http://www.counterpunch.org/weir04042008.html

Jews KNOW more of their history than the rest of the general world, who gets its news from biased sources.

I strongly disagree with your implication that Walt/Mearsheimer or Finkelstein present an "enlightened" presentation. I've seen numerous videos of all three, and they make almost predictable mistatements of Israeli/Palestinian history, all of the same sort, of generalization when REALITY is not accurately characterizable in that way.

I KNOW you have a better bullshit detector than to be taken in by only considering Pappe's or Finkelstein's versions of Israeli history.

Don't you?

Netanyahu was prime minister and gave permission for the digging in spite of three decades of acknowledgement that TO dig would be an enormous provocation, more than Sharon's walk.

I've met Israeli officers (peace advocates) that previously were working on joint development projects with Palestinian officers prior to the firefights ("massacre is a loaded word that may or may not be true"), who described that the same people that were collaboratively building electric infrastructure and hospitals, began shooting each other.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs formed as a result of that last straw.

Others besides Walt/Mearsheimer, Finkelstein, Chomsky, Pappe describe the history in critical but mutually humanizing terms.

Why do you imagine that all Jews should be liberals. Not all are. Its their right, as it is your and my right not be conservative.

With the way the anti-zionist side has dominated the narrative in media coverage, the way the mass media wantonly labels all zionists as terrorists and is saturated with ideological anti-zionists, one can hardly blame the outmatched Israelis to resort to violence on their Palestinian oppressors, in desperation.

Sometimes I wonder if justice will ever come for the Jewish nation, Rich. Is there any other groups of humans who will not victimize Jews given the first opportunity?

"There must be billions, nay trillions, floating around in anti-zionist thinktanks and media welfare streams."

So, so true, Dr. MM. And it can pile up in a hurry, let me tell you:

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WASHINGTON – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Clinton reported $20.4 million in income for 2007 and more than $109 million since 2000 as they gave the public the most detailed look at their finances in eight years. Almost half the former first couple's money came from his speeches.

The former president's speech income since he left the White House totals $51.85 million and his income from his two books — "My Life " and "Giving" — totals $29.6 million.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080404/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_taxes

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"Giving." Help me, I've fallen on the floor laughing, and I can't get up. The Beverly Hillbillies seek your vote. For Awwwlllll, that is — TEXAS TEA!

Let me offer a counterexample to these gilded philistines — a soi-disant Virginia redneck named Joe Bageant. Listen to what he said yesterday:

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Living as I do much of the year in a Third World village, watching daily the cost of the American lifestyle on the village's people, the technocultural cheapening of their lives, physical hunger, I feel guilty even being in such a posh hotel as the Omni [for a book festival]. I should be back in Central America finishing up the water and sanitation project I recently started there (and probably would be if I were not out of money).

Yet, through the patio's glass door I can see the people round my table, the Northumberland librarian, the writer Tom Miller whose moving testimonies of Latino immigrants open up worlds unseen by white Americans, my own good wife who brings to life the truth of slavery by excavating memories in an amnesiac America. These are people who understand that human life is short and history is long, and that their humanly elegant efforts will not only go unheralded by that history, but mostly go unacknowledged in their own darkening time, and be all but eradicated by the sheer impoverishment of language and literacy in their native country during a New American Dark Age that comes cloaked in glittering technology instead of a coarse woolen cowl. Such unassuming and dedicated people are among our best.

http://www.counterpunch.org/bageant04032008.html

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I thought Joe was fishing for a donation, and offered him one. This is how he replied today:

"I do appreciate your kind thoughts. But I see my job as an American and a human being is to give to the world, not take from it. So I voluntarily live on about $5,000 a year. All the proceeds from my my magazine articles, speaking engagements, my book, "Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War," (Random House Crown) go to Third World human development projects.

"Also, as a born and bred redneck, I could never bring myself to ask anyone for money, for any reason whatsoever. I believe we are supposed to give entirely of ourselves, not from what belongs to other people. There should be no middle men in acts of charity. (It only leaves the door wide open to con men.)"

Chew on that, Clinton, you phony-ass plutocratic populist. $109 million would buy enough trailers to house everybody in Arkansas … hell, the whole country … and give 'em an education besides. The audacity of Hope, as it were! Gag me with a watermelon.

http://www.hopechamberofcommerce.com/

Wait a minute now Witty, now your talkin about my main man Norman. You show me the conclustions of a Zionist historian, DNA scientist or archaeologist pulling crap out of Palestinian dirt and I'll show you how to wear out the batteries of bullshit detector quicker than a fat women's vibrator.

Is It Time To Let A Jew Out Of The Box?

http://homo-sapien-underground.blogspot.com/2007/01/is-it-time-to-let-jews-out-of-box.html

Tell us which ones you have in mind, Richard.

I once lived in a small (large on the map) county with 30,000 people, and found it strange that members of Israel's government, along with obedient local politicians, were visting the churches in the area to drum up support and donations for Israel. Of course the local paper had a few holocaust stories too. Yeah, the fundies are running the show.

What a bunch of shysters! If a backlash comes, who can say that it isn't deserved?