I gather that this Tom Ashbrook show on NPR was remarkably fair this morning, it included Mark Perry, the reporter who broke the Petraeus story–that the general believes Palestinian grievances are endangering Americans in the Middle East–along with the Inevitable Indyk. But check out the comments on this piece. Wow, Americans are aroused. I know it’s just a vocal minority, but Americans are aroused. And when is the Petraeus story going to hit the New York Times? Bernie Avishai has it in the IHT. Andrew Bacevich has it at Salon:
This much is certain, however: Gen. Petraeus, easily the most influential U. S. officer on active duty, has discovered the Holy Land. And his discovery is likely to discomfit those Americans committed to the proposition that the United States and Israel face the same threats and are bound together by identical interests.
This is why the Lobby has been so concerned to keep the truth locked up and inaccessible to the US public, which, when aroused, can be dangerous.
If the Israel Lobby wants to save life as it knows it, it better stop all this phony Iran-has-nuclear-weapons shit and climb back down to earth. All these unemployed people are reading this stuff on the web for the first time in their recent work lives.
RE: “the general believes Palestinian grievances are endangering Americans in the Middle East” – Weiss
MY COMMENT: I sent an E-mail urging my representatives to support the Obama Administration’s call to end Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. You can send your own E-mail today by clicking on this link – link to aaper.org
ALT LINK – link to aaper.org
P.S. What is AAPER? The American Association for Palestinian Equal Rights (AAPER) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to inform the American public about the human and national rights of the Palestinian people and the role of the United States in the Middle East.
link to democracynow.org
Interview of Freshman Elected Congressman of Florida, Alan Grayson. Well worth watching to understand the hypocrisy of an American liberal with respect to Israel policy.
After the interview, Mark Perry is interviewed about how a dispatched a team of senior military officers in January to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Perry reports that the briefers told Mullen that “Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing US standing in the region.” [Starts at minute 30 and ends at 44]
The dam has broken.
yes, but will the flow be fast and strong enough to sweep away the neocon traitors?
something tells me the answers no. Maybe they’ll make Aliyah.
Indeed, the dam, or at least one of the major ones, appears to have been broken. As important as were the statements by General Petraeus and their importance cannot be underestimated (and already have the neocons at JINSA spinning the story wildly (link to jinsa.org
that the distiguished historian, Andrew Bacevich has written in support of Petraeus’s position on Salon is a major event in itself.
Bacevich is a West Point graduate who served in Vietnam and who has lectured at West Point as well. He was an early opponent of the Iraq war even before losing a son there, and has inpeccable establishment credentials.
AIPAC is clearly worried and will be pulling out all stops to make next’s weeks conference their biggest yet.
Also worried, I suspect. are Progfessors Noam Chomsky and Stephen Zunes who have been misleading progressive folks for years about how Israel serves the US as a strategic asset and that that is the basis for US supprt. For those who still hold on to that mistaken notion, I give you the words of Abba Eban, Israel’s fabled foreign minister who was Israel’s greatest PR peddler for many years. Here he is on P. 595 of “Personal Witness: Israel Through My Eyes”:
Responding to Menachem Begin’s assertion “that the United States gained more from its alliance with Israel than Israel did Israel from its relationship with the United States. I suggested an intellectual exercise: Imagine that some natural disaster were to cut America and Israel off from contact with each other; there would be no telephones or postal services, no commerce or tourism, no monetary transactions between the two countries. Who would notice it first?”
Professor Chomsky’s error, indeed, has been twofold: (1) He refused to acknowledge the power of the Israel Lobby in influencing and controlling both domestic and foreign US policy. (2) His claim that Israel was a strategic asset to the US.
Even during the Cold War, Israel fulfilled a marginal role as a strategic ally to the US, but once the Cold War was over, Israel’s usefulness ended.
It only makes sense why the occupation has gone on for so long, given you had facilitators like Chomsky to tow the line. I wonder who the how many truth tellers will be whistling a different tune during the crisis to come?
Bacevich on Petraeus (“General Petraeus Says Israeli and U.S. Interests Diverge”)(Salon.com (3-17-10)) says:
The manipulation which requires this: ” hitherto not known to be an anti-Semite” as a qualifier for this: “questioning whether the United States should view Israel as a strategic asset” is striking.
What has America come to? Is it assumed that our minds are made of Jello? Matza Balls? Chopped Liver? Was George Washington an anti-Semite when he said whatever he said about permanent close attachments between USA and other countries being likely a mistake? Since when is THINKING and QUESTIONING an act of anti-Semitism? And why should it be assumed (except for the dreadful passage of time and repetition during which it became a mantra) that Israel’s interests and the USA’s interests were the same so that questioning the proposition fell within the suspect category of anti-Semitism?
Actually, words like “national security” and “anti-Semitism” are used to control and prevent speech and thought. That the US court system has allowed the government to get away with hiding information which would otherwise be discoverable in litigation because of “national security” (and which has thrown out lawsuits because they would trespass on NS, which comes pretty much to the same thing) is a shameful disaster.
Americans have become prisoners of slogans. Nothing new here. Maybe we need some new bumper stickers to educate America.
when is THINKING and QUESTIONING an act of anti-Semitism?
There losing the battle that was waged in the dark, and they’ll have a difficult time to face the debate in the light. I am confident the tide is turning, that is if the White House doesn’t go soft during the next week. AIPAC conference this weekend (or next?) should be interesting theatre for us to see.
Don’t expect anything good from Petreaus.
Mooser, have you seen a photograph of Petreaus? I mean the square jaw, the chest full of medals. This man is a real macher. Stuff will get done.