A good rock has been turned over in the Chas Freeman controversy. On Foreign Policy's website, one of Freeman's defenders, Stephen Walt, cracked about one of Freeman's pursuers, Jeffrey Goldberg, that his idea of public service was moving to Israel and serving in the Israel Defense Forces. Jacob Heilbrunn, biographer of the neocons, leapt to Goldberg's defense at the National Interest site, saying that this was "idealistic" of Goldberg.
A lot of us went overseas pursuing our ideals. I did, ended up in the Third World. Goldberg was pursuing Zionist ideals. I don't have his book in front of me, Prisoners, but in it Goldberg said that after graduating from Penn in 1981 or so, he came to feel that the Diaspora was the "disease" of Jewish life, and that Israel was the "cure." So he moved to Israel and joined the army. Norman Finkelstein and the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs have said that Goldberg served in a notorious prison where Palestinians were tortured.
The Zionist ideal is based on the claim that the west is unsafe for Jews and that Israel is the homeland of the Jews. But these aren't American ideals. We believe that minorities are not discriminated against, and should not be. Between my parents' generation and mine, America began living up to its promise. In fact, Goldberg's understanding of antisemitism is close to my parents': it's all around us.
Rahm Emanuel and Jeffrey Goldberg, who are extolled in the Jewish community, both felt that they should serve Israel. The Supreme Court has said that American citizens can go serve in other armies (Emanuel was a civilian volunteer wearing an Israeli uniform during the Gulf War), but does that mean that those Atlantic-Ocean-jumpers should be taken seriously on American foreign policy? When Israel's supporters say that Israel's war is our war, a misconception that helped drive the Iraq war, I bet Emanuel and Goldberg both come down on the wrong side of the statement.
I understand why Zionist ideals became ideals–I'm at my parents' house, hearing their stories, andnot going to discount my parents' real experience– but those ideas should be junked now in light of real and large conditions: the incredible Jewish experience in America and the incredible human rights abuses in Israel. Also Walt has touched on the issue of military service. How many of the Iraq war supporters–and Goldberg was one, serving up fantasies about Saddam's chemical threat–have served in the American army? And per Tom Ricks, how many of the elite's children are in the service, pulling 3 and 4 year tours in the greatest mistake of American foreign policy, a mistake fed by a deluded identification with Israel…
Related posts:
- Jeffrey Goldberg Says American Politicians Can Say ‘Whatever They Want About Israel’
- Jeffrey Goldberg Warns, Don’t Pressure Israel or She Goes Into Bunker…
- Where Is Jeffrey Goldberg Now That Feith Needs Him?
- Jeffrey Goldberg suggests anti-Zionists aren’t Jews
- Triangulation: Leading Islamic Group Links Jeffrey Goldberg
{ 50 comments }
Isn't the concept that one can't live an authentically Jewish life (whatever that may mean) in the Diaspora? Alas, that may mean that no one has lived such a life since the year 70!
It's a bizarre rule for sure that one can serve in a foreign army or vote in a foreign election and remain a citizen.
Question: If he had served in the Syrian army, would that be "idealistic"?
Phil, Steve Walt calls his personal blog:
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/
so that people can accidentally-on-purpose confuse it with:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
you gotta stop these games, fellas, botha ya, they're dishonest.
Steve Walt has a more lighthearted piece on his blog now entitled "Where Have All the Political Songs Gone?" (with apologies to Pete Seeger). I thought it was interesting.
Colonialism has often been mixed up with idealism. This is just one instance.
"Goldberg [allegedly] served in a notorious prison where Palestinians were tortured.
"The Zionist ideal is based on the claim that the west is unsafe for Jews and that Israel is the homeland of the Jews. But these aren't American ideals. We believe that minorities are not discriminated against, and should not be…Was Jeffrey Goldberg 'idealistic' in moving to Israel and serving in its army?”
—
From an American perspective, how idealistic is it to serve an institutionally racist, violent, murderous and expansionist caste-system state? On the other hand, from a Jewish-supremacist perspective, such service might indeed be idealistic.
We are starting to get to the crux of the differences between traditionally American and Western, Christian-based values, and Jewish supremacist values. Despite the rhetorical propaganda emitted by the "Judeo-Christian" formulation merchants, the two are incompatible, and indeed diametrically opposed.
Per Goldberg's and Heilbrunn's definition of idealism according to their interpretation of the Jewish value system, serving Israel may have indeed been idealistic. But the problem is that Goldberg didn't stay in Israel, and instead returned to America to spread the "good word" of Jewish Zionist "idealism" and “values” across the country via Neconservatism and Neoliberalism.
Jewish supremacists like Goldberg and Rahm Emanuel should move to Israel and stay there.
Walt was in error in his flippant mildly contemptuous generalization.
I expect that Walt similarly to you and I, did NOT serve in the US military. Your brother was subject to the draft, and not eligible for student deferments. I assume that he didn't serve either. I was on the list but they didn't call up people in 1973. Walt is the same age as you, and you weren't subject.
Sympathy to the level of commitment in one's youth is a GOOD THING. Its action, rather than talk.
Zionism in 1947/8/9 was survival for European and then Sephardic Jews. To call it colonialism is a lie.
Zionism in 2009 is to support the right of a populated, developed, independant internationally authorized Israel, remain so.
Its a good thing. The best thing is to urge reform when it is at all possible, NOT revolution.
Tens, hundreds of thousands of people die in revolutions.
The reason Rowan is so petty and anal about insignificant issues is because he’s a Leftist-Internationalist posing as a Muslim who keeps a copy of the Communist Manifest stored in unmentionable places for quick and easy access.
Zionism has always been colonialism, from start to finish – killing and ethnically cleansing the natives to privilege the settlers, backed by London, Paris, or Washington.
And South Africa was internationally authorised, until it wasn't any more, and the same will sooner or later happen to Israel.
Andrew Sullivan on Chas Freeman — looks like he is following up on his earlier thoughts on Israel and neoconservatism, despite earlier backpeddling.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/03/a-freeman-time.html#more
Otto, you're like a bad record stuck on the worst part of the recording. Zionism has always about Jews re-establishing their presence in their national homeland. Land was purchased and they moved to it. When I buy 50 acres in England and move there, I don't expect you or any other asshole to claim I'm colonizing.
Otto, I disagree that Israel is a traditional colonial state.
1) The Jews kicked the British colonialists OUT of Palestine after they got a foot in the door
2) Israel sends no money to the West; in fact, all the money goes the other way
3) The Jews are more interested in expelling the natives than financially exploiting them; any mercantilism is secondary to the ethnic-cleansing agenda
However, I do believe that certain American military-industrial-war profiteering interests do indeed use Israel as a sub-text rationale/pretext for starting wars and perpetuating a profitable clash of civilizations, with the clear collaboration of American Jewish Zionist money/capital interests and media interests like Rupert Murdoch and others, who profit nicely from increased circulation/viewership etc that accompany war. I don’t believe oil companies are part of this scheme, as it is clear that their profits are safer and steadier in collaboration with Arab regimes.
So, if there is any colonialism-like profiteering going on, it is mostly at the behest of certain specific American industries and capital/financial-sector investment interests. It doesn’t appear that non Jewish-Zionist Europeans are gaining much from any of this, even though certain European capital interests may be.
Well, there's lots of history here. Most European settler colonies were loss-makers for the metropole right from start to finish. And the colonialists often got rid of Britain when they could, because Britain had broader interests which conflicted with the interests (and intense racial chauvinism) of the settlers.
Israel is like a British settler colony that has declared UDI, the better to oppress the native population — like Rhodesia, in other words.
"I expect that Walt similarly to you and I, did NOT serve in the US military. Your brother was subject to the draft, and not eligible for student deferments. I assume that he didn't serve either. I was on the list but they didn't call up people in 1973. Walt is the same age as you, and you weren't subject."
Both me and my brother served in the US Military. I'm sure I'm not alone on this blog, am I?
"Sympathy to the level of commitment in one's youth is a GOOD THING. Its action, rather than talk."
Where did this come from, a Hitler Jugend pamphlet? From Baldur V S's mouth to your ear?
"Zionism in 1947/8/9 was survival for European and then Sephardic Jews. To call it colonialism is a lie."
Well, not quite. Zionism from 1890 to the fall of the NAZI regime was colonialism, agree? In 47-'9 yes, as where else could they go? Thereafter, all colonialism again.
"Zionism in 2009 is to support the right of a populated, developed, independant internationally authorized Israel, remain so."
As apartheid S Africa was supported?
"Its a good thing. The best thing is to urge reform when it is at all possible, NOT revolution."
Anything is possible in this best of all possible worlds. Eventually somebody takes the rose-colored eye glasses off, no?
"Tens, hundreds of thousands of people die in revolutions."
Guttenberg did it with a non-violent printing press.
Otto: "Most European settler colonies were loss-makers for the metropole right from start to finish."
This is true, and not widely know. The way the Left throws the terms colonialism and imperialism around, the implication is that they were and are profitable mercantilist projects for the Western home countries. They were not. It is only certain corrupt, disloyal domestic interests that prosper from such corrupt enterprises, not the general population.
If the general American population understood there is nothing profitable about having all our bases all over the world, and starting wars in the Middle East, there would be even more dis-incentive to support Israel and Middle East warmongering. That's why the corrupt mainstream media keeps them ignorant and misinformed.
The Left actually plays an unhealthy role in this, too. Some greedy Americans think: hey, a lot of people on the Left say we’re profiting from all of this, so let’s continue it. If we don’t, our economy will be in the toilet. (LOL. Just look at our economy now.)
"When Israel's supporters say that Israel's war is our war"
Totally wrong. Israel was against the war against Iraq. Told Bush
"If you are going to destabilise the balance of power, do it against the main enemy." which was Iran.
POLITICS: Israel Warned US Not to Invade Iraq after 9/11
By Gareth Porter*
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39051
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
you gotta stop these games, fellas, botha ya, they're dishonest
If you open your eyes, you will discover a gray bar were you can select Walt, or select anything else you like. Of cause you can also enter Walt's site directly. One click gets you back to Foreign Policy home.
Are you sure you are OK? Do you need help?
If the general American population understood there is nothing profitable about having all our bases all over the world, and starting wars in the Middle East, there would be even more dis-incentive to support Israel and Middle East warmongering. That's why the corrupt mainstream media keeps them ignorant and misinformed.
Ironically it's the rest of the world, enslaved to the dollar, that pays for it, more than the American population.
The bases all over the world reinforce the dollar's position, a status quo which is "profitable" for Americans, at least in terms of their buying power.
Sure, the country's soul has been rotting for thirty years, but if nobody complains about the smell…
Citizen,
Phil consistently opposed US military, in Vietnam certainly (I did as well very adamently.) I don't know his attitude of enlistees in either of the Iraq wars.
If you adopt the analysis that the US has engaged in opportunistic, colonialist wars, since the 1950's, then you'd have to have at least mixed opinions of the judgement to enlist. Honorable to defend your country. Dishonorable to offend for the economic and geo-political posture.
Its the same dynamic for any idealist serving a "colonial" army.
In my analysis, I look at IDF service and activity and find it majority defensive, whereas I look at US military service and find it partially defensive, but all of its wars have been offensive during my lifetime. (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, El Salvador, Lebanon, Bosnia, Iraq.)
Julian, did you read this part of the link you posted?
Alpher noted that Washington did not want public support by Israel and in fact requested that Israel refrain from openly supporting the invasion in order to avoid an automatic negative reaction from Iraq's Arab neighbours.
If Israel were against the idea of invading Iraq, why would Washington have made such a request?
It's like they had to tell Israel to stop clapping and sit down.
Or wait, maybe your point is that ultra-Zionism is a big tent kind of movement? There is a great variety of different opinion. Some wanted war with Iraq now; some wanted it later. Some want American boots and bombs all over Mesopotamia; some who want them in Persia; some even want them in Pakistan and Darfur!
Chris Berel – Since zionist settlers only bought 6% of Palestine by 1948 and most of that from people who would not be entitled to sell under most legal systems given that the vendors were mostly absentee landlords, the purchase of land by zionists, like so many zionist claims, is only half true and totally irrelevant. The subsequent evictions of people who had inhabited the villages sold by absentee landlords gave rise to the spectre of what zionist histories call "marauding Arabs". So the purchase of land and eviction of native inhabitants confirms rather than denies the colonial settler nature of the zionist project and the racist nature of zionist ideology including its propaganda.
So moving to the facts, the idea that Jews have a "national homeland" where Israel is now is predicated on the idea that the Jews of today are the direct descendants of the people inhabiting the same place when it was a Jewish state. That is racist nonsense. There have been several Jewish states since the destruction of the second temple including Yemen, Ethiopia and Khazaria. There have also been many tribes that converted to Judaism and many that converted out. Of course, even if the Jews of today are direct descendants of biblical Israelites, the passage of time invalidates any aboriginal claim and you would still have to establish that there was something illegitimate about the Palestinian Arab presence in order to legitimise their expulsion.
National homelands in the collective sense are places that confer their identity on to people that come from them. Eg the French are from France, the Ugandans from Uganda and so on. This, except fro racists, is regardless of ethnicity and certainly regardless of religion. There is no land that confers Jewishness on its inhabitants, ergo, there is no Jewish homeland. Even if we write off Israel's crimes and start a new slate for the new Israeli nation that still doesn't legitimise zionism. For zionists, like yourself, Israel is not a state for Israelis, like America is for all Americans and Australia for all Australians. Israel is a state for Jews. If Israel was a state for Israelis that would include Jews and Arabs and people who are neither Jew nor Arab. But zionism is about Jewish supremacy so the State of Israel actually refuses to recognise an Israeli nationality. There may have been a time when they could have done that and settled down to be a new middle eastern nation state but the racism built into the state runs too deeply and the support not just Israel but zionism gets from outside forces (as someone listed above) means that Israel has refused to settle down to national and regional "normality", preferring to be a state for a global community than a state for its citizens.
Anyway, that wasn't what I came to say. I noticed this calling into question whether this armed zionist activist was "idealist" or not. Idealism is often taken to mean that a person pursues worthy ideals. It doesn't. Idealist philosophies are non-rational ones. Zionism is therefore an idealist philosophy like nazism. Rational philosophies of statehood take the people they find within the state's borders and confer citizenship on them. Zionism and nazism designate an ideal type of citizen – for Israel it's Jews, for nazism it's Aryans.
The only possible rational basis for such states would be if the ideal type citizen, eg, Jew, was an objective condition but that could only be the case if Jewishness could be determined by scientific testing. Normal nationhood simply has to establish where someone was born and possibly where there ancestors were born. That's far easier than testing for Jewishness.
So zionism is certainly an idealist philosophy and all the more repugnant for that. So Jeffrey Goldberg is certainly an idealist but in the same sense that Hitler was an idealist. But that's zionism for you.
"In my analysis, I look at IDF service and activity and find it majority defensive"
Richard Witty – How on earth did you arrive at such a bogus analysis? The first Arab-Israeli war (1947-49) was to ethnically cleanse the Arab majority from Palestine (the Arab states did not mobilise until there were already 300,000 Palestinian Arab refugees), the second (1956) was because Britain and France asked Israel to do what Britain supported zionism for in the first place, the third (1967) Israel, by the admission of every cabinet minister of the time, chose to go to war to widen the boundaries, show the Arabs how powerful it was and, in the words of Ezer Weizmann, to "give Israelis the standard of living they deserve" (something like that), the fourth in 1973 (I ignore the "war" of attrition) was the only one where Israel went on the defensive because of an Arab attack, and after that they have all been Israel's own choice, including Lebanon 1978, 1982 and 2006 and Gaza 2008/9. That's not my analysis. No analysis required. You put a bag of brown dry leaves into a cup and pour on boiling water. What you have is a cup of tea. No analysis required. Of course you could ask a media zionist what happened and they might call it a cup of coffee or a cup of cannabis depending on what they are trying to achieve but the facts are the facts. It is very rare that Israel has to defend itself and when it does it is because it exists on the basis of colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing, racist laws and relentless aggression towards the natives and neighbours of Palestine.
But I am curious Richard Witty, where did you get your analysis?
RE:
""When Israel's supporters say that Israel's war is our war"
Totally wrong. Israel was against the war against Iraq. Told Bush
"If you are going to destabilise the balance of power, do it against the main enemy." which was Iran.
POLITICS: Israel Warned US Not to Invade Iraq after 9/11
By Gareth Porter*
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39051
Posted by: Julian"
Yes, originally Israel wanted the USA to attack Iran first, but the neocons told told them (American jews dealing with DUI bible thumper Shrub, he of the inherited Oil interests he flopped at, and who didn't like Sad Sacks's attempt to murder his Daddy), that's the second step, and then Israel was totally on board. Israel and USA 5th column is still on track, IRan is next
target.
Witty,
Thanks for addressing my concern. Nobody else has. My question was how many people on this blog ever served in the USA military? You say you and Phil never did. And Phil's brother. Would you feel good about
your son serving in the IDF? Your past comments suggest you would. I am still waiting to hear from others who regularly comment here. I do know this, for those who served, either in the USA military or the IDF,
both have meaning, written in blood and angst served. Especially for those who served as grunts, as I did, and my brother did. Why do you choose to support Israel when the same reasons against such support is why you did not support your own government in the many episodes you name?
@ MM: 'The bases all over the world reinforce the dollar's position, a status quo which is "profitable" for Americans'
Good point. If America didn't have the most powerful military in the world, the dollar would be worthless. Why? Because the corrupt, selfish and irresponsible US Congress and US government spend and promise money like drunken sailors with other people's credit cards. So every time some Democrat or Republican forks money over to yet another special interest, or crony, or welfare constituency, or creates yet another entitlement, in addition to going on the tab of future generations of Americans, it comes out of the hide of some poor schmuck across the globe living (or dying) under the barrel of an American gun.
There really is no such thing as a free lunch. The value of the dollar is being propped up at gunpoint. Blood money. Who put us in this soulless, untenable position? The two-party regime, the Democrats and Republicans.
This is why I am a libertarian. And this is why ONLY libertarians can exist in good conscience.
"Would you feel good about
your son serving in the IDF? Your past comments suggest you would. "
I never said anything resembling that. I've consistently urged him NOT to make aliyah, even as he spent a few months studying in Jerusalem this past year.
I said exactly what I said in this thread, that US wars have been primarily offensive, and that there has never been a military attack on US soil. (Even the two attacks on the world trade center were terrorist, not military.)
Whereas, Israel has been attacked a few thousand times since 1948.
My objections to Vietnam War, Panama, Grenada, El Salvador, Iraq were principled on the nature of the wars and had NOTHING to do with loyalty or disloyalty to the US. (I really didn't have an opinion on Lebanon, I supported US involvement in Bosnia).
To infer so is to falsely impugn.
"Totally wrong. Israel was against the war against Iraq."
Untrue. Israel was the only country other than the United States in which the overwhelming majority was for the invasion of Iraq, and the Israeli government supported it.
Jeffrey Goldberg:
A short piece on Goldberg's role in shilling the Iraq war:
http://www.radaronline.com/features/2007/01/betting_on_iraq_5.php
Ken Silverstein at Harpers: 'Goldberg's War.'
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/06/sb-goldbergs-war-1151687978
A long and very interesting piece by Norman Finkelstein on Goldberg and his book.
http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein10062007.html
For example, Goldberg on Rachel Corrie:
"She had joined a group of foreigners, advocates of the Palestinian cause, who stood one day against a line of Israeli bulldozers," he writes of the death of Rachel Corrie during the second intifada. "She came too close to one and she was plowed under"
Insightful honest fellow. Surely trustworthy on the American national interest, or anything else.
More on Goldberg's Zionist ideals, via Finkelstein. This was Goldberg's IDF 'service.'
"On a couple of occasions Goldberg mentions that the punishment for even minor infractions at Ketziot was:
'24, 48, or even 72 hours in solitary confinement, zinzana, in Arabic. The zinzana was the size of a refrigerator box, into which three, four, five or six prisoners were shoveled. The prisoners were seated on a cold and hard plastic floor, limbs draped over limbs, and they shat in a bucket that was emptied once a day. After a few days in the box, prisoners could no longer stand unaided. (p. 109; cf. p. 114, where he describes four Palestinians locked "in a space fit, at most, for two small dogs")'.
This Israeli method of torture was also repeatedly condemned in human rights reports. Although admitting that he personally sent prisoners to the zinzana, and although liberal in his outrage at the "cruelty" of the tortures Palestinians inflicted on each other, Golderg rejects (albeit indirectly) the insinuation that he himself might be an accessory to torture, if not a torturer himself. When the guards needed "someone to go solitary" for a minor infraction of prison rules, Goldberg recalls at one point, "twenty Arabs immediately volunteered." He processes this not as a demonstration of their solidarity and courage but rather as vindication that the "Arabs want to be our victim" and "the Geneva Convention said nothing about prisoners who asked to be punished.""
Julian's assertion that Israel opposed the Iraq war is completely incorrect. I just took a quick look at Mearsheimer and Walt's chapter on Iraq and re-examined the references they give. The case is over-whelming that prominent Israeli spokesmen, Pereza and Barak for two, were very active in trying to convince American Jews to support that war. Even if M&W's analysis is rejected, look at the references. I have seen no analysis that has refuted their work on this point.
Mark Elf.
Excellent posts.
Julian: Israel was against the war against Iraq…
Israel Warned US Not to Invade Iraq after 9/11
By Gareth Porter
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39051
CBS News, Aug. 16, 2002: "Israel To U.S.: Don't Delay Iraq Attack,
Sharon Government Urges Prompt Action Against Saddam"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/18/world/main519037.shtml
If you open your eyes, you will discover a gray bar were you can select Walt, or select anything else you like. Of cause you can also enter Walt's site directly. One click gets you back to Foreign Policy home. Are you sure you are OK? Do you need help? Posted by: Committee for Historical Accuracy II | March 07, 2009 at 04:25 PM
Oh, you mean it is a bona fide subdomain? OK, I apologise.
Very few Israel supporters were troubled by the manner in which Rachel Corrie died. There is nothing inconsistent in supporting Israel and also saying "the bulldozer driver murdered her." Yet so few of them consider her death a tragedy. Instead they sneer at her. Call her a "Darwin award semi-finalist." She was a young kid. She got killed in a gruesome way. Why would even the most fervent supporter of Israel get any pleasure in that?
berel: "Land was purchased and they moved to it. When I buy 50 acres in England and move there, I don't expect you or any other asshole to claim I'm colonizing."
Well, we wouldn't, if all you did was buy the land legally and merely live there. Unfortunately, when the Israeli settlers moved into the west bank the Israeli army came with them. Then they build roads that none of the natives were allowed to use and put up roadblocks everywhere else. Then they taught their kids to stone other people's children on the way to school, while bored Israeli soldiers looked the other way.
Israelis did not purchase the land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That land has been illegally confiscated by the occupying power for the express purpose of illegally colonizing it. Nothing about the colonies in the OPT is legal or legitimate.
Ditto for the Golan Heights, which are the scene of Israel's most successful ethnic cleansing operation to date. They forcibly drove out or murdered 96% of the Syrian population there, and systematically destroyed 95% of the towns and villages, including the city of Quneitra. When they were forced to withdraw from Quneitra the adopted a scorched earth policy and demolished it completely.
It was necessary, or God's commandment, or everyone does it, especially the Americans not that long ago – fine. I live on land stolen by the Mexicans from the Indians, who may well have stolen it from previous Indians, and which was finally stolen from the Mexicans by Californians, who became Americans, and no one on my street considers themselves an interloper. On the other hand, there aren't large numbers of Indians in prison in my town, tortured and beaten. Their pregnant wives don't lose their babies waiting hours at check points. Their children aren't shot down on the street. Their lands and houses aren't confiscated and razed to build more houses for non-Indians. Their taxes aren't 'appropriated.' And so on and on. From seven percent of the land in 1947 to ninety percent now, of which a few percent was paid for, and the rest taken by force. Very bloody force, most of it.
So what Freeman is likely to say is that that has to be recognized. Arabs have a grievance. What to do about it needs to be decided. But the massive lying about it is no longer in the American national interest. Whether it is in Israel's interest is for them to decide. Lieberman and Feiglin are what this deceit has led to. Good for Israel? Probably not. Good for the United States? Absolutely not.
Theocracy, rebuilding temples, Eretz Israel from Nile to the Euphrates, or only the Irgun emblem, expulsion of the Palestinians, and perpetual war, are not in the American national interest.
"…what Freeman is likely to say is that that has to be recognized. Arabs have a grievance."
I doubt very, very much that any member of the Obama administration will ever say anything like that.
PS I do not consider that Arabs have a grievance. Specific groups of Arabs and non-Arabs do. Palestinians do. Lebanese do. Syrians do over the loss of valuable agricultural land and theft of resources (water), and Golan Syrians who have been robbed of their homes and land do. But Arabs in general do not, and the grievances are not limited to Arabs.
Lieberman and Feiglin are what this deceit has led to.
– According to today's Haaretz, the Netanyahu govt is going to be so packed with Yisrael Beiteinu people that our only consolation will be the fact that the National Union isn't there in the cabinet too:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1069317.html
MRW – Thanks!
Richard Witty – saying "Israel has been attacked a few thousand times since 1948" suggests that you count every shot and explosion as an attack. If you do that then, if you're honest, you have to accept that Israel has attacked the natives and neighbours of Palestine literally millions of times. Even using your bogus definition of "attack" Israel is still not on the defensive but on the offensive and IDF is at best a misnomer, at worst a sick joke.
There is only one of Israel's wars that was clearly instigated by the Arabs. Of the remaining wars the only one in which the instigator was not clearly Israel is 1948, and even for that one it is becoming increasingly less ambiguous that it was the Zionists who desired that war and who brought it about. In every other one of Israel's wars it was unambiguously Israel that was the aggressor. Therefore, to whine that "Israel has been attacked a few thousand times since 1948" is beyond dishonest.
The actuality of Witty's statement is beyond doubt. With the exception of 1956 and possibly 1982, the instigator's were clearly Arab. That the Jewish nation decided it would be better to destroy the blatant Arab threat prior to a launch of war (In a small country, one launch is all it takes to knock it out)has proven to be successful. Israel doesn't get a second chance.
It is dishonest to whine about Israel's winning strategy.
Some idealists went to fight for Ian Smith's Rhodesia in the seventies. I know Tony Blair is sad that he wasn't able to recolonize Africa.
"The actuality of Witty's statement is beyond doubt."
true, witty actually made that statement, which subsequent comments tore apart very effectively.
"Dishonest".
"Jews without borders". Its a good concept. Its the former diaspora concept, but in that setting Jews were harrassed violently over centuries and in all but a few locales.
The world has changed. There is NOW Israel, that exists, sovereign, internationally recognized, even by most (in population) of its formerly antagonistic neighbors.
One area that it hasn't changed is in the Arab world, where in many countries, Jews are prohibited from owning land, voting, participating in professions, and are functionally and literally ethnically cleansed.
Even if it were "caused" by the existence of Israel, in those countries Jews are a minority, and are independantly subordinated. To accept that status (ironically in the name of anything progressive) is like accepting Jim Crow in Alabama because of a ghetto riot in Chicago.
Speaking of Chas Freeman, there are rumblings that a group of 87 Chinese and Chinese American scholars are petitioning Obama to change his mind about the selection.
This discussion of Jewish group behavior might be relevant to the original blog entry.
In the case of Goldberg (or Noa, who is the topic of my related article) a very slippery definition of "idealistic" seems to be operative.
RE Witty:" "Jews without borders". Its a good concept. Its the former diaspora concept, but in that setting Jews were harrassed violently over centuries and in all but a few locales."
I suggest a more accurate historical view of jewish power versus jewish victimhood is presented here:
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/01/facts-versus-delusions-in-jewish.html
Speaking of Chas Freeman, there are rumblings that a group of 87 Chinese and Chinese American scholars are petitioning Obama to change his mind about the selection.
Translation: It isn't good for the JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS! :-O :-O Arf Arf Arf! We have enough money to bribe some Chinese people! :-O :-O Arf Arf!
More on the impact of jewish power on the goys throughout history, the other side of the Witty coin
of total victimhood:
"Until Jews acknowledge, take responsibility for, and show remorse for the anti-Gentile crimes that have grown out of Jewish politics just as Jews expect non-Jews to acknowledge, take responsibility for, and show remorse for the anti-Jewish crimes that have grown out of Jewish politics, there is no reason to assume Jewish honesty, sincerity or decency on any issue related to Palestine or Jewish Zionist conspiracy against the rights of Muslim and Arab Americans." http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/03/noa-does-morris-calls-hamas.html
Yeah, it's idealistic for an American born and raised to join the IDF while the USA is fighting wars itself.
Of course, as a practical thing, such IDF service assures a ripe spot in the USA government and/or MSM.
That's how ass-backwards is current USA reality.
"Yeah, it's idealistic for an American born and raised to join the IDF while the USA is fighting wars itself.
Of course, as a practical thing, such IDF service assures a ripe spot in the USA government and/or MSM.
That's how ass-backwards is current USA reality."
It is clearly idealistic to potentially risk one's lives for what one perceives as good.
It is in no way "assures a ripe spot in the USA government" or MANY MANY more would have prominent roles on that basis.
America is more discrimminating in who and what characteristics it affords prominence and success. One common factor is determination and energy.
Intelligence does not seem to be a prerequisite, given our prior president, re-elected no less.
Comments on this entry are closed.