From what I saw and read of the Dems' debate last night, Israel/Palestine was not mentioned. The blackout continues. Indeed, the only reference I've seen in presidential politics to what I consider the most important issue the country faces was a Ron Paul supporter outside the Reagan Library the other day holding up a "No More Wars for Israel" poster. And Ron Paul raised more money than any other Republican in the last quarter, feeding off a groundswell of Iraq-borne alienation.
Where is the mainstream media and why are they afraid of this issue?
Today I'd point to a notable exception: Nick Goldberg, editor of the LA Times Op-ed page, who in an interview by the Jewish Journal, described Israel/Palestine as the most controversial subject he deals with, but said that doesn't scare him off. He gets more letters from the pro-Israel crowd than anybody else (it's called the Israel lobby) and yet he runs pieces by Khaled Mashal of Hamas and Walt and Mearsheimer and speaks openly of the "Nakba," the ethnic-cleansing of 1948.
From the interview:
Journal: Is this the hottest issue of all your many different issues?
NG: I think at most big papers in the country, the issue of Israel is the most controversial subject there is. In Los Angeles, the issue of the Armenian Genocide is very controversial. The war in Iraq is controversial. But there's no question -- when we run pieces on Israel and Palestine we'll get a huge reaction...We get far more letters from people supportive of Israel writing in, either to agree with something we wrote or to attack something we wrote. There are no question that letters come much more heavily from Jews that from Arabs, from pro-Israel people than anti-Israel people.JJ: If Adolf Hitler came to you and wanted to publish something on your opinion pages, would you publish him?"
NG: That's a hard question. Some things are so offensive, so wrongheaded, so racist, that we wouldn't publish them. We do have certain standards. But at the same time, we try to err on the side of publishing rather than not publishing. If I got a piece in tomorrow from Osama bin Laden, chances are I'd publish it. If I had received a piece from Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the Iraq War, I'd have published that. I think it's important for readers to hear all different sides.It's important for people in the United States to know what Hamas thinks, or to know what Hamas says; when Hamas won an election in Gaza we took that seriously, and we wanted to know what the new prime minister had to say about it. And we published a piece he wrote about what could be expected in the months and years ahead.
JJ: Do you think there is an objective truth when it comes to the Middle East or it's just a difference of opinion?
NG: There is certainly truth when it comes to the facts, and there is truth when it comes to the history, and it's very, very difficult sometimes to find out what that truth is. It's the job of reporters and historians to try to dig as deeply as they can to try to get to that truth. But the Middle East is so emotional that the subject is so emotional and there's so much bitterness and so much history and so much anger that it's hard to cut through to the facts and you have to look at it through this prism of opinion.
In this issue more than others there's a really valuable role for opinion pieces to play. And you can really learn a lot from opinions. It's very unusual for Jews and Israelis to think about what's gone on that part of the world from a Palestinian point of view. [Emphasis mine] I think it's hard for the Palestinians to understand what they look at as "The Nakba," and to see the Jewish experience. ...What I found is that many people are much too closed-minded to read pieces by others who they don't agree with. But we keep publishing them.
Goldberg says his own views of Israel/Palestine are "immaterial" to his job. I'm not buying: There is something inherently liberal and universalist in Goldberg's comments that I sense is more tolerable in the new world of California than it is in establishment east-coast opinion pages, calcified by power.
And then, too, Goldberg lived for several years in the 90s in Israel. He knows how alive the Israeli press is on these issues. Why can't we have that here?
"The blackout continues. Indeed, the only reference I've seen in presidential politics to what I consider the most important issue the country faces "
To you Israel is more important than Iraq, or the economy or the environment?
I don't think Israel is that critical an issue for the US, or for the world.
Its important to me, but I don't think the world turns on what happens to Israel, and much less so to Palestine.
The sign "No more war for Israel" is false or exagerated to my understanding.
"It's very unusual for Jews and Israelis to think about what's gone on that part of the world from a Palestinian point of view. [Emphasis mine] I think it's hard for the Palestinians to understand what they look at as "The Nakba," and to see the Jewish experience. "
!!!!! (that's my emoticon for hear hear.)
Understanding is what is needed, both ways.
Including from ANYONE that has any tendency to dehumanize the other in any way.
Two mentally disabled Jewish women were strapped with explosives Friday and sent into busy Christian markets, where they were blown up by remote control, a top government official said.
The bombs killed at least 98 people and wounded more than 200 at two popular pet markets on the holiest day of the week for Christians, authorities said.
In both bombings, the attackers were mentally disabled women whose explosive belts were remotely detonated, Gen. Frank Jones, spokesman for the Government’s security plan, told state television.
Jones said the women were strapped with dynamite and ball bearings, citing members of the bomb squad. The explosives were detonated via cell phone, he said.
A Jones aide said that people referred to the bomber at central Christian market as the "crazy woman" and that the bomber at a second market had an unspecified birth disability.
The aide said authorities believe the women were unaware of plans to detonate the explosives.
The identities of the women have not been released.
U.S. military officials referred to the two attacks as suicide bombings, saying both women detonated the explosive devices.
The U.S. officials also gave a much lower casualty toll, with 27 civilians dead and 53 others wounded.
The Pentagon attributed the attacks to Neocons and made no reference to the mental conditions of the women.
"By targeting innocent Christians, they show their true demonic character," said Lt. Col. Steve Mitchell, spokesman for the Multi-National Division.
"They care nothing for the Chrsitian people; they want to subjugate them and forcefully create a greater Jewish state," he said, referring to Talmudic law.
The violence marked the bloodiest series of attacks since August, breaking a brief stretch of relative calm as attacks and deaths dropped after 2007.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the attacks show the reality of the continuing struggle against neocons, adding that gentiles have turned against "these terrible, violent people in their midst who will do anything."
"It certainly underscores and affirms the decision of the gentile people that there is no political program here that is acceptable to a civilized society, and that this is the most brutal and the most bankrupt of movements that would do this kind of thing," she said at a press briefing. "And I think that will underscore for the gentiles, and it will make them tougher in the fight."
The first bomb blew up at the market around 10:30 a.m., killing 69 and wounding more than 140. The second blast happened about a half-hour later in a different neighborhood pet market, killing 29 people and wounding 67.
That's nice. There's probably no better way to deal with a neurotic, dishonest potato head like Weissy than to restate his arguments back to him. Black people are a small minority, yet they are responsible for most anti-social behavior. This is rarely stated as such. When I ask Black people about this they behave defensively and dishonestly. I wonder if Phil thinks we need to speak more about how bad Blacks have been for America?
imposter alert
Jewish Journal: "If Hitler came to you and wanted to publish something …"
—————–
Hitler would have probably written that as a young man in Vienna he approved of the Zionist concept of a 'pure Jewish state' in Palestine. That as chancellor after 1933 he modeled Germany accordingly by outlawing intermarriage and that he facilitated the illegal immigration of German and Austrian Jews to Palestine to embarrass the British.
It would be interesting to know what exactly made him change his mind and kill all Jews, Zionist or not.
- But why is the Jewish Journal asking this question other than to link Israel critics in some way to Hitler?
I wrote this
link to americangoy.blogspot.com
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when I was really ticked off last night for personal reasons.
Re-reading it, it is surprisingly coherent…
The whole Israeli-Palestinian issue is the 300 pound gorilla in the room, and no mainstream blogs will touch it with a 10 foot pole.
If independent progressive blogs are afraid to discuss the issue, what makes us think that the so called "progressive" presidential candidates will discuss it, other than (again) falling over themselves on how much they will help Israel once elected.
For the record, I think that the Israeli lobby influence in American domestic politics is the most important issue right now.
Like I wrote before, American system of government seems highly vulnerable to such influence – just research Cuba embargo and the role Cuban exiles in Florida have played and still play in national politics.
The Israel/Palestine issue HAS to be discussed in Israel, because it's a local issue that looms large in Israeli politics.
But in relation to the objective of obtaining "$3 billion a year forever" of U.S. funding, it is much preferable to have the U.S. press steer away from controversy, and simply repeat soothing platitudes about Israel's democracy.
"Loose lips sink ships" when it comes to keeping the gusher of gratuitous greenbacks flowing to Israel. Pass the word, brother!
That would be something if Goldberg and the Times interviewed a dead man. A more appropriate question might be "Why haven't you published anything on Benazir Bhutto's statement in an interview with David Frost that Bin Laden had been killed by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh?"
http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/15-01-2008/103426-benazir_bhutto_osama-0
Damn, where's my wallet? They did it again! Who can I complain to that has any power?
"I don't think Israel is that critical an issue for the US, or for the world."
Naturally, Witty. Nothing to see here, right?
Klaus – I wondered that myself, and found that organized zionists declared 'war' on Germany in 1933(I think) – an economic boycott of some sort that apparently had a rather negative effect on German society as one can imagine.
Funny the first time I've read anybody bring it up was the raging zionist "sword of gideon" on this very site. So this particular historical revelation is obviously associated with the far-right, David Duke crowd by some of us.
Now I'm not making any excuses for anything – though I'm sure that's how it will be called by some. But when I read this I was quite surprised(though I probably shouldn't have been)that I'd never heard this before.
Though it could be complete rubbish – maybe somebody is better informed on the topic than I…
In London and New York, the press, claiming to speak for "World Jewry" demanded an economic boycott of Germany before Krystal night.
Funny how jews get their knickers in a bunch when countries start to make anti-semitism state policy or threaten to make it state policy. Imagine them calling for an economic boycott.
By your logic the Israelis would be justified in expelling the Palestinians (or worse in the case of the Nazis) if the Arabs and their supporters threatened to boycott Israel.
IF memory serves, the timeline is this:
1.) 3-5-'33: NAZIs are elected to power in electoral coalition system (Non-two party system).
2.) 3-23-'33: Enabling Act passed, giving Hitler power.
3.) 3-24-'33: International financiers call for economic boycott of Germany, which is deep in a precarious economy, e.g., the Daily Express of London headlines read: "Judea Declares War On Germany" and an immediate sub-headline article reads: " Jews Of All The World Unite."
4.) 11-9,10-'38: Crystal Night…
Legislation and signing statements, any one?
Sub-prime mortgage, stupid war, easy Fed credit? Where's my china man?
Obama's Jewish Problem
by Rabbi Michael Lerner link to tikkun.org
In the days leading up to the Super Tuesday presidential primary sweepstakes, the Obama campaign has been making a special effort to reach out to Jewish voters. Representatives of the campaign have been visiting Jewish retirement homes, synagogues, and wherever else they can find a willing audience. Faced with Clinton campaigners making charges that he is not sufficiently pro-Israel, Obama himself wrote a letter to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Khalizad last week urging that the U.S. reject any resolution critiquing Israel's cut off of fuel and food to a million residents of Gaza "that does not fully condemn the rocket assaults Hamas has been conducting on civilians in southern Israel."
It's a problem that won't go away. Jewish voters are only 2% of the U.S. population, but they are mostly concentrated in the states with the highest number of delegate and electoral votes (New York, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois), they contribute financially to politicians disproportionately to their percentage of the voters, and they are often in key roles as opinion shapers in the communities in which they work or live.
Democratic Party appeals to the Jewish vote are not much different than the appeals that happens to other constituencies like the labor movement, the women's movement, Latino voters, African Americans, farmers, seniors or children, or Republican pandering to the anti-immigrants, Southern whites, or Catholic and Evangelical anti-abortion voters. They are as American as apple pie, even at the times when "appealing" slides into "pandering."
What puts Obama into difficulty is that his actual beliefs make this attempt to appeal to Jews difficult when it comes to Israel.
Obama is a spiritual progressive. He believes that human beings are equally valuable whether they are white or black, American or Asian or African or European. Apply that to the Middle East and you get policy inclinations very different from those which have been insisted upon by the Israel Lobby, supported by most of the establishment Jewish institutions, and through the power of their organized pressure, have become the dominant policy supported by both parties in rare unanimity.
So while spiritual progressives like us at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives have been insisting that the best path to Israeli security is a peace treaty with the Palestinian people and an approach that seeks mutual open-hearted repentance for the way each side has treated each other, the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza that is both politically and economically viable, reparations for Palestinians refugees, and a South-Africa model of "truth and reconciliation" in both Israel and Palestine, the Democratic Party and Republican Party have traditionally vied during the election period for which could appear more militant in its support for Israeli power and less sympathetic to the Palestinian people. While spiritual progressives support a Middle Path that is both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, the extreme partisans on both sides see us as abandoning their interests and covertly siding with the other.
Underlying this is a deeper ideological conflict. After the Vietnam war, there was a terrible fear among conservatives and the military-industrial complex that the peace movement might use the moral outrage at that war to mobilize for disarmament. Jewish neo-cons,fearful that a disarmed U.S. would be unable to play a central role in protecting Israel, took the leadership in warning against a "Vietnam syndrome." Security for the U.S. and Israel , they argued, comes from military strength, and those who seek peace, disarmament, and reconciliation with antagonists are naïve, utopian, dangerous and de facto anti-American or anti-Israel.
We spiritual progressives, on the other hand, believe that the strategy of dominating the other does not lead to homeland security either for the U.S. or for Israel, whose interests would better be served by a strategy of generosity, caring for the well-being of the other, and reaching out with open-heartedness to acknowledge the unintentional pain that we have caused others and seeking forgiveness for that. We have seen that the path of "toughness" doesn't work, doesn't yield security, but only intensifies the losses on both sides. Concretely, the Network of Spiritual Progressives is beginning a campaign for a Global Marshall Plan that would allocate 1-2% of the GDP of the U.S. every year for the next twenty to once and for all end domestic and global hunger, poverty, homelessness, inadequate education, inadequate health care, and repair the global environment. This is far more likely to dry up the cesspools of hatred against the U.S. from which terrorists are able to recruit their suicide bombers. The fact is that the strategy of domination has been tried for thousands of years, and it has never brought anyone security, so it's time to try the strategy of generosity.
In recent days, we at Tikkun magazine have had hundreds of emails from young Jews distraught at the television images of tens of thousands of Palestinians breaking out of the prison camp that Gaza has become, desperate for food, fuel and other goods that have been denied entry into Gaza by the Israeli army. A new generation of young Jews no longer blindly adopts the strategy of domination or salutes to the policies of the current government of Israel. It is these Jews who are the future, but they do not yet control the institutions of Jewish life. They understand that Israel will be far more secure if it adopts a strategy of generosity, and stops trying to show how "tough" it really is, but they also despair about Israel ever "getting it" in time to save itself from policies that further inflame hatred against it by human-rights respecting people around the world. No matter how much these young Jews may agree that Palestinian acts of terror or Hamas shelling of Sderot are also ugly and morally inexcusable acts, they understand that the overwhelming power of the Israeli military gives Israel the obligation to take the first definitive steps toward peace by embracing the kind of Progressive Middle Path that we articulate at Tikkun.
Obams's problem is that his spiritual progressive worldview is in conflict with the demands of the older generation of Jews who control the Jewish institutions and define what it is to be pro-Jewish, while his base consists of many young Jews who support him precisely because he is willing to publicly stand for the values that they hold. We can expect that this tension will be central should Obama win the nomination. But once in office, whether Obama actually pursues policies that are in accord with his highest beliefs as a spiritual progressive, or whether he finds it "too unrealistic" to try to buck the spineless Democrats who will bow to the Israel Lobby automatically, depends on whether we can build a powerful enough movement of ordinary citizens to push for a peace that provides security for Israel and justice for the Palestinian people. Obama has made it clear he would want to do that.
Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun magazine www.tikkun.org
Justin Raimondo asks, "A million dead [in Iraq] — and for what?"
"Because it was 'doable,' as Paul Wolfowitz put it. Because our foreign policy is in large part built around the concept of making the Middle East safe for Israel."
http://antiwar.com/justin/
Six million in the Holocaust, one million in Iraq. How long till the bloody neocons even the score?
"Black people are a small minority, yet they are responsible for most anti-social behavior… I wonder if Phil thinks we need to speak more about how bad Blacks have been for America?"
No. When speaking of blacks (and neo-cons), it's always important to hide the truth.
You got that right Gene. Read all about it
http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2007/01/02/selective-outrage-over-black-crime-victims/
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-09-24hm.html
http://www.davidduke.com/general/kayla-rolland-one-more-victim_21.html
http://www.whitecivilrights.com/black-kills-94-year-old-cuts-off-his-hand_1082.html
"I don't think Israel is that critical an issue for the US, or for the world." Richard Witty
A true statement. If we looked at Israel like any other nation-state, Israel is definitely insignificant to the USA. As such, the US should treat Israel appropriately and wish her well in the future.
We should cut off all aid so that Israel may kill and persecute any and all arabs, just so that it is not on our dime and that the citizens of the US are not blamed for Israel's actions.
Patrick, I completely agree. They are not us, and we are not them. Let them handle their affairs as they see fit and suffer the consequences of their actions.
Of course if they should decide to take aid from Russia or China and become a client state of one of those wannabe super powers, it might create some problems for us in the region. Similarly, if there were to be a hot war in the region and the Israelis were to be threatened with defeat and destruction, they wouldn't hesistate to light up their enemies and create a global oil shortage that would drive the entire world into a global recession.
Me thinks it is more complicated than you have considered.
Don't worry though, Phil Weiss likes to see things in black and white, so he will simplify the world for all of us.
This might interest you:
http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2008/01/but-apart-from.html
In contrast,
I think the US should continue aid to Israel for genuinely defensive purposes, and I know that is grey.
Israel is an ally, a treaty partner, and deserves the protection that the US affords as a member of the civil community of nations.
Iraq was an idiocy, but has nothing to do with "evening the score". What an ignorant statement.
Even among the neo-conservatives there are varying degrees of concerns for consequences to others, which can be appealed to, with an entirely different weight of policy conclusion.
Diminishing the importance of the neo-conservative argument is NOT achieved by name-calling.
That recommendation is for people like Phil who are intelligent enough to actually research and convey critical and alternative approaches.
Uhm, do the letters really have to be that tiny? I can hardly read anything…
Otherwise, keep up the splendid work!
"Israel is an ally, a treaty partner, and deserves the protection that the US affords." – R. Witty
Care to name which treaty you are referring to, and when it was ratified?
You can't. You got taken in by Bush's careless use of language, when he called Israel an 'ally.'
It isn't, either in law or in fact.
So UNited suggests that we must pay tribute to Israel because they hold MidEast oil resources hostage?
To hell with that. Cut off aid to Israel and if they want to ally themselves with China or Russia, Americans will see Israel for what they really are – something other than friends of America. Besides, America will benefit more from having a billion oil rich Islamic friends than we will from continuing to have the millstone of Israel wrapped around our neck anyway.
Right, but check out the Memorandums, e.g., on military weapons and assurance of Israel getting any oil it needs. They sure were not written and approved by the victims of Hurricane Karina. (Obama, listen up!)
To add to that – how does Israel "deserve the protection that the U.S affords"?
Umpteen UN/UNSC violations, and handful of aggressive and illegal attacks on neighboring states(Egypt, Syria, Palestine '67, Lebanon '75, '82, '96,'06; Iraq '81 – including the illegal occupation of Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian lands and the illegal annexation of Jerusalem. Supplying and aiding a nuclear weapons program in apartheid South Africa as well as supplying this and other undemocratic regimes with weapons mostly used against their own citizens(El Salvador).
Or perhaps in that context you might be right in saying that which the U.S affords – though I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that's not what you had in mind…
To add to that – how does Israel "deserve the protection that the U.S affords"?
Umpteen UN/UNSC violations, and handful of aggressive and illegal attacks on neighboring states(Egypt, Syria, Palestine '67, Lebanon '75, '82, '96,'06; Iraq '81 – including the illegal occupation of Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian lands and the illegal annexation of Jerusalem. Supplying and aiding a nuclear weapons program in apartheid South Africa as well as supplying this and other undemocratic regimes with weapons mostly used against their own citizens(El Salvador).
Or perhaps in that context you might be right in saying that which the U.S affords – though I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that's not what you had in mind…
To add to that – how does Israel "deserve the protection that the U.S affords"?
Umpteen UN/UNSC violations, and handful of aggressive and illegal attacks on neighboring states(Egypt, Syria, Palestine '67, Lebanon '75, '82, '96,'06; Iraq '81 – including the illegal occupation of Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian lands and the illegal annexation of Jerusalem. Supplying and aiding a nuclear weapons program in apartheid South Africa as well as supplying this and other undemocratic regimes with weapons mostly used against their own citizens(El Salvador).
Or perhaps in that context you might be right in saying that which the U.S affords – though I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that's not what you had in mind…
Oops.
Maybe he's thinking of all those MOUs, e.g., the one that guarantees Israelis get oil before Americans if needed?
True, Jim, but the USA has signed many memorandums of understanding with Israel, e.g., guaranteeing oil for Israel if it needs it. The average American believes we are allies with Israel in the same way we are under, e.g., NATO–thanks to a line of presidents intentionally using the careless language you correctly address.