XPost: or.politics, alt.usage.english, alt.society.liberalism   
   XPost: rec.pets.cats.community   
   From: void@invalid.noy   
      
   The renowned writer Arthur Koestler warned many years ago that Israel   
   risked becoming `a nasty little Sparta.’ Half a century later Israel,   
   grown rich on US military and financial aid, has become a very nasty   
   big Sparta.   
      
   Pat Buchanan, President Richard Nixon’s close aide, wrote ‘Capitol   
   Hill (i.e. Congress) has become Israeli-occupied territory.’ He has   
   been exiled to the political wilderness for this heresy.   
      
   The current Gaza Conflict tells us just how much Israel now dominates   
   Congress and the Democratic Party which gets a likely 50% of its   
   funding from pro-Israel donors. Moderate pro-Israel groups have been   
   marginalized. Those in the media have been sidelined or fired. It’s   
   the McCarthyism of the 21st century. As the great Mark Twain said, if   
   you don’t read the US media you are uninformed. If you do follow   
   America’s media, you are misinformed.   
      
   Britain, Canada and Australia fall into the same media prison. The old   
   Soviet media, as I remember, was freer in its opinions and more robust   
   in its criticism.   
      
   None of this is new; just worse. Over 20 years ago the Palestinian   
   refugee prison of Gaza tried to build a small seaport and airport.   
   Both were denied by Israel. As a result, even modest food aid for   
   starving Palestinians has been blocked. The US, which has been   
   supplying Israel with 2,000 lb bombs and targeting info has resorted   
   to the PR stunt of air-dropping stale sandwiches to the   
   famine-stricken Palestinian refugees.   
      
   No one in the tightly controlled US media or the Rothschild-dominated   
   British Conservatives party would dare bring up the fact that the   
   Warsaw Ghetto ravaged by the Nazis had 50,000 people as compared to   
   Gaza’s 2.1 million trapped people. Egypt, almost as guilty as Israel   
   and the US, keeps Palestinians locked in the open-air prison. The   
   Mideast’s biggest police states are Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and   
   Morocco. Add Algeria, Oman and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States (see   
   my book ‘American Raj.’   
      
   We still know next to nothing about the 7 October attack on Israelis   
   that trigged this conflict. I won’t call it a war since it pits only   
   lightly armed civilians against the mighty, US supplied and directed   
   Israeli armed forces. The lines of burned-out cars around where the   
   initial Hamas attacks occurred look very much like the result of air   
   attacks. We need to know more.   
      
   The infamous arms dealer Basil Zaharoff retorted to criticism in the   
   British parliament, ‘who cares about that little jabber house.’ The   
   same applies today to the US Congress. Even President Joe Biden dares   
   not confront Israel’s Netanyahu. Biden and State Secretary Anthony   
   Blinken can’t even tell Netanyahu to end his massacre. Israel always   
   knows it can get away literally with murder before US elections.   
   Israel’s far right coalition, whom the illustrious journalist Uri   
   Avnery calls ‘Jewish Nazis,’ appears firmly in power. Netanyahu has so   
   far avoided criminal proceedings by stoking the war in Gaza. Killing   
   Arabs is still popular in Israel. Polls show almost 80% of Israelis   
   support the savaging of Gaza. Most honorable Israelis and their   
   foreign supporters are silent in the face of a massive propaganda   
   campaign that runs on lurid reports about raped women and burned   
   babies worthy on World War I British propaganda over Belgium.   
      
   While Palestinians are being slaughtered or starved, Israel is busy   
   trying to goad Iran into a major war. This past week alone, Israel   
   destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing two Iranian   
   generals who were advising resistance forces. The US has been waging a   
   medium-intensity war against Iran, which threatened America’s Mideast   
   empire and which I call ‘the American Raj.’   
      
   Netanyahu is provoking war with Iran to divert attention from the Gaza   
   massacre and his legal problems. Israel has long coveted southern   
   Lebanon up to the Litani River and more Syrian land next to the   
   Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. I was with the invading Israeli Army   
   in 1982 when it attacked Lebanon and I have walked the strategic Golan   
   Heights.   
      
   Israel is also hungry for large offshore oil deposits near the Gaza   
   prison. It wants the Palestinians out and access to the oil and gas.   
   America has become the champion of Israeli expansionism. The Israeli   
   tail continues to wag the bumbling American dog. Instead of   
   engineering a cease-fire, Washington has blocked all efforts at the UN   
   to stop the mass murder in Gaza. The rest of the world will remember   
   this.   
      
      
   https://ericmargolis.com/2024/04/the-nasty-little-sparta/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)