How many times have we heard complaints from Israeli politicians about the evils of the Hamas Charter or even the PLO Charter of past days, proof pudding that the Palestinians do not wish peace, but wish to throw Israel into the sea? It's just plain terrorism.

But how many of us appreciate that there is also a Likud Charter that is no less evil, if by that we understand that it is not a pathway to peace, but prescribes a formula for dissolving Palestinian aspirations for statehood, of obliterating the Palestinians as a people.

subtitled, Palestinians waiting for Obama.

This story is another one out of George Orwell's universe as it has applied so frequently to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It repeats the many instances of how Palestinians can be considered aliens in their own country, or what's left of it. Ultimately, it is a tale of how racism affects this conflict, when a different people held under military occupation for decades can come to lack any civil or human rights.

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Cecilie Surasky, editor of Muzzlewatch, listed this article under AIPAC: Kucinich Withdraws as Palm Beach County Democratic Keynoter Amid Uproar over His Israel Stance

We might wonder why Kucinich was invited in the first place if his Israel stance was so offensive.

First, George Bennett responded as to what happened that led to Kucinich's dumping (reprinted by permission):

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich lasted less than 24 hours as headliner for the Palm Beach County Democratic Party's annual fundraising dinner after some of the party's elected officials blasted the Ohio Democrat's stance on Israel and threatened to skip the event.

Kucinich, who has a history of criticizing the actions of the Israeli government and opposing congressional resolutions in support of Israel, withdrew Friday as the keynote speaker for next week's dinner after being announced Thursday.

(snip)

State Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, who's running for the seat that U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler is vacating, called Kucinich "someone whose position on Israel stands in total opposition to the conscience of this community."

County Commissioner Burt Aaronson called the selection of Kucinich "an absolute horror" and said he would refuse to share the podium with him.

(snip)

Kucinich said Friday in an e-mail to county Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel that he supports the Jewish state and its right to defend itself and said his critics are "falsely characterizing me as `anti-Israel.' "

(snip)

"People feel he's anti-Israel. I don't read it that way, but the leadership of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and other elements of the Jewish community do and I don't want to get into an argument with them," said Siegel, who is Jewish.

Link to the remainder above.

Dennis Kucinich voted 'NO' against the House medical care bill. Why? I received this email from his office explaining it, and felt that it might be enlightening, especially about the bill itself.

It begins by saying that as the political process in Washington suffers through "a grotesque pantomime on health care," we should prepare our neighborhoods, our communities, our states for the eventual triumph of single payer health care.

Dennis is obviously a proponent of a single-payer medical care system after those available in the European social democracies. And why not? He's maybe the last of the FDR Democrats in Congress.

A few days ago, Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation magazine provided a summary of the state of Barak Obama's Middle East policy, as delivered in his world changing Cairo speech, which promised a new era of peace. The center-piece of Obama's policy was Palestinian statehood (the two state solution) for a people held intolerably in bondage (military occupation) for over four decades, while their lands were being colonized (through various illegal means) by Israel.

11/06/2009

The announcement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he will not run for reelection is the exclamation point on the utter collapse of the Obama adminstration's Middle East policy. Launched to great expectations -- the appointment of George Mitchell, Obama's Cairo declaration that the plight of the Palestinians is intolerable -- it is now in complete disarray. It is, without doubt, the first major defeat for Obama's hope-and-change foreign policy.

WTF! Baseball and Israeli colonialism in the same news?