I don’t know why I emphasized Obama in this diary’s title, as it seems a long way from the title of the Mondoweiss article featured below. But one phrase caught my attention as it quoted Obama repeating Israeli hasbara (propaganda): “Obama tells the Lebanese president earlier this week to rein in Hezbollah because they were threatening to Israel.”
The intentional killing of children, which happened during Israel’s wars on civilians in Lebanon and Gaza in 2006 and just recently in 2008, was part of Israel’s barbaric Dahiya Doctrine. While Obama’s Cairo speech is now a faded memory, pictures of the results of Dahiya in Lebanon and Gaza remain vivid. “It could not have happened without American funding” and the latest armaments we provide Israel every year.
Seham wrote this piece for Mondoweiss: Insolence and hasbara are the soundtrack to these images in my head.
So sick and tired of the b.s. from this administration: Feltman says Hezbollah endangers Lebanese people. Hezbollah doesn’t kill Lebanese civilians, Israel does. Americans and Israelis seem to think that Arabs have very short memories when it comes to the slaughter of our people. We don’t. The 2006 war on Lebanon where Israel implemented its barbaric Dahiya Doctrine-which Dan Halutz, Israel’s chief of staff said would “turn back the clock in Lebanon 20 years”- is still painfully fresh in my mind.
It was as nauseating when Bush went to Iraq and issued a “shukran jazeera” [thank you very much] to Iraqis before leaving office and it was nauseating to hear Obama tell the Lebanese president earlier this week to rein in Hezbollah because they were threatening to Israel. I wonder if non-Arabs can for a moment grasp how sickening it is to read such statements. After all, isn’t the Dahiya Doctrine really as much of an American doctrine as it is an Israeli one? It could not have happened without American funding ($2.55 billion dollars in 2009 alone).
These are a few images that run through my head constantly-and I do hope that one day I can stop conjuring them up so easily, but when I hear insolence, hasbara and lies from the Americans and the Zionists, really, their words are just a soundtrack to the following images:
Israeli children
Lebanese children
Palestinian children
There are other images,that I will spare you from, like one of a toddler’s head sticking out from beneath the rubble-Dahiya Doctrine in Gaza. When I saw that particular image I felt déjà vu, like I had only recently seen the same image. I did some research and discovered that I had seen something very similar to it… Palestinian and Lebanese children look exactly the same when they are dead and covered with an eerie coat of cement dust.
So tell us again: Olmert, Livni, and Barak are not war criminals.
“Bush went to Iraq and issued a ‘shukran jazeera’ [thank you very much]“
Actually, “shukran jazeera” does not mean thank you very much. That would be shukran jazeelan. What Bush said was “thank you peninsula”. But why should we expect him to get Arabic correct when he can’t even get English right?
Shukran for clarifying that!
`Afwan.
What does that mean?
.
Arabic
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."In that context it means “you are welcome”.
2.55 billion dollars in 2009 alone went to Israel from the U.S.! That’s the same Israel, by the way, which has National Health Insurance for all. Even tourists are covered. See the Israeli government site to corroborate. So, is the USA indirectly subsidizing Israel’s health care system by making it possible for the Israeli government to set money aside for it because they know that 2.55 billion will be available for other projects from their client state = USA, like bombing Lebanon, Gaza, etc. And there is no money in the U.S. for a comparable humane system. No, not at all, only anxiety and military funds with regard to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq-istan, potentially/clandestinely Iran-istan and who knows where else. I can’t wait to see where Obama gets his money for the Afghanistan escalation. Or will Pelosi cave to the man’s charms.
So is Obama completely delusional or just ill informed?
He asks the PM of the government of Lebanon to rein in Hezbollah. Now why would the PM of a government that included Hezbollah do such a thing, and a government that this month had just voted for Hezbollah to keep its arms. Considering that when Israel invades Lebanon and promptly starts killing women and children there that Hezbollah is the only defence the Lebanese peopel have who would really rein in a defence force that annoyed those that regularly kill the women and children of the country?
Quite bizarre.