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Presidential candidate Ron Paul shows how common sense doesn’t rule in the U.S. Congress. The U.S. expects the rest of the world to gleefully accept what the U.S. themselves would consider a work of Satan if it happened to them back home in the good old U.S. of A. The following article was published on the Mondoweiss website on September 13th 2011.
Ron Paul says our unfairness to Palestinians led to 9/11 attacks
Sep 13, 2011 01:26 pm | Philip Weiss
The only presidential candidate to talk about human rights in Palestine is of course, Ron Paul, who said that it helped foster the 9/11 attacks, during last night’s Republican debate, picked up at NBC. (Thanks to antiwar.com):
“Most of the danger comes by our lack of wisdom on how we run our foreign policy,” and he repeated a statistic he uses on the campaign trail in Iowa: “We’re under great threat, because we occupy so many countries. We’re in 130 countries. We have 900 bases around the world. We’re going broke. The purpose of al Qaeda was to attack us, invite us over there, where they can target us. And they have been doing it.”
Paul went on to claim that al Qaeda has committed “more attacks against us and the American interests per month than occurred in all the years before 9/11” — because the U.S. is “occupying their land.” …
Paul didn’t retreat from his position. “This whole idea that the whole Muslim world is responsible for this, and they’re attacking us because we’re free and prosperous, that is just not true. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda have been explicit… They wrote and said that we attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians fair treatment, and you have been bombing…”
At this point, Paul was interrupted by a chorus of boos. He tried to talk over them, pleading with the audience to understand his position.
“I didn’t say that. I’m trying to get you to understand what the motive was behind the bombing, at the same time we had been bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for 10 years. Would you be annoyed? If you’re not annoyed, then there’s some problem.”
The Lord hears the cry of the Palestinian people.
As a Bible believing Christian I find the anti-BDS sentiment of so called journalists like Greg Sheridan and Andrew Bolt to be based in nothing but European supremacist, pro-colonialist bigotry. The media representation of what the BDS campaign is all about is reprehensible to anyone who knows anything at all about the movement.
The BDS program against the Zionist state was called for by 170 civil Palestinian organisations in 2005 as a non-violent means to pursue the cause for self determination and justice for the Palestinian people by putting economic pressure on the state of Israel to align itself with international law regarding its behaviour and policies towards the Palestinian people. The goal of the BDS movement is not necessarily aligned with either a one or two state solution. At all levels, the BDS movement recognises the right of the state of Israel to exist with secure and safe borders. A right acknowledged by Yasser Arafat in 1993 but never reciprocated by the Israeli government to this day.
The western media has no complaint with sanctions against those nations that don’t “play ball” with us, regardless of the fact that, in Iraq for example, thousands of children suffer and die as a result. But when it comes to countries that are aligned with us, even the slightest hint of sanctions against them is met with almost hysterical cries of racist and terrorist motivations, regardless of the fact that, as in the case of Israel, the nation is guilty of more violations of International law than all the Arab/Muslim nations put together. We can bomb Iraq to the ground (killing hundreds of thousands) on the faulty premise that it had weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda when in fact it did not and our leaders had access to (or could have easily gained access to) information to the contrary. We can do these things without the slightest pang of conscience or pain of remembrance because our media and our leaders do not allow them to be part of our remembrance. They are not worthy victims; they are not worthy of our grief or sorrow let alone remorse. they are not us, they are them.
To the opponents of the BDS movement, the only true course for the Palestinian people is to either self dispossess from their homeland or be complicit with the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza. The refugees that live outside of Israel-Palestine should just “get over it”. Those who oppose the BDS movement deny the Palestinian people any means to fight for their rights to self determination at all. They must in effect become Zionists or suffer the consequences. The anti-BDS proponents demonise all Palestinian resistance. They condemn Palestinians as terrorists if they resist with violence or condemn them as anti-Semites if they resist non violently as is the case with the BDS campaign. They demand that the game be played in such a way that “heads Israel wins, tails the Palestinians lose”.
John Pilger puts a far more correct spin on the BDS campaign when he says in support of the BDS movement:
“Sometimes, looked at from the outside, Australia is a strange place. In other ‘western democracies’ the ‘debate’ about the enduring injustice dealt the Palestinians and Israel’s lawlessness has moved forward to the point where the cynical campaign of anti-Semitism smears is no longer effective — in the UK, much of Europe and even the United States.
If Israel’s bloody assault on Lebanon was not the turning point, the criminal attack on the imprisoned population of Gaza certainly was. The same is true of the BDS movement. This eminently reasonable, decent and necessary campaign enjoys a respectability across the world, not least in South Africa, where it’s backed by the likes of Desmond Tutu and especially those Jews who fought the apartheid regime. The University of Johannesburg, the country’s biggest, has just broken all ties with Israel. Justice for Palestine, said, Mandela, is ‘the greatest moral issue of our time’. That’s the company those Marrickville councillors who have stood up for this ‘greatest moral issue’, keep. And those who have wavered and walked away should think again – remembering other waverers who, long ago, walked away from speaking out against what was being done to Jews. The scale is very different; the principle is the same. Do not be intimidated by Murdoch vendettas or by anyone else. All power to you.”
John Pilger
The words of the Torah cry out to all Christians, Muslims and Jews.
“Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt. Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.”( Exodus 22:21-24)
The God of the Old Testament cries out in dozens of verses in the Torah for Jews to reach out beyond the bounds of hatred, racism and bigotry; to take hold of the hands of the oppressed and the alien just as God reached out to them when they were helpless in Egypt, suffering under the oppression of Pharaoh.
The BDS movement will be heard in heaven, of that we can be assured. God’s promise to hear the cry of the oppressed in Israel should send shudders up the spine of those who arrogantly deny the right of the Palestinian people to be heard. The words of Jesus ring in our ears as well:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
Jesus care and concern for the marginalised and demonized in His time reflect the love of God for all humanity. His special concern for those at the “bottom” is a perfect reflection of God the Father’s heart towards Jew and non-Jew.
The gospel of Christian Zionism is not a gospel of Good News to Palestinians be they Christian, Muslim or secular. It is not really a gospel of Good News to anyone whose heart rejoices at the news of God’s reconciliation of all humanity to Himself.
The BDS movement affirms the right of Jewish people to live anywhere in the world (not just in Israel) in peace and equality with all peoples, free from racial and religious bigotry. The BDS movement wishes for exactly the same right for Palestinians. As such, the morality of the movement matches the morality of the God of both Testaments of the Bible. Anti-BDS supporters reject the concept of equality for Jew and non-Jew in Israel and the occupied territories. As such, they align themselves with the powers already defeated on the cross of Jesus some 2,000 years ago. Justice and equality for all in the Holy land is the ultimate goal of the Lord God and the BDS movement. That is why I endorse and am involved in it.
The New Testament affirms to Christians that both Jesus and Moses concur about justice and equality in all the world. Religious nationalism, self righteousness and hatred will be swept away, once and for all. this is the true hope that lies at the heart of all truly Biblically based doctrines of Eschatology.
Craig Nielsen
ACTION FOR PALESTINE
Obama the Muslim
Despite constant claims by President Obama that he is a Christian, many Americans continue to believe that he is in fact a Muslim and that his Islamic faith definitely affects his politics regarding the Middle East. Given that large numbers of Americans also believe that Saddam Hussein really did have weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Al Qaeda had links to Saddam’s regime, despite the massive and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it is not really surprising that President Obama’s religious convictions could be so misconstrued by large sections of religiously conservative Americans.
What is unusual, to me anyway is that while the religious right are skeptical of Obama’s motivations in dealing with the Arab nations and the Palestinian question in particular, because of his alleged Islamic faith, they never question the motives of those who dogmatically adhere to the secular humanistic ideology of Zionism. Islam will lead one astray when it comes to issues in the Middle East conflict, or so we are told by John Hagee and the like, but the secular ideology of Zionism seems to keep one on the straight and narrow in Middle Eastern politics. Never once have I heard the religious right in the U.S. critique the dominant ideology in Israel, Zionism. Zionism is the only secular ideology that remains unchallenged in the culture wars of America by the conservatively religious in the U.S. Secular humanism in the U.S. receives a firm rebuke by the religious right if it shows its face in America, but gets a free pass from conservative Christians in the U.S. if it bobs up in the form of Zionism in Israel.
This approval of Zionism by the religious right in the U.S., while vigorously denouncing other secular ideologies that spring up domestically, occurs despite the fact that the Bible contains no mandate that the U.S. must not adhere to the values of secular humanism on punishment of destruction of the American nation by God, but that same Bible does contain a God given mandate that Jews in Israel must follow the Lord God or face expulsion from the land. Zionism’s repudiation of the Torah and its values as being mere myth and legend receives no wrathful rebuke and predictions of doom from conservative pulpits in America.
No members of the religious right in America seem to trouble themselves with the notion that secular ideology might lead the Israeli state into error. Conservative Americans usually hold to the idea that too much welfare robs a person of their dignity, but have no problem with the idea of the U.S. government handing out billions of dollars in aid to Israel despite the fact that Israel is a developed country. Why do the billions in aid that the U.S. gives to Israel not rob the Israelis of their sense of dignity?
Christian Zionists in America never seem to wonder why their Muslim President doesn’t simply end all aid to the Zionist State of Israel, stop the practice of vetoing all United Nations resolutions that upset the Israelis and redirect the billions in aid previously given to Israel into the hands of the Palestinians. Yet their conviction that Obama is a Muslim does not waver. The convictions of those who live in a paranoid universe seldom do.
Craig Nielsen
ACTION FOR PALESTINE
Israel-Palestine 