Max Blumenthal writes:
On April 25, over 1000 New York-area Jewish extremists gathered in midtown Manhattan to rally against the Barack Obama administration’s call for a freeze on construction in occupied East Jerusalem and to demand unlimited rights to colonize the West Bank
He video taped this hate-filled rally, and we’ll embed the YouTube clip below. But before we do that, it’s worthwhile to comment on the issue of Israeli settlements. It never ceases to amaze me how many Americans are so profoundly ignorant on this topic, and have no clue that “the consensus view of the international community is that the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law.” Or as the BBC News puts it: “Settlement building in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law.” This is the view expressed by none other than the United Nations and its judicial arm, the International Court of Justice. Numerous resolutions have been passed against the state of Israel, demanding that illegal settlement activity be ceased.
There’s a very good reason why these settlements are illegal. According to international law, that land does not belong to Israel; it belong to the Palestinians, who have lived there for hundreds of years. That’s why the region is called the “Israeli Occupied Territories”. And that’s also why they’re called Israeli settlers, not unlike the white settlers who pushed the Native Americans off their land. Yet, we have Zionist extremists claiming that the land belongs to Israel, because “God gave it to them”, as one crazed man claims in the video below.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R611drTEHPA 300 250]
Blumenthal continues (emphasis is ours):
…The Republican Jewish Coalition was afforded a prominent role at the demonstration beside far-right groups like the Zionist Organization of America, Z Street, Americans for a Safe Israel, Christians United for Israel, and Manhigut Yehudit, an anti-democratic group that calls for theocratic rule over Israel.
Supporters of Manhigut leader and Likud politician Moshe Feiglin distributed fliers promoting Feiglin’s upcoming campaign for prime minister of Israel. An open advocate of ethnic cleansing who has proposed depriving the Palestinians of drinking water, Feiglin recently called Vice President Biden “a diseased leper.”
While the pro-settler elements rallied in Manhattan, their counterparts from the radical Kahanist movement in the Hebron-based settlement of Tel Rumeida rampaged through Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, inciting violent confrontations while announcing their intention to rid the area of its historical Arab presence…[There were] many hints that the events in Manhattan and Jerusalem were closely coordinated.
The Manhattan rally took on a distinctively Tea Party-flavor. Besides issuing maximalist calls for the expulsion of the Palestinians, demonstrators assailed Obama as a secret Muslim with no legitimate right to serve as President of the United States. When I was identified by a particularly ornery rally participant as “the self-hating asshole Max Blumenthal,” I decided it was time to make my exit.
However, as I walked down 44th Street towards the subway, an elderly man grabbed me and attempted to snatch my camera (I had seen the gun-toting Marzel use similar tactics on anti-settlement activists documenting his exploits in the West Bank). “You’re not a Jew! Give me the film!” the man exclaimed. A mob of demonstrators suddenly formed and began advancing towards me. Luckily, two NYPD officers were nearby. They pried the man off me and gave me enough time to escape. I paced for two blocks until I reached Grand Central Station then disappeared into the crowd.
Conservative blogger Matt Lewis; facts mean nothing to this guy!
Such rhetoric is not limited to street level protests. Following the Obama administration’s call for a freeze on settlement activity, Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks debated conservative blogger Matt Lewis on MSNBC; here’s what Lewis had to say about the Israeli Occupied Territories:
This is their territory. They won it in 1967. And essentially what we’re asking them to do is to turn over…part of their territory. I think we should stand with Israel on this…You don’t get peace by giving away territory…Israel has continued to give away territory…You want them to give territory, [and] that’s not supporting them.
Mr. Lewis has the facts exactly wrong: it’s not their territory…at least not according to the consensus of the international community and international law. Land acquired through conquest is illegal, and must be returned. One can hardly imagine Lewis making the claim that the United States was forcing Saddam Hussein to “give away territory” when the demand was placed on the Iraqi military to leave Kuwait. Israel has never given away any of its own territory, ever. The West Bank and East Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinians. It’s amazing that neither Cenk Uygur nor the host Dylan Ratigan thought it worthwhile to mention this key fact in the debate, which just shows how biased the mainstream media in this country is when it comes to the question of Israel.
