Sober Yossi Klein Halevi (a favorite of Isabel Kershner’s in the New York Times) writing in the New Republic about the new blood libel, the idea that Israel’s brutal occupation is in any way, shape, fashion or form, endangering American security:
The administration, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Yedito Aharonot, is making an even more insidious accusation against Israel. During his visit, wrote Yediot Aharanot, Biden told Israeli leaders that their policies are endangering American lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. The report has been denied in the White House. Whether or not the remark was made, what is clear today in Jerusalem is that Obama’s recklessness is endangering Israeli–and Palestinian–lives. As I listen to police sirens outside my window, Obama’s political intifada against Netanyahu seems to be turning into a third intifada over Jerusalem.
“Blood libel” is even more ridiculously over-deployed than “anti-semite.”
It has apparently been used by many groups throughout history, but in modern times
is used only by radical groups or individuals. How does the storm about the
Israelis harvesting Palestinian body organs sit with notion? It appears said organs were indeed taken without permission.
link to en.wikipedia.org
I’d been trying to get Witty or WJ to address that back when it first broke. Not surprisingly, they fell silent.
Great. We can start making a list of all these organizations and publications that are undermining a war-time President, after calling “traitor” anyone who dared so much as question the prior war-time President, who also happens to be the first African-American to be President, for having the gall to place the interests of safety of American troops over the interests of wealth and power of Israeli lobbyists. Our grandchildren will want to know why America died, after all.
What I think is amazing about this is Obama hasn’t said a goddamn thing yet. This is why he’s weak. He’s going to get crucified whether or not he takes a stand.
Yeah, maybe he should pick up the Washington Post and read the article in there
defending poor widdle Israel against Obama’s massive bullying of it, which the Post describes as typical of American presidents, e.g., Bush Sr.
… Obama’s political intifada against Netanyahu seems to be turning into a third intifada over Jerusalem.
It’s Pres. Obama’s fault that Palestinians in Jerusalem are protesting Israeli plans to ethnically cleanse them and build more colonies near their Al-Aqsa Mosque? Halevi is bat-shit crazy.
There are sins that the current government of Israel is committing, for example throwing Palestinians out of Sheikh Jarrah and continuing to build in Gilo and Ramat Shlomo. But these colonies are not near the Al Aqsa Mosque. As far as dedicating the Hurva synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the old City, this too is not near the Al Aqsa Mosque, but firmly in the Jewish Quarter and to consider the Jewish Quarter a colony seems to be stretching the term a bit.
Good point, WJ. It’s not as if Israelis are kicking the Arab residents out of any homes in East Jerusalem, or denying access to the Al Aqsa Mosque or… oh wait. Actually, they are. Fancy that.
The Hurva synagogue flap is not about the synagogue itself but a prediction supposedly made centuries ago by some hoary rabbi, that when the Hurva was rebuilt it would mean the rebuilding of the Temple. Whereupon the usual extremists decided they wanted to do a cornerstone laying ceremony at al-Aqsa, which understandably set off the Muslims.
lol, i KNEW this was going to happen. it was just a matter of time. israeli hasbara is so predictable. pass the smelling salts!
i absoltely love it obama hasn’t spoken a peep. this is starting to hum like a well orchestrated machine. i bet israel is shitting bricks they arn’t invited to the quartet meeting.. or maybe they are? oh well. obama has positioned himself very well thru this. cool calm and collected, hopefully with nerves of steel. i think he may just be unflappable.
We’ll know when we hear him speak at the next AIPAC conference. I think it’s a win/win whatever he does.
If he reads them the riot act (staggeringly unlikely) then we’ll know he’s willing to move to put American interests, and elementary morality, first. If he grovels the sight will merely wake up anyone watching (and more people will be paying attention this time) who might be unconvinced of the power of the Israel Lobby to set US foreign policy in the Middle East.
If he tries to split the middle, as VP Biden did, he’ll leave everyone dissatisfied. The Israel Lobby will be no less hostile. Would-be supporters will only hold him in greater contempt. New observers will see the President of the United States, supposedly the most powerful man in the world, refuse to exercise his power over a hostile special interest after it was given to him by a majority of US citizens.
I hope he is being meek in the hopes of getting even a bad health care package passed by Congress, and will come out kicking crotch when he either succeeds or gives up.
Your last sentence might just be Obama’s ticket. If the health package passes, it
will boost his power and he may just feel he can then use it on the I-P debacle.
oh no, israel, the lap-dog barks out one little yelp and the sky is falling!
A “blood-libel”? Wow, that’s upping the verbal ante! But wait — I always though that a (or formerly “the”) blood-libel was an accusation that (some/all) Jews were deliberately undertaking actions whose purpose and likely outcome was spilling gentile blood by unjustified killing.
So has anyone said that Israel was doing its settlement-thang with the purpose and likely outcome of spilling American blood?
(Of course, a good deal of Palestinian blood has been spilled and one would imagine that at least some of that was purposeful (and unjustified). But we all know that great powers get to do a lot of things that would be crimes if done by individuals. That’s why GPs never refer to State Terrorism — although they do speak of (rogue) states supporting terrorists.)
Phil Weiss used the term blood libel. I did not see the term in Klein Halevi’s article.
I suppose Witty’s not here to try to draw attention away from the content of the article itself by quibbling uselessly over the headline, so one of you Zionists has to pick up the slack.
If I have time later, I could pretend.
Yes, WJ, I noticed that too. I guess what Phil suggests in his usage context is that
the mere voicing by a high US official (especially in public) that rubber-stamping endless
land grabs by Israel is not in the US’s best interest and endangers US troops in the Middle East has resulted in Israel Firsters bellowing out that’s (tantamount to) a blood libel on all Jews. In short, the attack on Obama is basically saying he and his minions are simple anti-semites. Else why would they bring innocent and peaceful Israel up by the short hairs the way they did?
Um, does someone have to declare what they are doing, for someone else to know what they are doing?
Gosh you’re dumb, WJ. Pathetic too actually. “Phil Weiss” blah blah. Yea, just like how you passive-aggressively raged at the blog’s content when you first showed up here, by prefacing every whiny post you made with ‘Mr. Weiss blah blah’.
Grow up. Aren’t you super old too?
Then it’s obvious that the terms anti-semite and blood libel have to be defanged with some inventive humor.
If people cower and refuse to do the right thing because these terms are used — add conspiracy theorist in there, while you’re at it — then it’s time to take the power of these words away.
The simple matter is that now US foreign policy is being dictated to by the Shas party in another foreign country, a religious group, in a country that has as one of its basic tenets: separation of church and state.
Balls out lunacy. Americans have to say ‘piss on you’.
Rosenberg writes today: “AIPAC is coming to Washington on Sunday for its three day pressure-fest (see video) and it will task its membership to go to the Hill and tell Senators and House members to stand with Netanyahu on settlements.”
General Petraeus (in his Senate Armed Services testimony) said that the “perception” that the United states supports settlements “would only harm US interests in the Muslim world starting with US troops.”
With Israeli settlements on the one hand and the safety and security of US troops on the other, it will be interesting to see just how American your Congress/Senate is.
this could be AIPAC’s Waterloo … tee-hee (oh, this is getting to be too much fun)
The Ike of our day – Patraeus – now stands as the bulwark against the israeli-Firster crowd and American interests – let’s just see how the American people react
… go on, AIPAC, I dare ya, ballbust Congress to stand with israel and land-grap/ethnic-cleansing settlements over American military leadership and interests … Congress has an approval-rating of what? 7%
“The Ike of our day – Patraeus –”
Good God, whatever your smoking, I hope I never get any. And you can’t even spell his name right.
So you figure invading Iraq is equivalent to taking back Euorope from the Nazis?
Ho-Kay!
Well, it is in the movies, Mooser, and you know that’s the only thing that counts. Just like most Americans thought we only went to war to fight Nazis, when most troops hardly knew anything about what was going on…we got into the war to fights Japs, remember? Germans were a treaty obligation. And the entire main part of WWII between the Nazis and whomever else was fought on the Eastern Front. That ‘whomever else’ was the Russia. It was the Soviets and Nazis who made up the majority of WWII; we helped bankroll Stalin to deal with it. Ike really only showed up for D-Day in June 1944; before that he was hanging out in British clubs as Supreme High Commander.
But of course, Americans dont know this shit because Hollywood says otherwise.
I don’t know, maybe unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans, extending to torpedoing boats in New York harbor may have caused some slight irritation with the Germans.
But anyway, I say don’t count on Petreaus for anything except trouble. The noises he’s making have more to do with his own ambitions than anything else. Any good which may happen by bringing the debate out into the open will be good, of course.
The relationship of the US military and Israel has not changed, as far as I know, and I’ll be glad if it does.
Sure, he’s a Perfumed Prince. But, Mooser, dont you think he’s a good barometer for what the Commander-in-Chief thinks. He was all for Bush/Cheney’s ambitions before; now he’s read the writing on the wall.
Another thing, just to be serious here, all the oil-producing countries are in Petraeus’ CENTCOM. China needs multo-fuel. The Arabic oil-producing states have a cudgel. They can sell their oil to China for much less aggravation. The US, then, needs to haul it in from Nigeria and Venezuela and wherever, to meet the troops’ fuel needs. Currently, the 800,000 gal/day costs ‘all in’ at $400/gal. in Afghanistan. That’s hauling it from the Afghan border. China isn’t all over Africa because it wants to help the natives. It needs fuel. China is about to put the screws to the US, as the arrogant NYT op-ed show today. China has 97% of the rare earth that American companies think they will have access to in all these so-called green energy items they think are going to save the economy. And while we debated health care and Israel’s heine last year, China was mopping up the rest of the rare earth contracts in Latin America.
oh, jesus, the typos. arrggh.
Germany declared war on the US (in accordance with treaty obligations) a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It’s possible that, had Gemany not done so, the US would have refused to declare war on Germany but fought only Japan. You should note that while the US was technically neutral up to Pearl Harbor, they were already providing substantial aid to the Allied side. The British were being provided with arms and supplies on favorable terms, and no such supplies were being sent to the Axis. Convoys across the Atlantic were being escorted by US warships for the Western part of the journey.
The US was already trading with other countries through the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed the US to “lend” countries like Britain war materials in exchange for money. The Nazis knew this, but the real event that got us into the war was Pearl Harbor. Japan saw our navy as a threat to it’s imperialistic desire to have power over all of Asia and the Pacific. The same US navy, which was conveniently, yet threateningly positioned nearly half way between the US and Japan. Japan could not control its military leaders; General Tojo took his own action by attacking at Pearl Harbor.
After a meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt, it was agreed that the British and Americans would have a “Germany first” policy. Whether the Americans would have declared war on Germany had not Hitler made the decision for them is one of the great unanswered questions of history. The US was completely isolationist prior to 7 December 1941 – Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program got through Congress by one vote. Probably the US would have eventually entered the war against Germany without Hitler’s declaration of war on the US, but likely not on such a grand scale; and almost certainly not with Germany being given priority over Japan.
A practical reason why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor was that the US was effectively cutting of Japan’s oil supply. The US emotional reaction to Pearl Harbor was the same as its reaction to 9/11. Many such background items
contributing to WW1, and its product, WW2 eventually come out in the history books–long after the castrophe. Those who fight the wars and pay personally so high a price–are just indoctrinated pawns in the game–on all sides. We see how that has been playing out regarding Iraq, Afghanistan,
Palestine, and–now up front on the elite agenda: Iran. Will the US regime
consider such heavy lessons in behalf its mass populace? Don’t hold your breath. When the Brits and the Zionists acted, their model was making an analogy to Ulster, with the Zionists playing the part of the joint Brit-Protestant Irish colonial power, leaving the Irish Catholic natives as akin to the Palestinians. The sacrifice of the American Irish immigrants, for instance in the Civil War (on both sides, but many more on the Union side), and their assimilation into US society–eventually led to an independent Ireland. Since the Palestinians do not have such an historical connection
to US history, it must rely on the Nuremberg principles and the Geneva
conventions, etc if they ever hope to have their own independence. There are many parallels between the Irish and the Jews regarding the role of the USA leading up to the respective independent states of Ireland and Israel–
Yeah, radii, can you imagine the phone campaign to congress if these congressional loons fall on their sword for Israel over US troops?
Rosenberg lists the congressmen willing to do it, and those who wont. Way to go, Rosenberg!
Mj Rosenberg also linked to Juan Cole’s piece today. As he says, Juan Cole eviscerates Jeffrey Goldberg, and indeed he does. Such fun to read.
link to juancole.com
That is the only possible deal: conceding my right of return to Greater Israel in exchange for your right of return to Greater Palestine.
oh!!! now the ‘right of return’ is for all of greater israel! so good of him to inform us.
Reading of blood libel here, I am reminded of the quote of an IDF soldier just before the beginning of Operation Cast Lead as reported in the Huffington Post which quickly pulled it. “The purification of Gaza is about to begin.” This sounded like a weird variation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which, in this case, seemed to give religious sanctity to the massacre of the Gazans. I assumed this soldier was given a kind of blessing from a rabbi in advance of the slaughter that was about to take place. Chilling and creepy at the same time.
…what is clear today in Jerusalem is that Obama’s recklessness is endangering Israeli–and Palestinian–lives.
Does Halevi live in a parallel universe? It would certainly seem that way given the tortured logic of his claim. If anyone is being reckless, it is Israel, Netanyahu, Livni, Lieberman (both Israeli and American ones), Foxman and Shayshon and the list goes on.
These people wouldn’t last 5 minutes in an honest debate on this issue. They will have to resort to character assassination, name-calling or unadulterated hypocrisy.
And while we’re at it, how about these liars stop pretending they actually CARE about Palestinians lives. I certainly never heard a peep from them when dozens of children in Gaza were slaughtered by Israel’s army on the first DAY of the attack.
It’s getting to the point where listening to their lies is quite insulting.
if it werent for jews wealth and media dominance the USA would not be costantly groveling towards jews or israel…on top of that we have a zionist running the FED and a bunch of his friends sitting in top finance positions in the US. I use to watch C-Span…years ago, they would have the israel amb to the US on and he would get hammered by the callers….the all of a sudden C-span went neocon….more and more hard core zionist showed up with no calls permitted… anytime I’ve turned it on lately there is a jew promoting soemthing. I have not watched anything on there in a long long time…
Boy is Natanyahu’s ‘Damage Control’ department on overload or what?!
link to news.bbc.co.uk
For the life of me, I cannot understand Israel’s hamhandedness regarding US relations.
For decades, Israel has been able to successfully diplomatically finesse any and all charges against it–at least relative to the US.
In light of Gaza, peace talks, East Jerusalem, etc., etc., it would seem that Israel would employ much smoother talk and action. Time has proven this to be Israel’s most successful tack.
I just wonder why slicker Israeli PR folks haven’t taken the lead and figured out a more efficacious rhetoric to achieve their goals.
Simple. The Lobby. In the United States unless you bow down to Israel, your political career gets torpedoed.
It’s all about the Benjamins. And since the Supreme Court has affirmed that “free speech” actually comes at premium expense, Jewish Zionist corporate control of virtually all forms of media in the United States just got an that much more powerful.
The Zionist Lobby has been waging a war on American progressives since Carter forced Israel to the negotiation table. The result? Well, how is health care reform and banking sector finance regulation going?
Everything in DC moves to the beck and call of Zionist dogma. You can believe that if Joe Lieberman were anything other than a Zionist Jew, he’d be the least powerful person in the Senate thanks to his shenanigans. Instead, he is arguably the most powerful one. Who else could have single-handedly derailed health care reform?
I immediately thought of Joe Leieberman before I got to your plast paragraph. It’s blatently obvious to me that Lieberman will do anything to further his Israel First agenda, even hold the health of all US citizens captive to his demands. Yet he keeps getting elected… When’s the next time he will have to defend his Senator chair? Maybe by then his constituency will finally wake up?
pineywoodslim,
The short answer is “arrogance + 9/11″.
The long answer is this:
Which country is currently the superpower in the world? The US.
A superpower is effectively a role model, a big brother, if you will. If big brother does something and manages to get away with it, then little brother assumes that he too can get away with the same act.
In response to 9/11 and the Bush administration’s broad and global — albeit vague and undefined — war on terror Israel felt that it too could hitch a ride on the coattails of that new wave. Think of it as the rush hour street savvy taxi driver who takes advantages of an ambulance speeding by with lights and siren making its way through traffic like Moses parting the sea. That Taxi driver gets behind the ambulance and literately chases it until he reaches his destination.
When the US went into Afghanistan in 2001, guns blazing and bombers whirring, Israel did the taxi driver routine. It felt emboldened, reassured and as though its actions from then on were going to be met with approval the world over. Hence came the massacre in Jenin in 2002, the targeted extra-judicial killings and kidnappings, the siege in 2006 and several other campaigns which have slipped my mind at the moment. If in 1996 Peres was feigning regret after bombing a UN refugee base in southern Lebanon which killed a few hundred civilians, in 2006 when the Israeli army carried out wholesale slaughter in southern Lebanon Israeli generals and leaders were not apologetic. To the contrary, Israel officially adopted the Dahiya doctrine and boasted of its insane strategy.
The US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the 4 million Iraqis turned refugees overnight, the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and the total destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure set a precedent. They indicated to the world that in the name of fighting global terrorism, anything and everything was justified. And when the US carried on with its business as usual without suffering any real consequence, Israel, little brother, was emboldened. So, little brother high on his own power and arrogance started losing respect for his big brother.
This is not OT, although it would appear to be. It isn’t.
Read this review of Tony Judt latest book in the NYT.
link to nytimes.com
“The reason for Palestinian rejection of a two-state solution is because a deal would require Palestinians to confine the return of the descendants of the 1948 refugees to Palestine rather than to Israel. That would prevent a two-state solution from devolving into a bi-national, one-state solution. Israel’s insistence on survival remains the obstacle to peace.”
Exactly. The Palestinians will only accept a deal that means the end of Israel.
If Israel prefers a two state solution to a one state solution due to demography,
then why has Israel been grabbing ever more land for over 4 decades, eating the leftover pie upon which any future Palestinian state is to stand ,
the 22% of Palestinian land left over from the original Mandate land?
If memory serves, since Clinton’s peache process time, the settlement population has at least doubled, with no end in sight–the fact beneath the current US-Israel squabble. A reasonable conclusion be, not that the Palestinians will only accept a deal that means the end of Israel, but rather, that the Israelis will only accept a deal
that places the Palestinians fully under Israeli control with nothing but the Palestinian flag pretending to sovereign state status. In such a scenario, the only one offered to date by the Israelis, Palestinians will retain their current status
as second-class humans, albeit with their own second-class state. No Israeli ever settled for that, so why should the natives?
“. No Israeli ever settled for that, so why should the natives? ”
Because they are just natives, of course.
As Selima (?) so succinctly put it, “We matter and you don’t”.