MJ Rosenberg at media matters lays out the power an American president can exercise over Israel, and the lobby’s fear of his doing just that. Rosenberg doesn’t fully explore the hidden dimension here– of course it’s our national interest and of course Obama has power, why hasn’t he exercised it? My answer is that Rahm Emanuel wasn’t chief of staff in ’80; the lobby is stronger today than in Reagan’s day. It’s in its late classical period and verging on decadence, but it’s got Obama hoodooed re 2012:
When I worked at AIPAC the first time, its founder and executive director, I.L. Kenen, told me this: "My worst fear is that a President of the United States will get on television and say to the American people, ‘I have made the following request to the Israeli government.’ He then describes it and says that Israel’s refusal to accept it would harm US interests. At that point, the Israeli government would fold and so would AIPAC….it would be a demand to get out of the occupied territories or divide Jerusalem or something like that. Life or death it would never be. Still, it’s my biggest fear."
That theory was tested a few years later when conflict came and even Begin backed down in the face of a resolute President.
In 1982, the Israeli air force was bombing Beirut relentlessly. President Ronald Reagan saw the destruction and carnage on television and, on his own initiative, picked up the phone and called Begin. Reagan National Security Council staffer Geoffrey Kemp remembers the call:
"’Menachem, this is a holocaust’ Reagan said.
‘Mr. President, I think I know what a holocaust is’ Begin replied, in a voice that Kemp would recall as ‘dripping with sarcasm.’ According to [Deputy Chief-Of-Staff Michael] Deaver, Reagan continued ‘in the plainest of language’ to tell Begin what he thought about the bombing of Beirut, concluding by saying, ‘It has gone too far. You must stop it’
Twenty-minutes later Begin called back and said he had issued the order to [General Ariel] Sharon to stop the bombings. After he had hung up the phone Reagan said to Deaver, ‘I didn’t know I had that kind of power.’"
But he did. And so does Obama. And that was at a time, not quite two years into his Presidency, when Reagan’s poll numbers were so low that it was thought he might quit after one term. Two years later he won 49 states.
…If the Israelis had listened to President Nixon in 1971, who told them to withdraw from the banks of the Suez Canal and accept President Sadat’s peace offer, there would have been no Yom Kippur War. Israel would have given up a fraction of the Egyptian territory that it ended up yielding in peace negotiations five years later. Instead, Israel said no, lost all the Egyptian territory it held, along with 3,000 young men.
Naturally, the lobby in this country backed Israel in that refusal.
The lobby wants to paper over the differences the United States has with Israel – especially before the big AIPAC rally this weekend and certainly before the President meets with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
I know, from my years at AIPAC, that it wants Obama to back down. I also know that even the slightest retreat from our demands will be presented by AIPAC as a great victory. "All is back to normal," AIPAC will say. And the whole world – especially Israelis and Palestinians – will see us as chumps.
The latest polls show Obama’s position favored (by a 2-1 margin) over Netanyahu’s here. In Israel, they are pretty much tied, with Obama far more popular than previously believed.
The shift in US opinion – from seemingly solid support for Israeli positions to a 2-1 support for Obama’s hard line on settlements – indicates that General David Petraeus’ statements have had a powerful effect. Once Petraeus said that perceptions of American one-sidedness put American lives in Afghanistan and Iraq at risk, the game was essentially over.
Unless the United States blinks.
It’s why during the campaign trail presidential candidates must prostrate to AIPAC & related organizations, and say the words: Israel is our ally, Israel is our friend, Israel’s security is sacrosanct, etc. It’s a way of holding them accountable if they veer of the trail. Obama is walking the edge now, and there’s always a price to pay for perceived disloyalty. But this charade of peace talks can’t go on any further. Obama will be toast if he doesn’t take this fight on now. It’s not just him, but the Congress has a reason (Biden slap and Petreus) to realize this is not such a great ally, and do something about it.
Obama has broken every other campaign promise he made, why not his pledges to Israel?
Thanks. My hope has been restored!
Every thime an American says “Israel is our ally” it is an insult to America’s real allies whose armed forces have stood side-by side with US forces in battle.
Compare Australia and Britain with Israel.
Australia – an ally in
WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq 2, Afghanistan.
Britain – an ally in
WW1, WW2, Korea, Iraq 1, Kosovo, Iraq 2, Afghanistan.
Israel – an ally in ….?
Even Syria (ally in Iraq 1) has better claim to be called an American ally!
Hey, maybe that’s because we give stringless and giant hunks of welfare checks to those countries? And don’t they all have socialized health just like Israel?
Huge welfare cheques to Australia and Britain?
Where’s mine, then?
While I agree with your basic premise that Israel is not much of an ally, your comparisons are a little off. As you know, Israel didn’t exist until after WW2.
After that, of course, any Israeli involvement in the US led Mideastern wars as an ally would have been the kiss of death, so as an ally Israel was pretty useless.
RE: “Israel – an ally in ….?” – RoHa
MY COMMENT: From whence do you think our “troopers’ learned sadistic torture techniques like the “Palestinian hanging”? HINT: Shin Bet and the IDF are notorious for using it.
SEE: ‘Palestinian hanging’ torture revealed, Sydney Morning Herald, 02/18/05
(EXCERPT) An Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning US soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison died under CIA interrogation while in a position condemned by human rights groups as torture.
It was revealed today he was suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back.
The death of the prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, became known last year when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke. The US military said then that the death had been ruled a homicide. But the exact circumstances under which the man died were not disclosed.
The prisoner died in a position known as “Palestinian hanging,” documents reviewed by The AP showed.
It is unclear whether that position was approved by the Bush administration for use in CIA interrogations.
The spy agency, which faces congressional scrutiny over its detention and interrogation of terror suspects at the Baghdad prison and elsewhere, declined to comment for this story, as did the Justice Department.
Al-Jamadi was one of the CIA’s “ghost” detainees at Abu Ghraib – prisoners being held secretly by the agency….
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to smh.com.au
That answers the question “What has Israel ever done for the U.S.?”, but I’m not sure that it qualifies as alliance. You might want to claim that having Mossad run Abu Ghraib and teach terror techniques to the Kurds qualifies, but its not quite the same as sending thousands of regular troops.
Canada fought alongside the US in both WWI and WWII, as well.
So did New Zealand, but both NZ and Canada exist in order for their larger neighbours to make fun of them, so their contributions don’t count. (Even though the Princess Pat’s single-handedly saved South Korea.)
Every Australian knows that all the important victories in WW1 were won by the Australian troops, with occasional help from the British, the Indians, and the Canadians. The French were slack, and the Americans (when they finally showed up) were incompetent know-it-alls who refused to take advice on tactics and got cut to pieces as a result.
MJ Rosenberg: “…If the Israelis had listened to President Nixon in 1971, who told them to withdraw from the banks of the Suez Canal and accept President Sadat’s peace offer, there would have been no Yom Kippur War. Israel would have given up a fraction of the Egyptian territory that it ended up yielding in peace negotiations five years later. Instead, Israel said no, lost all the Egyptian territory it held, along with 3,000 young men.”
It is conventional wisdom that the Yom Kippur War could have been avoided if Israel had withdrawn from the banks of the Suez Canal a few years earlier and MJ Rosenberg’s primary point: that Israel and the lobby support was wrong minded is essentially correct. But to imply that Israel would have had a peace treaty with Egypt without ceding all of the Sinai is false. The only way Sadat would have agreed to a peace treaty would have been by receiving all of the Sinai. Maybe the peace treaty is extraneous and a cease fire that would have been accomplished by a partial withdrawal would have been just as good, but the implication that the same results could have been achieved without a full withdrawal is false.
You raise a good point. Look at Syria and Lebanon — Israel continues to hold land from both by military force of arms, and that has proven to make peace impossible.
If this is an argument for Obama to use the bully pulpit over the whorish heads of congress, I say, YES! But Obama is too weak to take the chance–he doesnt’t really comprehend that he could be a winner this way, not only a winner in terms of personal power and to the benefit of his family, but a winner in terms of humanistic opinion. He’s no Gandi or Abe Lincoln. He’s, so far, not even a pimple on the toe of Lincoln, his alleged historical mentor. Lincoln would have declared an Emancipation Proclamation for Palesinains already. And it would have worked to further progress in universal human rights, merely the basics of same.
Wow, I have new respect for Reagan. As radical as his policies were at the time, he was no Dick Cheney.
Reagan destroyed the American Middle Class and essentially institutionalized corruption within the banking and corporate system.
It seems that every person has redeeming characteristics. The jury is still out on Dick Cheney, though.
sky7i–
Times have sure changed–domestically, Nixon was far to the left of Obama.
Avi– While I rarely disagree with Reagan-bashing, let’s not leave out Bill Clinton’s embrace of neoliberal economics, the WTO, Nafta, and a whole slew of anti-middle class policies which were at least as destructive as Reagan’s.
RE: “It seems that every person has redeeming characteristics. The jury is still out on Dick Cheney, though.” – Avi
MY COMMENT: “Some people” think ‘Pricky Dick’ Cheney might be the Antichrist! But then, the “Reverend” John Hagee insists the Antichrist will be gay and “partially Jewish”.
SEE: Pastor Hagee: The Antichrist Is Gay, “Partially Jewish, As Was Adolph Hitler” (Paging Joe Lieberman!), By Max Blumenthal, 06/02/08
(EXCERPT) On March 16, 2003, on the eve of the United States’ invasion of Iraq, Pastor John Hagee took to the pulpit to warn of the coming Antichrist. In his sermon, “The Final Dictator,” Hagee described the Antichrist as a seductive figure with “fierce features.” He will be “a blasphemer and a homosexual,” the pastor announced. Then, Hagee boomed, “There’s a phrase in Scripture used solely to identify the Jewish people. It suggests that this man [the Antichrist] is at least going to be partially Jewish, as was Adolph Hitler, as was Karl Marx.”
This “fierce” gay Jew, according to Hagee, would “slaughter one-third of the Earth’s population” and “make Adolph Hitler look like a choirboy.”….
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to huffingtonpost.com
pineywoodslim,
I agree with your points entirely. I wasn’t trying to “bash” Reagan per se, merely stating a fact, however unpleasant it may be to people who disagree with you and I.
I misspoke when I said that Cheney was a human being, I’m of the opinion that he’s a reptile.
How Reagan Beat the Neocons
Of course they weren’t the neocons then, just protocons.
The protocons of zion? I’m not sure if…
Now they’re Decepticons – ever evolving..
you can’t con a con, you have to arrest them
The major point is that Obams need only go to his bully pulpit and speakd directly to the American masses about Israel’s stubborn alienation they say is justifed by the patented Holocaust to the detriment of the USA and to world peace, not even to mention the Palestinians are actually human , right over the heads of the USA whore congress, and we’d all be on the
way of a better world for everyone.
“patented” is an interesting way to put it. In the Defamation movie there’s a scene with Foxman in a meeting with the Ukranians. It was very much a discussion on brand protection. Nobody gets to use the “Holocaust” trademark, and that includes the Ukranians.
You know what?
It’s fine with me if the administration keeps spouting off about “the special relationship”, “shared values”, and all that malarkey.
Grating as it is to hear, the only thing that ultimately matters is US policy and the willingness of the administration to get serious with Israel.
I see no reason why the administration cannot keep spouting the usual platitudes and simultaneously crack down on Israel.
You’re forgetting one simple fact, pineywoodslim — when you live in a democratic society, truth matter. A lot. When truth gets lost, people end up voting for lies.
That’s exactly what happened to transform the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany.
If Obama went on national television and made the statement and told the truth to the American people, e.g., that Israel is an apartheid and pariah state, that statement would become the issue for the next few years, not Palestinian rights, not Israeli occupation, but that statement.
Aipac and the rest of the lobby would relish it, and I would expect they would find more than a little bit of sympathy from the American public abetted by the media.
Yes, in a democracy truth and information is a requisite. Yet, if the American public was truly informed and interested in the truth–and gathered that truth independently of the media and the elite–US public support for Israel would have gone out the window 20 yrs. ago.
I still think Obama’s best approach is to give Aipac and Israel absolutely no rhetorical ammunition. The only thing that matters is the concrete policy he pushes. Make nice in public and put the screws to Israel diplomatically.
Not to be argumentative, but that doesn’t matter. AIPAC and Israel can always fabricate more rhetorical ammunition from raw falsehood. Who here thinks Orly Taitz being Israeli is merely coincidental to the fact that we still have mainstream news outlets taking the “birther” movement at its word?
The flaw in your approach is that our government can’t do what you advise without huge public support; which means the masses have to be (finally) informed.
I’m skeptical he will do a damn thing.
“Once Petraeus said that perceptions of American one-sidedness put American lives in Afghanistan and Iraq at risk, the game was essentially over.” And the irony is that it was the lobby that pushed for the Iraq war! I guess love really is blind – in this case the lobby’s love of Israel no matter who’s at the helm.
The game isn’t over. Petraeus scored a point, but one point isn’t the game.
“Once Petraeus said that perceptions of American one-sidedness put American lives in Afghanistan and Iraq at risk, the game was essentially over.”
Another irony is that when you talk to the average person in Egypt, Qatar or Kuwait, they will tell you that America has always been one-sided in its treatment of the Israeli/Palestinian issue. Petraeus makes it sound as though it’s something new, as if he has just discovered the electricity.
has just discovered
theelectricity.The recollection by Geoffrey Kemp about Reagan phoning Begin and immediately getting his way is one of those convenient distortions of history that makes both sides comfortable when they shouldn’t be.
Up to that time, Reagan had been publicly calling on Israel for restraint, without effect, and had told Shamir who was visiting in Washington that Israel should halt its attacks on Beirut which were also ignored, including an earlier message that Reagan had sent to Begin. As a result Reagan was being ridiculed in the mainstream media, particularly in the Christian Science Monitor, that was not as beholden to the Zionist establishment as it is today.
That Reagan said that he didn’t know he had such power was very unlikely because he had no evidence the Israeli shelling would stop the shelling and, in fact, it was only gradually reduced, but Reagan could not have known it at the time. I have a number of clippings from that month which tell quite a very different picture than we get from this article and Kemp’s regained memory.
I have read about this famous phone call for many years, and always wondered if it was true. The story I read was that Deaver was appalled at what he was watching on TV (I remember being disgusted myself, since unlike today, the bombardment of Beirut was covered graphically almost every day), and that Deaver prevailed upon Reagan to pressure Begin. I didn’t discount the story out of hand, but was always aware that it couldn’t be confirmed in any meaningful way.
Phil Weiss – You make it sound like the path to Obama’s vision for an Israeli Palestinian peace is clear except for Israeli obstructions. Obama has yet to inform the world of his vision, but assuming that his vision is the same as Clinton’s vision of December 2000, there are quite a few obstructions also from the Palestinian side, not the least of which is the split between Hamas and Fatah and the Palestinian insistence on the right of return of their refugees to Israel itself.
And whose fault was that split? Oh right — our fault.
The Gaza Bombshell.
So you’re right. The path isn’t just obscured by Israeli obstacles. It is largely obscured by American obstacles as well.
Regarding the Palestinian right of return — how come you consider adherence to the Fourth Geneva Convention to be an obstacle, WJ? Is there something about basic human rights that is antithetical to Israel’s very existence, then?
Chaos- First- regarding Hamas: whatever caused the split in the first place, its existence has a life of its own other than the American or Israeli interest. There are those who view the idea of reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas as a negative (regarding the peace process) (because of Hamas’s hard line) and others who regard it as a positive, because all relevant political parties will be present and accounted for. But meanwhile the opportunity to sign a reconciliation between the Fatah and Hamas has been offered to Hamas and they have rejected it.
Regarding the right of return- My comment was primarily regarding the logistics, assuming that the peace treaty that Obama has in mind is the peace treaty that has been discussed until this point in time, there would be extreme limits on the right of return. My own position regarding the right of return is to limit the number allowed back into pre 67 Israel to 200,000 and that this limitation would have to be clear when the peace treaty is signed, so that there would not be a crisis lingering further down the road, but the peace treaty would clarify all issues.
I wonder whether the relevant Geneva conventions regarding return of refugees specifies regarding offspring of the refugees themselves.
There was a proposal included in Tikkun Magazine from about a half year or so ago, that involved allowing unlimited return of refugees into pre 67 Israel, but those refugees would be citizens of the new Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) and their voting rights would be in the new Palestine. The proposal seemed complicated and unlikely, but it did show the signs of creative thinking on the issue.
HAMAS was originally a spin off from the Muslim Brotherhood, which was mostly dormant as a practical matter until Israel recognized it and funded it as a counterweight to the PLO–the old divide and conquer strategy. This strategy is still in effect by USA-ISRAEL; witness the de facto nonrecognition of the democratic
election of HAMAS, which was objectively considered a good example of a real
democratic election. The USA and Israel simply didn’t like results as no proxy
governing Pal body was afforded.
The former leader of apartheid S Africa looked at the I-P situation and concluded that the key initial step for real peace is to sit down with the sworn enemy, as he did. Neither the USA or Israel has learned from this insight.
On the origins and development of HAMAS:
link to informationclearinghouse.info
So basically what you’re saying, WJ… is that Jewish “refugees” have privileged “right of return” to Israel — whereas Arabs must compromise.
Basically, you’re saying you think Israel has every right to legitimize its ethnic cleansing, in spite of international law, if that’s what it takes to preserve a reinrassig Israel. Because while there are no “logistical problems” moving millions of Jews around, apparently there are as soon as we’re talking goyim.
Thanks for the clarification.
And that is an outright lie.
From the Daily Star Feb. 15, 2010.
GAZA CITY: Palestinian groups including Hamas and Fatah held talks on Sunday in the Gaza Strip aimed at finding reconciliation between the factions, they said in a statement. The meeting, the first for two years according to Ayman Taha, a spokesman for Hamas in the Palestinian enclave, was designed to overcome obstacles to the signing of a reconciliation pact in Cairo late last year.
The deal, negotiated over several months under Egyptian mediation, was signed by Fatah by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but Hamas has so far refused to endorse it.
A) Daily Star, huh? Link, please.
B) It’s pretty well known that Mubarak has as much to gain from Israel’s attempts to destroy Hamas (and not coincidentally, the people who voted for them because — as you like to point out, albeit only when you think you can squeeze a talking point out of it — Mubarak is a virtual dictator with an army of secret police that rivals the population of small American cities.
And none of that disguises the fact that there is only a rift at all because Israel and the United States have conspired to engineer one.
You don’t get to shoot a man’s kneecap, and then claim victory in a footrace.
chaos, daily star just rean the story, its origin is AFP. it has a conflicting message..
RE: A) Daily Star, huh? Link, please. – Chaos4700
AFP ARTICLE OF 02/14/10 WITH IDENTICAL TEXT – link to france24.com
P.S. PALESTINE TELEGRAPH, 02/24/10: “…Hamas, justifying its reservations, says the Egyptian proposal has given Abbas an authority to set the date of elections and to decide on a committee that would be tasked to reform the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
As Egypt insists not to open the document for review or amendment, Al-Majdalawi said Hamas should first sign the proposal and its reservations can later be considered when the process to restore political unity between Gaza and the West Bank begins.
Earlier, Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, said the Islamic movement may accept the reconciliation proposal once it receives guarantees that its reservations would be reflected…
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to paltelegraph.com
Gasp! You mean WJ failed to link the original article and neglected to cite all of that information?! I can’t imagine that was a deliberate oversight on his part… can you?
Notice how Wandering Jew has diverted the discussion from whether a US president has the balls to confront Israel to a discussion about Hamas. This is not the first time this has happened on a thread and it is not likely a coincidence.
As for the article about Hamas, it contains quite a bit of hearsay and one must wonder what was the intention behind it being published for the US mainstream?
While it is true that Israel allowed Hamas to grow as a religious movement as opposed to the secular PLO, what is never mentioned is that the 1987 Intifada was a revolt not only against Israel but against the corrupt PLO which was headquartered in Tunis and the slogans of its communiques made that clear: “No Voice Above the Voice of the Uprising.”
From the beginning of that intifada to the signing of Oslo, Arafat did everything he could to undermine it, a history that is little known thanks to the Fatah dominated PA. That the article refers to the PLO as being Leftist is as accurate as calling Obama or the Democratic Party leftist.
The UPI aricles has other distortions as well but I’ll leave it at that.
That being said, it is better to focus on the article on Mondoweiss which is usually important rather than allowing the Zionist blog responders to divert attention away from it.
Show us where its a lie Chaos.
Show me where I said “lie” first. Because it’s not a “reconciliation” if you’re holding a metaphorical, electoral gun to one of the party’s heads.
And then of course, there’s the pertinent information annie brought up here.
Oh I’m sorry. Did your straw man just burst into flames? Again?
Chaos:
But meanwhile the opportunity to sign a reconciliation between the Fatah and Hamas has been offered to Hamas and they have rejected it.
And that is an outright lie.
So show me where that is an lie, or is did your tin man just turn to rust, again?
Ooooh! So you can read? How did you miss this then?
The split between Hamas and Fatah is perpetuated by the US administration, which has even pressed Israel not to make a prisoner exchange for Gilad Shalit, lest this strengthen Hamas and weaken the quisling Abbas.
As for the refugees, it is certainly their right to return to Israel, from which they were expelled. If Israel doesn’t want them to exercise this right, it needs to offer compensation. As it is, Israel is the party in violation, denying the refugees their rights, so the issue can hardly be called an obstruction from the Palestinian side.
i recall during the gaza massacre the agenda of the arab economic summit in qatar was totally diverted and instead focused on palestine specifically unification of hamas and fatah. as i recall it was turkey volunteered to mediate but elsewhere there was a real push by US/IS to ensure manipulation via cairo/Mubarak.
here is a 10/09 report from haaretz explaining the reservations.
The Tikkun Magazine proposal:
link to tikkun.org
WJ,
What do you think of Nieli’s “two-state condominialism” (which appears to amount to a de facto single state with two ethnically-defined nationalities)?
Shmuel,
It’s been a few months since I read the piece from beginning to end. I will do so now and give you my impression in about 24 hours.
Thanks, WJ. I like Nieli’s attempt at parity, although the idea of different civic status within the same territory, determined by ethnicity, would create a host of new problems without really addressing the fundamental difficulties presented by a single state. The idea of physical return of Palestinian refugees to all of Palestine, with the proviso of separate status, strikes me as an intellectual exercise that would not allay any of the fears or objections of Jewish Israelis to ROR. In any event, thinking outside the box (or boxes) is a good idea.
US and Canada is the best model.
Oh, so Israel should start handing out pox-ridden blankets, confining the Palestinian nation to reservations and where necessary, stealing Palestinian children from their families to be placed in Jewish evangelical orphanages, Witty?
All condo associations vote for the same common board of governance. Military outposts in foreign lands are not anything but that.
Nieli’s allowance for the Palestinian state’s military amounts to having
only a local police force. We’ve seen what happened to the newly-trained
Gaza police force at the start of the Gaza Turkey Shoot. Israel will still
be able to do whatever it wants in the name of “national security” and “self-defense.” Further, the Palestinian state would not be authorized to make
mutual defence treaties with other countries without Israel’s approval.
Nieli admits that is a major problem with his program; he simply says
otherwise Israel will never accept his plan.
I really don’t see how Palestinians living anywhere within the two-state condominialism land would feel very protected–merely policed by their
brethren. The extensive involvement of the UN for perpetuity and the make-up formula for the UN arbiters appears problematical.
I haven’t yet read the whole plan.
So, Richard, Israel has its own military force, and Palestine will have same in your best model?
When I read this section of the article:
“As part of the fundamental agreement, all current Israeli Arabs would be required to transfer their citizenship, national identity, and national voting rights-but not their residence-to the new Palestinian state. Israeli Arabs would retain their permanent right to live in Israel and they would also retain their current benefits under the Jewish welfare state (or be adequately compensated for the loss of them by another arrangement, such as a lump sum payment), but they would become citizens of-and permanent voting members of-the Palestinian state, not Israel.”
My immediate thought was that there is a very thin line between that proposal and a proposal that would institutionalize and legitimize apartheid.
piney, it is also designed to ensure settlers who remain in the west bank still get to vote in israel and remain citizens in israel. it’s bullshit.
Israeli Arabs would retain their permanent right to live in Israel
and their descendants? would they be afforded the same right? if not is amounts to delayed ethnic cleansing and if it does pertain to descendants there is no alternative than what you suggest here:
a proposal that would institutionalize and legitimize apartheid
Annie,
read the article, of course they would be afforded the same right.
Kind of immaterial, yonira, since the “solution” still exonerates and rewards Zionist terrorists for successfully purging the original area of Palestine of its majority Arab Muslim/Christian populations and replacing them with, among other groups, Caucasian Russian immigrants.
That’s still apartheid, no matter how you slice it.
So the only solution is to give all the land back to the Palestinians and force the Jews out? You’ve said it before, is this still your answer?
All you want to see is Zionists pay for their crimes, is this more important to you than a just solution? Does it all stem from your brief online encounter with a few Israelis? After apartheid ended(in SA), there were pardons, for both sides, this is how the world works Chaos.
Oh, so now we swing all the way from a straw man to a false dichotomy?
Why don’t you believe Jews should live with the rest of us “common people?” Why can’t Jews and Palestinians both live there, with equal rights? What exactly do you have against that?
According to the author of The Transparent Cabal, the Obama-Israel flap is merely only about fixing the immediate arupt flaw in the ongoing US-ISRAEL PR campaign to maintain the status quo:
link to youtube.com
Nothing will really change–it’s just not good for the US government or Israel if Israel does not appear to be a moderate state. Sort of like chastizing the WASP who got
drunk at the party and acted like a low-class mick–in the old days. Can’t have that!
Drags up too much publicity that might be used to reveal what’s going on always
below the surface. Who knows, carrying the analogy further, somebody might actually
reveal that Ireland cultivated enough to feed itself, even during the potato famine; the problem was that England took half of the Irish produce and whisked it away to England, leaving the Irish starving.
Mar-19-2010 22:01
The Complicated Faces of Anti-Semitism
Dr. Alan Sabrosky Salem-News.com
Exploring the three faces of anti-Semitism; two defined by assorted Gentiles and the third by Zionists.
Images: Alan Sabrosky and BlackCommentator.com
(JACKSON, Miss.) – I cannot speak for the situation elsewhere, but in the US, I doubt if there is a another definable group that equals or surpasses Jews in their achievements in so many different fields, their support for civil liberties and civil rights, and their philanthropy or general support of charitable causes.
But when Israel enters the equation, those truly admirable qualities are often set aside. Israeli bigotry, atrocities and crimes against humanity are largely ignored, excused or vociferously supported, and Jewish-dominated institutions such as the mainstream media pointedly refrain from publishing or reporting blatant contemporary examples of Israeli misconduct.
This brings to mind a conversation I had a few years ago with a Jewish friend whose parents met in a Nazi concentration camp. We were discussing something historical, and she remarked that Jews had been persecuted by almost everyone throughout their history. Said I (paraphrasing), well, what’s wrong with you? Said she, what’s wrong with us? Sure, I replied, it simply isn’t natural for any people to be so consistently disliked. Look at it in personal terms. If a few people I meet don’t like me, I can easily say the problem is with them. But if virtually everyone I meet hates or despises me, it is pretty hard to escape the conclusion that there is something fundamentally wrong with me, or with how I behave.
The Basis of Anti-Semitism
Now, Jews inveigh often and loudly against Anti-Semitism, which is itself a bit odd, coming from a people whose — well, “Anti-Gentilism” (i.e., everyone else) for lack of a better term — seems embedded in their religion and culture. The Books of Judges and Deuteronomy are awash in bloodshed, with Deuteronomy endorsing the slaughter of people who worshipped a different God. Now, those people were not threatening Jews; they just had chosen a different way to seek answers to the eternal questions of life and death. But to Jews, at least in their core scripture, this sufficed for their extermination, and their livestock and possessions as well. This trait alone would make Jews unwelcome — how many people willingly reside next to their own executioners, simply for the crime of existing?
Then there is the problem of dealing with a people whose religion includes a major holiday — Passover (or Pesach) — based on mass infanticide. True, the side of the Passover coin presented to the world is that of God “passing over” the Jewish homes en route to punish the Egyptians for keeping them in captivity. But the other side of that Passover coin is the punishment itself, the killing on behalf of the Jews of all of the first-born of Egypt: not just of Pharaoh, or of Pharaoh’s priests and ministers and generals, who might reasonably have been held responsible for that captivity, but of the poor peasants and fishermen and even prisoners as well, who had no conceivable role in it at all. Hating people who praise their God for murdering your children is not at all irrational — it would be as if America made the firebombing of Dresden and the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into national holidays, and added some divine glorification to it as well. Not pretty, to say the least.
The Three Faces of Anti-Semitism
From this derive the three faces of anti-Semitism, two defined by assorted Gentiles and the third by Zionists. The first is essentially the Roman view, highlighted in the Jewish War that ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple and the dispersal of the remnants of the population. This did not see Jews as the problem, but rather an armed Jewish state — i.e., how Jews collectively behave in an organized polity. Even while the armies of Titus were battering Jerusalem down, thriving Jewish communities existed in virtually every city of consequence throughout the Empire, including Rome itself.
The second defines Jews as a people and as individuals as disposable for any of a variety of reasons. It predominated in much of Christian Europe for centuries (and parenthetically was almost unknown in the Muslim world), and culminated in the Nazi Holocaust. This would make no distinction between an Israel Shamir and a Yitzhak Shamir, or even me; all could go.
And the last form is the so-called “new” anti-Semitism, defined by assorted Israeli governments and Israel’s advocates overseas as any criticism whatsoever of any Israeli domestic or foreign policy, and thus an “existential threat” to Israel itself. This is now the favored usage of the term by Israeli partisans, intended to protect Israel from criticism or sanctions abroad, and to stifle debate over its actions.
Anti-Semitism Reconsidered
Of these three forms of anti-Semitism, the last is an understandable political ploy for a country that cannot survive open disclosure of its attitudes, internal practices and policies. Being nonsense does not make it ineffective, of course, given the extent of its media support and the money poured into political coffers on its behalf.
The second is neither ridiculous nor nonsense. It is an exercise in criminal idiocy that merits condemnation, whether perpetrated by (e.g.) the Inquisition, the Black Hundreds or the Nazi SS.
But the first is on the mark, and the pragmatic Romans got this right. Whether the scriptural affinity for bloody-mindedness reflects the Jewish culture or affected it over time is immaterial. Either way, the outcome is an exceptionally nasty people within an armed and independent Jewish state, ranking at least up (or down) there with the Huns and the ancient Assyrians.
The oddity is that as individuals without an organized Jewish state, what one sees is admirable achievements instead of aggressive abominations. Without a Jewish state, the dark side of Judaism has no way to express itself, so the admirable side of the Jewish cultural coin — and there is a great deal to admire — shines instead. Getting there without a catastrophe is our task in the years ahead.
I have serious issues with these kinds of arguments; arguments that rely on reading Jewish religious texts to analyze any part of their behavior as a people.
The truth is that Israel violates human rights in the manner that it does primarily because Israel is a colonial settler state based on an outdated 19th century view of the world and nationalism in general.
Israel is merely doing what every other settler colonial state before it has done. It is merely reacting (in an extremely violent manner) to the natural resistance of the indigenous population that they have ethnically cleansed, brutally occupy, and subject to apartheid.
There is nothing intrinsic about the Jewish psyche that makes Israel capable of committing the crimes against humanity that it does. Israel is a settler colonial state, and is merely doing what every other settler colonial state before it has attempted to do.
In any case these are the same kind of arguments that are used by the neocons and their “thinkers” to smear the entire Islamic identifying world.
Its akin to saying that all one has to do to understand Americans is to read their “Constitution” and understand the(ir) “Bible” (because most Americans are Christians).
It completely takes out the hundreds of years of history that are built upon founding documents, completely removes the effect that popular culture can play on the psyche of a people, and in essence reduces understanding an entire people to merely a few of their historical documents. Documents that these communities themselves have put through intense scrutiny and tend to interpret in ways that aren’t so literal.
While Israel indeed a colonial settler state and has exhibited traits and committed actions that have been done by other such states, one has to be myopic not to see the direct links that those traits and actions have to the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, which has served as the guidebook for not only Israel’s Orthodox who spend their lives ingesting its racist poisons, but for those in Israel’s secular Jewish community who have used it opportunistically.
Moreover, there has been no other settler colonial state, or any state of any kind that has been able to exercise the control over a nation’s political class as has Israel, and that control extends in astonishing degree to the political class of every other Western country.
Israel became a settler colonial state at a time when the world was moving in the opposite direction and if the settlers had been any other people or religion than Jews it not only never would have succeeded, it never would have been tolerated in the first place. That is has succeeded, if one wishes to call it that, and in so doing has disfigured much of what is left of our democracy has it roots, all of which must be honestly examined.
This is what I wrote on this weekend’s CounterPunch and tell me if any other settler colonial state has ever demonstrated such power:
link to counterpunch.org
Jeffrey,
I will not argue comparisons between Israel and other colonial states, because you know far more about that subject than I do. I would like to point out however, that the Bible (whether the Pentateuch, the books of Joshua and Judges or the accounts of the Davidic dynasty and the conquest/establishment of Jerusalem in the books of Samuel and Kings) – to the extent that it was used as a tool for recruitment and indoctrination in the early phases of Zionism and Israel’s first decade(s) (as was socialism – see Zeev Sternhell’s book on the subject), it has not been the case for many years. Secular Israelis tend to be ignorant of the Bible and consider it archaic, boring drivel they are forced to read at school. Their commitment to Zionism and the State of Israel is based on Holocaust, fear, nationalism and colonialist racism rooted far more in modern history and their contemporary experiences as Israelis, than in ancient mythology – beyond the simple “we were here, we were kicked out, we came back to claim what was ours”. For most Israelis today, Devarim (Heb. for Deuteronomy – lit. words or things) just means stuff, and Shoftim (Heb. for Judges) are football refs or dudes with black glowns and gavels.
The main reason Jews were allowed to start their colonial enterprise just as others were winding down (although it still took a few years – eg. Algeria or white rule in southern Africa) was because of the Holocaust, not religion or Scripture.
The main reason …
And of course (neo-colonial?) geopolitical interests.
Shmuel,
Granted that most secular Israeli Jews will have nothing to do with the Torah, when stretched for arguments, many will fall back on simplified biblical justification to justify Israel’s ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians people. Be they secular or religious, you know as well as I do, that the feeling of Jewish superiority that is inculcated into the mindset of almost every Jewish child–I was spared but my friends weren’t–leads to the same racist conclusions as of those subscribing to the Torah and whose pronouncements about Amalek and eliminating Israel’s enemies, described in Old Testament terms, have become commonplace in Israel without causing any major uproar from the secular Zionists.
It is also true today that the ultra religious percentage of the population including the volunteering of religious crazies into the “elite” units of the Israeli military is on the rise and as we have seen their rabbis are using OT terms to describe Israel’s Arab enemies.
While the holocaust has often been used as an excuse for support for the establishment of a Jewish state and did win over most Jewish non-zionists in its wake, Israel was already a state in waiting before the holocaust since the British had allowed the Jews in Palestine to build all the essentials of a modern state, something Israel patently refused to do when it came to the Palestinians.
For the rest of the world, it took the arm twisting by the Zionist lobby at that time to get the partition vote approved and as now, it was domestic US politics, not its or any other country’s geopolitical interests that got them to vote for partitioning Palestine and establishing a Jewish state.
Kinda hard to understand Americans without realizing their Constitution protects freedom of religion and separation of Church and State is a symbotic main value–so I really don’t get your analogy.
symbiotic Constitional value
No doubt I agree that the Constitution is important to many Americans, but how many Americans have actually read the constitution and really base their lives around it?
Furthermore, is it truly possible to reduce every individual Americans actions down to the constitution? Does not pop culture, class, demographics, regional, municipal, and other factors play a heavy role in creating the psyche of each individual American today?
In any case I do agree that the OT may have an effect on the Israeli and perhaps wider Jewish psyche, but I just can’t see the OT being the primary motivation behind every individual Jewish or Israeli action.
I agree with Shmuel when he says that the Holocaust, fear, ethnic nationalism, and colonialism are far more primary in describing Israeli policy towards the colonized and perhaps even to the rest of the world. If the OT is brought up, I believe it acts only to support those notions and not as a cassus belli for those notions.
@Jeffrey
I agree that had Israel not been a state for Jews, that its colonial regime would have never survived this long. But I don’t think this has much to do with the OT more than it has to do with western guilt over the holocaust etc.
israel and its zionist supporters don’t seem to get that the world has reached a tipping point and will not tolerate their serial war-crimes any longer … a peace deal will be imposed upon them if they don’t come up with a viable one themselves, period
jews can live in peace and propserity anywhere they want if they don’t try to dominate and control everything and everybody under cover of official victimhood … nobody’s buying the lie anymore – not when so much power is concentrated in zionist hands
yes, jews are going to have to move – back behind the ’67 lines in some places, the ’48 lines in others, and 2011 lines in yet others and refugee Palestinians are coming back
israeli citizens need to put in check their racism, learn to share, and drop their elitism and exceptionalism … oh, and there will never be a Third Temple built ever