People are pointing out all the connections between Israel and Georgia, including McCain's neonate neocon braintrust. But Georgia reminds me of the Palestinians in '48. Who's the stronger power here? Russia, of course. As were the Zionists (backed with arms by American Jewry and the Czechs). Who's the occupier? Russia. Who started it? Well: the Georgians, with their ill-advised move of last week–as some say the Palestinians started the violence in '47, post-Partition, with a feckless uprising. And who is the darling of a large part of the world that now won't lift an M-16 in their behalf? The Georgians. A lot like the Palestinians, beloved and abandoned by the Arab world.
Who has nukes?
In fact, you might compare the Georgia/Russia border with the Partition borders drawn by the U.N. special committee in '47. The Jews ignored those borders when they set about to have a majority Jewish state, extirpating and ethnically-cleansing Arab villages and Jaffa and Haifa, places that the U.N. stated must retain their Arab character. (Israel is still ethnically-cleansing Jaffa.) The Russians are ignoring those borders now, ignoring world opinion. Nationalist-maximalist Putin reminds me of various Israeli nationalist strongmen. Begin. Shamir. Sharon. They cared just as little about international legitimacy. Facts on the ground!
While the quixotic righteous silver-tongued Mikheil Saakashvili is as charming to us as Yaser Arafat was for all Arabs. It's just a matter of time before the terrorist acts of resistance begin.
Georgia is now the darling of the western world, the focus of compassion and concern. Mine too. Why not share a little of that compassion with the Palestinians?
I just don't see it, Phil….
There are a million parallels to a million situations.
You picked Israel as the parallel.
I take issue with your assumption that Israel was the superior military power to the entire Islamic world in 1947-48. That is a revision, a selective interpretation.
Israel both lost and won territory in the 1948 war. The greatest loser in the war was the international community, that lost all of the land that was defined as a planned international enclave.
And, it did result from Arab initiation of hostilities, in a land grab (not a defense of Palestinians).
I don't see it, either. And the Palestinians didn't ask zionists to come to the area, which means that the zionists started the conflict. Shooting was bound to follow.
Russia reminds me more of the U.S. at this point, which is why it is mind-boggling that Bush or Rice can open their mouths about invading another country.
And the Palestinians aren't the darlings of the western world. EVen by mondoweiss standards this analogy is a bridge too far.
Phil: you're really off base. Check this Haaretz article: link to haaretz.com
The money quote: "Both war and peace are in the hands of Israeli Jews." (Saakashvili)
The Israeli connection is most certainly NOT in the USA mainstream media.
That media's main yell is that Russia is acting like a bully again.
Tht media has NEVER yelled Israel was or is acting like a bully.
Those are not analogies, just facts available to anyone.
Would be interesting to see what the USA would do if various nations favoring Russia crept up towards our sourthern border outskirts, as has been happening via NATO and USA missile system creep–the latest in Poland…
What was the Cuban missile crisis?
Our Fourth Estate and both political parties do not have the USA's long-term interest at heart.
Dmitry Orlov in Reinventing Collapse asserts that today's United States is on the verge of collapse much as the Soviet Union had been in the 1980's.
Dmitry Orlov was born in Leningrad and immigrated to the United States at the age of 12. He was an eyewitness to the Soviet collapse over several extended visits to his Russian homeland between the late eighties and mid-nineties
To the extent that, like Orlov, other Russians view the United States as an overstated empire on the verge of a Soviet-style collapse, then they are apt to view NATO expansion as more of a tactical problem than as a strategic threat.
certainly explains why everyone should have a nuke or two
"While the quixotic righteous silver-tongued Mikheil Saakashvili is as charming to us "…. That's the first I heard about his charm!.
"It's just a matter of time before the terrorist acts of resistance begin." … This is why the Russians didn't take over the whole country, so as not to have an insurgency. Terrorists acts will only be instigated with a nod and a wink from the West.
The following two blog entries may be of interest:
Richard Witty is of course lying. Two thirds of Zionist ethnic cleansing took place before Arab states intervened.
Oh come on, Joachim, why engage in revisionism when you can have Paul Neuman in Exodus?
Definition of historical revisionism:
The part left out of the winner's (by force) narrative.
And who is the darling of a large part of the world that now won't lift an M-16 in their behalf? The Georgians.
You're dead wrong on this. Only Americans believe this. The Georgians are reviled in every country in the world except the USA.
Phil, you ned to read this:
Two Morons: Bush and Saakashvili
"President Bush, Will You Please Shut Up?"
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
link to counterpunch.org
Your knowledge of history is jaded, boys.
Witty, sorry we don't stick to your script. It's called growing up. You are the boy.
You site Pappe and Martillo as sources?
1947 and 1948 was a civil war, except for the invasions by Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria.
Both some Palestinians and some Israelis engaged in activities that are described as ethnic cleansing.
Israel was fighting a war of independance, a war for its existence. I sympathize with that narrative.
You don't for who knows what combinations of reasons.
The present is knot, made a knot by combinations of fears (not just Israeli and not just Palestinian, and not just pan-Islamic, and not just superpowers vying for advantage re: oil and capital.)
Blaming Israel for every wrong in the world does not untie the knot, it ignores that it is a knot and tightens it further.
"Israel was fighting a war of independance, a war for its existence. I sympathize with that narrative."
The Palestinians were, and are, fighting for independence and survival. Israel's battle has alway been to crush Palestinian resistance, and to secure and gain more land from the Palestinians and their neighbors. The Israeli victim narrative is BS.
Palestinians = South Ossetians, yearning for freedom from Georgia, which claims their land as its own and justifies its aspirations to the west with talk of democracy and freedom. Georgia, therefore, equals Israel (hence the close ties between the two). The difference is that the South Ossetians have the big kid on the block, aka Russia, on their side, so they were able to kick the Georgians out. No such luck for the Palestinians.
It's been well established for some time now, Witty, that Israel planned to expand it's land grab beyond the U.N partition well before any Arab response to having their land stolen from them.
Do some research.
"1947 and 1948 was a civil war, except for the invasions by Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria."–Witty
Yes, absolutely, and the American Indian Wars were all civil wars too. Too funny.
"Yes, absolutely, and the American Indian Wars were all civil wars too. Too funny."
Charles, you have it all wrong! Custer died at wounded knee waging a war of liberation from the Indians.
Our Zionists allies always fall back on the legitimacy of America's founding when all else fails, so I usually let them raise the issue. I resisted the temptation, but Witty's take is so absurd that laughing is almost a waste of time.
Hey Todd, yeah, too funny for words–even for Witty's abstract BS cover for his simple tribalism… Absurd is a fitting adjective for Witty's jagged smoke–like, why learn anything from what the whites did to the native Americans or from what the NAZIs did to the Jews? Just say, "Why's everyone always pickin' on us."
Witty, the Jewish Charlie Brown. Oops, sorry, the cartoonist was a German American. Imagine if he were a Witty cartoonist? No Red Baron there…