First off, let’s be clear about something: It’s easy to be against the war now; everyone is against it. Three and four years into Vietnam, more than half the country was for it—probably 60 percent. Right now no one with any sense in America thinks this war was a smart idea. Figuring out how to get out has been a moral and pragmatic nightmare.
The point Ken Brociner makes below is true: pro-Israel libs don’t want any part of the left’s anti-Israel rhetoric. He proves my point. The traditional left is divided. On the one side are Dem. liberals who say Israel is not the issue. On the other are lefties like myself who says, It’s pointless to talk about this war unless you talk about the role of the Israeli Occupation. We each represent real blocs. And we’re at loggerheads. You couldn’t build a movement (when it mattered most in ’02-03) with such profound disagreement between essential constituencies over a central issue
Two of my Jewish heroes during Vietnam were Norman Mailer for his book Why Are We In Vietnam, and David Halberstam for his book The Best and the Brightest. Neither a radical (ala Mark Rudd, in my last post). But both of them were concerned with a very important question; How did we get into this mess? Who were the idiots who thought this was a good idea? It wasn’t hard for liberal Jews to enter into this analysis, because they were critiquing Establishment gentiles.
The problem this time around is that the same sort of analysis leaves many Jews deeply conflicted. Lefty progressives like myself are saying, It’s the occupation, stupid, and Clintonite liberal Jews (Moveon.org) are saying, That has nothing to do with it! One commenter points at Dan Fleshler’s piece in which Fleshler (a noble guy who has put in years working for the likes of Americans for Peace Now while I was sitting on my hands) describes the effort to pin the blame on this war on Jewish neocons as a conspiracy theory. He would seem to regard the neocons as a bunch of adjutants who were merely carrying out the wishes of a tunnel-vision President and evil vice-president. I disagree: I think high-placed advisers have real power. JFK mentioned Peace Corps in campaign speeches, sure, but it took a dozen committed idealists and intellectuals to get the executive order on his desk in 1961 and then build Peace Corps—guys who wear laurels to this day for their work. A dozen committed, brilliant (and twisted) intellectuals in high positions built the Iraq war. Many of them Jewish Likudniks. Ideas have influence.
I don’t think that you can understand this war, and where America went wrong, without understanding the roles of: Israel’s policy in the Occupied Territories, U.S. support for that policy, the strength of the Israel lobby, and the historic rise of the neoconservatives to real advisory power over 30 years. We were attacked on 9/11 in part because of our support for a (hateful) Occupation, and we invaded Iraq partly because of the neocons’ foolish idea that you can remake Arab dictatorships as democracies—and forget about Israel’s apartheid-style Occupation of Palestinian territories. These claims captured the Clintonite liberals: Ken Pollack stated emphatically that the “troubles” in Israel/Palestine had nothing to do with the strategic wisdom of going into Iraq; the issues were not linked. His advice re Iraq turns out to be brutally misguided, and we have to consider that he couldn’t even utter the word “occupation” in his book. Just “troubles” in Israel/Palestine. The fact that Brookings’ Saban Center where he works is underwritten by an Israeli is not a conspiracy theory; it is a fact of American public life. Pro-Israel money has transformed the culture of the thinktanks. Walt and Mearsheimer have written about this, Anatol Lieven, formerly of Carnegie, has spoken about it. Blankfort says that the Democratic party gets 60 percent of its money from Jews (which is consistent with the Washington Post’s estimate of over half), which makes Jewish money a Matterhorn in the American political landscape. Last summer when Ned Lamont beat Lieberman, a lot of those big Jewish givers told the JTA or the Forward that they would stick with Lieberman no matter what, because of Israel. Didn’t trust leftish-lib Lamont.
Jewish liberals tend to find this type of analysis upsetting and scary. They don’t want to go there. Myself, I am motivated by the moral horror of Iraq: foolish ideas have turned it into a charnel house in which good people are terrified day and night and anyone who can has left. Like Lieven and Mearsheimer, I didn’t go near this stuff till 9/11 happened. But back then Clintonite liberals were running around saying, “Our Israel policy has nothing to do with the attacks.” This was foolish and defensive. Now that I’ve gone and seen what the Occupation is doing to Arabs—thanks to great Israelis like Yehuda Shaul and Elik Alhanan—I understand the rage it has generated across the Arab world. And as an American I say: we Americans have to address our part in that. I do so as a lefty Jew, and there are plenty of lefty Jews in the discussion. We’re making an alliance with Protestant liberals, like the Presbyterian church, like Jimmy Carter. Do we think that if the Occupation ended tomorrow, the problems in the Middle East would end? Hell no. But ending the Occupation is an essential step in guiding the Islamic world toward (inevitable) reformation.
My liberal critics are right when they say I’ve been too blanket. I ought to acknowledge that moveon.org, the Reform rabbis and others are doing important work when they maintain pressure on Bush and other war-supporters, to the point where they at last come out of their bunker and admit what a mistake they made. Such an admission might help bring about a resolution to Iraq’s horrors. But let’s unpack the ideology that generated Iraq. By refusing to include the Occupation in thier analysis, liberal Jews are reducing their understanding to the crude idea that It’s the evil oil companies and cowboy George, and deluding themselves about how the world works.
phil, take a look at this moveon bulletin from 2003 which discusses dual loyalties, PNAC, and the role of neo-conservatives:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin13.html#7
Phil, you hit this one out of the park. Keep it up. Only people like you can say things like this. When we goyim try to do it we get summarily dismissed as anti-Semites and our charges are never seriously addressed or debated. The worst they can call you is a self-hating Jew, a charge so absurd that by the time they haul that one out you know you've already won the discussion.
Phil,
Bravo! And Amen!!
Well said, Phil. Step one in resolving any problem is identifying the problem. If the elephant in the room is not seen as part of the problem, then everything else is just fiddling around the margins.
Yup. Yup. I am glad you have steam because I am losing mine. This is never ending.
Nice Phil!
Finally.
Hello,
We are writing to inform you about a book related to what is happening now in the Middle East released by Olive Grove Books entitled THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY. This book takes place in Beirut.
Because the region of Palestine and the repercussions it holds for peace in the Middle East between the PLO and Israel are critically important, the issues discussed via this spy-thriller makes it interesting and informative so that people all over the world can understand exactly how both sides think and how that thinking has led to continual violence in the Middle East.
If these issues had been understood and discussed 18 years ago, perhaps two wars in the Persian Gulf, the Sept. 11th catastrophe and this new Beirut War would not have happened.
That aside, it is never too late for peace.
With your consideration, we at Olive Grove Books hope you give THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY its rightful place in history and on your web site and store book shelves.
It is a book, which has come of age, and is so timely that it is a must read for everyone who wants to understand what is going on in the Middle East.
With appreciation and gratitude,
Sincerely, from the publisher,
THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY
Robert Spirko, author
ISBN: 0-9752508-0-9
Olive Grove Publishers
****INGRAM BOOKS IS THE MAJOR DISTRIBUTOR, ALONG WITH ATLASBOOKS, BAKER & TAYLOR AND OTHERS, 1-800-247-6553 OR 1-800-BOOKLOG
MENTOR, Ohio THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY, a genre spy-thriller by Robert Spirko, was fourth on the best-seller list at Atlasbooks, Inc., a national book distributor.
It is time for the Israelis and Palestinians to return to the Camp David Peace Talks, resume where they left off and "freeze in place" the already-agreed-upon negotiating points, Spirko says.
The Iraq Study Group should make this recommendation a top priority before trying to put-in-place a new strategy for Iraq mainly because ramifications of a peace agreement between both sides will resonate deeply throughout the Muslim world in the way Jews and Muslims interact toward each other. It could have a profound ripple effect including how the United States is perceived by Islamists. he emphasizes.
I have communicated that first step to the James Baker III and Lee Hamilton study group. It is important that both sides in the Middle East region are willing to come to their senses, Spirko reiterates.
He uses the following analogy for peace. The Camp David accords have precedent and continuity through previous agreements. It's like a marriage where both spouses in an argument storm away mad. They don't divorce and then try to resume their relationship; rather, they come back together, settle their differences, and resume the marriage where they left off. It must be the same for the Middle East Peace talks."
Spirkos book predicted terrorism against the United States & Israel in his book which takes place in Lebanon. It is eerily similar to the Beirut War which took place last summer between Hezbollah and Israel.
Spirko says if these issues had been understood and discussed 18 years ago, perhaps two wars in the Persian Gulf, the Sept. 11th catastrophe and the new Beirut War would not have happened.
That aside, he says, It is never too late for peace.
MEDINA, Ohio – When it comes to spy novels and Middle East intrigue, after 16 spell-binding years, the gripping story behind the Middle East quagmire – its issues of nuclear weapons and the quest for a Palestinian State – is finally being told in a ground-breaking new book entitled, THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY.
Author Robert Spirko created the work in such a way that every reader in the world will understand all the intricate issues in the Middle East and how close the region actually came to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
Mr. Spirko has a unique way of holding the reader in his grasp as the plot of THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY unfolds. He literally takes you from your armchair and immerses you into the lifestyle of the Bedouin, the Israeli, the PLO and the mindset of the Middle-Easterner.
THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY is not just another spy-novel; it is the quintessential spy-thriller because it forces the reader to understand how both sides "think" and why that thinking ultimately led to repeated wars in the Middle East.
Spirko, a financial and geo-political analyst, turned his attention to the Middle East in 1987, after discovering several common elements related to the Middle East question. In working for peace, and after several frustrating years, he put down his analysis in writing and when he was finished, he not only had a solution to the quagmire, he had a story to tell.
But, nobody was listening.
Today, all that has changed, thanks to Olive Grove Publishers who decided to give his book a chance.
When the Palestinian question came to a festering crisis in 1990, he had already predicted several of the actual events before they occurred. For instance, Spirko predicted the Intifada and Persian Gulf War, missing the actual invasion date of Kuwait by only one week. He did this through spectacular supposition, analysis and prediction based on what he was "seeing" in the region.
When Spirko typed his manuscript, he set the work to fiction, about what he thought might occur soon in the Middle East involving weapons of mass destruction, nuclear proliferation, the Palestinian uprising before it occurred, and how the Palestinian question begged to be answered, little did he realize that every event he described in the book would eventually transpire.
His story of what was really happening behind the scenes in the Middle East is truly astounding and remarkable, and his contribution to the Camp David Peace Talks in 2000, formulated a solution to the Jerusalem question. When the BBC got wind of it, they termed it "as nothing short of brilliant" – Jerusalem becoming the simultaneous capitals of both Israel and Palestine in congruous or concentric zones.
Spirko originally copyrighted his book on October 20, 1987, in the U. S.
Library of Congress where intelligence agencies reviewed his work.
Today, finally, somebody is listening.
Spirko feels that both sides must return to the Camp David Peace Talks and resume where they left off and "freeze in place" the already-agreed-upon negotiating points.
"It's like a marriage where both spouses storm away mad in an argument.
They don't divorce and then try to resume their relationship, they come back together, settle their differences, and resume their marriage. It must be the same for the Middle East Peace talks," Spirko says.
The story begins in Beirut, Lebanon, once a great financial capital of the Middle East, which lay in ruin, having been systematically blasted to rubble during 20 years of inexhaustible civil war and siege by Israel, the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah and Lebanese factions. Soon, the quest for a Palestinian State would be framed by these events; namely, the invasion of Kuwait by a neighboring rogue state, Iraq, with Saddam Hussein's goal of seeking nuclear parity with Israel.
In Mr. Spirko's story, Rick Waite, a forgotten UPI correspondent, and Adrienne Waters, a Pulitzer Prize journalist from the London Times, meet-up in Beirut with a PLO operative named Ahmed, who discovers a secret intelligence memo about a secret plan to destroy Israel.
In the ensuing chase to find the answer to this secret communiqu and what it means, a deadly race against time begins as the unlikely trio tries to halt the launch of a secret weapon from a hidden PLO base camp in the Syrian Desert. U. S. and British intelligence operatives have their own agenda, and attempt to stop whatever is going on to save the entire region from a nuclear holocaust.
Spirko weaves a tale of chilling duplicity and thrilling action, as the characters evade and devise a method to announce the discovery of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles to the rest of the world – all while United Nations' delegates bicker endlessly.
An executive at BookMasters, Inc., says, "The book is absolutely stunning in the manner in which Mr. Spirko, tells his tale. He is truly a master as an analyst, and it's totally unlike anything else we've ever read in a spy-thriller. It keeps you turning pages and won't let you quit – until the very end. And, what an ending it is! If you crave twisting plots, thrilling spy-action and intriguing characters, then this is the book for you."
Spirko, whose own background includes a stint in the U. S. Air Force and has given his advice to the National Security Council in Washington, D. C., has a degree in journalism and knows first-hand about the newsroom and what it takes to be an intelligence field agent. His knowledge of the trade makes the story real, daunting, and strikingly similar to "The Year of Living Dangerously."
"THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY drips with reality," quips a book reviewer from Olive Grove Publishers. "If books were rated by Siskel & Roeper, it would be given a two-thumbs up."
Not since, Casablanca, do characters as earthy as Rick Waite, or as beautifully mysterious as London Times reporter, Adrienne Waters, or as desperate as PLO operative, Ahmed, bring fresh characters to a story that will be remembered by readers for a long time.
The novel is a mass market paperback produced by Olive Grove Publishers, and can be purchased at area bookstores through Ingram Book Group, New Leaf Distribution, and Baker and Taylor, priced at $14.99, ISBN 0-9752508-0-9. THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY can also be ordered on the web at www.atlasbooks.com, or email orders from: order@bookmasters.com, or from Barnes & Nobles, Border's, Dalton's, efollett.com & Follett bookstores at colleges and universities, WaldenBooks, Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Target.com and other popular retail bookstores. Or, readers and store managers can call 1-800-BOOKLOG, or 800-247-6553 direct, to order.
For readers who want to know what was really going on in the Middle East prior to the Persian Gulf War, Sept. 11th, and Iraq War, THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY, is a must read.
WARREN, Ohio – When both sides walked away from the peace table at Camp David in 2000, Robert Spirko, author of THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY warned negotiators Ehud Barak of Israel and Chairman Yasser Arafat that they would descend into the abyss of hell.
"And, they did," Spirko says, "and, so have we." Spirko is a native of Warren and a former Tribune staff writer.
That warning came after both sides had already agreed upon Jerusalem as the simultaneous capital of both Israel and Palestine, according to Spirko.
"When both parties agreed on Jerusalem, an issue they both said they could never agree on, then left the peace table over reparations and the right of return, 8,000 lives were lost in the ensuing four years, including America's 9/11 catastrophe," Spirko reveals. "Chairman Arafat should have taken the deal. He had 90% of what he wanted. The Israelis offered to build upon that later if Arafat would stop the suicide bombers.
Chairman Arafat would take the same deal today if it was offered, but it may be too late."
He explains, "The failed talks were a catastrophe for both the Middle East, and the United States, and the only way out is to resurrect the peace talks at Camp David, freeze the already agreed upon points, and resume where both parties left off."
Spirko has given his advice to the National Security Council in Washington, D. C. over the years, and is a 1965 graduate of the Kent State University School of Journalism. He studied for his MBA at Kent State University and currently analyzes geo-political trends as an investment advisor.
He wrote the book as a spy-thriller detailing what and how the quest for a Palestinian State turned into an ongoing disaster predicting Iraq and Iran would seek to develop weapons of mass destruction. The yet-to-be-resolved "right of return" and reparations were ignored by both sides at the 2000 Camp David Peace Talks. Those issues could have been negotiated later. Ideas presented by Mr. Spirko at those peace talks included letting both sides have the right to name Jerusalem as each nation's capital, an idea that the BBC in Great Britain termed as "brilliant.".
"The idea was to create simultaneous capitals for both countries-Palestine and Israel-with Jerusalem as the capital of each using congruous zones and a neutral governing district involving representatives from both sides with God as the central sovereign because they both believe in the same God, whether He is called Allah or Jehovah," Spirko reiterates.
"As we speak, Israels Ariel Sharon lies in a coma and Yasser Arafat is dead. Israel agreed to a withdrawal from Israeli settlements in Gaza, and a partial withdrawal in the West Bank. That could have been achieved six years ago at Camp David. Now, Hezbollah and Hamas have thrown a monkey-wrench into the scenario which could lead the United States and the world into World War III.
Spirkos book takes place in Beirut, Lebanon. It details what he thought would occur in the Middle East before the actual events; namely, the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War, the Intifada, and other events leading up to Sept. 11. His analysis, written as a novel in 1987 and copyrighted in the U.S. Library of Congress that year, warned that the Middle East was heading toward nuclear Armageddon if a rogue Arab state, Iraq or Iran, obtained nuclear weapons. For 17 years publishers refused to publish the book because they told Mr. Spirko that the events he described in his book "couldn't possibly happen."
MEDINA, Ohio – "The Middle East is heading toward a new World War if Syria and Iran continue to aid and abet terrorism and try to develop nuclear weapons to threaten both Israel and the United States," says Robert Spirko, author of THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY, a book which predicted both wars in the region.
He says both Iran and Syria are treading on dangerous ground in their quest to continue the war in Palestine and in attempting to enrich uranium for use in an atomic bomb.
Spirko, a financial and geo-political analyst, turned his attention to the Middle East in 1987, after discovering several common elements related to the Middle East question. He wrote down his analysis, and when he was finished, he not only had a solution to the quagmire, he had a story to tell.
THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY predicted many of the events that occurred three years later, even the firing of missiles which hit Israel.
"The United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China will never allow them to obtain enough nuclear technology to construct weapons of mass destruction," says Spirko.
Spirko, whose book foreshadowed the Persian Gulf War by three years, and the resultant Iraq War following the Sept. 11 attack, warned the consequences would be catastrophic for those Muslim nations who insist on continuing down that nuclear path.
"The chief threat in the region I see right now is the threat to Saudi Arabia by Al Quaida. If Al Quaida were to overthrow the present royal family in Saudi Arabia, cutting off the oil supply to the western nations including Japan and China, it would bring down entire world economies.
France and Germany would be begging us to go to war to retake those oil wells. It would be World War III," he emphasizes.
If such a scenario were to occur, France and the European economies could collapse in a matter of weeks.
"And, it's all related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which I said back in 1987 was the crux of my book. It always has been, and always will be until it's settled. That linkage is exactly what Osama Bin Laden stated in a taped message aired the weekend before the election in November of 2004. Whether you believe him or not is beside the point. That's what's he told us, and we'd better take that into account."
"We are again on the threshold of peace in the Middle East. But, we're also on the threshold of World War III. We better get it right this time, " Spirko emphasizes.
Bravo.
Thank you for common sense and courage. It seems as if we've bent over backwards NEVER to dicuss this issue in connection with the broadest questions of US policies in the Middle East. And that's why we find ourselves in the fix we're in today.
Both common sense and courage been too long in short supply on this question.
You don't make your alleged connection between the Israeli-Palestinian issue and Iraq very clear. It's mostly innuendo. You don't make your point about the Jewish advisors. Are they the ones who inspired the policy or implemented it? You seem to forget that Iraq was a real charnel house under Saddam, the butcher of Baghdad. I guess you would have called off WW II after the Battle of the Bulge? And your ending where you mention "the crude idea that It's the evil oil companies and cowboy George, and deluding themselves about how the world works" doesn't help much when you seem to have your own moonbat delusions.
Phil, I guess I'm one of those Clintonite Jewish liberals. But I refuse to give up the effort to find some kind of common ground between the "two groups" you've identified.
The argument about whether this is mainly or mostly a "war for Israel" isn't likely to get resolved to the satisfaction of reasonable people in each of those groups. But you have made a valuable contribution in pointing out what is manifestly true: too many people in the organized American Jewish community who were appalled by the Bushies' rush to war did not speak out. And one reason was that they had been taught to believe that Saddam was a threat to Israel. I agree completely, even though I just don't buy into the broader war-for-Israel theory (Sorry. I just don't think there is enough concrete evidence to support it).
More importantly: it is also possible to discount that theory and agree with you on the obvious linkage between the Israeli occupation and widespread Muslim rage against the U.S., and to agree that ending that occupation is in America's interests. Some people in Americans for Peace Now, Ameinu, Meretz USA and Brit Tsedek v' Shalom, (the "progessive" Jewish groups disparaged by many people on your blog) have been making that same point, publicly, for some time.
Also, keep in mind that to groups that supported Israel's peace camp in the 1990s, Doug Feith, David Wurmser, Michael Rubin and some of the other Jewish neocons who got us into this war were already well-known ideological adversaries. That is because they promoted and defended Israel's settlement expansion. There are few people in this world with whom I diagree with more than I disagree with Doug Feith, and my disagreements began long before yours did.
So even though we might have different takes on the reasons for some American foreign policy decisions, we agree on the critical need to stop the occupation and counter-act the conventional Israel lobby. Isn't that enough of a basis to build upon?
I was the person who was most responsible for getting the stuff in about the Israeli connection to the War. The editor caught a lot of hell for both this write up and the one that he did on Palestinian Refugees. Ultimately I think he was taken off writing about Mid-East politics for Move-On. Its shocking that this stuff is still up on their website, because the organization quickly became yet another occupied territory of the Israel Lobby.
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper
"Trau" (March 31, 1977), PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein
said, "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a
Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against
the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no
difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.
Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the
existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests
demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people'
to oppose Zionism. It is also been a "conceptual" war for ownership of
the term "Palestinian" which has been transferred over to the Arabs
whereas, before 1967, "Palestine" has always been synonymous with
Eretz Israel and the Land of Israel.
Tough Dove:
You wrote: "… we agree on the critical need to stop the occupation and counter-act the conventional Israel lobby."
What do you see yourself as actually doing to stop the occupation and counter-acting the Israel lobby? Do you think that carrying a sign in a peace march will get the job done? Sending an e-mail to your Congressional Representative?
The big problem is that none of us in opposition to US policies in the Middle East have enough money to buy back our Congress. It's already been bought, big-time. What do you see that can be done?
The most hopeful activist signs I'm seeing is the Brit Tzedek v'Shalom initiative –the US tour of IDF & Palestinian fighter refusniks.
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper "Trau" (March 31, 1977), PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said, "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against
the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no
difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.
Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the
existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests
demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people'
to oppose Zionism. It is also been a "conceptual" war for ownership of
the term "Palestinian" which has been transferred over to the Arabs
whereas, before 1967, "Palestine" has always been synonymous with
Eretz Israel and the Land of Israel.
Tough Dove:
You wrote: "… we agree on the critical need to stop the occupation and counter-act the conventional Israel lobby."
What do you see yourself as actually doing to stop the occupation and counter-acting the Israel lobby? Do you think that carrying a sign in a peace march will get the job done? Sending an e-mail to your Congressional Representative?
The big problem is that none of us in opposition to US policies in the Middle East have enough money to buy back our Congress. It's already been bought, big-time. What do you see that can be done?
The most hopeful activist signs I'm seeing is the Brit Tzedek v'Shalom initiative –the US tour of IDF & Palestinian fighter refusniks — but on the other hand, without major MSM coverage of this tour it might as well not have happened. Broad American attitudes have been made through years of pro-Israel propaganda. The same propaganda has provided political cover for the compliant US Congress. How would you go about un-making that?
We were attacked on 9/11 in part because of our support for a (hateful) Occupation..
– Phil, you sound almost as if you believe that nineteen Arabs with box cutters took down the Towers.
I'll join the chorus of praise. The only downside to Phil's work is that it's forced me to revise some assumptions: I honestly didn't think it was possible in America today to discuss the topics Phil has been tackling. Hats off to you, Mr. Weiss.
ToughDove: We agree on the critical need to stop the occupation and counter-act the conventional Israel lobby. Isn't that enough of a basis to build upon?
Sadly, I predict that won't be enough. Not if your priority is merely to replace the current Israel lobby with another Israel lobby built more in your image. The past forty years have taught us that lesson. When you find the security to start thinking in terms of what's good for the Palestinians as opposed to what's good for Israel, then we might be on the road to progress. After all, occupier and occupied can't both be the victims.
On a not entirely unrelated note – not least, perhaps, because I'm a Joe Bloggs goy – go I just nailed the following comment to the door of Helena Cobban's Just World News blog.
A Joe Bloggs goy who 40 years ago thrilled to Leon Uris's Exodus and completely bought into "plucky little Israel" and the blooming desert blah blah blah. Yeah, you guessed right: it's been some journey.
Here's the comment.
There's another iconic "vignette" up at Tony Karon's Rootless Cosmopolitan website: www.tonykaron.com
The caption of the photograph reads: Hebron settlers attack a Palestinian passerby.
And what do we see in the photograph? A young Jewish woman has sneaked up behind an older Palestinian woman. The young Jewish woman has grabbed the older Palestinian woman's white head scarf and is yanking on it. A little Jewish boy – he looks about 10 – has also come up from behind the Palestinian woman and he's kicking her.
Two or three other "settlers" are visible to the right of the Palestinian woman. Their "body language" also bespeaks hostile intent.
Directly in front of the Palestinian woman are two Israeli soldiers.
The Palestinian woman is the still centre of this scene. Her head is turned slightly to the left and ever so slightly down. I looked long and hard at the photograph – there was something about it – and then it came to me: the stillness of the woman, her dignity, her humanity, the way she's turned her head…I've seen that before: Michaelangelo's Pieta.
And I've seen those "settlers" before as well. In an earlier incarnation. A 1930s one. In Germany. That time around they were brownshirts and "fine, upright, good Germans" taunting, baiting, spitting at and kicking Jews.
Nothing to add, except the howlingly obvious: what's taking place in that photograph is utterly vile, utterly despicable, utterly cowardly. And let's not leave the corollary unsaid: that young Jewish woman and that ten-year-old Jewish boy are also utterly vile, utterly despicable, utterly cowardly.
Forty years on I'm still carrying around in my head the images of the self-immolated Buddhist monk in Vietnm, and the Saigon police chief blowing the brains out of the captured Vietcong suspect, and the terrified, screaming, naked, napalmed little girl running down the road toward me.
I've now got another permanent, iconic image. Second one for me from this part of the world. This one joins that horrible sequence of the terrified little Palestinian boy and his dad, trying to shelter behind a barrel. And then both of them slumped over dead a few frames later.
Bastards.
Hey, everyone needs a villain. It's Israel's turn now.
Soon it will be Canadas, but it's the jews turn again.
Yeah, think of all those American Canadians from the Left and the Right who are beating the drums of war against Canada's enemies!
Superb analysis, Phil. I share your sense of horror and position on what must be done.
And I'm glad to see your search for a "tender chord" isn't leading you to pull punches. In fact, for the months I've been following the blog, you've been fearless in examining where the personal and political meet. Courage and American journalism aren't exactly synonymous today, so how refreshing to find you conducting your interventions in this manner. Don't stop.
One quibble. I like Mailer, too, so I was surprised to learn you think he isn't a radical. Why not?
The term 'radical' is uniquely treacherous in American Jewish usage. I think more exact terminology would be necessary for a meaningful discussion.
No Pearlman! Finally some discussion without *much* obscenity. Hope you are keeping him out, Phil. I forwarded this column to the Washington Post Editors in hope that they will figure out why they supported the war in Iraq (despite the great work of their reporter *Pincus*) and still have not apologized.
the way i look at it is that roman catholicism ascended and gave us the first non-protestant president and the continuation of a failed french war to have a roman catholic footprint in Vietnam. Now Judaisnm has ascended and brought us our own center bank occupation(Tigris/Euphrates)modelled after Judaism's footprint on the west bank. Look, see, as soon as happened in the past perhaps the second non-protestant president. Will Hillary be chosen to be the first Jewish president? After all hubby Bill was the first black prez.
From Senator Webb's Democratic Response to the State of the Union. Lessons to be learned are left to the student.
"Like so many other Americans today and throughout our history, we served and have served not for political reasons, but because we love our country.
On the political issues — those matters of war and peace and, in some cases, life and death — we trusted the judgment of our national leaders.
We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure — with accuracy — the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way.
We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it.
But they owed us sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.
The president took us into this war recklessly.
He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War; the chief of staff of the Army; two former commanding generals of Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq; the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs.
We are now as a nation held hostage to the predictable — and predicted — disarray that has followed.
"The war's costs to our nation have been staggering: financially; the damage to our reputation around the world; the lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism; and especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve."
Brenda,
Working on it. Stay tuned.
The term 'knowledge' is uniquely treacherous to me. I think more exact terminology – ignorance — would be necessary for a meaningful discussion of my views.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley
"We were attacked on 9/11 in part because of our support for a (hateful) Occupation"
Umm, how bout some evidence for this Phil? Even accepting that Israel/Palestine was part of Al Qaeda's reasons for attack (not supported by even their own words), you (typically) fail to make a central distinction — they could care less whether the West Bank and Gaza are freed from Occupation; they could care less about "Palestine;" they believe that infidels should not control 1 inch of "Muslim" lands — and they consider even a truncated Israel a violation fo their faith.
For once be a little honest Phil.
"Alan",
You need a lesson in logic:
When you say "[e]ven accepting that Israel/Palestine was part of Al Qaeda's reasons for attack ", you can't then continue with "they could care less whether the West Bank and Gaza are freed from Occupation; they could care less about "Palestine;"
Either the Israel/Palestine conflict was one of the reasons they attacked or it wasn't. If it was, and you accept that for argument's sake, then the "distinction" you make doesn't make sense because it assumes the exact opposite. You follow?
Never mind.
P.S. Not to mention that all your allegations after the "distinction" you make, are presented as facts with no evidence presented whatsoever. Al Qaeda claims it cares about the Palestine conflict. Numerous of their communiqus say so. You say they don't. Well, present your evidence.
I have read an interview of Osama Bin Ladin where he says he will respect the Palestinians' decision if they decide to make peace with Israel. Nasrallah has said exactly the same in interviews repeatedly.
Here is a quick one from Wikipedia:
"Despite declaring "death to Israel" in his public appearances, Nasrallah said in an interview to The New Yorker, "at the end of the road no one can go to war on behalf of the Palestinians, even if that one is not in agreement with what the Palestinians agreed on." [14] When asked whether he was prepared to live with a two-state settlement between Israel and Palestine, he said he would not sabotage what is a Palestinian matter. [15]."
Let's get back to Liberal Jews and the Antiwar movement:
"… In a sense, I rather admire the way that the Israel lobby has gone about its business of seeing that billions of dollars, year after year, go to make Israel a 'bulwark against communism'. Actually, neither the USSR nor communism was ever much of a presence in the region. What America did manage to do was to turn the once friendly Arab world against us. Meanwhile, the misinformation about what is going on in the Middle East has got even greater and the principal victim of these gaudy lies – the American taxpayer to one side – is American Jewry, as it is constantly bullied by such professional terrorists as Begin and Shamir. Worse, with a few honorable exceptions, Jewish-American intellectuals abandoned liberalism for a series of demented alliances with the Christian (antisemtic) right and with the Pentagon-industrial complex. In 1985 one of them blithely wrote that when Jews arrived on the American scene they 'found liberal opinion and liberal politicians more congenial in their attitudes, more sensitive to Jewish concerns' but now it is in the Jewish interest to ally with the Protestant fundamentalists because, after all, 'is there any point in Jews hanging on dogmatically, hypocritically, to their opinions of yesteryear?' At this point the American left split and those of us who criticized our onetime Jewish allies for misguided opportunism, were promptly rewarded with the ritual epithet 'antisemite' or 'self-hating Jew'."
Gore Vidal, foreword to Israel Shahak's "Jewish History, Jewish Religion : The Weight of Three Thousand Years".
www.geocities.com/israel_shahak/book1
Tupharsin:
"A Joe Bloggs goy who 40 years ago thrilled to Leon Uris's Exodus and completely bought into "plucky little Israel" and the blooming desert blah blah blah. Yeah, you guessed right: it's been some journey."
I hear ya, Dude. Thanks for the link/photo, and for the evocative description. I visit Tony Karon's website regularly but if you hadn't written about how you resonated to that photo I may have failed to look at it closely. (I think it would have been better without so much color, kind of like the Guernica painting, or better yet, like that famous black-and-white WW2 photo of the little Jewish boy in the cap, standing all by himself in the street while a German soldier brandishes a rifle at him)
I looked at the Helena Cobban thread (Soldiers & Clowns) where you posted, and there were all the regulars: JES, Joshua, vadim, Jonathan. Those arrogant pricks are still going strong, I see, dominating the discussion and setting parameters on what may be discussed. They wouldn't last long here. (Well, I'll modify that. They may have lasted as long, but they certainly wouldn't have been as comfortable)
That entire thread was like a demonstration of Tony Karon's piece on the semantics of 'must' and 'the'.
http://tonykaron.com/2007/01/22/israelis-jimmy-carter-and-apartheid/
"The Zionists claim the absence of a proper noun in Resolution 242, which calls for Israeli withdrawal from territories captured in 1967, means that it does not call for withdrawal from ALL those territories — that somehow it leaves the door open for them to annex parts of the West Bank or East Jerusalem or whatever."
One would think the proper response to that photo on the part of any Israeli — irregardless of their politics — would have been deep shame. Instead, these Helena Cobban regulars attacked you for your legitimate response and Helena joined them in the end with a detailed quibble over when childhood begins.
(I think it bothers her that she's known in some circles as an anti-semite, she says it doesn't but I think it does)
Welcome to Mondo Weiss, tupharsin!
Helena Cobban is a crawler. It's sad, she seems so nice, but her style of bending over backwards to cater to the greedy and tyrannical subjectivities of her Jewish critics is pathetic.
All that we are seeing today proves that Hitler was all too right about this hideous race of subhuman parasitical vermin, and that it is an immense human tragedy that he was not allowed to "finish the job"! We must beasts "by all means neccessary" and really take it to the source: think of how much better off not only the Palestinians but the entire globe would be were it not in incessent wars instigated by these degenerate hebraic scum and their incessent, seemingly insatiable need to dominate and control virtually ALL of the earth's resources. That is why I say: "SAVE HUMANITY: KILL THE JEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Hey Phil, is "honest oberver" your biggest fan or what?
Welcome back, Bill! did you and Edith have a nice time in Florida?
Bill, I couldn't help but notice how alike Honest Observer and you are in your writing style. The caps, the exclamation marks, the over-the-top sarcastic treatment of what you suppose a gentile's deepest feelings are towards Jews (if only you knew — most of us have no feelings one way or the other)
Anyway, welcome back. In spite of everything I missed you a little bit.