YOU REALLY BELIEVE YOU CAN SUCCESSFULLY BOYCOTT ISRAEL ?

YOU REALLY BELIEVE YOU CAN SUCCESSFULLY BOYCOTT ISRAEL ?

Stes de Necker

Some time ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the Muslim World to boycott anything and everything that originates from the Jewish people.

This cry has now been taken up by Hamas and other Muslims world-wide!

In response, Meyer M Treinkman, a pharmacist, out of the kindness of his heart, offered to assist them in their boycott as follows:

"Any Muslim who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by a Jew, Dr. Ehrlich. He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. If a Muslim suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner.

"A Muslim who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube.

Should he suffer with a toothache, he must not use Novocaine, a discovery of the Jews, Widal and Weil.

If a Muslim has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of Research by Minkowsky, a Jew. If one has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege.

Muslims with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate.

Arabs must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew.

Should a Muslim child get Diphtheria, he must refrain from the "Schick" reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick.

"Muslims should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, work of Jewish Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram.

They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk.

"Muslims must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman, invented the wonder drug against this killing disease.

Muslim doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict, or the lung specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts.

"In short, good and loyal Muslims properly and fittingly should remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott."

Oh, and by the way, don't call for a doctor on your cell phone because the cell phone was invented in Israel by a Jewish engineer.

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population.

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of
the world's population

The Holocaust -- A Myth ??

THE HOLOCAUST A MYTH ??

Stes de Necker

The Jews are NOT promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims.

The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants.

There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church.

There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people. The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbours, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel’s part, the following two sentences really say it all:

"If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."

Benjamin Netanyahu: “General Eisenhower warned us. It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.”

He did this because he said in words to this effect: “Get it all on record now – get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some idiot will get up and say that this never happened.”

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it “offends” the Muslim population which claims it never occurred.

It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.It is now more than 65 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.

Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

Please help to distribute this message around the world by sharing it with all your friends, relatives and connections.

Vladimir Putin - The man behind the stern mask

Vladimir Putin

The Man Behind the Stern Mask

Stes de Necker

Introduction

This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs; the patronymic is Vladimirovich and the family name is Putin.

Vladimir Putin, born 7 October 1952, has been the President of Russia since 7 May 2012. He previously served as President from 2000 to 2008, and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. During his last term as Prime Minister, he was also the Chairman of the United Russia political party.

For 16 years Putin served as an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991. He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election and was re-elected in 2004. 

Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term in 2008. Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election and appointed Putin as Prime Minister, beginning a period of so-called "tan democracy". In September 2011, following a change in the law extending the presidential term from four years to six, Putin announced that he would seek a third, non-consecutive term as President in the2012 presidential election, an announcement which led to large-scale protests in many Russian cities. He won the election in March 2012 and is serving a six-year term.

Many of Putin's actions are regarded by the domestic opposition and foreign observers as undemocratic. 

The 2011 Democracy Index stated that Russia was in "a long process of regression that culminated in a move from a hybrid to an authoritarian regime" in view of Putin's candidacy and flawed parliamentary elections. In 2014 Russia was excluded from the G8 group as a result of its annexation of Crimea.

During Putin's first premiership and presidency (1999–2008), real incomes increased by a factor of 2.5, real wages more than tripled; unemployment and poverty more than halved, and the Russians' self-assessed life satisfaction rose significantly. Putin's first presidency was marked by high economic growth: the Russian economy grew for eight straight years, seeing GDP increase by 72% in PPP (six fold in nominal terms). 

As Russia's president, Putin and the Federal Assembly passed into law a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. As Prime Minister, Putin oversaw large scale military and police reform. His energy policy has affirmed Russia's position as an energy superpower. Putin supported high-tech industries such as the nuclear and defence industries. 

A rise in foreign investment contributed to a boom in such sectors as the automotive industry. 

Putin has cultivated a strongman image and is a pop cultural icon in Russia with many commercial products named after him.

Sport and cultural life

Putin has won international support for sport in Russia. In 2007, he led a successful effort on behalf of Sochi (located along the Black Sea near the border between Georgia and Russia) for the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2014 Winter Paralympics, the first Winter Olympic Games to ever be hosted by Russia. 

Likewise, in 2008, the city of Kazan won the bid for the 2013 Summer Universiade, and on 2 December 2010 Russia won the right to host the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup and 2018 FIFA World Cup, also for the first time in Russian history. In 2013, Putin stated that gay athletes would not face any discrimination at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. 

Putin has an outdoor, sporty, tough guy image in the media, demonstrating his physical capabilities and taking part in unusual or dangerous acts, such as extreme sports and interaction with wild animals.

For example, in 2007, the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda published a huge photograph of a bare-chested Putin vacationing in the Siberian Mountains under the headline: "Be Like Putin."

Photo ops during his various adventures are part of a public relations approach that, according to Wired, "deliberately cultivates the macho, take-charge superhero image". Some of the activities have been criticised for being staged.

Notable examples of Putin's macho adventures include: flying military jets, demonstrating his martial art skills, riding horses, rafting, fishing and swimming in a cold Siberian river (doing all that mostly bare-chested), descending in a deepwater submersible, tranquilizing tigers with a tranquiliser gun, tranquilizing polar bears, riding a motorbike, co-piloting a fire fighting plane to dump water on a raging fire, shooting darts at whales from a crossbow for eco-tracking, driving a race car, scuba diving at an archaeological site, attempting to lead endangered cranes in a motorized hang glider, and catching big fish.

On 11 December 2010, at a concert organized for a children's charity in Saint Petersburg, Putin sang Blueberry Hill accompanying himself on the piano. The concert was attended by various Hollywood and European stars such as Kevin Costner, Sharon Stone, Alain Delon, and Gérard Depardieu. At the same event (and others) Putin played a patriotic song from his favourite spy movie The Shield and the Sword.

Putin's painting "Узор на заиндевевшем окне" (A Pattern on a Hoarfrost-Encrusted Window), which he had painted during the Christmas Fair on 26 December 2008, became the top lot at the charity auction in Saint Petersburg and sold for 37 million rubles. The creation of the painting coincided with the 2009 Russia–Ukraine gas dispute, which left a number of European states without Russian gas and amid January frosts.

There are a large number of songs about Putin. Some of the more popular include:

[I Want] A Man Like Putin by Singing Together

Horoscope (Putin, Don't Piss!) by Uma2rman

VVP by a Tajik singer Tolibjon Kurbankhanov (Толибджон Курбанханов)

Our Madhouse is Voting for Putin by Working Faculty.

Putin's name and image are widely used in advertisement and product branding. Among the Putin-branded products are Putinkavodka, the PuTin brand of canned food, the Gorbusha Putina caviar and a collection of T-shirts with his image.

Putin features in the colouring book for children Vova and Dima (presented on his 59th birthday), where he and Dmitry Medvedev are drawn as good-behaving little boys, and in the Superputin online comics series, where Putin and Medvedev are portrayed first as superheroes, and then as a troll and an orc in the World of Warcraft.

Vladimir Putin was portrayed by internet personality Nice Peter in his YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, in Season 2's finale episode, "Rasputin vs. Stalin" (aired on 22 April 2013).

A Russian movie called A Kiss not for Press was premiered in 2008 on DVD. The movie is said to be based on biography of Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila. Asserting that the Russian non-systemic opposition work for foreign interests: Come to me, Bandar-logs!

Putin has produced a large number of popular aphorisms and catch-phrases, known as ‘Putinisms’. Many of them were first made during his annual Q&A conferences, where Putin answered questions from journalists and other people in the studio, as well as from Russians throughout the country, who either phoned in or spoke from studios and outdoor sites across Russia. Putin is known for his often tough and sharp language. The examples of most popular ‘Putinisms’ include:

To bump off in a toilet. Made in 1999, when he promised to destroy terrorists wherever they were found, including in toilets.

She sank. Curt and self-evident answer to a question from Larry King in 2000 asking what happened to the Russian submarine K-141 Kursk.

Ploughed like a slave on a galley. This is how Putin described his work as President of Russia from 2000 to 2008 during a Q&A conference in 2008.

Ears of a dead ass. According to Putin, that was what Latvia would receive instead of the land claimed by Latvia in a territorial dispute.

At the very least, a state leader should have a head. Putin's response to Hillary Clinton's claim that Putin has no soul. He recommended that international relations be built without emotion and instead on the basis of the fundamental interests of the states involved.

Shearing a pig- In 2013, Putin responded to complaints that he was harbouring whistleblower Edward Snowden, saying that he does not wish to get involved in this issue because "it's like shearing a pig – lots of screams but little wool".

Personal life - Family

On 28 July 1983 Putin married Kaliningrad-born Lyudmila Shkrebneva, at that time an undergraduate student of the Spanish branch of the philology department of the Leningrad State University and a former Aeroflot flight attendant. They lived together in Germany from 1985 to 1990. During this time, according to BND archives, a German spy befriended Putina, who said that Putin beat her and had love affairs. 

When the couple left Germany in 1990 it was rumoured that Putin left behind an illegitimate child.

Putina was rarely seen with President Putin and there were rumours, according to the Daily Mail and other newspapers, that the couple separated. Putin has been linked by newspapers with other women, including gymnast Alina Kabayeva and ex-spy Anna Chapman. These rumours have been denied. 

Vladimir Putin and his wife, Lyudmila, announced on 6 June 2013, that their marriage was over, ending years of speculation about their relationship. The Kremlin confirmed on 2 April 2014 that Russian President Vladimir Putin has finalised the divorce from his wife of 30 years Lyudmila following the couple's sudden split in June 2013. The president's spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to state-owned Itar-TASS news agency that "the divorce has completed."

Putin and his wife have two daughters, Mariya Putina (born 28 April 1985 in Leningrad, Soviet Union) and Yekaterina Putina (born 31 August 1986 in Dresden, East Germany). The daughters grew up in East Germany and attended the German School in Moscow until his appointment as Prime Minister. After that they studied international economics at the Finance Academy in Moscow, although it was not officially reported due to security reasons. Official sources such as Pravda claim they started their studies at St Petersburg State University, with Mariya at the biology and geology department and Yekaterina at the oriental studies section of the University's philological department. It is the most prestigious section of the department that graduates future diplomats"  

According to the Daily Mail, their photographs have never been published by the Russian media, and no family portrait has ever been issued. The Sunday Times has published one picture of Mariya with her parents According to an article in the newspaper De Pers, Mariya is married to the Dutchman Jorrit Faassen. Today they live in Voorschoten, Netherlands.

There have been reports that Yekaterina planned to wed the son of a South Korean admiral however the alleged groom denied the rumours in South Korean paper Chosun.

Putin´s own comment in a televised interview is that "both his daughters live in Moscow, where they’re combining their studies with part-time work. “I’m proud of them,” said Putin.

One of Vladimir Putin's relatives is Viktor Medvedchuk – the Ukrainian business oligarch influential until the 2004 Orange Revolution. Putin became the godfather of Medvedchuk's daughter Darina in 2004. The two maintain regular relations since, with their meetings sometimes covered by the Russian state-controlled TV channels.

Another relative is Roman Putin, CEO of Putin Consluting a firm aiming to "to facilitate entrance into the Russian market, to minimize the transaction and administrative barriers, and to ensure complex business security"

Personal wealth and residences

Figures released during the legislative election of 2007 put Putin's wealth at approximately 3.7 million rubles ($150,000 USD) in bank accounts, a private 77.4-square-meter (833 sq ft) apartment in Saint Petersburg, 260 shares of Bank Saint Petersburg (with a December 2007 market price $5.36 per share and two 1960s-era Volga M21 cars that he inherited from his father and does not register for on-road use. In 2012 Putin reported an income of 3.6 million rubles ($113,000). This has led opponents, such as politician Boris Nemtsov, to question how Putin can afford certain possessions, such as his 11 luxury watches worth an estimated $700,000.

Putin's purported 2006 income totalled 2 million rubles (approximately $80,000). According to the data Putin did not make it into the 100 wealthiest Duma candidates of his own United Russia party.

Unconfirmed claims by some Russian opposition politicians and journalists allege that Putin secretly possesses a large fortune (as much as $70 billion) via successive ownership of stakes in a number of Russian companies. Nina L. Khrushcheva of the The New School estimates his net worth to be between $40–70 billion. Asked at a press conference on 14 February 2008 whether he was the richest person in Europe, as some newspapers claimed; and if so, to state the source of his wealth, Putin said "This is plain chatter, not worthy discussion, plain bosh. They have picked this in their noses and have smeared this across their pieces of paper. This is how I view this."

Not long after he returned from his KGB service in Dresden, East Germany Putin built a dacha in Solovyovka on the eastern shore of Lake Komsomolskoye on the Karelian Isthmus in Priozersky District of Leningrad Oblast, near St. Petersburg. The dacha had burned down in 1996. Putin built a new one identical to the original and was joined by a group of seven friends who built dachas beside his. In the fall of 1996, the group formally registered their fraternity as co-operative society, calling it Ozero (Lake) and turning it into a gated community.

As President and then Prime-Minister, apart from the Moscow Kremlin and the White House, Putin has used numerous official residences throughout the country. In August 2012 Nemtsov listed 20 villas and palaces, 9 of which were built during Putin's 12 years in power. This compares to the President of the United States' 2 official residences.

Some of the residences include: Gorki-9 near Moscow, Bocharov Ruchey in Sochi, Dolgiye Borodyin Novgorod Oblast, Novo-Ogaryovo in Moscow Oblast and Riviera in Sochi (the latter two were left for Putin when he was Prime-Minister in 2008–2012, others were used by Dmitry Medvedev at that period). Furthermore, a massive Italianate-style mansion costing an alleged USD 1 billion and dubbed "Putin's Palace" is under construction near the Black Sea village of Praskoveevka. The mansion, built on government land and sporting 3 helipads, a private road paid for from state funds and guarded by officials wearing uniforms of the official Kremlin guard service, is said to have been built for Putin's private use. In 2012 Sergei Kolesnikov, a former business associate of Putin's, told the BBC's News night programme, that he had been ordered by deputy prime minister, Igor Sechin, to oversee the building of it.

Languages

Apart from Russian, Putin speaks fluent German. His family used to speak German at home as well. After becoming President he was reported to be taking English lessons and could be seen conversing directly with Bush and native speakers of English in informal situations, but he continues to use interpreters for formal talks. Putin spoke English in public for the first time during the state dinner in Buckingham Palace in 2003 saying but a few phrases while delivering his condolences to Queen Elizabeth II on the death of her mother. In an interview in 2013, the Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov revealed that he and Putin sometimes conversed in Swedish.

Religion

Putin's father was "a model communist, genuinely believing in its ideals while trying to put them into practice in his own life". With this dedication he became secretary of the Party cell in his workshop and then after taking night classes joined the factory's Party bureau. Though his father was a "militant atheist", Putin's mother "was a devoted Orthodox believer". Though she kept no icons at home, she attended church regularly, despite the government's persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church at that time. She ensured that Putin was secretly christened as a baby and she regularly took him to services. His father knew of this but turned a blind eye.

According to Putin's own statements, his religious awakening followed the serious car crash of his wife in 1993, and was deepened by a life-threatening fire that burned down their dacha in August 1996. Right before an official visit to Israel his mother gave him his baptismal cross telling him to get it blessed "I did as she said and then put the cross around my neck. I have never taken it off since." When asked whether he believes in God during his interview with Time, he responded saying: "...There are things I believe, which should not in my position, at least, be shared with the public at large for everybody's consumption because that would look like self-advertising or a political striptease."

Martial arts

One of Putin's favourite sports is the martial art of judo. Putin began training in sambo (a martial art that originated in the Soviet Union) at the age of 14, before switching to judo, which he continues to practice today. Putin won competitions in his hometown of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), including the senior championships of Leningrad in both sambo and judo. He is the President of the Yawara Dojo, the same Saint Petersburg dojo he practiced at when young. Putin co-authored a book on his favourite sport, published in Russian as Judo with Vladimir Putin and in English under the title Judo: History, Theory, Practice (2004).

Though he is not the first world leader to practice judo, Putin is the first leader to move forward into the advanced levels. Currently, Putin holds a 6th dan (red/white belt) and is best known for his Harai Goshi (sweeping hip throw). Putin earned Master of Sports (Soviet and Russian sport title) in judo in 1975 and in sambo in 1973. At a state visit to Japan, Putin was invited to the Kodokan Institute, the judo headquarters, where he showed different judo techniques to the students and Japanese officials.

Putin also holds a 6th dan black belt in Kyokushin kaikan karate. He was presented the black belt in December 2009 by Japanese champion Kyokushin Karate-Do master Hatsuo Royama.

In 2013, Putin re-introduced the GTO physical fitness program to Russia with the support of Steven Seagal.

Other sports

Putin often is seen on outdoor activities with Dmitry Medvedev, promoting sports and healthy way of life among Russians: they were seen alpine skiing in Krasnaya Polyana, playing badminton, cycling and fishing. Putin also started to learn ice skating and playing ice hockey after he promised to do so on a meeting with the Russia men's national junior ice hockey team who had won the2011 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.

Putin also enjoys watching football and supports FC Zenit Saint Petersburg, the main team of his native city.

Pets

Putin owns a female black Labrador Retriever named Koni, given as a gift in 2000 by General of the Army and Russia's Minister of Emergency Situations Sergey Shoigu. Koni is often seen at Putin's side and has been known to accompany him into staff meetings and greet world leaders. In fact, when Putin first met Angela Merkel, he brought Koni along knowing that Merkel had a fear of dogs, having been bitten by one as a child. In 2003 Koni gave birth to eight pups which were later given as presents to Russian citizens, politicians and foreign ambassadors.

Koni gained additional fame in 2004 when the largest Russian publisher of children's books published a book entitled Connie's Stories. In 2008 Koni became the first recipient of a GLONASS-enabled pet collar to highlight the progress of the Russian global navigation satellite system.

In 2010 Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov gave Putin a Karakachan dog who was then named Buffy according to a suggestion by a five-year old boy from Moscow, Dima Sokolov.

Recognition

In September 2006, France's president Jacques Chirac awarded Vladimir Putin the Grand-Croix (Grand Cross) of the Légion d'honneur, the highest French decoration, to celebrate his contribution to the friendship between the two countries. This decoration is usually awarded to the heads of state considered very close to France.

In 2007, Putin was named Time magazine's Person of the Year.

On 12 February 2007 Saudi King Abdullah awarded Putin the King Abdul Aziz Award, Saudi Arabia's top civilian decoration.

On 10 September 2007 UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan awarded Putin the Order of Zayed, the UAE's top civil decoration.

In December 2007 Putin was named Person of the Year by Expert magazine, an influential and respected Russian business weekly.

On 5 October 2008 the central street of Grozny, the capital of Russia's Republic of Chechnya, was renamed from the Victory Avenue to the Vladimir Putin Avenue, as ordered by the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

In February 2011 the parliament of Kyrgyzstan named a peak in Tian Shan mountains Vladimir Putin Peak.

On 15 November 2011 the China International Peace Research Centre awarded the Confucius Peace Prize to Putin, citing as reason Putin's opposition to NATO's Libya bombing in 2011 while also paying tribute to his decision to go to war in Chechnya in 1999. According to the committee, Putin's "Iron hand and toughness revealed in this war impressed the Russians a lot, and he was regarded to be capable of bringing safety and stability to Russia".

In 2011, the University of Belgrade awarded Putin an honorary doctorate. 

The US and NATO are now openly provoking Russia.

The US and NATO are now openly provoking Russia

Prelude to World War III?

Stes de Necker

The tense situation in Ukraine has sparked a new Cold War, and the United States are directly responsible for it. As if this isn't enough, NATO is now provoking Russia with financial sanctions and a military build-up within the striking distance of its homeland, risking a conflict that could easily escalate into a third world war.

It all started when the US Government designed and sponsored a 'coup d’etat' in Ukraine (disguised as a “people’s revolution“), and installed a Neo-Nazi type government, against the will of the people.

Ukraine is a prized target, for two strategic reasons:  

1. It is one of Russia’s neighboring countries;
2. Russia’s gas pipe to Europe traverses Ukraine (see map bellow);

Russia’s ‘Gazprom’ is responsible for delivering 1/3 of Europe’s gas and has exported an estimated $67 billion worth of gas in 2013, which makes it one of the most profitable companies on Earth.

The US hoped to absorb the second largest former Soviet Republic into NATO and even invested a whopping $5 billion in this dirty business.

To understand what’s really happening in Ukraine, one must follow the money — or, in this case,

the gas pipe:

“The same countries [NATO members] that dropped 23,000 bombs and missiles on Yugoslavia in 1999 demanding that Kosovo be separated from Serbia and Yugoslavia — and also invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and bombed Libya in 2011 — are now crying about Russia’s flagrant ‘violation’ of Ukraine’s sovereignty by virtue of encouraging and supporting the Crimean referendum.

“The same militarists who criminally invaded and bombed sovereign Iraq or cheered while Iraq was divided and left bleeding from the assault, are now crying about respect for sovereignty in Ukraine. Working class and progressive people should treat their feigned loyalty to the cause of national sovereignty with complete contempt.” — Brian Becker, Global Research

The Russian Foreign Ministry accused NATO of attacking Russia with propaganda.

“By trying to make Russia the culprit in the current Ukrainian crisis, NATO has outperformed its own propaganda efforts from the aggressive time against Yugoslavia,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“After the end of the Cold War our country was taking consecutive steps to discharge the military tension in the Euro-Atlantic region and to cut conventional weapons in Europe. Russia also took the former USSR’s obligations and withdrew its troops from East European and the Baltic countries. We also fully honored the treaty on liquidating medium- and short-range missiles,” the statement reads.

The truth behind Crimea

The Russian intervention in Crimea is more than justified in the current context, in which the US and NATO have overthrown Ukraine’s legitimate government and replaced it with a new government.

Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, accused the West of “an anti-constitutional takeover [and] armed seizure of power [in Ukraine]” in a press conference back in March, and added: 

“I think this was a well-prepared action. Of course there were combat detachments. They are still there, and we all saw how efficiently they worked. Their Western instructors tried hard, of course.”

A couple of weeks later, in a following press conference, Vladimir Putin added: 

“In the hearts and minds of people, Crimea has always been and remains an inseparable part of Russia,” said Putin, who added that ethnic Russians had found themselves isolated from the motherland when the Soviet Union collapsed, both in Crimea and elsewhere.

“Millions of Russians went to sleep in one country and woke up living abroad, as a national minority in former republics of the union. The Russian people became one of the biggest, if not the biggest, split-up nation in the world.”

Former German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, wrote in “Die Zeit” newspaper that President Vladimir Putin’s approach to the Crimean issue is “completely understandable,” and added that the sanctions employed by the EU and the US against Russia are “a stupid idea.”

But the US main stream media, is misleading everyone into believing that Russia’s actions, in its own back yard, is an attack on democracy. What they are intentionally failing to report is that: 

“The majority population in Crimea speaks Russian, identifies with Russia and was formally a part of Russia until the region was transferred to Ukraine as a largely administrative measure in 1954.

“The people of Crimea have voted in overwhelming numbers and by an overwhelming margin to leave Ukraine and to federate with Russia.” – [Global Research]

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet 

Leaving aside the US-NATO coup in Ukraine, the Russian gas pipe traversing it, and the pro-Russian population of Crimea, Russia has one more stake in the Crimean Peninsula: Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based in Sevastopol. It is understandable that Russia could never allow NATO to control its fleet!

“I do not want to be welcomed in Sevastopol by NATO sailors,” Vladimir Putin emphasized.

Putin ordered the troops back home and made it clear for all:

“Don’t believe those who try to frighten you with Russia and who scream that other regions will follow after Crimea. We do not want a partition of Ukraine. We do not need this.”

In the past month, the United States of America and NATO have continuously brought more troops close to Russia, pretending to respond to the tense situation in Ukraine.

But, as evidence shows, they are the ones who orchestrated the “tense situation” in the first place, and massing armies all around Russia is what’s maintaining the situation tense.

The US and NATO have more than 1,000 military bases across the world, mainly surrounding Russia and China

And the following map shows the US anti-missile shields placed around Russia:

If this was not enough, the US and NATO are ostentatiously moving troops closer and closer to Russia, asking for public support in what could very well be the beginning of World War 3

1. US Navy destroyers USS Truxtun and Donald Cook are now conducting joint military exercises with two of their allies, Romania and Bulgaria, in Russia’s backyard and relatively close to its territorial waters.

“What we are seeing is that for the first time since 2008, NATO is creating a naval battle group outside the Russian borders,” a source told Interfax news agency, citing the Russian Defense Ministry.

2. The US dispatched some 600 troops to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for military exercises.

3. Poland, one of Ukraine’s neighboring countries, has allegedly asked for the deployment of 10,000 US troops on their territory. There are already 100-150 US troops deployed in Poland.
NATO’s top military commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, said in a recent interview that one of the options the alliance has on the table is to move a 4,500-member combat brigade from Fort Hood, Texas, to Europe.

4. Six CF-18s fighter jets and hundreds of Canadian Forces personnel have already been dispatched to Romania, strengthening NATO’s forces in Eastern Europe.

“We are sending out a message to Russia and we are reassuring our allies that we are taking steps and making a point consistent with what NATO has been saying, the actions so far are unacceptable by Russia and we are sending out a very clear message,” Defence Minister Rob Nicholson told CBC News.

5. Another worrying factor is the fact that Romania (NATO member and one of Ukraine’s neighbors) has officially released the medical form required when enlisting for military service during a state of war.

Also, Romania’s president, Traian Basescu, has recently stated that many of Romania’s reserve soldiers are working abroad and they will be called to serve, if necessary.

Romania’s Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, has recently labelled the situation in Ukraine as “extremely serious and getting worse by the day.” Mr. Ponta added that this state of events is “the biggest security challenge for Romania, in the past 20 years.”

6. Romania has also confirmed the acquisition of a dozen F-16 fighter jets, fitted with weapons and equipment, for an estimated $457 million. The jets will be purchased from the US, through a third party transfer from Portugal.

In the meanwhile, the US and NATO have financially sanctioned Russia, threatened it on every occasion and have dispatched troops, fighter jets, navy destroyers and heavy weaponry to its doorsteps, from half way across the world.

How 'Publishers' and the media can manipulate our viewpoint

How ‘publishers’ and the media can 

manipulate our viewpoint.

Stes de Necker

Our opinions are normally informed by articles and publications that we read or see in the media. (television, radio, newspapers, magazines as well as social networks like Facebook) These media can also manipulate and alter our viewpoint for the better or for the worse.

We have access to everyday news through the internet, social networks, television, newspapers, and so on. Most of the news we see every day is strongly opinionated in order to manipulate the people’s views in favor of the agenda of the ‘publisher’, and it is vitally important to ensure that we obtain a balanced view by consulting all possible sources before we reach a conclusion.

The articles we read, the images and clips we see, are all products of authors and organisations that have strong opinions on certain political and social events. Although an article we read might look like a completely objective story that just tries to explain to us what happened, it usually is very subjective and supports a specific point of view.

Through the media and social networks, many people aim to change the society’s views on things.

The picture below is a great example of how the media can manipulate our viewpoint.

On the right side of the picture, CNN shows the good part of the picture, it shows a soldier helping a man in the war.

The far left of the image shows the opposite: a U.S soldier threatening to kill the same man.

This shows how different news agencies manipulate the image and change our point of view, and we cannot even notice it.

‘Publishers’ use the effect of media to make the society think what they would like them to think. 

Misconceptions about the State of Israel

Misconceptions about the State of Israel

Stes de Necker

Mainstream Western media coverage of Israel is laced with expressions intentionally crafted to de-legitimize the Jewish State. The good news is that these terms weren't written in stone 3,300 years ago, but are post-Israel independence creations.

1.  “West Bank”

Claims that “Judea and Samaria” is simply the “biblical name for the West Bank” stands history on its head. The Hebrew-origin terms “Judea” and “Samaria” were used through 1950, when invading [Trans] Jordan renamed them the “West Bank” in order to disassociate these areas of the Jewish homeland from Jews. The UN’s own 1947 partition resolution referred not to “West Bank,” but to “the hill country of Samaria and Judea.” This term is not shorthand for “Judea and Samaria.” Under this formulation, Jordan is the “East Bank” of the original Palestine Mandate, which was designated as the homeland for the Jewish People.
Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the Jewish nation.

2.  “East” Jerusalem or “traditionally Arab East” Jerusalem

From the city’s second millennium BCE origins until 1947 CE, there was no such place as “East” Jerusalem. The 19 years between when invading Jordan captured part of the city in 1948 and was ousted by Israel in 1967 was the only time in history, except between 638 and 1099, when Arabs ruled any part of Jerusalem. Palestinian Arabs have not ruled an inch of it for one day in history. In the past three millennia, Jerusalem has been the capital of three native states – Judah, Judaea, and modern Israel – and has had a renewed Jewish majority since 19th century Turkish rule. Eastern Jerusalem is a neighborhood of the city that Israel reunified in 1967.

3 .  “The UN sought to create Jewish and Palestinian States”

It did not. Partitioning Palestine between “Palestinians” and Jews is like partitioning Pennsylvania between Pennsylvanians and Jews. Over and over in its 1947 partition resolution, the UN referenced “the Jewish State” and “the Arab” [not “Palestinian”] State.

4 .  1948 was the “Creation” and “Founding” of Israel

Israel wasn't “created” and “founded” in 1948 artificially and out-of-the-blue. Israel attained independence that year as the natural fruition into renewed statehood of a people that had twice before been independent in that land, and after centuries of hard work to re-establish a Jewish State in this historic homeland.

5.  “The War that Followed Israel’s Creation”

Israeli did not choose this war; it was hoisted on Israel by almost every Arab state, which rejected the UN partition and tried to push the Jews of Israel into the sea. And it was a homeland Jewish army, Haganah, which became the IDF, that threw back that multi-nation foreign invasion.

6.  “Palestinian Refugees of the War that Followed Israel’s Creation,” or the “Palestinian Refugee Issue”

It was the invading Arab nations bent on Israel’s destruction that both encouraged and caused the bulk of the Arabs to flee Israel. And a greater number of media constantly ignore the indigenous Middle Eastern Jews who were expelled from vast Arab and other Muslim lands in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War. Their number is greater than the amount of Arabs that fled tiny Israel. That Israel absorbed the bulk of these Jews, while Arab “hosts, “including in Palestine itself, isolate the Arab refugees’ descendants in Western-supported “refugee camps” does not convert the Arab-Israeli conflict’s two-sided refugee issue into a “Palestinian” refugee issue. Had the Palestinian Arabs accepted the UN partition plan, they would also have been celebrating their 66th anniversary.

7.  Israel “Seized” Arab Lands in 1967

It did not. The 1967 war, like its predecessors, was a defensive war forced upon Israel. Israel’s neighbors did not want to compromise; they simply wanted to destroy the Jewish State. The new Israeli territory was meant to provide a security barrier and ensure this could never happen. Moreover, these were not “Arab Lands.”

8.  Israel’s “1967 Borders”

The 1949 Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement expressly declared the “green line” it drew between the two sides’ ceasefire positions as a military ceasefire line only, without prejudice to either side’s political border claims. The post-’67 war UN resolution 242 pointedly did not demand Israel retreat from these lines.

9.  “Israeli-Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem”

That the media insistently calls Israeli presence in the heart of Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories” does not make it so. “Occupation” is an international law term referencing foreign presence in the sovereign territory of another state. The land of Israel’s last sovereign native state before modern Israel was Jewish Judaea. The land ratio of Arab lands to Israel is 625-1, 23 states to one.

10.  “Jewish Settlers and Settlements” vs. “Palestinian Residents of Neighborhoods and Villages”

A favorite media news article contrast is referencing in the same sentence “Jewish settlers” in “settlements” and “Palestinian residents” of nearby “neighborhoods” and “villages.” Jews are not alien “settlers” in a Jerusalem that’s had a Jewish majority since 19th century times or in the Judea-Samaria Jewish historical heartland.

11.  Israel’s “Jewish State” recognition is “a new stumbling block”

New since Moses’ time. The Jewish homeland of Israel, including continuous homeland-claiming Jewish presence, has always been central to Jewish people hood. In 1947, British Foreign Secretary Bevin told Parliament that the Jews’ “essential point of principle” was Jewish Palestine sovereignty.
Arabs vandalize Joseph’s Tomb, located in the biblical city of Shechem in Samaria.

12.  “Palestinians accept and Israel rejects a Two-State Solution”

Wrong on both counts. Both the U.S. and Israel define ‘Two States’ as two states for two peoples – Jews and Arabs. Many on the Arab side insistently rejects two states for two peoples. Many Israelis, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, support that plan – conditioned on an end to Palestinian terror. The Arabs continuously and consistently deny Israel’s right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish People, no matter where its borders are drawn.

13.  “The Palestinians”

The United Nations’ 1947 partition resolution called Palestine’s Arabs and Jews “the two Palestinian peoples.” Nothing is more self-delegitimizing and counter-productive to achieving peace based on Arab recognition of Jews’ right to be there, than that Jews should go around calling Palestinian Arabs “The Palestinians.” They have no distinguishing language, religion, or culture from neighbouring Arabs, and have never been sovereign in Palestine, whereas the Jews, with a presence stretching back three millennia, have had three states there, all Jerusalem-based. Most Palestinian Arabs cannot trace their own lineage to the land back more than 4 generations.

How many different levels or kind of violence's or terror, are there?

ARE THERE DIFFERENT LEVELS (OR KINDS) OF VIOLENCE AND TERROR?

Stes de Necker

During the past twelve months, literally thousands of protesters were killed or seriously injured in Turkey, Egypt and Libya.

Numerous people were hanged in Iran, woman and children were bombed in Afghanistan, while whole communities were massacred and wiped out in South Sudan.

1800 Palestinians were starved and murdered by Assad in Syria, while hundreds were killed in Pakistan by Jihad terror attacks.

10,000 Iraqi’s were killed by terrorists, and thousands of villagers slaughtered in Nigeria.

This is the world we live in.

But for some strange reason I haven’t seen the same outcry for these atrocities, as what I've seen for the conflict in Israel and Gaza.

WHY?

Is it prejudice, or were there not enough pictures posted of dead and mutilated children?

Why did the Muslim supporters of Hamas not cried out against the perpetrators of these acts of terror?

Or is it because Muslim on Muslim violence is not as serious as Zionist, (or Christian) violence on Muslims?

Saddam Hussein was known for his brutality and dictatorship, oppressing and killing his own people in Iraq, but no one cried out. But the day the United States got involved, the whole world was in a frenzy.

When peace loving individuals, from whatever religious denomination, dare to mention these atrocities, they will never be seen as pro-human rights activists, but rather labelled as anti-Muslim oppressors.

In the interest of peace and harmony, it is time we all stop our prejudices and be consistent in our opinions and comments.    

Guerrilla Warfare and Terrorism

Guerrilla Warfare and Terrorism

Stes de Necker

The strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to involve the use of a small, mobile force, against a large, unwieldy one. The guerrilla force is largely or entirely organised in small units that are dependent on the support of the local population. Tactically, the guerrilla army makes small, repetitive attacks far from the opponent's centre of gravity with a view to keeping its own casualties to a minimum and imposing a constant debilitating strain on the enemy. This may provoke the enemy into a brutal, excessively destructive response which will both anger their own supporters and increase support for the guerrillas, ultimately compelling the enemy to withdraw.

In most cases, the use of terrorism is an aspect of guerrilla warfare. 

Terrorism is used to focus international attention on the guerrilla cause, kill opposition leaders, extort money from targets, intimidate the general population, create economic losses, and keep followers and potential defectors in line. As well, the use of terrorism can provoke the greater power to launch a disproportionate response, thus alienating a civilian population which might be sympathetic to the terrorist's cause. Such tactics may backfire and cause the civil population to withdraw its support, or to back countervailing forces against the guerrillas

This situation occurred in Israel, where three Israeli youths were killed by Muslim extremists encouraging Israeli opinion to take a harsh stand against the Palestinian backed Hamas group.

In the Philippines and Malaysia, communist terror strikes helped turn civilian opinion against the insurgents. In Peru and some other countries, civilian opinion at times backed the harsh countermeasures used by governments against revolutionary or insurgent movements.

Modern Guerrilla Warfare came to its fullest expression in the operations of Mao Zedong in China and Vo Nguyen Giap in Vietnam. In between Ancient Guerrilla Warfare and Modern Guerrilla Warfare are a large variety of situations - from the wars waged against Israel by Palestinian irregulars in the contemporary era, to Spanish and Portuguese irregulars operating with the conventional units of British General Wellington, during the Peninsular War against Napoleon.

Guerrilla warfare resembles rebellion, yet it is a completely different concept. Guerrilla organization ranges from small, local rebel groups of a few dozen guerrillas, to thousands of fighters, deploying from cells to regiments. In most cases, the leaders have clear political aims for the warfare they wage. Typically, the organization has political and military wings, to allow the political leaders "plausible denial" for military attacks. 

The most fully elaborated guerrilla warfare structure is by the Chinese and Vietnamese communists during the revolutionary wars of East and Southeast Asia

Who or what is Hamas

WHO OR WHAT IS HAMAS

Stes de Necker

1. What are the origins of Hamas?

Hamas emerged as the Palestinian wing of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood after the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987 and is the largest Palestinian militant organization and it is supported by a robust social/political structure inside the Palestinian territories. Hamas is an Arabic word that means zeal or enthusiasm. "Hamas" is also an acronym for the group's official Arabic name, the Islamic Resistance Movement.

The group’s charter calls for establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel and rejects all agreements made between the PLO and Israel. More recently, HAMAS has publicly expressed a willingness to accept a long-term cessation of hostilities if Israel agrees to a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital. HAMAS’s strength is concentrated in the Gaza Strip and areas of the West Bank.

In early 2006 HAMAS won legislative elections in the Palestinian territories, ending the secular Fatah party’s hold on the Palestinian Authority and challenging Fatah’s leadership of the Palestinian national movement. HAMAS continues its refusal to recognize Israel or renounce violence against Israelis and, since early 2008, has conducted one suicide bombing, which killed one civilian, and numerous mortar and rocket attacks that injured civilians.

HAMAS has a paramilitary arm, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which, beginning in the 1990s, has conducted many anti-Israeli attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories. These have included large-scale terrorist bombings against Israeli civilian targets, as well as small-arms attacks, improvised roadside explosives, and the launching of rockets into Israel. While the group receives some support from foreign countries and movements, it remains independent.

Its goal is to "liberate" Palestinian territories from Israeli occupation. While the US, Israel, and the European Union consider it a terrorist group, Hamas's military wing is not its only operation. Hamas also runs a large social services network and a political wing.  It operates primarily in the Gaza Strip, though it also maintains offices in Damascus, Syria.

In June 2008 HAMAS entered into a six-month agreement with Israel that significantly reduced rocket attacks. Following the temporary calm, HAMAS resumed its rocket attacks, which precipitated a major military operation launched by Israel on 27 December 2008. After destroying much of HAMAS’s infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire on 18 January 2009. Since 2009, HAMAS has worked to rein in attacks from other groups and enforce the cease-fire, though sporadic low-level attacks against Israeli forces along the Gaza border have continued.

In May 2010, the Israel Defense Forces intercepted a flotilla of humanitarian aid vessels bound for the Gaza Strip, which since 2007 has been under a strictly enforced Israeli blockade. The seizure of one ship led to a violent confrontation and resulted in the death of nine passengers. HAMAS publicly condemned the incident, which it characterized as a massacre, and urged international activists to continue their attempts—with additional flotillas if necessary—to break the blockade. In late August 2010, an Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades spokesman claimed responsibility for the shooting deaths of four Israeli settlers, an attack widely believed to be aimed at scuttling peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis in Washington.

2. What does Hamas believe?

According to Hamas's founding charter, the land of Palestine is a God-given endowment to the Palestinians. The charter also states that Hamas's long-term goal is the establishment of a Sunni Islamic state on all of historical Palestine. This vision leaves no room for Israel.

But in recent years, some Hamas leaders have indicated they would be amenable to a more moderate approach.  The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs reported in mid-2010 that Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal told American University Professor Robert Pastor that the charter is a piece of history and no longer relevant, but cannot be changed for internal reasons.

 

Hamas has been a contentious rival to Fatah since Hamas was founded in 1988.  Fatah has tried to garner support on the international stage by implicitly accepting Israel and pushing toward a Palestinian state.  But those policies have lessened its stature among Palestinians, some of whom instead turned toward Hamas and its absolute rejection of a two-state solution. 

The two groups have alternately cooperated against Israel and violently clashed with each other over the years.  They also competed in the political arena in 2006, when Hamas entered legislative elections for the first time and topped Fatah, winning a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority.  International donors, which provide much of the Palestinian Authority's budget, cut off aid when Hamas refused to recognize Israel's right to exist.

In December of that year, the rivalry turned violent again as sporadic battles broke out between the two factions' security forces.  In June 2007, Hamas gunmen drove Fatah's forces out of Gaza. Fatah's security returned the favour days later, expelling Hamas from the West Bank.  The two groups remained at odds until May 2011, when they signed a reconciliation agreement to mend the split and strengthen Palestinians' bid for statehood.

4. How big is Hamas’s power base?

Hamas's home turf is Gaza, which is where its security forces lie.  Haaretz  reported in December 2008, just before Israel attacked Hamas in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, that Hamas had some 15,000 militants in its ranks.  Hamas's forces are made up in large part of members of the Al Qassam Brigades, who played a prominent role in both Operation Cast Lead and in the 2007 conflict with Fatah.  As a result, they remain resistant to reconciliation efforts and could undermine them, due to the influence they hold among Palestinians.

Hamas also draws support from other nations in the region.  Iran has supplied trainers and weapons to Hamas's military wing, as has Lebanon's Hezbollah, a long time opponent of Israel.  Syria is another supporter of Hamas – Meshal's political office is in Damascus – but the upheavals in Damascus has spurred Hamas to begin moving staff out of the country.  Observers believe that Hamas hopes to open a headquarters in Egypt, and wants to signal that it has the potential to recast itself as more moderate.

5. What could reconciliation mean for Hamas?

One of the primary motives for Fatah and Hamas's reconciliation is to strengthen the Palestinians' bid for statehood.  As the Monitor reported in November, the UN Security Council committee that reviewed the Palestinian application for statehood specifically mentioned the Gaza-West Bank split as a problem. 

But the Israeli-Palestinian peace process could be further hobbled if Hamas and Fatah succeed in their current efforts to reconcile and form a unity government. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argues that until Hamas forswears violence and recognizes Israel, there can be no talks with a government of which they are part.  The US, which lists Hamas as a terrorist organization, is similarly opposed to negotiations with the group.

Hamas also sees reconciliation as an opportunity to take advantage of change being promulgated in the Arab Spring.  According to Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesperson in the Gaza Strip, "We believe that this result of the democratic process might mean full support for Palestinian rights and interest, now that [Arab governments’] hearts are with the people."

But some warn that Hamas is misreading the direction the change is going.  "It is an Islamic Spring, but it's not an Islamic Spring Hamas thinks about," says Mohammed Dejani, a political science professor at Al Quds University.  "There has been a religious revival, but in a sense of moderation and not in a sense of religious fundamentalism."

Manipulating Grief to Incite War

How Many People Need to Die

 The Manipulation of Grief to Incite War

Stes De Necker

Leeat Granek, PhD

Article in TheWorldPost

Published  07/11/2014

On July 2, I published an article in Haaretz arguing that governments manipulate our grief in order to push forward political agendas. On July 3, my theory came to life when news broke of 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir's murder. Tragically for the Israeli nation, it was all but confirmed that the murder was a revenge killing by Jewish extremists.

Major media outlets including the the New York Times rushed to interpret the escalating violence, the riots, and the alleged revenge killing as an ancient 'blood feud' between Israelis and Palestinians.

This is misleading and incorrect. The violence sweeping across the country and in Gaza is predictable, though absolutely inexcusable. It is the result of government's manipulation of our emotions. This is not the first time this has happened. The manipulation of grief for political purposes has a long history.

Consider the Vietnam War and the rhetoric around the violent brutality that transpired there. During the War, 60,000 American soldiers died in combat, while nearly two million Vietnamese civilians were killed. Westmoreland, Chief of Staff of the United States Army at the time proclaimed, "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does the Westerner. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient." We must consider this context and this leadership when reflecting on America's responsibility for unjust war tactics including the military command at the time to 'shoot anything that moves.'

Forty-two years later, at the funeral of the three slain Jewish teenagers, Netanyahu echoed Westmoreland, when he said, "A broad moral gulf separates us from our enemies. They sanctify death; we sanctify life. They sanctify cruelty, and we mercy and compassion."

The parallels are striking. The "us" versus "them" mentality -- the claim that our side glorifies life while their side glorifies death -- are used in both instances to justify military action.

The parallels do not end there. In 1968, the American presidential candidate, Nixon pledged to bring an end to the war that was seeing increasing protests and expression of public disgust among the American electorate. Instead, when he came to power, Nixon, shifted the focus of attention from the mistreatment of the Vietnamese and tremendous loss of lives on both sides of the divide to the missing and imprisoned American soldiers who he promised to 'bring home' in spite of having no information or evidence that these missing soldiers could be found. The literature professor Gail Holst-Warhaft from Cornell argued that the exploitation and perpetuation of the families' grief under the public's gaze, and the encouragement of false hope for their missing family members to come home was a conscious and precise manipulation of national loss in the service of continuing the war for several more years.

Although the recent situation with the Israeli kidnapped teenagers is a vastly different context, it has become increasingly clear that the police knew the boys were dead from day one. Anyone listening to the police recording can conclude from the devastating gun shots heard in the background they were murdered almost immediately. And yet the nation and the families of the kidnapped boys were dragged through emotional misery for two long weeks of public vigils, prayer circles, daily media coverage, and manipulation of our hope, yearning, and deep and genuine desire to see those boys home safe.

As with the futile search for the prisoners of war in Vietnam, encouraging Israelis to keep searching for the kidnapped boys while knowing with almost 100 percent certainty that they were already dead was a calculated political tactic. In true Israeli fashion, the grief and anxiety knitted our otherwise deeply conflicted nation together for two solid weeks, building momentum for what is happening in the streets today, and what I fear may be coming in the next few months.

To be sure, while I focus on Israel here who claims to hold the higher political moral ground, Hamas, the terrorist organization that for all intents and purposes rules the Palestinian territories and who recently signed a unity pact with the Palestinian Authority refuses to recognize Israel as a State and aims to destroy any political negotiation process. In the last two days alone, Hamas has launched hundreds of rockets into Israel, sending civilians running to bomb shelters, and openly airs ads on television calling for the destruction of Israel and the death of all its civilians. They are equally guilty of manipulating the emotional allegiances of their people to further their own political agendas, with bloody consequences.

The deplorable and frightening violence erupting in Israel and in the occupied territories is not an inevitable blood feud. It is the logical outcome of leaders who cannot come to the table to negotiate peace for the sake of their people.

Until we recognize how our grief is being used to further agendas that our not our own, we will continue to see the despair, hopelessness, violence, and suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians, many of whom are yearning for peace, quiet, and a time where we will finally understand that enough lives have been lost.