Now Andrew Sullivan is attacking the idea that only Israeli Jews are allowed to have opinions about Israel. "Screw that," he says. Come on, Andrew, dredge it up, let it go: How do you feel about Israel? Thanks to Voskamp.
Sarah Anne Minkin adds:
Matt Steinglass (to whom Sullivan referred) didn’t say that just Israeli Jews can have opinions – he said that only those who serve in the army + do reserves ("miluim") can have opinions. So he’s cut almost all women since women who serve in the army only rarely serve in the reserves, and of course he’s cut out all of the military refusers (and by definition he’s already excluded Palestinian citizens, of course). "Israeli Jews" and IDF vets are not synonymous terms. that old idea that only military vets can talk security has long been used to keep women and others out of the public conversation, and of course to promote the combat soldiers’ opinions above all others.
I think someone close to the events IS more informative than bloggers or respondents to bloggers.
Especially if that person is thoroughly informed about both current and historical events.
Its not ethnic, but to omit the perspective of Israelis in the math of interpretations, is a gross omission, even if you end up with similar ones.
It’s so cute! It’s like watching a poodle parade around with glasses on! Oooh… just look at him vacillate about Jewish ethnicity! He thinks he’s persuasive!
I’m coming to wish the two of you could be nailed into a barrel together and thrown over the falls. Your constant carping at each other derails all the discussion around here.
Chaos, as far as I am concerned you can keep right on criticizing Witty’s statements (as will I ) but don’t get into his personal life or compare him to poodles.
Yeah that’s great and all guys, and I’m fine with taking the flak when I fly off the handle. But if you’re so interested in debate then do your own responses to Witty’s crap, right?
The gross omission in your statement, Richard: Its not ethnic, but to omit the perspective of Israelis in the math of interpretations is PALESTINIANS.
“Its not ethnic, but to omit the perspective of Israelis and PALESTINIANS in the math of interpretations”
Actually, it IS ethnic. Palestinians, both those who are citizens of Israel, and those who are non-citizen subjects of Israel in the occupied territories are , as a group, much more informed about the oppressiveness of Israel, but they are not included in the calculus, being neither Israeli Jews nor IDF reserve members. Its as if black opinion about segregation is not important or valid, instead we must only consider the opinions and feelings of whites when we discuss racial inequality in the US past and present.
Witty, you’ve either misread or are purposely twisting Sullivan’s 5 sentences. Here’s the last three again., to make it easier or you to get it.
Being closer doesn’t mean one is more informative. You could still lie the hell through your teeth (Dennis Ross: it was all the Palestinians fault that Camp David ’99 had no results!) and be on the ground.
Ross really did spin the hell out of that one. The MSM endlessly repeated the line (no surprised they have their unspoken marching orders0 In Carters “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” he reminds us that Israel had not signed the deal either.
Ross and our talking heads endlessly blamed Arafat
Phillip have you seen the Code Pink Clip of Medea, Gael and Col Wright challenging Rep Berman today about trying to crush the Goldstone Report
link to youtube.com
Pretty cool. Ann Wright, retired army colonel, right on.
Thanks for the clip, Kathleen; admirable ladies, courageous and intelligent.
link to dandelionsalad.wordpress.com
Sullivan is dead right.
Why is a scumbag liar like Witty allowed to post? Seriously?
Between all the Islamophobes and antisemites (Arabs are semites too, Phil!) like carnas, yonira, OhioJoes, etc. – why is the most dishonest commentator allowed to continue his propaganda?
Witty is your friend, Phil? Is that it?
He adds nothing to discussion. It’s the same old song and dance.
The fact that this fascist praises Ibish when Ibish is hated by Palestinians and Arabs in general is proof that Witty is a total Zionist Jew before a humanist and before an American and before anything else.
He’s a corrupt person.
I actually wouldn’t want to have Witty banned, as much as I find him onerous. And here’s why.
Witty is dishonest, manipulative, exploitative, propagandist, racist, prevaricating, snide, egotistical, presumptuous, false, vacillating and honorless.
And he’s the best the Zionist crowd puts forward. That’s why it’s valuable to have him around, as bad as it is for people’s blood pressure (it’s probably bad for mine, considering).
Then let him expose himself as such and stop making Witty the issue around here, instead of the actual issues. IGNORE his remarks.
This shit is ruining discussion on the site and you are as responsible for this as anyone, including RW.
Grow some balls and post your own replies, then, potsherd. You seem to be spending more time replying to me than anyone else lately. I respect your opinion, I know you’ve got it in you. Ignoring Witty isn’t going to make him go away. Ignoring lies and injustices essentially amounts to tacit complicity.
You guys don’t seem to realize that Witty is one of the issues. Witty is what greases the gears in Congress so that the machine chewing up taxpayer money and good will with the rest of the world and our own futures and craps out war materials and propaganda for Israel. Witty is the guy who stands behind liberals and reformers and such for the photo op, then kicks us in the shins when no one is looking, then goes on public and laments how the liberal movement is “disorganized” and “ineffectual.” He’s the shill in the academic world who helps the ADL and Zionist campus organizations browbeat on any academic with the balls to speak out, then complains that the same is being done to him when people call him on it.
Witty is just as dangerous to Palestinian children as any bomb dropped by the IDF, because without Witty’s hands those bombs don’t end up in Israeli hands. We can’t just ignore him and pretend like he doesn’t matter. He does, unfortunately. The recent vote in the House rather demonstrates that.
Chaos, are you fucking dense? Look at the posts in this thread, they’re all about Richard Witty. We don’t need more posts about or from Richard Witty. We need posts about Sullivan and what he is saying. You know, the purported topic of discussion?
Screw that, indeed. Go, Andrew.
I’ve told you once, I’ll tell you again, stay away from Andrew Sullivan. The man has not one principl;e except self-seeking, and he will turn on you in a heartbeat.
But, as he says,
“The point is not who says what, but what they’re saying. Does it make sense or not? Does it add up or not? Can it survive scrutiny?”
Just because Sullivan says something, there is certainly no reason to give it extra weight, but if he’s right, he’s right, and in this instance he is. It really doesn’t matter if he’s been dreadfully wrong before. Truth is truth, even if a scumbag is uttering it.
More important than Steinglass or Sullivan are the two pieces that precipitated these exchanges.
Gideon Levy. America, stop sucking up to Israel
more at link…
And Glenn Greenwald’s column here:
link to salon.com
is mention of DailyKos verboten on Phil Phorum?
Hasbarists and gatekeepers reign supreme in the orange world of the boy Kos.
A retired navy man wrote a trenchant critique of Hillary’s missteps (or were they missteps?) in ME last week; he was persuaded to remove the article.
Any mention of Iran or of Ahmadinejad that does not fall in lock step with the Israel first gatekeepers is denounced if not banned by a troop of protect-Israel-at-all-cost Kossacks. DailyKos is cited by mainstream media as reflective of “liberal” views and Democratic party orthodoxy. But don’t look for an insightful article on Iran that might have something positive to say about the country; the few posters who have been known to write about Iran pull their punches until they’ve become their own sparring partner. Don’t look for commentary on the Goldstone report: DailyKos seems to have missed that whole episode as it played out in Israel, in the UN, in Palestine, and in the US Congress.
Markos knows what makes his orange bread turn green: it consists in avoiding at all cost any criticism of the blue-on-white, even it it comes at the expense of the red, white, and blue.
In the DK spinoff “Congress Matters,” which discusses Congressional activities on a daily basis the Goldstone vote wasn’t even mentioned.
The place has banned itself into irrelevance.
Great writing, Psycho!
thanks coMMenter.
(blushing pink)