http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html The War of Ideas in the Middle East Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:07:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html/comment-page-2#comment-97086 tree_ Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:51:55 +0000 http://d1825805.u264.foliopress.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html#comment-97086 "The Israelis initially believed the ship was Egyptian, fraudulently flying an American flag." No, the Israelis initially claimed that the ship was not flying a flag. Later they claimed that there was no wind and the flag was impossible to see. They never claimed that they thought that an Egyptian ship was flying an American flag. "The Israelis initially believed the ship was Egyptian, fraudulently flying an American flag." No, the Israelis initially claimed that the ship was not flying a flag. Later they claimed that there was no wind and the flag was impossible to see. They never claimed that they thought that an Egyptian ship was flying an American flag.

]]> http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html/comment-page-2#comment-97085 tree_ Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:48:58 +0000 http://d1825805.u264.foliopress.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html#comment-97085 "A spy ship could easily masquerade as something else. Ask any undercover cop in the US who has been shot by other cops." That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard and pretty much proves that you don't have a clue what you are talking about. A spy ship's purpose is to intercept radio communications. It isn't in the business of playing undercover cop and pretending to be some other ship. A spy ship needs antennae to receive the intercepted signals and back in the late 60s that meant a lot of big antennae all over it. That's exactly what the Liberty looked like. It didn't look like an Egyptian horse transport and it wasn't trying to look like one. "Radio jamming was simple; the Liberty was FULL of radio equipment, it was a spy ship, remember? This was a simple manouver and a fairly non-lethal one, at that." Again, a stupid comment. The radio jamming that the Israelis did had to be of specific but multiple frequencies that the Liberty could receive and transmit on. It required both a knowledge of those frequencies and the sophisticated equipment to jam those specific frequencies. It didn't get easier because the ship "was FULL of radio equipment", it got harder. If you understood what you were talking about you would know that. "A spy ship could easily masquerade as something else. Ask any undercover cop in the US who has been shot by other cops." That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard and pretty much proves that you don't have a clue what you are talking about. A spy ship's purpose is to intercept radio communications. It isn't in the business of playing undercover cop and pretending to be some other ship. A spy ship needs antennae to receive the intercepted signals and back in the late 60s that meant a lot of big antennae all over it. That's exactly what the Liberty looked like. It didn't look like an Egyptian horse transport and it wasn't trying to look like one. "Radio jamming was simple; the Liberty was FULL of radio equipment, it was a spy ship, remember? This was a simple manouver and a fairly non-lethal one, at that." Again, a stupid comment. The radio jamming that the Israelis did had to be of specific but multiple frequencies that the Liberty could receive and transmit on. It required both a knowledge of those frequencies and the sophisticated equipment to jam those specific frequencies. It didn't get easier because the ship "was FULL of radio equipment", it got harder. If you understood what you were talking about you would know that.

]]> http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html/comment-page-2#comment-97058 tree_ Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:25:11 +0000 http://d1825805.u264.foliopress.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html#comment-97058 "When Egypt and Jordan invaded ...." Ha! You've got to be kidding. Israel was NOT invaded during the June 67 war be any country. They did all the invading. "When Egypt and Jordan invaded …." Ha! You've got to be kidding. Israel was NOT invaded during the June 67 war be any country. They did all the invading.

]]> http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html/comment-page-2#comment-97042 Sin Nombre Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:31:34 +0000 http://d1825805.u264.foliopress.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html#comment-97042 Shingo wrote: "no one belives their BS anymore." Well in that same vein I saw a couple of things of interest lately, only one of which Phil mentioned here. Firstly, some Israeli peace group essentially saying "save us from ourselves" and then another article Phil noted in Haaretz talking about what it said was somewhat of a national trait of afraid of being taken for suckers. (With the logical result of same with such individuals of course being extremely chary of ever making any firm final long-term deals because you can never know how they turn out.) And then, lastly, not noted by Phil but very significantly I thought was Javier Solana the EU foreign minister essentially saying that if a peace deal is not reached between the I's and the P's within some short time certain the world ought to just go ahead and declare the terms of such a settlement, recognize a Palestinian state, recognize its borders and etc. I.e., no longer accept the idea that the answer is a negotiated settlement given that the negotiations never seem to result in anything other than more settlements. I thus think you are on to something about the world just not really listening anymore to the mere words that are spewed in the ME and instead looking at facts and results and reality. From what I've seen Israel has acted very negatively to Solana's call, and you can just imagine their anger at the idea that Solana has just given Obama an option to latch onto too possibly if things don't start moving. Shingo wrote: "no one belives their BS anymore." Well in that same vein I saw a couple of things of interest lately, only one of which Phil mentioned here. Firstly, some Israeli peace group essentially saying "save us from ourselves" and then another article Phil noted in Haaretz talking about what it said was somewhat of a national trait of afraid of being taken for suckers. (With the logical result of same with such individuals of course being extremely chary of ever making any firm final long-term deals because you can never know how they turn out.) And then, lastly, not noted by Phil but very significantly I thought was Javier Solana the EU foreign minister essentially saying that if a peace deal is not reached between the I's and the P's within some short time certain the world ought to just go ahead and declare the terms of such a settlement, recognize a Palestinian state, recognize its borders and etc. I.e., no longer accept the idea that the answer is a negotiated settlement given that the negotiations never seem to result in anything other than more settlements. I thus think you are on to something about the world just not really listening anymore to the mere words that are spewed in the ME and instead looking at facts and results and reality. From what I've seen Israel has acted very negatively to Solana's call, and you can just imagine their anger at the idea that Solana has just given Obama an option to latch onto too possibly if things don't start moving.

]]> http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html/comment-page-2#comment-97154 Shingo Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:51:03 +0000 http://d1825805.u264.foliopress.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html#comment-97154 Outstanding post Sin, Very thought provoking indeed. With regars the suggestion that anti semites are drawn to the Liberty incident, there might be some truth to it, but one can't help but feel that fundamentalists like Jake cynically manipualte that argument to insist that only an anti Semites would be outraged by the incident. The suvivors who have spoken out have all been branded anti Semites and indeed, Jake even accuses the survivor he claims to have contacted, of being an anti Semite. What Israel, and it's amen corner doesn't get, is that it's credibility and it's prestige in the world would be massively improved if it came clean about it's sins and put to bed the constant spin and never ending damage control, which only serves to dig them further into their bunker and feeds their sense of persecution, becasue no one belives their BS anymore. They're not even good at it. Outstanding post Sin, Very thought provoking indeed. With regars the suggestion that anti semites are drawn to the Liberty incident, there might be some truth to it, but one can't help but feel that fundamentalists like Jake cynically manipualte that argument to insist that only an anti Semites would be outraged by the incident. The suvivors who have spoken out have all been branded anti Semites and indeed, Jake even accuses the survivor he claims to have contacted, of being an anti Semite. What Israel, and it's amen corner doesn't get, is that it's credibility and it's prestige in the world would be massively improved if it came clean about it's sins and put to bed the constant spin and never ending damage control, which only serves to dig them further into their bunker and feeds their sense of persecution, becasue no one belives their BS anymore. They're not even good at it.

]]> http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html/comment-page-2#comment-97041 Sin Nombre Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:21:48 +0000 http://d1825805.u264.foliopress.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html#comment-97041 Well thank you for the compliment Shingo but once Jake took the position not that Israel was justified in the attack but that it was mistaken he was really facing a steep uphill climb in terms of making that case. And indeed once it was clear that was his case others like you were actually better to engage him for obviously knowing more of the details of the issue than I who only remembers the bigger undisputed facts of the matter. Not that it matters all that much though in my opinion: I suspect that amongst those in the U.S. military and diplomatic and intelligence communities there really isn't much respect paid to arguments that Israel was mistaken: the facts on the one side are just so overwhelming and the matter is so old now that the kind of striking, surprising evidence needed to raise serious doubt is hardly likely to exist given that it most certainly would have been unearthed by now. Especially since it would have been in Israel's interest to do so. And that I think was reflected in that recent news story about our Admiral Mullen I think who told the Israelis point blank vis a vis the Iranian situation that the U.S. military at least would not sit still for another Liberty incident. You don't do that unless you want to communicate that you know full freaking well that no mistake was made, and I suspect when Mullen said that the Israelis didn't even really bother to object much beyond some brief noting of their "official" version that it was a mistake. I also think however that amongst our pros in the foreign relations field they tend not to be quite so excitable about the Liberty thing as American civilians. The former know that once you cut through all the high-flown verbal crap that countries produce about their motivations states always reserve the right to act out of cold, hard and unsentimental "reasons and interests of state," and that's what Israel was doing when it bombed the Liberty, albeit to an unusually cold and hard degree given it was a U.S. ship. What I suspect grinds them about it especially however—which is something I suspect helps keep the Liberty incident alive in certain governmental circles—is the nakedness of the hypocrisy on Israel's part constantly reflected in its pushing of the idea that somehow the U.S. owes it some cosmic obligation and that it would be the height of immorality for the U.S. to follow its own "reasons and interests of state" in the Middle East. Again it's realized that so advancing that idea is Israel's naked right, but the extremity of the idea and the invocation of moral superiority, especially in the face of the Liberty, provokes a reaction that's never going to go away I don't think. (For good reason.) Yet another case it seems to me where Israel's silly and weird obsession with constantly painting itself as having some superior morality than everyone else comes back to haunt it. I don't think it has any conception of the different and deeper kind of dislike this engenders for it in the world compared to people's reactions to other countries' behavior. It's one thing to act beastly, since at different times everyone has. It's quite another to essentially say that only everyone else acts beastly. I would say however that I think one has to have some understanding of where people like Jake come from. The Liberty thing *is* exactly the kind of thing true, hard-core anti-semites are drawn to and, contrary to their protestations, just love. And nutcases like that can just utterly delegitimize causes left and right and have to be watched out for and repudiated by people of good faith. On the other hand the Israeli partisans too have to realize that ... just because Hitler liked dogs doesn't make all dogs bad, and just because anti-semites love the Liberty incident don't make it a phony one. And as I said here originally I think they have to consider the backlash from constantly trying to paint everyone who is outraged by any Israeli action as anti-semitic. Again, what they are tempting is institutionalizing the to-me devastating response of "oh yeah just like the Liberty survivors are anti-semites, huh?" And that's because Israel simply can never come clean about the Liberty issue, and thus the Liberty issue is never really going to die. Well thank you for the compliment Shingo but once Jake took the position not that Israel was justified in the attack but that it was mistaken he was really facing a steep uphill climb in terms of making that case. And indeed once it was clear that was his case others like you were actually better to engage him for obviously knowing more of the details of the issue than I who only remembers the bigger undisputed facts of the matter. Not that it matters all that much though in my opinion: I suspect that amongst those in the U.S. military and diplomatic and intelligence communities there really isn't much respect paid to arguments that Israel was mistaken: the facts on the one side are just so overwhelming and the matter is so old now that the kind of striking, surprising evidence needed to raise serious doubt is hardly likely to exist given that it most certainly would have been unearthed by now. Especially since it would have been in Israel's interest to do so. And that I think was reflected in that recent news story about our Admiral Mullen I think who told the Israelis point blank vis a vis the Iranian situation that the U.S. military at least would not sit still for another Liberty incident. You don't do that unless you want to communicate that you know full freaking well that no mistake was made, and I suspect when Mullen said that the Israelis didn't even really bother to object much beyond some brief noting of their "official" version that it was a mistake. I also think however that amongst our pros in the foreign relations field they tend not to be quite so excitable about the Liberty thing as American civilians. The former know that once you cut through all the high-flown verbal crap that countries produce about their motivations states always reserve the right to act out of cold, hard and unsentimental "reasons and interests of state," and that's what Israel was doing when it bombed the Liberty, albeit to an unusually cold and hard degree given it was a U.S. ship. What I suspect grinds them about it especially however—which is something I suspect helps keep the Liberty incident alive in certain governmental circles—is the nakedness of the hypocrisy on Israel's part constantly reflected in its pushing of the idea that somehow the U.S. owes it some cosmic obligation and that it would be the height of immorality for the U.S. to follow its own "reasons and interests of state" in the Middle East. Again it's realized that so advancing that idea is Israel's naked right, but the extremity of the idea and the invocation of moral superiority, especially in the face of the Liberty, provokes a reaction that's never going to go away I don't think. (For good reason.) Yet another case it seems to me where Israel's silly and weird obsession with constantly painting itself as having some superior morality than everyone else comes back to haunt it. I don't think it has any conception of the different and deeper kind of dislike this engenders for it in the world compared to people's reactions to other countries' behavior. It's one thing to act beastly, since at different times everyone has. It's quite another to essentially say that only everyone else acts beastly. I would say however that I think one has to have some understanding of where people like Jake come from. The Liberty thing *is* exactly the kind of thing true, hard-core anti-semites are drawn to and, contrary to their protestations, just love. And nutcases like that can just utterly delegitimize causes left and right and have to be watched out for and repudiated by people of good faith. On the other hand the Israeli partisans too have to realize that … just because Hitler liked dogs doesn't make all dogs bad, and just because anti-semites love the Liberty incident don't make it a phony one. And as I said here originally I think they have to consider the backlash from constantly trying to paint everyone who is outraged by any Israeli action as anti-semitic. Again, what they are tempting is institutionalizing the to-me devastating response of "oh yeah just like the Liberty survivors are anti-semites, huh?" And that's because Israel simply can never come clean about the Liberty issue, and thus the Liberty issue is never really going to die.

]]> http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html/comment-page-2#comment-97129 Shingo Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:50:57 +0000 http://d1825805.u264.foliopress.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html#comment-97129 "The real issue is the use of the Libery incident by antisemites- as evidenced here on this thread. " That's called a sleazy diversion from the topic researchok. Get your act together and stop being so lazy. "If an attack on a US vessel really were of such concern, then what happened on the Stark would be front and center. " The US attacked, invaded and occupied Iraq. are you suggesting they do the same to israel? "The real issue is the use of the Libery incident by antisemites- as evidenced here on this thread. " That's called a sleazy diversion from the topic researchok. Get your act together and stop being so lazy. "If an attack on a US vessel really were of such concern, then what happened on the Stark would be front and center. " The US attacked, invaded and occupied Iraq. are you suggesting they do the same to israel?

]]> http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html/comment-page-2#comment-97100 Shingo Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:42:48 +0000 http://d1825805.u264.foliopress.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html#comment-97100 So you linked to ONE alleged murder by a British national and this is supposed to be proof that the British were murdering Jews? You seem to have a problem with understanding the difference between singular and plural and the one crime vs policy. Is that why the Israelis bombed the King David Hotel, which killed Jews? to avenge the all edged murder by Farran? I didn't deny that Rabin was assassinated by a Israeli settler. So you linked to ONE alleged murder by a British national and this is supposed to be proof that the British were murdering Jews? You seem to have a problem with understanding the difference between singular and plural and the one crime vs policy. Is that why the Israelis bombed the King David Hotel, which killed Jews? to avenge the all edged murder by Farran? I didn't deny that Rabin was assassinated by a Israeli settler.

]]> http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html/comment-page-2#comment-97084 Shingo Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:38:44 +0000 http://d1825805.u264.foliopress.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html#comment-97084 Correction to more of Jake's lies: 1) You can't masquerade a ship the size of the USS Liberty. It's not the same as putting on a Groucho Marx diguise. Yuo haven't got a clue. 2) The USS Liberty had state of the art comms and thus jamming it woudl not have been simple. 3) No Liberty commands went to the Philipines. 4) Irrelevant. The Liberty was in international waters and could have been listening to Israel from anywhere. 5) My sources are part of the record. Do some research and cure your ignorance. 6) There is no contradiction. The Libverty had a US flag and 10 foot high identification markings. 7) What has Hebrew got to do with anything? 9) Also part of the record. Do some research and cure your ignorance. This is much too easy . Haven't you got anything better? Correction to more of Jake's lies: 1) You can't masquerade a ship the size of the USS Liberty. It's not the same as putting on a Groucho Marx diguise. Yuo haven't got a clue. 2) The USS Liberty had state of the art comms and thus jamming it woudl not have been simple. 3) No Liberty commands went to the Philipines. 4) Irrelevant. The Liberty was in international waters and could have been listening to Israel from anywhere. 5) My sources are part of the record. Do some research and cure your ignorance. 6) There is no contradiction. The Libverty had a US flag and 10 foot high identification markings. 7) What has Hebrew got to do with anything? 9) Also part of the record. Do some research and cure your ignorance. This is much too easy . Haven't you got anything better?

]]> http://mondoweiss.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html/comment-page-2#comment-97083 Shingo Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:31:18 +0000 http://d1825805.u264.foliopress.net/2009/07/in-the-washington-post-no-less.html#comment-97083 1) ) Israel NEVER sought clarification before firing on the Liberty. The US denied receiving any requests, nor did the US deny there were US ships off the Gaza coast because they were never asked. 2) The fact that you haven't proven that you had any discussions with Ennes is your problem. Until you do, you are a liar. 3) The Israelis continued to attack the Liberty 6 minutes after the Liberty sent out it's SOS. 1) ) Israel NEVER sought clarification before firing on the Liberty. The US denied receiving any requests, nor did the US deny there were US ships off the Gaza coast because they were never asked. 2) The fact that you haven't proven that you had any discussions with Ennes is your problem. Until you do, you are a liar. 3) The Israelis continued to attack the Liberty 6 minutes after the Liberty sent out it's SOS.

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