dehumanizing the palestinians:
There have been barely audible bleats of protest from the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ("Such a step would be contrary to Israel's obligations towards the civilian population under international humanitarian and human rights law") and the European Union ("The [European] Commission hopes that Israel will not find it necessary to implement the measures for which the [cabinet] decisions set the framework yesterday."
What? It hopes that Israel will not find it necessary to cut off water supplies to 1.5 million people of whom half are children?
(...) Yossi Alpher, for example, a former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and once a special adviser to former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, argued coolly this week that Israel should murder the democratically-elected leaders who won the Palestinian legislative election in January 2006 -- calling for "decapitating the Hamas leadership, both military and 'civilian.'" True, he admitted, there would be a possible downside: "Israel would again undoubtedly pay a price in terms of international condemnation, particularly if innocent civilians were killed," and because "Israel would presumably be targeting legally elected Hamas officials who won a fair election." Nevertheless, such condemnation would be quickly forgotten and, he argued, "this is a mode of retaliation and deterrence whose effectiveness has been proven," and thus, this is "an option worth reconsidering." Alpher incited the murder of democratically-elected politicians not in a fringe, right-wing journal, but in the European Union-funded online newsletter Bitterlemons, which he co-founded along with former Palestinian Authority minister Ghassan Khatib.
(...) In May, as reported by The Jerusalem Post, Israel's former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu issued a religious ruling to the prime minister "that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings" (See "Top Israeli rabbis advocate genocide," The Electronic Intifada, 31 May 2007). I could find no statement by any prominent Israeli figure condemning Eliyahu's ruling.
(...) And, in a September 6 blog posting, an advisor to leading US Republican Presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani argued for "shutting off utilities to the Palestinian Authority as well as a host of other measures, such as permitting no transportation in the PA of people or goods beyond basic necessities, implementing the death penalty against murderers, and razing villages from which attacks are launched." This, the advisor stated, would "impress Palestinians with the Israeli will to survive, and so bring closer their eventual acceptance of the Jewish state." (See: "Giuliani Advisor: Raze Palestinian Villages," by Ken Silverstein, Harper's Magazine, 14 September 2007) Giuliani faced no calls from other candidates to dismiss the advisor for advocating ethno-religiously motivated war crimes. Indeed the presence of such a person in his campaign might even be an electoral asset.
(...) The latest Israeli government declaration comes as Palestinians this week marked the 25th anniversary of the massacres in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, in which the Israeli occupation army and political leadership were full participants. We can reflect that Israel's dehumanization of Palestinians and other Arabs, its near daily killing of children, destruction of communities and racist apartheid against millions of people has been so normalized that if those massacres occurred today Israel would not need to go through the elaborate exercise of denying its culpability. Indeed, the "international community" might barely notice.

giuliani's ignorance, idiocy, and unqualified stupidity
Telling the audience at a Maryland synagogue that Israelis and Americans are now bound in the same war against Islamic militants, Giuliani stressed the need to be "on offense against terrorism" to warm applause.
(...) "What happened in Gaza is a microcosm of what's going to happen in Baghdad" if the United States withdraws, he said. "It will become something that inflames the entire region."
(...) "I'm not blaming anybody back then," he said. "What I am saying is, I do blame people after September 11. Now you have to get it. Now you have to understand that the terrorists are in a war against us. George Bush is not making it up."

chronicling obscene politics:
In the May 15 Republican debate in South Carolina, Senator John McCain of Arizona suggested that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would "follow us home" from Iraq -- a comment some viewers may have taken to mean that bin Laden was in Iraq, which he is not.
(...) Former New York mayor Rudolph Guiliani asserted, in response to a question about Iraq, that "these people want to follow us here and they have followed us here. Fort Dix happened a week ago." However, none of the six people arrested for allegedly plotting to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey were from Iraq.
(...) "They want to bring down the West, particularly us," Romney declared. "And they've come together as Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, with that intent."
(...) The belief that there is a clear connection between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks has been a key determinant of support for the war. A Harris poll taken two weeks before the 2004 presidential election found that a majority of Bush's supporters believed that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks -- a claim that Bush has never made. Eighty-four percent believed that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had "strong links" with Al Qaeda, a claim that intelligence officials have long disputed.
(...) Romney said Friday: "You see, the terrorists are fighting a war on us. We've got to make sure that we're fighting a war on them."
(...) Romney's national press secretary, Kevin Madden, said the former governor's linking of Shia, Sunni, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood was based on their common hostility to the West. "I think [Romney's statement] was much more directed at intent -- they all share a common ideology or intent to bring down Western governments," Madden said. "There's a shared attempt to fight any beachhead of democracy in that region."

republicans and torture:
In Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary debate, Fox News moderator Brit Hume — who appears to have been watching too much “24″ himself — raised what he described as “a fictional but we think plausible scenario involving terrorism and the response to it.” He then laid out the kind of “ticking-bomb” scenario on which virtually every episode of “24″ is premised — precisely the kind that most intelligence experts consider fictional and entirely implausible.
(...) As governor of the State That Dares Not Speak Its Name — at least not in GOP circles — Mitt Romney naturally had to up the ante. “You said the person’s going to be in Guantanamo. I’m glad they’re at Guantanamo…. Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo.” I am politician, hear me roar! And, oh yeah: “Enhanced interrogation techniques have to be used.”
(...) Unlike Hunter and Tancredo, Giuliani and Romney took pains to insist that they didn’t favor torture, just … you know, “enhanced interrogation.” But water-boarding, which neither would disavow, is unquestionably a form of torture. It involves taking a bound, gagged and blindfolded prisoner and pouring water over him or holding him underwater to induce an unbearable sensation of drowning. It was used in the Spanish Inquisition and by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge — fellas who make Jack Bauer look like a softie.
(...) McCain’s chest-beating Republican rivals would do well to listen to him, and to read the letter Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, sent May 10 to all U.S. troops there: “Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information…. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary…. What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight … is how we behave. In everything we do, we must … treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect.”

thank god, as giuliani says, the US is on the offensive:
Wary of a number of federal anti-terror cases that proved to be overblown, two legal experts Tuesday cautioned about attaching too much significance to the arrest Tuesday of six Muslims for plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey.
(...) "The fact is that most of those arrested (in the past) are small fry and wanna-bes," said Daniel Benjamin, a terrorism expert and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "That's a reflection of the fact that al-Qaida has a hard time getting people in here and has higher priorities."
(...) The fact that the New Jersey men took a video of themselves firing assault weapons to a store for copying onto DVDs, he said, "somewhat indicates they weren't the A team of terrorists."

thank god, as giuliani says, the US is on the offensive:
Wary of a number of federal anti-terror cases that proved to be overblown, two legal experts Tuesday cautioned about attaching too much significance to the arrest Tuesday of six Muslims for plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey.
(...) "The fact is that most of those arrested (in the past) are small fry and wanna-bes," said Daniel Benjamin, a terrorism expert and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "That's a reflection of the fact that al-Qaida has a hard time getting people in here and has higher priorities."
(...) The fact that the New Jersey men took a video of themselves firing assault weapons to a store for copying onto DVDs, he said, "somewhat indicates they weren't the A team of terrorists."

deconstructing giuliani and ´terror´:
In a discussion with journalist David Ignatius in February 2006, Nassrallah categorically set his group apart from al-Qaeda and its action that he considers is fanning Sunni-Shiite tensions in Iraq and increasingly in Lebanon. "I believe the most dangerous thing we confront is the so-called Zarqawi phenomenon," he said. "This is a creed of killing without any responsibility -- to kill women, children, to attack mosques, churches, schools, restaurants."
(...) Interestingly the antipathy is not based on religion, but rather on al Qaeda terrorism which Hezbollah rejects. The fact is that the Iraq war debacle has led to a "surge" (that Bush/ McCain word again!) of al Qaeda fighters here in Lebanon. They are threats to Hezbollah as well as to the American University of Beirut and the American Embassy. Al Qaeds's numbers and influence are growing and, based on interviews by Americans with some al Qaeda leaders, they have major plans here. If al Qaeda to be contained it will likely be Hezbollah who does it. We Americans should engage with Hezbollah not defame it.
(...) where is Rudi's evidence to support his New Hampshire campaign claim that "going back to the 90's there were all those Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas"? ... Rudy, if you actually misspoke about the '90s', rather than seeking to mislead your audience, and actually meant to say the 1980's, maybe thinking of the April 17, 1983 bombing of the American embassy or the October 1984 bombing of the marine barracks show us the proof? At the time of these events the PLO had left Beirut, Hamas would not exist for nearly a decade, and Hezbollah was a long way from being fully organized. Moreover, Hezbollah and has never been contradicted in its consistent denials of involvement. Again, where is the proof Rudy? Was Rudy thinking about the kidnapping of US hostages? Hezbollah's position on the Western hostages is unchanged; "We are neither directly nor indirectly responsible for the taking of the hostages' Nassrallah as repeatedly stated.

brilliant analysis, this:
Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001. But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.
(...) “If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.
(...) “I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”
(...) Giuliani said flatly: “America will be safer with a Republican president.”
(...) Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”
(...) Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.” Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!” The crowd thundered its approval.