Gary Ackerman, the Long Island congressman. Far too little--where was he when it mattered--but it's an important signal of where the mainstream is moving. Even AIPAC is going to start on this soon, trying to save two states, which they so long opposed.
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Please read the JTA piece that Phil links to. First off, although I suppose it is encouraging that a Jewish congressman from NY is at least recognizing the settlements, it's not as if Ackerman is defending the Palestinians' right to defend themselves, or speaking out about the illegality of the occupation (he doesn't use the word occupation). He makes it a point to say "he was not trying to draw a moral equivalence between Israeli hard-liners and Palestinian terrorists, "but they are all part of the same destructive dynamic." So, the Palestinians are still the terrorists, not resistors. Anyway, this is where it gets interesting. The first comment to the JTA piece is posted by a guy named Howard Wallick:
I’m shocked. When I first saw the quotes as coming from a “congressman,” I thought it must have been a fringe guy like Kucinich. Ackerman is mainstream and thus his remarks, as ludicrous as they are, are very worrisome.
–Hillel Wallick
Wallick's comment is then responded to by Liz Berney, a lawyer, who ran against Ackerman in 2008:
Dear Mr. Wallick,
Unfortunately, these sorts of comments are typical for Congressman Ackerman. Shockingly and most dangerously for Israel and America, Ackerman is Chairman of the Mideast subcommittee. Ackerman has spent the last five years promoting funding for the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas, despite the fact that the PA announced that it sends 40% of the funds it receives from international donors to Hamas, and despite the PA’s continuing promotion of terror in schools, textbooks and Palestinian television. Thanks to Ackerman, last year $600 million of our U.S. tax dollars were sent to the Palestinian Authority and Abbas. Last June, Ackerman said that we should send even more money to Abbas to make him into the “Muslim Santa Claus.” (Seriously.) And Ackerman has criticized Israel for having “illegal outposts” in prior hearings. Ackerman also brags about running around the world talking to the world’s dictators. These are only a few of the reasons why I ran for Congress against Ackerman in 2008 (and did quite well, especially considering that it was a brief, not-well-funded race and a bad year for Republicans), and why I may run against him in 2010. He needs to be stopped. You can read more about his shameful record and outrageous statements on my website.
Sincerely,
Liz Berney, Esq.
Great Neck, New York
LizBerneyforCongress.com
email: LizBerneyforCongress@gmail.com
Ackerman has said that America should have been "delivering goods to Abu Mazen and making him the Muslim Santa Claus in the Arab world so he was giving out the goodies," and "Hamas will wither and die” if Abu Mazen is the new "Muslim Santa." This is not exactly someone who cares about the Palestinians.
So, a sitting congressman makes a meager gesture illustrating at least some of what goes on in occupied Palestine, and this Liz Berney is going to use that against him to win over voters. She's attempting to out-Israel him. Welcome to Zionism 101. The breadth of the depravity never ceases to amaze.
At least now we know not to send money to Liz Berney, and spread the word that she is an Israel-Firster who doesn't understand America-first national interests.
This is as good a thread as any to share the results of my internet tour today. I had 3 free hours so I went to every major liberal site and blog I use to visit.
In the old days,a year or so ago, on every blog and site there would be numerous jewish activist advocating for and excusing Israel with the usual talking points and propaganda.
Now there is big switch..at these same sites the jewish concentration has switched from defending 'Israel' to defending 'Jews'. Now their big worry is anti semitism instead….and of course all these former Israel supporters are saying that Israel is just the excuse for the anti semitism growing because we are all anti semitic anyway…LOL
This switch is hysterical,like dogs chasing their tails round and round tryingtocatch something to chew on. They have more or less given up defending Israel because other posters rip them a new one on it, so they have now gone to the mattrasses on anti semitism.
I read some dairies over at the very liberal DKos using their search function since it use to be a hotbed for Israelis supporters and what has happened is the usual zionist activist are writting dairies now on anti semitism instead of Israel and nobody is commmenting on them but other zionist…everyone else is ignoring them…they have become oddities and their rants on antisemities are being ignored by the community at large as not worth wasting time on.
I would say this is a very healthy turn of attitudes in the net public for the whole I-P and zionista issue.
People now just think they are crazy…cause they are crazy.
I'd say either American, like himself, stays on the fringe end of the Internet, or he has been blind. The only dogs shasing tails are the supporters of Islamic fascism like Rowan, Maritn, Kelly, Eva, Citizen who troll this site.
Here's a nice, concise response to the recently arrived hasbara jr. crew, such as chris berel, Thom, Suzanne, etc–you regulars have figured out who they are:
Israel, Hamas and Civilians
Posted by saifedean on January 16, 2009
(link to thesaifhouse.wordpress.com
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In a comment on my post on Friedman and Goldberg’s call for murder of civilians, commenter Americanthinker asks two excellent questions:
2. Is it morally acceptable for an attacking force to mount attacks from locations overwhelming occupied by civilians? Doesn’t this invite the very risk to Gazan civilians to which you object?
3. Hamas does not distinguish between the Israeli military and the people of Israel (presumably on the basis that the Israeli people elect and support their government) and feels completely justified in firing rockets into Israeli civilian populations. Hamas quite honestly says that it wants no peace with Israel. What, if anything, would induce Hamas to agree to stop firing rockets at Israel? If your answer is that, in the minds of the Hamas leadership, resistance is always justified, then aren’t they condemning Gazan civilians to Israeli military responses? What do you think the results of a referendum would be if Gazans were asked if they wanted the rocket fire from Gaza to continue if the price would be repeated Israeli military responses? The Gazans voted for Hamas; did they also vote for war?
These questions are built on the conventional view of the conflict, which goes thus:
1- Hamas fires rockets at Israeli civilians
2- Israel attempts to retaliate to defend its civilians
3- Hamas hides among civilians
4- Civilians die
If this bore any tenuous link to reality, it could be compelling. But, unfortunately, this line of thinking is as wrong-headed as believing that cancer causes smoking. There are several clear and incontrovertible facts that do not fit with this narrative, and these are:
• 1- The occupation:
Israel has been occupying the Gaza Strip, and has the final sovereign rule over all its inhabitants, since 1967. Israel’s claims to have ended the occupation of Gaza in 2005 are nonsense, because since 2005 Israel has controlled Gaza from land, air and sea. It controls all access of civilians, goods, food, water, fuel and medicine. Israel controls Gaza in the same way that the US controls its Federal prisons.
• 2- The siege:
Since 2006 (and well before) Israel has imposed a draconian and inhuman siege against the people of Gaza. It denies them entry of food, medicine, fuel and water. Infants have died in hospital incubators as power was cut, as Israeli occupation officials prevented fuel from coming into Gaza.
• 3- Israeli murder:
Israel continued to attack, bomb, invade and devastate Gaza since 1967, and did not stop since 2005. These attacks started way before Hamas even existed, and are far more devastating than anything Hamas has ever mustered.
• 4- The cease-fire:
Even if one were to ignore all that and assume that the world started in June 2008, one would still have to place the blame for this mess on Israel, for the very simple reason that Israel was the one that violated this current cease-fire. From June onwards, Hamas did not fire any rockets at Israel, while Israel continues to starve the Palestinians. This in itself is an act of aggression that makes Israel the aggressor, but even if we ignored that, it was still Israel who violated this cease-fire in November.
These facts then turn your story on its head. Once you take them into account, believing that Hamas is the cause of this, or that the people of Gaza brought this fate onto themselves, becomes as perverse as believing that The Black Panthers were the cause of slavery and segregation.
The reality is that Israel has, for the past 42 years (fully funded and supported by America) launched an unrelenting war of aggression, murder, land-theft, siege, destruction and starvation on the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinians have had two clear choices all along:
1- Do nothing, in which case you will be starved to death or bombed to death and have your land stolen for religiously exclusive colonies while the world watches and does nothing.
Or
2- Attempt to fight back, in which case Israel, through its hacks like Friedman and Goldberg, will portray that as a naked unprovoked act of aggression that justifies more bombing and death.
In both cases, Israel is attacking and killing Palestinians. Under the cease-fire, when Hamas wasn’t firing rockets, Israel still besieged and starved Gaza. Israel then violated the cease-fire and used Hamas’s retaliation as a pretext for further murder and starvation and sieges.
Hamas reacting by rockets is wrong, unacceptable and unjustifiable. I condemn it unequivocally and wish they would stop it. But to look at that as if it is the root of this crisis is just plain wrong. Israel has been attacking, murdering, occupying, starving and controlling the Gazans since 1967. That is the real problem. That is the real terrorism. That is what you should be angry about. And more importantly, that is what you should get your country to stop supporting.
The pathetic rockets of Hamas are nothing but a reaction to the real problem, which is Israeli oppression of Palestinians.
If you claim to be concerned about civilians and their well-being, then it strikes me as very odd that you would:
1- Ignore the occupation
2- Ignore the siege
3- Ignore Israel’s inhuman, indiscriminate and devastating carpet-bombing of Gaza
4- Ignore the fact that it was Israel that violated this cease-fire
5- Concentrate on the pathetic rockets Hamas fires, which are themselves the result of the acts of aggression by the Israeli government against the Palestinians.
Which brings me to another problematic story that America’s media has not stopped repeating: the idea that any of this is justifiable because “Hamas does not want peace.” This is a very perverse, wrong-headed and racist idea. Israel already has destroyed Palestine. Israel is the aggressor and occupier here. Israel is the result of a Zionist project whose stated aim is to destroy the livelihood of Palestinians who do not belong to the Jewish religion. Israel has ethnically cleansed more than a million Palestinians from their homes over the years, murdered tens of thousands, and made freedom and self-determination impossible for all Palestinians everywhere. Israel continues to colonize Palestinian land, occupy all of Palestinians’ lands and control all their lives. In the face of all this, I find it mind-boggling that adults will still look at this and think that the problem is what Hamas says about recognizing Israel’s “right to exist” (whatever the hell that means).
Hamas is a political resistance movement that has announced that it will accept a two-state solution over the West Bank and Gaza. The idea of Hamas “recognizing” Israel’s “right to exist” before any negotiations can start is as nonsensical as asking the NY Yankees to recognize Tanzania’s right to exist: there is absolutely no meaning to a non-state actor “recognizing” a state.
Most importantly, Israel is the one that is actually and physically destroying Palestine. Everything you accuse Hamas of wanting to do, Israel is actually doing. The problem with the American discourse on this topic is that it is not concerned at all with Israel doing all of this, but is horrified at exaggerated media reports that claim that Hamas wants to do these things.
This would be laughable—were it not so tragic. It is precisely because Americans believe this wrongheaded story that the American government supports Israel politically, economically, militarily and diplomatically. It is because of this support that Israel can do these thing
In adding to American's post, I've noticed that at Alternet, there are many more non-Zionist comments than pro-Israel ones. I don't know that that was true even two years ago. The tide is changing. The "mainstream" is even changing, albeit incredibly slowly. The pressure must be kept up and increased, at all levels, in order to break through. Write to your editors, the NY Times, the networks, your "representatives" (lol), etc. Keep the pressure on.