"We need to end the mindset that got us into war," Obama said last night in Wisconsin--a clear indication that, as Malcolm Hoenlein warned yesterday in Jerusalem, American politics are about to change with respect to Israel.
The signs are everywhere. Ron Paul lately hired realist Robert Pape and Leon Hadar; he understands that the demonization of radical Islam is fostered by Israel's experience with the Palestinians; and that's not our war. The recent NIE giving Iran a pass on nuclear weapons arose from institutional resistance to the Israel lobby inside the intelligence agencies (as Marty Peretz shrewdly asserts). Annapolis and the Rice initiative are George Bush's "No mas" to the neoconservatives. In his appearance at Yivo, neocon duke Bill Kristol seemed like a hunted man, and said that Israel must seek other sources of support in America than American Jews. That is because the American Jewish left is wandering off the reservation, and young Jews are said to be "alienated" from Israel. This new Jewish migration has been spurred by the landmark books by Jimmy Carter and Walt & Mearsheimer, books that have given us permission to speak out--and provided a kind of cover to Jacob Heilbrunn's now-he-does/now-he-doesn't sell-out of the neocons as a rightwing, resentful Jewish movement building a "parallel establishment."
As Hoenlein groused in Jerusalem, things that weren't "allowed" to be said before are now being said.
When I first read Hoenlein's complaint against Obama and change, I thought he was deluded. But having watched Obama's amazing and purely-symbolic victory speech last night--the guy is never concrete, it is all about mood--I realize that Hoenlein is dead on. Obama is stirring people by saying that the establishment must change. The affluent whites who are behind him are enraged about the Iraq war, and will not care if he brings up the Israel relationship. Now that he is reaching out to independents (Ron Paul and John Edwards's crowd), Obama is talking about lobbyists with an intensity that is sure to open the door on the one lobby he refuses to mention, the Israel lobby.
Hoenlein is right to be anxious because the old Jewish establishment has everything to lose from a change in the status quo. My parents' generation, and mine too, have prospered from the establishment we helped build. Our children are not serving in Iraq thanks to "meritocracy", and globalism has lined our pockets as members in good standing of the American elite. Why change anything? As Hoenlein said, it will only invite "mischief." That has been the energy behind Hillary, whose change is merely the status-quo in a pants suit. Hoenlein and the Hillaryites have missed the mood of the country. The groundswell voters feel that their country is on the wrong track. They are hungry for, angry for change. They will seize on a change agent who seems genuine. And that is Obama; notwithstanding his vagueness, he is all about a new mood. I understand Hoenlein's anxiety, but what has that old establishment gotten us? They all signed off on this disastrous war, many of them because they were enraged by Palestinian suicide bombers. Not our war.
The bottom line is that some time in the next few months, or year, something will happen that the progressive, alienated critical-of-Israel forces in American society never believed possible: There will be a robust debate in this country of our relationship to Israel. Yes in the Mainstream Media. Yes on "60 Minutes." Yes on the floor of the Congress. We are coming inside.
n Gaza TV, Hamas' bunny brainwashes kids, declaring 'I will eat the Jews!'
BY MATTHEW KALMAN
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
Tuesday, February 12th 2008, 4:00 AM
Bugs Bunny look-alike Assud is the latest Hamas cartoon killer.
JERUSALEM – Hamas has reached a new low in its cartoon brainwashing of kids to kill Israelis: a Bugs Bunny look-alike who declares, "I will eat the Jews!"
Assud the rabbit is the newest star of "Tomorrow's Pioneers," a Hamas-authorized kids show that airs on Gaza TV and is beamed around the Arab world.
The 6-foot bomber bunny appeared on camera in recent days with a head-scarf-wearing little girl named Saraa.
She sits listening entranced to the rabbit's rants.
"I, Assud, will finish off the Jews and eat them," he hisses.
"Allah willing!" Saraa says.
It's the latest use of cuddly figures by Hamas terrorists "to teach hate and violence," said Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch.
"This program is telling us that they see children as tools in their propaganda and their war," Marcus said. "They have no problem stealing their children's youth."
Before Assud, Hamas' use of a Mickey Mouse character called Farfur to preach hate gained worldwide condemnation.
The producers of the show later told kids that Farfur had been beaten to death by Israeli soldiers.
A short-lived bee character called Nahul was also killed off recently – his death blamed on Israelis preventing him from reaching a hospital to get urgent medical treatment.
The same electricity that Israel supplies to Gaza is used by the terrorist TV broadcasters to beam the hatred, Marcus noted.
I think you are reading too much into the Obama campaign.
I also thing that what you are saying is somewhat dangerous even if it isn't true. There are a lot of major opinion leaders who would mobilize against Obama if they start to believe is he anti-Israel. Right now, Obama's lead is actually being helped by a number of pro-Israel Jews such as Peretz et al.
I think you are wrong on this analysis, but it is a dangerous conclusion you are drawing and one that can spur various pro-Israel opinion leaders to coordinated action.
"I understand Hoenlein's anxiety, but what has that old establishment gotten us? They all signed off on this disastrous war, many of them because they were enraged by Palestinian suicide bombers. Not our war."
American Jews whether establishment or not must come to acknowledge that people living in a stolen country, generally on stolen property, and often in stolen homes simply have no justification to expect peace and security.
Palestinians are completely in the right while Zionists, who are manipulating us to support their criminality are completely and categorically in the wrong.
The criminality does not stop in the ME. It has come home to America because Israel lobbying and advocacy has consistently engaged in a pattern or criminality and civil infractions that undermines the constitution and that ultimately threatens to undermine our government.
I call the combined Israel lobbying and advocacy efforts "Judonia." (I have coined the term on the model of Polonia because Israel lobbying and advocacy piggybacks, parasitizes, or exploits the Jewish Diaspora and especially Jewish organizations to the benefit of a small hyperwealthy group of Zionist puppeteers.)
Judonia is not just the enemy of Palestinians. It is the enemy of America, the world, and the vast majority of Jews as I point out in link to members.aol.com
.
"Among religious, leftist, and right wing ethnic Ashkenazim there has long been a current of thought that Jews are safest in alliance (or better in dominating) an undemocratic government.[5] Thanks to the Patriot act and other actions of the Bush administration, the undemocratic Zionist future is coming into being right before our eyes, and McCain looks like the most likely of current present candidates to bring about the fulfillment of the ultimate globalized Zionist dystopia, but Zionists throughout the political system are poised to influence any other possible victor except Ron Paul, whom Zionist facilitators and gate-keepers in the US media are trying to starve of media attention.
"Abolishing Israel and eradicating Zionism would not eliminate the exploitive tendencies of globalization but would destroy the focal point of the forces that are aiming for the worst of all globalized futures."
Riding the wave of success that Ron Paul had, eh? Obama will never, ever, dare speak a word against Israel. You, Phil, are out of your fucking mind.
Riding the wave of success that Ron Paul had, eh? Obama will never, ever, dare speak a word against Israel. You, Phil, are out of your fucking mind.
Riding the wave of success that Ron Paul had, eh? Obama will never, ever, dare speak a word against Israel. You, Phil, are out of your fucking mind.
Riding the wave of success that Ron Paul had, eh? Obama will never, ever, dare speak a word against Israel. You, Phil, are out of your fucking mind.
"What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks actually have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in recruiting and in seeking aid from abroad, but is rarely the root cause." This, from Ron Paul's latest foreign policy pick. Such common sense cannot be allowed. No wonder Ron Paul is not even listed in Rosner's Israel Factor regarding which candidate is best for Israel.
"he understands that the demonization of radical Islam is fostered by Israel's experience with the Palestinians;"
Radical Islam is genuinely fascist, and deserves condemnation on its own merits, and receives it.
It has little or nothing to do with Israel. You inflate the importance of Israel in that math.
"The recent NIE giving Iran a pass on nuclear weapons arose from institutional resistance to the Israel lobby inside the intelligence agencies (as Marty Peretz shrewdly asserts). "
The American intelligence and state department had (and probably has) a background of anti-semitism, and both loves and hates the implied reliance on Israeli intelligence. Both CIA and Israeli intelligence has made mistakes in the past. The Israelis are confident that Iran is NOT renouncing its nuclear arms program, but is in a phase of it that doesn't require disclosure of military OR peaceful.
Its NOT that Iran has been cleared of a weapons program.
A rethinking of the current administration's assumptions on all issues, is needed. We are still in the process of train wreck.
The statements by Obama to date reflect my understanding of reality and appropriate approach.
That is that Israel is intimate, family, friend, permanently. And, that the form of that friendship is and should be examined with the eye to improvement of the relationship.
As a good friend provides reality checks, that is an appropriate role of the US. Disengagement from the friend is NOT an appropriate response.
Policies are worthy of criticism. The reactionary suggestion of simply renouncing the relationship or worse making it actually adversarial, will be rejected, rightfully.
Just for reference Phil. I appreciate that you went to Hebron, on a tour (I was surprised by that). I thought you went independantly. Its dangerous, I know.
David Harris, president of the American Jewish Commitee, to Roger Cohen of the NYT/IHT (2/11/2008):
"You could sum the concerns up as 'does Obama feel Israel in his kishkas?'" (the Yiddish word for guts).
His real concern seems to be that Obama – and a younger generation of American Jews – feel America in their kishkas.
Did David Horowitz scoop out Witty's brain and replace it with a microprocessort that shouts "Islamofascism."
I have spent a lot of time in studying fascist doctrine.
Only Labor Zionism survives as a remnant of early 20th century fascist doctrine.
Berl Katznelson even plagiarized the Belgian fascist Henri de Man as anyone that has studied the writings of both quickly realizes.
See link to eaazi.blogspot.com
.
BTW, I have spent time in Hebron. The Palestinians were great, but settlers routinely assaulted Palestinians (hitting, spitting, stoning) while the soldiers routinely exposed themselves to 12 and 13 year olds at a local girls parochial school and threatened the girls with murder, rape and mutilation.
No decent person not suffering from serious delusions could possibly consider Israel "intimate, family, friend, permanently."
I put a lot of what I saw in link to members.aol.com
and in link to members.aol.com
.
Both are slightly fictionalized stories based on true events.
I gave "Two Weeks" a somewhat better ending than really happened while I moved "Two Weddings" from Jerusalem to Boston and compressed the time frame.
Nothing ever happens like the action adventure sequence at the end of "Two Weddings," but a director dared me to write a comedy with a happy ending in Palestine.
I have to admit to cheating a little by moving a good part of the plot to the USA, but I could have left it in Jerusalem if I had wanted to risk audience identification with the main characters and the locale.
"That has been the energy behind Hillary, whose change is merely the status-quo in a pants suit."
That is funny, I hope you know I'm going to be stealing that.
I'd be happy though just to know who obstructed justice at the
White House and told the FBI to stop the investigation of the Mossad spies who were watching the hijackers the year before 9/11 but didn't tell us what they were up to.
http://homo-sapien-underground.blogspot.com/2008/02/open-letter-to-attorney-general-of.html
Klaus: You are correct.
RE: "As a good friend provides reality checks, that is an appropriate role of the US.
Precisely what thea courageous duo W/M did, and Carter too.
RE: "Disengagement from the friend is NOT an appropriate response."
What if the friend is standing on another human's head, you are paying him to do that, and the other human has annoyed cousins?
RE: "Policies are worthy of criticism."
Carter and W/M thought so, and so does Phil.
RE: "The reactionary suggestion of simply renouncing the relationship or worse making it actually adversarial, will be rejected, rightfully."
How about no-fault divorce? 50% of once-married people in the USA choose this route "in the best interest of the children."
Walt/Mearsheimer employed the polemic approach before they partially sanitized their "product".
It still contains generalizations, illustrates an incomplete and biased study of history, and most importantly is not read even by its proponents.
Every criticism that Walt/Mearsheimer described as legal, ethically pursued, reasonable, even much that they consent to, "dissenters" here regard as unethical, illegal, and/or condemned.
Generalization is descriptive term. And, as all generalization (there I go generalizing), is used by mean-minded opportunists for harmful purposes.
Scholars need a higher bar. Either that, or for their work to be taken as relevant only to a very limited scope.
Phil should know better than to exagerate the scope of their comments. He should be able to detect when they shift from "experts" and "realists" and "political 'scientists'" to negligent researchers, partisans, and historians.
I don't buy cars from people like that.
Charles,
The factors that make the relationship live are NOT the military and strategic, but the economic, social, and religious.
Those are permanent, and compel a more committed attitude than political flips.
Its called backbone.
When friends disagree, they don't divorce. They only divorce when the friendship is so obviously strained that it cannot be repaired.
The relationship is NOT strained in that way currently. It is strong, mostly confident, mostly satisfying, almost every single aspect of it.
It doesn't matter if Obama himself is seeking a change in the US-Isr relationship.
A large part of the public is now seeking one and that hot topic will continue. In many ways the Israel discussion has been delayed by the campaign and election season but it is still on the burner.
No matter what Obama says during the campaign, if he believes in his own change and hope theme it means that he will, at the very least be more open, to a different policy on Israel.
W&M and all the rest who are opposed to the lobby and zionist wing aren't going away. A new president gives them another chance to spread their message and influence.
Obama will never, ever, dare speak a word against Israel. You, Phil, are out of your fucking mind.
Posted by: youngunalienatedjew | February 13, 2008 at 06:49 AM
YoungIndocrinatedJew serves as an example of why more Jewish Zionists should make aliya. His own sense of power, entitlement and his mafiosi mentality make him a danger to the Jewish-American diaspora community in that they are based on delusions of grandeur and invincibility, and he is clueless that the earth is crumbling beneath American Zionism's feet.
This arrogance seems to be an increasingly common trait among Jewish-American Zionists, particularly the younger set, who are raised up in an insular environment with a culture of smug superiority. Due to Zionism success on scamming America for so long, they quite simply believe they are untouchable, and think they pull the levers that move the world.
If Jewish Zionism was a stock, now would be the time to start selling it short.
"There will be a robust debate in this country of our relationship to Israel. …"
I agree it finally feels like things are shifting. But Phil is assuming that Zionism will not respond. All it would take to once again "make us all Jews now" would be another bomb explosion.
I hate to be conspiratorial, but do you really think the people who were up to it at the King David Hotel are not up to it today?
Gee, next time I look somebody will be saying the USA first violated the Neutrality Pact before we entered WW1, and who knows, they might deny the Huns ate babies back then.
Q wrote :"All it would take to once again "make us all Jews now" would be another bomb explosion.
I hate to be conspiratorial, but do you really think the people who were up to it at the King David Hotel are not up to it today?"
Q, Are you suggesting that Arabs bombed the King David Hotel to make Jews look bad? That's so loony it just might be right!
Israel? Friend? Are you frigging nuts. Israel is no friend of the US. It is an albatross.
New Hamas TV show features 'Jew-eating' Bugs Bunny lookalike
By Haaretz Service
Tags: Gaza, Hamas, Farfur, Israel
Following the "demise" of the Hamas Mickey Mouse character "Farfur" at the hands of a belligerent Israeli soldier, Hamas' television station has introduced a Bugs Bunny lookalike who declares "I will eat Jews," a British newspaper reported Wednesday.
According to the Daily Mail, Hamas-controlled TV in Gaza has introduced 'Assud', a rabbit, claiming that he sneaked into Gaza from Egypt after the border was breached last month.
Farfur, the Mickey Mouse lookalike who called for the terror attacks against Jews was beaten to death by an Israel Defense Forces soldier, only to be succeeded by Nahul the bee.
Advertisement
Nahoul was killed a week later when an Israeli siege prevented him from receiving medical treatment.
The Hamas TV show faced global condemnation – and the threat of a lawsuit from Disney – before Farfur was taken off the air.
The newspaper report said that the new show ended with a song, "We will never recognize Israel, until we liberate our homeland from the Zionist filth."
In the new show, Assud speaks with Saraa, a young girl narrator. "We are all martyrdom seekers, are we not Saraa?" Assud asks. "We will sacrifice our souls and everything we own for the homeland," he says.
"We will liberate al-Aqsa from the filth of those Zionists," Saraa replies.
"I Assud will get rid of the Jews and I will eat them up, Allah willing," Assud concludes the scene.
The bottom line is that some time in the next few months, or year, something will happen that the progressive, alienated critical-of-Israel forces in American society never believed possible: There will be a robust debate in this country of our relationship to Israel. Yes in the Mainstream Media. Yes on "60 Minutes." Yes on the floor of the Congress. We are coming inside.
lets hope that your prescience can be validated very soon…
That means Phil will go from being an unemployed trust-fund (by marriage) fuckhead, to being a Major Force in American Life. I can hardly wait!!!!
Synopsis of Episode #1 of No Park on American tv:
An eight-year-old boy, dressed as Begin and warped by repeated viewings of Leon Uris's Exodus, leads a marching parade past the town's evangelical church. “Es is Zeit fur Rache!” Eric Cartman chants (“It is time for revenge!”). “Wir mussen die Palestinians ausrotten!” the crowd replies (“We must exterminate the Palestinians!”). This is the world of No Park, the animated satire that will depict the Rapture, bringing predictable calls for censorship when the series is broadcast in the USA later this year.
In actually opening up debate on the region, it is also necessary to open up debate on the agenda and actions of the various Palestinian organizations and powers.
For example, it is worth studying the ideology and society promulgated by Fatah electoral dominance. What does that look like? What principles are most prominent, in practise? What are its genuine goals?
What type of society does Hamas leadership engender? What principles are most prominent, in practise? What are its genuine goals?
What type of society does likud leadership engender?
Labor?
I personally find the Hamas prospect to be repugnant. In addition to subordination of the current Jewish majority (if all of mandatory Palestine were the jurisdiction), in practise it imposes Sharia, violently suppresses speech, assembly, restricts what books people may read, etc.
FAR, FAR more suppressive than any effort that even likud imposes, even on non-Jews.
If you are an ADVOCATE for democracy, and not just an opponent (Charles), then you choose to live in a prosperous Israel rather than a prosperous Gaza Palestine(if that were even possible with the degree of suppression that Hamas compels).
At first I thought that post about the Arab cartoon calling for eating all Jews was a spoof of those MEMRI-specials. But it really is another MEMRI-special!
Are there really Jews who go around believing this stuff? Is victimhood so addictive that their critical facilities have atrophied? And are they really in charge of the foreign policy of the world's only super-power?
"Are there really Jews who go around believing this stuff? Is victimhood so addictive that their critical facilities have atrophied? And are they really in charge of the foreign policy of the world's only super-power?"
A major part of Israel lobbying and advocacy goes to self-indoctrination.
The David Project has regular programs to indoctrinate Jewish teachers in what and how to teach. I attended one of their early programs.
The material was similar to the nonsense that Witty repeats in this forum.
Consider link to tinyurl.com
.
Troen is the Chairman of Israel Studies at Brandeis. He told me in seminar that modern human rights language disfavors Zionism and that therefore it must be changed.
It has been a project of the organized Jewish community since the founding of the American Anti-Slavery Group in the 1990s to defame Arabs and Muslims while raising money for fraudulent slave redemption.
The President and Founder of the AASG is Charles Jacobs also of the David Project.
The topic of organized Jewish rescue since the 1840s does need some research.
Since the Holocaust Industry of Finkelstein, I would think that reputable scholars (S. Ilan Troen is not one) would investigate whether similar sorts of profiteering and political manipulation was associated with modern Jewish rescue efforts from the Damascus Affair until Ruth Messinger and the AJWS.
I've been to some David Project events in the college town near where I live.
I found them to be factual, but drawing some different interpretations and strategies than I would recommend.
I contest that Zionism is a net good in the world, that needs reform, but also needs relaxation of animosity to be able to.
Zionism originated among European Jewry, not Sephardic, in response to persecutions in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, elsewhere.
If that persecution didn't exist, then likely Zionism wouldn't. But Czars did use persecution against Jews for political gain or to divert attention from scandals. The Catholic and most Orthodox and Protestant churches die use persecution against Jews for power.
And, nazi Germany did happen, and broke the back of prior passive Jewish attitude.
The long-term of NEVER AGAIN stands, and will continue to.
RE: "I contest that Zionism is a net good in the world, that needs reform, but also needs relaxation of animosity to be able to."
It's easy to blather about "net good in the world" as if people were numbers on a spreadsheet. Bentham revisited is what every politician does, always claiming the good for what's convenient to him or her, hoping nobody notices too closely who will pay the price.
RE: "Zionism originated among European Jewry, not Sephardic, in response to persecutions in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, elsewhere."
True. The socio-economic role of Jews then and there in the respective host Gentile societies is a factor that should not be ignored either as empowering Zionism or justifying its basis and goal.
RE: "If that persecution didn't exist, then likely Zionism wouldn't. But Czars did use persecution against Jews for political gain or to divert attention from scandals. The Catholic and most Orthodox and Protestant churches die use persecution against Jews for power."
Ditto. But pogroms did not spring full blown out of the frustrated sub-human animal power of the masses of Gentiles.
People only know the information they are given, and what they see in their everyday local world as they try to survive with a modicum of pride and, at times, luxury. . .
RE: "And, nazi Germany did happen, and broke the back of prior passive Jewish attitude."
True. And Weimar Germany did happen, and broke the back of passive German attitude.
The long-term of NEVER AGAIN stands, and will continue to.
RE: "If you are an ADVOCATE for democracy, and not just an opponent (Charles), then you choose to live in a prosperous Israel rather than a prosperous Gaza Palestine(if that were even possible with the degree of suppression that Hamas compels)."
Let's see, the Palestinan's have no power in Gaza. Israel crushes all prosperity in Gaza, funded by me, the USA taxpayor. So what am I to make of such an abstraction comparing Israel power with Palestinian power as if they were equal? (They might be more equal without my money, but I have no say about that, though I live in a democracy, it's said.) A democracy elected Hitler, and Bush 2. A democracy elected Hamas. So I don't know quite what to make of this question. Would I rather be dominated by Israel or Islam? I think not either. The issue is human civil rights, and who does or does not fund them, who?