that things must get much worse before they ever get better. It pains me to say it, but I’m afraid it’s true. I will explain.

A scotoma is a blind spot surrounded by a field of normal or relatively unimpaired vision.

People can go through their whole lives never noticing certain things. I will give you an example. You might not notice how much writers use the verb to be, for instance. You have probably never been bothered by the verb to be. We use it all the time. “This is that…” or “They are like this…” or “We were like that…” This verb is everywhere, and it is annoying. See what I mean? Do you realize how many other verbs we have to choose from in English? But even I will admit, using the verb to be takes less effort than figuring out what verb actually describes the action in a sentence, and structuring the sentence accordingly.

Now that I told you this, you may notice the verb to be everywhere. That is what happens when you clear up a scotoma. The scales suddenly drop from your eyes, and you may find reality a little disappointing. Yet, the verb to be has always been there, draining the life from the English language in plain view of everyone, but for whatever reason it never bothers most people. And it will continue to be there, even if you suddenly start to notice it. Well, so what? This is not a life or death situation, right? It’s just the subtle degradation of the English language. But what if you have other scotomas? What if you don’t even know you have them? What if they do mean the difference between life or death for other people? What if they mean the difference between life or death for you?

I will tell you a truth. Some people will have certain scotomas cleared when they see strangers being killed. Others will wait until they see their compatriots being killed. The very stubborn ones wait until their loved ones die. Some cling to their scotomas unto death.

I will tell you another truth. Some people want you to have scotomas. Some people will go way out of their way to ensure that certain scotomas remain in place at all times. If your empathy for other people doesn’t kick in to clear them, the scotomas will remain in place as the danger to your compatriots increases. The longer you cling, the more people die; until finally, your turn arrives. Or perhaps your child’s turn. Or your mother’s.

Will you then forgive yourself for clinging to lies? Will you forgive those who told you lies? Or will you turn in bloodthirsty revenge toward those who caused your agony?

I won’t waste this elaborate set up on politically correct bullshit. Either you can see what is going on in Israel or you cannot. If you cannot, I regret to inform you that you have a deadly scotoma. I probably cannot help you, no matter what I or anyone else writes. No matter the qualifications. No matter the facts. You will have to learn the hard way.

What commentary could adequately address such madness? Simply to see it is to know what it is. And if you cannot already see it for what it plainly is — when the bare, unaccomodated facts shout this evil from the lower depths to the highest heavens — what amount of commentary will sway you?

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see, and we have a country full of them, their deadly scotomas lovingly nurtured to mutant, death-defying size, blotting out everything in the field of vision as the danger moves closer and closer. Blotting out everything, right up until the very moment the scotomas go supernova, blinding us with rage.

We now know that Israeli planning (coordinated with the US) for this Gaza operation has been underway for many months. The timing may be due to Israeli elections, but even that argument fits into broader plans, because why does it matter so much who wins the Israeli elections? They’re all nucking futs. But apparently it does matter to some people, so that just tells us that more plans remain to be executed down the road, and it’s exciting stuff, and so they’re fighting over who gets a turn at the World Domination Super Spectacular.

The NWO wants to bring more and more countries under international (meaning NWO) influence, and then rule them all. One way to do that is by making big messes in strategic areas, especially resource-rich strategic areas such as in the Middle East and Africa, thereby requiring international forces to come into play. This may be the “solution” offered for Israel to deal with the Palestinians. The international community will come to the “rescue” when it cannot be resolved due to Israel’s intransigence, officially blamed on Hamas, of course. Problem - reaction - solution. Once that happens, people will feel the crisis has subsided, they will breathe a sigh of relief and go back to whatever it is they were doing before, and the deals will get cut in the back rooms. The next time you decide to pay attention it will be too late. The deals will be done. Israel will come out on top, regardless of their crimes against humanity. That’s how the NWO pecking order works. Israel sits at the top of global freemasonry. That is why Israel has blatant, in-your-face Masonic symbols displayed prominently in public places, such as on the road crossing from Egypt into Israel in Eilat, and literally all over the Israeli Supreme Court Building. Look it up.

What does this mean? It means that the Palestinians are the canaries in the coal shaft. As they go, so shall we go.

What it is not always understood, is that the Palestinian struggle is being waged on behalf of people everywhere. The Palestinians are in the forefront in the battle against, speaking in a political and economic sense, the “New World Order.”

…In February 2004, France’s then Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin stated that once the Israelis left the Gaza Strip foreign troops could be sent there and an international conference could legitimize their presence as part of the second phase of the Israeli-Palestinian Roadmap and as part of an initiative for the Greater Middle East or the “New Middle East.” [6] This statment was made before Hamas came to the scene and before Mahmoud Abbas’ Agreement of Principles. However, it did follow the 2002 Saudi-proposed Arab Initiative.

It is clear that the events unfolding in the Middle East are part of a military roadmap drawn before the “Global War on Terror.”

Where democracy cannot work, allegedly because the Arab peoples can’t figure it out, but in reality because NWO people actively prevent it from working and even when it does work despite all their shenanigans, as in Hamas’ election, the NWO simply denies it, that is the battleground today. When those battles cease, the battle moves someplace else, maybe someplace closer to home, my little cabbage.

Why does the NWO hate democracy?

Despite claims of supporting democracy and self-determination throughout the Middle East, the foreign policies of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and the E.U. [meaning, the NWO - ed.] are opposed to any genuine self-determination or democracy in the Middle East because any freedom of choice for the populations of the Middle East would act as a barrier and spoiler to the economic interests of these powers. This is exactly why dictatorships are the ideal form of government in the Middle East in regards to Anglo-American and Franco-German foreign policy interests.

The Palestinian Territories are not an exception to this. The U.S., Israel, their allies, and the corrupt oligarchs of the upper circle of power within Fatah are set on establishing autocratic rule in the Palestinian Territories. To the satisfaction of planners in Israel and the U.S. the Hamas-Fatah split has helped push back the democratic path that the Palestinians were following through the election of their own leadership and has cleared the way for attempts to establish dictatorial Palestinian proxy administrations in the future. The process has already started in the West Bank.

Support the Palestinian people as if your own life depends on it, which, actually, it does.

Oh, America. You are always the last to know.

Did you know a genocide is taking place? Right now. Today. It’s true. I mean, there have been many, but this one is extra special because we pay for it, and this is top of the line stuff. Well, that’s not the only reason, but it will do for now. Our “best friend,” Israel, the Bonnie to our Clyde, runs the gruesome genocide show. And it’s covered in lies like flies on shit.

Now, theoretically, Americans could make a big stink about this, but first they’d have to know what was going on. As luck would have it, we’re pretty easily hoodwinked.

The media has been instructed not to tell you the truth. Still, you can poke your head up and find out real easy on the internet. If you just made the effort, that is. You would have to set aside a block of time, of course, to learn about what is happening. But everything you need to know can be found on the internet. Horrible, horrible truths. It will surely ruin your day. Wait until you see the dead children being laid in the bare earth by their parents. Wait until you read about the suffering.

Just imagine if it were your family, your children. Oh, do you imagine that other people love their children less? You do realize how racist that is, don’t you? I’m sure you’re not a racist. Well, maybe you are. How would I know. Some people are, and some people aren’t. Some people are only racist in a certain direction. Some people think it’s racist to complain about a little genocide.

Anyway, at least you should know that people around the world know what’s happening. The entire world, and in particular, the entire Arab World, knows that American tax dollars fund this genocide, and American politicians give cover to Israel at the United Nations. Everybody knows what’s going on except for most Americans. You really should know that much, at least. For your own good. Have a little pride. Surely you don’t want the entire world knowing something that you don’t know, eh? That would be embarrassing.

And let me remind you that once upon a time, in a land far away, another genocide took place. The people in this land had no cellphones, no televisions, no computers, no internet. They only had some newspapers and radios, and a few grainy black and white films. But do you know, none of that mattered. The people in this land were responsible for the genocide that took place in their country. Oh, indeed. They have never lived it down. It has become impossible to atone for this crime. The entire people of that land were tarnished with the dreadful shame that they should have known what was going on, and they should have stopped it, and they failed.

So tell me….what will be our excuse? Shall we say we didn’t know? Shall we say we were too busy? Shall we say they didn’t tell us on teevee? Shall we blame it on the economy? Shall we say we never really knew Bonnie that well after all? Shall we say it was going on in a land far, far away? What is it going to be? You might want to give that some thought.

A description of a narcissist (links removed):

Any threat (real or imagined) to the narcissist’s grandiose and fantastic self-perception (False Self) as perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and entitled to special treatment and recognition, regardless of his actual accomplishments (or lack thereof). The narcissist actively solicits Narcissistic Supply – adulation, compliments, admiration, subservience, attention, being feared – from others in order to sustain his fragile and dysfunctional Ego. Thus, he constantly courts possible rejection, criticism, disagreement, and even mockery. The narcissist is, therefore, dependent on other people. He is aware of the risks associated with such all-pervasive and essential dependence. He resents his weakness and dreads possible disruptions in the flow of his drug – Narcissistic Supply. He is caught between the rock of his habit and the hard place of his frustration. No wonder he is prone to raging, lashing and acting out, and to pathological, all-consuming envy (all expressions of pent-up aggression). The narcissist is constantly on the lookout for slights. He is hypervigilant. He perceives every disagreement as criticism and every critical remark as complete and humiliating rejection – nothing short of a threat. Gradually, his mind turns into a chaotic battlefield of paranoia and ideas of reference. Most narcissists react defensively. They become conspicuously indignant, aggressive, and cold. They detach emotionally for fear of yet another (narcissistic) injury. They devalue the person who made the disparaging remark, the critical comment, the unflattering observation, the innocuous joke at the narcissist’s expense. By holding the critic in contempt, by diminishing the stature of the discordant conversant – the narcissist minimises the impact of the disagreement or criticism on himself. This is a defence mechanism known as cognitive dissonance.

Mike Whitney explains why Israel invaded Gaza: in preparation for another invasion of Lebanon, to avenge the humiliating loss there in 2006.

That’s the real goal. Israel has never recovered from its defeat at the hands of Hezbollah during the 33 Day war in 2006, so it is planning to restart hostilities. The attack on Gaza is just a “dry run” to strengthen morale and put the finishing touches on the battle plan. That’s why there’s such a disparity between the implicit risks of the current operation and its minuscule strategic gains. It’s not really Hamas in the cross-hairs, but Hezbollah; and this time, Israel hopes to crush them with overwhelming force. The massive week-long aerial bombardment of Gaza; the pounding by heavy artillery units, and the deployment of elite troops and armored divisions, all presage a massive Normandy-type invasion of Lebanon with the probability of high casualties.

Continuing on. Why? Because Israel feels entitled to own land currently belonging to other people.

The upcoming war with Lebanon has less to do with Hezbollah than it does with Israel’s geopolitical ambitions. Israel wants to establish a new northern border at the Litani River in southern Lebanon and create an “Israel-friendly” regime in Beirut. The plan to annex the land south of the Litani River dates back to the founding of the Jewish state when Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion described the country’s future borders this way: “To the north the Litani River, the southern border will be pushed into the Sinai, and to the east, the Syrian Desert, including the furthest edge of Transjordan.”

In 1978, the IDF launched Operation Litani with the intention of annexing the southern part of Lebanon and setting up a Christian client-regime in Beirut that would take orders from Tel Aviv. Israel said that it needed a “buffer zone” for its security, the same excuse that it uses today. The 1982 invasion devolved into an 18-year onslaught which ravaged the Lebanese economy and killed more than 20,000 civilians. In 2000, Israel was driven from Lebanon by the region’s newest guerrilla militia, Hezbollah.

Israel’s territorial objectives have not changed. They want to seize more land to achieve their vision of “Greater Israel” and reduce adjacent Arab countries to a “permanent state of colonial dependency”.

This explains why Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and communications network were intentionally targeted. Israel requires its neighbors to languish in abject poverty and hopelessness. By destroying Lebanon’s life-support systems, Israel figured it would eliminate a potential rival while establishing itself as the dominant power in the Middle East. This same template for “total war” is being used in Gaza where mosques, schools, media offices, sea ports, girl’s dormitories, ambulances and vital infrastructure have been destroyed while international media, doctors and the Red Crescent have been refused entry. The rules of war have been abandoned altogether.

Read the details about the massacre in Zeitoun. This is where the four starving children were found lying by their mothers’ corpses four days after the attack.

Israel raided Zeitoun on Sunday, quickly establishing its control. The town occupies a strategic location south of Gaza City, and will be used should the IDF launch an attack on the city proper. According to survivors, after invading the IDF compelled extended families to gather in centrally located buildings, marching families at gunpoint from one building to the next. The IDF told the residents of Zeitoun that they were being led to houses that would not be bombed. But in at least once case, it has emerged that the IDF forced some 110 Palestinians into a house that was then bombed within 24 hours, killing perhaps 70 people, all civilians. Aid workers only discovered the corpses after being prevented for four days by the IDF from visiting the neighborhood in Zeitoun. Those in the building, which has been described as a “warehouse” by one survivor, were left inside without food or water. After one day, three men attempted to venture out to find food. They were immediately hit by a barrage of IDF fire. At that point, a missile hit the rooftop of the warehouse.

Read a description of narcissistic rage:

Narcissists can be imperturbable, resilient to stress, and sangfroid. Narcissistic rage is not a reaction to stress it is a reaction to a perceived slight, insult, criticism, or disagreement (in other words, to narcissistic injury). It is intense and disproportional to the “offence”. Raging narcissists usually perceive their reaction to have been triggered by an intentional provocation with a hostile purpose. Their targets, on the other hand, invariably regard raging narcissists as incoherent, unjust, and arbitrary.

We are dealing with a country, Israel, whose leaders and some considerable portion of its population exhibit a severe mental health problem. Consider the opinion of a political psychologist:

Political psychologist and former deputy Mehmet BekaroÄŸlu can be labeled a concerned left-wing intellectual when it comes to the Palestinian tragedy. BekaroÄŸlu thinks the imagery being aired on world televisions will have a deep and permanent effect on the psychologies of future generations, particularly with respect to how they perceive the Israeli and Jewish identity. “You don’t need to be a psychologist to see this; I assume that the Israelis have well-educated psychologists to analyze the impact of their activities on world public opinion,” he told Sunday’s Zaman. BekaroÄŸlu thinks Israel is intentionally trying to create an impact on the psychologies of future generations. “They are trying to create a psychology of despair, a psychology of slavery. They want people to think that they can do nothing against Israel, that they are helpless vis-à-vis Israel. They realized that they cannot have the world accept their existence and ambitions with love, so they are having the world accept them through hatred and fear,” he claimed.

Narcissistic supply = attention. Negative, positive. It doesn’t matter.

NS includes all forms of attention - both positive and negative: fame, notoriety, adulation, fear, applause, approval. Whenever the narcissist gets attention, positive or negative, whenever he is in the “limelight”, it constitutes NS. If he can manipulate people or influence them – positively or negatively – it qualifies as NS. Even quarrelling with people and confronting them constitute NS. Perhaps not the conflict itself, but the narcissist’s ability to influence other people, to make them feel the way he wants, to manipulate them, to make them do something or refrain from doing it - all count as forms of narcissistic supply. Hence the phenomenon of “serial litigators”.

And what is the answer? It is to remove attention.

The narcissist seeks out his old Sources of Narcissistic Supply when he has absolutely no other NS Sources at his disposal. Narcissists frantically try to recycle their old and wasted sources in such a situation. But the narcissist would not do even that had he not felt that he could still successfully extract a modicum of NS from the old source (even to attack the narcissist is to recognise his existence and to attend to him!!!). If you are an old Source of Narcissistic Supply, first, get over the excitement of seeing him again. It may be flattering, perhaps sexually arousing. Try to overcome these feelings. Then, simply ignore him. Don’t bother to respond in any way to his offer to get together. If he talks to you – keep quiet, don’t answer. If he calls you – listen politely and then say goodbye and hang up. Return his gifts unopened. Indifference is what the narcissist cannot stand. It indicates a lack of attention and interest that constitutes the kernel of negative NS to be avoided.

So what to do? We cannot remove attention from the activities of this mental case state. But we can reframe how we speak about the Middle East.

The aim is to adopt one common set of expressions and words when engaging the mainstream media, with the hope of instituting a linguistic and therefore conceptual framework for thinking and talking about the struggle that can compete with the well-honed and carefully crafted language of the Israel-first propaganda machine.

Moreover, the use of an alternative lexicon will quickly highlight that the prevailing language used to talk about the Palestinian struggle is not at all “neutral”: calling the Israeli army the “Israeli Occupation Forces” rather than the “Israeli Defense Forces”, for instance, challenges the basic premise that underlies all Israeli justifications for violence against Palestinians: that Israel is only defending itself rather than aggressively engaging in a the colonization of a whole people.

Somehow the mentally defective state needs to be cut off from it’s primary narcissistic supply, which is right here in the US. Congress, corporations, banks, etc.

Frikkin ridiculous.

The third Intifada being urged now has to be our intifada too. As Israel steps up its destruction of the Palestinian people, we need to step up our reconstruction of our resistance, our movements, of our communities in our own counties, where so many of us live in alienation and isolation. We need to be the third intifada – people here need more and say repeatedly that they need more than the demonstrations, because they are not stopping the killing here. Demonstrations alone, are not stopping the killing here. The arms companies making the weapons that are targeting people here, the companies that are selling stolen goods from occupied land pillaging settlements, the companies building the apartheid wall, the prisons, the East Jerusalem Light Railway system. These companies, Carmel Agrexco, Caterpillar, Veolia, Raytheon, EDO, BAE Systems, they are complicit in the crimes against humanity being committed here. If the international community will not uphold international law, then a popular movement should and can – we can use the legal system of international law as one of many means to hold on to our collective humanity.

So let’s do it. It’s time to expose the corruption. It’s time to expose that blood-soaked tube carrying narcissistic supply, connected to the oxygen tank called money, and shut it off once and for all.

Do you wonder how all this will end?

Walter Russell Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Council of Foreign Relations has written a paper called Change They Can Believe In: To Make Israel Safe, Give Palestinians Their Due.

http://tinyurl.com/8o9jg4

I am going to tell you what I think about this paper.

Mr. Mead starts by calling the Middle East peace process a “necessary evil” for US administrations — “evil because it is costly and difficult.”

No. That is not why it is evil. It is evil because US administrations must always arrange the phony “peace process” in a way that subverts justice for the Palestinians. Why? Because that is what Israel demands. Everything else about this situation flows from this core truth. You will see that Israel constantly demands and whines about security. It is the ever elusive goal, always just out of reach. Why is that? Because there is no security without peace, and more importantly, there is no peace without justice. This is the real problem — the problem of justice. The problem to be avoided, and failing that (you are here now), finessed. So the conversation always revolves around Israel’s security, keeping the cart in front of the horse at all times; because when the conversation turns to justice, the burden falls squarely on Israel’s shoulders. And naturally, since Israel was literally founded on a grave injustice and refuses to concede that point — nothing will ever be resolved. This CFR paper outlines an attempt to buy off the Palestinians and to internationalize this problem, but this is simply a clever way for Israel to finesse the demand for justice without actually having to make a real sacrifice. Here we go…

This is a dispute that deserves respect; old, inflamed, and complex, it does not suffer quick fixes.

I beg to differ. Mr. Mead tries to legitimize the fact that Israel was a mistake from the beginning. The world’s biggest mistake.

But the conflict is about more than land; many people on both sides feel profoundly that a compromise would be morally wrong. A significant minority of Israelis not only retain a fervent attachment to the land that makes up the Eretz Yisrael of the Bible but also believe that to settle and possess it is to fulfill a divine decree. For these Jews, it is a sin to surrender land that God has given them. Although most Israelis do not share this belief with dogmatic rigor, they would be reluctant to obstruct the path of those seeking to redeem the Promised Land.

This is what we can call the tyranny of the minority. A few Zionists with their myths terrorize everyone who disagrees with them. Their myths are shot full of holes by Jewish historians, but does that stop them? Oh no. Everybody cowers before these rabid Zionists or has been paid to look the other way.

He next writes an extensive apologia of Israeli society: they are confused over secular and religious matters, they have existential anxieties, they have a fractured culture, they have been traumatized by the Holocaust, betrayed, victimized, discriminated against….they can’t trust anybody, and they have failed to assimilate.

As for the Palestinians, well, they apparently lived in relative peace for several thousand years until Israel came along, but he tries like hell to spin that so that the Palestinians have “surprisingly similar” mental/emotional problems getting along with other people as the Israelis, which is a lie.

Israel’s creation caused the Nakba, the Catastrophe, for the Palestinians, which he glosses over without naming until much later.

After this [meaning the roughly 700,000 refugees created by the Nakba and formation of Israel, destroying half of Palestinian society], Palestinian society grew even more complex….Partly because of this history, Palestinian society has splintered into many different political, religious, and ideological factions.

In the absence of a state — or, rather, in the presence of so many different states, none run by Palestinians — Palestinian political life is chaotic.

Imagine that. You may have missed the part where all this destruction and complexity and splintering and political chaos was caused by the formation of Israel.

And here comes the “problem,” Israel’s security.

Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria and in the broader diaspora will be essential constituencies when the time comes to enforce the security guarantees Israel will need once a Palestinian state is created.

Israel destroyed half of Palestinian society and made it nearly impossible for them to function as a political entity, which the Palestinians understand completely. This injustice was done to them, and it has not been corrected, and that is why Israel needs security guarantees: because Israel wants to “get away” with this injustice which has been chasing it for 60 years and will continue to do so until it has been satisfied. That is why modern Israel has mental problems, and existential difficulties, and group psychosis. We have a word for it: GUILT.

And who made it possible for Israel to do this thing? Why the US and UK did, of course, after being effectively persuaded by Zionists Chaim Weizmann and Louis Brandeis. The important point here, however, is that the guilt must be shared, along with the responsibility of course.

Like the Jews, the Palestinians experienced the twentieth century as a time of betrayal by the international community. The League of Nations awarded Palestine as a mandate to the United Kingdom under terms that explicitly called for the establishment of a Jewish national home but required no consultation with the people of Palestine. The United Nations authorized the territory’s partition in 1947 — again making fundamental decisions about the future of Palestine over the heads of its inhabitants. Since then, the Palestinians have been exploited at virtually every turn, not least by various Arab leaders.

Please note that the fundamental decisions made did not include the Palestinians, but they did include the Jews, another guilty fact glossed over. From there it was only necessary for the Jews to ruthlessly consolidate power and influence to protect their ill-gotten gains, a process greatly simplified by the Talmud, which explicitly sanctions ruthless and murderous behavior, including lying, toward non-Jews as a matter of religious indoctrination.

The Jews clawed their way out of the ruins of Europe to build a state and then turned it into a regional superpower despite repeated efforts by others to destroy it. The Palestinians created a national movement in the face of disaster, asserted themselves by armed struggle, defended their independence in the harsh world of Middle East power politics, and succeeded in placing their cause on the international community’s agenda.

And here we are today. Now what? Are you ready for another bailout? That’s what this CFR paper is all about: the US, the international community, and (Israel), paying the Palestinians off. And like all the other bailouts we’ve had crammed down our throats so far, this one, too, is a waste of US taxpayer money that will never work.

The incoming U.S. administration of Barack Obama faces a daunting task. It needs to develop a Middle East peace strategy that makes a clear break with the past, that is politically sustainable at home and abroad, that offers real hope for a final resolution, and that in the meantime can bring benefits to the two peoples, the wider region, and the United States itself. But Washington will have only limited options. American public opinion strongly and consistently favors a pro-Israel orientation for U.S. foreign policy, and Israel’s friends in the United States can mobilize broad support on short notice. Decades of intensive diplomacy and scholarship have already delineated the possible solutions to the dispute. The outlines of a settlement — regarding borders, security, refugees, and water rights — are reasonably well understood by all parties, and Obama cannot do much to change them.

First off, it’s interesting that he uses “clear break,” which so evokes the “Clean Break” document.

It’s just an idea, a recommendation, written by a group of passionately pro-Israel Americans for a particular Likud candidate [Netanyahu] in 1996. Who knew? - Karen Kwiatowski

Indeed. And lo and behold, he’s up for election as we speak.

Still, Washington can change the way that a peace deal is framed and thus make it more appealing to both sides. The Obama administration needs to accomplish a kind of Copernican shift in perception: looking at the same sun, moon, planets, and stars that others have seen, it must reconceptualize the relations among them. In the past, U.S. peacemakers have had an Israel-centric approach to the negotiating process; the Obama administration needs to put Palestinian politics and Palestinian public opinion at the center of its peacemaking efforts.

I’m suggesting to you right now that this “Copernican shift” will be accomplished by allowing Israel to massacre so many Palestinian civilians that people around the world will beg Obama to make it stop.

This will fall well short of a revolution. The United States’ goals, and many of its policies, will not change. Its relationship with Israel will stay strong; if anything, it will deepen. But despite their military weakness and their political factiousness, the Palestinians hold the key to peace in the Middle East. And if the United States hopes to create a more secure and stable environment for Israel, it must sell peace to Israel’s foes.

Lies. Why would the relationship with Israel deepen? Perhaps in the CFR offices this makes sense, but here in the trenches we live in reality. And the Palestinians do not hold the key to peace in the Middle East. That is an obnoxious statement deflecting responsibility away from Israel, who has been the aggressor in this conflict for 60 years, as the maps of Palestine clearly show. And again with Israel’s security, a subject we never escape, the need that can never be filled…

And Mr. Mead puts the onus on the Palestinians. Where is the discussion of the illegal settlers? How are the Palestinians, who have been crippled politically since the Nakba, to conjure up the solid majority necessary to give Israel “the security it craves and deserves?” So many expectations of the Palestinians, so few of the Israelis. So typical of the foreign policy establishment.

Only clear support for a peace treaty by a solid majority of Palestinians — in Gaza, the West Bank, and the diaspora — will bring Israel the security it craves and deserves. When, as will inevitably happen after a deal, armed gangs seek to disrupt the peace, much in the way that Irish ultranationalists continued to fight the British long after Ireland achieved independence, the Palestinian public will have to condemn the violence and support crackdowns by Palestinian authorities. U.S. negotiators during the Clinton administration, assuming that Yasir Arafat, then chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization, controlled Palestinian public opinion, reduced the matter of clinching Palestinian support for peace to getting Arafat’s signature on the dotted line. This was a very damaging mistake. Now, the United States must focus on swaying Palestinian public opinion in favor of peace — especially since current Palestinian leaders have none of Arafat’s power or prestige.

Then follows several more paragraphs obsessively wondering about Israel’s security, and how can it possibly be assured. For as we all know by know, Israelis are truly the most insecure people on earth. Their need for security is a bottomless pit, and yet they never drop the shovels, but keep digging themselves deeper by committing injustice after injustice against the Palestinian people, among others. Naturally, they are miserable and want somebody to fix this (not them).

When he reiterates the United States’ support for an independent, viable Palestinian state with borders based on the Green Line, that is, the pre-1967 borders (with minor and mutually-agreed-on modifications), Obama must go further than his predecessors. He must overcome the skepticism created by the Bush administration’s empty rhetorical support for a Palestinian state. He must declare that the United States is committed not only to an independent Palestine but also to acknowledging the wrongs the Palestinians have suffered, compensating them for those, and otherwise ensuring a dignified future for every Palestinian family.

Aha! Obama. Of course. HE will acknowledge the horrible wrongs the Palestinians have suffered (by Israel), and HE will compensate them for those wrongs (done by Israel), and HE will ensure a dignified future for “every Palestinian family.” Brush your hands together now. This big mess will all be swept up shortly. But first, let us be clear about this injustice thing…

What the Palestinians want from peace is, first of all, an acknowledgment of the injustices they have suffered. Israeli and Palestinian scholars have documented many incidents during Israel’s War of Independence in which massacres or threats of violence caused Palestinians to flee. Most Palestinians who left their homes and villages to protect themselves and their families were never allowed to return, and much of their property was confiscated by the new Israeli government. It is not a crime for civilians to flee combat, and international law recognizes the right of such people to return to their homes. Enforcing that right has been a centerpiece of U.S. policy in Bosnia, so why, the Palestinians ask, should they be treated any differently? This is a legitimate grievance, and the United States must lead the international community in reckoning with it fully and frankly. Any diplomatic effort hoping to build a secure peace with the Palestinians’ support must address this issue.

That said, it would be as unfair to place all responsibility for the Palestinian refugee problem on Israel as it is to overlook the injustices the Palestinians suffered. The Israelis argue that the War of Independence was a fight for survival: here were survivors from Hitler’s death camps suddenly facing not only the Palestinians but also the armies of five Arab states. Self-defense, the Israelis argue, justified their actions during and after the war. And although most Israelis acknowledge that wrongs were committed, almost all charge that, faced with similar choices, their critics would have done the same or worse. They are right. The responsibility for the nakba cannot simply be laid at Israel’s door.

Do you have that? Do you get it? It’s not Israel’s fault!! They HAD to kill those Palestinians!! It was SELF-DEFENSE when they ethnically cleansed all those villages!!! YOU WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING, they insist!!! And what does Mr. Mead say, “They are right.” It is just as simple as that. He just takes every self-serving excuse for Israel’s crimes and accepts them. That is why he gets paid the big bucks at CFR. And that’s how the US foreign policy establishment works. Whatever Israel wants, Israel gets. A little acknowledgment from Israel, and everybody else pays up.

Modern Israel should acknowledge and account for its part in those tragic events, but the international community at large must accept the ultimate responsibility for the nakba, solemnly acknowledging the wrongs done and sincerely trying to compensate Palestinian refugees today.

Literally. Pay up. And while you’re paying, don’t forget that some Jews suffered, too.

The U.S. government should build on this historical reality to craft an international body that can assume all claims arising from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adjudicate them in accordance with existing international precedents and law, and pay appropriate compensation to the claimants. Claims would include the losses suffered by Palestinians as well as those sustained by Jews forced to flee their homes in the region, but the system should be set up so that Jewish and Palestinian claimants do not compete for limited funds. This entity should be funded by the international community, with Israel making a substantial payment as part of whatever negotiated legal agreement creates the new body.

The expense will be significant; according to the Aix Group, an economic forum comprising Israeli, Palestinian, and international economists and policymakers, the total potential costs of compensation to Palestinian refugees can be estimated at $55-$85 billion. The Obama administration should work with U.S. allies and partners to fund the claims authority. The United States’ contribution should be appropriately large, in order to demonstrate Washington’s renewed determination to lead the effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict….Under this program, the United States would make the largest contribution of any single country (with the possible exception of Israel), but the burden would also be widely shared among the many states that are concerned with stability and justice in this vital part of the world.

And now, for the crux of the matter, the right of return. Correcting the injustice means more than giving the Palestinians money. It means giving them their land back. And “neither side is likely to make an official final offer until very late in the process,” meaning: when the Palestinians can be blamed for the failure of the “peace” process.

Logically, Palestinian acceptance of a two-state solution would imply significant limits on the exercise of the right of Palestinian refugees (and their descendants and heirs) to move within the pre-1967 borders of Israel; if five million Palestinians entered Israel, the Jewish state would have an Arab majority. But it is one thing to draw logical conclusions and another for the Palestinian nation to make a deliberate and serious judgment that painful compromise on this point offers the best road to a just and humane future for the nation as a whole.

As the Palestinian nation grapples with these choices, the United States and the international community can take a number of steps to help the Palestinians make their decision. The key is to assure the Palestinians that the refugees and their heirs will be given several viable options. Palestinians who choose not to exercise their right of return or whose right is in some way restricted in the final Israeli-Palestinian agreement should be substantially compensated by the international community (including Israel) to acknowledge that the right to return is indeed a right and that its loss or restriction entitles the holder to just compensation.

You see, it’s not happening. The Palestinians just need help to “make their decision,” meaning: come to the right conclusion. That help will come in the form of money, paid by the US and the international community, with the parenthetical “(including Israel)” thrown in there for good measure. The Palestinians are to gracefully go away so that the Jewish state can live in peace and security with no Arab majority. This is somebody’s idea of justice.

Programs need to be designed to integrate Palestinians in the diaspora into the communities in which they now live, allow them to emigrate within or from the Middle East, and ensure appropriate opportunities for them.

And how will this happen since the US is not an honest broker? Well, it can’t. There are simply too many powerful Jews in the US government throwing their weight around — way out of proportion to their 2% of the general population. So the Palestinians must be set up to fail by tying them to Israel’s impossible demands for security without delivering justice.

Another goal should be to further assuage Israeli concerns by making payments and benefits to the Palestinians conditional on the Palestinians’ full implementation of the agreement’s terms. This means that a future Palestinian state would have to meet its security obligations in order to continue to benefit from the provisions of the accord.

No security, no payments. Unspoken: no justice, no security. And there is no justice here. So it is all just a big fat ruse.

And then finally, more Israeli-centric hagiography at the end. It’s all about Israel, all the time. Just like the sun is at the center of our solar system, so is Israel at the center of Washington’s attention. The Israelis must always be assuaged and reassured that the US lives for them and them alone. Anything for you, dear.

Even when Copernicus put the sun at the center of the solar system, he did not forget that he was living on earth. In the same way, shifting Washington’s attention toward the Palestinians’ concerns would not — and should not — mean turning away from Israel. A refocusing of the United States’ approach to the peace process would also offer Israel substantial long-term benefits. A decision by the international community to assume the ultimate moral and financial responsibility for the Palestinians’ plight would give Israel an opportunity to close the book on Palestinian claims once and for all. Developing and helping fund a mechanism that would also compensate Israeli refugees from the Arab world would address the impression widely shared among Israelis that many states have a one-sided approach to refugee issues. And by making the Palestinians’ commitment to peaceful coexistence a key test of the peace process, the Obama administration would be placing the focus where many Israelis think it belongs.

This is just so difficult for them. So they must know that support runs so very, very deep. They just want their Jewish state, their own private Idaho.

The Obama administration should engage with Israel seriously and candidly to determine what else the United States and its allies can do to help Israel take the risks and make the sacrifices required to give peace a chance. Support for Israel runs very deep among Americans, and it is likely to increase as Israel moves closer to a settlement with the Palestinians. The Obama administration needs to harness that support to help the Israeli government take steps on the sensitive questions of the status of Jerusalem and the status of the territories, steps that an increasing number of Israeli politicians acknowledge must be taken.

The prospect of a just settlement for the Palestinians and an end to the occupation would also open the door to a new age in European-Israeli relations. The United States is not the only country with a stake in bringing this dispute to an end. Washington should work with its EU partners to come up with major new incentives that would convince Israel that the benefits of peace outweigh the costs. The United States should press its NATO allies for conditional assurances that an Israeli-Palestinian agreement would open the alliance’s doors to the Jewish state.

What costs? What costs to Israel? Notice how throughout this elaborate policy paper, that point remains undefined and parenthetical. That is the definition of these costs to Israel: parenthetical.

There will be no security without peace, and there will be no peace without justice. How can anyone negotiate justice with people who start with the premise that they are superior and chosen by God? It is not possible. Justice is blind, but we can never be blind around Israel, because Israel requires that the whole world acknowledge its specialness. There is no justice that can be negotiated with such a partner. And so there will be no security, no matter how much Israel claims to “crave” and “deserve” it.

It is a new routine now. Step 1: Read the morning news. Step 2: Collect myself. Step 3: Try to craft and fire off a tiny flechette of truth at the killers and liars.

Today brings indescribable cruelty from one neighborhood of Gaza. Just one neighborhood among many. Just one tiny window into the horrors inflicted by Israel.

(CNN) — The International Committee of the Red Cross called on Israel to allow it immediate access to Gaza, saying a trip into Gaza City revealed weak children laying with their dead mothers and other “shocking” scenes.

Red Cross workers and four ambulances from the Palestine Red Crescent Society managed to enter the Zaytun neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday, according to a written release. The crew found four children, too weak to stand, next to their dead mothers in a house containing 12 corpses, the statement says.

Other houses revealed more wounded and three more corpses, the release said. It said Israeli soldiers posted near the houses ordered the rescue team to leave the area — an order the team refused.

“This is a shocking incident,” said Pierre Wettach, the ICRC’s chief official for Israel and the Palestinian territories. “The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded.”

A spokesman for Israel’s military said early Thursday that the Red Cross’s news release was the first he had heard of the alleged incident. Speaking after midnight, the spokesman said he was unsure if Israel has received a formal request to investigate.

“We do make every effort and our soldiers do put themselves at risk” to help wounded civilians, the spokesman told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

The Red Cross release said the children and other wounded were taken to ambulances in a donkey cart because earth walls erected by Israeli soldiers made it impossible for the ambulances to reach their neighborhood.

Who does this? What the hell kind of behavior is this?

I will tell you. This is the behavior of an incredibly racist and murderous people: Israel. They have separated themselves from the rest of humanity by their thoughts, words and actions. They believe themselves superior, and that is why they call everyone else goyim, cattle. They have become so immersed in a culture of lies — lies about the land they stole, lies about the God they claim to worship, lies about their history — that they have lost all bearings. These are the most lost people on earth, truly to be pitied, for they behave like stupid beasts while braying incessantly of their superiority. They don’t even recognize what asses they make of themselves, day after day after day, because they so love the sound of their own voices.

They think they can commit these atrocities and then pull back soon. Of course they have a plan. There’s always a plan. You watch what comes next. The world will demand that something be done, and then guess what? Something will be done. The next bailout is on the way. The next bailout will be the US and the rest of the world bailing out Israel for the price of its crimes against humanity. That’s right. The CFR has the plans in order. Israel’s precious security, their little obsession, will come out of your pocket after enough Palestinian blood has been shed to make you willing to pay for it. After enough Palestinian children have died, or lost their limbs, or laid starving next to their dead mothers. When you are all good and horrified, then and only then, will the elites shake you down to make it stop. And Israel will pay a little price. Oh sure. They will be forced to give back something — some of the land they stole, or some of the money we give them. Some little token, but nothing from their own hide. No. Never a piece of their own hide. It always comes out of the surplus.

I will write more about this, but for now let me just say one thing: it will never work, Israel. You have already gone much, much too far. All your “crying and shooting” will be in vain. One of these days you will lose all your ill-gotten gains. That is how justice actually works, and it won’t be denied, not even for you.