Giuliani adviser Daniel Pipes (writing in Jerusalem) and I are in complete agreement: Zionism is in crisis. Zionism suited the spirit of its times. Zionism arose from real conditions in Europe and spoke to the soul of American Eastern-European Jewry). Zionism has lost its moral heart even to young Israelis, who are avoiding military service. Zionism seems completely out of step with today’s world. Only 17 percent of American Jews call themselves Zionist. Pipes’s response is militant conservative nationalism. Mine is: History is a progressive force, let’s go with the flow!
(By the way, in this piece Pipes purposefully ignores Walt/Mearsheimer in making a list of distressing developments. As Pipes has stated on his website, this is tactical, aimed at depriving them of prominence– and for a historian, completely intellectually dishonest. W/M are a more significant factor in Zionism’s crisis than Avram Burg’s recent defection).
The only thing that can save Zionism now is a viable 2-state solution that enables the Palsetinians to have their own nationalism. There is something worth saving in Zionism, but not if it means the Palestinians cannot have a viable state of their own. This is the major issue for Israelis today. They must decide. The Palestinians too must make a decision – are they with Abbas or are they with Hamas. The former holds out hope for both groups, the latter for neither.
The Palestinians need a parallel movement to Zionism. Zionism has an overwhelming positive achievement. Discount the religious nationalist drag, which became attached to it, and can be discarded.
If the Palestinians gain independence immaturely, and will control the border entries, they will be invaded by Iranian agents as it happened in Iraq and Gaza.
It is a good recipe for a sure failure.
The Palestinians should work hard to correct the historical failures of the Grand Mufti Amin Husseini, Shukeiri, Arafat, Abu Ala and Abu Mazen.
Haniyeh is not worth of mentioning, he is a true Iranian puppet.
Sorry for my immodest blog, radical Palestinians are still dominating the scene, by the volume of the screaming, not by the numbers.
The local Palestinian residents can not regain their independence unless the Diaspora Palestinian Lobby comes to a sensible stand.
This Palestinian lobby is undermining the peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
A few negative examples of propaganda advocates: the late Edward Said, Al Awda, Al Aryan, and do not forget the Egyptian-Swiss Prof. Tariq Ramadan.
Well balanced experienced observers should deal with this aspect of the conflict, too.
It depends on what is called Zionism.
If Jews are a people, which we are, then we have a right and responsibility to self-govern.
If we are only a movement, or an assimilated minority, then we don't need a state, but other means of self-governance.
For whatever historical sequence, and consequences to third parties, a large portion of Jews were forced by circumstances and opportunity to firm their/our nation in Israel, geographic and social.
There may be post-Zionism as in a European Union, but that takes time and acceptance.
A-Zionism is an intellectual exercise from a distance.
To the question, "what is it that you are, what is it that you are a part of?", it is either the non-answer "I don't know",
or best answer "multiple balanced identities, neither predominant",
or worst "nothing"
or worse than worse "ashamed of myself, my community, my world".
"If Jews are a people, which we are, then we have a right and responsibility to self-govern."
Then why don't all peoples have this same right? Why are white people called racist for wanting to live in a white community. Why are christians vilified for wanting a Christian nation (see John McCain's statements).
And the opposition comes from Jews, mostly.
Daveq,
I have no problem with that whatsoever. And I'm a jew. If you and your white supremacist friends (I don't mean that in a negative way, just descriptive) want to set up a whites only country somewhere. Go right ahead. As a libertarian I have no problem with it. I won't visit you there, but knock yourself out. Jews and others complain when those arguments are made about turning the USA, an existing multi-ethnic society into a whites only haven.
Since there are scores of countries in Europe that are governed by white christians, and scores of countries goverened by other same ethno-religious groups, jews would like one, just one country where they to can be a majority and govern themselves. You're right that it is a bit hypocritical, but often those jews complaining about a white supremacist country also complain about Zionism.
And from what I read there are a lot of non-Jewish Israeli citizens with the same rights as Jews.
"there are a lot of non-Jewish Israeli citizens with the same rights as Jews."
But that's the problem, there aren't. Wake up.
"Jews and others complain when those arguments are made about turning the USA, an existing multi-ethnic society into a whites only haven."
This is pure BS.
The same complaints, the same screeching editorials and condemnations come from the same sources, when any western nation tries to organize itself around religion or race.
As for the US, no one is saying we need to kick anyone out, just make the US a Christian nation like Israel is a Jewish nation. Minorities can live among the Christians, Just like they live among Jews in Israel, but we will be able to preserve our "Christian majority", just like Jews protect their Jewish majority in Israel.
And America has been/was a Christian nation with a Christian majority for much long than Israel has been around.
You just can't see that Israel is a contradiction with current humanist values of the west, with Jews fighting hardest for humanism in one place, when it benefits them, and for tribalism in another place, when it benefits them.
America is definitively NOT a Christian nation.
It is a civil nation.
And I thank God and the innovative founders and amenders for it.
And just for the record, I am not a "white supremacist" nor a "white separatist" or anything of the sort.
But your use of that term shows that you agree that the policies of Israel are essentially the same as the policies those people are asking for. Nice.
You arguments as to whether such policies are ok rests on the "tradition" of the country, which is not only inaccurate but also woefully insufficient. It is beyond weak.
The Zionist establishment has not changed its spots in the slightest. Hostility to Iran is the new "litmus test" for getting big Jewish donors on board.
"The John Edwards presidential campaign has a problem. Set to announce the appointment of former Rep. David Bonior as campaign manager in a few days, Edwards' strategists began to realize that the Michigan Democrat's strong support for Palestinians while Bonior was in Congress could hurt Edwards among American Jews.
And if Jewish voters started to get nervous about the former senator from North Carolina, a lot of dollars could be at stake.
Therefore Bonior has started making calls to influential American Jewish leaders, including some members of Congress, and to political donors. Bonior assured the leaders he would not be involved in Middle East policy, and said his appointment did not suggest any changes in Edwards's positions on Israel. But many Jewish leaders were still angry that their input was sought only after the decision had been made.
The move added Edwards to the Jewish list of Democratic presidential candidates whose support for Israel, while strong, has blemishes. Some of the leading White House candidates don't have long congressional voting records with which to assess their support for Israel, so Jewish voters use other indicators to gauge candidates, such as whom the candidates are associating with, and how often the candidates talk about Middle East issues when they aren't speaking in front of Jews.
Thus far, many Jewish Democrats have rallied behind Hillary Clinton. And although Jews love Giuliani because of his support for Israel, many influential Jewish Republicans have not taken sides in what they view as a wide-open GOP race.
A higher percentage of Jews vote than the general public, and many are active political donors. This time around, Jews could play an even larger role in both the primary and general elections.
Historically, Jews have lent most of their support to Democrats and to liberal causes. But as more Republicans have embraced Israel, the GOP has been gaining in the Jewish community in recent years. Bush garnered about 25 percent of the Jewish vote in 2004, up from 19 percent in 2000. Jewish support was seen as helpful in winning electoral votes for Bush in Ohio and Florida.
In 2008, Jewish votes could help in the primaries, because several states with large Jewish populations — including California, Florida, and New York — will vote on or before February 5. That's why Democrats have been actively pursuing Jewish supporters and donors.
Many Jewish leaders see the Clinton campaign as the most organized and the most pro-israel, and a lot of support has already coalesced around her.
"The Jewish perception is that Hillary’s going to win," said a Jewish official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "So Jews want to be with the winning team, and want to be there early."
Advisers in the Jewish community say Clinton has said and done the right things since being elected to the Senate in 2000, including leading the effort in Congress to have the International Red Cross recognize the Israeli branch known as Magen David Adom. "She has built a relationship with the Jewish community in New York that shows how she has evolved," a Jewish official said.
Barack Obama has made inroads with Jews that are opposed to the Iraq war, but Jews are not happy that Obama aligned himself with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, who defended the Mearschiemer-Walt book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella organization for American Jewish groups (including AIPAC), said Brzezinski is a concern to many in the Jewish community because of his positions on Israel.
"If a candidate doesn't have a track record of supporting Israel, then we focus on who's advising him," a Jewish official said. "Who are the voices that influence them? Who has access to the candidate's ear?"
Obama and Edwards have surrounded themselves with Jewish community leaders and supporters in an attempt to offset Jewish concerns. Obama advisers also stress that Brzezinski will not be advising Obama on Israeli affairs.
On the Republican side, Giuliani has attracted early support from Republican Jews. It helps that Giuliani was mayor in a city with a large Jewish population, and Giuliani is well known for his strong ties to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Giuliani also scored points for kicking Arafat out of a concert for world leaders in 1995.
"The Orthodox community in New York is obviously not the only Orthodox community in the country, but it's the largest," said one Jewish leader, speaking of the more conservative strand of Judaism. "And so far, they are going with what they know, and that's Rudy."
Elsewhere in the country, Jews are concerned about Giuliani’s and McCain’s electability. "It's disconcerting," said Fred Zeidman, a Republican fundraiser in Houston and the chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, who has been raising money for McCain. "None of us are making serious headway in the Jewish community."
Some analysts said Jewish donors may be more likely to give once the candidates discuss their Middle East policies. Positions may become clearer on October 16, when the GOP contenders gather in Washington to address the Republican Jewish Coalition. At that meeting, most of the candidates will address an audience interested primarily in the Middle East, and some campaigns will use the forum to discuss where they stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and their views on dealing with Iran.
Indeed, Iran has become the new bellwether for the Jewish community. Historically, Jewish voters were most concerned about whether candidates supported Israel. Now that support for Israel is a universal policy position in Washington, the new test is how tough the candidates will be against Iran, and whether they would favor Israel taking pre-emptive action.
Source:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21266470/
Apologies for posting this in more than one comment section, but I think Zvi would appreciate this piece by Gershon Baskin.
neo-zionist
I like the ring to that.
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4583
The majority of Israelis, like me, can no longer use the term "Zionist" to define what we believe in. "Zionism" has been hijacked by the movement of settlers who have built hundreds of settlements in the West Bank and are the primary obstacle to making peace with our Palestinian neighbors on the basis of the two-states-for-two-people solution. As I’ve argued in The Jerusalem Post, we need a new definition. We need a neo-Zionism.
The hijacking of Zionism is not a new phenomenon. It is at least as old as the occupation itself – 40 years. What is new is the realization that we may be facing the final opportunity to divide historic Palestine into two sovereign states. The settlement movement has changed the reality of the West Bank so deeply that many question the very possibility of creating a viable Palestinian state today.
If this is so, the victory of the settlers and their settlement enterprise will succeed in bringing about an end to the Zionist enterprise. An Israeli Jewish state on all of the land between the river and the sea will within one generation no longer have an Israeli Jewish majority. Control of the non-Jewish population within those borders will only be possible through repressive means. Once the two-state solution is no longer valid, the entire international community will join the campaign to paint Israel as an apartheid state. Once that happens, it is only a matter of time before the state of Israel will have absolutely no legitimacy to exist.
Today the so-called Zionist movement is, in my mind, similar to the Zealots of Masada who in their heroism committed national suicide 2,000 years ago. In order to differentiate between the modern day Zealots and the rest of us Zionists, I use the term neo-Zionist to define people who share the belief that the Jewish people have a right to a nation state, equal to the rights of every other people. The term defines a belief that the state of the Jewish people must be democratic and just and must be based on the prophetic values on which our heritage as a people stands firm.
As neo-Zionists, we must also search for new ways to translate our Jewishness into modernity that does not detach ourselves from our roots but also helps us to give meaning to that Jewishness outside of the synagogue. The challenge of finding and shaping the Jewishness of the state must be a joint project that includes those settlers that we are calling on to come back home to Israel. Our challenge will also be to enable those people to feel at home in a society that is represented to them by the secular "holy city" of Tel Aviv.
Religion and the State
The system of relations between religion and state practiced in Israel today is a primary factor alienating most young Israelis from Judaism and Jewish expression. The system of control over religion, inherited from the Ottoman Empire, gives the state power over the formation of religious establishments and all issues concerning personal status such as birth, death, marriage, and burial. This system by definition limits pluralism and religious freedoms. In Israel there is no freedom of religion and there is no freedom from religion. The only escape from state religious control over personal status issues is to leave the country. Reform and Conservatives rabbis, for example, can practice the rites of marriage and burial all over the world except in the Israel. Likewise, there is no legal way for people of two different religions to marry in Israel. They must go abroad to marry, and only then will the civil institutions of the state recognize the marriage.
The Israeli state must relinquish control over religion as a necessary precondition for enabling Judaism to find new expressions in Israeli society and culture. The state-controlled monopoly over Judaism has frozen Jewish expression and culture in a very narrow confined space held by Orthodoxy as interpreted by very small sects within Jewish society. This must change.
The Jewish religion itself has a very small role in shaping state policies. The exception is, of course, the overwhelming power of the settlement movement vis-à-vis all governments since 1967. The settlers anchored their expansionist ideology in Jewish history and religion and in long-term strategic planning and implementation by taking control of key institutions such as the civil administration and offices controlling land registration. The anchoring of the settlement enterprise on religion was quite easy. After the miracle victory of the 1967 war in six short days a wave of messianic urges together with the nationalist, chauvinistic militarism that spread throughout Israeli society enabled the leaders of the settlement movement to link every step they took to the pages of the Bible. The guidebook for the building of settlements was and remains the Old Testament. The names of the settlements are the same as the cities and villages of old, and they are located on the very same land where they existed during the times of the Prophets. This linkage naturally has great popular appeal and was supported by most of the political parties making up most of the governments since 1967.
Only recently have the majority of Israelis and the majority of the political parties that compose the government come to understand that we must break the link. The majority of Israelis realize that in order to maintain Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we must break the link, we must remove the settlements in the hinterlands of the West Bank, and we must come back home to the state of Israel within the Green Line border. As part of this new reality in Israel, the settlement movement is increasingly becoming perceived as a threat to the existence of the state. Those sentiments will strengthen if it appears that there is a real partner for peace in Palestine and that the peace process is genuine.
Land and Peace
The problem that we will face, and we experienced this in the disengagement from Gaza, is that the split of opinions in Israel on the issue of land and peace is very similar to the religious-secular split in the society. Chances are that if you are a religious Israeli, you will support the settlers and if you are secular, you are more likely to support compromise on territory with the Palestinians. This is not a 100% correlation, because the first half of the sentence is truer than the second. Most religious people in Israel will find it more difficult to give up parts of the land of Israel than secular people. At Peace Now demonstrations it is difficult to find many people with the religious kippa (skull cap) on their heads, while at the demonstrations in favor of the settlers it is difficult to see people without their heads covered.
When and if the battle on the future of the borders of the state of Israel is behind us, it will be necessary to find the path toward healing the wounds and for creating dialogue and reconciliation between the religious and the secular parts of Israeli society. The resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will also necessitate resolving fundamental questions regarding the status of the Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Two aggravating factors may play a very negative role in the coming years. Proposals for land swaps with the Palestinians that would enable a large number of settlers to remain where they are involved moving the border westwards in a way that would include several very large Palestinian-Israeli cities within the new Palestinian state. From the point of view of most Jewish-Israelis this is a very positive idea. From the point of view of almost all of those Palestinian-Israelis who will be directed affected by the change of border this is a very negative step. One Palestinian member of the Knesset, Ahmad Tibi, described it as being "obscene."
There is a certain compelling logic to the idea – why shouldn't Palestinians who sees themselves as part of the Palestinian people and also see themselves as discriminated against by Israel be pleased to be included in the new Palestinian state? Objectively this should be perceived as a blessing. They are not required to leave their homes and land. There is no transfer or expulsion; it is simply a change of border. One reason for the reluctance of Palestinian Israelis to support this border change can be found in the economic disparities between Israel and Palestine, but it is more complex than that. The very raising of the issue is going to add to tensions that already exist and will require both sides, Jewish Israeli and Palestinian Israelis, to seriously question and tackle the meaning of citizenship for Palestinian Israelis.
The second aggravating factor is the rise of the radical Islamic movement in many of the communities of Palestinian Israeli citizens. The branch of the movement represented by Sheikh Raed Salah of Umm el Fahem is successfully radicalizing many segments of the society and pushing them toward a denial of the possibility of coexistence between Islam and the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The distance between holding that ideology and taking action on it is very short and this poses a great danger to the future of relations between Israel and its Palestinian citizens.
In the view of this neo-Zionist, it is legitimate to raise the issue of transferring the border so that some Palestinian Israeli communities could be found within the state of Palestine, but the implementation of that should only be done with the agreement of those who will be affected by it. If done in a reasonable way, raising this issue could actually have a very positive impact on shaping the definition of citizenship for Palestinian-Israelis. In my view, there is absolutely no reason why Palestinian citizens of Israel should not enjoy full equality in the state. There is no reason why Palestinian Israelis should not have a lot more autonomy over their educational system. There is also no reason why they should not be called to do a non-military national service to serve their state and their communities.
Once there is a state of Palestine next to the state of Israel living in peace, the issues concerning citizenship and possibly dual citizenship should be somewhat easier to deal with. The pretexts for discrimination will hopefully no longer exist, and Israel will have to work much harder at finding the true expression of its democracy.
Gershon Baskin is the co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. For more articles in FPIF's Religion and Foreign Policy focus, please visit www.fpif.org.
Interesting article.
Thanks for posting.
Actually, there has always been less to Zionism than met the eye. Approximately 3,500 Diaspora Jews went to Palestine to fight in Israel's War of Independence. After establishing the Jewish Paradise however, most of them returned "home" again, rather than actually live in it! This caused some rather large holes in the IDF.
There is also a problem with Israel's democracy, since it's one of the few nations without geographically elected Members of Parliament. They're instead elected by Party Lists, with the percentage of the vote for a party dictating how many candidates on their list attain seats. In the beginning Israeli Jews would supposedly be able to influence the Knesset through their party membership. But as fewer and fewer Israelis actually participate in parties, and the parties themselves become fragmented into splinters, this option has lost whatever effectiveness it once had. In fact, the large number of parties represented in the Knesset brings to mind Weimar Germany, and we all know how THAT turned out:
"Springtime for Bibi and Israel
Winter for Syria and Iran
We've got a date with des-tin-ny
He'll give us a place in the sun!"
"America is definitively NOT a Christian nation."
Until the Lemon decision we had prayer in schools. My father said prayers in school.
It took the courts to change that with a misreading of the Constituion.
And the fact is, America is a de facto Christian nation.
And regardless, even if it wasn't a Christian nation, those who support Israel as a Jewish nation and claim Jewish people should be able to rule themselves remove any grounds of objection to christians wanting a Christian nation so that they too can rule themselves.
Phil: I think you're being charitable to Pipes by calling him a "historian." He once was a historian when he was in academia 20 yrs ago or so. But he's long ago stopped being one & become a propagandist.
Could you provide us a link to the 17% figure. That seems impossibly low. I think based on my own experience the number would be closer to 80%+ depending on how you define what constitutes calling onself "Zionist."
I found the study. It's by Steven Cohen:
Boy these folks really live up to the ugly stereotype of being clannish.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/magazine/14syrians-t.html?ei=5070&en=bebbfdbe6590abec&ex=1192939200&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all
So I have to ask myself, is the way I see these Sys, the way non-Jews see me?
Probably not, as I'm highly assimilated and pretty much the opposite of the Sys. I'm not rich and most of my friends aren't Jewish, but I sure hope that these folks aren't what people think of when they think of Jews.
That 17% figure seems odd. As nice as it would be to believe, it's just not the case that the majority of the Jewish community today opposes the idea of a racially defined state on Palestinian land. At best the survey indicates that negative associations with the term "Zionist" are growing, so that people are reluctant to publicly identify with it. Perhaps we'll soon be seeing another word to take its place — like "self-association".
This blog is very helpful, indeed therapeutic. With the appearance of the Armenian Lobby who happily endanger the lives of thousands of American service personnel in order to pass a resolution about something that happened in 1915, I'm having a relativist, mini-epiphany about the Jewish Lobby. Which only is the most visible because it is so obnoxious.
What we have to do is to investigate if the United States is really anything more than just a group of isolated ethnic and interest groups jockeying to get their agendas tended to.
Is America today only some sort of mega-Bosnia or a country with a people?
This is not a rhetorical question. Spain, where I live has been a united country with roughly its present borders for over 500 years and I imagine the word "Spain" calls up some sort of a clear image, but the different regions play identity and language politics to the point of bombs (in the Basque case).
So I do worry if the American are really a "people" at all, or are they just a collection of fat folk who shop together.
It's a question worth asking David. Identity politics can get real messy. I'm glad you realize that Jews are not the only ones with these tensions and issues. At times it seems as if Jews are the only group people want to address this with, when it is occuring across the ethnic smorgasboard. Remember when Croats and Serbs were fighting in the streets of Chicago and San Pedro?
Those lobbies were doing whatever they could to influence American Foreign Policy.
No one on this blog has yet to raise the issue of Saudi influence in DC. They are playing the game like everyone else.
W&M acknowledge that the Israeli Lobby doesn't exist in a vacuum and is just playing the game like all the other interest parties. It is incumbent upon us as Americans to acknowledge the existence of these special interest groups, hear their pitches, and then make our policies independent of what the interst group wants, but instead based on what is in our country's best interest.
The Turkish-Armenian issue is an interesting example. Can an Armenian-American be loyal to the USA, but also want his/her grandparents death acknowledged and want Congree to pass this bill? Does an Armenian pushing for this bill to go through now really qualify as a dual-loyalist? Some would say that this is a great American thing to do. We are standing up for truth. Others will say it is idiotic to do so right now given the Realpolitic.
This goes back to my question to Gene the other day – what policies must one endorse in order to not be a dual loyalist?
Stein wrote: "Does an Armenian pushing for this bill to go through now really qualify as a dual-loyalist?"
I'm not following you. In what sense does a request to recognize an historic genocide consititute a case of dual-loyalty? Are you implying it's somehow similiar to an attempt to involve America in a war for a foreign country's sake?
David,
I wouldn't consider it dual-loyalty either, but if pushing this bill through now costs us Turkey as an ally and results in a war in Kurdistan, and American troops are killed as a result, and some Americans don't want us to pass this Kafkaesque bill because of our relationship with Turkey, is the Armenian Lobby that has been behind this bill somehow balancing dual-loyalties with American and Armenia (or the Armenians)?
If this bill goes through it creates some lawsuit dangers for the Turks. Armenia stands to gain as a result.
I personally believe that the Turks really did commit genocide against the Armenians 100 years ago. I'm not sure if we really need a bill from congress to validate this fairly self-evident truth, but given the revisionist history the Turks have been trying to peddle I don't blame them.
If it were up to me, I'd probably shelve the bill for right now, cool things off with Turkey, invite the Turks to send a team of historians to meet with other historians and to create a commission that would examine it so that the Turks can see for themselves what the evidence is.
Why is the ethnic homogeneity, or lack thereof, of the United States, being discussed? America is defined by the constitution, which affords equal protection to all, under the law (at least, after the slave issue was resolved in accord with the principle of equal rights). Ethnic considerations are nothing more than a straw man argument. David Seaton, perhaps you've been in Spain too long. There may be fat Americans, and there may be Americans obsessed with consumer culture, but America, at least until this odious administration came along, was always defined as being ruled not my men, not by sectarian passions, but by laws. Sectarian passions were explicitly named by George Washington as evils to be shunned. The principle of equal protection under the law is what embodies all that was, and will again be, noble about the American experiment.
Remember "…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth?" That was the watchword. What concerns so many of us today is identifying with precision exactly what it is that so distorts this concept. What keeps Pelosi from following the mandate of the people to end the war, to impeach the executive? The short answer is … money. Money distorts the American political process.
Eisenhower stated it clearly in his farewell address to the nation–it is worth re-reading:
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
What could be clearer, more prophetic? Our democratic processes are now endangered. Our liberties are being choked off, not by foreign militants, but by our own government. Ike ended his speech on this sad note:
"Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war — as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years — I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight."
With intellect and with decent purpose. Neither were present in the secret rooms where the Iraq war was planned six years ago, and neither are present today as plans are drawn up to go to war with Iran. All true patriots want us to return to the ideas embodied in our constitution, embodied in the words of Lincoln, and of Eisenhower, regardless of the color of their skin, or of their ethnicity.
It is precisely the acquisition of unwarranted interest that leads us again and again to war that true patriots fight against.
Only the money interests of the MIC wish otherwise. Only the War Pigs, and their vile propagandists, want war.
It has absolutely NOTHING to do with ethnicity.
Allahstein,
The Turks already KNOW what the evidence is. A few years ago someone wrote a book which only mentioned the Armenian Genocide. He got a letter from the Turkish Embassy contesting that there had been a genocide. But accidentally included with the Embassy letter was one TO the Embassy from an American scholar hired to advise Turkey on how to deal with people like the author. Ironically, their hired scholar advised them to ignore the author, because he was only citing someone else's work. The author made public both letters, and the hired scholar's name was MUD in the academic world.
But what's really shocking about this is that the hired scholar referred to the Armenian Genocide as a FACT and was advising the Turkish Government on denying and covering up this FACT.
History as progressive force (PW)?
Cleaning out a cupboard I came across a hoard of issues of the New York Review of Books circa 1989-91.
The death pangs of the Soviet Union and its satellite regimes breathlessly described in intimate detail. History as progressive force gets a tick here.
Yet in Israel?
In the issue of 19 July 1990, Murray Kempton had a vignette titled 'The Darkening Light'. Kempton reproduces two quotes from the contemporary press:
"Amid a growing unease with the new right-wing government, forty-nine top U.S. Jewish leaders from across the political spectrum have signed an ad appearing in Israeli newspapers calling for immediate electoral reform in Israel and an end to 'the embarrassing trade-offs' required to form a government." Newsday June 14.
"Mr. Shamir's aides privately explain that the Prime Minister is caught between the image he would like to project abroad and the constraints he faces in a narrow coalition with what some in his office are calling 'right-wing crazies'." New York Times June 14.
Kempton continues:
'The forty-nine notables amoung our Jewish fellow citizens who now strain at the gnat of Israel's electoral system have in most cases swallowed camel after camel with either vocal satisfcation or silence. Israel has been wounded not by the way it elects its governors but by the inertia that has become their habit. There are inevitable consequences to maintaining a military occupation through twenty-three years after a victory. …
'But then, once the politics of power is substituted for moral force, the end is inevitably an Israel that lobbies against a bill to condemn Turkey's atrocities upon the Armenians, that was more content with juntas in Argentina and dictators in Nicaragua and Panama, and is aggrieved by the mild strictures of the Dutch and the Swedes.
'Once we could think of Israel as a light unto the MIddle East; but what do we see more distressingly now than the shadows of the dark old Middle Eastern doctine that the enemy of my enemy is my friend?'
In this domain, History, it appears, is mired in the trenches, pinned down by a criminal tribal Israeli establishment and the heavy artillery of the Israel lobby.
But here are M&W lobbing a few grenades! Yet who is to provide their air cover?
I don't know if it is because of M&W's book, or because of the upcoming peace summit, but if you read the comments at Haaretz for this article you'll see a lot of angry American Jews telling Israel to get its act together or risk losing support from the US.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/912695.html
Expect some increased turbulence on El Al the next few months ahead. If these comments are any indication, American Jews are speaking up more about their dissatisfaction with the Israeli government and its policies, and with the Israelis.
It seems clear from the above blogging that American GIs will contine to die for historical trible reasons. And I will continue to
pay taxes for these tribes. No wonder I will vote for Ron Paul.
The fat folks of no special distinction as a group except they
consume a lot to be patriotic and social. They're all around me. A few even think being an American is a concept, not an ethnic group or tribe.