Fact of Life

If everyone is happy with you,
Surely you have made many compromises in your life.

If you are happy with every one,
Surely you have ignored many faults of others.

Unparalleled Impunity

A United States government call on Israel to investigate the cold-blooded videotaped killing of two Palestinian boys falls far short of a real demand for accountability and amounts to complicity in covering up the crime.

The boys, 17-year-old Nadim Siam Nuwara and 16-year-old Muhammad Mahmoud Odeh Abu al-Thahir, were killed at a Nakba Day protest near the Ofer military prison in the occupied West Bank village of Beitunia on May 15.

(Video can be seen here)

The video evidence indicates that Israeli defence minister Moshe Yaalon was simply lying when he claimed that “it was a life-threatening situation, so the officers acted accordingly.”The videos confirm that the boys were shot dead at long distance like hunted animals and were not engaged in any activity that could plausibly be described as threatening.

The first of the videos, taken by security cameras on a nearby store, were released by Defence for Children International – Palestine Section on May 19. Additional footage taken from another angle was released by Israeli rights group B’Tselem. A third boy, Muhammad Abdullah Hussein al-Azzeh, 15, not seen in the videos, sustained a gunshot wound in the back and left lung during the same demonstration. The fourth victim, a 23-year-old who B’Tselem said wished to remain unnamed, was lightly injured.

“We are closely following this incident in the video,” US State Department spokesperson Jennifer Psaki told journalists at the daily briefing on 20 May.“We look to the Government of Israel to conduct a prompt and transparent investigation…”

Asked if based on the video the State Department thought the Israeli “response proportional to the threat,” Psaki replied, “We’re not going to make an evaluation on that from here. We are encouraging the government of Israel to conduct their own investigation.”

Given Israel’s total failure to properly investigate virtually any killings of Palestinians and the systematic impunity afforded to killers, the US call for Israel to investigate itself is tantamount to complicity in covering up the killings.

Since 2000, Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 1,400 children.According to Amnesty International, “trigger-happy” Israeli occupation forces have engaged in a pattern of “war crimes” against Palestinians. Yet, according to Israeli legal advocacy group Yesh Din, “Most cases of violent crimes against Palestinians not only go unpunished – but often are completely ignored by the authorities.”

Yesh Din says that 94 percent of criminal investigations launched by Israeli occupation authorities against soldiers suspected of criminal violent activity against Palestinians and their property are closed without any indictments.

In December 2012, an Israeli occupation soldier shot dead Palestinian teenager Muhammad al-Salaymeh on his seventeenth birthday in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

Video of the incident totally contradicted the version of events given to Israeli media by Nofar Mizrahi, the occupation soldier who killed him. Yet once again, despite the evidence, Mizrahi has enjoyed complete impunity.

Amnesty International confirms that Israeli soldiers and officers, if investigated at all, generally go unpunished for killing or injuring Palestinian civilians, even when they do so in violation of Israel’s own legal system.

The failure of the US to demand any real accountability is hardly surprising: one of the Obama administration’s proudest achievements was helping Israel bury the UN-commissioned Goldstone report into Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 massacre in Gaza.

The US has also tenaciously assisted Israel to avoid accountability over its killings of nine people, including the American youth Furkan Dogan, aboard the Mavi Marmara in 2010.

Continuing this unbroken pattern of cover up and complicity, the US was alone out of 47 countries in voting against several resolutions condemning Israeli abuses at the UN Human Rights Council in March. Under Obama, US military aid to Israel has reached record levels.

By: Ali Abunimah

Bright Kids

Teacher, “Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?”
Donald, “H I J K L M N O.
Teacher, “What are you talking about?”
Donald, “Yesterday you said it’s H to O”

Teacher to 9 year old Winnie, “Name one important thing we have today that we didn’t have ten years ago”
Winnie, “Me”

Teacher to a small boy, “Glen, why do you always get so dirty?”
Glen, “Well, I am a lot closer to the ground than you are”

6. Gandhi “apostle of peace” ???

Part-1, Mentality and Struggle, Part-2, Martin L King & Gandhi, Part-3, Gandhi won freedom peacefully ???, Part-4, Gandhi & Uplift of Low Caste and Part-5, Superiority of Race & Hindus can be read by clicking on the topics

Gandhi was a “Hindu revivalist” and “Hindu politician” combined in one, who used nonviolence as a tool for political objectives. He used to coerce others to concede to his demands by threats of “going to fast unto death”. He was no pacifist as is shown by his stand on the issue of Kashmir.

“One naturally thought that he would offer a nonviolent solution to the Kashmir issue and raise his moral stature. But no! He proved to be a false prophet. Seervai has documented that nonviolence with him was a political weapon. (H. M. Seervai, Partition of India, Legend and Reality, Bombay, 1989, p 172-173). He sanctioned the use of armed forces and laid the foundation of Kashmir problem which continues to haunt the subcontinent till today” (Sangat Singh, The Sikhs in History, 4th ed., 2001, p 258.)

According to Seervai, in a meeting with Viceroy Lord Wavell on August 27 1946, Gandhi thumped the table and said, “If India wants bloodbath, she shall have it and that if bloodbath was necessary, it would come about in spite of nonviolence.” Wavell was dumbfounded at these words coming from the mouth of “apostle” of nonviolence.

Gandhi was a very cunning man. He was not satisfied with the title of “apostle of peace”, he also wanted to project himself as a holy man, which for a Hindu required the practice of celibacy. He was a married man and proclaimed to be celibate at a relatively young age under forty. However, he used to test his celibacy by asking young girls to lie over him to find out whether he was in full control of his sexual feelings. I leave up to psychologists and psychiatrists to analyze what was in Gandhi’s mind and what happened to the emotions of those poor girls! He was always surrounded by women.

So what is Gandhi’s legacy to mankind?

The obvious one is the partition of subcontinent into “Hindu India” and “Muslim Pakistan and Bangladesh”. These three nations are a “living hell” for minorities. For example, India which claims with pride to be the biggest democracy in the world has killed more Indians in the last fifty years than the British colonists killed in 300 years. More than 95% of those killed by Hindu governments are Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Dalits (Untouchables). While the populations of these countries are groaning under the weight of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, ignorance and disease, India and Pakistan have built nuclear weapons. The next nuclear war will most probably be fought over the disputed territory of Kashmir in spite of the fact that neither India nor Pakistan has ever asked the Kashmiris what they want

Don’t Lose

Do not lose yourself trying to hold on to some

Who is not afraid of losing you.