Monday, July 28, 2014

Ilan Pappe "To the family of the one thousandth victim of Israel’s genocidal slaughter in Gaza"

The Electronic Intifada

27 July 2014


Israelis in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square light candles for Palestinians killed in Gaza on 26 July.
I do not know yet who your loved one was. She might have been a baby a few months old, or a young boy, a grandfather or one of your children or parents. I heard about your loved one’s death from Chico Menashe, a political commentator on Reshet Bet, Israel’s main radio station.
He explained that the killing of your loved one, as well as turning Gaza neighborhoods to rubble and driving 150,000 people from their homes, is part of a well-calculated Israeli strategy: this carnage will destroy the impulse of Palestinians in Gaza to resist Israeli policies.
I heard this while reading in the 25 July edition of the supposedly respectable Haaretz the words of the not so respectable historian Benny Morris that even this is not enough.
He calls the genocidal policies so far “refisut” — feebleness of mind and spirit. He demands far more massive destruction in the future with the knowledge that this is how you behave if you want to defend your “villa in the jungle,” as former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak described Israel.

Inhuman wilderness

Yes, I am afraid to say the Israeli media and academia are fully behind the massacre apart from few, hardly audible voices in this inhuman wilderness. I am not writing this to tell you that I am ashamed — I long ago dissociated myself from this state ideology and do all I can as an individual to confront and defeat it. Probably it has not been enough; we are all inhibited by moments of cowardice, egotism and maybe a natural impulse to take care of our family and loved ones.
And yet I feel the urge today to make a pledge to you, which none of the Germans my father knew during the time of the Nazi regime was willing to make to him when the thugs committed genocide against his family. This is not much of a pledge at your moment of grief, but it is the best I can offer and saying nothing is not an option. And doing nothing is even less than an option.
This is 2014 — the destruction of Gaza is well documented. This is not 1948 when Palestinians had to struggle hard to tell their story of horror; so many of the crimes Zionist committed then where hidden and never came to light, even until today. So my first and simple pledge is to record, inform and insist on the truth.
My old university, University of Haifa, has recruited its students to disseminate Israel’s lies all over the world using the Internet, but this is 2014 and propaganda of this kind will not hold water.

Pledge to boycott

But surely this is not enough. I pledge to continue the effort to boycott a state that commits such crimes. Only when the Union of European Football Associations throws Israel out, when the academic community refuses to have any institutional ties with Israel, when airlines hesitate to fly there, and when every outfit that may lose money because of an ethical stance in the short-term understands that in the long run it will gain both morally and financially — only then we will begin to honor your loss.
The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement has had many achievements and continues its tireless work. The obstacles still include the false allegation of anti-Semitism and the cynicism of politicians. This is how an honorable initiative by British architects to force their colleagues in Israel to take a moral stance rather than be accomplices in the criminal colonization of the land was blocked at the last moment.
Similar initiatives were sabotaged elsewhere by spineless politicians in Europe and the United States. But my pledge is to be part of the effort to overcome these hurdles. The memory of your loved one will be the driving force, together with the vivid memory of the suffering of the Palestinians in 1948 and ever since.

Slaughterhouse

I do it all egotistically. I really pray and hope that in this worst moment of your life when Palestinians stand inShujaiyaDeir al-Balah or Gaza City, gazing at the slaughterhouse created by Israeli warplanes, tanks and artillery, you would not lose hope in humanity.
This humanity even includes Israelis, those who do not have the courage to speak but who express their horror in private as my overflowing email and Facebook inboxes attest, as well as the small handful who demonstrate publicly against the incremental genocide in Gaza.
It also includes those not born yet who perhaps will be able to escape a Zionist indoctrination machine that teaches them, from cradle to grave, to dehumanize the Palestinians to such a level that the burning alive of a sixteen-year-old Palestinian boy fails to move them or shatter their belief in their government, army or religion.

Defeated

For their sake, mine and yours, I wish we can also dream of the day after — when Zionism will be defeated as the ideology that governs our lives between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea and we all have the normal life we crave for and deserve.
So I pledge today not to be distracted even by friends and Palestinian leaders who still foolishly pin their hopes on the long-gone “two-state solution.” If one has the impulse to be involved in bringing regime change in Palestine, the only reason to do this is for a struggle for equal human and civil rights and full restitution for all those who are and were victimized by Zionism, inside and outside the beloved land of Palestine.
May whoever is your loved one rest in peace knowing that their death was not in vain — not because it will be avenged and revenged. We do not need more bloodshed. I still believe there is a way of bringing evil systems to an end with the power of humanity and morality.
Justice also means bringing the murderers who killed your loved one and so many others to court, and we must pursue bringing Israel’s war criminals to trial in international tribunals.
It is a far longer way and, at times, even I feel the impulse to be part of a force that uses hard power to end the inhumanity. But I pledge myself to work for justice, full justice, restorative justice.
This is what I can pledge — to work to prevent the next stage in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
The author of numerous books, Ilan Pappe is professor of history and director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter.

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Hannah Arendt:"Born in conflict, Israel will degenerate into Sparta, and American Jews will need to back away"

 on January 1, 2012 160

Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
For the new year, here are some prophetic excerpts from two essays of Hannah Arendt’s, collected in The Jewish Writings (2007). Please note her predictions of the Nakba, of unending conflict, of Zionist dependence on the American Jewish community, of ultimate conflict with that American Jewish community, and the contribution of political Zionism to world anti-semitism. Just what Howard Gutman said recently. For which he was denounced by– Zionists.
Zionism Reconsidered, 1944:
Nationalism is bad enough when it trusts in nothing but the rude force of the nation. A nationalism that necessarily and admittedly depends upon the force of a foreign nation is certainly worse. This is the threatened state of Jewish nationalism and of the proposed Jewish state, surrounded inevitably by Arab states and Arab people. Even a Jewish majority in Palestine–nay even a transfer of all Palestine’s Arabs, which is openly demanded by the revisionists–would not substantially change a situation in which Jews must either ask protection from an outside power against their neighbors or come to a working agreement with their neighbors…
[T]he Zionists, if they continue to ignore the Mediterranean people and watch out only for the big faraway powers, will appear only as their tools, the agents of foreign and hostile interests. Jews who know their own history should be aware that such a state of affairs will inevitably lead to a new wave of Jew-hatred; the antisemitism of tomorrow will assert that Jews not only profiteered from the presence of foreign big powers in that region but had actually plotted it and hence are guilty of the consequences…
[T]he sole new piece of historical philosophy which the Zionists contributed out of their own new experiences [was] “A nation is a group of people…  held together by a common enemy” (Herzl)–an absurd doctrine…
To such [political] independence, it was believed, the Jewish nation could arrive under the protecting wings of any great power strong enough to shelter its growth…. the Zionists ended by making the Jewish national emancipation entirely dependent upon the material intersts of another nation.
The actual result was a return of the new movement to the traditional methods of shtadlonus [court Jews], which the Zionists once had so bitterly despised and violently denounced. Now Zionists too knew no better place politically than the lobbies of the powerful, and no sounder basis for agreements than their good services as agents of foreign interests…
[O]nly folly could dictate a policy which trusts a distant imperial power for protection, while alienating the goodwill of neighbors. What then, one is prompted to ask, will be the future policy of Zionism with respect to big powers, and what program will Zionists have to offer for a solution of the Arab-Jewish conflict?…
If a Jewish commonwealth is obtained in the near future–with or without partition–it will be due to the political influence of American Jews…. But if the Jewish commonwealth is proclaimed against the will of the Arabs and without the support of the Mediterranean peoples, not only financial help but political support will be necessary for a long time to come. And that may turn out to be very troublesome indeed for Jews in this country [the U.S.], who after all have no power to direct the political destinies of the Near East. It may eventually be far more of a responsibility than today they imagine or tomorrow can make good.
To Save the Jewish Homeland, 1948 [on the occasion of war in Palestine]
And even if the Jews were to win the war, its end would find the unique possibilities and the unique achievements of Zionism in Palestine destroyed. The land that would come into being would be something quite other than the dream of world Jewry, Zionist and non-Zionist. The ‘victorious’ Jews would live surrounded by an entirely hostile Arab population, secluded into ever-threatened borders, absorbed with physical self-defense to a degree that would submerge all other interests and acitvities. The growth of a Jewish culture would cease to be the concern of the whole people; social experiments would have to be discarded as impractical luxuries; political thought would center around military strategy…. And all this would be the fate of a nation that — no matter how many immigrants it could still absorb and how far it extended its boundaries (the whole of Palestine and Transjordan is the insane Revisionist demand)–would still remain a very small people greatly outnumbered by hostile neighbors.
Under such circumstances… the Palestinian Jews would degenerate into one of those small warrior tribes about whose possibilities and importance history has amply informed us since the days of Sparta. Their relations with world Jewry would become problematical, since their defense interests might clash at any moment with those of other countries where large number of Jews lived. Palestine Jewry would eventually separate itself from the larger body of world Jewry and in its isolation develop into an entirely new people. Thus it becomes plain that at this moment and under present circumstances a Jewish state can only be erected at the price of the Jewish homeland…
One grim addendum. In the heyday of the special relationship between the US and Israel, American Jewry felt itself to be one with the Israeli people. We Are One! declared Melvin Urofsky’s book of 1978. That unity is today being dissolved. The haredi-secular conflict in Israel that is getting so much attention here is one means of that dissolution. And the aim, unconsciously, may be a desire by American Jews to distance themselves from Israeli Jews so that when the Arab Spring at last brings a democratic movement to Israel and Palestine, and bloody conflict ensues, and the Israeli gov’t is cast as the bad guys, American Jews are emotionally prepared to regard the bloodshed as inevitable and not their problem.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in American Jewish CommunityIsrael LobbyIsrael/Palestine | Tagged 

{ 160 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Kathleen says:
    Do not know much about Hannah Arendt. Sounds like a brilliant and honest lady. “agents of a foreign interest” She nails it.
    Let’s hope and pray that there is not more and more bloodshed. That Israeli officials and the I lobby in this country ...
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/01/arendt-born-in-conflict-israel-will-degenerate-into-sparta-and-american-jews-will-need-to-back-away.html

Jewish Voice for Peace and the Institute for Middle East Understanding: Celebrities, Artists, Activists Call for Palestinian Freedom in Gaza Names Project (VIdeo)

Video: Celebrities, artists and activists call for Palestinian freedom in #GazaNames project

Jewish Voice for Peace and the Institute for Middle East Understanding have released a powerful new video featuring celebrities, artists, activists and everyday people speaking out for Palestinian human rights. The video features people holding signs with the names and ages of Palestinian civilians recently killed by the Israeli military in Gaza. Some of the notable people pictured include Chuck D, Jonathan Demme, Gloria Steinem, Wallace Shawn, Tony Kushner, Mira Nair, Roger Waters, Brian Eno, and many others. In a press release to accompany the video playwright Eve Ensler says, “This is a scream on paper. This is a wail. “There are no more words. Only this moment where we rise against the illegal and deathly occupation of Palestine, against mass slaughter of the defenseless, against the complicit silence of the international community, against the military might and arrogance of the Israeli and the U.S. governments who choose annihilation over justice and love.” Continue reading 
source:http://mondoweiss.net

"Keine deutschen Waffen ins 'Heilige Land'! Kundgebung vor dem Schloss Bellevue am Mittwoch!

Einladung nach Berlin zu einer Open-Air- Kundgebung 

Alle Freundinnen und Freunde, alle die Friedens zwischen Israel und den Palästinensern wünschen, bitten wir herzlich unter der zentralen Losung "Keine deutschen Waffen ins 'Heilige Land'!“ Mittwoch, den 30.07.2014 um 12.00 vor dem Schloss Bellevue, Spreeweg 1, 10557 Berlin zusammenzukommen. Als Redner wirken u.a. mit:

Abdul Rahman Alawi, DAG-Vizepräsident – ehemals Leiter des Palästina – Büros für die Nordischen Staaten
Prof. Dr. Rolf Verleger, ehemaliges Direktoriums-Mitglied im Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland
Dr. Rupert Neudeck, Gründer des Cap Anamur / Deutsche Not-Ärzte e.V., Vorsitzender des Friedenskorps Grünhelme e.V.
Dr. Gerhard Fulda, DAG-Vizepräsident, Botschafter a.D.
Dr. Martin Breidert, Sprecher der Deutsch- Palästinensischen Gesellschaft, Regionalgruppe NRW Süd, Dozent und Pfarrer i.R.
Hans-Christof Graf von Sponeck, beigeordneter Generalsekretär Vereinte Nationen (UNO) a.D., DAG-Beiratsmitglied
Peter Kranz, Pfarrer i.R., Vorsitzender des Ökumenischen Zentrums für Umwelt-,Friedens-und Eine-Welt-Arbeit e.V.

Harald Moritz Bock, Deutsch-Arabische Gesellschaft (Generalsekretär)

Unsere zusätzlichen Losungen werden auf Plakaten gedruckt:

Nahostkriege gefährden den Weltfrieden!
GAZA – Schlachtfeld der ,moralischsten Armee der Welt‘
Gazakrieg – Stoppt den Bombenterror !
Keine deutsche Waffenhilfe für Aggressoren !
Es reicht ! Wie viele Kriege noch für Israels Sicherheit? Empört Euch !
Gaza-Blockade – Verbrechen gegen  die Menschlichkeit!
Siedlungen auf geraubtem Land töten jeden Frieden!
Kein Leben unter Drohnen, Raketen und Kanonen !
Israel raus aus den besetzten Gebieten !
Freiheit der Meere auch für Palästina !
Keine Religion liefert Rechtsansprüche auf fremdes Land !
GAZA: deutsche Politik durch Schweigen mitschuldig!
Menschlichkeit ist niemals antisemitisch!
Die Apartheidmauer muss weg !
Existenzrecht für Israel UND für Palästina 
Beendet die heuchelnde deutsche Solidarität mit Friedensunwilligen !
Einreiseverbot für Kriegsverbrecher !

Für eine atomwaffenfreie Zone Nahost !

Das Stigma "Antisemit" ist zum Gütesiegel für mutige Menschenrechtsverfechter geworden

Das  bösartigste aller Schreckgepenste, der Antisemitismus zieht nicht mehr.

Eine Antwort auf die flächendeckende mediale Verunglimpfung von Stimmen gegen den israelischen Völkermord

von Irene Eckert am 28. Juli 2014

Das Stigma „Antisemit“ ist zum Erkennungszeichen für mutige Menschen geworden. Es gilt für all jene, die sich trotz medialer Dauerhetze gegen vermeintliche Verbrechen einer „radikal-islamischen Hamas“ das eigene Denken und das fühlende Herz nicht haben abkaufen lassen. Es gilt für all jene, die noch Worte finden und sich auf die Straße trauen, um gegen das völkermörderische Vorgehen des Staates Israel und seiner Hintermänner Protest einzulegen.

Die stumm gemachte Mehrheit der Völker und Menschen auf allen Kontinenten fühlt in diesen Tagen und in diesen Stunden mit dem seit über 70 Jahren unter israelischer Herrschaft leidenden palästinensischen Volk. Alle Welt schaut mit Entsetzen insbesondere auf GAZA, wo 1,5 Millionen Menschen schon viel zu lange ein einkaserniertes Leben voller Entbehrungen fristen. Wer noch ein Herz hat, fühlt mit den Frauen und Kindern, mit deren Vätern und Brüdern, die hilf-und schutzlos dem israelischen Dauerbombardement ausgesetzt sind. Fassungslos nehmen sie zur Kenntnis, wie Krankenhäuser, Schulen, zivile Infrastruktur zum wiederholten Male vernichtet wird. Die Menschheit begreift nicht mehr, wie die politischen Führer der westlichen Welt Israel mit modernsten Waffen ausstatten, ihnen gar nuklear bestückbare U-Boote liefern, während der Judenstaat  auf die Zivilbevölkerung  Phosphorbomben und abgereichertes Uran  herunterregnen lässt

Die vom Westen heuchlerisch vorgetragene „Verantwortung zum Schutz“ gegen undemokratische Umtriebe, gegen Diktatoren und Barbaren hat ausgedient. 

Das jüdische Volk hat den großen Kredit verspielt, der dem Opfer einer ebenso völkermörderischen NAZI-Barbarei lange Zeit zukam. Das ist um so beklagenswerter, als es vor allem veranwortungsbewusste jüdische Menschen aller Nationen sind, die ihre Stimmen laut erheben, um der vollkommen verantwortungslosen und verbrecherisch gewordenen israelischen Politik Einhalt zu gebieten. Das jüdische Volk, die jüdischen Menschen, traditionsbewusst oder a-religiös haben eine solche verachtungsvolle Instrumentalisierung nicht verdient, wie sie ihnen durch die heutige israelische Staatsführung auferlegt wird. Das gegenwärtige Vorgehen Israels, auch wenn es von den Strippenziehern im Westen orchestriert wird, der imperiale Ziele  damit verfolgt, wird sich gegen das jüdische Volk richten. Der aufgestaute Unmut gegen eine verlogene und rücksichtslos jedes Völker- und Menschenrecht ignorierende Politik wird wieder Unschuldige treffen. Dem ist vorzubeugen durch klare und differenzierte Stellungnahmen gegen von staatlicher Seite begangene Verbrechen. Die Schuldigen und ihre Hintermänner sind schließlich eindeutig zu benennen und haftbar zu machen für ihre jedem Rechtsbewusstsein und jedem geschriebenen und ungeschriebenen Gesetz Hohn sprechenden Taten. Tragen wir also zur Verwirklichung folgender Losungen das unsrige bei:

Stoppt das Bomardement von GAZA!
Beendet die völkerrechtswidrige Blockade!
Israel muss zur Waffenruhe veranlasst werden und zwar sofort! Dies ist nur möglich durch einen Poltitikwandel in den USA und in allen NATO-Staaten.
Dazu ist noch viel mehr Druck von der Straße erforderlich.
Dieser Druck wird nur entstehen durch eine eindeutige Verurteilung der gegenwärtigen Israelpolitik des Westens.

Der Antisemitismus hat als Keule zur Niederhaltung dieser eindeutigen Positionierung ausgedient. Wir lassen uns nicht mehr einschüchtern durch das Schreckgespenst.
Israel Is Stealing and Murdering Its Way Through Palestine
Since the 1940s Zionists have been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians. The majority of Palestinians have been removed from their homes and their country. They exist in refugee camps in other countries and 1.5 million are concentrated in the Gaza Ghetto... Israel is always the aggressor but always take the role of the victim. Palestinian women and children are all subhumans - ”snakes” as one Israeli politician put it--who sneak into Israel through secret tunnels (whose existence is akin to Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction) wearing suicide bomb belts and blow up innocent Israelis along with themselves... To stop this slaughter of innocent Israelis, Israel has to blow up Palestinian hospitals, schools, and civilian homes and apartment blocks... 

Sanctions and Airliners - Paul Craig Roberts

EDITOR'S CHOICE | 28.07.2014 | 14:46
 
Photos are now available of the wreckage from the Malaysian airliner crash. Notice the extensive debris and the large section of fuselage. You are observing remains of an airliner that was hit with a missile at 33,000 feet and fell to impact land. Remember, no such debris was present at the site where the airliner is alleged to have hit the Pentagon and at the alleged crash site in Pennsylvania of the 4th 9/11 hijacked airliner. Give that some thought. No doubt but that the 9/11 Commission will conclude that only Malaysian airliners leave debris.

The unilateral US sanctions announced by Obama on July 16 blocking Russian weapons and energy companies access to US bank loans demonstrate Washington’s impotence. The rest of the world, including America’s two largest business organizations, turned their backs on Obama. The US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers placed ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post protesting US sanctions. NAM said that the manufacturer’s association is “disappointed that the US is extending sanctions in increasingly unilateral ways that will undermine US commercial engagement.”  Bloomberg reported that “meeting in Brussels, leaders of the European Union refused to match the US measures.”

In attempting to isolate Russia, the White House Fool has isolated Washington.

The sanctions will have no effect on the Russian companies. The Russian companies can get more bank loans than they need from China, or from France and Germany.

The three traits that define Washington--arrogance, hubris, and corruption--make Washington a slow learner.  Arrogant people wallowing in hubris are incapable of learning.  When they encounter resistance they respond with bribes, threats, and coercion. Diplomacy requires learning ability, but Washington left diplomacy years ago and relies on force.

Consequently, with its sanctions Washington is undermining its own power and influence. Sanctions are encouraging countries to withdraw from the dollar payments system that is the foundation of US power. Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said that
Washington’s sanctions are driving companies and countries out of the dollar payments system. The huge sum extorted from the French bank, BNP Paribus, for doing business with countries disapproved by Washington makes clear the increased legal risks that arise from using the dollar when Washington makes the rules.

Washington’s attack on the French bank was the occasion for many to remember the numerous past sanctions and to contemplate future sanctions, such as those that loom for Germany’s Commerzbank.  A movement to diversify the currencies used in international trade is inevitable. Noyer pointed out that trade between Europe and China does not need to use the dollar and can be fully paid in Euros or Renminbi.

The phenomenon of US rules expanding to all US dollar-denominated transactions around the world is accelerating the movement away from the dollar payment system.
Some countries have already arranged bilateral agreements with trading partners to make their trade payments in their own currencies. The BRICS are establishing new payment methods independently of the dollar and are setting up their own International Monetary Fund to finance trade imbalances.

The US dollar’s exchange value depends on its role in the international payments system.  As this role shrivels, so will demand for dollars and the dollar’s exchange value.  Inflation will enter the US economy via import prices, and already hard-pressed Americans will experience more compression of their living standards.

In the 21st century distrust has been growing of Washington. Washington’s lies, such as
Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” “Assad’s use of chemical weapons,”  and “Iranian nukes” are recognized as lies by other governments.  The  lies were used by Washington to destroy countries and to threaten others with destruction, keeping the world in constant turmoil.  Washington delivers no benefit that offsets the turmoil that Washington inflicts on everyone else.  Washington’s friendship requires complying with Washington’s demands, and governments are concluding that Washington’s friendship is not worth the high cost.

The NSA spy scandal and Washington’s refusal to apologize and desist has deepened the distrust of Washington by its own allies. World polls show that other countries regard the US as the greatest threat to peace.  The American people themselves have no confidence in their government. Polls show that a large majority of Americans believe that politicians, the presstitute media, and private interest groups such as Wall Street and the military/security complex rig the system to serve themselves at the expense of the American people.

Washington’s empire is beginning to crack, a circumstances that will bring desperate action from Washington. Today (July 17) I heard a BBC news report on National Public Radio about a Malaysian airliner being shot down in Ukraine.  The reporting might have been honest, but it sounded like a frame-up of Russia and the Ukrainian “separatists.” As the BBC solicited more biased opinions, the broadcast ended with a report from social media that separatists had brought down the airliner with a Russian weapon system.

No one on the program wondered what the separatists had to gain by shooting down an airliner.  Instead, the discussion was whether once Russian responsibility was established, would this force the EU to endorse tougher US sanctions against Russia. The BBC was following Washington’s script and heading the story where Washington wanted it to go.

The appearance of a Washington operation is present.  All the warmongers were ready on cue.  US Vice President Joe Biden declared that the airliner was “blown out of the sky.”  It was “not an accident.”  Why would a person without an agenda be so declarative prior to having any information?  Clearly, Biden was not implying that it was Kiev that blew the airliner out of the sky.  Biden was at work in advance of the evidence blaming Russia. Indeed, the way Washington operates, it will pile on blame until it needs no evidence.

Senator John McCain jumped on the supposition that there were US citizens aboard to call for punitive actions against Russia before the passenger list and the cause of the airliner’s fate are known.

The “investigation” is being conducted by Washington’s puppet regime in Kiev.  I think we already know what the conclusion will be.

The probability is high that we are going to have more fabricated evidence, such as the fabricated evidence presented by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN “proving” the existence of the non-existent Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.”  Washington has succeeded with so many lies, deceptions and crimes that it believes that it can always succeed again.

At this time as I write, we have no reliable information about the airliner, but the Roman question always pertains:  “Who benefits?”  There is no conceivable motive for separatists to shoot down an airliner, but Washington did have a motive--to frame-up Russia--and possibly a second motive.  Among the reports or rumors there is one that says Putin’s presidential plane flew a similar route to that of the Malaysian airliner within 37 minutes of one another. This report has led to speculation that Washington decided to rid itself of Putin and mistook the Malaysian airliner for Putin’s jet. RT reports that the two airplanes are similar in appearance. 
http://rt.com/news/173672-malaysia-plane-crash-putin/ 

Before you say Washington is too sophisticated to mistake one airliner for another, keep in mind that when Washington shot down an Iranian airliner over Iranian air space, the US Navy claimed that it thought the 290 civilians that it murdered were in an Iranian fighter jet, a F-14 Tomcat fighter, a US-made fighter that was a mainstay of the US Navy.  If the US Navy cannot tell its own workhorse fighter aircraft from an Iranian airliner, clearly the US can confuse two airliners that the RT report shows appear very similar.

During the entire BBC frame-up of Russia, no one mentioned the Iranian passenger airliner that the US “blew out of the sky.” No one put sanctions on Washington.

Whatever the outcome of the Malaysian airliner incident, it demonstrates a danger in Putin’s soft policy toward Washington’s ongoing hard intervention in Ukraine.  Putin’s decision to respond with diplomacy instead of with military means to Washington’s provocations in Ukraine gave Putin a winning hand, as evidenced by the opposition to Obama’s sanctions by the EU and US business interests.  However, by not bringing a quick forceable end to the Washington-sponsored conflict in Ukraine, Putin has left the door open for the devious machinations in which Washington specializes.

If Putin had accepted the requests of the former Russian territories in eastern and southern Ukraine to rejoin Mother Russia, the Ukrainian imbroglio would have come to an end months ago, and Russia would not be running risks of being framed-up.
Putin did not get the full benefit of refusing to send troops into the former Russian territories, because Washington’s official position is that Russian troops are operating in Ukraine. When facts do not support Washington’s agenda, Washington disposes of the facts. The US media blames Putin as the perpetrator of violence in Ukraine. It is Washington’s accusation, not any known facts, that is the basis for the sanctions.

As there is no act too dastardly for Washington to undertake,  Putin and Russia could become victims of a devious machination.

Russia seems hypnotized by the West and motivated to be included as a part of the West.  This desire for acceptance plays into Washington’s hands.  Russia does not need the West, but Europe needs Russia.  One option for Russia is to tend to Russian interests and wait for Europe to come courting.

The Russian government should not forget that Washington’s attitude toward Russia is formed by the Wolfowitz Doctrine which states:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”
paulcraigroberts.org