later this year in Helsinki, where Iran will participate.

Today is also the anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. On this day, the call is made all over the world read: No more Hiroshima, No more Nagasaki! We join this call and add: the safest way to end the nuclear arms race in the Middle East is to make the Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction. No attack on Iran. Yes to dialogue!"

The demonstration against the attack on Iran, yesterday, near the Baha'i Holy Place in Haifa (Photo: Al Ittihad)
In addition, Hadash and the Communist Party of Israel launched an anti-war campaign. Particularly striking was a commentary by well-know writer David Grossman, published in "Haaretz" (August 3) under the title, "As Netanyahu Pushes Israel Closer to War with Iran, Israelis Cannot Keep Silent." Grossman extends his challenge beyond the military to the Israeli public at large, asking why aren't there demonstrations at the prime minister's residence opposing another war launched by Israel? "How will we face ourselves and our children when we are asked why we kept silent?"

Related:
http://maki.org.il/en/component/content/article/11508-cpi-for-the-future-for-life-stop-the-war-with-iran

ART OF RESISTANCE – A COMMENT ON GÜNTER GRASS

April 5, 2012, Gilad Atzmon http://www.gilad.co.uk (UK)

By Gilad Atzmon

http://www.deliberation.info

Outrage in Germany, Nobel Laureate Günter Grass has, once again told the truth about Israel being the greatest threat to world peace.

Günter Grass, Germany’s most famous living author and the 1999 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, sparked outrage in Germany on Wednesday with the publication of a poem, “What must be said”, in which he sharply criticizes Israel’s offensive approach towards Iran.

Once again, it is the artist rather than the politician, who tells the truth as it is. Once again it is the Artist rather than the academic who speaks out.

"Why did I wait until now at this advanced age and with the last bit of ink to say: The nuclear power Israel is endangering a world peace that is already fragile?” Wrote Grass.

In the poem, published by Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and other European dailies on Wednesday, Grass also calls for an "unhindered and permanent monitoring of Israel’s nuclear potential and Iran’s nuclear facility through an international entity that the government of both countries would approve.”

Israel and some German Jewish prominent voices were quick to react. The Israeli Embassy in Berlin issued a statement offering its own version of ‘What must be said.’

"What must be said is that it is a European tradition to accuse the Jews before the Passover festival of ritual murder,” the statements reads.

Pretty outrageous, don’t you think? In the open Israel together with its supportive Jewish lobbies (AIPAC, AJC) are pushing for a new global conflict. Yet, shamelessly the embassy defies criticism tossing in the air the old blood libel. The appropriate timely question here is why Israel and AIPAC are pushing for a world war and a potential nuclear conflict just before Passover? Can they just wait for another Yom Kippur (atonement day)?

The Israeli Embassy continues,"in the past, it was Christian children whose blood the Jews allegedly used to make their unleavened bread, but today it is the Iranian people that the Jewish state allegedly wants to annihilate.”

Isn’t it really the case? Every military expert suggests that Israeli pre-emptive attack on Iran could escalate into a nuclear conflict. If anything Grass tries like others, including your truly, to prevent Israel from celebrating its lethal symptoms once again.
The Israeli embassy noticed though that "Israel is the only state in the world whose right to exist is openly doubted.”

Correct, and so it should be. Israel is a racist, expansionist state, it doesn’t have room amongst nations.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany also called the poem an “aggressive pamphlet of agitation.”. I wonder, is it really aggressive to try and restrain an aggressor?

The German newspaper Die Welt, which apparently obtained an advance copy of Grass’ poem, published a response by rabid Zionist Henryk Broder, the country’s most prominent Jewish writer. “Grass always had a problem with Jews, but it has never articulated it as clearly as he has in this poem.” Broder said “Grass has always had a tendency toward megalomania, but this time he is completely nuts.” I would expect Germany’s leading Jewish writer to come with something slightly more astute.

Border however may be correct when he notes that Grass is "haunted by guilt and shame and also driven by the desire to settle history, he is now attempting to disarm the ’cause of the recognizable threat.’”

Wednesday’s poem is not the first time Grass has come out with critical views of Israel. In a 2001 interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he offered his own solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Israel doesn’t just need to clear out of the occupied areas,” he said at the time. “The appropriation of Palestinian territory and its Israeli settlements are also a criminal activity. That not only needs to be stopped — it also needs to be reversed. Otherwise there will be no peace.”

Broder contends that such a statement is “no less than a demand for Israel to not just cede Nablus and Hebron, but also Tel Aviv and Haifa. ” he continues, “Grass does not differentiated between the ‘occupied areas’ of 1948 and 1967.” Needless to say that from an ethical perspective Grass is correct-there is no difference between 1948 and 1967. The Jewish State located itself on historic Palestine on the expense of the Palestinian people. I guess that Grass understood already in 2001 that the Jews only State must be transformed into a ‘State of its Citizens’. Israel should embrace the true notion of peace, universalism and inclusiveness. But I guess that we shouldn’t hold our breath for it is not going to happen soon.

Gilad Atzmon’s New Book: The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.