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Joachim Martillo used to do business in Israel. Now he supports Divestment
Here is his story:
In 1992-3, I was enthusiastic that the ongoing negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership would lead to peace. Because I was raised in America, I had never even heard or read a challenge to the Zionist narrative of the creation of the State of Israel. Before my first visit to that country, I attended Israeli advocacy sessions at my local synagogue and Jewish community center.
I truly believed that the creation of the State of Israel was the final just conclusion of a long trail of tears that began with the expulsion of Jews from Palestine in Roman times and continued right through the Nazi Holocaust. If only Palestinians gave up irrational anti-Semitism, they could make peace with Israel.
Shortly after the signing of the Oslo agreement, I became involved in several European Union funded infrastructure improvement projects in the Occupied Territories. The Israeli government used the Oslo agreement as license to establish a system of checkpoints. When I traveled from one Palestinian village to a close neighbor and had to cross a checkpoint, I witnessed Israeli soldiers beating on Palestinians for no reason at checkpoints. I had to wonder if the Israeli government was serious about peace.
I was in Jerusalem when Muslim worshippers were massacred at Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. I realized Prime Minister Rabin was lying about wanting peace when instead of removing the fanatics settled near Hebron, he punished the Arabs of Hebron with a curfew. After the massacre, the settlers resumed spitting on Palestinians, throwing stones, breaking windows, pushing down old people and numerous other petty and more serious forms of abuse. Did the Israeli army in Hebron try to stop this behavior? No, they helped. Several times I watched IDF soldiers threaten rape and murder while they exposed themselves to 10-12 year old girls attending the local Islamic parochial schools.
Nothing that I was seeing and experiencing in Israel and the Occupied Territories conformed to the depiction of Israel in our media. As I began to understand written and spoken Hebrew, I realized that Zionist culture was intensely racist. I attended the bris (circumcision) of the son of an Israeli business associate. After completing the operation, the Mohel (circumciser), made his own blessing, "Barukh attah adonai, eloheinu, melekh haolam, asher natan leam yisrael hayal hadash laharog ulehashmid et haaravim." It means, "Blessed art thou Lord, our God, King of the Universe, that has given to the people of Israel a new soldier to kill and to destroy the Arabs."
Were these the people with whom America was so closely allied? How could I have been so wrong about the State of Israel?
I researched the issue intensely. I learned that Zionists from Europe colonized Palestine and stole it by means of force, terrorism, aggression, murder and violence. Zionists claim they are descended from Galileans and Judeans that lived in Palestine during Biblical times. So what? Vienna was founded 2000 years ago by Celts. Do the modern Irish have the right to expel the current population of Vienna?
In 2001-2002, I ordered American-made Cisco computer equipment (routers) for an EU-funded project to improve the Internet service for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The Israeli government held the devices up at customs, asserting they could be used for terrorism. I complained to the American government to put pressure on the Israeli government to release my equipment with no luck. Then I changed my tactics. I shipped the Cisco routers back to the US and specified inferior but more expensive Israeli routers made by RAD, an Israeli military electronics firm heavily subsidized by the Israeli government with US foreign aid dollars.
Suddenly all the problems in putting the routers in place vanished. In one fell swoop, the Israeli government ripped off the EU and the Palestinians while it helped RAD steal a business contract from an American company. I take it as typical of the rapacious nature of Israeli relations with the rest of the world. In the end my efforts went for naught because by the end of 2002, the Israeli army had destroyed practically all the Internet communications equipment which I had installed for the Palestinian infrastructure.
Now that I have worked in Israel and the Occupied Territories for approximately ten years and have calculated the political damage that the alliance with Zionism is inflicting on America as the Zionist settlers abuse and oppress the native population, I feel pragmatically and ethically compelled to stop doing business with Israel for the sake of basic human decency.
Here's what else Joachim Martillo used to do
"As far as I am concerned the only crimes which the West committed was decolonization and refraining from the eradication of Arab/Islamic culture."
That's not me speaking. No, those are the words of Mr. Joachim Martillo, author of this article, written in a submission to an online newsgroup in the 1990s. No worries, however, since Mr. Martillo has seemed to have had a change of heart with regard to the value of Arab life. In a recent e-mail to a critic of his newfound switch from Arab hatred to Israel/Jew hatred, Mr. Martillo noted that the only regrettable thing about a suicide bombing in Israel is the death of the bomber.
While there is lots of room for profound disagreement about the divestment debate in Somerville, I'm not exactly sure why MRGRA's support for divestment needed to be accompanied with the rantings of a bigot such as Martillo.
Just asking.
More on Mr. Joachim (and his wife, Karin Friedemann, also published in your latest issue) at www.somervilleMEjustice.com/marriage.html
The Hypocrisy of Jon Haber
M: = Joachim Martillo
H:I read with interest the article by Joachim Martillo in the latest
H:issue of BridgeNews.
H:Interestingly, the author's self characterization as Oslo enthusiast
H:dedicated to the progress of Jews and Arabs turned severe critic of
H:Israel seems a bit at odds with his writing at the time, all of which
H:remains on the permanent record of UseNet.
H:For example, in 2002-2003 when Martillo claims to have been in
H:Palestine working for the benefit of those (presumably Arabs) in the
H:occupied territories, this is what he had to say about Muslim and Arab
H:culture:
H:"Americanism is superior to Arab-Islamic culture and for the good of
H:all Middle Eastern peoples and the world in general, Americanism must
H:one day supplant Arab-Islamic culture in the Middle East and North
H:Africa."
H:Joachim Martillo, Aug 22 1992
H:"If Muslims wish to become rich and powerful, they must reject their
H:mindlessly stupid traditional pre-modern culture."
H:Joachim Martillo, May 31, 1993
M:I do not deny that I used to have attitudes somewhat similar to the
M:Neocons. What can I say? I was ignorant and stupid.
M:While my work with Israeli firms like RAD goes back to 1990 as I
M:remember, I did not actually visit any installations in the OT until
M:late 1993.
H:Even after Martillo's claimed 1992-1993 revelation (documented in your
H:newspaper) about the wickedness of Israel attitudes towards
H:Palestinians, this is what Martillo continued to publish regarding his
H:own attitudes towards Arab denizens of the Middle East:
M:The Goldstein massacre did not take place until Feb. 1994, and I
M:remember that I was disappointed that Rabin did not remove the
M:settlement at Kiryat Arba. Instead he curfewed the Palestinians of
M:Hebron. Something seemed really wrong about that, but I did not
M:suddenly become anti-Israel at that point. It takes a while to
M:overcome habits of thinking.
H:"By civilized standards modern and traditional Arab Islamic culture is
H:far more disgusting than anything portrayed in Aladdin. If anything,
H:for Hollywood to kowtow to a bunch of howling savages who wish to
H:avoid seeing how inferior their primitive pre-modern culture is in
H:comparison with civilized Western modernism would be an offense
H:against all sapient beings everywhere."
H:Joachim Martillo, Jul 25 1994
M:That particular comment sounds like something that my ex-wife might
M:have posted from my account. She grew up in a Muslim country and had
M:some issues with Islamic culture.
H:Unlike the "revelation" you published from Martillo that Jews are so
H:contemptuous of Arabs that they bless their killing at circumcision
H:ceremonies, these quotes of Martillo's are not hearsay, but are part
H:of the public record
M:I do not believe I became anti-Israel or anti-Zionist until around
M:1996 or 1997. Watching the IDF and settler abuses in Hebron as well as
M:hearing that type of blessing at ceremonies of circumscision was
M:important in my change of opinion, but simply coming to understand
M:Israeli Hebrew, and becoming aware of the 1930s style ethnic
M:fundamentalist racism with which practically every Zionist colonizer
M:is imbued caused my change of opinion.
M:I regret that I did not videotape the circumscision ceremony, but I
M:was at the time neither expecting nor documenting such egregious
M:examples of Zionist racism. I have spoken with Israeli opponents of
M:Zionism, who have mentioned that the New Profile web site documents
M:that sort of thing as well as even more offensive behavior.
M:In the end, I consider such deportment a minor detail in the crimes of
M:Zionist colonizers and racist ethnic Ashkenazi American traitors that
M:manipulate the USA into supporting the Zionist state to the detriment
M:of American interests.
M:Zionists stole Palestine from the native population, ethnically
M:cleansed 80-90% of the native Palestinians, and stole practically all
M:their movable and immovable property. Zionist colonizers are a
M:criminal population, and the Zionist state (even within the pre-1967)
M:is by practically any objective criterion a far more racist state and
M:far greater violator of human rights than 1930s Nazi Germany.
M:The American Jewish community has frequently made it clear how wrong
M:it was for American individuals and corporations to have been invested
M:in Nazi Germany during the 1930s. By the measure that the American
M:Jewish community has created, for individuals and corporations to be
M:invested in Zionist Israel today is at least as wrong. Then we must
M:apply the obvious kal vahomer. The USA did not maintain 1930s Nazi
M:Germany, but as the AIPAC literature makes clear whenever the
M:organization sends mail to me, the Zionist state would not even exist
M:without continued US support. If it is criminal for individuals and
M:corporations to be invested in Zionist Israel, it is even more
M:criminal for the USA to continue to maintain the racist Zionist state
M:as a US colony in all but name.
M:I have to wonder at Haber's Hebrew skills. I can read and enjoy
M:Agnon. Shulamit Aloni has published articles in the Hebrew press in
M:which she claims that the IDF drives Palestinians out of their homes
M:and plants timed explosive charges that will explode several hours
M:after the family returns. A blessing for a new soldier at a
M:circumscision ceremony seems minor by comparison.
M:How much time has Haber spent in living among Palestinians in the
M:occupied territories? Practically, every American I know that has
M:spent over 4 months in living among Palestinians in the OT comes back
M:hating Israel, Zionism, Zionist colonizers, and racist ethnic
M:Ashkenazi Americans intensely, and it matters not how pro-Zionist such
M:an American was before he started his stay or whether he is Jewish.
M:Israel is something really horrible and evil. Racist ethnic Ashkenazi
M:Americans like Haber that defend Israel against people that have
M:actually lived and worked in the OT are worse than 1930s Germans, who
M:tried to ignore the abuses of the German Nazi government and who would
M:have suffered severe consequences if they did not look the other way.
M:Joachim Martillo
The consistency of Joachim Martillo
I understand the need to push your racist Arab-bashing as far back as possible since the story you have cultivated of conversion from reactionary Arab-hater to enlightened Jew (whoops!, I mean Ashkenazi/Zionist) hater runs into a spot of trouble if you were calling Arabs savages months AFTER the Goldstein massacre that you also claim to have affected you deeply. Unfortunately, your paper trail belies your storyline to anyone who wants to read it (which, I would hope includes the editors of BridgeNews who chose to enlighten its readers with your current political hatreds).
It was quite revealing scanning your paper trail of hatred on the Internet from the early 90s until today which starts with Arab-hating bigotry, transitions to contempt for Abrahamic religions in general, finally arriving at your current fixation on Ashkenazi race theories. From close reading, it seems clear to me that your hatred of Arabs is no less today than it was a decade ago. However, rather than insult their culture directly, you now direct your energies at an anti-Israel propaganda campaign based on Arabs continuing to kill and die for your amusement and potential political gain.
Also, it was interesting to find out that during your "Arabs are howling savages" period, you were married to what you tell us was a dedicated Arab hater, and that your current fixation on Jews and Zionists has coincided with your involvement with an equally crazed Israel hater. While your personal life is your own business, I need to point out that you seem to have discovered the most unique way of landing women in human history: by publicly expanding on their chosen object of hatred a hundred fold.
I am only speculating of course, but consider this an intervention. After all, I hate to think of the time you'll have to spend distancing yourself from your work of today if your next wife turns out to have a pronounced bigotry targeted towards blacks, Buddhists or the obese.
Jon
German link to this text
Have a nice day, tishh