There is a piece in yesterday's Times that perfectly demonstrates why I believe that it is Essential that the Jewish family divide at last, openly, over Israel. Here it is, by Edward Rothstein. It is all about an exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial on Nazi propaganda, and how it lulled the western mind with antisemitic poison so as to gain wide complicity in the annihilation of Jews.
Rothstein: "The impact of these images is prerational or antirational; they short-circuit argument."
And who is heir to these sinister propaganda techniques... Arabs!!!
And an Egyptian cleric with strong ties to the West, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, has described Jews as “a profligate, cunning arrogant band of people”: “Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.”
That's where the piece ends. Scary. Tendentious. There is of course no even-somewhat-evenhanded discussion of the fact that Israel just killed 410 Arab children and propagandized the United States to accept the slaughter as the necessary cost of living surrounded by terrorists who fire rockets at Ashkelon (which was named al-Majdal before Israel captured it and ethnically-cleansed it in 1948, forcing many of its residents into Gaza). And this propaganda is transmitted, even as Americans accept that terrorists are a necessary part of a government, in Iraq. Rothstein talks all about fascism's rise in Germany, and by implication, the Arab world, without a mention of Avigdor Lieberman's loyalty oaths and racist statements.
Notice also Rothstein's tip of the hat to the Zionist organization, MEMRI.
Now maybe Rothstein is a Zionist. I bet he is; for the baseline intellectual condition of Zionism is a Jewish belief that antisemitism in the west is a profound unending threat. There is nothing I can do about his ahistorical belief-- I might as well preach Christianity to a grizzly bear, as the great Lincoln quipped--except to talk to others, who see reality differently.
But let's be clear: Roger Cohen in the Times is also a Jew and he is on a very different path. He confessed himself "shamed" by the Gaza slaughter. This seems to have led him to question a lot of his beliefs about Israeli exceptionalism. He has gone to Iran and seems to understand that In the eyes of its neighbors, Israel is a threatening and aggressive state! This has nothing to do with Jewishness, but everything to do with Zionism and invasion and the iron wall-- and the Israel lobby, which ensures that Israeli nukes and disproportionate belligerence will not be questioned inside the superpower upon whom Israel depends.
Cohen and Rothstein differ, I imagine, on a fundamental Jewish question: Is the Jewish state necessary for the safety of Jews in the west? Many questions follow from that. Why don't you feel a need to move there yourself? Why are Jews in Israel trying to move here? Why is it so incumbent on Jews in the U.S. to support Israel as a sacred mission, as Dershowitz has said ? Doesn't that involve propagandizing Americans? Doesn't that burden Jews, as John Judis has said, with dual loyalty? And so on and so forth.
I'm just saying: We need to have this out. We need to have a few Jews who have thought about these things on a stage. Some will say, I'm a Zionist, and here's why, and others will say, I'm not a Zionist, and here's why. And let Jews hear. Let Americans hear too.
i think zionist and non zionist both need to read from the fact based same sheet of paper before they can agree to talk about israel and palestine.
the boogieman in the middle east is not iran, it is that nation that lies about irans nuclear bomb capability and threatens to start a war using that lie.
Robert Dreyfus in the Nation explains some facts to us.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/410167
Don't Let the Iran Headlines Scare You
posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 02/20/2009 @ 09:26am
The headlines are scary. "Iran ready to build nuclear weapon, analysts say," screams CNN. "Iran Has More Enriched Uranium Than Thought," shouts the New York Times. "Iran has enough uranium to make bomb," proclaims the Jerusalem Post.
Don't believe any of this nonsense.
What Iran has is one ton or so of low-enriched uranium. You can't build a bomb with that. To do so, Iran would first have to re-enrich all of it to weapons-grade uranium, which it isn't doing. Right now that uranium is under lock and key, watched over by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In order to enrich it, Iran would have to do so right in front of the inspectors, who'd tell us all about it, or kick the inspectors out and do it secretly. Either way, (a) we'd know about it, and (b) it would still take Iran a long time, many months, if not a year or two, and that's assuming that they do it right and that the machines don't break down.
So President Obama can relax.
I'm not one of those Pollyannas who think that the Iranians are all innocent. In my view, the mullahs who run Iran want a bomb. Some analysts believe that they're pushing ahead as quickly as they can to get there, while others think that what Iran wants is simply a "Japan-like" capability to assemble a bomb when and if the Iranian military thinks its needed. In any case, however, Iran isn't there yet, and they haven't taken the necessary next step, namely, to enrich the fuel to weapons-grade. (Not only that, but we can't be sure that Iran actually knows how to make a bomb, even if has the enriched uranium, nor — despite its recent missile and satellite launches — does it have the capability to deliver a weapon.)
Buried in the Times story, but headlined elsewhere, is the news that Mohammad ElBaradei, the IAEA chief, says that surprisingly Iran has slowed, not accelerated, its program of enrichment lately, perhaps as a sign to the Obama administration that it wants to talk. ElBaradei called it a "political decision," meaning that it's not a technical slowdown.
Another alarmist piece on Iran showed up this week in the Los Angeles Times, headlined: "U.S. now sees Iran as pursuing nuclear bomb." Now, I don't disagree with the conclusion that Iran is "pursuing" a bomb. But the LA Times story was based on thin reeds. It purported to show that the December, 2007, US National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran had halted work on its military nuclear program, was being reversed by the Obama administration. Here's the lede:
"Little more than a year after U.S. spy agencies concluded that Iran had halted work on a nuclear weapon, the Obama administration has made it clear that it believes there is no question that Tehran is seeking the bomb."
That's utterly bogus. The evidence the newspaper cites has nothing, repeat nothing, to do with any new NIE or intelligence conclusion. (The Obama intelligence team hasn't even figured out where their parking spaces are yet, never mind reassessing the Iranian nuclear effort.) What the article cites, instead, is (1) a misstatement by Obama, during a news conference, in which the president said something about Iran's "development of a nuclear weapon," and then corrected himself, and (2) testimony by Leon Panetta, the utterly unprepared CIA director, at his confirmation hearings, in which poor Leon said the following:
"From all the information I've seen, I think there is no question that they are seeking that capability."
Problem is, Panetta hasn't seen any — repeat, any — classified information yet. Now, I attended those hearings, and Panetta was speaking before he became CIA director, and he was speaking about what he's read in the papers, not what he learned from reading secret reports. He's entitled to his opinion, but that's all it is. It certainly has nothing to do with any new conclusion reached by the intelligence community.
The point is, there's plenty to time for Obama to work out a deal with Iran, presumably one that would enlist Iran's help with Iraq and Afghanistan, Hamas and Hezbollah, and other problems, including the nuclear file, as part of a broad arrangement. And it seems certain that Obama understands that it's important to get Russia's help in dealing with Iran, which is why the administration has pledged to "hit the reset button" on relations with Moscow. As John Hughes, a former Reagan administration State Department official, wrote approvingly in the Christian Science Monitor this week:
"All the signs suggest that in return for Russian pressure upon Iran to end its military nuclear program, the Obama White House quid pro quo would abandon the missile defense project the Bush White House had planned to build on Russia's doorstep. …
"Could [Russia] then exert what remains of its considerable influence on Iran to curtail its military nuclear program? Russia has no desire to see Iran become a nuclear weapons-wielding power in the Middle East. But the price must be right before it is ready to spend political capital to prevent that from happening. It remains to be seen whether abrogation of the American antimissile project in Eastern Europe meets that price."
Making a deal with Iran will take lots of intricate diplomacy. That will take hime. Fortunately, Obama has lots of time.
Unless, that is, Bibi Netanyahu does something rash.
Thanks, Sam: I was just going to post that.
See Chris Hedges's frightening essay, as well:
"A Choice Between Peace and Peril"
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090223_a_choice_between_peace_and_peril/
Posted on Feb 23, 2009 By Chris Hedges
"Bibi Netanyahu’s assumption of power in Israel sets the stage for a huge campaign by the Israeli government, and its well-oiled lobby groups in Washington, to push us into a war with Iran….
These signs would indicate that Iran could begin a nuclear weapons program. But as of now there is no such program. We should stop speaking as if one exists….
There is a lot riding on whom President Obama names as his special envoy to Iran. If, as expected, it is Dennis Ross, a former official of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, we will be in deep trouble. Ross, who is expected to be placed in charge of the Iranian portfolio this week, is a vocal supporter of Israel’s call for increased pressure on Iran. He is distrusted, even despised, in the Muslim world and especially in Tehran. With good reason, he is not viewed as an impartial broker.
Ross has called for more draconian sanctions against Iran, something Russia or the five companies that provide Iran’s refined petroleum products are not likely to support. (The companies include the Swiss firm Vitol, the French giant Total and the Indian firm Reliance.) Ross backs the covert support for proxy groups and, I would assume, the alleged clandestine campaign by Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. Mossad is rumored to be behind the death of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a top nuclear scientist at Iran’s Isfahan uranium plant, who died in mysterious circumstances from reported “gas poisoning” in 2007, according to the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph. “Other recent deaths of important figures in the procurement and enrichment process in Iran and Europe have been the result of Israeli ‘hits,’ intended to deprive Tehran of key technical skills at the head of the program, according to the analysts,” the paper reported.
It remains unmentioned that Israel, which refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—signed by Iran—is in possession of 200 to 300 nuclear warheads, perhaps the single most important factor in the Middle East nuclear arms race.
“For the US to shape a peaceful relationship with Iran will be difficult under any circumstances,” Stephen Kinzer, author of “All the Shah’s Men,” wrote recently. “If the American negotiating team is led by Ross or another conventional thinker tied to dogmas of the past, it will be impossible.”
Obama has an opportunity to radically alter the course we have charted in the Middle East. The key will be his administration’s relationship with Iran. If he gives in to the Israel lobby, if he empowers Ross, if he defines Iran as the enemy before he begins to attempt a negotiated peace, he could ignite a fuse that will see our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan evolve into a regional conflagration. This may be the most important decision of his presidency. Let’s pray he does not blow it."
See also Paul Craig Roberts on the disaster that awaits us if the world drops the U.S. dollar as its reserve currency–through, say, a boycott of complicity in Israeli government war crimes.
"The State Department Ushers in Dennis Ross in the Dark of the Night
by Cheryl Biren-Wright"
More sad news:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/02/24/the-aipac-prosecution-suffers-a-crippling-blow/
The AIPAC Prosecution Suffers A Crippling Blow
By: bmaz Tuesday February 24, 2009 5:07 am
Susie,
It's not all bad news. I hope that between tons of documents they passed on to the foreign power there will be ONE that was correctly classified.
Then, the precedent will be applied to Bush/Cheney years and a lot of uncomfortable material will be re-classified by courts and juries.
It must suck to be Susie! Sometimes American law gets in the way of her Jew hunting.
That's not Jim Haygood. Adam and Phil, please ban the above poster for impersonating the real Jim Haygood, as per the new rules. I don't like banning at all, but if there is one surefire reason to, it's impersonation. Despicable.
Thanks, Eva and Dan.
BTW, I always learn from your own comments, as well as the pictures and articles you contribute.
Thank YOU, Susie.
I read the PCR article yesterday. I don't always agree with him (he writes a couple articles a year in support of supply-side economics, and he goes out of his way to avoid all criticism of the Reagan administration of which he was a part), but he has been spot-on about the economic crisis. His essays are quite readable to a layperson such as myself not well-versed in economic theory.
Good spot, Dan Kelly. It was not Jim Haygood. It was the only who actually steals another's real ID on this blog: SOG, aka Bill Pearlman.
I know what you mean, Dan.
And, yes, good spot.
Thank you for recognizing my article, The State Department Ushers in Dennis Ross in the Dark of the Night.
Rushed to get it out before work this a.m., but…still doing some research. Specifically, trying to identify the "ten Israeli counterparts" who participated in WINEPs presidential task force on "How to Deepen US-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge."
If anyone reading is privy to this info, please drop me a line at cheryl(at)opednews(dot)com . Thanks!
Thank you for recognizing my article, The State Department Ushers in Dennis Ross in the Dark of the Night.
Rushed to get it out before work this a.m., but…still doing some research. Specifically, trying to identify the "ten Israeli counterparts" who participated in WINEPs presidential task force on "How to Deepen US-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge."
If anyone reading is privy to this info, please drop me a line at cheryl(at)opednews(dot)com . Thanks!
"I think Edward Rothstein of the 'Times' is a Zionist, and Roger Cohen of the 'Times' isn't, and let's talk about it"
"Sitting in his Bethlehem office, he continued, “No walls are ever permanent, and this one destroys the idea of a two-state solution because it kills the option of a viable Palestinian state. In fact it leads to only one alternative: a binational state in which we are a majority because our population grows at 4.2 percent a year and theirs at 1.7 percent.” It won’t happen, of course, but the insidious one-state talk is a measure of the conflict’s dangerous drift."
link to nytimes.com
/>
The last sentence is Cohen's opinion. It might have change in 2 years, but I've read a lot of his stuff and he's a Zionist. To the left in the spectrum, but a Zionist.
I also think Roger Cohen is a Zionist.