Here is a horrifying portrait of Gaza as an animal pen, in the Middle East Report.
Cargo at [Gazan entry points] Kerem Shalom and Sufa is offloaded from trucks and then left on pallets in the open for Palestinians to come and pick up when they are allowed to approach. The contrast with Karni’s elaborate security procedures and regimented distribution system is striking. “At least in prison, and I’ve been in prison, there are rules,” Gazan human rights lawyer Raji Sourani told the New York Times. “But now we live in a kind of animal farm. We live in a pen, and they dump in food and medicine.”...
Half of the people between the Mediterranean and the Jordan live under a state that excludes them from the community of political subjects, denies them true equality and thus discriminates against them in varying domains of rights.
Note the author: a Harvard anthropology doctoral student named Darryl Li. Li is also a Yale Law School student. A giant winner, in other words. Here's his picture, on the website for Paul and Daisy Soros fellowships for new Americans. Li is the son of Chinese immigrants, is in his late 20s and has been to hot zones from Rwanda to Pakistan to New Delhi. And he's worked for B'tselem, the great human rights organization in Israel.
And where is this impressive, attractive Asian-American aiming his intelligence? At the treatment of Arabs in historical Palestine.
When supporters of Israel express the fear that the new movement criticizing Israel will end up persecuting Jews as "un-American," they invoke an America of Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh and the State Department that didn't do enough before the Holocaust. Remember that Jeffrey Goldberg compared Walt and Mearsheimer to the antisemite Coughlin in the New Republic, while Dana Milbank in the Washington Post said they were Teutonic and blue-eyed--Nazis. But here is the truth: the America that is rethinking its policy toward Israel is the idealist forward-thinking America of multiculturalism and human rights, an America that would treat Arabs as human beings... Young Jews are gettin on board!
Good timing Philip–The JNF reports that "Record number of Jewish teenagers will visit Israel in 2008 (thanks to Birthright Israel)."
I imagine most will become neurotic exurban assholes obessed with impressing their gentile in-laws by attacking Jews day and night . . .
OR, young Jews, proud and unafraid, might make connections in Israel and start to see the place and its people for what it is–the future of Judaism. Its only future. Phil says the mantras he repeats because he doesn't want Judaism to have that, or any, future.
Good timing Philip–The JNF reports that "Record number of Jewish teenagers will visit Israel in 2008 (thanks to Birthright Israel)."
I imagine most will become neurotic exurban assholes obessed with impressing their gentile in-laws by attacking Jews day and night . . .
OR, young Jews, proud and unafraid, might make connections in Israel and start to see the place and its people for what it is–the future of Judaism. Its only future. Phil says the mantras he repeats because he doesn't want Judaism to have that, or any, future.
"Record number of Jewish teenagers will visit Israel"
From my reading of the current mood of American Jewish youth, I'd say you're making that up.
'OR, young Jews, proud and unafraid, might make connections in Israel and start to see the place and its people for what it is–the future of Judaism. Its only future.'
Tomorrow belongs, tomorrow belongs, tomorrow belongs… to ME!
And by the way, I assume you're living in Israel. If not, why not? It being the future of Judaism and all.
'OR, young Jews, proud and unafraid, might make connections in Israel and start to see the place and its people for what it is–the future of Judaism. Its only future.'
Tomorrow belongs, tomorrow belongs, tomorrow belongs… to ME!
And by the way, I assume you're living in Israel. If not, why not? It being the future of Judaism and all.
I don't know about record numbers, but Birthright Israel, along with "JDATE" are credited with revolutionizing young Jewish life in the US.
The sociological data, which Phil has glanced at but clearly not read, is rather complicated, but the picture is mixed. It works this way–the 30% for whom Judaism is embarrasment or burden will be lost (hello Phil!), but the 70% that remain are becoming better educated, more in-marriage focussed, and more strongly Israel-identified.
Check them out,
http://www.birthrightisrael.com/site/PageServer
Re: the Gaza pen description – you should read the novel "Blindness" by Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago. There's a description of how they fed the quarantined plague victims that sounds alot like this Gaza report.
Life, sadly, imitates art.
These Birthright Israel types have bought the koolaid that being Jewish means "Israel, right or wrong." Except of course that in their view, Israel is never wrong.
I have one friend who is like that, although I don't think she's ever actually been to Israel. She's a lovely person in many ways. We don't talk about the Middle East. She couldn't see in '06 that maybe dropping one million cluster bombs on South Lebanon was a terrible crime. Nothing Israelis do could possibly be criminal, it's all legitimate self-defense, in her view. If one Jew gets killed, then any amount of retribution is necessary, no matter who dies to pay the price. This is not violence in her view; she is a kindly person who leads workshops for young people on conflict resolution. But when it comes to Israel…
She is a kind person otherwise, but she lives in this bubble. My mother likens it to the bubble nice Southern white ladies lived in back in the civil rights era. They weren't racist, no of course not, they just didn't see or believe that any of Black America's grievances were real or important.
"If one Jew gets killed, then any amount of retribution is necessary, no matter who dies to pay the price. This is not violence in her view; she is a kindly person who leads workshops for young people on conflict resolution."
There you have, in a nutshell, what has long been termed "the Jewish problem."
"These Birthright Israel types have bought the koolaid that being Jewish means "Israel, right or wrong." Except of course that in their view, Israel is never wrong."
My son went to Israel last month on a birthright program (a hiking program in the desert largely). He is not a type.
Ask Phil. He spent part of an evening with him the weekend before last.
Phil is wrong about the prospect of Walt/Mearsheimer's thesis being applied in a different way from Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh. It definitely can happen. In fact, it can only happen when people gradually dehumanize Jews and/or Israelis, and form false equations of what a Jew or Israeli is.
Its not that different from gradually forming false dehumanizing assumptions of Palestinians.
For American Jews, Palestinians are unknown. To the extent that they are educated, they will apply design and consideration (good design) into their policies and advocacy. To the extent that they are approached with polemic, they will resist.
The generalization that was present in the first Walt/Mearsheimer article, and still remains in the book, is a form of polemic, and periodicially used as permission to employ prejudice (with a "scholarly" blanket).
Do you remember in the Gandhi film, when asked about the British. Gandhi's reply to a radical urging violence and condemnation, was to say "We have come a long way with the British. We are family. After this struggle is over, we will still be family."
The recognition that Israelis and Palestinians will always be neighbors, is a real one, and is NOT served by polemic ever.
For Phil, the assertion of Walt/Mearsheimer as analagous to Lindbergh and Father Coughlin is close to home.
His mother regards Walt/Mearsheimer as promoting a fascist thesis, "a form of the Protocols". ("The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was an anti-semitic fiction that a Russian Tsar had drafted to justify pogroms. Of course, Hamas still quotes it as somehow authoritative, even though long and confidently disclosed as malicious fiction.)
You forgot to mention that he works for the Palestinian center for human rights. Second, I love the irony of getting lectured by a Chinese. Perhaps he might go bopping around I don't know China. Oh wait you piss them off you end up having your organs harvested
"Cargo at [Gazan entry points] Kerem Shalom and Sufa is offloaded from trucks and then left on pallets in the open for Palestinians to come and pick up when they are allowed to approach."
The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights speaks of the right to work, to travel, to have a nationality. In its long-standing occupation of the West Bank, and its recent siege of Gaza, Israel violates nearly every one of its thirty articles.
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Even the poorest nations on the planet — Haiti, for instance — have functioning airports, seaports, and land borders. By contrast, Gaza has an airport which is kept closed, and a coast which Israel's navy blockades.
A relevant measure is the human lifespan of roughly 70 years. By this metric, older Palestinians have lived under these inhuman Israeli restrictions for more than half their lives.
Richard Witty's 'polemic = prejudice' formulation is just a more sophisticated version of playing the anti-semitic card. As in, "You can't criticize Israel without being anti-Jewish." Well, b.s.; I can, and I just did. And so does Phil. If this is prejudice, maybe you need some new friends!
It's interesting that Phil finds this young man "attractive"?
Phil is such a creep that it's almost beyond explanation.
Polemic is a form of dehumanization. I regard it similarly to a speeding car.
The people in the car think that they are getting somewhere, but those outside know that the car is a projectile, kills hundreds of small critters, causes a lot of displacement, and represents an illusion that there are no others in fact.
There are other ways to inform, even to organize.
As a means to rally, it represents a stealing of people's liberty, in the form of taking their decision-making capacity and replacing it with momentum built partially on the process of conforming to the mass around you.
Is that liberty? Is that thought?
Richard Witty: Re: "My son went to Israel last month on a birthright program (a hiking program in the desert largely). He is not a type."
I never met anyone who admitted to being a type.
Did your independent son also go on the birthright unplugged tour also while he was over there? Did he talk about that with Phil? If so, that's certainly a good deed. We all like inquiring minds. Or did he just stick with the right-wing Zionist Taglit-Birthright program? If not, why not? Because if you have a "free" movie ticket paid for by Israel-On-The-Dole, you should not turn left and sneak into another theater to see a different movie?
"Having identified Diaspora Jews as being hopelessly lapsed and in danger of intermarrying into extinction, two New Yorkers, Michael Steinhardt and Charles Bronfman, founded Taglit-birthright israel. Billionaire Bronfman inherited the Canadian Seagram's liquor empire while Steinhardt made a small fortune as a Wall Street wizard. The latter, a self-proclaimed atheist, is nonetheless worried that Judaism is in danger of becoming obsolete….In truth, for Taglit Israel IS Judaism.
Maybe the people in the speeding car carry AIPAC identity cards, Zionists of the Likud variety all, and those outside study Torah rather than Gott mit Uns uber alles? Who are the dehumanized ones? Might makes right is the lesson, or…?
A little off the point Charles.
You generalize often. You defend the use of the term "type" to describe a program that you really don't know, and to describe people that you really don't know.
The birthright tour that my son went on was NOT heavy on propaganda in the slightest. Its emphasis though was to make my son feel comfortable in Israel, that he and people like him belonged, were welcome.
Its a GOOD thing that there is a place and a community like that, that actually welcomes.
He did visit Yad Vashem, and had a very strong experience. Most moving to him was the volumes and volumes of books of names, in alphabetical order. He couldn't find the names that he was looking for, there were just TOO MANY "M"'s and "S"'s.
Sometimes reality is compelling. It doesn't need brainwashing, nor thought-police enforcement.
So, he is attracted to making aliyah, to living in Israel, even to serving in the military.
He feels that it is his community, moreso even than the town that he grew up in.
I've urged him to question that, to not take one experience as all their is.
Jews in Israel are not particularly naive, nor brainwashed, as you imagine.
They are numb and frustrated though from the relentless rejection of their presence, the relentless invocation to remove them.
You know, Richard, there are times when you make sense, like here–
"The recognition that Israelis and Palestinians will always be neighbors, is a real one"
So don't neighbors admit the harm they've done each other? This cuts both ways, of course. The Palestinians as a whole have plenty to apologize for, as do the Israelis. But one of the things the Israelis have to apologize for is driving the Palestinians out of their homes. You talk about your son having a place where he "belongs". But that's because of ethnic cleansing.
Wouldn't it be better if the two neighbors decided to live in peace in the same land, where both wish to be? A haven for Jews and also a place where Palestinians could live where they were once expelled? What an example that would be.
Realistically, a one state solution wouldn't be acceptable to Israelis right now. But if you really mean all these neighborly things, isn't that the goal peace-loving people should be striving for, even if it might take quite a long time before everyone accepts the dream.
"You talk about your son having a place where he "belongs". But that's because of ethnic cleansing.
Wouldn't it be better if the two neighbors decided to live in peace in the same land, where both wish to be? A haven for Jews and also a place where Palestinians could live where they were once expelled? What an example that would be."
It is a good goal.
Its why, when Saif was posting here, I criticized his emphasis on appealing to anti-Zionism as a means to get there, rather than out and out acceptance of the other. I suggested that he could make a case through the orientation of affirming the democratic rule of law, rather than national angers.
Richard Witty wrote:
"Phil is wrong about the prospect of Walt/Mearsheimer's thesis being applied in a different way from Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh. It definitely can happen. In fact, it can only happen when people gradually dehumanize Jews and/or Israelis, and form false equations of what a Jew or Israeli is."
Jewish Zionists in Israel are dehumanizing themselves through their racialist Jim Crow laws and their ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine, and Jewish Zionists in America are dehumanizing themselves by supporting and encouraging it all.
Gideon wrote:
"I love the irony of getting lectured by a Chinese. Perhaps he might go bopping around I don't know China. Oh wait you piss them off you end up having your organs harvested"
China isn't on US government welfare to the tune of billions a year in financial and military "aid," so the Chinese American you speak of has no obligation to lecture China, but he does have an obligation to lecture Israel because his tax money is being used to subsidize racialist Zionism.
If you American Zionists don't want to be lectured about Israel's loathsome human rights record by US taxpayers, you should quit lobbying the US government to provide welfare to Israel, and finance the country yourselves, or are you too cheap?
A few young American Jews do care:
"Taglit sponsors thousands of visitors a year, and only a few dozen of them go on to participate in Birthright Unplugged…
From the Christian Science Monitor article: They have the right to explore all sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but not using the money given 'to explore certain values,' says Allyson Taylor, with the American Jewish Congress’s Western Region. 'You have the right to buy a movie ticket, but do you sneak into another theater to see a different movie?' Or maybe these young people have guessed that the carefully edited movie they were shown isn’t the whole story. They’re stepping outside the theater to see what’s going on. One young woman writes on the ISM website about her experience in Hebron with Birthright Unplugged:
'On the tour with Walid Abu-Al-Halaweh of the HRC, we hear of settler violence happening nearby. We go to the place where the settlers have just left, and the ground is covered with rocks, some the size of my finger, some the size of both my fists. We follow Israeli army guards to the noise. About 20 girls, none looking older than 14 or 15, are screaming, screaming. They are being gently cloistered by the army officers as they continue to scream at the Palestinians around them. The Hebrew is translated for me: “get out of our country, you’re dirt, you’re scum."
We stand with a group of Palestinian men, women, and children, watching them… or rather, our group is watching them. The Palestinians are mostly waiting to get through the gateway that the girls have effectively blocked now for 20 minutes. Three girls break through the acquiescent army line and race towards us, where another officer holds them. Grown Palestinian men beside me run backwards. I am shamed for the men, at the humiliation of having to fear a 13-year-old girl, because they know what the soldiers will do to them if they act in self-defense. They are afraid of the girls, with Jewish stars around their necks, screaming filth at their neighbors. The soldiers, who look no older than 19, speak softly with the girls, then turn around to scream and threaten the Palestinian crowd, telling them that if they take one step forward, there will be consequences.
It’s incredibly encouraging to me that a program like Birthright Unplugged exists, and that there are some Jewish kids – even a handful – who choose to participate. These kids are embracing real Jewish values, and they’re not afraid to challenge the institutions of mainstream Judaism to do it.
For me, being a Jewish person means supporting social justice. For me, being Jewish doesn’t mean supporting Israel,” says Jessica, who traveled to Israel with Shorashim, a Birthright travel organizer, during the summer of 2004. “The lessons of the Holocaust and the lessons of Jewish history mean we need to stand up for people’s rights. Otherwise, who’s going to stand up for us?”
The Israelis are the world's new nazis…
"midget" nazis maybe, but still nazis.
No one has to demonize them, they have already done that to themselves.
One thing is sure, if not for the US protection Israel would already be gone.
The US power itself in the ME is going, going, gone every day we embroil ourselves more in the region.
And at the rate the rabid zionist in the Us are turning Americans against them I have doubts about Israel's long term survival.
Maybe it will survive as a token state for Jews but as a power in the ME I think that dreams is over due to their own stupidy and greed.
polemic: A controversial argument, especially one refuting or attacking a specific opinion or doctrine.
dehumanization – the act of degrading people with respect to their best qualities.
Since when is Charles Lindbergh an example of something to be avoided? It just doesn't seem right that someone like Philip Roth can smear an American hero in order to promote narrow tribal interests.
And I don't know much about Father Coughlin, but given the context in which his name came up, I'm going to assume he's a hero too.
Birthright is very well-funded by the State Of Israel and Zionist organizations–five free planeloads a day leave from the USA; while BirthRight Unplugged is forced to make each particpant pay $300-$500 dollars on a sliding means-test scale and pick up considerable extra expense. Sound familiar?
When I read of some of the dreck Dana Milbank has written, I cringe when I see him on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC Countdown show coming off as a voice of reason.
Richard, if you feel that way then I'm closer to your position than I thought. I think, though, that both sides need to be willing to listen to some harsh criticisms regarding their respective atrocities against the other. The Israelis have to own up to their ethnic cleansing and atrocities–the Palestinians have to admit that terrorism against civilians is just mass murder, not freedom fighting.
One attitude that I don't think is helpful is when people (I see this most often from Israel-supporters) say that the two sides don't have to like each other. They just need to separate. The people saying this think they are advocating peace, but I don't think it's likely you're going to have any long term peace with two groups hating each other, side-by-side. In the long run the two sides have got to start liking and respecting each other. How to get there I don't know.
'Phil is wrong about the prospect of Walt/Mearsheimer's thesis being applied in a different way from Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh. It definitely can happen. In fact, it can only happen when people gradually dehumanize Jews and/or Israelis, and form false equations of what a Jew or Israeli is.'
Sure it can happen, but it takes two to tango Richard. You make it sound as if this gradual process of dehumanising Jews is entirely self-generating, as if it has no animating cause, apart of course from that strain of antisemitism us gentiles just can't seem to shake.
Why is it so difficult for you to understand that the growing resentment has it's roots in Israel's awful behaviour, the criminal enterprise of the settlements, the deeply uncivilised treatment of the Palestinians – all of which our governments stand foursqare behind on our behalf, despite evidence a majority of us disagree violently with it.
To be perfectly honest, it is not so much Israel's awfulness (which is hardly unique) as it's capacity to implicate us in it's crimes, thereby sentencing us (or more likely our children, and theirs) to generations of conflict and an absolute guarantee of more terrorism.
And just as a garnish, there is the issue that for some of us trumps even the first two – the fact that our institutions (political, bureaucratic, media) have been poisoned by Israeli/neocon partisans to the extent that, in some vitally important areas, they no longer serve the interests of their own citizens, and in fact work against those interests in the service of another country. Recent reports from the UK demonstrate that this problem is not confined to the US.
That's probably just polemic though, eh Richard. You can just ignore it, can't you?
'A little off the point Charles.'
Coming from the master, it's hard to disagree.
'You generalize often.'
I give up. Unsatirizable.
"… apart of course from that strain of antisemitism us gentiles just can't seem to shake."
Don't say this, Glenn. Richard can't recognize the irony.
"Since when is Charles Lindbergh an example of something to be avoided? It just doesn't seem right that someone like Philip Roth can smear an American hero in order to promote narrow tribal interests."
When he promoted isolationism and pandering to actual real-life nazis.
"Sure it can happen, but it takes two to tango Richard. "
It takes one party (not two to tango) to dehumanize the other.
Wherever that occurs in fact, it harms the prospects for peace and justice, and in all ways, and to all parties.
It is not rationalizable, and everyone that undertakes it knows it when they do it.
Isolationism, along with its cousin Appeasement, are two very evil words which threaten all Americans–not only military industrialists and Zionists and the politicians they befriend.
Isolationism is a dehumanizing tendency.
Dehumanization occurs when one criticizes without first accepting painstakingly established historical narratives.
Jews are uniquely prone to dehumanization in a way that other tribes/ethnicities simply do not incur. Thus, Jews have a responsibility to preempt dehumanization by eliminating dehumanizers before they can dehumanize.
It is wrong and dangerous to allude to any so-called catastrophe precipitated by Zionism. To do so may force Israel to drop more cluster bombs and forget where they landed.
Believe me, I do not want any more Lebanese girls getting their legs blown off, which is why I continually evoke Israel's right to defend itself and imply that Israel's Arab neighbors are violently irrational.
Dehumanization is what is derailing the peaceful establishment of homeland for the Jewish people, which need only be able to expand continually, and be at least 50% Arab-free.
Bombing fields and infrastructure, demolishing homes, kidnapping and torturing, those are not the same thing as dehumanization.
Arabs may actually be the descendents of neanderthals, and thus not technically "human", which is the root of the word dehumanization.
Noooo… the PAZ-jew!! I'm toast!!
Time to transform by consent whilst being browbeaten by force… uuhhuuuuu!!!
"When he promoted isolationism and pandering to actual real-life nazis."
Richard, you are getting your history from a novel written by a "committed Jew." Lindbergh's speech in Des Moines, Iowa in 1941 is readily available on the Internet. Read it. If what he said then is unacceptable discourse, then we are headed for perpetual wars.
While you read it, you might notice some eerie similarities to the situation before Iraq.
If you don't favor "isolationism" as a policy, fine. But will you permit others to have their own opinions?
Here's the full text of Lindbergh's speech, along with a good description of the context–
Yah guys I know, we really should have stayed out of WW2 after all. Not really our concern, But anon, D, like the saying goes, if the swastika fits…….
Lindbergh has his own record.
And Phillip Roth also has his own record, including an insightful fiction "The Plot Against America", a musing of the social consequences of Lindbergh winning his presidential candidacy.
A good read. Just a slight drift from reality in the US, where "America First" and pandering to "real American interests" takes precedence over more comprehensive principled political platform.
Holocaust! Holocaust! Nazis! Swastikas and smelly poon-tang! Real analysis! Goebbels was right ey goyim!?
My brain melted about 20 years ago, but at least this institution has a cybercafe!
I couldn't have said it better, Rich; A real political platform doesn't alienate FRIENDS who graciously accept $3 billion a year of taxpayer money and in return kill heaps of slobbering subhuman Arabofascists.
"American interests" is a contradiction in terms. We all have many loyalties and many interests.
There is no monolithic American interest–except supporting our FRIEND, Israel, which is in America's permanent interest because Intel has a factory there and the IDF gives the US armed forces all the latest Arab-killing technology.
"America first" is simply a crutch for weak minds who cannot understand why Israel's prosperity is vital to the 98% of non-Jewish Americans.
""America first" is simply a crutch for weak minds"
It is a crutch for weak minds.
Its weak independant of Israel.
MANY more states benefit far more from US commitments to their security. There are permanent US bases in Germany, South Korea, Japan, Philipines, Kuwait, etc. that somehow don't appear on your (or others) calculations of US military support.
All of those similarly result from relationships, of which the geo-political is secondary. Relationships between peoples.
So long as those economic and social relationships exist (which they do permanently with Israel), it is RATIONAL for the US to assist in securing them.
From Beyond Chutzpah by Norman G. Finkelstein, pp. 82-3
Just as it's too simple (and convenient) to label accusations of Jewish responsibility for Israeli policy anti-Semitic, so it's too simple (and convenient) to label the notion of Jewish power anti-Semitic. Jews now rank as the wealthiest ethnic group in the United States; with this economic power has accrued substantial political power. Their leaders have wielded this power, often crudely, to mold U.S. policy regarding Israel. These leaders have also utilized this power in other realms. Under the guise of seeking "Holocaust reparations," American Jewish organizations and individuals at all levels of government and in all sectors of American society entered into a conspiracy — this is the correct word — to blackmail Europe. It was on account of "Jewish money" that the Clinton administration went along with this shakedown operation, providing — even to the detriment of U.S. national interests — crucial support for it at every juncture. And who can seriously believe that the pro-Jewish bias of the corporate media has nothing whatever to do with the influential Jewish presence at all levels of it? "It's undoubtedly true that there are prominent Jews among the producers, directors, studio executives, and stars in Hollywood," Foxman concedes. "It's even true that, proportionately, there has always been a relatively prominent Jewish presence in the movie, TV, and record industries." But, he continues, "[t]he Jews who work in Hollywood are there not as Jews but as actors, directors, writers, business executives, or what have you," concerned only with "the bottom line" (his emphasis). His proof? "This explains the paradox that no anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist has ever tackled — how it is that the supposedly Jewish-controlled movie industry has produced so few films dealing with overtly Jewish characters or themes." Is that why Hollywood has produced a mere 175 films on the Nazi holocaust since 1989? Legitimate questions can surely be posed regarding when and if Jews are acting as people who happen to be Jewish or acting "as Jews," and, on the latter occasions (which plainly do arise), regarding the actual breadth and limits of this "Jewish power," but these questions can only be answered empirically, not a priori with politically correct formulae. To foreclose inquiry on this topic as anti-Semitic is, intentionally or not, to shield Jews from legitimate scrutiny of their uses and abuses of formidable ower. In an otherwise sensible treatment of the new anti-Semitism, Brian Klug maintains that "it is a form of anti-Semitism" if an accusation against Jews mimcs an anti-Semitic stereotype such as the idea of Jews being "powerful, wealthy … pursuing [their] own selfish ends." Yet if Jews act out a Jewish stereotype, it plainly doesn't follow that they can't be committing the stereotypical act. Can't they commit a vile act even if conforms to a Jewish stereotype? It is perhaps politically incorrect to recall but nonetheless a commonplace that potent stereotypes, like good propaganda, acquire their force from containing a kernel — and sometimes even more than a kernel — of truth. Should people like Abraham Foxman, Edgar Bronfman, and Rabbi Israel Singer get a free ride because they resemble stereotypes straight out of Der Sturmer?"
Re: " Phillip Roth also has his own record, including an insightful fiction "The Plot Against America", a musing of the social consequences of Lindbergh winning his presidential candidacy.
A good read. Just a slight drift from reality in the US, where "America First" and pandering to "real American interests" takes precedence over more comprehensive principled political platform."
I read it. Fiction but "Just a slight drift from reality in the US"? Present tense. Insight? Any day the endogamic, seething secret anti-semites will take over screaing "America First", running over the innocents with Walmart carts. Roth himself described his narative as counterfactual, but spent most of his pages showing the reader a child's view, lingering over those rabid pro-Hitler carts coming 1,2,3 at him and his cozy, humble nice lower middle class family, seducing the innocents into America's version of the Hitler Youth praising the red white & blue homeland and the glory of sleeping with hay, horses and stuffing themselves with pork. Please describe for all of us your "more comprehensive principled political platform." Do us a favor, put it in the present context, i.e., the evolved USA power establishment.
The present context is that fools continue to parade the same claptrap as Lindbergh and Father Coughlin and a thousand others, without "seeing the irony".
Roth's book was a slap in the face to those that are/were happily naively assimilated, definitely simplistic. It can't happen here?
The raw-nerved canary is the best determinant of poison gas, not the coal miner.
The sensitive Jew (not assimilated rationalizer). The sensitive black. The sensitive woman. The sensitive gay. The sensitive Palestinian.
Unless one is a racist convinced of the ethical and moral superiority of Jews, one has to admit the possibility that it could happen among Jews as well as among Germans or hypothetically among non-Jewish Americans.
Analysis of the primary Zionist literature (George Mosse has a good essay in "Germans and Jews" on the influence of German voelkisch ideas among Jews) and observation of the Israeli state leads to the conclusion that it is happening there (in the Israeli State) and that Zionism is not only ethnic Ashkenazi Nazism, but it is smarter than German Nazism, which always wanted to enmesh the US and UK in German Nazi goals, for as Tony Karon pointed out (and I discuss in link to members.aol.com
) Zionist manipulation of the American political process has practically become an accepted American political insitution while Americans generally disdained German Nazism.
I'll leave it to others posting here to say who the claptrap- parading fools are these days who see no irony in their position.
Roth's book was a slap in the face to those that are/were happily naively assimilated, definitely simplistic? Well, good thing the neocons absorbed his conceit in time to make things better for
everybody important.
It can't happen here? It's happening now. Visit our VA hospitals and clinics. Go with your son; it should be inspiring.
Alll those bases the USA has around the world (170?) are launching pads.
RE: "…Jews have a responsibility to preempt dehumanization by eliminating dehumanizers before they can dehumanize."
Is this from a PNAC footnote or a drawer of the Office Of Special Plans?
What is happening now, Charles?
You believe the pander that you've been told that the Iraq war was fought for Israel?
You are a gullible fool if that's what you think.
The US invaded Iraq for three reasons:
1. The personal vendetta of a son, to remove the stain from conservatives' assessment of Bush Sr refusing to go to Baghdad because it was not authorized by the UN.
2. To secure the supply chain for oil, permanently, by removing one by one the various anti-western states (Iraq, Iran, who knows whose next).
3. To support and venge the friends of the US, for SAUDI ARABIA and KUWAIT, primarily.
The influence of Israel was minor, more as a poster child for the fanaticism of Iraq, that was willing to bomb a third party not party to the first Iraq war.
RE: "So, he is attracted to making aliyah, to living in Israel, even to serving in the military. He feels that it is his community, moreso even than the town that he grew up in. I've urged him to question that, to not take one experience as all their is."
Atta boy. Why should he feel more grateful to the town, community and country he safely grew up within? Even to serving in the military? My gosh, think of that! Better go along with him if he insists on visiting your local army recruiter–if you have one in your town.
Mmmmmm, so Hollywood has produced a mere 175 films on the Nazi holocaust since 1989? An average of 9 per year? Holocaust
175, Nakba O. I guess conincidence theory applies; certainly wouldn't want to be called a conspiracy crackpot. Besides there is a movie a thimblefull of Americans have seen: Al Nakba, made
in late 90's if memory serves, by Palestinians, again, if memory serves. Of course that's the point no? No memory?
We can fix that:
Here are 10 potential films—all inspired by actual events—that are just waiting for the magic of Spielberg and his wannabes:
1. “King David Hotel”
The bombing of the King David Hotel, which served as headquarters of the British administration in Palestine, killed 91 Arabs, Jews and Brits in 1946. Two future prime ministers of Israel, David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin, masterminded the attack. Disguised as Arabs, members of Begin’s Irgun placed 350 kilograms of explosives inside the building. In this action-packed thriller, David (Pierce Brosnan)—a British officer ordered to hunt down the killers—falls for Margaret (Uma Thurman), an American journalist working for Life Magazine. But is Margaret really in love or is she a secret Zionist assassin out to stop David in his tracks?
2. “Nakba”
A story of innocent love in a time of war and tragedy. Layla (Penelope Cruz) and Salam (Orlando Bloom) are a Romeo and Juliet against the backdrop of the 1948 Nakba, the Palestinian national catastrophe. During the Nakba, over 700,000 Palestinians fled—voluntarily and involuntarily—their homes. Can their love survive conflict?
3. “USS Liberty”
When Israeli boats and fighter jets attack the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty in the middle of the 1967 Six-Day War, 34 U.S. servicemen are killed and 173 are wounded. The official word from Washington and Tel Aviv is that the attack was a mistake. But Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, who play surviving officers from the Liberty, swear vengeance after discovering that the attack was actually part of a plot to start World War III.
4. “Sabra and Shatila”
It’s 1982 and the war in Lebanon rages on. British war correspondent Robert Fisk (“Star Wars” star Ewan MacGregor) hides in the camps of Sabra and Shatila, while a Lebanese militia aided and abetted by Israel slaughters thousands of Palestinian refugees. Sahar (Sandra Bullock) is a Palestinian mother determined to protect her family at any cost.
5. “Vanunu”
A political thriller set in Israel, Australia, Thailand, England and Italy. “Syriana” star George Clooney plays Mordechai Vanunu, the nuclear technician who exposes Israel’s nuclear weapons program and pays the ultimate price. Nicole Kidman plays Cheryl Bentov, the American Mossad agent who seduces and kidnaps him.
6. “Hebron”
A story of tragedy and torn loyalties. In 1994, Brooklyn Jewish doctor Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim worshippers in Hebron, killing 29. Palestinian American Mazen Khalili (Tom Hanks), a State Department official assigned to investigate the massacre, struggles with his job responsibilities and his roots. Leah Rabinowitz (Meg Ryan) is a Jewish American journalist who discovers a dark family secret that will change her life forever.
7. “Qana”
On April 18, 1996, Israeli shelling of a U.N. Compound that shelters Lebanese refugees kills more than 100 and injures over 300 men, women, and children. Jessica (Angelina Jolie) is a U.N. worker determined to let the world know what happened after witnessing the atrocity. Yossi (Robert De Niro) is a Mossad agent assigned to kill Jolie.
8. “Gaza”
Chris Hedges (Harrison Ford), a New York Times correspondent in Jerusalem, files stories from his hotel room. Hedges reaches a turning point when he witnesses Israeli soldiers killing young Palestinian boys for sport, then defies his editors by writing stories that humanize Palestinians. David Schwimmer and Sarah Jessica Parker make cameo appearances as the parents of Muhammad al-Durra, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy killed by Israeli troops in 2000.
9. “Rachel”
Rachel Corrie (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the idealistic young American activist crushed to death by the Israeli army with a Caterpillar bulldozer. Sally Field, well-known for her role in “Not Without My Daughter,” plays Rachel’s mother.
10. “Refuseniks”
When a fellow soldier commits suicide after killing an unarmed pregnant Palestinian woman (played by Natalie Portman) in cold blood, two young Israeli soldiers (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) decide that the occupation and the killing of Palestinians is immoral and unjust.
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/Jan_Feb_2006/0601036.html
"The US invaded Iraq for three reasons:
"1. The personal vendetta of a son, to remove the stain from conservatives' assessment of Bush Sr refusing to go to Baghdad because it was not authorized by the UN.
"2. To secure the supply chain for oil, permanently, by removing one by one the various anti-western states (Iraq, Iran, who knows whose next).
"3. To support and venge the friends of the US, for SAUDI ARABIA and KUWAIT, primarily.
"The influence of Israel was minor, more as a poster child for the fanaticism of Iraq, that was willing to bomb a third party not party to the first Iraq war."
Witty is able to make this silly argument because Mearsheimer and Walt did not really understand the subject of their study when they put together their original article.
I try to address some of the flaws in my article The Israel Lobby and American Society: The State of the Lobby (link to members.aol.com
).
My analysis of Israel Lobbying and Advocacy ("Judonia") is actually quite similar to Finkelstein's analysis of The Holocaust Industry, which I consider practically a wholly owned subsidiary of Judonia.
Anyway, here is a relevant passage from my document.
If Israel is a client state and the New Jewish elite is dominating American culture and politics, American Zionists or more correctly those American Zionists manipulating or dominating US ME policy call the shots in Israel and not local Israeli politicians.
There is another critical aspect to the flow of power. A segment of the American Jewish community seems to increase its status, wealth and power through its Israel connection, which at the very least gives this small but important well-connected group of American Jews a place on the gravy train of unaccounted cash aid to Israel.
These American Jews then use their increasing wealth to make sure that national politicians, who support continuing and increasing aid to Israel, are well funded during election campaigns. By careful working the Israel lobby and media connections, this group of Zionists keeps American politicians in a state of dependency on Jewish contributions and in a state of fear of campaign swift-boating.
In effect American national politicians with the exception of Ron Paul are clients of powerful Jewish Zionist elite. In other words, the State of Israel may be a client state of America, but America is a client state of the American Jewish Zionist elite, which is probably in the process of establishing itself as the permanent national "meritocratic" elite.
[Is it surprising that a vocal Zionist like Kondracke and Commentary, which until recently was the flagship national publication of the American Jewish Committee have systematically attacked affirmative action?]
While the American public has not fully comprehended the nature of power relations, Israeli leaders do, and the American Zionist elite calls all shots on issues of importance to the American elite from "Who is a Jew" to whether the USA should attack Iraq or Iran first.
The political relational hierarchy and the domination of an American Zionist elite over all validate the Finkelstein and Massad critiques of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.
The alliance between Israel and the US states is in the process of creating an internal American caste system that will be dominated by a small class of hyper-wealthy Zionists. With the sort of permanent war that has been envisioned since the beginning of the twentieth century by a segment of the Zionist elite under the influence of Sorel and with the application of the Friedmanite Shock Doctrine as described by Naomi Klein, this caste system will spread globally. (See The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein.)
The Israeli economy or more properly a small segment of hyper-wealthy Israeli Jews linked by family and business relations to the dominant US Zionist elite is thriving as the US economy is tanking and Iraq is being ground down. It is the outcome of which leading Zionists dreamed in the twenties, and it has a high probability of spreading from the ME throughout the Muslim world to South America, and to parts of the former Eastern block.
The Kremlin, which has never had much tolerance for internal competing power centers or external powers mucking in its backyard, saw danger in the extension of a transnational hyper-wealthy Zionist political elite to Russia and has taken preventive action against Jewish oligarchs within the territories of the former Soviet Union. It was stunning how quickly Jewish and Friedmanite groups rushed to support Mikhail Khodorkovski in his power struggle with the Russian government.
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.