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Richards holds on to some nostalgic notion of Zionism from 1920-1950.
Yes, much like Chomsky, Richard wants to differentiate. I think Paul Eisen summed it up best:
"It was secular Labour Zionists who created the Zionist ideology and the pre-state Jewish-only society. It was secular Zionists – good, humanistic, left-wing kibbutzniks – who directed and carried out the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians, and the destruction of their towns and villages. It was secular Zionists who established the present state with all its discriminatory practices; and it was a largely secular Labour government that held the Palestinian citizens of Israel under military government in their own land for eighteen years. Finally, it was a secular, Labour government which conquered the West Bank and Gaza, and first built the settlements, and embarked on the Oslo peace process, coolly designed to deceive the Palestinians into surrendering their rights."
Zionism is Zionism is Zionism.
Jewish Power
An interesting article.
I don't assume that Zionism can't be reformed to a "Live and let live" status.
I do assume that Islamic expansionism can't be, at least currently.
If someone will PROVE to me that Hamas is interested in a "live and let live" position, I'll be more hopeful.
Thanks for the url to Jewish Power, Dan K. It is concise and very much to the fat point.
"Islamic expansionism"
Haha Witty you're one hell of a joke. What do you smoke before you post?
Look at the maps you moron, where is Islamic expansionism? Since Zionists (not the peaceful Jews who lived there amongst other people before the Zionists came) set foot in Palestine, Arab borders have shrinked, and Jewish borders have expanded.
Islamic expansionism my ass.
Witty is blind. He's a Zionist. He starts with the Zionist zero-sum-game premise. He's also stupid, as anyone can see by his posts, all feeble attempts to manipulate.
Stop insulting. he can be responded to without insults. I never have seen a Palestinian speak like this with Zionists. I sympathize with the outrage but insults would not help you or the Palestinians.
"It was secular Zionists – good, humanistic, left-wing kibbutzniks – who directed and carried out the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians, and the destruction of their towns and villages. It was secular Zionists who established the present state with all its discriminatory practices…"
That seems to be the organized Jewish modus-operandi: send in the “secular” Jews first, under the pretense of racially blind liberalism and the earnest need for sanctuary, to convince the natives (particularly the more gullible ones) that the group has a humanitarian, universalist agenda, and isn’t interested in ever racially or religiously discriminating against non-Jews. Then, over time, as it gains power and confidence (more quickly in the case of Palestine, more slowly in the case of the US) the mask comes off and its true religo/racial agenda emerges. Eventually, once the group feels it is in control of the centers of power or has infiltrated the power structure to the point of near saturation, its true Jewish supremacist face emerges and it drops its “progressive” pose.
Of course, in the US, there are still plenty of Zionist members of organized Jewry posing as “progressives,” and some of the more naïve of them even seem to believe that the nature of organized Jewry is racially benign. Obviously, they haven’t studied the behavior or history of their racial movement very critically.
Every day now there's a predictable back and forth between, not the people themselves, but the shallow rigid attitudes of Richard Witty and the various barking opportunists who ridicule him unimaginitively.
It's tiresome, and the dwindling number of regular commenters reflects that I think.
It's the feral stench of the outer 'net coming in everywhere.
Chihuahuas on their own, gathering in packs, eating everything they come across, land piranhas.
No dialog, no thought, nothing new or complicated, a frenzy of nasty little yaps and snarls, then every once in a while someone with only a minimal connection to reality throws up a twenty-paragraph comment that no one else bothers to read.
It's like feeding time at the zoo, as my father used to say.
Richard:
"If someone will PROVE to me that Hamas is interested in a "live and let live" position, I'll be more hopeful"
We're no longer in the area where logistics and practical concerns are paramount. It's spiritual now, emotional – psychological, if you want science represented.
It's about healing, not negotiation. And not because the wounding is over and done with, but precisely because it continues.
Rising alongside the rejection of Israeli atrocities in Gaza is an unthinking blanketing anti-Semitism that will harm innocents and radicalize the ambivalent. Rigidities of attitude, selfish fear and arrogance, an intentional heartlessness – they create ideal conditions for that mindless hatred to incubate. We need the opposite, the antidote.
We need compassion now, all of us or whatever it is we all make together, if we're to avoid the squalid waste of unintentional mass suicide.
Everyone feels and sees the cause of their own pain. We need more vision than that.
Recognition of the suffering of the other, no matter which side you're on or they're on.
Families are burying and burying and burying and burying their dead in Gaza – you need to address that in front, and expose your heart, or the empty place where your heart should be.
Mohammad: "Stop insulting…I never have seen a Palestinian speak like this with Zionists"
Yes, and look at the Palestinians now. Their good will didn't get them much but a jack-boot in the face, did it? But best not to disrespect the Jewish massah-boss, eh Mohammad?
Hamas has offered to "live and let live" on more than one occasion, as have other groups resisting brutal Israeli expansion. Israel inevitably breaks whatever terms are agreed upon, because Israel has no intention of living and letting and live, which can be easily discerned from the words of its leaders throughout its racist history and by its brutal, inhumane actions.
Hamas, or any other resistance group, needn't prove anything. The burden of proof rests with the one who holds power, i.e. Israel. Until such time that Israel acts rationally and humanely, resistance will continue, and rightfully (and legally) so. Given its behavior since its inception, its racist ideology and Jewish supremacist nature, needless to say, no one is holding their breath waiting for Israel to change.
Israel is the aggressor. Israel is breaking international law, not to mention all laws anyone with a conscience would hold dear. To put the burden of proof on Hamas, a resistance organization trying to maintain what's left of the Palestinian culture, is repulsive. It is akin to watching five huge high school seniors repeatedly brutalizing a measly fifth grader, and then having the audacity, when the fifth grader gets in one lame punch, to reprimand him for daring to fight back to save his life. "Until such time as you don't fight back at all, little fifth grader, and just lie down and let us do what we will to you, then you'll have proven that we can trust you, and maybe then we'll stop pummelling you." Of course, by then the fifth grader will be dead, which is exactly the point of the exercise. Again, this is easily discerned from reading Israeli and Zionist literature, past and present. A disgusting attempt at moral equivalency, to say the least.
"Recognition of the suffering of the other, no matter which side you're on or they're on."
That is the answer.
Those that are anti-Zionist, cannot see the differences between anti-expansionistic Zionists and expansionistic Zionists. We are one entity to them, enemy.
Its false. Those Zionists that oppose exploitation but remain Zionists can reconcile with Palestinian community that is willing to actually reconcile.
Its wishful thinking, from what I've read, that Hamas has EVER sought to "live and let live" with Israel or Israelis.
Muhammed,
Please DEMONSTRATE that you see beyond even the philosophical either/or. I find it disengenuous on your part to claim that you oppose incitement, and then actively use terms like "genocide" to describe the relation between Israel and Gaza Palestinians.
I can see the word cruelty, and excess, but "genocide" is actually a word with specific and real meaning.
Also, please note that there is an Islamic expansionist movement, as one of the flavors of Islam, that is parallel (though on a larger scale) than expansionistic Zionism even.
That is NOT saying that "Islam is expansionist" (though I do see elements of that).
I agree with everything you guys are saying. I just happen to think that insulting someone like Richard is not helpful. And no, Palestinians are not homeless because they were too nice. But precisely because America had already neutralized their potential powerful allies like Jordan and Saudi Arabia from the get go (1948) and Egypt joined that list soon after Nasser era was over. If Palestine had a consistent Arab lobby, this would have not happened to them. The only reason Palestine is still fighting is because of forces like Hamas, Hezbollah, Venezuella, Bolivia, Syria, Iran and the growing list of forces and countries that are willing to support it.
Being rude won;t get anyone anywhere. For an example, look at zionism :)
Belmont: "Every day now there's a predictable back and forth…and the dwindling number of regular commenters reflects that…No dialog, no thought, nothing new or complicated, a frenzy of nasty little yaps and snarls…We need more vision than that."
Hmm, according to Alexa, Weiss ratings are higher than ever:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/philipweiss.org
Why? Because people are sick and tired of liberal platitudes on this issue. They've tried the liberal, "tolerant" way with organized Jewry for decades, and its gone nowhere. In fact, the Zionist problems is worse than ever. And cooing, coddling US liberals are a major part of the problem.
Its wishful thinking, from what I've read, that Hamas has EVER sought to "live and let live" with Israel or Israelis.
This is from ISRAELI sources:
"Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. This was confirmed not only by every neutral international observer and NGO on the scene but by Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division. In an interview in Ha’aretz on 22 December, he accused Israel’s government of having made a ‘central error’ during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing ‘to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip . . . When you create a tahdiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues,’ General Zakai said, ‘it is obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahdiyeh, and that their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire . . . You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they’re in, and expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing.’
Israel’s Lies
Hamas offered a ten-year truce back in April of '08, but Israel refused. Israel always refuses, because Israel isn't interested in peace, Israel loves war.
Again, it cannot be stressed enough, the burden of proof DOES NOT REST WITH HAMAS, OR WITH ANY GROUP THAT IS RESISTING OCCUAPTION. Israel is the occupier. Hamas is the resistance to occupation. When Israel stops occupying, there will be nothing to resist.
The truce, which began in June last year and was due for renewal in December, required both parties to refrain from violent action against the other. Hamas had to cease its rocket assaults and prevent the firing of rockets by other groups such as Islamic Jihad (even Israel’s intelligence agencies acknowledged this had been implemented with surprising effectiveness), and Israel had to put a stop to its targeted assassinations and military incursions. This understanding was seriously violated on 4 November, when the IDF entered Gaza and killed six members of Hamas. Hamas responded by launching Qassam rockets and Grad missiles. Even so, it offered to extend the truce, but only on condition that Israel ended its blockade. Israel refused. Israel could have met its obligation to protect its citizens by agreeing to ease the blockade, but it didn’t even try. It cannot be said that Israel launched its assault to protect its citizens from rockets. It did so to protect its right to continue the strangulation of Gaza’s population.
Israel's Lies
Israel seeks to counter these indisputable facts by maintaining that in withdrawing Israeli settlements from Gaza in 2005, Ariel Sharon gave Hamas the chance to set out on the path to statehood, a chance it refused to take; instead, it transformed Gaza into a launching-pad for firing missiles at Israel’s civilian population. The charge is a lie twice over. First, for all its failings, Hamas brought to Gaza a level of law and order unknown in recent years, and did so without the large sums of money that donors showered on the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. It eliminated the violent gangs and warlords who terrorised Gaza under Fatah’s rule. Non-observant Muslims, Christians and other minorities HAVE MORE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM UNDER HAMAS RULE than they would have in Saudi Arabia, for example, or under many other Arab regimes.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n02/sieg01_.html
Muhammed,
Is there a good reason that you don't respond to me directly?
Dan,
If Hamas or others believe that they have no impact on the tenor of negotiation, then there is no basis of any hope for anything humane.
he already stated his reason, richard, you are not worth talking to.
Richard,
What negotiation? Israel refuses to talk to Hamas. You are correct in pointing out that there is no hope for anything humane. Not so long as Israel continues its policies, based as they are on Zionist ideology.
yes Richard. It's called exhaustion. I don't have anything against you. You;re entitles to your opinion as inaccurate and distorted as it comes across to me.
peace
Perhaps its not innaccurate or distorted. Perhaps you've misinterpreted my comments, or misinterpreted the possibility that respecting multiple narratives (including Zionist) represents.
I don't believe in multiple narratives. I believe in the singularity of truth and Justice. yes the truth of the Palestinian justice mirrors the lies of Zionism. But I don't think that's what you mean by multiple narratives. The mess the word is in relates to the popularization of the myth of multiple narratives. Multiple narratives means that the rich and the powerful gets to override truth with money and influence.
People whose minds have been trained in an academic setting – with its emphasis on masculinist force and mechanical reasoning, and its derogation and discounting of emotion and spiritual inspiration – tend toward the thought that anything illogical is an automatic fail, if that illogic can be logically demonstrated. Crazy people don't get good grades. Because if they get good grades they're not crazy.
So crazy people are marginal, in academic settings they don't count. In the real world they run companies, governments, empires, religions.
Women have long been held to have a more emotional than logical mental life, and this, while never overtly articulated, was part of the traditional rationale for women being inferior participants in civil affairs.
Women, in my experience, often demonstrate a logic whose parameters are much wider and deeper than immediately superior more forceful arguments.
It's that masculinist mechanical logic and its hidden offspring – violent destructive irrational rage when thwarted – that have failed us, that are still failing us, and yet are still battling us for control of the very things their failures are destroying, which now include the entire global ecosystem.
Me: "We're no longer in the area where logistics and practical concerns are paramount. "
Ed:"…people are sick and tired of liberal platitudes on this issue. They've tried the liberal, "tolerant" way with organized Jewry for decades, and its gone nowhere.
Me: "…the dwindling number of regular commenters reflects that I think."
Ed:"…according to Alexa, Weiss ratings are higher than ever…"
People are reading Mondoweiss more and more, and fewer and fewer of them are commenting, because the comments threads, being unmoderated, are vulnerable to the lowest common denominator, which on the 'net is low indeed.
Me:"No dialog, no thought, nothing new or complicated, a frenzy of nasty little yaps and snarls, then every once in a while someone with only a minimal connection to reality throws up a twenty-paragraph comment…"
Ed: "Yap. Yap yap yap yap. Snarl. Yap."
Dan Kelly: Voluminous whateverness.
Rowan Berkeley: Continue years of acid-tongued unconstructive intellectualized pessimism and parasitic comment thread trolling.
Sarah:"Richurd iz stoopid."
Ed – anyone who's read me consistently online, or anyone who's known me for more than a few days, would find "cooing, coddling US liberal" as a description of myself or my writing, if it was in fact meant to describe me or my writing, hysterically absurd.
Belmont on his wild and crazy elites: "So crazy people are marginal, in academic settings they don't count. In the real world they run companies, governments, empires, religions."
No wonder the world is so screwed up and we can't get anywhere on the Zionist problem — it's a bunch of head-cases and flakes with delusions of enlightenment running the show, and guys like Belmont think they're geniuses.
I'll take the cold, hard, dispassionate and orderly academic analysis of mature realists like Walt and Mearsheimer over a bunch of “creative” baby boomer technocrats wearing birkenstocks who can't seem to figure out why the world doesn't snap into perfect order even after they've spent hours meditating on the issues.
That whole "levitate the Pentagon" thing didn't work out very well either, did it Belmont? If the whole narcissistic baby-boomer ethos hadn’t been hell-bent on “transforming” (aka social-engineering) the world into their own image, I doubt even a pea brain like Bush could have ever been convinced that he could reinvent the Middle East by Machiavellian Neocons whispering in his ear. But all his co-horts seemed to believe, and so did the Clintons. Hell, why not?
Yeah, real geniuses all, Belmont.
Ed: "Yappity yap yap yap. Yap?
Strawman, whap whap. Another strawman, whap.
Yappity yap. Snarl. Yap?
Snarl."
I'm sure, if it comes to their attention,Walt and Mearsheimer will be gratified by your support, such as it is, and the poor souls who attempted to "levitate the Pentagon" would be saddened by your disdain if they knew about it, but me, I'm at a loss for words. You pretty much misread everything I said, or misunderstood it to a degree that's a little spooky.
I'm thinking you got some kind of agenda running there that isn't at the surface of your presentation. Maybe you're working too hard, and maybe for the wrong people.
Reorder your priorities, while there's still time. Take a little break, do something nice for yourself.
"I don't believe in multiple narratives. I believe in the singularity of truth and Justice. yes the truth of the Palestinian justice mirrors the lies of Zionism. But I don't think that's what you mean by multiple narratives. The mess the word is in relates to the popularization of the myth of multiple narratives. Multiple narratives means that the rich and the powerful gets to override truth with money and influence. "
You should read some novels, or novelistic non-fiction that presents the same events from different perspectives EQUALLY factually.
Perspective is the revelation of the enlightenment, as much as science and any political analysis derived from it.
Modern democratic (and other) governance is derived from the thesis of "consent of the governed". The governed have different originating experiences, different foundational truths, that still must be wedded.
I regard the idea of "single truth" as the root of fascist thinking, whether that takes form in Islamic orientation, any nationalist, communist fascism.
It is a willing imposition of selective ignorance applied politically.
Is that what you advocate for? Are you that vain in your sense of knowledge, that other potentially inconsistent perspectives are irrelevant to incorporate, even into a single reality.
But maybe there was false attribution to your last statement.
Maybe that is NOT the same Muhammed that find it unnecessary to insult one's opponent.
But, maybe it is the same Muhammed that regards that as merely a strategy, rather than as a value itself.
Something to guard against, the destruction of the dialog framework, intentionally, easily done by multiple false identities and unmeant tactical postures.
Richard:
"Perspective is the revelation of the enlightenment"
The capture of perspective, the conscious ability to capture it, to reproduce it on a flat surface – we were living in a world of perspective once we got 3D processing for bicameral vision, way back down the tree.
The confusion of re-presentation with the thing itself, a trap that widens the more accurate presentation becomes.