Dan Fleshler here cites a savage insight by a leading American rabbi who was outraged by the conduct of the 1982 Lebanon war: that American Jewish leaders were "used like cows" to promote Israel's initiative here, and even milked like cows, as Israel behaved in a brutal manner. Then Fleshler writes:
At the outset of the Gaza war, I–like thousands of other American Jews with ties to Israel–received a flurry of email messages, bulletins and reports of conference calls with Israeli diplomats. I was assured that the goal of Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza was to protect the people of southern Israel from rocket fire. I was told that Israel was simply trying to destroy the Hamas infrastructure that supported the rocket fire. The goal seemed to be limited.
But the declared goals kept changing, as I noted in a furious post a few days after the war started. Eventually, it became clear that I was being asked to defend an operation whose real goal was to send a message, to show Hamas and the Palestinians under its rule that the Israelis would not hesitate to behave like unpredictable madmen if the rocket fire on southern Israel continued. As Ethan Bronner put it, “The Israeli theory of what it tried to do here is summed up in a Hebrew phrase heard across Israel and throughout the military in the past weeks: `baal habayit hishtageya,‘ or `the boss has lost it.’”
The price of this feigned madness was the death of hundreds of innocent people and the maiming of many more, all in the name of the abstract and murky goal of “deterrence.”
Moo...
The old dove is being a bit disingenuous here; surely it has been obvious for years that the Israeli govt., being largely composed of military men, and the US govt., being largely dependent on military-linked corporations for its funding and media-induced legitimacy, are indistinguishable.
"The boss has lost it." Isn't that a notorious advertising ploy? "The boss has lost it and he's slashing prices!"
I guess this one has been adapted for Zionist purposes: "The boss has lost it and he's slashing Palestinians! Quick, run to Jordan!"
Is there a dirty trick out there these people won't employ on behalf of their expansionism? Is it really any surprise that they're manipulating their useful idiot Zionist fifth column in the US into doing their bidding?
Well, lesson learned? Next time maybe those flurries of milking emails etc
will be taken with more than a grain of salt? As the little boy who cried Wolf?
Seems there's just no stopping gullibility, either in this context or in the Madoff context. Does not flag anything good for poor average Americans.
While radical Islam is a threat, it seems its major enabler is the USA and Israel, joined at the hip–with no average citizens having any power whatsoever to affect a solid change…
After all these years, expecting to get a straight answer out of the Israelis is more than naive–it's downright stupid. Being so obtuse–not to mention self-pitying–looks a bit too much like a strategy here.
On a related topic, there are truckloads of aid baking in the sun on the Gaza-Egypt border. Where's Mitchell at this moment?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/world/middleeast/28egypt.html
Here's David Aaron Miller on the (absence of) prospects for lasting peace:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/18375/mitchells_prospects_for_lasting_israelipalestinian_accord_slim_to_none.html
I am concerned that there are those in Israel who want to escalate, who want to burn bridges, who want to incite a clash of civilizations, who want to draw the United States as far into it as possible, but who, at the end of the day, will want to alienate everyone else, so that even America will turn against Israel, and the Zionist homeland will be every true Jew's only safe haven. Such people need to be identified and marginalized ASAP.
With the 100 or so acts of terrorism associated with Islamic fascism occurring every week, it is hard to believe you are doing anything other than calling "wolf".
"The boss has lost it." Isn't that a notorious advertising ploy? "The boss has lost it and he's slashing prices!"
The Hebrew usage:
The Israeli theory of what it tried to do here is summed up in a Hebrew phrase heard across Israel and throughout the military in the past weeks: “baal habayit hishtageya,” or “the boss has lost it.” It evokes the image of a madman who cannot be controlled.
“This phrase means that if our civilians are attacked by you, we are not going to respond in proportion but will use all means we have to cause you such damage that you will think twice in the future,” said Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser.
100 or so acts of terrorism associated with Islamic fascism occurring every week
I often wonder how many of these human hate machines actually believe what they're saying. The schoolkids and some of the first-year university students, I suppose, not having yet penetrated the sheer falsity of it all; and the jewish working class, which just doesn't have the time or energy for research, and is usually dependent on clientilistic relationships with right wing bosses.
Why do you think the Jewish working class has no time or energy for research? Do you limit Jews as a racial ideology or just out-and-out ignorance?
Regardless, I believe Giora speaks truth to power.
Isn't this what Mafia types do to achieve their status?
"This phrase means that if our Mafioso are attacked by you, we are not going to respond in proportion but will use all means we have to cause you such damage that you will think twice in the future"
Gloria speaks truth to power? No, he speaks truth about power.
The schoolkids and some of the first-year university students, I suppose, not having yet penetrated the sheer falsity of it all
Judging from his recent spat of contributions, Chris Berel talks like he fits into one of those groups. He's swallowed the entire pill… when will its effects wear off?
Even this allegedly pro-Palestinian piece still contains the underlying premise that Israel's actions are retaliatory, even if it is condemning the craziness of the "retaliation." Read this paragraph:
"Eventually, it became clear that I was being asked to defend an operation whose real goal was to send a message, to show Hamas and the Palestinians under its rule that the Israelis would not hesitate to behave like unpredictable madmen if the rocket fire on southern Israel continued.
The rocket fire on southern Israel IS the retaliation for Israeli expansion and aggression. Until this point is made perfectly clear in all writing about the subject, people will still be led to falsely believe that Hamas and the Palestinians are just crazies who randomly fire rockets into Israel for no good reason.
The above paragraph is perfectly illustrative of the problem with so many seemingly anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian pieces: they still contain that one kernel of untruth that gives at least some validity to Israel's barbarity.
Israel is the aggressor. Israel is the expansionist. Hamas rocket fire is DEFENSIVE (it's not very effective, but that's not the point). Until these basic truisms are understood and clearly delineated in all writing about the subject, Israeli barbarity will continue to be seen in the false light of defensiveness.
Defensive fire directed at totally civilian targets? 1984, where are you? The previous poster is in need of an education.
Yes, defensive. If there was no retaliation at all, Israel would have swallowed up even more Palestinian land by now. The rockets remind Israel, and the poor "settlers" that the Zionist government uses in its quest to achieve "Eretz Israel", that the land isn't theirs to take, and that if they continue to ruthlessly expand forward, they'll experience more of the same. As I said, it's hardly effective (just witness how much expansion Israel has achieved in the face of it), but it's something.
Anyway, is it really "southern Israel" that the bottle rockets are landing on? How would anyone know that? Israel doesn't define its borders, remember?
It's stolen land, is what it is. Plain as day, and the rockets are launched to remind the world of it, just as much as they are a form of resistance.
Israel knows what it could do to stop the rockets immediately. But Israel isn't interested in stopping the rockets, because the rockets are used by Israel as a pretext for further invasions in order to "pacify" the indigenous population and "teach them a lesson about who's boss", all the while stealing more land from under their feet.
All this information is available through ISRAELI government and military sources, incidentally.
It's southern Israel, Dan. The Jordanians withdrew when they were outflanked at Umm Rashrash because even they knew that it was Israeli under the '47 partition plan. The Egyptians and the British had to be driven out of the Negev, however.
We can talk about Najd and al-Majdal/Askalan with the former residents when they stop firing rockets, however, they also have to talk about Nitzanim and why Jews were driven out in '48-'49. Talking about why Gaza's Jews were driven out in '49 explains how a lot of Southern Israel became a bit sparser in Arab population in '50-'51.
We can even welcome back to ISRAEL the ca. 150,000 still alive who were BORN in Najd and al-Majdal/Askalan once they assure us that they are willing to live in peace.
The fact that you know none of this history is unsurprising but tacky. Even Hamas knows the history. And I would be doubly damned if I would let the evil and ignorant (as opposed to the merely evil, like Hamas) determine the future of Southern Israel.
Well done, Dan Kelly, critique is much more effective then pure resentment Ed style.
When the war started, I wondered if ADL was ready for it latest antisemitism poll. Not quite a poll, but here we go:
Highest anti-Semitism rates in 2 decades
The number of anti-Semitic attacks around the world during Israel's three-week military operation against Hamas in Gaza was up more than 300 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching a two-decade high, according to figures released Sunday by the Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism. …
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Sunday blasted the wave of anti-Semitic incidents, some of which, she said, were being expressed by government officials.
"During days of international challenges – such as Operation Cast Lead and the Second Lebanon War – we see that Israel's very existence as a Jewish state is exploited with anti-Semitic activity in the guise of criticism against Israel's military actions," Livni said.
She added that such incidents were rife in countries with a large radical Islamic presence.
"The battle against anti-Semitism is not detached from the battle over our existence, and in the global struggle between moderates and extremists," she said.
Israel as the ultimate counter-enlightenment force. Protest and criticism against state power = antisemitism. These arguments are absolutely peculiar.
I gather that Dan thinks that all Israel's borders are undefined, when in fact the Jordanians withdrew from the South in in '49 at the cease-fire in implicit recognition of the '47 partition plan, and the Israel-Egypt border has been fixed since 1917, whether Egypt recognized Israel or not, and the Gaza-Israel border since '50, because, after all, the Egyptians and Bedouin had succeeded in driving out all the Jews from Gaza, and the "ne plus ultra" of this achievement had to be marked in the Armistice Agreement.
But hey, there has never been an independent Palestinian Arab State in Palestine, with any borders, at any time. However no one with any sense of sanity uses that as a reason for Israel "from the river to the sea."
Eurosabra, I was expecting this challenge. But do you really want to go there. Not pre-1967 but pre-1948?
I have no intention of *arguing*. I am saying you are wrong and that I am willing to decide the issue with Gazans as they choose. So far they have decided manu militari. Which is fine, except that it does a disservice to the elderly refugees whose interests Hamas claims to serve.
Pre-'48 means remembering the Arab and Bedouin Negev as it was then, not the shadow it has become, as well. Pre-'48 is the basis of Palestinian claims. '47 is also pre-'48, and had the land been divided in peace, the Arab-majority villages and cities of Najd, al-Majdal, and Iraq al-Manshiyya would still be in place, albeit within the State of Israel.
When the dust settled in '50-'51, the State of Israel expelled people it should not have, simply because all Jews had been expelled from Gaza.
And "Hamas, Hamas, Joden an het gas" is not a critique of the *Israeli* **State**, sorry.
That's of course the official line. Hamas was guilty for the 1.300 dead. The problem is this seems to be a slightly warped reality. As it is it's standard tune. You didn't read what Dan Fletcher wrote, did you?
Let's take one detail:
What about the blockade? I read that part of the ceasefire agreement was that Israel lifts the blockade? Did it happen?
Pacta sunt servanda. Did you know that equity and good faith have an "oriental" origin?
As there seems to be quite a bit of controversy as to who broke the ceasefire?
Guilt is connected with cause. Israel would only be innocent if it's innocence is proved in this case. So far it's controversial.
Gaza's Jews were driven out in '49
Pure Zionist mythology. Your history is a simple repetition of the Zionist narrative. I've heard it ad nauseum. It's completely backwards, that's how arrogant and disgusting Zionists are. The IOF ethnically cleansed the indigenous population in March of '49.
The land is stolen, plain and simple. The rocket attacks are a REACTION TO continued Israeli aggression and land grabs. Everything else is obfuscation via Zionist talking points.
Again, the true history and the future agenda are all available from Israel's own archives, if one cares to look.
Don't forget that the palestinians also ethnically cleansed Jerusalem.
American Jews were misled by Israel because they wanted to be misled. The whole discussion of Jews, Israel and Palestine is pointless, boring and verging on stupid. Hopefully the offending parties will be dealt with, and the rest of us can get on with cheating and harming one another for our own selfish reasons.
"Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas" is a chant of such obvious and self-defeating stupidity that any sane person would immediately infer that it is only raised by provocateurs (the west spends more on provocateurs than it does on aid).
Yet it is still chanted and it is still a goal for many.
Well then congratulations, Chris. It looks like Zionism's goal to ensure eternal anti-Semitism may be working.
So the '47 Partition plan is a lie? And the Egyptians never came up the coast road? Kfar Darom did not fall in May '48, along with Yad Mordechai? Nitzanim, in June? Of '48!!! Because Israel took the Negev in March '49.
I can see why your blind anti-Semitism ruins your sense of chronology, but PLEASE do not rob the Arabs of one of their few successes of '48. Gaza's Jews were gone by '49.
I think you don't understand the geographic difference between Gaza and Southern Israel. Evil, ignorant, and (thankfully) powerless.
LeaNder,
The border never opened partly because the crossings and the convoys were constantly being rocketed. So you had some crossings open at various times, but never the cessation of rocket fire (even at the crossings) which would have allowed a permanent opening of all crossings.
Whoops.
Pacta sunt servanda, but Palestinian truck drivers won't drive under rocket fire, whoops.
Why did Balfour send his letter promising land that did not belong to him to Rothschild?
Why did the USA go to war in 1917?
Did the Huns really eat babies?
Israel mislead its goy supporters even more.
the guilty man runs even when noone is pursing him…a proverb. they feel threatened because they have been threatening the middle east for over a hundred years now…like a criminal who fears the cops are always on their trail because they have commited a crime.