The U.S. House of Representatives just voted 410-4 to authorize delivering an extra $205 million of our taxpayer dollars to Israel - on top of the $3 billion in military assistance already in the pipeline for FY2011. H.R.5327, the United States-Israel Missile Defense Cooperation and Support Act, was introduced just two days ago, after the Obama Administration notified Israel that it would support the authorization and appropriation of funds for Israel to purchase ten batteries of the "Iron Dome" missile defense system.
Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, and nearly all the other "progressives" voted for the bill. (The complete roll call results are here.) The only "No" votes came from John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, and Pete Stark. Kucinich and Paul have pretty consistently opposed aid to Israel, but Conyers' vote is a pleasant surprise, as he has only rarely dared to stand up to the Israel lobby. Stark, the least prominent of the four, is a moderately liberal Democrat who represents the southeastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. According to Wikipedia, he is the first, and so far only, openly atheist member of Congress. Though he hasn't often spoken out about the Middle East, he was among the 54 reps who signed the letter to Obama in January calling for an end to the siege of Gaza. And he, like Lee, was feted at the Democratic Party function last week in Castro Valley where some of us demonstrated to demand an end to aid for Israel - we were focused on Lee, but perhaps we had some effect on Stark?
The bill specifically authorizes funding for "Iron Dome," a high-tech system that's supposed to defend against Katyusha rockets (fired by Hezbollah into northern Israel in 2006) and the Qassam projectiles Palestinian resistance forces in Gaza lob over the wall toward Sderot and adjacent areas. Israel has been working on the system for years, but Haaretz reported last week that "The Israel Defense Forces ducked away from funding the project with its budget, explaining that offensive readiness was a higher priority, and the Defense Ministry has been looking for other budgetary avenues." With Obama and Congress stepping into the breach, the IDF will now be free to devote all its resources to "offensive readiness."
The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has an action alert with useful talking points about the new bill here.
Israel’s committment to the safety of its citizens is inspirational! This is undoubtedly why the citizens of Sderot, the destination of tours designed to showcase the horrors of Qassam rockets, still have no shelters from them. It would diminish the photo-op value.
You can click on your state on the map Phil linked to, and then click on your county or city to see what your share of the free dole to Israel would buy
if spent in your own neighborhood, rather than to free Israel to engage in more aggressive warfare at your expense.
The map website is link to
I notice that Joe Sestak voted FOR the measure.
That’s heartwarming.
Sestak is that bold, compassionate rep who insisted that the US Department of Defense include $50 million — yes that much!! — in the Defense budget, for treatment of PTSD in soldiers returning from US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thank You Representative Sestak!
The estimated 90,000 US soldiers who suffer from PTSD will be mighty grateful that you have seen fit to throw $555. to them to try to reclaim their lives.
Missiles in the Iron Dome defense cost about $10,000 each; the Khassam’s they’re too defend against cost five bucks apiece. Over the past ten years, about 1,072 Israelis have been killed, incident to Arab-Israeli conflict. 600 Israeli soldiers suffer from wounds as a result of their involvement in Israeli-Arab or Israeli-Lebanon wars.
Since 2003, about 4,300 American soldiers have died and over 31,000 wounded, in addition to the estimated 90,000 returning US soldiers who suffer from PTSD.
_______
Turns out it doesn’t matter anyway what Obama does to placate US Jews; it’s not enough.
This letter is a response to a report by Ron Kampeas about a meeting in Washington, DC, between Rahm Emmanuel, Dennis Ross, and 15 rabbis from across the US. Kampeas’s report included disclosure that Obama had promised the $205 million funding for Iron dome.
Hey, no problem Mr. Jeser; give back the $205 million. US soldiers maybe can use it.
I think the USA could use that 3 billion direct and 3 billion indirect financial aid to Israel annually also. If the Israel’s can’t find it in their budget to pay for protection of their citizens against cheap rockets, why does the USA pick up the tab–it’s so well-off these days?
In the same way that you don’t need to blow up every brick in a building to bring it down, people need to understand that the Israel Lobby doesn’t have to control EVERYTHING or everybody in order to fulfil its objectives. This vote is just further proof that where US middle east foreign policy is concerned, the lobby is in control – utterly! When 99 percent of the house of reps votes this way it becomes way too simple to call them cowards.
Back to the issue at hand. Stark has probably the best voting record in the House when it comes to opposing AIPAC but since he never makes speeches about it (or apparently is asked to by Bay Area activists who have ignored him) AIPAC lets him alone.
That the retiring rep from Cindy Corrie’s district Brian Baird, plus Keith Ellison, Jim Moran (who blamed the Jewish establishment for the Iraq war but who has since been gelded) and Nick Rahall (who usually votes against aid to Israel) voted for the appropriation is another indication that at this point in time, despite criticism from outside the beltway and on the net, the pro-Israel Leviathan is more powerful than ever.
I tremendously respect your perspective, Mr. Blankfort, but from where I stand, the issue at hand IS that the United States government is giving four times as much money to Israel to defend 10 lives, than it is giving to 90,000 US soldiers to repair their lives, damaged, perhaps forever, due to Israeli and Israel lobby lies and warmongering.
time for a revolution.
I believe that many progressives and people who believe in Obama think that if they placate Israel with the Iron Dome, Obama will have the leverage to get concessions from Israel on other issues.
Of course this is highly unlikely, but this is probably what many members in Congress have been told in order to convince them to vote on the matter.
After all, the missile dome is technically “defensive” technology.
James Bradley, heard that same trope all thru Obama’s campaign, all thru his first year in office.
No more.
Giving money to a rich man so that he can save his own resources to kill people is NOT “leverage” or a political expedient. It’s immoral. It’s insane. And it’s well past time to call him on it, to make it clear to the American Congress and the American people that our leaders are more interested in sucking up to a bunch of spoiled rotten, murderous thugs than they are in treated wounded US soldiers.
By god I will not be quiet. this shit ends NOW.
Mr. Bradley, the strategic purpose of the missile “defense” dome is clearly not defensive. Hizbollah is not going to launch an offensive, unprovoked rocket attack against Israel.
Rather, the purpose is purely offensive. It enables Israel to protect its northern flank against retaliatory missiles from Lebanon when Israel launches its sudden, unprovoked air attacks against Iran.
Thus, to no one’s surprise the Congress, at the direction of AIPAC, is facilitating the impending Israeli (and American) hot war against Iran.
I agree with Jeff Blankfort: All the evidence points to steadily increasing power of the Lobby to get whatever it demands.
It won’t be the first time Israel connived more funds/military equipment
out of Uncle Sam by threatening to go beserk, including with its nukes.
FWIW, here’s “House Hall of Fame” section of the most recent “report card” on Congress from the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (link to endtheoccupation.org
covering the current Congress through Feb. 15 of this year:
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) +9
Nick Rahall (D-WV) +8
John Olver (D-MA) +7
Keith Ellison (D-MN) +7
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) +7
Jim McDermott (D-WA) +7
Pete Stark (D-CA) +6
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) +6
John Dingell (D-MI) +6
Betty McCollum (D-MN) +6
Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) +6
Jim Moran (D-VA) +6
Lois Capps (D-CA) +5
Sam Farr (D-CA) +5
Bob Filner (D-CA) +5
Barbara Lee (D-CA) +5
George Miller (D-CA) +5
Maxine Waters (D-CA) +5
In the previous report card, covering the 109th Congress (2007-2008), Stark got a -2, one of the better scores in the California delegation, but behind Lee (-1) and Woolsey (0). Ron Paul and Kucinich got+3s, and Moran (these were the good old days) was rated +2.
Lest anyone take these ratings too seriously, the highest score overall for the 109th Congress went to Dianne Feinstein (+4)!!!
Ahh so that’s what that was. I thought I felt a hand in my pocket.
Karma is bigger than the Iron Dome.
Nothing can save Israel from its inevitable implosion/explosion.
I don’t give a fig about israel’s “inevitable implosion/explosion.” Sooner the better.
My worry is for the innocent lives Israel will take with it BEFORE it explodes, as it explodes; lives that will be lost in that time-lag that the US congress just bought and paid for with my money.
And yet Finkelstein and Chomsky still maintain that The Israel Lobby is negligible. I think with Norman – he’s afraid of breaking ranks with Chomsky. Chomsky I’d venture is simply too old and set in his ways to admit that he’s been dreadfully wrong all these years. 4 votes against supplying a Neo-Nazi junta with an additional 205 Million Dollars. Maybe God will step in and do something about this monstrousness.
Debonnaire, USofA –or at least, Harriman Bros., led by Prescott Bush — financed the first Nazis, in collaboration with British bankers.
even god has been suborned.
15 rabbis chose Kristallnacht.
The Israeli Leviathan has successfully penetrated every critical sector of US society and has either taken it over or immobilized it from acting in US interests and the anti-war movement is certainly one of those critical sectors by every measurable standard when it comes to this issue. What for example is the most important thing that Richard Becker of International Answer tell us in his new book on the US-Israel-Palestinian relationship? That the problem is not only NOT the Israel Lobby but he would want us to think, it is the US government, in this case, the Obama administration, that has provided “the lobby” with its power.
Of course, to put forth this piece of nonsense, he has to ignore what happened to Gerry Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bush Sr., not to mention Bill Clinton who was also brought into line when he pressured Israel too much. Just to make sure that Clinton got the message, AIPAC had 81 senators sign a letter telling him to chill. The problem even affects the Palestinian organizations that are afraid to deal with the issue and still invite Chomsky and Zunes to speak at their events.
Jeffrey, how is it Eisenhower was able to keep Israel in check?
When Eisenhower was in its presidency, the Zionist operation was in swaddling clothes compared to what it has become today and while the American Zionist Council, the precursor to AIPAC, had a program, which it spelled out, to lobby every sector of American society, it was only in the early stages of doing so and had not achieved the dominant position in so many of them, such as the media, which it holds today. But even Ike had to make some concessions to Israel’s domestic agents, but nothing like what we have seen since.
The Israel lobby in those days, though powerful in its ability to exploit the Holocaust, was not nearly so well organized in 1956, and therefore had less direct power in American politics.
The turning point came with the 1967 war, when the Lobby began to greatly intensify and expand its organizing efforts (having learned valuable lessons in the Labor and Civil Rights Movements). Then the 1973 Yom Kippur War made the “existential threat” newly palpable to the bulk of American Jews, and a point of no return was reached in U.S. politics: Like it or not, we crossed our Zionist Rubicon.
The socioeconomic and political factors which gave rise to this dramatic transition make for a uniquely fascinating study in modern historical development. Some would describe it as the great tragedy of the latter 20th Century, not just for America but for the world.
the question shifts, then, from how to eradicate this force to how to survive it.
It may well come down to military brass refusing to carry out orders. According to Dr. Alan Sabrosky, more and more people in the military ranks are aware of Israel’s stranglehold on U.S. policy and their complicity in the 9/11 attacks.
link to youtube.com
Readers of this blog may be interested in a two-hour documentary airing tonight (Thursday) on PBS. Entitled “Cinema’s Exiles”, it chronicles the flight to America of German Jewish film-makers, screenwriters, and actors from Europe in the 30′s and 40′s.
Remarkably, from a Jewish perspective it explains in detail how new Jewish arrivals, involved in the nascent movie industry in Hollywood, mounted a concerted effort to find jobs for other Jews, initially mainly from Germany, thereby transforming the industry. For those Americans who still don’t understand how their film industry came to be so thoroughly dominated by the Jewish fragment of the population, this documentary provides many relevant insights.
Thanks are due to the Jewish monied interests in Hollywood and NYC whose financial backing made this production possible. It is in the spirit of the new Jewish triumphalism, celebrating the many uniquely Jewish triumphs in American society. Great as this documentary is, it is only one of hundreds of such productions with a Jewish focus shown each year in American film and TV. What is remarkable about this documentary is the unrestrained way it touts Jewish contributions, to the exclusion of others. Of the dozens of personages (“exiles”) highlighted in the film, almost all were Jewish. Sound familiar?
I can remember a time a few decades ago when American Jews seemed a bit more reluctant to trumpet their ubiquitous accomplishments when they might imply the systematic exclusion of others. There is a lesson conveyed to young non-Jewish viewers of this documentary: It helps a great deal to be Jewish in trying to make a career of the kinds of film-industry work depicted. If you are not Jewish, expect that there may be unspoken obstacles.
So what has all this got to do with the ludicrously lop-sided Congressional vote authorizing still more American free aid to Israel – assistance which the American people themselves desperately need? Why, everything, if you stop to think about it. It’s all about the sources of power in a society.
Here’s an article from the forward that asks the same question:
link to forward.com
Indeed, nepotism has been a positive and wholesome force in
Jewish life for thousands of years.
It is high time to acknowledge and even celebrate this fact instead
of trying to keep it hidden like a shameful family secret.”
An average Qassam rocket takes 9 seconds from launch to landing.
In less than this time, Iron Dome is supposed to deploy, launch, acquire a target, and destroy it. Meanwhile it is also supposed to decide whether the rocket is headed towards a populated or unpopulated area, (to save money on redundant defence).
Just count to nine, slowly.
Or start your stopwatch, look out into your back yard, pick up the nearest heavy object you can find, throw it out of your window at the most obvious bush. When it lands, stop your watch.
(Don’t cheat by pre-determining your weapon, or its objective. You may, of course, open your window first. Don’t throw your computer unless you really mean it)
Now, how long did that take?
“an (ie 1) Iron Dome battery requires an initial outlay of $215 million with each Tamir interceptor missile running between $40,000 and $50,000 (some skeptics have pegged the price at double that amount).
link to mepc.org
Rafael Industries (Israeli state-owned) are running a massive boondoggle, with Obama and a supine Congress rolling over, belly upwards, to give them even more US taxpayers’ money. (Approximately another 7%)
The boondoggle is supported by military/industrial figures (and bought Congressmen) who still support Reagan’s Star Wars.
FTG-06 02010-01-31 January 31, 2010 Failure This test was be the first to assess both a CE-II EKV and a complex target scene and the first test to use a newly developed FTF LV-2 target. While the target missile and interceptor launched and performed nominally, the Sea Based X-Band Radar did not perform as expected, and an investigation will explain the failure to intercept.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Real rockets don’t behave like video games (Unless they come from drones directly above Pakistan or Afghanistan, managed by super-kid video-gamers, far away in Nevada or Florida)
The missile defense shield has been an abject failure too — and we flirted outright hostilities with Russia over it. The High Energy Laser (HEL) too. Look it up.
The US defense industry has basically become a haven for snake oil salesmen and con artists.
can you expound on these failures?
I really couldn’t care less about what a racist, homophobic Nakba-denying ideological whore thinks about me, or about the truth for that matter.
Keep diggin’ for those WMDs in the Iraqi desert there, soldier boy.
Yes, I quoted one in my message, which if you’d bothered to read it, you would have found:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Yonira, I will expound some on one of these failures, just to cheer you up. One particular High Energy Laser program, in a most recent version, became known as the ABL – air-borne laser, which was supposed to carry a chemical oxygen-iodine (O-I) laser of some MWs power on a retrofitted boeing 747. Spear-headed by the likes of Lockheed-Martin, the program was generally considered a fine skilled-jobs work, complete with ‘advanced” hardware, specialized optics, complex software and endless gobbly-gook documentation. The work was especially challenging since no half-way decent analysis ever showed the program to have a shred of operational usefulness in any imaginable scenario. Among other little problems, the O-I laser with wavelength at around 1.3 micron is well absorbed by atmospheric water vapor. Oops! no rainy day operations, or foggy days. Just sunny days (homework for yonira: if you were the dreaded enemy, what kind of day would you choose to you launch your best missile?) Another “minor” issue is that the laser itself, a monstrosity of the first order is, and always was — well, an albatros. On a good day, it’d actually manage to fire for a few seconds – to great handclaps from far and wide. On a bad day, well, better not ask. The worst part of it is that this fine program’s mission was clear mostly in its total obscurity. What was the laser supposed to be shooting at? Obviously it’s not IBMs in mid-flight. So must be boost phase, right? or is it the final stage? I’ll let you all contemplate the utter beauty of the many scenarios one can concoct for such a system – which accomplished the impossible – dispensing with both mission clarity and operational feasibility. – all at a tremendous expense.
Which is probably why all these details are not classified (I know, people must have gotten worried. Don’t). There had to be some room made for mirth, seeing how every single one of the workers – from the highest to the lowest – knew perfectly well that it was absolutely, astoundingly the stupidest project they ever had the good fortune tobe involved with . But hey, at its height this moribound project provided many thousands of jobs and kept a small army of lobbyists busy in Washington.
Now, yonira, here’s hoping you’ll ask for a little more expounding. Just name your military laser system, and I just may oblige. It’s kind of a hobby with me, you know…among other semi-hazardous pre-occupations.
PS the program is now on its last hind legs, you’ll be glad to know. Not that it will not emerge cloaked in a new garb. Hey, some of my “best friends” specialize in resurrections and they are so smart I’d put nothing beyond them..
PSS I know…I need new friends….how ’bout you, yonira? trust me – I’ve had – and still have – worse.
I remember when much of this emerged as the eighties ‘Star Wars’, my late Father ( Chief Scientific Officer at the local MOD Research estabolishment ) was not impressed with the science, neither were any of his colleagues. Everyone had to keep schtum and not upset the americans by pointing out the yawning gap between Think-Tank Theory and Practical Reality. ‘shhh thus think of the money’ to paraphrase, and that was just the scraps that Ronnie gave Maggie. Cue a generation of gold-plated White Elephants, some of which still persist today economic/wet weather not withstanding.
I was more interested in more traditional missile defense, the laser is obviously a dumbass idea.
Danaa,
How about the deathstar, i believe that was laser technology
there is a flaw in the fundamental thinking. The worship of the ‘Impregnable Shield’ above any practical measures fails under the natural evolutionary principle of ‘ better mouse=better mouse-trap ‘ . They are not just defensive in the context of the whole armory, as a NKorean style mega-bunker complex/shelter system/Maginot line would be, they would be an intrinsic part of any offensive actions.
I would say you can see the level of magical thinking that is going on by the casual disregard for the economics of how its actually going to work.
Cinema’s Exiles – Read Homer’s message above, and, possibly,
link to pbs.org
This is in addition to the gazillions the Americans are already spending on the construction of the steel wall which will cut off all supplies for Gazans from the Egyptian end.
ehhhh more like 23 million.
Oh “only” that much, huh? Yeah that was worth giving up on mortgage debt relief or public funded health care, huh.
LOL!!!! I am sure both single payer and mortgage death relief could have been 100% funded w/ that 23 million dollars.
False dichotomy. That’s what makes you a failure and and idiot.
lol, you are a piece of shit chaos, we should ask your parents who the failure is.
…you don’t even know what “dichotomy” means, do you?
And just think how the 205 million plus 3 billion direct free aid annually to Israel (plus another 3 billion indirect aid) could pay for aid to fellow Americans.
Atta boy, yonira, show us how grown up you are.
only $23million.
US Dept of Defense budgeted $50 million to help treat estimated 90,000 US soldiers returning from Israel’s wars with PTSD.
Just to give a bit more context: Over the past 5 years or so, Israeli soldiers, too, have returned from Israeli wars of aggression with disabilities — 600 soldiers, in fact. Which goes to show that, just as IDF is the most moral army, IDF suffer 150 times as much as American GIs. A Nobel prize for suffering they should get.
$23 million is only chump change in the context of saving banksters, oiler despoilers, etc.
So, Yonira, where did you get this figure of $23million?
I would suggest that it may be yet another boondoggle; the US suckers giving this much to Egyptian contractors to put prefabricated roofing elements into a ditch just 7 miles long.
“Israel constructed a barrier along the Egyptian border, with a 200-300 meter buffer zone in the Philadelphi corridor. In order to construct this buffer zone, entire blocks of houses were demolished at the main entrance to Rafah’s central thoroughway, in addition to the Al-Brazil Block, Tel al Sultan and others in “Block O.”
The barrier along the Egyptian border consists of concrete and steel walls and is over eight metres high and equipped with electronic sensors and underground concrete barriers to prevent tunneling, adding to the already existent steel wall running the length of the border with Egypt. Construction of the concrete wall commenced in 2004 and completed in 2005, before the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
link to en.wikipedia.org
So why are Egyptians building another underground wall? Because US aid (massive enough to keep Mubarrak in power this long) is strictly conditional on positive sympathy towards Israel.
Otherwise, the borders between Gaza and Egypt would be freely open, as they should be (after all, Gaza is a former Egyptian colony).
re “the steel wall which will cut off all supplies for Gazans from the Egyptian end”: Don’t miss the BBC’s recent update at link to news.bbc.co.uk
.
Some highlights:
“Every problem has a solution. The Egyptian steel barrier was a problem but we found a solution,” says Mohammed, a grimy-faced Gazan tunnel digger who didn’t want to give his real name.
Mohammed, covered in dust and dirt, is in the process of digging a 750m (2,460ft) smuggling tunnel from Gaza into Egypt. He says he’s been digging it for 18 months.
As he hauls up a plastic container of sand with an electric winch from the metre-wide tunnel shaft, he says the new underground Egyptian barrier aimed at stopping smuggling is a “joke.”
“We just cut through it using high-powered oxygen fuelled blow torches,” he says.
The Egyptian government says it began constructing the barrier along the Gaza-Egypt border last year. When finished it is meant to be 11km-long (seven miles), stretching down 18m (59ft) underground.
According to Egypt it is made of bomb-proof, super-strength steel and is costing millions of dollars to build.
Mohammed smiles when he hears this.
“We pay around a $1,000 (£665) for a man with an oxygen-fuelled cutter to come and break through it. It takes up to three weeks to cut through but we get there in the end,” he says.
If they [Egypt] opened the border, we wouldn’t need to dig tunnels. But until they do, we’ll keep digging, whatever they do to try and stop us
…
The BBC spoke to one man in Gaza employed to cut through the barrier. He said he could cut a metre-square hole through it in less than a day.
This news will be embarrassing for Egypt’s government.
Encouraged by the United States which gives millions of dollars in military aid to Egypt every year, it says it is trying to crack down on smuggling into Gaza.
The BBC asked the Egyptian government to comment on the fact that Gazans were already cutting through the barrier. The government has not yet responded.
…
Thank you for this. Bravo, Palestinians!
Hey look, Progressive Hero Alan Grayson wants missiles for Israel… This is surprising!
Remember when Ben Yahoo laughed in Obama’s face over the land stealing issue? Apparently congress doesn’t either.
…not really. It seems he is another pro-Israel schizo-liberal when it comes to the promised land. They have a complete different set of values when it comes to Israel, and a second set when it comes to the US. Phil’s written about Anthony Weiner’s positions in the past also.
Check him out at minute 30:00:
link to democracynow.org
AMY GOODMAN: Right, it’s been a debate about, you know, the timing of the announcement. But do you think they’re wrong to do it altogether?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: If you’re talking about areas in East Jerusalem, I don’t think it’s really conceivable that the Israelis will ever give up that land. I just don’t think that’s plausible. If you’re talking about areas like Ari’el, areas elsewhere on the West Bank, I think that that’s much more debatable. One could easily conceive of a two-state solution that allows Israel very little of that land. Even the Israelis’ own maps that were presented at Taba provided that only a tiny fraction of that land would end up in Israeli hands. For building outside of those areas, that seems to be unduly provocative. For building in an area that Israel is going to end up with anyway, under any conceivable form of peace, you know, that’s much less harmful.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs 23, yes 23 Israelis have died from Gaza rocket attacks in the last 10 years. While 20-40 IDF soldiers commit suicide every year.
Think about it. It takes at least two and a half years of sustained Qassam rocket fire (so excluding the cease fire, of course) to do to Israel, what Israel did to the Gazans in a matter of hours on November 4th, 2008 when it terminated the cease fire.
all that really proves is the armed resistance was an utter failure. must like the non violent, violent protests.
yonira,
If armed resistance was an ‘utter’ failure, why are israelis shit scared about their existential security?
p.s. if jesus were to return (ha ha ha – resurrection amuses me), would he be considered an ‘existential threat’ to the euro-judo-junkies in israel?
If there were any sign of Christ’s impending return to Earth, Israel would probably launch a preventive strike on the sky. They’ve completely lost their marbles.
If there were any sign of Christ’s impending return to Earth, Israel would probably launch a preventive strike on the sky.
Haaaaaaaa! ha ha I think you’re right
thanks for the laugh, Frances.
Frances, After Iran, it may be the next war.
Anti Christ Ballistic Missle System or ACBMS does have a certain ring to it. Call Raytheon.
Oh, you know I’m right. If, God forbid, the Bible-thumping neocons were raptured up into Christ’s arms, who would fund Israel’s apocalyptic death-match with all the Arab nations? The Christian God is clearly an existential threat to Israel.
I dearly hope they test out the Anti-Christ Ballistic Missile by firing Benjamin Netanyahu into the sun. I’d donate money to that cause. Do you think yonira’s collecting?
That would be Supermillenialisticexpialidocious, him and Heir Lieberman are really quite atrocious.
Herr. It miscorrects me whether I like it or not.
“If there were any sign of Christ’s impending return to Earth, Israel would probably launch a preventive strike on the sky. They’ve completely lost their marbles.”
Lol!
Chaos4700 says, I really couldn’t care less about what a racist, homophobic Nakba-denying ideological whore thinks about me, or about the truth for that matter.
Keep diggin’ for those WMDs in the Iraqi desert there, soldier boy.
Tell that to the gassed Kurds.
The Nakba was the result of the Arab armies trying to commit a Nakba against the Jews and their failure to do so.
This is how most atrocities are justified–members of group A commits an atrocity against group B, so it is therefore okay if a member of group B commit atrocities against members of group A.
In this view, there are no such things as human rights. There are only blood feuds where one side is justified in doing whatever it wants to the other.
And after that war was over, DavidSiden, why didn’t Israel let the 750,000 Palestinian refugees back into their homes? And BTW, a substantial number of those Palestinians were scared off their land before the Arab armies attacked–by Jewish terrorists.
careful with the gassing kurds references old chap, some of ‘em still remember when the RAF was gassing them in the 20s. More to the point, loads of people still remember who sold Saddam the Gas.
This isn’t aid, it is tribute, the same thing that a vassal give to his master or that the conquered gives to the conqueror. Its true purpose is to make the inferior acknowledge his inferiority. It can’t be argued about in the context of normal foreign aid because it isn’t in any sense normal. Israel demanded this “bonus” at this particular time to make it abundantly clear to its critics that the US’s ongoing financial distress would simply not be a factor in determining its future funding for Israel.
That’s my Congress! I love these people… So committed to the occupation of East Jerusalem.
What a bunch! Three Cheers.
new proposal.
earlier, posted ThorsProvoni’s eminently sensible suggestion that US ditch Israel, ally with Iran, seize assets of billionaire zionist war criminals to pay US way out of the economic hole it is in.
I suspect if Tim Geithner had thought of it it might have had a chance…. sigh.
Colin Murray blasted the notion as “unconstitutional” and antisemitic.
the concern for the US Constitution was rather touching. Novel, in the current legislative atmosphere, but touching.
But ok, that idea won’t fly.
How about this: I propose a national day of laughing at stupid zionists.
no, wait, this is even better: a new teevee program, like Stupid Animal Tricks, with 7-minute vignettes of zionist lies, zionist victim stories, have awards for the performance displaying the most bathos, a Lebon Prize for the most transparently mendacious statement, a Golden Pig award for the most ineffective weapons swindled out of the US government.
you gotta laugh at these bastards. they are so utterly transparently pre-enlightened.
In between those vinettes, you could have the great moments of Congressional ass-kissing to AIPAC. That tape reel can on go on for
years. Joe Biden could be top-dog.
“The gassed Kurds” You’re so 2003. That was the talking point for the Iraq invasion. You meant Hamas, Hizballah, Leftists.
The USA has been averaging a free direct gift of 7 million dollars a day to Israel; by 2013 the daily average will be 8.5 million dollars a day. The US pays for nearly 20% of Israel’s military needs. In terms of general international comparative well-being, Israel is on a par with Spain.
The real price paid by the USA for its support of Israel is much higher:
link to liveleak.com
I wonder how many average Americans know just how exceptional our aid to Israel is, and has been for decades now? My experience tells me such awareness is virtually nonexistent.