The hugeness of the Goldstone commission report has a lot to do with Goldstone’s Jewishness. Besides destroying hundreds of Palestinian children, Gaza unsettled the liberal American Jewish community nine months ago, and now Goldstone’s report is reopening the wound. Israeli leaders call the report a "mockery of history" and a "kangaroo court," but I don’t think American Jews will be so dismissive.
Here is Dan Fleshler, deeply disturbed by the report to the point of labeling himself a "self-hating Jew" out of solidarity with Goldstone, "my kind of Jew." Fleshler cites Goldstone’s Zionist credentials and notes that his daughter Nicole lived in Israel. It’s like the good Israel versus the bad Israel, and Fleshler fears the good Israel has lost. Fleshler dismisses Israel’s effort to provide context with a poetic line:
I do know that Israel will have a difficult time discrediting the report by citing the UN’s past transgressions, or insisting that Israel went out of its way to avoid civilian casualties, or explaining how the report neglected to include the “context” for Israel’s actions. White phosphorus provides its own context.
Norman Finkelstein sounds similar themes on Amy Goodman today, saying that the report will crumble the foundations of PEP culture (Progressive Except Palestine):
What’s significant about the report, in my opinion, and what’s significant about what happened in Gaza, I think it marks a major turning point. It’s like the Sharpville massacre in South Africa. Now, Sharpville is not Soweto, but Sharpville was a turning point. Richard Goldstone is a liberal. Richard Goldstone is very supportive of Israel. And it’s now marking the breakup of liberal Jewish support for Israel.
what you’re seeing, especially with the Goldstone report, especially with his stature, especially because he’s Jewish, especially because he’s a liberal, what it’s signaling now, is the breakup of Jewish support and liberal support—and those are basically the same thing—the breakup of liberal Jewish support for Israel.
And here’s Ilene Cohen predicting that hasbara will not be able to counter the rift this report will cause between American Jews and Israeli Jews:
I think the Israeli propaganda blitz will yield very little for Israel. Yes, there will be a lot of noise, but the damage to Israel was already done, in the form of the many people around the world, including in the US and including in the American Jewish community, by the horrors that people saw. I think the Gwen Ifill type of moments–which, after all, were de rigueur in the coverage of the war itself [bending over backwards to give the Israeli side]–will not override the terrible facts of the report, facts that are in keeping with ten or so previous human rights reports, with the Breaking the Silence testimony (never mentioned in the NY Times), and with much journalistic coverage since the war. The Israelis won’t get specific because they simply can’t; there are no answers to the specific charges of which they stand accused. Just listen to Michael Oren recite his script.
Those who now call upon Israel to engage in serious investigations (the commission, Israeli Human rights groups), however well intentioned, are, I believe, grasping at straws. Israel’s Gaza war problem is not a matter of a particular case or two (say, a My Lai or a Falluja). It emcompasses instead every aspect of what Israel did in the war, down to IDF soldiers smearing feces on the wall of people’s homes (that type of thing, of course, is not in the commission report). To "investigate" seriously would entail challenging the very jus ad bellum.I ask myself, what exactly is going on with the Israelis, such that 90 percent of the Jewish population thinks that not only was the war justified but that everything done by Israel was just fine. The 12 Israeli dead constitute a profound national tragedy, whereas the 1300+ Palestinians dead constitute "so what." And as for the destruction wrought through the length and breadth of Gaza, well, they had it coming…It’s a deeply troubling question, because the answer cannot be good.
Jeff Blankfort likes to say that the Israel lobby’s efforts are aimed chiefly at American Jews, to rally them to the cause of Israel. Well, maybe that ain’t working any more.
Zionist Jews never gave a hoot to someone’s Jewishness – if that person doesn’t parrot Zionists’ line of thinking – which is mostly based on the distortion of world and religious history. Zionist gangsters already have a list of over 8000 Jews, labeled as “Self-Hating Israel-Threatening (S.H.I.T.)”. however, their greatest targets have always been Muslims – as one Israeli journalist put it: “Israel will become a vanguard to protect the West from the Islamists.”
Allan C. Brownfeld of the American Council for Judaism wrote in 2006: “For Jews and Muslims, in particular, the review of history should be encouraging. On a recent visit to Andalusia – Cordoba, Seville, and Grenada among other places – I observed the many remaining reminders of the Golden Age of Muslim-Jewish cooperation and amity. They serve to illustrate the lack of historic understanding of those who present the current impasses over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the latest in long history of strife and conflict. the real story is far different – and far more hopeful. It might provide us with a genuine road map for the future.”……
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
Our very own Mr Philip Weiss is on that very list. He is quite dangerous.
I am proud to be on that illustrious list myself, although I am far less dangerous than Phil.
“They serve to illustrate the lack of historic understanding of those who present the current impasses over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the latest in long history of strife and conflict. the real story is far different – and far more hopeful.”
Thanks for that quote. It is so hard for people to understand that anyone with the determination and the means can hi-jack the Jewish narrative. This is what, more than anything else, the Zionists have done.
Very true, Rehmat. And unfortunately many of those reminders are standing empty, as Israel has devastated the ancient communities of Jews that used to fill the continents of the diaspora. This one link to en.wikipedia.org
has been restored, but the community it used to serve is all but gone – they can not always find a minyan for prayers.
The world is wide and history is long, and it is full of both saints and villains from all groups. It is only the hatemongers who comb through the records looking for atrocities to fling in the face of peace. Certainly, those who seek will find, but the deliberately overlook the eras of cooperation and amity as not serving their propaganda of hate.
Goldstone is an amazing human being, a pro-Israel jurist who provided a clear-eyed assessment of the atrocities committed in Gaza. His integrity is beyond reproach, which is why the hasbara cabal is unable to smear him as a self-hater or anti-Semite.
On Al-Jazeera, Goldstone noted that Israel is subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, even if it is not a signatory. Most of the rogue nations prosecuted in the ICC are not signatories, and yet it’s within the Court’s purview to prosecute those who committed war crimes.
No one is yet looking down the road . . . but here’s an interesting twist. Israel may need the Obama administration to veto any U.N. council recommendation to send the Goldstone findings to the ICC. And yet, Netanyahu sticks a thumb in Obama’s eye on the settlements every time he meets with Mitchell. Is this finally the stick Obama needs to get the Likudniks off the dime to end the blockade and move to the two-state solution? Obama is a “sucker” if he lets this opportunity slip through his fingers.
I fear that, unfortunately, Obama is a sucker and a weakling, and will continue the reprehensible practice of enabling Israel’s crimes in the UN.
Obama’s feeble attempts to shift Israel policy have in fact made it more clear than ever that Washington is Zionist Controlled Territory.
The Israeli response is so blatant – the anti-Semitism card is out of the bag now – and they explicitly admit their entire thrust is spin control, without contesting the undeniable truth of Goldstone’s charges. It’s bound to turn a lot of people off.
Some analysis is called for:
1. The two latest wars- the 2nd Lebanon War and the War in Gaza are seen by most Israelis in the same light: We withdrew and they (Hezbollah and Hamas) still wouldn’t leave us alone. When we withdrew our leaders assured us: We have overwhelming firepower, now that we have withdrawn to a recognized international border, our enemies will have no choice but to leave us alone, for if they do not, we will hit them and hard and they will have no excuse and the world will back us up, for we have withdrawn to an international border. (Or if the world doesn’t back us up, that just proves whose side they were really on all the time: against us.)
(Differences between Lebanon and Gaza have little significance to most Israeli observers who subscribe to the sentiment that I’ve just expressed. Keener observers of the scene: Larry Derfner of the Jerusalem Post for example, see that whereas the withdrawal from Lebanon was complete and the withdrawal from Gaza was not complete, because of the continued siege, that the war against Lebanon was justified and the war against Gaza was not justified. Yossi Alpher of bitterlemons.org also saw differences between the two situations. But to most Israelis the “we withdrew and they continued to attack” equation holds.)
2. The “success” vis a vis the PLO spoiled Israel. Official Israel refused to deal with the PLO until they agreed to recognize Israel and to disavow terrorism. This policy led to the handshake on the White House lawn. And even though this recognition and disavowal were shown during the second intifadeh to be flimsy at best, nonetheless this policy of refusal to deal with “terrorists” led to the “on paper” submission of the “terrorists” to our demands. And so we must demand the same from Hamas before we are willing to deal with them. We waited 19 years from the 1974 recognition of the PLO as the sole representatives of the Palestinians by the Arab League until the White House lawn deal and we must be equally patient vis a vis waiting for Hamas to develop the necessary realism.
(The primary difference between the two situations is that Hamas won an election that the PLO never won. And even though Hamas seized power in Gaza, no matter what the provocation provided by Fatah, there is a “legitimacy” that Hamas gained through elections that is not forfeited by their seizure of power.)
The first two perspectives are essential (of the essence) but I must mention one other difference between Israel and American Jews: perspective.
Every mortar fired on Gaza makes the news in Israel. Bumper stickers read, “Sderot we are with you.” Under these circumstance the vast majority of Israeli Jews feel the need to do something. And the need to do something quite easily becomes the need to do as much as possible to inflict harm on the other side and impress upon them that we mean business.
Now my personal opinion: 1. I see the difference between Lebanon and Gaza. I blame the Lebanon war on Hassan Nassralah and his miscalculation of Israeli response. I blame the Gaza war on a general failure of Israel, the Palestinians, the Arab nations and the international community to take the withdrawal of Israel from Gaza seriously enough to turn it into something positive rather than a vacuum. I blame this primarily on Ariel Sharon (his coma and his successor) and Condoleeza Rice, but I think that leaving Gaza as a vacuum rather than a positive step was a major fuck up by the international community.
Every mortar fired from Gaza makes the news in Israel.
” I blame the Lebanon war on Hassan Nassralah and his miscalculation of Israeli response. ”
A simplistic assessment. Isrle and Hezbollah were routinely exchanging fire after 2000. Since the withdrawl from Lebanon, Israel were itching for a fight with Hezbollah and used a minir skirmish to carry out the plans they already had in motion.
In fact, many believe that Israel escalated the conflict under a directive from Washington.
I have to confess I find myself mystified whenever anyone exonerates any nation for launching a massive bombing campaign targeted at civilians by saying, “Oh, well, the victims miscalculated.” Did Iraq miscalculate our response? That’s walking on dangerous ground, shifting blame to the victim.
The 2nd Lebanon war broke out because Hezbollah attacked, killed and captured Israeli soldiers.
To Shingo- This is my recollection of the Israeli Lebanese relationship since 2000. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May of 2000. In October of 2000 there was an incident that involved the killing of Israeli soldiers. After that point in time, even though there were exchanges of fire, there were never any major border attacks. The attack in July 2006 was the first of its kind since 2000.
Although there is ample reason to believe that Israel was unhappy with the status quo vis a vis Hamas and the Gaza Strip, there is no reason to believe that Israel was planning a battle against Hezbollah. (The poorly executed war by Israel indicates that they were not prepared.) If you believe otherwise, please supply sources of information.
To Chaos4700- There are two questions involved, the outbreak of war and the conduct of the war. I was asserting that the blame for the outbreak of the war lies with Hassan Nasrallah. You did not dispute the point. You compared the situation to the war against Iraq. Do you blame Iraq for the outbreak of that war? I think not. So therefore the comparison or the analogy is invalid.
As far as the conduct of that war- Aluf Benn and Ami Ischaroff (military correspondents for Haaretz) have expressed the opinion that a two or a three day war would have sufficed to make Israel’s point. I tend to agree and the Winograd Commission was highly critical of the Israeli conduct of the war strictly from a utilitarian point of view. But when one starts a war, which Nasrallah did, there is no guarantee how the war is going to proceed.
There was a point that needed to be made by the war- that Lebanon was and remains responsible for Hezbollah’s behavior. The situation of allowing a military force not directly responsible to the Lebanese government demonstrates the weakness of the Lebanese government. That Hezbollah both partakes in elections and also maintains a militia loyal to itself and not to the government negates the essence of what a government is supposed to be about.
The death of civilians must pain any sensitive person. Given Benn’s and Ischaroff’s attitude that the war should have been of a limited duration I wonder how wise the lengthy war was and how many of the civilian casualties could have been avoided if the war had been limited.
There are questions that I don’t have the answer to: If one wishes to show the Lebanese government that they bear responsibility what targets are valid and which not? If one wishes to punish Hezbollah for their actions what targets are valid and which not?
But Hezbollah started the war and they bear responsibility.
If you’re going to blame Lebanon, how exactly are you going to use that to justify Israel’s response in bombing neighborhoods in Beirut? Or targets in northern Lebanon? I think it’s pretty clear that Israel was targeting the whole of Lebanon — Muslim and Christian, civilian and militant — with its bombing campaigns.
That being the case, it’s hard to pin this on Hezbollah. They weren’t who Israel was really after, in totality, after all.
wondering jew,
The 2nd Lebanon war broke out because Israel werre looking for a fight and a reason to get rid of Hezbollah once and for all.
In October 2000, the IDF shot at unarmed Palestinian demonstrators on the border, killing three and wounding 20. In response, Hezbollah crossed the line and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers. On several occasions, Hezbollah fired missiles and mortar rounds at IDF positions, and the IDF responded with heavy artillery and sometimes aerial bombardment. Incidents like these killed three Israelis and three Lebanese in 2003; one Israeli soldier and two Hezbollah fighters in 2005; and two Lebanese people and three Israeli soldiers in February 2006.
Rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel several times in 2004, 2005 and 2006, on some occasions by Hezbollah. But, the UN records, “none of the incidents resulted in a military escalation”.
Yes, Hebollah may have attacked, killed and captured Israeli soldiers, but Israel’s response was not to attack Hebollah, but to begin bombing all fo Southern Lebanon. This is consistent with what Ze’ev Shiff (Israeli journalist and military correspondent for Ha’aretz), describes as being Israel’s strategy.
“The Israeli army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously. The army has never distinguished civilian from military targets, but has purposely attacked civilian targets.”
Israel were attacking Lebanon in order to inflict sufficient pain that they might turn on Hezbollah. Collective punishement, in other words.
Apart from the October of 2000 incident, there was one prior to that where a farmer in Southern Lebanon was killed. Liek you said, there were exchanges of fire, and they were not escalated because Israel hadn’t decided to escalate them. The attack in July 2006 was incited by Isrel’s raid on Gaza, which was Israel’s attempt to punich the Palestinians for electing Hamas.
There is ample reason to believe that Israel was planning a battle against Hezbollah, and that Washington were knee deep in the planning of the event. The fact that it was poorly executed by Israel indicates that the IDF are not accustomed to fighting an armed opponents, as opposed to rock throiwing civlians. Israle threw everything they had at Southern Lebanon.
In March of 2007, Olmert admitted to the Winograd Commission that approximately three months before the Lebanon War he gave his permission for the operation by accepting a plan from his then-chief of staff Dan Halutz.
link to haaretz.com
link to mg.co.za
to Shingo – a number of points.
1. I didn’t know the details of the deaths involved in Lebanon vs. Israel clashes from 2000 to 2006. Thank you for the information.
2. The capturing of soldiers is an escalation of the conflict. Bombardments, even those causing deaths, are one thing; the capturing of soldiers is something different.
3. I wonder if Ariel Sharon would have engaged in the same action as Olmert did in response to the capture of the soldiers.
a. Sharon felt burnt by the Lebanon experience from ’82
b. Sharon was more self confident about the military actions that he took (once he was in office of Prime Minister)
One can then say that Hezbollah was testing Olmert and this may be the reason why Olmert didn’t adhere to the path that Benn and Ischaroff advised in the aftermath, but instead followed the lead of Washington which encouraged a more extensive response.
4. A correction: the battle that Israel was engaged in vis a vis Gaza was in response to the capture of Gilad Shalit, rather than a response to the election of Hamas. Maybe some Israeli action before the capture of Gilad Shalit is what you are referring to.
to Chaos
There were two “entities” which needed to be “punished” for the capture of the soldiers: Hezbollah and the Lebanon government. Hezbollah, for they carried out the attack and the Lebanese government for they were and are responsible for all attacks carried out from their country. Beirut was a target for it was the home of the Hezbollah leadership and all of Lebanon was a target to bring home to the government the price for allowing Hezbollah to run rampant.
(Obviously this idea has limits- how many civilians are killed. To what degree are civilian targets: as in airports and other infrastructure valid targets.)
to Wondering Jews – a number of points righ tback at you.
1. It’s mypleasure.
2. The capturing of soldiers was an trigger for a plan the Olmert govermment had in place. Isrle chose to escalte it.
3. It woudl have been intersting to hsee how Ariel Sharon would handle it. I suspect much better than Olmert.
4. A correction: The capture of Gilad Shalit was in response to the capture of 2 brother from Gaza city the day before. After the Hamas elections, Isrle sought ot punich the Palestinians and raided Gaza, arresting political leaders by the hundreds.
I am one third of the way through reading the 575-page UN report. It is sickening.
RE: ” I ask myself, what exactly is going on with the Israelis, such that 90 percent of the Jewish population thinks that not only was the war justified but that everything done by Israel was just fine. ”
MY COMMENT: To say that Goldstone’s report falls on deaf ears in Israel would be a gross understatement.
(AP EXCERPT)…The report provoked a furor in Israel, whose Foreign Ministry said it was “appalled and disappointed.” Radio stations devoted heavy chunks of air time to interviews with outraged officials and critical legal experts. “Classic Anti-Semitism,” blared the headline of an opinion piece in the Israel Hayom daily.”…
SOURCE – link to news.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________________
RE: “I ask myself, what exactly is going on with the Israelis…”
WIKIPEDIA: (excerpt) Repetition compulsion is a psychological phenomenon in which a person repeats a traumatic event or its circumstances over and over again. This includes reenacting the event or putting oneself in situations that have a high probability of the event occurring again….This concept was noted formally by Sigmund Freud in his 1920 essay “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” in which he observed a child throw his favorite toy from his crib, become upset at the loss, then reel the toy back, only to repeat this action again…
…Another is a participatory form, wherein a person actively engages in behavior that mimics an earlier stressor, either deliberately or unconsciously. In particular, this is often described by the statement that events that are terrifying in childhood become sources of attraction in adulthood. For instance, a person who was spanked as a child may incorporate this into their adult sexual practices. Another example is a victim of sexual abuse, who may attempt to seduce another person of authority in his or her life (such as their boss or therapist). Psychoanalysts describe this as an attempt at mastery of their feelings and experience, in the sense that they unconsciously want to go through the same situation but that it not result negatively as it did in the past [1].
Franz Alexander (1891-1964), a Hungarian American psychoanalyst and physician, stated:[citation needed] “The patient, in order to be helped, must undergo a corrective emotional experience suitable to repair the traumatic influence of previous experiences….”
WIKIPEDIA – link to en.wikipedia.org
Finklestein makes a cogent point about the Goldstone report with Amy Goodman:
The main limitation of the report is it’s all cast in the language of violations of the laws of war. And the fundamental fact about what happened in Gaza is it wasn’t a war. There was no war in Gaza. That’s the main misunderstanding about what happened there. In fact, one of Israel’s leading strategic analysts, he said—after what happened in Gaza, he said the one mistake Israelis are making is that there was a war there. He said there was no war. There were no battles in Gaza.
[... Finklestein describes Israeli soldiers explaining that they did not fight Hamas anywhere in those three weeks.]
It was a massacre in Gaza. And you don’t really see that, because they’re measuring everything against what they call the laws of war. But you’re applying laws of war to a massacre. There was no war there.
link to democracynow.org
I have two criticisms of Norman’s condemnations.
1. The actions of Hamas from December 17 through December 28, were acts of war. There was a war. Its just that the war was conducted by rockets rather than street-fighting. That there was not street fighting was due to Hamas militants hiding.
2. The second is that he does not distinguish between the questions of whether Israel should have or had a responsibility to address Hamas’ shelling through any military means, or whether the question is whether Israel adopted excessive means.
You seem to be forgetting the blockade, Richard. That was a continuous act of war and a violation if Israel’s part of the cease fire deal to boot. Or at least, blockades were supposed to be considered acts of war according to Israel itself in 1967.
I have a criticism of your critisisms:
1. The actions of Hamas from December 17 through December 28, were a response to an act of war by Israel. IN fact, Israel had been commiting acts of war against Gaza for 18 months prior.
There was no war.
2. There is noquestion of whether Israel should have responded through any military means. Isrlae were NOT responding but attacked, with the first wave being on the 4th of November.
I don’t know why you perists with your porpaganda Richard. No one is letting you get away with it.
I’m hoping that you’ll observe how the majority of the rational world perceives Hamas’ choice to resume shelling civilians, not the revision by Norman F.
Again, between 11/17 and 12/17, Hamas cadre stopped shelling Israel (maybe there were a couple exceptions), but did not enforce the cease fire on other factions.
They considered the cease-fire to be in effect, which was responded in kind. Your statement that the cease-fire effectively ended 11/4 is false. That is a rationalization that you have gullibly chosen to believe.
And, although the cease-fire had formally ended and the state of war resumed by schedule on 12/17, Israel did not respond militarily for 10 days. It was Hamas’ decision to reinstute a state of active war, in contrast to a state of deferred tension.
It was a choice, for a purpose. The only purposes that I can see are to “send a message of deterrance” (but that was lost in escalating to larger rockets with larger range and actually hitting Ashkelon and Beersheba), to evoke a military response by Israel for PR, and/or because they just let their anger overrule their reason.
Talk about a non sequetir.
How the majority of the “rational” world perceived Hamas is largely a product of the propaganda they are being fed. For example, the “rational” world knows the name of Gilad Shalit, but they do not know the names of the two Palestinian brothers that were captured by Israel the day before.
That’s a pathetic argument even by your standards.
Norman F happens to be far better informed about what took place than your average rational Jo public.
Whether Hamas stopped shelling for a few hours or not is irrelevant. Not only have you failed to cite evidence to back this up, but it does not represent a restoration of the ceasefire.
The ceasefire was broken on the 11/4 so yes it ended. You’ve accused me of being gullible yet I have asked you to provide proof that there was any so called return to ceasefire after that date and you have been unable to.
Israel were very calculating by not responding militarily for 10 days. They waited till the official end of the ceasefire for propaganda reasons, but there is no disputing that the conflict had already been started by Israel. Again, 7 Palestinians were killed – the same number that all of the rocket attacks have killed din Israel since they started – the same rocket attacks that you describe as an outrage.
It just underlines the disregard you have for lives of Palestinians.
The only choice that was made was by Israel is carrying out the raid on 11/4. The only purposes it possibly served was to provoke as response from Hamas that could then be used by Israel to escalate the conflict.
Everyone knows it Richard, even you. Perhaps you are hoping that denial will change that reality.
It won’t.
“Again, between 11/17 and 12/17, Hamas cadre stopped shelling Israel (maybe there were a couple exceptions), but did not enforce the cease fire on other factions.”
Ahem.
link to haaretz.com
Even when Hamas does crack down on rogue groups, people like you spin it in a bad light — “oh look, they’re attacking their own” or “they’re only appeasing their overlords in Egypt/Syria/Iran/etc.”
Superbly put Chaos4700.
BTW. Richard not only keeps forgetting about the blockade, but ignores our constant reminders.
Months ago I presented the New York Times reports, but you rejected those.
I looked yesterday for the Haaretz reporting, but their website doesn’t make it possible to research more than a month back.
If you can find out how to use their website to do so, please let me know and I’ll find the basis of my understanding.
If you read back in the archives here, I expect there will be some substantiation made. Please read what was posted here from 11/4 to 12/27.
@Richard Witty September 17, 2009 at 7:38 am
Again, between 11/17 and 12/17, Hamas cadre stopped shelling Israel (maybe there were a couple exceptions), but did not enforce the cease fire on other factions.
Richard, please provide evidence to support your assertion. Barring proof of explicit intent by Hamas to allow shelling by other factions, I think it is vastly more reasonable to think they did their best. The number of rocket attacks under Hamas governance did dwindle to near zero. Does Hamas have greater capability to control Palestinians in Gaza than the vaunted IDF has to control Jewish colonists in the Occupied Palestinian Territories? Violence and property damage by Jews against Palestinians occurs on a daily basis in the Occupied Territories right under the noses of the IDF.
Isn’t Hamas just supposed to be just some ragtag bunch of illiterate terrorists? They seem to have done a far better job with negligible resources controlling splinter groups not aligned with them than Israel, with its massive Spartan army supplied and equipped by the world’s only superpower, has in keeping its colonists in line. Hamas may or may not have met their obligations with complete sincerity, but Israel has absolutely openly and brazenly not done so.
oops, apologies for tag typo
“Months ago I presented the New York Times reports, but you rejected those.”
I don’t recall you presneting any such reports, but your inability to produce any such links now suggests there was no such report.
Frankly I’m puzzled. Why would events in Gaza unsettle the American Jewish community any more than the massacres in Lebanon?
Probably becasue Israel were defeated in Lebanon and were humbled by it.
It was televised. Lebanon was not plus the added feature of having Gaza blocked up, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Besides the fact that Gaza is walled in and that picture is sinking into the American mind there were many within the U.S. who were in conversation with MSM on their biased coverage and I felt at the time that we were seeing improvement in some MSM coverage….besides the usual Israeli spokespeople we were seeing and hearing some Palestinian voices. That was a change and a change that I believe was brought on by the number of U.S. voices that challenged, addressed and worked with media. Progress was made in this regard. Second, when the debate centers around simply Israel/Palestine it is like a ball going back and forth and most bystanders throw up their hands and say nothing will change. But when the U.S. is brought into the equation with support for Israel, weapon and military support and exchange and the lobby writing the mideast bills for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the American public begins to get an inkling of these types of unfair interactions – leaving the Palestinians out of the equation- then there is movement in the U.S. and Obama will have space to move on mideast issues…..Gaza was important because there was movement HERE. Whenever I think of Gaza I think of the movie, “Chinatown”. Remember Rachel, Tom and James were all killed in Gaza under cover of the Iraq War. Many Palestinians had predicted that Israel would make a move under cover of the Iraq War and Rachel reported the same. Gaza is different from Lebanaon.
Goldstone had an op-ed in the NY Times today. I hope the statements of the mass media “squelching” debate are questioned.
link to nytimes.com
Great. So the guy who is the primary author of the report gets space for one op-ed column in one American newspaper. What a lively and proliferous debate.
Hey, as is par for the course for the Times, I’ll bet you fifty bucks that Foxy Abe Foxman’s response will be the first letter at the top of the Times To-the-Editor page in a few days followed by Hoenlein and possibly Harris, with some Palestinian sounding name as the sole letter in support of the Goldstone op-ed. That’s the way they roll.
Also, Richard, let’s not get too entranced with a new, “progressive” New York Times. It’s highly likely that Goldstone approached the Times weeks ago with the op-ed, and what was the Times to do? Rejecting it would have resulted in destructive publicity to the “newspaper of record.”
And although you can bet that the neo-cons and the Zionists are burning up their keyboards in a race to submit their own op-eds to the Times in response, the damage is done.
Interesting that he gives equal emphasis to the violations of Hamas – makes it more difficult to call it Israeli-bashing. Israeli apologists will have to argue that Israel alone was faultless in Gaza, which no reasonable person can accept.
here is an interesting twist on the blockade. Israel is poisoning the people by not letting them repair the water system. Children are especially vulnerable. This is EVIL. It’s like what people to do to cockroaches in New York. I hope it gets wide play. Israel’s shit is coming back on them. Gladstone and bin-Laden are in cahoots. Israel is calling on the US to get them out of it.
link to ipsnews.net
Rehmat, you quote Allan C. Brownfeld who is a well known anti Zionist Jew who writes for the Saudi controlled Washington Report, which claims Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. And that 4000 Jews didn’t show up at the WTC on 9/11/
Brownfeld in this article tries to say Israel Shahak was a prophet.
link to thefreelibrary.com
Shahak was a well known liar and racist anti Zionist.
This article shows how his blood libels against Jews were all made up by Shahak.
link to wernercohn.com
Shahak’s works have also found a receptive audience among neo-Nazis, antisemites and Holocaust deniers, and articles of his have been republished on websites such as Radio Islam, Bible Believers, Jew Watch, CODOH, and “Historical Review Press”.[34] David Duke mourned Shahak, stating he had exposed “numerous examples of hateful Judaic laws… that permit Jews to cheat, to steal, to rob, to kill, to rape, to lie, even to enslave Christians,”[35] and dedicated his book Jewish Supremacism to him.[36] Duke’s antisemitic theories defaming the Talmud and Judaism drew on material from the works of Shahak and Elizabeth Dilling.[37] In a new introduction to his re-edition of their Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Norton Mezvinsky wrote that antisemites and antisemitic groups “utilize unduly Shahak’s criticisms in trying to justify their hatred of Jews. They have continued to do this either by citing and/or using out-of-context some of Shahak’s points.”[38]
Shahak has been accused of fabricating incidents, “blaming the victim”, distorting the normative meaning of Jewish texts, and misrepresenting Jewish belief and law.[24][39] According to Paul Bogdanor, Shahak “regaled his audience with a stream of outrageous libels, ludicrous fabrications, and transparent hoaxes. As each successive allegation was exposed and discredited, he would simply proceed to a new invention.”[40] Ari Alexander, co-founder of the Children of Abraham Organization for Jewish-Islamic dialogue, while noting the widespread use of Shahak’s works by neo-Nazis and in Arab countries, concludes that:
‘the texts that Shahak cites are real (though Shahak’s sporadic use of footnotes makes it difficult to check all of them). Oftentimes, the interpretation of these texts is debatable and their prominence in Judaism negligible, but nonetheless, they are part of Jewish tradition and, therefore, cannot be ignored.’[41]
In reaction to his writings about Judaism and the Talmud, Shahak has been accused of antisemitism.[24] The Anti-Defamation League listed Shahak as one of four authors of polemics in its paper The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics, while Paul Bogdanor accused Shahak of “recycling Soviet antisemitic propaganda”.[42]
In 1995 Werner Cohn wrote of Shahak:
Without question, he is the world’s most conspicuous Jewish antisemite… Like the Nazis before him, Shahak specialized in defaming the Talmud. In fact, he has made it his life’s work to popularize the anti-Talmud ruminations of the 18th century German antisemite, Johann Eisenmenger.[43]
Emanuele Ottolenghi argues that Jews like Shahak act as enablers for antisemites, stating that their rhetoric plays a “crucial role… in excusing, condoning, and — in effect — abetting anti-Semitism.” In his view:
Anti-Semites rely on Jews to confirm their prejudice: If Jews recur to such language and advocate such policies, how can anyone be accused of anti-Semitism for making the same arguments? [...] The mechanism through which an anti-Semitic accusation becomes respectable once a Jew endorses it is not limited to Israel’s new historians… Israel Shahak made the comparison between Israel and Nazism respectable — all the while describing Judaism according to the medieval canons of the blood libel.[44
“Shahak’s works have also found a receptive audience among neo-Nazis”
That’s hillarious given that Neo Nazis were holding up Isreali flagas at a rally against a mosque in London.
It is not hilarious. At times some neo Nazis hold up the Israeli flag to symbolize their antipathy towards Arab or Muslim immigrants; at times neo Nazis quote Israel Shahak to justify their antipathy towards Jews. One should not expect consistency from neo Nazis. But Israel Shahak is clearly a person interested in stirring up hatred of the Jewish tradition.
The left’s real agenda. Destroying the Jewish state.
link to israelnationalnews.com
Wow, Israel used to be the darling of the American left. I wonder what happened?
Keep attacking the left, Mr. Zionist. You’re only making the BDS movement that much easier to build support for.
“The left’s real agenda. Destroying the Jewish state.”
Becasue you see, the, the so called Jewish state is a terrorist, apartheid state and asking it not to be a terrorist, apartheid state is akin to calling for it’s destruction.
Israel is doing a good enough job of destroying itself
Camera shows what a liar Goldstone is.
link to camera.org
link to camera.org
Poor Richard Goldstone. So much for brotherhood among the Jewish faith — now Zionists like you are going to slander and smear him when he went as far out on a limb for Israel as he could and tried to make a false moral equivocation between blind fire rocket attacks and deliberate massacres of civilians waving white flags at soldiers.
Camera shows what a pathetic and lame web site Camera is. it picks at minutia in the hope of presenting it as some smoking gun. It reads like it was compiled by a child.
That is Hamas of suicide bombing glorified long killing of civilians speaking ….
What about 2000? Is not Hamas an enemy of Israel? A sworn enemy out to seek the destruction and genocide of Israel?? The same Hamas that encourages kids to kill themselves on buses , restaurants, and praises it to high heaven???? Should such a “elected goverement” have any sympathy from the world, then the world has gone to hell. Hamas is no victim and Gaza is run by it’s elected goverment, not Israel. Israel only has a security border with Gaza no more. Yes no seaport, no airport, and why? Can they be trusted to live in peace with their neighbour/ NO. They want war and death.
You know, the last time I checked, the only people who were actually being pushed into any seas were the Palestinians. Heck, you can even ask Israel’s foreign minister about that!
link to independent.co.uk
Is Israel not the enemy of Hamas?
Isrel has killed far more people that Hams ever could, destroyed far more busses and restaurants. Should such a government ave any sympathy from the world? Apparently yes.
Israel have never released it’s grip from Gaza, even after it withdrew.
Israel is a terrosti aparthed state that is becomming increasingly isolated and derranged, as are many of it’s supporters/
The comments and even the writings of Horowitz and Weiss on Mondoweiss reflect an attitude that Israel’s actions towards Hamas should be tame. I think Israel found/finds itself in a difficult position when Hamas, with their record of action and rhetoric, seized power in Gaza. There was some expectation that Hamas would mature as a result of winning an election (and then seizing power). Although some voices from Hamas might reflect such maturing, I don’t see that maturing as being the prevalent direction. Backed up by Iran their prevalent direction is obstinacy.
The question that I asked myself during the war on Gaza was: What would Israel’s enemies have us do? The answer provided on this web site is: Whatever Hamas wants . Since you are enemies of Israel this answer is to be expected, but it is also unreasonable to supporters of Israel. I think Israel had to do something in response to the situation. I think it is reasonable to question the extent of the Israeli response.
Wondering Jews
I respect the fact that you are fair minded and aware of the issues at play in this conflict, but you are still very biased.
For example, you lament that lack of maturity on th epart of Hamas. Apart from being condescening, given the petulant rhetoric and behaior of Israel’s leaders (I don’t think I need to reminf you of such cases), it also ignores the fundamental reality that Israel has strived to udermine any such development.
Need you be remionded that Hamas came into being as a result of an Isrlei policy to divide and rule the Palestinian leadership? After Hamas were elected, Israel even thrwarted the efforts fo Hamas to enter in to unity talks with Fatah.
Israel have always strived to udnermine the process of settlement, let alone reconciliation.
As for what shoud Israel do? How about NOT occying land, NOT stealing mroe of it, NOT expansding settlements, NOT blockading Gaza?
Your simplistic mis-represenatino of us as being enemies of Israel will only blind you to the fact that Israel has acted appalingly and is deserving of condemnation. You see critisim as bein gborn of a hatred towars Israel, when in fact, most of us woudl be ambilivilant towards Israel were it not for their plicies and their actions.
Pingback: The Progressive Mind » It’s all spin: Not one of Goldstone’s 37 factual assertions has been rebutted