Israeli Leadership Blasted by One of its Own

• An Israeli Jew is warning of a "flood of fire" if the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime is not replaced with equal rights for Palestinians and an end to "Jewish supremacy."

Israel Shamir, a Russian-born Israeli writer, is touring the United States calling for a secular, democratic and unified na tion comprising Israel and the Pales tinian territories to bring an end to the Middle East conflict.

A former Israeli soldier, Shamir fought in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Today, Shamir fights with words and says there is a "winnable language" in the war against "the evil idea of Jewish supremacy." Shamir calls Israel a "Ku Klux Klan state run by madmen."

Shamir calls for the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees, restoration or compensation for property lost, and uni versal suffrage based on the principle of "one man-one vote."

Shamir has presented his one-state peace plan at Harvard, Columbia, Emory, Tufts, Georgetown, and Berkeley, as well as to numerous smaller groups. But a media blackout on Shamir is imposed in the United States and Israel.

Shamir is no stranger to censorship. While reporting from Moscow in the early '90s, a major Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, sacked him for calling for the return of the Palestinian refugees and the rebuilding of their ruined villages.

Shamir turned to the Internet to spread his message to Americans, who he considers essential to resolving the conflict. Shamir has penned more than a dozen widely-acclaimed political essays circulated on the California-based Media Monitors Network web site.

Although Shamir's essays reveal a deep understanding of history, religion, and literature, his straightforward style has led to accusations of anti-Semitism and the use of "inflammatory" language. Shamir says his mission is to "speak the truth frankly."

Shamir says "the idea of an exclusive Jewish state is as wrong as the idea of an exclusive Ary an or white state" and that a democratic solution providing "equality under the law" for all the people of Pales tine is the only solution.

"It is in the interest of Amer icans, Jews and gentiles alike, to start with a full embargo of Israel," he says.

"Israelis are brainwashed from kindergarten, they are taught they belong to the Chosen People," Shamir says, "they are indoctrinated in the belief that the gentiles are not fully human, and therefore they can be killed and expropriated at will."

Palestinian Christians and Moslems must have the same rights as Jews, Shamir says. "If Jewish property is sacred, gentile property must be sacred as well. If a Jewish life is sacred, so must be a life of a gentile. If a Jew is free to move, so must be a gentile. Jerusalem needs to be re stored to its inhabitants," he says.

"What do [Jewish supremacists] hate in Palestinians?" Shamir asks. "The Pales tinians have roots, they are living in harmony with their environment, they love their villages, they stick to their land, they can live without Jewish guidance."

Shamir says the notion of creating two states in Palestine is part of a conquest strategy that would only lead to impoverished bantustans, to provide captive slave labor for Israeli factories.

"We have a simple way to undo the Gordian knot of endless negotiations, and that is -- giving the Palestinians the right to vote, to give the natives of the land full rights of citizenship." Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should act on this principle, Shamir says, or face the Hague tribunal on war crimes.

"If support for the occupation and for apartheid continues, the wave of retribution ... we Jews may have to face one day is dreadful to contemplate," Shamir says.

The "machine of the official Jewish establishment" and the behavior of Israel "nauseates many Jews," Shamir says, while the Israeli government is led by "a certified mass murderer" and commits "war crimes on a day-to-day basis."

BRIBE AND EMBEZZLE

The Israeli occupation is funded by overseas supporters who act "like a giant Hoover machine, sucking out money and sweat from all over the world," Shamir wrote in his essay, Kid Sister. "Every dollar invested by the Israeli lobby into senators and congressmen has been returned a hundred fold. Since 1967, we have received $170 billion from the people of the U.S. This money could be used to feed and school all the underprivileged kids of America.

"Innocent outsiders must question how Israel can get off scot-free with war crimes and receive the blessings of the U.S. Congress."

Christian supporters of Israel "are people of good intentions but little knowledge," Shamir says. "They think they 'support Jews,' but they promote the Christ-hating spirit among the Jews."

HATRED AND SPITE

Rami Rozen expressed the Jewish attitude in Ha'aretz: "Jews feel toward Jesus today what they felt in the 4th Century or in the Middle Ages: It is not fear, it is hatred and spite. For centuries, Jews concealed from Christians their hate of Jesus, and this tradition continues even now."

"The U.S. is at the heart of the Pales tinian problem," Shamir says. "The U.S. and Israel are practically one state."

He said Americans are grossly misinformed because of intentional distortion by the media elite.

The media lords' "favorite neo-liberal globalist trend is but a tendency to turn the whole world, including the United States, into a Palestine with a small ruling class, big security machine and voiceless impoverished natives," Shamir says.

(Shamir's vision is reminiscent of the late Haviv Schieber who, in many SPOTLIGHT interviews, advocated similar views, calling his plan the "Holy Land State." He was hounded and imprisoned by the U.S. Justice Department. -- Ed.)