All over the left and the blogosphere, Gaza is Guernica, a "turkey shoot," and "slaughter." Not on the Zionist left. Americans for Peace Now equivocates in the face of horror:
the past weeks, Israelis, Palestinians, and the world have once again
witnessed the unfolding of a serious and dangerous military escalation
between Israel and Hamas. APN
and its Israeli sister organization, Peace Now, have repeatedly
expressed solidarity with the residents of communities of southern Israel
Israel
has the right â indeed, the obligation â to take measures to bringthese attacks to a halt… However, simply escalating the violence is not
going to resolve the situation.
When the horror began, J Street made a pretty good statement condemning
Israel's attacks as contributing to the "cycle of violence." I heard that J Street came under incredible heat for its
brave statement. Well, here is J Street's latest, a retrenchment to equivocation:
Israel has a special place in each of our hearts. But we recognize that
neither Israelis nor Palestinians have a monopoly on right or wrong.
While
there is nothing "right" in raining rockets on Israeli families or
dispatching suicide bombers, there is nothing "right" in punishing a
million and a half already-suffering Gazans for the actions of the
extremists among them.
And there is nothing to be gained from debating which injustice is
greater or came first. What's needed now is immediate action to stop
the violence before it spirals out of control.
It's just a shade or two different from the belligerent line you get from Israel's leading "peacenik" authors. Haaretz:
Oz told Corriere della Sera that "Hamas is responsible" for the
outbreak of violence, but "the time has come to seek a cease-fire." … Yehoshua, who wrote in La Stampa, said he first related that even
before the fighting began, he had published an appeal to Gaza residents
urging them to end the violence.
Next he explained, "why the Israeli operation was necessary, but also how quickly it needs to end."
This all goes to prove the same old point. It is very difficult, nigh impossible, to be in a Jewish or Zionist communal organization and take a strong position against the destruction of Arab lives or for Arab human rights. It just won't happen. It's in the water. The Zionist progs refuse to divorce themselves from neoconservatives, even after the Iraq body count became monstrous. Dual loyalty proliferates, and Peace Now can't get ahead of its cousins in Israel. Cracks have formed, it's not the Lebanon '06 chorus. But when all is said and done, J Street is still lobbying the lobby, trying to move Zionist opinion left. I know, there are some brave exceptions. Jewish Voice for Peace is fabulous. Rabbi Brant Rosen is with Brit Tzedek, Dan Fleshler has worked with Peace Now, MJ Rosenberg works for IPF. All have been emphatic. But they're the exceptions that prove the rule.
Not everyone can be as certain as you Phil. Some people see things as more complicated than Lakers vs Clippers.
On the surface, it would seem that "the Zionist left" would be a contradiction in terms, given that Zionism is a racialist ideology. But totalitarian minds think alike, thus the left-liberal establishment is pro-Zionist (and like the Christian Zionists, it too seems to harbor Jewish supremacist illusions), and the supposedly "authentic" left spent many decades partnering with organized Jewry to break the non-Zionist Christian establishment in America. (Consider how Abe Foxman's ADL has always identified itself as a "civil rights" organization).
So let's just say the leftists have simply had a falling out with their partners in crime, or naively believed that they were the ones who were in control of the partnership the whole time until Israel demonstrated whoâs really in charge. Perhaps the modern version of Red-Brown alliance is finally coming to an end in America, too.
How can we tell the difference between the 'Zionist left' and George W. Bush? Here is the noted 'conservative intellectual' –
————
"This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas â a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel's destruction," Bush said. "Eighteen months ago, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup, and since then has imported thousands of guns and rockets and mortars. Egypt brokered a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, but Hamas routinely violated that cease-fire by launching rockets into Israel."
"By spending its resources on rocket launchers instead of roads and schools, Hamas has demonstrated that it has no intention of serving the Palestinian people," Bush said. "America has helped by providing tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, and this week we contributed an additional $85 million through the United Nations. We have consistently called on all in the region to ensure that assistance reaches those in need."
The White House will not comment on whether it views the Israeli response as proportionate or not to the scope of rockets attacks on Israel.
http://cbs3.com/national/israel.hamas.strikes.2.898814.html
————
Well, I don't see no difference. Israel, George Bush, Christian zionists, Condi 'n Barack, the 'left,' Rush Limbaugh — we all one happy tribe, Lawd. Yesssss, Jesus, we is.
To paraphrase the old ad on TV — "It's shake 'n bake time in Gaza — and WE HAY-ULPED."
Allied 'left' can't condemn the slaughter of German civilians killed from aerial bombings of German military targets.
Headline from 1945
The Zionist Left (I include myself in that), DON'T KNOW what is right in this case.
We KNOW that Hamas is aggressive, mosquito-like (in irritating UNTIL a response), inhumane in shelling civilians, stupid for its habit and escalation.
And, we KNOW that the far left is gullible for speaking ONLY in terms of blame of Israel, rather than mutual blame.
We hope that the result of the bombing will be an actual cease-fire, that provides a cessation of shelling of Southern Israel, and opening of the Gaza crossings, and later more normalized relations between Gaza and Israel.
We DON'T seek militant goals of a single-state, or the hundred-years war goals of Hamas for the elimination of Israel.
We know that our arguing here is only arm-chair vanity, petty ranting for the glory of being able to say "I told you so" about what is already obvious.
What happens when the bombing results in actual more permanent cease-fire? Do you hope that that occurs? Or, do you prefer that "I told you so" occurs, that the bombing results in blowback and resumption of suicide-bombing?
One of the dogs will give at some point, they will each walk away from fighting, and get on with their lives.
Witty and MichaelW are Jewish Zionists who describe themselves as American liberals, just as do Abe Foxman and Alan Dershowitz, the first of whom is extremely anti-Christian, and the latter of whom supports and has publicly argued for torture, etc. So, is it fair to say that American liberals are Zionists, anti-Christian, supporters of torture, etc? Or is it just a certain strain of American liberals who have these characteristics? And what impact does that strain have on mainstream American liberalism?
Indeed, are Jewish Zionists truly progressive and liberal, or are they only liberal where they reside in the minority (out of self-interest, as opposed to conviction), and ethnic fundamentalist where they reside in the majority (out of both self-interest and conviction)? How can one tell if another is a counterfeit liberal, even when they mouth all the politically correct buzz words and seem, on the surface, to be open-minded and progressive? Well, the first clue is whether or not they are Zionists. I recommend everyone ask the "progressive" Jews they know whether or not they support Israel, the Jewish-racialist State, which is what it is according to its own laws. If they do, then you will know the true nature of the person you thought you knew.
@Ed,
Tell me, how is it (whatever "it" is) anti-Christian?
Arm the other dog with comparable weapons and see how that speeds up the process. Single state is not a "militant goal" either.
~
Ed,
I write this to you in the spirit of acceptance and love. After reading a few of your posts I'm convinced that you are repressing intense feelings that are at odds with your "Christian" beliefs. It is eating you up inside and limiting your view of the world and your own happiness. I hope that like Justin you are able to come out and be the real you.
Hahahaha. Oh man. That's the funniest thing I read on this blog. Jane, thank you for the few moments of laughter.
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/12/a_fatah_friend_writes_im_suppo.php
A Fatah Friend Writes: I'm Supporting the Israeli Air Force
30 Dec 2008 10:01 am
It's a strange world, but there you have it. I've been talking to friends of mine, former Palestinian Authority intelligence officials (ejected from power by the Hamas coup), and they tell me that not only are they rooting for the Israelis to decimate Hamas, but that Fatah has actually been assisting the Israelis with targeting information. One of my friends — if you want to know why they're my friends, read this book — told me that one of his comrades was thrown off a high-rise building in Gaza City last year by Hamas, and so he sheds no tears for the Hamas dead. "Let the Israelis kill them," he said. "They've brought only trouble for my people."
Jane and Michael, good left-liberal Zionists, crowing from the peanut gallery as Gaza burns.
Anyway, on to lesson #2:
Since we've determined that Jewish Zionists who profess to be progressives aren't authentic liberals, let's put the test to non-Jewish left-liberals. After all, we don't want to have double standards, so let's administer the Zionist test to them. And what's that? Gee, it turns out that nearly every gentile in the Democrat Party supports Zionism, too, and routinely votes Israel tens of billions in financial and military aid. In fact, the Democrats have supported Zionism for decades. In fact, the people that became what we now know as Neocons got their first big break, and entry into the halls of power, from the Scoop Jackson Democrats.
So Jewish Zionist left-liberals are fraudulent liberals who support institutionally racist Zionism, left-liberal gentile Democrats are fraudulent liberals who support institutionally racist Zionism, and none of them believe their own "social justice, racial equality, color-blind-society" rhetoric, as they all endorse the complete opposite of those concepts by endorsing Zionism. It's all just rhetoric, a means of grabbing and holding power, gaining Big Government spoils, and tightening the noose of totalitarianism. Just like the Communists, they never had any intention whatsoever of uplifting the downtrodden. Itâs all an elaborate ruse, a swindle, a cynical power grab.
Like a famous totalitarian once said: âThe bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.â Was it Hitler or Stalin? Whichever, we seem to have a combination of their two ideologies with Zionism.
Left zionism is a bastardised construction without any theoretical or moral content whatsoever. On the advice of the world body for secular judaism, I contacted Meretz London regarding the possibility of afffiliating myself in some way to "the Jewish people," but without religious "conversion," which seemed an interesting paradox. Do you know what they offered me? A Jewish prayer litany, re-written so as to appeal to neither Elohim or JHVH, but to the god of Marx and Democritus. Thus do the yeshiva drop-outs exercise their capacity for spiritual dissent.
Jewish Zionist Richard Witty cites Jewish Zionist Jeffrey Goldberg who says that he has friends who are Yasir Arafat's Fatah cronies and they are cheering on the Israelis as they bomb Gaza women and children. Hey, so are the Democrats. I guess hoplessly corrupt, easily bought-off rats tend to have a lot in common.
Fatah already has problems being percieved as a tool of Israel (and heavily infiltrated). This submission doesn't change that.
~
The brits are having giant and pointless celebrity protest rallies at trafalgar square and elsewhere today. Morons like 'comedian' Alexei Sayle will say things like: "I want to be PROUD of Israel, not ashamed."
Its a sign of the hatred for Hamas more than a sign of complicity with Israel.
EVERY Palestinian opposes the violence on Palestinians.
Its just that many actually oppose all of the violence.
Just like the Zionist left can't demand the removal of all the settlers.
That's why they drift into discussions of "agreed, minor" adjustments of the 1967 borders, and claim that the settlers in Jerusalem 'don't count', and so really support removing less than half of the 420,000 Israeli settlers beyond the 1967 borders. The Zionist left carries the can for jewish colonial chauvinism, just in more evasive and euphemistic terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
Only if your standard of justice is perfection from a single perspective.
Perfection does not exist in nature.
And a single perspective's justice, is NOT.
Its a sign of the hatred for anyone who protests Israel's implemented policies over the years, more than a sign of complicity with HAMAS's
feeble rockets.
.
EVERY humanitarian opposes the feeble erratic violence on Israeli towns.
Its just that many actually oppose all of the violence, and see by
the acceptable death and maiming of American-sponsored attrition ratio of 2,000 to a dozen that something is vastly amiss with the status quo power elites in USA & Israel.
"EVERY humanitarian opposes the feeble erratic violence on Israeli towns" is simply a fairly transparent, weasel way of saying, I support Israel's right to exist, and to commit rolling and ever-expanding genocide if that's what it takes to do so.
YOU've (at least you that use the moniker "anon") not expressed any opposition to the violence on Israeli towns, nor has Phil.
It leads one to believe that you (collectively) instead SUPPORT Hamas rather than object to a cycle of violence.
Very disappointing about Amos Oz.
But then, Nadine Gordimer was equally disappointing when she visited Israel last year for its 60th anniversary celebrations and ducked any apartheid comparisons. (After all, what does Rev. Desmond Tutu know?)
"Zionist left" and "liberal zionist" are oxymorons, I'm afraid.
Leila Abu-Saba has it right in a thread above when she writes something to the effect that "she can't be friends with those that justify the massacres in Gaza".
It is a kind of moral litmus test. Would you want to be associated with someone, for example, who was intelligent, funny, cultured…and a white supremacist? Probably not: the latter flaw invalidates the former qualities.
The cognitive dissonance "liberal zionists" have to contend with must be stressful. Tragic, isn't it.
Rowan, you make, in the practical end, a true point.
Richard, the full weight of USA government spokes people and MSM
have not expressed any opposition with detail teeth to the state-sponsored blockade, starvation, and massacre with USA paid for and made hi-tek weaponry. The mote in your eye is your tribalism, as you've already admitted. Phil represents a muzzled voice when his
is compared to the incessant one-sided narrative going on on a vastly higher scale daily molding American public opinion. You equate the lion's roar with the squeak of a microscopic mouse,
asking Phil and others commenting here to squeak out an echo
for the given Lion.
Anon,
It doesn't change your and Phil's hypocrisy and ignorance of what is going on, the roles of the various decision-makers to change what is going on.
Hamas does have that power, to renounce shelling of civilians permanently.
And, if it does so, all of the current Israeli leadership has acknowledged that it would willingly normalize relations with a Palestine/Gaza that sought to normalize relations with it.
Hamas has great power in this, which it is only using in a manner guided by its righteous and habitual anger.
Civilians get caught in the crossfire between movements and states seeking power.
Richard, your frequent assertion that the critics are ignorant of the facts is completely unconvincing, as you must know.
Richard himself has 0 credibility and convinces no one here, but he clearly has nothing better to do than plague this excellent blog with his whining hasbara routine.
Why he thinks anyone would take him seriously considering his gargantuan blindspot regarding all things zionism is truly a mystery to me. Maybe he thinks that if he pushes Phil's emotional buttons long enough, Mondoweiss will become a lite zionist blog.
But fortunately it looks like nothing of the kind will transpire.
Which just leaves us to wonder, what is the point of engaging this mental, moral doofus who calls others gullible and ignorant while getting his entire understanding of the Middle East from zionist newspapers and Jewish zionist historians.
Witty's core feelings are the same as SOG's. Witty is Goebbels, SOG is
Julius Streicher. Phil is a Jew, as Germans are Germans. Both ID's always need to be taken into account. This is what true assimilated
Americans must contend with, and always know who they are addressing, and in that context.
I like Witty. He shines the light on your hypocrisy and you condemn him for that.