My Maimonides, Ilene Cohen, is perplexed:
Is it:
a. It's all lies (the IDF is the most moral army in the world).
a. It's all lies (the IDF is the most moral army in the world).
b. It's the proverbial few rotten apples (the IDF is the most moral army in the world).
c. We didn't know. (Hey, Man, it's war–stuff happens. And who has time to read the newspaper?)
d. None of the above.
Amira Hass has reported about and mostly from Gaza and reports in Haaretz, "Time to believe Gaza war crimes allegations."
Note to readers of this site. That last sentence says, "Haaretz." It doesnt say, "New York Times" or "Washington Post." The dark night of the soul in Israel is unreported here.
Phil,
You've got a bad link to the Amira Hass piece. Try this:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1073469.html
Don't miss the comments after Hass' article from the wonderful people of Israel!
The Israelis need to be wiped out.
They are a disease.
It's all lies. I even have the book, the video and the album "Ha Kol Shqarim". One of the great collaborative products of Israeli anarchist punkdom.
"That last sentence says, "Haaretz." It doesnt say, "New York Times" or "Washington Post." The dark night of the soul in Israel is unreported here. "
Israel Lobby, what Israel Lobby?
Rykart, it is foolish to attribute the values of several, or even several dozen, comments which are open to anyone in the world to post, to all 6 million Israelis. Your response is way over the line.
Colin
The Tel Aviv University study showed that 94% of Israelis fully supported the Gaza massacre.
Not only are Israelis NOT entitled to a state, the overwhelming majority of them belong in prison.
@Colin,
Way over the line? Really? Here? I didn't know Phil had a line. Perhaps your cause, or Phil's cause, can use a little self reflection in light of this incident with Rykart.
Carry on …
The few honest Israelis like Gideon Levy admit that Israel is nothing but a Nazi cesspool–a land of the Kahanists for the Kahanists and by the Kahanists. They are a nuclear equipped menace to humankind and they have to be dealt with.
"Lieberman and his soldiers are borne on the tides of hatred for Arabs, hatred of democracy and the rule of law, and the stink of nationalism, racism and bloodthirstiness."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1062338.html
It's. . . Not My Fault.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TuLBa-rgBk
Rykart,
You are exhibiting the same level of ignorant hatred for whole swaths of people that you do not know, based only on their ethnicity, that you claim disqualifies most Israelis for human existence. Think about that for a moment. You aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. If you weren't quite a bit more knowledgeable about Israel than Chris Berel has shown himself to be, I would suspect that you and he are the same person. You both share some particularly ugly habits.
Please cut it out. Dehumanizing and killing more people, no matter how much you dislike them, or disagree with their repugnant ideas, is not going to help anyone. People can change, bigotry can be overcome, but it isn't easy and it doesn't happen by countering bigotry with more bigotry. I may not agree with everything that Gandhi said or did, but he was right-on about this:
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
You can't change anything in Israel by being just as hateful and bigoted towards Israelis as many Israelis are towards the Palestinians. If you want to understand how you can change their violent attitudes, try to understand your own violent attitudes first. If you can't conquer your own bigotry then you will never prevail over anyone else's. Your cause MAY be just, but it doesn't excuse your hateful means. (That's assuming that your cause is justice and equality. I hope that is what it is. Its not apparent what you really want when you start calling for violence.)
And Michael W, I've never seen you criticize CB or Suzanne or HF when they go all bigoted in their posts, so you look to be a hypocrite here.
tree is right, both morally and tactically. The hasbara agents first goal is to incite rabid generic anti-semitic sentiments. They then can cast a guilt-by-fake -association blanket of doubt over all the myriad of analytical and ethical comments against Israeli actions, which are of course supported by USA tax dollars, hence makes all American culpable. Do not contribute to such diversionary hasbara tactics used to keep the objective eye off the factual ball.
Tree
You make hate sound like a BAD thing. But hate is a healthy response to certain outrages against defenseless people.
When decent Americans were treated to the spectacle of muscular, uniformed LA police kicking and beating a black man writhing in pain on the ground, they responded with healthy revulsion and most said the officers should be thrown in prison and hopefully raped.
My parents are academics and all their friends are academics, mostly in the sciences. Civilized types. What was their response on reading in the Times that another US B52 was shot down over Vietnam? They cheered!! They clinked glasses. That's what you're supposed to do.
I don't know when the left began empathizing with monsters and seeking to "understand" them like we're all in one big encounter group. When the Klan comes to town, you don't engage them in socratic dialogue. Israel is a nation of Ku klux Klan zealots. Violently dangerous degenerates, but far worse than the Klan. Klan members are three time losers on the fringes of society. Israelis have omnipotent power which they take great pleasure in lording over the Palestinians…untermenschen to their Nazi superiority.
The last thing Israelis are due is empathy or consideration. They're a disease. They're a pathology–a scourge no different from Nazism.
They have to be dealt with.
as to Ghandi, you probably know that Norman Finkelstein has been researching him and lecturing quite a bit about Ghandi. At least according to Finkelstein, Ghandi was not opposed to violent resistance. That's a myth.
The US was defeated in Indochina through violence. It's ugly. It's horrible and no one wants that kind of world. That said, thank GOD they killed enough Americans to drive the US from their land.
If the Palestinians can not do the same, they are going to be wiped out, plain and simple.
Citizen
You make an entirely sensible and rational case. I agree with it intellectually 100% . But this protracted massacre has gone on for 60 years and every day the conditions for Palestinians worsen. After the incineration of children–burnt alive with phosphorus, we hear some feeble cries from the international community while everything continues exactly as it had. The legal system is totally bankrupt. It is NOT a useful tool in this struggle. Other means have to be used. Israel's sense of invincibility has to be shattered. They have to be terrorized on a daily basis until they are too frightened to leave their homes. They have to be terrorized into making peace because they are never going to do it out of their own free will. Certainly, we've learned that by now?
rykart
I don't have a problem with your POV. I empathize with you on it. But, as a linguistic tactical matter, please don't give verbal food to the hasbara agents–that's exactly what they are looking for to divert good hearted people from the factual realities. Remember a Jew seduced Americans into smoking cigarettes as a glamorous life style. I'm not making this up. Goebbels studied him.
Citizen
I claim to provide an answer to the impasse but of course I haven't any answer. No one does. Violence doesn't work. Non-violence certainly doesn't work. Talk of peace doesn't work. Talk of war doesn't work.
My politics vis a vis Israel at this point consist of little more than the archaic human need to see wickedness punished. The more I consider the matter, the more utterly hopeless it appears.
Two state settlement? No one is really lobbying for a two state settlement. Because a Palestinian state would require something which no one will discuss because it's a priori out of the question—namely that this new state would be permitted the means to defend itself, with a modern standing army, anti-aircraft, etc. Without that, you haven't got a state. Without that, the Israelis will continue brutalizing these people until the world ends.
Obama was really the one faint hope. It seems a foolish thing to say but i think it's true. He's the one person who could act–forcefully, and bring the suffering to an end. Plainly, that is not his agenda. I fear for the Palestinians. I think that they are doomed.
r and rykart, the whole world is not the United States. There might be hope, there has to be hope, despite all the evidence to the contrary. If the U.S. is not going to create a level playing field, then the other countries will just have to try to do so without the U.S. British MPs have been talking to Hezbollah. Galloway is urging communication with Hamas. Erdogan has been speaking with surrounding Arab nations. America was late to the anti-apartheid debate as well. Sooner of later, maybe they will wonder what all the noise other countries and people are making, and the citizens in the wider community might join in. Urging widespread Palestinian violence, I'm afraid, probably would wipe all the people out, as the U.S. would defend Israel if a full onslaught was plausible, possible or probable.
sooner *or* later. Sorry.
For years now I've read stories saying that the IDF is the "most moral army in the world." For years too I've been wondering where they got this title. Is this an annual award by Amnesty International? The United Nations? Union of Concerned Scientists? Maybe Golda Meir just made this up at the same time she made up "a land without people for people without a land."
If this is a real designation (rather than something dreamed up by the IDF PR department), I wonder whose army came in second, last.
Rykart, it is spelled 'Gandhi', not 'Ghandi'.
Rykart – We are all supposed to have the same responses?
I don't recognize your description of the Klan to be as universal as you consider it. IMHO, many members of the Klan are seen as "upright citizens", powerful in their milieu; they live in social groups accepting of bigotry. If they act against the law, then they are subject to sanctions (as long as people are observant and aware of what's going on); wearing a white hooded gown is not in and of itself a crime, particularly not a capital crime. IMHO, actions are repugnant. People are to be held responsible for their actions. Not for living with a different perspective, even if one finds it repugnant.
Violence begets violence. There is always reciprocity. In allowing yourself expression of your angry and exasperated feelings, remember that you are directing it against people and will experience blowback.
"I fear for the Palestinians. I think that they are doomed."
There's only about 350 million Arabs. They control more than 99.5% of the middle east. No need to fear. There soon will be a billion of them.
Yeah they're all alike, completely interchangeable.
yeah, and all "like cockroaches in a bottle", as Rafi Eitan once put it, with that Jewish frankness we all so love and cherish in our hypocritical goyish world.
Yeah, Kafka's Jewish bug turned into a Palestinian bug. He'd appreciate that.
@ Margaret
Are you claiming that it is PC to be a member of the KKK? If not, doesn't that make a difference?
Does David Duke have a remote chance of ever being offered as a candidate for Secretary Of State, for example? We are talking about current political possibilities. Obama has appointed various zionists
in key slots (over Iran policy, Hillary as State, the IDF guy, as gate-keeper); the curb-kicking of Chas Freeman is in point. What say you about that?
I say that in the US repugnant views are not against the law, while an active citizenry is necessary to defend against acts against the law by those who hold repugnant views.
Freeman: the more I read about him, the more I miss him.