According to the BBC, Richard Falk, who is to be the U.N.'s next special investigator for human rights in the Palestinian territories, has compared Israeli actions in Palestinian territories to Nazi actions--and then refused to retract the comparison.
Professor Falk said he drew the comparison between the treatment of Palestinians with the Nazi record of collective atrocity, because of what he described as the massive Israeli punishment directed at the entire population of Gaza.
He said he understood that it was a provocative thing to say, but at the time, last summer, he had wanted to shake the American public from its torpor. [all emphases mine in these quotes]
The BBC says Falk is even stronger in his criticism of Israel than the man who currently holds the job, John Dugard, who you may recall said:
Israel has taken advantage of the paranoia of non-state terrorism in certain countries to embark on a campaign of state terrorism in the occupied Palestinian Territory. In the process the whole Charter-system, premised on the prohibition on the use of force, self-determination, human rights, and the respect for the rule of law has been brought into contempt.
Dugard said that 4 years ago. Americans didn't wake up. Lately Rev. Wright got axed for saying Israel had committed "state terrorism." Falk is trying to shake Americans up again. And you wonder why John McCain's neocon advisers want to replace the U.N. with a League of Democracies.
What is it with you and the hot words Phil?
"Nazi", and omitting the more concisely stated and limiting statement below.
"Falk has also stated, however, that "the comparison [of some Israeli policies to those of Nazi Germany] should not be viewed as literal, but…that a pattern of criminality associated with Israeli policies in Gaza has actually been supported by the leading democracies of the 21st century." "
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From the linked Slimes article:
"Mr. McCain’s advisers say he talks to realists like former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz. Mr. Kissinger said in an interview that he had talked with Mr. McCain “15 to 20 times in the last year.”
"McCain … at first wanted to limit the American response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait to the air."
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Kissinger was the architect of the one of the great war crimes of the 20th century, the bombing of Cambodia. Calling him a "realist" is like calling Idi Amin (the late cannibal president of Uganda) a "gourmand." The Slimes' stenographers remind us daily of the banality of evil.
Unfortunately, one can connect the dots in the above two statements, and surmise that McCain is a believer in the myth of "surgical bombing." The U.S. has been obsessed with air power, ever since it committed mass terror bombings of civilians in Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I suspect that the North Vietnamese successfully programmed McCain as a sleeper agent. Pray that the madman doesn't get elected, and invite the ghastly criminal wraith Kissinger, the appalling ghost of Christmas Past bombing (1972), back to sully the White House again with his sinister misanthropic blood lust. Kissinger is the original zionazi, the very prototype of the breed.
Richard, I also have eliminated Dugard's qualificatoin, before his statement which I quote that Israel committed state terrorism, that Israel has a legitimate right to security. In both cases, I am playing up the most dramatic things these men said. This is a legitimate journalistic pracitce. I'm not distorting their meaning, I'm sampling it. My report is truly a selection wiht a p-o-v; but I have not used the word Nazi, Falk did, Richard, I dont think I ever have used that word with respect to Israeli actions, because I am reluctant to make Holocaust like judgments myself without some intimate knowledge of atrocity; though god knows I have quoted others who have used that hot word. Falk used that word. And yes, I have seized on such characterizations. Polemically. In part because I think the vital task here is to expose Americans to a broader debate here. I think this is absolutely imperative, for my country's security and to cool off the Middle East. There are atrocities going on in Israel/Palestine and one side has much more power. I share Falk's desire and he's English, to shake Americans up.
Count on me, if this conversation ever at last takes place, to moderate some of my exclamations. But the important thing in my view is to get the conversaton going, beyond you and me, to have Mearsheimer and Finkelstein on American TV, to encourage Kurtzer and Brzezinski and Quandt to express their views…
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Unbelievable — South Africa's ex-president, Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela, needs a special waiver to enter the United States. Why? Because he belongs to a listed "terrorist" party. From BBC News:
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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked for "embarrassing" travel restrictions on Nelson Mandela and South African leaders to be lifted.
The African National Congress (ANC) was designated as a terrorist organisation by South Africa's old apartheid regime. At present a waiver is needed for any ANC leaders to enter the country. "It is frankly a rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterparts – the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader, Nelson Mandela," Ms Rice told lawmakers in Washington.
Last week, Howard Berman, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, who introduced the bill said it was "shameful" that the United States still treated the ANC this way. "Amazingly, Nelson Mandela still needs to get a special waiver to enter the United States based on his courageous leadership of the ANC. What an indignity. This legislation will wipe it away," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7340248.stm
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Goes to show how much credibility can be placed in the U.S. list of terrorist organizations — they can't tell their friends from their foes.
Nice that Howard Berman's finally prodding our asleep-at-the-switch government to do what it should have done 15 years ago. Too bad that he won't be urging Condi Rice to talk to another listed party, Hamas. After all, that's personal.
"This is a legitimate journalistic pracitce. "
If you want to rationalize it that way.
I don't think that you can control the genie.
I wouldn't recommend that Finkelstein OR Mearsheimer be the persons to articulate any suggestion of alternative to the present.
You know, I prefer the mediation model to the political. For its backbone, and its commitment to truth stated respectfully.
Obama speaks that language, NOT the political that many on the left imagine that he hides in his pocket.
On the web, many criticize me for NOT using citations and quotations to state my own beliefs. I feel that I am being dishonest to use another's hot quote to illustrate my own, instead of naming it my own, or even an inquiry.
Its why I wonder if you are a journalist, or an advocate?
It irritated me horribly when Walt/Mearsheimer paraded their academic credentials, and their prior reputation as "realist" and objective social "scientists", to articulate their partisan advocacy.
I feared that I was being hustled by a used car dealer (not to generalize about used car dealers, which like Zionists, journalists, and politicians, come in all stripes).
when i was younger there was something called "advocacy journalism." I never thought that much of it. today i consider myself both an advocate and a journalist and see no contradiction. there is a great tradition. thomas paine, upton sinclair. im too old to pretend i dont have a strong point of view.
i think some of my posts are argumentative and others are more journalistic: UN Official Likens Israel to Nazis… heck, that's news. the blogopshere i've noticed is very pointed, in terms of views. i enjoy that aspect of it.
as to mediation approach rather than polemical, i admire you for that. i sense that's why you've hung out at this site alot under all the brickbats, trying to communicate.
myself i am more motivated by a need to bear witness. my trip to hebron made me feel there was gross injustice here that had to be sharply addressed and brought to my people's attention. falk feels the same way. so does dugard. i committed myself to using all the tools i have. i am sure i have failed in a lot of ways; but i'm going to keep trying…
Ok, Haygood. So McCain is an agent of the north vietnamese. Elighten me has to why you reached that conclusion. Obviously his treachery and deceit didn't escape your eye. How did you find him out>
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"im too old to pretend i dont have a strong point of view.
"i think some of my posts are argumentative and others are more journalistic. myself i am more motivated by a need to bear witness."
F***in'-A.
When you're old enough to sense that this idiot's tale full of sound and fury has an endpoint, it no longer makes sense to waste what's left scribbling for the Borg.
Well done. Carry on!
"but i'm going to keep trying…"
Get clear what you are actually trying to do, and be aware that there are predictable unintended consequences when you present selective polemic rather than honest and complete witness. (I'm not talking about intentional dirty tricks. I'm talking about the ethics of communication.)
I expect that you've witnessed MUCH MORE than only the critical that you've presented here, and the manner that you present what you've witnessed is different from what you claim to encourage.
I would like to appeal to your ethical sense that how one does one's profession is the subject of ethics as well as the content that you are commenting on.
If you are at war ("which side are you on?"), then acknowledge that personally, and drop the character assassination about those that similarly would be at war with you or what you effectively advocate.
I'm NOT at war, and won't be. If I criticize neo-conservatives or angry "solidarity" for adopting an "ends justify the means" approach, then to adopt the same makes me the same. (To an extent it is unavoidable. To an extent it is avoidable.)
Jewish community, IS my community (among many others), and I will do what I can to make it healthy. In the very very vast majority of cases that means helping, helping Jews and participating in helping others. In the few cases that means defending, and in the fewer cases offending, I'll do that.
Please take seriously my comment about your ability to control the genie.
Also,
Please examine if you are "speaking to the American public" in this blog, or more actually to a very limited audience of already committed.
Richard, (if I may interfere?) your comments leave me with the overall impression that to you the intention of the neocons and their brethren in spirit to blow (nuke) the whole ME into surrender, is not as dangerous as pointing out the Jewish brainpower behind and support for such a strategy: "The Arabs only understand power".
What about the genie this kind of thinking left out of the bottle?
Better to address the arguments themselves, and specifically.
By condemning a person, it makes it more difficult for that person to avoid being defensive, and resisting reflection and change.
Also, there are things that I admire about Podhoretz for example, namely that he concluded that he was propagating something that he identified as harmful in the way he articulated his new-leftist views, and changed.
Its a tragedy though that he doesn't continue his self-reflection and become a neo-liberalcon, in reaction to his reaction to his reaction.
He could have settled on a more comprehensive ethical approach, than just the ping-pong political and personal psychological reactionism.
In the name of being risk-averse, he advocates an extremely risky approach, make war, ask questions later.
But many adopt the view of "shoot first, inquire later" (if at all), on the left, the right, the neo-cons, and the right/left.
Its the political approach, rather than the mediative. (not meditative)
Which genie is American? Which one actually empathizes with the nation's Declaration Of Independence? Which nation in this world most closely aspires by its formative documents to the highest tenants of humanism? And, what are they, given the current nation states and wannabees? I bet Obama is asking himself such questions, privately–I think his wife already has her answer. I hope he is less cocksure. Whichever genie gets elected, the usual suspects will pay the most in blood and treasure.