The great perceiver Jim Lobe says that Elliott Abrams has now declared himself to be the official spokesman for Netanyahu in the U.S., at the Weekly Standard and the CFR. The piece on which Lobe makes this judgment, at the Weekly Standard, says that the Palestinians have not undergone the long preparation for statehood that the Zionists went through.
[Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam] Fayyad is well aware of the history of his sometime partner, sometime foe in Jerusalem, the government of Israel, and indeed of the history of the entire Zionist enterprise: Institutions were built over long decades to prepare for Israel's independence despite the uncertainty of when it would arrive. The Zionists struggled to be ready, hoping thereby also to bring the day closer. That is Fayyad's task for the Palestinian people, as he appears to see it.
So: forget about self-determination for the Palestinian people. Forget about a state.
This is fascinating on a number of levels. It shows how scarred Abrams himself, and the neocons are, by the Holocaust. Jim Lobe explained this to me a long time ago, looking at An End to Evil, by Perle and Frum; its theme, he said, (in so many words) is that we underwent the Holocaust so we get to do what we like in the Arab world. "Victory or holocaust" is the most famous line from that book: the U.S. must democratize the Middle East or face a holocaust.
Lobe's psychological reading of this was always accurate. And Abrams's weird piece shows as much. Abrams is saying, in his unconscious way: Let's play the Nazi/Jew game, and this time We get to be the Nazis and you get to be the Jews. We get to put you behind barbed wire; we get to pour chemicals over your bodies; we get to destroy your families.
And you: study the Jews, be the next Jews. So the Palestinians are the new Jews.
Oh and by the way: no Palestinian state. They're not ready. This is the great battle. And look at the American Jewish lobbying forces arrayed on the extremist/apartheid side of this.
So that means the great political struggle on our side is this: To help liberal/left American Jews get their heads around a new understanding: that our golden Jewish path in this country is now the Palestinian path in Israel/Palestine. Equal rights, in a diverse state.
This is what Ze'ev Jabotinsky said in 1923: "That the Arabs of the Land of Israel should willingly come to an agreement with us is beyond all hopes and dreams at present, and in the foreseeable future"
"In other words, for us the only path to an agreement in the future is an absolute refusal of any attempts at an agreement now."
link to zfa.org.il
And this is what Sharon's negotiator, Dov Weisglass, said in 2004:.
Dov Weisglass. "The significance of what we did is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely.".
"With the proper management we succeeded in removing the issue of the political process from the agenda".
Haaretz.com 08/10/2004 link to haaretz.com
Netanyahu, while he was still speaking for himself (on 1.20.09) "described Iran as the greatest threat that Israel has ever faced and failed to mention stalled talks with the Palestinians after he was asked to be the country's new Prime Minister today." link to timesonline.co.uk
At least 1,440 Palestinians were killed during the Israel’s assault on the Gaza strip, between December 27, 2008 and February 5, 2009. link to domino.un.org
First there must be a guarantee of life, in order for there to be equality of rights.
"It shows how scarred Abrams himself, and the neocons are, by the Holocaust."
They're not scarred by the Holocaust, and never were. The Holocaust is just the subtext rationale for everything they and the Zionists do and are allowed to get away with–the pretext. And so it must be repeatedly evoked literally and figuratively.
And it was the entirety of ideological Jewry, from Left to Right, who laid the groundwork for turning the Holocaust into the "unquestionable invocation" as sacred as any tenet of their religion, through books, movies, television, news media. And today it is repeatedly utilized by racial demagogues like Abrams, Foxman and Dershowitz (who are just slightly more subtle Jewish versions of Al Sharpton) at every opportunity, because most well-conditioned Americans will automatically bow their heads upon the first invocation of the sacred Jewish suffering, and hence acquiesce to the righteousness of Zionism no matter how murderous it becomes.
We know how clever Jewish Zionists are at creating complex, highly sophisticated rationales for mass murder by studying the Jewish Bolsheviks.
Thank goodness there are clever Jewish anti-zionists, also, Ed.
No question, from the Old Testament Bible stories right on through to the Holocaust stories, when the Jewish people collectively decide they're going to author and indoctrinate a meme onto their own (and humanity's) consciousness, and means of self-cohesion, they're like a dog with a bone.
It's just unfortunate (and typically dishonest) that they only disclosed half of the story they were authoring. The full story would have gone something like this: "Never Again!…(but only if your a Jew)."
There is reason to believe that the back story behind Israel, that the Jews had to struggle for their homeland as ancient people, and Israel is taking up the fight on their behalf now, is actually a misunderstanding of the Old Testament. Had you heard about that?
@Margaret
Any authentically universalist Jews (ie Weiss, A.Horowitz, Lobe) are eventually going to clash headlong with organized Jewry and its exclusivist ways. There's simply no getting around that. To be a dedicated member of organized Jewry is to be an advocate of an exclusivist caste system, and a champion its elitist perspective, which is the diametric opposite of universalism.
I have no problem with the existence of organized Jewry. My problem is with organized Jewry holding any power over gentiles — in its eyes, a disposable breed to be regarded as of an inferior caste.
Margaret, are you referring to the awareness that Rome never expelled the jews, nor treated them like they did the Christians? Or to the Exodus narrative, which actually was that the Jews, after the Egyptians spurned them as an ally, and reduced them to working with stone and mortar to work as contract laborers (with insurance bennies) to make Egyptian regime monuments like any other people under Egyptian jurisdiction, rebelled, ransacked certain Egyptian towns, killing all within, to supply their hatting out of larger Egypt? That was the reason Egypt sent troops after them. Quite different than the biblical narrative.
"We were slaves in Egypt" is an insult to the term slavery, especially back then; and certainly it flies in the
face of what, e.g., Africans faced when stuck in slave ships to America–often owned by Jews BTW.
RE: "So the Palestinians are the new Jew."
Actually, they have more factual right to that claim than the original Hebrews. See my comment above to Margaret. (And you see I'm not even talking about the ethnic origin of the current Palestinians people as compared to the disconnected AshekNazis who occupy the top power slots in modern Israel.)
margaret
if you're interested in some of the details of the Israeli's preposterous lies regarding their "heritage" you might have a look at this:
http://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel
Actually, I've got my own version. An acquaintance commented about how the Old Testament had so much Jewish violence. Got to thinking about that and realized that the common situation of the Judaic tribes, living during a time in which migration of populations was recurring, would be to have to fight in order to find and keep land on which to live. That was the common experience – not something unique to the Judeans. But the story in the King James Bible is read as that of the Jews, who were a warlike people. There is no comparative information about the experience of all the others having to live in the same turbulent environment. I realized that there were two inadvertent misrepresentations from that lack of comparison – that the Jews were warlike and that they, in particular, had to struggle for a homeland. Since I'm not Jewish, perhaps I'm misunderstanding why Israel thinks it's appropriate in the 21st to act like they were living 3000 years ago. The 21st century story of Israel, as I understand it, is that they think they are fighting on behalf of all Jews, like the Judeans did before them, for a homeland. It seems to me their real 'homeland' is earth, just like every one else. Why kill other people so you can have a state with only one official religion? What is urgently needed is a just peace for all, with equal rights, within one state.
Exactly, Margaret. And that is why all Palestinian parties except Barghouti's National Initiative and the other 2.5% opposition will be dismantled in a future one-state because of their history of genocidal violence against Jews. (As will Jewish parties that engage in incitement, like Israel Beitenu.)
Israeli Islamists play footsie with the state all the time. But that is because they regard Jews as their fellow citizens. Take a look at the grudging acceptance of the status-quo in the Ra'am-Ta'al platform vs. the Hamas Charter. And the Israelis involved are Islamists, with their 99% Arab Muslim municipality/capital and their political machine. But Hamas regards Jews as targets, and they are not likely to participate in a shared political system as a result.
Margret, if you think only in terms of what is happening right this minute, then you have a valid point. But if you take into consideration the last 150 years, then you might see the typical Israeli's point.
Wow! Thanks, rykart. Shlomo Sands in English! Fantastic. I've been waiting for his book to be translated. Yet another acquaintance explained his thesis to me when it became so popular in Israel. I don't know if Sands shares this idea, although I expect he would say, "But of course." Once the myth is put to rest, it is easier to see Israel as a warring state, like other warring states, which needs to be held to standards of human decency.
"It shows how scarred Abrams himself, and the neocons are, by the Holocaust."
Yes, one is naive to take this at face value; for Avraham Burg as well:
Avraham Burg: The Evasions of Dissent
David Green
Israeli ex-politician and erstwhile dissident Avraham Burg, interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! on February 12th regarding his recent book The Holocaust is Over: We Must Rise from the Ashes, offered this account of his motivation in writing the book:
“I wrote the first book, which was God Is Back. It’s about the religious dimension of world conflicts and the Israeli conflictual reality. And then when I finished the book, I read it, and I realized that I didn’t write about the other items which support our identity, and this is the only presence of the trauma in our life, which is the Holocaust, which prevents us to trust anybody—to trust ourselves, to trust our neighbors, to trust the world—and therefore creates this kind of a reality. And the minute I realized that this is my inner truth, just published it.”
Near the end of the interview, Burg summarized his perspective not only on the settlements, but in essence on the entire conflict:
“Yeah, it (the settlements) pollutes our morality, and it contaminates our policy. And we became hostages of the messianic and eschatological policy of the settlers, which actually leads Israel into a de facto one-state solution, which discriminates one people over the other people. At the same time, the Palestinian society was kidnapped and held hostage by the hands of the eschatological fundamental—Hamas fundamentalists. And both societies must get rid of their prisoners, get rid of these kidnappers and get over this Stockholm syndrome that I’m in love with my kidnapper. And only then we will be able to talk to each other.”
While Burg, a former speaker of Knesset, is clearly a provocative and symbolic addition to the growing movement of Jewish dissidents regarding Israel and Palestine, I find his analysis evasive if not self-serving in its implicit dispensation to the secular Israeli parties that have supported the occupation since the 1967 war—and have done so willingly and on the basis of ideology and ambition deeply rooted in the Zionist project prior to the Holocaust and throughout the 20th century, clearly articulated and relentlessly enacted. Moreover, these territorial ambitions have been actively and indispensably supported by American governments of both political parties, none of whose leaders have been either personally traumatized by the Holocaust or “kidnapped and imprisoned” by religious fundamentalists of any confession.
(As an aside, Burg’s reference to Hamas fundamentalists as analogous to Israeli religious settlers is undeserving of the credibility implied by a serious response.)
How much political curiosity does it take to add up the seats apportioned to the four major secular parties, all pro-Gaza massacre, in the recent election? I come up with 83 of 120, and that doesn’t include “leftist” Meretz’s paltry total, also pro-massacre. Exactly how is it that these non-believers who control the purse strings and military of Israel have been kidnapped by a minority of settler fanatics? That is, a minority in relation both to religious Israeli Jews and illegal (mostly economic) settlers, who could be returned to Israel in short order by the proper authorities as a result of a phone call from Washington. In addition, in the wake of all the hand-wringing in response to the growing popularing of the more overtly racist Yisrael Beiteinu Party, it needs to be said that what is remarkable about this election is not the “rise of the right,” but what is now labeled as “moderate” or even “left.”
The “religious extremism” evasion in Israel has—to the detriment of an effective Palestinian rights movement in our own country—its correlate evasion in the inflation of the perceived power of the Israel Lobby by those who claim to oppose it; again, a distraction that does little or nothing to explain why the phone does not get picked up by a popular President with a bully pulpit and political capital galore. Moreover, it has its correlate in the manner in which religious fundamentalism in our own country serves as a distraction from liberal perfidy, not to mention liberal support for neoconservative perfidy, relating to a variety of issues, increasingly obvious in the new American administration.
As for the issues of the Holocaust, traumatization, and trust, it is with some trepidation but ultimately with incredulity that one must at least request some empirical evidence, or else debunk the notion that the 80% of Israelis who (according to actually existing empirical evidence) support the massacre suffer from 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generational reverberations as the result of a genocide to which a majority of Israeli Jews bear no familial relation and from which suffer no material deprivation. As an alternative explanation to Burg’s premise, it should not be necessary to recount the uses of Holocaust memory, politics, and propaganda as incisively explored by Hannah Arendt, Norman Finkelstein, and Idith Zertal, among others. It hardly serves the memory of the Holocaust and its remaining survivors for Burg to offer listeners a dismal choice between feeling that they have benn manipulated in a sincere or a cynical fashion.
High-functioning and physically-secure secular Israelis knowingly and overwhelmingly elect representatives who support the systematic denial of Palestinian rights, and worse. High-functioning secular Americans in many if not most cases unknowingly elect represenatives who have no serious intent to act as “honest brokers,” and have every intent to prevent the good example of a democratic Palestine, one that might encourage similar examples in more resource-rich countries. There’s no reason to believe that an analysis such as Burg’s promotes an effective strategy for those whose uppermost concern is for Palestinian rights, which unfortunately for the Palestinians are at the mercy of fundamental American ambitions in the Middle East—albeit ambitions that are not supported by the American people. Heavily-armed Israelis will only learn to “trust” when the option of violence is decisively taken from their government.
Ed: They're not scarred by the Holocaust, and never were. The Holocaust is just the subtext rationale for everything they and the Zionists do and are allowed to get away with–the pretext. And so it must be repeatedly evoked literally and figuratively.
Ed, I agree with Phil, they are scarred by the Holocaust. The defining role of the Holocaust in Jewish identity has only increased since the Eichmann Trial, the '67 war, and thereafter.
Jewish kids may not learn much about Jewish religion, but they get an overwhelming dose of Holocaust-consciousness, leavened with the old Talmudic idea that that "Esau hates Jacob," and Gentiles are always ready to finish the job Hitler started. The only redemption from this endless threat of destruction is in the State of Israel.
In this sense, it's easier to understand the mindset of Peretz. Any criticism of Israel is a theological attack on the physical redemption of the Jews, and is a step towards being deported and exterminated by a cast of Kapos and SS Totenkopf presumably made up of Phil and his commentators, Mel Gibson, Jimmie Carter, and all the other self-hating Jews and "anti-semites" who are just waiting to turn on them.
@ David F.
But the flip-side of that is if most Jews are so systematically indoctrinated using cult-like methods as to render the vast majority of them fundamentally irrational and hysterical, then they would be living in Israel. In other words, if they truly believed that the gentiles are eternally out to get them, then nearly all American Jewish Zionists would have moved to Israel by now, which is advertised as the only place that they can ever know for sure that they're safe from the (currently hibernating) antisemitic gentile mobs.
The fact that so many Jewish Zionists continue to live in the diaspora (many of them, just like Peretz and Abrams, continually slinging the narrative you describe) basically proves that the entire narrative is a scam, painstakingly constructed by organized Jewry for exploitive and extortive purposes, both in Palestine and elsewhere.
I'm with David Green (above) when he says 'High-functioning secular Americans in many if not most cases unknowingly elect represenatives who have no serious intent to act as “honest brokers,” ' [re the I-P conflict].
But as I see it, the dishonest brokers are both Jewish and gentile corrupt elites who are all selling Americans a bill of goods in order to continue their own dysfunctional, fundamentally dishonest and swindling ways. So much of the post-Christian system is built upon maintaining such Ponzi-scheme like illusions, the wheels are coming off everywhere.
Eurosabra – Perhaps because of your life story, you aren't familiar with participatory government, the kind where targeted assassinations of elected political representatives are a crime against humanity rather than state policy.
In that type of democracy, as opposed to Israel's, people work through the political process to arrive at an equilibrium. The idea of a shared political system in Israel is a joke as matters stand; does Israel consider massacring it's political opponent's police (at an academy graduation ceremony yet) to be sharing?
And I wish you'd leave your black bag behind when you travel to blogs. It's a clear indication of a losing case when statistics and a recitation of events require censoring by the opposition in order for them to stay in the debate.
Injustice results in political instability. Israel will go down if it doesn't figure that out.
Ed, I agree with so much of what you say, I wish you would figure out a way of expressing what you mean other than with the words "Jews" and "Gentiles". I am offended by being considered a "gentile' and although zionists identify themselves as Jews, I resist the identification of Jews as primarily being zionist. 'Organized Jewry' bugs me too. That's what politics consists of – organized interest groups; the phrase makes it sound like there is something exceptional about Jews organizing and the historical connotation is sick. Pushy of me, I know, but it's hard to maintain free flow of thought when one has first to overcome taped responses.
Ed,
Part of my point is that American Zionists have a fuzzy and very ideological vision of Israel. Not many of them seem to actually read Israeli papers, for example. I think they are attracted to the idea of Israel more than the reality, and believe that if Israel is strong, then Jews everywhere are safe.
I am not the first to say that Israel has effectively become an idol. An attack on the sanctity and legitimacy of the idol is an attack on its devotees' very identity and sense of control over the outside world.
The basic fact is that if Jews everywhere are not safe, no one else is. Likewise, that fact that Palestinians are not safe endangers us all. Their circumstances also are demoralizing. How can we support such inhumanity to others? Who are we as a people that we stand silent while Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans are dispossessed and killed? Not who we thought. Not free, no longer a people who believe in rights and are willing to die for equality.
Ed, I agree with so much of what you say, I wish you would figure out a way of expressing what you mean other than with the words "Jews" and "Gentiles". I am offended by being considered a "gentile' and although zionists identify themselves as Jews, I resist the identification of Jews as primarily being zionist. 'Organized Jewry' bugs me too. That's what politics consists of – organized interest groups; the phrase makes it sound like there is something exceptional about Jews organizing and the historical connotation is sick. Pushy of me, I know, but it's hard to maintain free flow of thought when one has first to overcome taped responses.
Margaret, I agree with your sentiments, both regarding Ed's valuable input and the words you don't care for (nor do I). But how else do we talk about this?
It's not the words themselves, of course, rather it's the connotations often associated with them.
Assasinating political opponents? That appears to be American, not Israeli. The Israeli government may destroy the leaders of the groups that swear genocide and are proven murderers, but political opponants? Syria does that. America does that.