A spineless President Obama bleats weakly and ineffectually about civilian casualties in Gaza out of one side of his mouth; out of the other side, he ensures that the racist butchers of Likud can create even more civilian casualties by shipping them even more US-made munitions. The death toll is fast approaching 2000, almost all civilians, over 20% of them children. Obama's Nobel Peace Prize has never looked more satirical.
As for the US Congress--a wretched stew of cretins, criminals and sociopaths for sale to the highest bidder--enthusiasm for Israel never flags: dead Palestinians got what they deserved by being Arabs and inconveniencing Bibi Netanyahu and the 'settlers'.
Latin America, however, has shown the backbone that the US administration lacks by recalling ambassadors. Perhaps the memory of US-funded and equipped right-wing death squads, CIA-backed coups and US-sponsored banana republics are too fresh in their collective memories for them to be aquiescent in the US-sponsored butchery in Gaza:
El Salvador on Wednesday became the fifth Latin American country to withdraw its ambassador from Israel in protest at Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru have already recalled their ambassadors.
Predictably, Israel accused those countries of supporting terrorism.
Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor said that the move encourages Hamas; “this decision encourages Hamas which has been recognized as a terrorist organization by several countries."
This, remember, is the same Israel that accused John Kerry of 'a strategic terrorist act' by brokering a ceasefire.
While abject creatures like plagiarist and liar Alan Dershowitz try to justify the massacre of innocents by citing 'tunnels', it should be recalled that Dershowitz is the man who wrote in support of torture. The man who never met a rich murderer he didn't like opened his repellent essay, The Rules of War Enable Terror, with the following:
The Geneva Conventions are so outdated and are written so broadly that they have become a sword used by terrorists to kill civilians, rather than a shield to protect civilians from terrorists. These international laws have become part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.
He goes on to give his beloved Israel
carte blanche to slaughter civilians:
Democracies must be legally empowered to attack terrorists who hide among civilians, so long as proportional force is employed. Civilians who are killed while being used as human shields by terrorists must be deemed the victims of the terrorists who have chosen to hide among them, rather than those of the democracies who may have fired the fatal shot.
It should be a matter of deep and abiding shame to any American that the first country to be founded on constitutional rights and protections against unjust arrest, prosecution and punishment should now support a policy so morally and ethically bankrupt.
Meanwhile, Latin American countries are demonstrating by example how civilized nations react to the horrors inflicted on innocents by the fanatics of Likud.
Bolivian President Evo Morales declared Israel a "terrorist state" Wednesday and tore up a long-standing visa exemption agreement with the country in protest at the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza strip.
Morales announced that the Bolivian government would now be demanding Israeli visitors apply for a visa in order to enter the South American country, according to Bolivia's El Deber news site.
"We are declaring Israel a terrorist state," Morales said, adding that Israel's military operation meant the country "is not a guarantor of the principles of respect for life that govern the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of our international community."
Earlier in July, Morales filed a request with the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights to prosecute Israel for "crimes against humanity."
Formal diplomatic relations between the two countries were broken off in 2009, during the last major Israeli offensive in Gaza. At that time, Morales labeled the conflict a "genocide."
A visa exemption agreement between Israel and Bolivia was signed in August 1972, during the Bolivian dictatorship. South America is popular destination with young Israelis, who will be affected by the move.
...
The decision by Brazil in particular angered Israel and a subsequent war of words threatened to spark a serious diplomatic row. Yigal Palmor, a spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, slammed South America's largest country, labeling it "politically irrelevant" and a "diplomatic dwarf."
Way to go, Yigal and Israeli diplomats; when you're not soft-pedaling the butchery in Gaza or claiming that the IDF
should be given the Nobel Peace Prize for its “unimaginable restraint” in Gaza, you're insulting South America's largest, richest and most powerful country.
As butchers of civilians, there's not much anyone can teach Israel; as strategists who need to break their dependency on one nation (the US) and make more friends in the world, you're the heavily-armed, racist Three Stooges on crack.
You may not realize it yet but the fanatics of Likud are busily writing Israel's suicide note.
