‘How to Talk Candidly About Israel’

Couldn't be more appropriate to have this in a synagogue named after a guy who would rather that every Jew in Europe was ground up for fertilzer if it meant that he would have to stop kissing Roosevelts ass.
Anyway, a bunch of "progressive" Jews ( whatever that means,) who couldn't find their way around a siddur if their lives depended on it. Wouldn't miss it.

Bill is right David – How about attending Phil's talk and sticking it to those nefarious Joos. Now is your chance to be a real man.

Take a look at http://www.holocaustbcc.org/about.html .

Note the following paragraph.

The Center addresses human rights and civil rights issues everywhere. Our programs have addressed Armenia, America, Darfur, the Balkans, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Northern Ireland, the Middle East and East Timor.

Palestine is left out. Ethnic Ashkenazi Americans simultaneously work hard to control genocide discourse and distract themselves and non-Jews from the genocide that Zionists have committed and continue to commit right before the eyes of all Americans in Palestine.

Until the American Jewish community forthrightly admits the genocide committed by Zionists in the name of the Jewish people and shows remorse, I cannot imagine that candid speech about Israel on the part of American Jews will have much connection to reality or do much good.

Martillo (Ajami) is Palestinian.

Podhoretz and Commentary illustrate the perversion of our language and politics in the USA.

What exactly has Iran or Ahmedinejad done that merits a US attack? Ahmedinejad has said a lot of things American Jews do not hear. Big deal. Podhoretz reaction is psychotic. Yet, no one describes him as a dangerous Jewish extremist with much too large a bullhorn.

There are few ideas more outrageous than the belief that E. European Ashkenazim had the right to steal Palestine on the basis of an etymological relationship between "Jew" and "Judea."

Zionism is not only racism. It is insanity, and anyone that has lived with Palestinians for more than four months in the Occupied Territories since 1993 probably considers it dangerous criminal insanity.

By the same sort of ridiculous logic that Zionists use, the Irish would have the right to steal Rome from the native population because most Irish are practicing or lapsed Roman Catholics and because the words Rome and Roman are connected morphologically.

Moderate Jews need to take a stand against Jewish fanaticism and extremism just as the American right-wing demands that moderate Muslims must take a stance against Muslim extremism and fanaticism.

In truth, professional Jews like Abraham Foxman and David Harris equate Muslims fanaticism and extremism with opposition to the continued existence of the State of Israel. In my opinion demanding the abolition of the State of Israel is the only position consistent with fundamental American democratic, anti-racist and human rights principles.

Yes, but there are also now the Christian Zionists who are even more fanatically pro-Israel even than most American Jews.

There's a story I can't source about an Israeli official in America giving a speech before a Jewish group. So he gave the usual boilerplate and then opened it up for questions, only to realize that these are Progressives. And they proceeded to tear him to pieces! They had the facts and they had the ability to strip away the propaganda that countered the facts.

The Israeli official finally said, "Look, I don't have to take this from you! All Israel wants from you American Jews is that you keep your mouths shut and keep sending us money!"

Right-wing Jews during the 50s were more than happy to accuse left-wing Jews of subversion and treason when they sympathized with the Soviet Union.

Today, left-wing Jews refuse to accuse Kristol, Perl, Wurmser, Wolfowitz, Feith, Hagee, Robertson, etc. of subversion and treason when they sacrifice US interests to those of Israel.

Progressive Jews have to decide whether their loyalties belong to the USA and antiracist, democratic and human rights values or whether they are loyal to somne sick ethnic tribalism and perverted ethnic fundamentalism state. If the latter, obviously they are not progressives. If the former, they could ask why people loyal to a foreign country or to some crazed eschatology have so much influence of US policy.

This approach to dealing with the treasonous Bushite/Neocon/white racist evangelical fundamentalist anti-American conspiracy has a shot of being effective.

As long as progressives are silent about Zionist and ethnic Ashkenazi genocidalism, the left poisons itself.

On the face of things, the Israel lobby should not be damaging to the United States. After all, in a democracy, anyone and everyone can lobby for special interests, and if our government responds to those who argue for what they perceive to be the interests of Israel, then that simply means that the lobby are effective politickers and know what they're doing.
However, when lobbying for an interest is accompanied by stifling the debate of those who disagree by resorting to that most potent weapon of post-60's America, the bigot tag, then we have a problem on our hands. Because so many arguing for Israel have chosen to equate their personal identity with their politics, any disagreement with them automatically is converted into an act of intolerance. And when a term like anti-semitism enters the picture, then the debate shuts down. Nowhere you can go from there. Hey — if you're dealing with an anti-semite, then clearly the whole debate is pointless from the start and you've won through de facto moral superiority.

The Israel Lobby is not a Lobby in the normal sense because its loyalty lies with another state.

When ADM and the agricultural lobby work on members of Congress they do it to improve their bottom line and not to benefit a foreign country.

We must be honest and call the Israel Lobby subversion in particular because racist Ashkenazi Americans and Zionist extremists have made accusations of terrorism and treason a staple of diminishing the impact of American Muslim criticism of US foreign policy and of the alliance with Israel.

Just as many Soviet-sympathizing ethnic Ashkenazi Americans crossed the line into working treasonously for the Soviet Union, today many (and probably even more) Zionist ethnic Ashkenazim have crossed the line into working treasonously for the State of Israel.

I had neighbors that sent their son and daughter to do service in the IDF. Then I worked in the Occupied Territories and saw what the IDF does. The whole family should be interrogated (according to Dershowitzian principles?) to determine how they have betrayed the USA and committed crimes against humanity.

In truth, a Dershowitzian interrogation of Dershowitz is in order.

I recommend on this topic, for those who haven't seen it,Esther Kaplan's article 'The Jewish Divide on Israel'(The Nation 6/24/2004)

Bill, I can tell you, in my humorless way, that you are just handing on Israeli myths.

Israel has always avoided to get into serious talks pretending, at one and the same time, that there was, on the other side, "nobody to talk to".

An example is the myth about the resounding 'No' from the top meeting of Arab countries at Khartoum. In reality there had been peace feelers from the Arab side, right after the defeat in the Six Day War but it was Israel that, against the advice of Ben Gurion, decided to hang on to the newly conquered territories by immediately devising plans for settlement on the West Bank and annexing East Jerusalem. This happened before Khartoum.

The main culprits here were Dayan and Allon, in that order. They both had a plan for settlements on the West Bank.

Abba Eban was originally lukewarm about holding on to these territories and the then Israeli Prime Minister,Levi Eshkol,had stated publicly, at the beginning of the war, that Israel was not intending to keep any conquered area. Dayan, who had gained great prestige in the war, wanted it otherwise.

When the then American Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, reminded Eban of Eshkol's statement a few months after the war, Eban merely shrugged his shoulders and said: "We have changed our mind". (See Rusk's memoirs).

I have devoted a six or seven part series to this topic on the Australian webdiary under the title "The Olive Branch and Khartoum". I could make use there of the archival records of the American State Department over this period that are now online.If you want to react to this post I suggest that you look at my earlier writings first.

Uri Avnery has once devoted a very perceptive article to the Israeli strategy in dealing with peace feelers. It is a double game. You have to keep these guys of at the same time giving the impression that the difficulty lies with them.

To bill pearlman:

First – its not intellectually sound or reasonalbe to ask other people to come up with the solution for consequences of crime they never committed. Crimes were committed by the State of Israel and IT must come with the solution on its own. Crimes were also solicited by many world Jewish organizations in the name of Jewish people and these organizations have to come clean on the subject too.

Two – there is no need for yet another stupid plan that would never work because the political landscape wont allow it. Current political landscape in Israel is based on lies and propaganda that Zionist imposed first and foremost on its own, Jewish population.
All that needs to be done is telling the truth. That will change the political landscape and thus the exit from the labyrinth of lies will be found in no time.

Solution that would grow out of such process will satisfy not only the victims and the world, but Isareli people themselves.
It must be first and foremost an overwhelmingly MORAL solution.
Again – we do not need to come up with all the small details, but rather with a jump-start of a new self-evaluation of Israeli society that will come up with the new, moral plan on its own.
And as everything moral, it will be surprisingly easy.

My version of the jump-start process is below:

Preface:
Dismantling the propaganda and admitting the truth. The main purpose is to show regular Israelis the truth about history and its government. Israelis are normal moral people and they will know what to do. This stage will lead to new elections and new government which is not affiliated with the crimes.

1. Publish secret Israeli documents about real history of Zionist rejection of offers to save European Jews during WWII ("A cow in Palestine is worth more than all Jews of Europe")
(i.e. answer so called 10 questions of Rabbi Weissmandel)

2. Publish pre-1948 documents on land distribution and population of Palestine.

3. Publish full range of documents of Israeli atrocities toward Palestinians at all times.

Thats it!

I firmly believe that when Israeli society will openly and unequivocally admits the truths, it will reorganize itself politically and it will find the simple, moral and just solution to Middle East crisis in no time.

Alex Chaihorsky
Reno, Nevada.

P.S. I am waiting for your joke on this Bill.

Dear Curious:

All religions and ideologies have fundamentalist groups. When the society is attacked or humiliated these guys get an upper hand. Its no-brainer.
Humiliation of Moslem world by Israel treatment of Palestinians gave raise to Moslem fundamentalism the same way as humiliation of Germany after WWI gave raise to Nazism, humiliation of Russia in 1905 Russo-Japanese War gave raise to Bolsheviks and humiliation of America by 9/11 gave raise to Christian and neocon fundamentalism.

I am no "left", BTW. I am deeply religious Jew, Conservative Republican of the "paleocon" variety and a former militant Zionist.
But my life in Soviet Russia taught me to look with my own eyes and think for myself.
And always, always read in-between the lines and ask old Roman question "Qui prodest?" – Who profits?

Phil –

Economic suffering has nothing to do with this. Peoples' blood does not boil because of poverty, as long as the fine line between poverty and starvation is not crossed.
Its the mistreatment of one's blood or religion brothers, ancestral land theft and desecration of holy symbols that makes a man forget about his own life and move far from usual moderate views in his politics and/or religion.

The "clash of cultures" is a pure propaganda. Chinese traditional culture is even further away from that of ours or Moslem, but there is no "clash" neither here no there… There is more "clash" between French culture and Anglo-American while there is very little difference or between redneck and Yankee during Presidential campaines where there is none.
"Clash" is not between cultures, but between economic and political interests. But instead of resolving this by civilized means the ideologs threw in the air that bullshit about civilization incompatibility and then we can completely absolve ourselves of any responsibility to be good neighbors or sensible partners – because you cannot even talk to the "incompatibles", right?
BTW, precisely upon that preface both racist American South and South African Apartheid stood.
It is not that blacks are inferior, they claimed, or anything like that, its because they are incompatible with OUR CIVILIZATION. And has to be held apart, so we won't "clash"…
The whole history of the Old World is the history of how well different civilization interfaced with each other. And the wars was always about lands and riches and never about religion. Even so-called "religious wars" were about land and riches, as all the history of Crusades shows.
Sure, they used religious rhetoric, but as soon as the land was conquered and the riches taken, nobody was seriously concerned about the beliefs of the conquered population.

Not one – not one – of the previously featured pro- or anti-opinionators sought fit to mention G-D. Without His context arguments reduce all to pratfalls.
The Jews of Europe were punished for the sin of political schizophrena – the Heinrick Heine syndrome by the German Gentiles. Simmering for generations from time in memorial, the leistungsfahig of the Third Reich railroad system with help from IBM, allowed the rounding up of the millions. This was the price paid by the innocent. Millions were murdered allowing Israel to be reborn. Let us not forget that and let not the non-observant who call themselves Zionists forget their burden of the shared Biblical inheritance of the union of Avram and Hagar. The Jewish people have been returned to His land to help the children of Ishmael to unravel the mystery of Genesis 16:12.