Brrrr…

This may sound radical, but the best hope the Palestinians have is a nuclear Iran and a powerful Hizbullah. You're not going to get too many Jews who like that idea; Norman Finkelstein and Gilad Atzmon are a rare breed. But of course they understand it to be true. That's why they want to avoid it.

If you go to a pro palestinian demonstration in New York, 1/3 of the participants will be Jewish. Imagine say a pro Tutsi demonstration, how many Hutus would show up?

My problem isn't with the Jews, my problem is with US politicians who kowtow to Jewish money and steer our foreign policy in ways disadvantageous to our interests.

Its not the mass media that is the problem. It is the Palestinian advocacy groups which prefer to harrangue than to inform.

You don't change hearts by assaulting them. You change hearts by informing them.

J Street doesn't need to lobby AIPAC. And, it doesn't need to confront AIPAC.

It needs to establish its own perspective, clearly and convincingly.

The questions about undivided Jerusalem (international undivided or Palestinian undivided or Israeli undivided), or about the fate of individual settlers or even the borders of sovereignty, defined by pluralities usually, are OPEN questions.

To assume that there is a clearly just answer in reality, is to impose.

Things that are known are that Palestine is a nation, Palestinians are human beings, and for any solution to actually be a solution, it must affirm the prospects for a healthy Palestinian state and people.

If some settlers must move to achieve what it takes to result in a healthy good neighbor to a healthy good neighbor, then move them.

While many (on multiple sides) object to how facts on the ground became facts on the ground, to a democratic perspective that is at best only partially relevant.

The United States for example is not a system that only franchises those "who should be here". Consent of the governed is consent of who IS here.

Definitely, the reality of forced expropriation of land must be dealt with in some way, but 1948 as reference is insufficient.

The task of humanists is to construct a good present and future, from horrendous pasts.

http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/07/18/ray-mcgovern-8/

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern discusses his recent article on the probable Israeli/U.S. attack on Iran, Israel’s need for new war in Iran to keep the U.S. military in the Mideast due to the failure in Iraq, the outspokenness of the military brass against an attack on Iran, AIPAC’s drafting of the new Iran war resolutions, Bush and Cheney’s loyalty to Israel, the never-ending conflicts created by the Israel occupation of Palestine, the need for the American people and Congress to understand the catastrophe that would ensue from attacking Iran and the urgency of impeachment.

Great title, Phil. :)

It was the first summer that the old city was open to visit by Jews. The Wailing Wall, the old city.

The feeling EVERYWHERE was of exuberance that the city was once again unified (not like Berlin, walled), and that Jews were permitted (rather than excluded) from visiting the sites of their recent and long past sentimental attachment.

One reason that there are differences in consciousness stratified by age, is that people have different founding experiences often by age.

What one experienced from 14 – 20 is largely formative. For Jews older than I, the holocaust (largely revealed in detail and graphically after the war – during the war there was NOT open press at the death camps), the founding of Israel, the wars against Israel, and in 1967 the restoration of ability to visit the lands of our fathers.

It was profound.

It can be compromised politically, but it should not be dismissed as if the experience did not occur.

That is revionism.

So what matters is the future.

If Palestinians want their livelihoods back, they will have to maneuver themselves into power in the future.

Why don't they make convincing, historically accurate films, you know, like Exodus?

Why not strive to plant more of their surrogates in the American media and government, to create a mythology of pure righteousness in the minds of the idiots?

For the Diaspora Palestinians, it wouldn't hurt to quit studying all that engineering and medicine, and concentrate on public relations, insurance schemes, and speculative finance.

(America is a veritable cash cow for those who know how to milk it.)

Instead, organized Palestinian groups restrict themselves to the negative, to criticism, and to blanket invective against those who happened to have stolen their land (albeit, fair and square).

That land is now retroactively the land of my fathers. My fathers would not want us to give it back.

It is where the concept of the Jewish people can be imposed.

But remember, the objective is not to impose, but rather, to INFLUENCE.

Once future Palestinian-American billionaires have achieved substantial influence, they can then begin to threaten politicians who refuse to vote for the creation of Nakba museums, or billions in unconditional aid for Palestine.

In other words, Palestinians can start following the zionist universalist path to peace and justice RIGHT NOW.

And whenever hateful voices are raised against this future Palestinian power, they should respond with affirmations:

War is a GOOD.

Our mythology is PROFOUND.

Palestinians are a PEOPLE.

Targeted suicide bombing missions and rocket launchings are NECESSARY for SECURITY.