Hamas is Israel's excuse, to distract from the real reason - occupation, colonisation and apartheid.

It is troubling and at times astonishing that so many people are defending Israel's war crimes and human rights atrocities because, as they say, Hamas is a terrorist organisation.

Well, have not occupiers and colonisers always termed freedom fighters and those who mount resistance, as terrorists? I am sure the Nazis did as they occupied Europe, or at least they would have done if they had thought of it.

So Israel, which uses massive military power in the form of State sanctioned terrorism to maintain occupation, colonisation and apartheid, is in the 'right' because some members of the Palestinian Resistance are extremists? I am not quite sure how anyone can perform the mental contortions to reach that position but many do. Too many.

Purely as a matter of principle and justice it is the occupier and coloniser, particularly when they act with brutality and use violence in their cause, who are in the wrong and those who are held under a vicious military boot of occupation are in the right! Not so for the poor Palestinians.

Not only have the Palestinians been subjected to a farce, inflicted on no other occupied and colonised indigenous people, that they are responsible for their suffering and are equally to blame and are not using the 'power' that they have - stage left, hysterical laughter - to change things, but, they are the aggressors because they have some resistance fighters who hold extremist views!!!!

Of course, no regard is given to the even more extreme views of many Israeli politicians and Government ministers, let alone the fanatical Israeli settlers strewn across Occupied Palestine, when, in truth, extremism in the name of occupation, colonisation and apartheid is a far greater crime than that expressed by subjugated, oppressed, abused and suffering people.

Not that Israel or its supporters ever let facts, let alone reason, get in the way of propaganda.

While it is part of Israeli propaganda to keep the name Hamas up there because that is a defined 'enemy' and the craven world at large has gone along with Israel's plot to have Hamas defined as a terrorist group, the fact is that Hamas is not the source, cause or core of this issue.

The source, cause and core are Israel's occupation, colonisation and apartheid. Sure there are extremist elements in Hamas but Israel has been occupying for nearly seven decades and Hamas has been around for about twenty-five of those years.

And Israel was instrumental in the 'creation' of Hamas as a foil against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. And while one rarely hears anything other than PLO, where the word Liberation is conveniently omitted and forgotten, the fact is that both the PLO and Hamas arose out of the injustice and suffering of Israel's occupation. The goal of each was Liberation. The goal of Hamas remains liberation.

When the PLO was neutered, Hamas rose to the fore, but as much as anything because it was not corrupt like the PLO and because it actually was effective in improving daily life for Palestinians.

Israel was enraged when the Palestinians elected Hamas in 2006 to represent and to lead them, because their goal was that the Palestinians should have no effective leadership. Any functional leadership complicated Israeli/Zionist policy of  maintaining occupation and continuing to colonise Palestine.

The Israelis and United States, in a hypocritical betrayal of every principle of democracy and justice,  then unilaterally declared that the democratic election was null and void. Israel's task now was to neuter Hamas as it had the PLO. Leadership and organised leadership for the Palestinians was just too dangerous to tolerate.

Israel, aided and abetted by the Americans and other nations prepared to abuse principles of law and justice, then worked to have Hamas declared a terrorist group. No doubt large amounts of money and some very interesting photographs and data were involved in that process.

So Israel had her enemy! Henceforth, whatever Israel did could be said to be done in defence, as the victim, against the evil that was Hamas, with no mention of the evil that Israel was doing to the Palestinians. In Israel-speak, and read what they write and listen to what they say, there were no Palestinians - there was only Hamas, the terrorist.

Hamas, a  flag of 'terror' which could be waved, again and again and again,  thereby distracting those who were easily distracted, which seems to be many if not most, or it was until Israel's Palestinian kill-rate got too high, from what was going on - the continued colonisation of Palestine;, the continued brutalisation of the Palestinians and the creation of an apartheid State of Israel on all of Palestine.

So many then came to believe that the relevant factor in this conflict was Hamas - a terrorist organisation. It was all going perfectly according to Israel/Zionist plans. Despite the fact that anyone who did some research and applied a modicum of reason and intelligence to the issue could see that it was not about Hamas and it could not be about Hamas as long as Israel maintained occupation of Palestine, the belief that Israel was only acting as it was because it was threatened by terrorists took hold.

If anyone had sought to make that argument against resistance fighters in the First or Second World Wars they would have been rejected out of hand. But Israel has gotten away with it - at least until now. 

Hamas was and is Israel's excuse and an excuse does not constitute a valid reason. Given that Hamas is a political group within the Palestinian Resistance fighting to free themselves from occupation, colonisation and apartheid, they are as relevant as the ANC were in regard to the issue of justice concerning whether or not South African blacks should be freed from apartheid.

For anyone of conscience who believes in rule of law, human rights, justice, democracy and common human decency it was deemed to be an issue of justice purely in regard to apartheid, and what the ANC did or did not do, were or were not, might or might not be in the future, was irrelevant in the greater scheme of human rights and that applies to the Palestinians across the board, including Hamas.

White South Africans were quick to point out the extremist elements of the ANC, ignoring their own extremist elements and as I am sure you know Nelson Mandela went to gaol for choosing violence and was called a terrorist for using violent tactics, when in essence he was a freedom fighter, while the white South Africans used even more violent terror tactics and said it was their right to do so.

Just as Israel does. Given that there has not been a suicide attack by Palestinians for TEN YEARS and during those ten years Israel has mutilated, maimed, murdered  in a bomb-driven shredding of lives and bodies, some thousands of Palestinians, many of them children, most of them women and children and civilians, talk of Palestinian violence, i.e. Hamas, is a tad hypocritical for anyone with a reasonably open mind.

More to the point, if Israel did not maintain the most murderous and brutal occupation and colonisation, by a democracy in modern history, and had not done so for nearly seventy years, there never would have been suicide bombers and there would not now be primitive missiles coming out of the Gaza concentration camp.

So, the core issue is not Hamas extremism and neither,for that matter is it Israeli extremism, for these are merely distractions from the core issue. And the core issue is the injustice of occupation.

It has always been the occupation, it is the occupation and it will always be the occupation until the occupation is ended.

That is the salient fact! And it will remain the salient fact until justice is done.

Methinks Richard Dawkins doth protest too much...

So Richard Dawkins has established a Foundation to work to push atheist and secular views and to limit religion. That seems naieve rather than noble but no doubt it gives him satisfaction.

Now admittedly Richard Dawkins has set up his Foundation in the US where most of the world's Christian crazies live and even beyond them it is the most religious of any nation in the developed world so the 'way they do things in the United States' is not thankfully how it is done in the saner parts of the developed world.

Which makes the position Dawkins has taken possibly relevant to Americans but not particularly to the rest. Beyond which, his campaign to control religion is a tad hypocritical given the damage done by science and by atheism and the destructive potential both have in the modern world. It is the lack of balance in Mr Dawkins' position which rings warning bells.

But isn't it a case of Dawkins methinks protests too much? I mean why the hysteria? Surely truth will out and we live in an age where more people are secular, particularly in the developed world, the modern world, than ever before in history.

To me Dawkins is a classic example of someone who has been 'swallowed' by the shadow. Anyone who takes an extreme position, will have, sitting at the other end of the polarity, the opposite.

Dawkins has become as fanatical about his beliefs and his position as those he decries on the religious side of the spectrum.

You could take Dawkins words, more often than not, and replace the words science or atheism with that of any fundamentalist religion and not spot the difference.

'That which we condemn in others is that which we deny in ourselves,' is classic shadow and classic Richard Dawkins. And it is a pity because he is an intelligent, well educated and generally well informed individual on many subjects where his prejudice and visceral subjectivity do not get in the way. One can only presume that his capacity for self-aware is severely limited on the topic of religion, no doubt for deeply repressed and greatly painful reasons for it is there and then that the shadow does its best 'work.'

The Foundation would be more effective and have more value if its founder were not so mired in prejudice and I would add, ignorance because of high subjectivity.

http://richarddawkins.net/aboutus/

Israel is our creation

The Case For People Of Conscience To Condemn Israel

By Roslyn Ross

Keywords: 

As the death toll mounts, Roslyn Ross makes a passionate case for why the actions of Israel must be condemned.

Why does Palestine matter more than any other conflict at present? Why is it so important that anyone of conscience condemns Israel?

Because, beyond the fact that Israel rampaging around the Middle East, armed to the teeth, acting like a lunatic in a bid to maintain its occupation of Palestine has the potential to throw the entire region into conflagration, and, as a nuclear-armed state, the capacity to harm millions around the world, freeing Palestine is important because their suffering and senseless slaughter at the hands of their occupier matters more desperately than most, because this injustice is our doing.

Because this travesty, this injustice, these war crimes, these human rights atrocities are our creation. Every one of us who is an adult and a citizen of a democratic nation which does not and has not spoken out against the barbarity of Israel as an occupier, coloniser and apartheid State is responsible.
The world allowed the immoral and illegal partition of Palestine.

And the world has allowed nearly 70 years of Israel's continued theft of Palestinian land and its continued abuse of a helpless indigenous people, and encouraged - in fact aided and abetted and enabled - Israel on its path to becoming something even more evil - an apartheid State which uses deadly and destructive military power to punish the Palestinians if they dare to resist.

Israel could not have become the monster that it has nor committed the evil that it has and does without the support, first and foremost of the Americans, who manage to put aside their pious and pompous talk about freedom and democracy when it goes against their interests, and when it is only 'inferior' brown and black 'guys' who are being slaughtered.

And then the support of every other craven, gutless, cowardly country like our own, Australia, which backs the evil that the US and Israel do to the Palestinians, either by omission or commission.

Toss in the corrupt, cowardly, craven, gutless, profit-driven press which in the main has ignored the suffering of the Palestinians and supported Israel's war crimes and human rights atrocities and you have a perfect recipe for the rise of a nation, or rather the reducing of a nation, to that which equates with pure evil.

Enter stage left, Israel, the rogue state and pariah which has been brought to birth, aided and abetted, by the international community over the past seven decades. There have been a few lone 'voices' but generally Israel has been allowed to call itself victim while 'crowing' over the Palestinians it has dispossessed and murdered.

Why have we done this to Israel? Because what we have done to Israel in support of its barbarism and brutality is far worse than what it has done to the Palestinians.

They have become stronger, more resilient because in their fight for justice they have integrity.
Israel has become base, barbaric and truly sick to the point where Israelis can sit on hilltops drinking wine, eating food and cheering as every bomb drops on the Gaza concentration camp, shredding and dismembering children.

The average age in the Gaza prison is 17, with 50 per cent of the population children, as the IDF well knows, and most of the dead are women and children.

Even worse, an Israeli MP reveals the horrific 'shadow' in the cultural psyche when she calls for every Palestinian woman to be killed so there are no more babies. http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/07/israeli-mp-mothers-of-all-palestinians-must-be-killed/

Even Israeli columnists, those few of sanity and conscience, say that what she represents is the true depths of the black evil which rots at the heart of Israel's soul.

And it is all the work of Israel and its supporters... those who have not had the courage or integrity to point out that what Israel has done and is doing is terribly, terribly wrong and entails a level of barbarism which has no place in a modern world.

Israel is our creature. Israel is our shadow. Israel is the new monster state in a long line of monster states, led by delusion, fascist and racist belief, and drowned in a denial, which, because so few will tell them the truth of what they are, what they have done and where they are heading, spirals only further into its own destruction.

For it is Israel which is the ultimate loser, thanks to its so-called friends. The Palestinians have time, numbers, justice and finally, world opinion on their side. The Israelis have none of that, and can only drown in the debased and corrupted nature of their culture and society as an occupier.

It is merely a matter of how many more must die. How much more blood will be spilled. How many more children will be scarred for life by the trauma. And that applies to Palestinians and Israelis alike, although for the Israelis physical death and destruction is minimal and soul destruction is maximal. For the Palestinians it is vice-versa.

Palestine will be free and the Israelis will also be free from the worst that they have become, although they will have to carry the truth of the evil that was done in their name for at least a generation, perhaps more, just as citizens of other nations have had to do.

Anyone of conscience who cares about not just Palestinians but about Israelis and in particular about a civilized world should be demanding an end to occupation.

Because, as a democracy, or at least a nation which claims to be a democracy, what Israel does and is reflects on the democratic world - the modern world, the civilized world. Israel of course cannot be a democracy as an occupier, coloniser and apartheid State but it says it is and so it is judged by the bar it has set itself.

When we do not speak out against the worst that humans can be, particularly when they seek to do it in the name of democratic 'principles' and worse, in the name of a religion, then we betray the very foundation of our modern world and we tear at the fragile edges of the very thin veneer which is civilization.

The world should be ashamed at what it has allowed Israel to do to Palestine and what it allows Israel to do to Palestinians, but it should be even more ashamed of what it has done and is doing to Israelis.
Monster states are not born, they are made! When we look at Israel we see a nation crafted by the world at large, most particularly the democratic world, the Western world, the modern world; honed and carved by greed, selfishness, dishonesty, dissembling, corruption, baseness, ignorance and cowardice.

Whether we support or condemn Israel, what we are looking at is our own shadow and until we recognise that, even as Israel 'disappears' as a rogue state, as it will, because they all do, it is just a matter of how much time, how much blood, how much death... there will be another and another and another and another....

Roslyn Ross is a journalist, editor, writer, blogger and poet who has lived around Australia and the world, including Europe, India, North America and Africa. This includes much time spent with Israeli colleagues and employers.

https://newmatilda.com/2014/07/29/case-people-conscience-condemn-israel#comment-70071

ON BEING A PARENT OF ADULT CHILDREN

Being a parent is always a precious gift but the truly hard part is when you cannot put a bandaid on it any more or 'kiss it better.'

The first 15 years are a doddle, for some the first 12, but once your kids are adults all you can do is love them as they suffer; wish you could take away their pain; wish you could help them when often as not you cannot even comfort them; wish that it was easier for them and for you.

Mostly they make their way through things, the worst of things, and so do parents. It is hard, as the hands-on parents we have been for the past forty years, in ways those before were not, to let go. But, just as we had to make our way as adults, so do they.

We probably did it sooner, or were pushed out of the 'next' sooner, because in generations past it was a given that your child reached adulthood - often as young as 13 - and went to work and that was your job done.

And for the poor, often the expectation was that they then looked after you. That changed in the Sixties, at least in Australia,  as times changed and mostly for the good, although in that swing of life, perhaps we went too far to the other side of what our parents and grandparents had done and been.

We wanted to have a relationship with our children - some even wanted to be friends, although I could never see how a parent and a child could really be friends because the relationship dynamic, by its nature, was never and would never be that of peers. A parent may have a deeply loving and liking relationship with a child which entails a deep level of friendship, but it is not a friendship in any general sense.

The mother and father always carry with them far more than each individual man or woman.

And the older they get, the harder it gets. At deep, powerful emotional levels, they remain your child, even as they age, wrinkle and turn grey. A mother is always a mother and a father is always a father and you may have a friendly relationship but a parent will always have far more power within the relationship, for good or ill, or good and ill, and a greater capacity to hurt a child than vice-versa.

And that is because being a mother or a father is about more than the mortal; it is archetypal and every mum and every dad, represents to every child, that powerfully symbolic and ancient energy which has been with us throughout history in most cultures.

Your relationship changes as it must. Your kids might even call you by your name, and most parents don't mind. But even as they utter your Christian name in that familiar and familial way, they will always be your child and you will always be their mother or father.

Even if you are 100 and your child is 88 as it would be for me and my firstborn,  should I reach a century, you will feel their pain, ache with their sorrow, grieve for their suffering and always wish you could make it better.

More than anything you just want to comfort them. It is not that you feel responsible anymore because you are not, but you just want to hold them secure in your deep and powerful love.

But often you cannot.  And then, all you can do is stand to the side loving them and offering yourself, if and when they want or need you. Just as they will have to do for  and with their children.

Whether one holds to a religion or not, what you spend a great deal of time doing as the parent of adult children is 'praying' for them. For Wishing is just another word for Praying with no religious connotations, but prayer it is.

Those thoughts, words, often uttered as you talk to yourself about them, weep for them, murmur to yourself about  them, about what is hurting them, tormenting them, challenging them, are wishes/prayers for their comfort.

I like to think that they reach them, those thoughts of caring and that waking in the middle of the night, troubled for them and about them, that visualizing love and light streaming from your heart to theirs, arrives where intended. And does comfort and support even if  they never become consciously aware of what they are receiving.

My comfort was in telling myself that the most important work had been done before they were twelve and that in their finding their way through pain themselves was what would make them strong and make them good parents and strong people of conscience and integrity.

And they are, but life is unpredictable, often cruel, rarely fair and even as your children grow into wonderful people, they will face challenges, pain, suffering and even torment. It is just the way this world is.

And ultimately, all you can do is trust that the best that you did, for all parents do the best that they can even if their efforts appear wanting to others, is enough and that the love you have for them has been seeded far into the very depths of their being and they know, or can remember, that you will always be there for them, no matter what!

For our children are the songs our Soul has sung into this world and their music is the joy of our hearts, wherever they may be, wherever we may be, whatever life might bring.

Learning that as adults they must make their own way and you have nothing left to offer but Love is the hardest thing any parent will ever do.

What are we doing to our children?

How can anyone not question what we are doing to our children given the massive increase in learning and behavioural difficulties?

Anyone who ignores the fact that children today are 'lab rats' in a science/medical experiment of the nature and scale which has never, ever, ever been encountered in human evolutionary history, is in a state of denial.

Never before have human beings been subjected to so much interference beginning before conception.

Conception takes place in an environment which may well contain drugs, vaccines, food additives and a wide variety of chemicals, along with high levels of electro-magnetism. And that does not even take into account the completely artificial nature of IVF.

The foetus is then subjected to sound-waves through ultrasound examination even during the early months when cells are still dividing and the baby is not formed. For some this may be once or twice, for others a dozen times throughout the pregnancy. Given how little science knows about human development, even while knowing much at a material level, it is impossible to say what impact this has on the developing child although research shows that ultrasounds create changes in cells in a petri dish.

At the same time the foetus may be developing in an environment which includes prescribed drugs, vaccines and various chemical toxins in the mother's body.

Few babies today are born completely naturally. At birth most are again subjected to yet more drugs, either to induce birth, or to drug their mothers as pain-killers. They are also subjected to more monitoring and birth environments which are bright, hard, clinical and hardly calming.

Too many will be cut from their mothers and brought into the world in a C-section delivery which is not required on any emergency basis and which science now knows leads to compromised gut function which damages immune function and brain function.

Within 24 hours of birth the baby is vaccinated with a synthetic and artificial disease cocktail and in the following six months, before there is even a functioning immune system, will receive many more. The average child today will receive some forty vaccines within the first few years.

In addition, a child which is not breastfed will be ingesting various levels of 'toxins' depending on the quality of the formula chosen, ranging from Genetically Modified, to synthesized ingredients and chemical preservatives and additives.

And too few children will get through their first few years without their body being subjected to numerous doses of antibiotics. Once again, the antibiotic, or anti-life, as it means, will compromise and at times destroy gut function which damages immune function which impacts brain function.

Most children through diet will be ingesting high levels of chemicals, synthesized ingredients, colourings, sugar and artificial fats, along with many GM foods, the impact of which on human function is not yet known.

They will also be conceived and  will grow in an ocean of electro-magnetism sourced in modern technology. With homes, including bedrooms, awash with television sets, computers, telephones, electric clocks, mobile phones, ipads, wi-fi and as often as not will spend much of their time sitting in front of a television set or holding an ipad in their hands, both known to impact and change brain function - and not for the better.

And school will be no different with children exposed even more to wi-fi hotspots and electrical equipment.

Perhaps what is remarkable is that the damage is not greater although given the epidemic in behavioural and learning difficulties and autism, one could argue we do not know the true extent of the damage and will not until these 'damaged' children reach adulthood.

Given the fact that modern science/medicine must surely play a part in this disease in so many of our children they are hardly likely to be the source of answers in terms of healing and cure. Modern medicine pretty much does knife and drugs and seeks to remove symptoms rather than heal. Too many children are on prescribed medication and this is more likely to be a nightmare of enormous proportions when they become adults, than anything approximating a cure.

It is time to look elsewhere. What children eat makes a huge difference to their health and taking the time to ensure they eat organic and natural food is important. So too is removing electrical equipment from their bedrooms and limiting television and not allowing ipads until they are at least twelve, preferably older for the highly sensitive.

There is no doubt that both Homeopathy and Acupuncture can help these children and Amy Lansky's, The Impossible Cure, is well worth reading in regard to the use of Homeopathy to cure autism, but there are other methodologies which can assist in 're-wiring' brain function and one of those is art therapy.

In the meantime one can only hope that in a profit and fear-driven world of science/medicine there will still be enough researchers of integrity who are prepared to ask the hard questions about what we do to our children. Do we need ultrasounds in pregnancy beyond high-risk cases? Should C-section be banned except in absolute emergency? Should vaccines not be administered before six months when the baby at least has some immune function? And all the other questions.

Doctors are very quick to point the finger at pregnant women for what they eat or drink and yet happily subject their babies to drugs, vaccines, interventionist procedures and antibiotics, all of which are far, far more dangerous than a glass of wine at night or a slice of salami or soft cheese.

No system is perfect, least of all science or medicine and only when parents start asking questions and demand accountability will there be change.

http://www.todaytonightadelaide.com.au/stories/kids-therapy

Do not play the Israeli propaganda game

For anyone supporting the Palestinians it is important not to play a part in Israel's propaganda game.
Israel does not refer to Occupied Palestine but calls them Occupied or even Disputed Territories. They are not disputed and they are not Territories. Always refer to Occupied Palestine.

Israel also does not refer to Palestinians but only to Hamas. Hamas is a political movement and since both Israel and the US rejected its democratic election to lead Palestinians it does not represent Palestinians. Hamas is a political group which is a part of the Palestinian Resistance and while many of its members are in Israeli gaols, there are others remaining who are active in Gaza. However, Israel pretends that all Palestinian resistance fighters are Hamas when they are not. Israel managed to get Hamas designated as a terrorist entity, no doubt with money and interesting photos changing hands, but Hamas is NOT the Palestinians. Refer always to Palestinians because this is a colonial war waged by Israel against the Palestinians.

Israel also pretends that Gaza is some sort of state or separate entity or even delusionally, a country. It is not. Gaza is a prison, a concentration camp in Occupied Palestine. It does not have borders with Israel - it has an electric fence which the IDF controls. Gaza is a part of Occupied Palestine and there are no Gazan people they are all Palestinians.

Israel likes to pretend that it is 'plucky little Israel' against the entire Muslim/Arab world. It is not. The Arabs like any culture,i.e. European are not one cohesive unit but disparate and they are not united against Israel, in fact they offered acceptance of Israel some years ago, full acceptance if Israel ended the occupation. Israel refused.

And neither is it Israel against the Muslim world. Not all Muslims are Arab in fact most are not. Iranians are not Arab, Muslims in India are not Arab, Indonesians, the most populous Muslim country are not Arab.

Because Israel wants to disguise the fact that it is brutalising some five million or so helpless Palestinians it spreads the lie and buries the truth in this fantasy that it is holding out against tens of millions of Arabs or Muslims. It is not.

Israeli propaganda also pushes the lie that this is a war between Muslims and Jews. It is not. Most Jews do not live in Israel or Occupied Palestine, never did and never will. Many Jews utterly reject what Israel is and does.

Do not hold Jews responsible for the evil that is Israel. What Israel does and is remains absolutely counter to Jewish teachings. All religions become distorted but when evil is done in the name of a religion it does not mean all members are responsible.

It does however behove those who oppose to speak out.

Israel will continue to repeat the lie that that this war is about Jews and Arabs. It is not and those who wish to support justice for the Palestinians should not repeat the lie for them. Jews are a religion and Arabs are a culture. Most Jews do not live in Israel and most Arabs do not live in Palestine.

This is a colonial war waged by Israel against Palestine. Do not repeat Israeli propaganda which seeks to turn this into a war between a religion and a culture. The only labels which apply to this issue are Israelis and Palestinians. Nothing else.

The dangers of denial and delusion in the United States as it supports Israeli aggression.

While there is clearly censorship and propaganda in the international media to varying degrees from country to country, perhaps one of the most sobering realities to come out of this latest war crime by Israel, is how a majority of Americans are just so brainwashed by propaganda that they have lost any capacity to rationalise, let alone consider principles of justice.

And the reason this matters is because as a nation drowning in paranoia and fear it remains the biggest warmonger of the past half century and it has massive weaponry capable of enormous destruction and threatens us all.

The US is a dark reminder of Germany in the years leading up to Hitler and so is Israel. But Israel was always delusional and dysfunctional and has some reasons, real and imagined, for its high levels of paranoia in ways the US does not.

And yet if you listen to what so many Americans say it becomes clear it is a nation drowning in fear, paranoia, delusion and propaganda. How easy then is it for such nations to be drawn into deadly wars? Very easy, for delusion and fear when combined cripple if not destroy the capacity for rational thought.

One can only hope that the voices raised in the United States for the genocidal acts of Israel are not a majority although since they reflect the actions of the American government, there is a good chance that they do.

As the United States supports the genocidal acts of Israel, the bloody ragings of a rogue state and 'madman' by its actions and by omission and commission, and other nations remain silent by omission if not commission, then the future of the world rests on the edge of a dangerous precipice.

For if you deny justice to one, you deny it to all and the betrayal of principles of the modern, democratic world is a terrible betrayal of all those who come after us. If indeed anyone does.

Israel is a truly sick society and it needs our help

I think it is important not to turn this issue regarding Israel's war against the Palestinians, into a campaign against Jews or Judaism because that just plays into Zionist/Israeli hands and is not fair to either the religion or many of its members.

Israel does not represent Jews in general or Judaism and there are many Jews who actively work against Zionist Israel and for the Palestinians. In addition, orthodox Jewry always opposed the creation of a literal State of Israel on religious principle and many still do.

Yes many Jews do support and fund Israel but so too do many fundamentalist Christians and so too do many governments which are neither Jewish or Zionist and while many, perhaps most, may be influenced by the power (money) and influence of Jews, Zionism and Israel, the fact is this issue is about a colonial war waged by Israelis against Palestinians and it is not a religious war waged by Judaism against Islam.

What Israel wants is to have it re-inforced that Jews everywhere are threatened and that is why Israel must retain power and must have all of Palestine. The fact that most Jews do not live in Israel, never did and never will is an inconvenient fact so the more Israel can encourage this 'battle' as one between all Jews and the infidel Palestinians in particular and Muslims in general, then the better the Zionist case is served.

It is also important to remember that there are some Israeli Jews, albeit a minority, but there are some, who along with many Jews around the world actively oppose their Government's racist and genocidal policies and work for justice. The more this is turned into a Jewish issue then the harder it will be to encourage the broader Israeli Jewish society to rethink what they are doing.

There is no doubt that Israel, founded in delusion, propaganda, lies, distortions and trauma, real and imagined, is a society which because of all of that has remained backward, i.e. it has not developed as a modern, civilized nation. People tend not to evolve, develop, move on when they feel they are threatened and the entire raison d'etre of Israel is the need to be permanently, eternally threatened. In such a culture if you do not have an enemy you must invent and create one. And you must make sure that your enemy can never become a friend.

The Israelis as occupiers had an 'enemy' on hand, the Palestinians. Despite the fact that the Palestinians are essentially powerless in any military sense, they are of course an enemy because they have justice and numbers on their side. Israel exists on Palestine and Israelis are colonists in Palestine.

One can only wonder beyond Zionist propaganda whether or not other safer options for a State of Israel were refused simply because the culture demanded and needed an active enemy to maintain its victim mentality and its warring mentality sourced in the delusion that all Jews for all time would and always must be persecuted.

One could equally argue that the Palestinians, oppressed, imprisoned, abused, subjugated have also been prevented from evolving but as the British experience during the German blitz demonstrated, when people are subjected to enormous trauma and yet have justice on their side they are never destroyed and while wounded, not as damaged, and they become stronger and more resilient.

So it is Israeli society and Israelis who have been corrupted, debased and weakened by their occupation and their actions as one of the most brutal and murderous occupiers in modern history, and at some level, since while they may be socially backward they remain as intelligent as any of us, they sense this. They may not be able to admit it consciously, well, some can but they are exceptions, but they sense it and that serves to intensify the fear which intensifies the paranoia which intensifies the need to de-humanise the Palestinians and to turn them into some sort of mythic enemy, evil beyond any measure ever known, in order to justify their injustices and abuse of them.

It is a vicious cycle and circle which turns around insanities, delusions and fear. I am not saying that one forgives Israel for its appalling atrocities committed in the name of occupation, colonisation and apartheid but that we need to recognise that as a society they are delusional if not insane and the same applies to everyone living in the culture, whether resident in Israel or not, to lesser and greater degrees.

For madness is contagious. When you read comments from people who are no doubt educated, intelligent and I am sure very reasonable people in the real world justifying the slaughter of Palestinian children so Israel can continue to occupy Palestine you cannot help but reach a point of thinking - they are all quite deranged. How can any human being of conscience countenance any of this war crime, any death, of anyone, children most of all purely because Israel chooses to occupy Palestine.

By all means seek to explain why Israel feel this way but to dismiss so many dead, mangled, maimed, suffering children is simply pure evil in the sense of evil being the absolute in ignorance and an utter lack of compassion or regard for the humanity of others.

These are people. These are human beings. These are small, terrified children being blown apart because their parents are resisting a brutal military occupation. And they are in the wrong. The massive military regime which bombs them is right.

Is the world mad? I am beginning to think that those who support Israel's behaviour are quite mad. That is the only gracious conclusion one can reach.


How do you deal with such madness? In the same way we deal with it in individuals. Action must be taken to control Israel and to prevent them from doing further harm to themselves and to others. Until Governments become active in that process it must be through the peaceful but powerful process of BDS and for that each and everyone of us can play a part.

And not just for the Palestinians but for Israelis as well who are truly 'sick' as a society and a culture and deserving of compassion even as they are controlled.Justice will serve Israelis as well as Palestinians and perhaps the former more simply because the Palestinians have time, justice, numbers and world opinion on their side and the Israelis have nothing on their side.
http://www.bdsmovement.net/

The simple answer is usually the right answer

It is very clear that many of those with a scientific bent are prepared to twist themselves into knots and 'nots' in order to find some way of explaining this world from the current scientific paradigm, hence theories about multiple worlds and parallel universes.

Applying Occam's Razor, one suspects that it is all far simpler than science or religions have theorised. Things generally are.

Many spiritual teachings posit that we are spiritual beings, i.e. we have a 'body' which operates at a higher, non-material frequency and the mind and consciousness inherent in that soul or self, incarnates in this world, in material form. NDE's and OBE's suggest that it is possible for the astral body to 'exit' the material body, while remaining linked so return is possible, and function in other non-material dimensions.

And given that death comes to all of us, at different ages, stages and levels of intelligence, why would not death be no more than the 'astral' or spiritual 'self' exiting the body once and for all and continuing on in it's natural dimension, i.e. home. This material world being no more than an experiment in which each of us has chosen to participate, at least once and perhaps for some, many times?

As Above, So Below. As Within, so Without. The constant is 'mind' which can and does operate through a material brain partially, but not completely and which, when released from the confines and limitation of material brain function, returns to its true and greater self.

If a child or cretin can die then neither material consciousness or intelligence are required. This is of course based on the theory that we are more than our material selves and that we exist beyond this material world.

If we do not it is all rather irrelevant. But if we do not then this universe has no purpose or meaning and that runs counter to everything we learn about this world. Every cause has an effect; there is meaning and purpose in every action and to me that says, there is meaning and purpose in our lives, which, given the fact that they suddenly end, means there must be a greater and ongoing meaning and purpose.

The world has created the monster that is Israel.

While I am firmly on the side of Palestinians because it is a matter of principles and justice, it is also worth remembering, that Israel is what it is not just because of itself, but because of the world at large.

Israel has been badly served by Zionism, its leaders, Judaism and the international community, particularly the US.

The original premise of imposing a European colony on Palestine in the name of a religion was always deeply flawed. Zionism encouraged the belief that members of Judaism around the world were threatened and needed 'land' where they could settle and protect themselves. In truth various such 'lands' had been offered in unoccupied parts of Australia, Africa and South America but rejected on the basis of religious belief, regardless of the fact that the creation of Israel represented huge colonial injustice and enormous violence.

And in reality, religions do not get homelands or any rights to land and if they did, it would be the Christians who had rights to Palestine where their religion was founded and modern-day Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia, for Jews where their religion began. But the immoral and illegal concept of a nation founded through colonisation in the name of a religion was ignored or perhaps missed in the trauma, confusion, chaos and guilt following the end of the war and the Zionist propaganda machine had been hard at work by then for nearly a century, promoting the religious 'dream' of Israel in Palestine.

And the world went along with that fantasy and so did much of the Jewish community. Despite the fact that even during the Second World War the majority of Jews lived safely in many countries and the fact remains that most Jews have never lived in Israel and never wanted to live in Israel and never will live in Israel. In fact many are leaving and emigrating back to the countries their parents and grandparents left. One of the largest communities is in Berlin which symbolically, is a heartening and healing touch to a terrible wound.

The Israelis 'boosted' numbers by finding 'Jews' wherever they could, defining Jewishness as one grandparent, although some argue even one great-grandparent, in order to create a majority over the Palestinians.

A non-practising Jew with one Jewish grandparent had a right to immediate citizenship, while Palestinians holding keys to homes in Jerusalem where their family had lived for more than seven centuries, had no such right.

And the world went along with that and money poured in from international Jewry to support the maintaining of occupation, increased colonisation and in more recent years, apartheid.

As Israeli society became more bigoted toward non-Jews, and more violent and more irrational and dysfunctional and committed consistent war crimes and human rights abuses to maintain occupation and colonisation, the world went along with it.

The world has allowed Israel to call itself a democracy while functioning as a theocracy, a religious state, where members of one religion, Judaism, have superior rights to all others. It has watched in silence while Israel built Jew-only roads, an appalling discrimination in a modern world and particularly one which calls itself a democracy. The world has largely remained silent while those Palestinians who gained Israeli citizenship, some 25%, were treated as inferiors with less rights than Jews and while the rest of the Palestinians were subjected to increasingly brutal treatment and confined to concentration camps like Gaza and a series of bantustans, held under constant imprisonment by the Israeli military. Religious discrimination of this kind is a form of racism which the world refused to allow in South Africa - the UN makes no distinction between racism based on religion or that based on race - and yet has tolerated this egregious injustice for decades.

We have all helped to make the monster that Israel now is. Anyone reading the press would be under the impression that people in a 'country' called Gaza are bombing their neighbours, the Israelis and the Israelis have no choice but to fight back. But this is a lie. Gaza was created when Zionist armies drove Palestinians out of their homes and off their lands onto Gaza Beach. Gaza is surrounded by an electric fence guarded by the IDF. Anyone coming close to the fence, including children, is shot by Israeli soldiers. The people of Gaza are subjected to collective punishment if they try to resist their colonial masters, including sonic booms which traumatise children and cause women to miscarry.

Israel holds ten thousand Palestinians in gaol, most without charge, including thousands of children and subjects them to torture. And the world lets Israel call itself victim!! The Palestinians, like all indigenous people held under colonial rule are utterly powerless. When they resist they are punished by the military rulers who have a massive weapons capacity and no compunction about using it on helpless civilians.

Israel is now bombing helpless children, women and men in the concentration camp of Gaza in a bid to maintain occupation, colonisation and apartheid. And the world goes along with it. Ten times more Palestinians have died in this colonial war which Israel has waged in Palestine for nearly seventy years and the world goes along with it. Perhaps less so than it did, but still, far, far too much.

Thousands of Palestinian children have died in this unjust war with ten times more Palestinians killed by the powerful Israeli military than Israeli colonists killed by the Palestinian Resistance. Israel has used State sanctioned terrorism to maintain occupation, colonisation and apartheid and the Palestinians have used violence, along with much more passive resistance which is rarely written about by the media, to resist it and to fight for their just and deserved freedom.

By omission and commission Israel has been enabled to become the rogue state and world pariah that it is today. It has had friends who, by their actions, did the work of enemies - and for this I coined a word many years ago, frenemies.

If Israel had had true friends or even more friends than frenemies, it would never have been able to do what it has done and it would never have been so debased as a culture and as a society. Too many Israeli supporters, and one has to add in the fanatical American evangelists, have stood on the sidelines, safely away from the trauma, the blood and the violence, encouraging Israel along this doomed path and providing the money, weapons and material to help them do it.

Israel exists because of the world and it has become what it is because of the world and for that I feel enormous sympathy for Israelis and for all those Jews of conscience who had dreams of what Israel might be and who never expected to see it become what it has.

Israel's tragedy was and is the lack of friends to tell it the truth about itself. But perhaps anyway it is too late and the one-state solution will put paid to the Zionist and religious fantasies and in the doing, set Israelis free as well as Palestinians. For culturally, Israelis have far more in common with Palestinians than they do the lands they left behind as immigrants.

One can only hope so.

Why are we here?

Why are we here is something humans have asked themselves from the beginning. Some more than others, and some more often than others.

There are various theories, thousands of them no doubt, but, at the end of the day, coming up with a set of beliefs which work for us as we live in this world is all that really matters.

My sense is that if this world is anything it is an experiment in the material and every one of us has volunteered to participate in that experiment and incarnated accordingly. This material world is what we make manifest, how we make manifest and in that sense is neither good, nor evil - it is just an experience within the world of matter created by each and every one of us as individuals, as families and as shared societies and communities.

That is why we are not 'all created equal' but come into this world with varying skills, natures, abilities and circumstance to make the best of the life we have chosen to live within the constraints of and opportunities provided by the world of matter.

I would see it more as Shakespeare said, like a play. We write the script before we incarnate, choose the setting, the 'theatre', the budget, the 'props,' fellow 'actors' etc., and then incarnate as central character, producer and director with some capacity to interpret and stage the 'play' within the limitations which are in place.

To that degree, the Arab term, 'it is written'  is fitting. We can change some things, depending upon our skills as actor and writer and director, some more than others, but the general script and circumstance remains, in some cases, with an ability to 'change the ending.'

And the goal of it all is to learn, through experience, the limits and possibilities of this material world. A worthy experiment. A worthy experience.

Oh really? Science/medicine got it wrong again......

Remember the 'demon' cholesterol? How many people have you met who recount with horror their cholesterol levels? I know I have met legions.

The one time a doctor recommended testing for it, along with a swathe of others, I just said no thanks, I don't do maybe medicine. That was thirty years ago and the reality is that most people went along with it and most people go along with it.

How many people do you know who are on statins? I know far too many and they are also in their forties onwards. A quarter of people living in the developed world are on some sort of maybe medicine medication by the time they are in their forties. And it just increases with every decade. This is medication for a disease or condition you do not have and may never have!

All that fear and horror over cholesterol, all that medication and now it seems, science/medicine got it wrong.

The fantasy sourced in the limited knowledge, understanding and appreciation science actually has for the body and its function? We are not machines. We are all different. There is no one answer or one-size fits all and much of maybe medicine is just dangerous.

Science is forever saying: correlation does not imply causality and yet what is the cholesterol hysteria about? Science/medicine judging arbitrary levels of cholesterol for some generic human who does not exist and then prescribing experimental medication with potentially dangerous side-effects on the basis of........

The 9 Benefits of Cholesterol in the Diet
Source: Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon Morell

Cholesterol is vital for balanced hormones and the manufacture of those that deal with the stress of everyday living. These hormones also are protective against heart disease and cancer.
Cholesterol is needed by the body to make all the sex hormones including andogen, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, and DHEA.

Cholesterol is necessary for the body to properly use Vitamin D, which is critical for all body systems including the bones, nerves, proper growth, mineral metabolism, muscle tone, insulin production, fertility, and strong immunity.

Bile salts made by the liver require cholesterol. Bile is critical to the digestive process and absorption of dietary fats.

Cholesterol functions as a powerful antioxidant in the body and is protective of free radical damage to tissues.

Cholesterol is vital for proper functioning of the brain. Cholesterol is used by serotonin receptors .. serotonin is the body’s natural “feel good” chemical. No wonder low cholesterol levels have been associated with aggressive and violent tendencies, depression and suicide.

Breastmilk is ideally rich in cholesterol and contains a special enzyme for the baby to properly utilize it. Babies and children need cholesterol for proper growth and development of the brain, nervous system, and immune function.

Cholesterol is necessary for proper functioning of the intestines and maintaining the integrity of the intestinal wall. Low cholesterol diets can lead to leaky gut syndrome and other digestive problems.
Cholesterol is critical to repair of damaged cells. This is why cholesterol levels naturally rise as we age and are beneficial to the elderly. Women with the highest cholesterol actually live the longest! Dr. Meyer Texon MD, a respected pathologist practicing at New York University Medical Center, observes that accusing saturated fat and cholesterol for hardening of the arteries is like accusing white blood cells of causing infection, rather than helping the immune system address it.

- See more at: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/the-9-benefits-of-cholesterol-in-the-diet/?utm_content=buffer12ef0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.f2vylk9x.dpuf