Two months ago Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington to lecture Obama from AIPAC's stage that Jerusalem is not a settlement, Jews have been building there for 3000 years and in his defiance he helped to invalidate the Israel lobby. Who is this thug to be defying our president and using a religious right wing audience to do so? I bet Rahm Emanuel went ballistic. And that even Malcolm Hoenlein told Netanyahu, you can’t do this to us.
But all that is going on behind the scenes.
Yesterday Yudith Oppenheimer of Ir Amim (City of Nations) came to New York to try and correct Netanyahu’s garbage. She didn’t meet with AIPAC, she met with the New Israel Fund, then me and Jared Malsin (of Palestine Note) at the Metro Diner on the Upper West Side. She's on a cross-country tour. I don’t know why this passionate, articulate woman isn’t speaking at Jewish community centers and synagogues, but as I told her, it's just a matter of time. The Jewish community in the US is waking up to the horrors of the Israel project, maybe too late for anyone to do anything about it, but it is at last paying attention to Jews (Peter Beinart), as it ignored Jimmy Carter.
“We would like to change the discourse about Jerusalem among the Jewish population," Oppenheimer said, and promptly smashed three "myths" about Jerusalem-- that it's above politics, that Israel has only been doing in Jerusalem what it's done there for 43 years, and that Muslims have equal access to the holy sites.
They don't. They need blasted permits. They can't get into Jerusalem, most of them.
Oppenheimer set out a map that showed us how much of East Jerusalem is being colonized by nutjob settlers and the colonialist government, and for about half an hour we tried to figure out how things could work per the two state solution. The spaghetti bowl of red and green and blue lines that is greater Jerusalem was as bad as any gerrymandering in the racist American past or present. And the Jewish line has kept moving east for 100 years, and Palestinians have been the losers and the dispossessed and the sequestered again and again.
Lately, as Oppenheimer showed, Israelis have started destroying Palestinian neighborhoods. Silwan is being taken over by the Jews just to the east of the Old City and Walaje is being taken over to the southwest. Oppenheimer said the settlers and government have been working overtime to prevent the possibility of Palestinians ever creating a true capital in East Jerusalem. I asked her how the Clinton Parameters could still even possibly work in this situation, and with hope in her eyes, Oppenheimer dragged her pen around Silwan and Ramat Shlomo and Bustan and Gilo and the Maale Adunim corridor and every other part of the hilltop colonization of East Jerusalem (that Jeffrey Goldberg defends) and tried to show me.
The meeting got emotional when I asked her when her people came to Israel. During the Holocaust, after Kristallnacht, in one case. She believes in the need for a Jewish state. I told her I did not. But she’s not here to convince me, she’s here to strip the myths from American Jews who share her belief. That is the ballgame for liberal Zionists: to wake the stupid complacent American Jews up to the apartheid reality before the window completely closes on the idea of two states for two peoples.
Oppenheimer said that she and Palestinian counterparts are “working together to separate… [to imagine] how peace should look like; separation needs some cooperation.” Well I don't like that word separation. But she says Palestinians want a Palestinian state, still.
“Each side would like to wake up and find that the other side is gone. … Personally I would like to live like in Europe, with open borders. This is not possible in the Middle East at the moment. We must either have separate political entities or become one big political entity. … For most Israelis, the existence of an Israeli majority is very important. They want to remain a Jewish state.” (Fear of an Arab majority!)
Then Oppenheimer said she thinks that Obama and Netanyahu have made a secret deal. “There is a huge gap between what Netanyahu declares and what he does. 'We will always build in Jerusalem,' he says. But everything is stopped. The local planning committee doesn’t even meet… There is some kind of deal, I’m saying this very very cautiously,” she said. “Some deal between the American administration and the Israeli government. House demolition is stopped.”
Since Biden’s visit, she went on, Israel has approved no building in East Jerusalem, everything has to go through the Prime Minister’s office.
Malsin gave Oppenheimer a printout of Peter Beinart’s article in the New York Review of Books and I got the periodical out of my knapsack, and we explained to her that this piece has changed the ballgame, it is waking up the stupid American Jews four years after Walt and Mearsheimer said the same thing. Then JJ Goldberg from the Forward came in to the Metro Diner and said Hi to her and went to sit down at a back table. He had a Hebrew newspaper with him and I told Oppenheimer I didn’t want to keep her from talking to him. JJ can do something for her, Beinart can do something for her.
Still, Oppenheimer's despair tore at my heart. “We cannot afford this conflict any more. It tears the Israeli society apart. It tears the Palestinian society apart. It turns the world against us.” Truly. Stupid American Jews are waking up, and they need to hear from Yudith Oppenheimer. Some day they will have her in synagogues and Jewish community centers, when they try and figure out who has lost Israel. They had better get a move on--working together to separate.
Malsin and I both wished Oppenheimer luck and walked up teeming Broadway in New York.
She met with 3 Arabists who want Israel destroyed, though the New Israel Fund will lie about it. Good move.
Wonderful ad from the Great NGO Monitor utterly eviscerating the NIF.
link to ngo-monitor.org
Funny how calling for equal rights for all the people on the land is synonymous with “Israels destruction.”
Is this what Zionism is about? Creating an ethnic supremacist state that views equal rights as Armageddon?
wow phil, just wow.
this is what i read at coteret a couple weeks ago.
doe this mean those areas would remain w/palestine?
sorry james i hadn’t realized i posted that onto your comment. must have been when i was thinking about “Israels destruction”, it is their mantra
Yes, James, that is what Zionism is about and that is why Zionism has to be eradicated.
Yes, James, that is what Zionism is about and that is why Zionism has to be eradicated
Is this what sustains the haters? Eradication? Creepy.
As opposed to what your side does with white phosphorous and cluster bombs?
Apparently denying equal rights to all the people under Israeli jurisdiction is what is sustaining Zionism.
Justice, rachel. Something you wouldn’t know about.
Yes, the ad makes it very clear that Jewish supremacism is the beating heart of Zionism.
It’s always good when the side of wrong makes its own case.
“She met with 3 Arabists”
Julian the faker. What the hell is “Arabist”? Do you mean Arab, you swindler.
Are you an Israelist, forger?
It’s like “nigger lover.”
Arabist is hardly comparable to “nigger lover”. Arabist is a term that is used to describe nonArabs who are experts in Arab culture. Maybe I am a bit off in the term and maybe there are some negative connotations about the term, but this “nigger lover” comparison is way off and I’m not sure where it comes from other than the fact that you, potsherd, object to Julian’s general tenor.
If you look at Julian’s comment, he says that Oppenheimer met with Phil and other “Arabists who want Israel destroyed.” He did not mean that Phil is an expert on Arab culture, he was not using the term in its usual sense but to mean a person who wants Arabs to destroy the Jewish state, a person who prefers Arabs to Jews – in short, an “Arab lover.”
I think Julian should tell us how damaging it would be, and in what ways, to Israel when American Jews turn against the “Israel project”
Julian should tell us how Israel cannot get along without the approval and help of educated, affluent, liberal American Jews.
Israel would be trembling before their wrath, right Julian?
If the evacuation of Yamit in the, then, occupied Sinai, or the evacuation of the various colonies in the occupied Gaza Strip are any indication, then Oppenheimer’s vision for two states, side by side, is highly unlikely.
Nonetheless, more power to her as she wades her way through the US, knocking some sense into the hearts and minds of liberal Jews out there.
“The meeting got emotional when I asked her when her people came to Israel. During the Holocaust, after Kristallnacht, in one case. She believes in the need for a Jewish state. I told her I did not.”
Yes, this reminds me of a post that I made here a few articles back under the Martin Indyk title on the point of Nakba, but it is applicable –
“The real point in all of these arguments is that support for Israel as a Jewish majority state is a denial of the Nakba by default. One does not need to overtly deny the Nakba, one just needs to deny the right of return and the delivery of real justice to the Palestinians. The settlement of Israel, the land which it claims as its own as it stands with no recourse is Nakba denial. The only way to truly do justice in regard to the Nakba is the extinction of Zionism, because the State of Israel as it exists today, its justification is a denial of the Nakba by default. Crying about the Palestinians does no good, feeling bad about the Palestinians does no good, if you want the current condition to continue. Zionism on its current course brings nothing more but the same, it will do nothing but worsen, so if you want it to stand it is Nakba denial.
Likewise, the only way to do away with Nakba denial is to deliver true justice to the Palestinians, and if you want to do true justice to the Palestinians Zionism cannot continue to stand and follow the current course.”
At the risk of sounding fatalistic to some, if Zionism or this concept of the Jewish Majority State does not stop at this juncture, the next move will be a massive ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians that will dwarf the last one. This is the only way these delusional people can move, anything less will become a denial of their “dream/nightmare.” This is the scenario that Mearsheimer refused to even mention when he spoke at the Jerusalem Fund, he spoke of what all would eventually have to settle for, as if it would just suddenly happen. If you are thinking of halting the present process, you better consider this as a scenario, or you can just be summarily surprised when it occurs and laud my “prescience (which is nothing but seeing what is plainly taking place, while others are in denial).”
Dear VR, you don’t think that Israel will settle for permanent oppression? Ie a codified version of the current apartheid state, with the Palestinians permanently condemned to live in fragmented areas a, b and a little of C, with israeli posts between every city and on the border. As best I can tell this is what ‘painful sacrifices’ means, and the only change from oslo to now is that they are determined that no significant part of Jerusalem will be included, and that as many palestinians as possible will be encouraged to leave.
My main reason for thinking this is the sheer determined rationality of the glorious fascist state of Istratine. If they can keep the boiling frog strategy going for 60 years, surely they can manage another 60 years?
In my opinion, the boiling frog strategy becomes much less sustainable with the current lurch of Israel to the far right. We are slowly moving to the territory of hunting of Palestinians for sport and recreation in the settler country, at least.
Oppenheimer seems to have bought into the primary assumption of the expansionists, which is that once a Jewish footprint exists, the foot can never be lifted. She draws lines around the settlements trying to form a contiguous Palestinian state but never seems to consider that Ramat Shlomo, for example, should be evacuated.
“The meeting got emotional when I asked her when her people came to Israel. During the Holocaust, after Kristallnacht, in one case. She believes in the need for a Jewish state. I told her I did not. ”
Why would you not accept that many Jews do desire to self-associate in Israel, even if you don’t and even if it conflicts with some principles and experience in the US?
They can only be hopes, as the reality of the US is not rosy (both within the US and in relation to near and distant neighbors).
why do you beat your wife witty? phil didn’t say he would not accept that many Jews do desire to self-associate in Israel, he said he didn’t think there was a need for a jewish state.
My read of his comments (increasingly emotional), were that that concept was objectionable to him, that it pressed a button.
From the whole article, I got the feeling that Phil was angry at her, for not being sufficiently radical.
Maybe I’m wrong.
You keep wantign it both ways Witty.
When an article presents facts you don’t like, your argument is that the writer lacks empathy. When an article is emtional, and critical of Israel, you argue that it isn’t objective.
I wondered why Phil is expressing some anger with a woman who is trying to educate Jews in the ways that she believes is possible.
I got the sense that he considered Yudith as “hasbara-lite” in ways.
Did you get that sense? Maybe I misunderstood.
“I wondered why Phil is expressing some anger with a woman who is trying to educate Jews in the ways that she believes is possible.”
Education and indictrination are not the same thing.
“Maybe I misunderstood. ”
No, you simple parsed this through your ideoological Zionist filter.
So, you derived the same impression from Phil’s comments, or different?
just stop w/the psychoanalyzing witty, you’re all over the place first you say “My read of his comments (increasingly emotional),” then you segue directly into “I wondered why Phil is expressing some anger “.
let’s psychoanalyze you witty. why do you sound increasingly angry and confused? why are you crying witty?
Considering you think its perfectly legal and just for Israeli Jews to ethnically cleanse “greater Jerusalem” (as if that isn’t a prelude to “purifying greater Israel”)? I don’t think anyone is beholden to accept your archaic 19th-century values regarding colonialism and human rights, Witty.
>> … many Jews do desire to self-associate in Israel …
And no one has the heart to tell them it’s time to grow up and stop pretending that they’re “Israelites”.
Is Ms.Oppenheimer also challenging the ’3,000 years’ aspect of Netanyahu’s ideology? If J is indeed the City of Nations that is in part because many nations have contributed to its history.
potsherd, what did you think she meant when she circled ramat shlomo? when phil wrote ‘with hope in her eyes’ i thought he meant she insinuated they would all be included in palestine’s capital.
No, annie, I got the impression she was trying to map out a Palestinian capital in the interstices between settlements. Optimistic that it could be done.
oh, this is sad.
link to foreignpolicy.com
The Generation Gap
Peter Beinart has made a meaningful contribution regarding the tectonic shift in American organizational Jewish life as the organizations distance themselves from their constituencies. My comments about the piece will be limited to a key aspect, namely, the generational components of the schism described by Mr. Beinart.
As the prime sponsors of much of the research he cites, we at the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies noted that there was a dangerous generational gap between the products of these organizations and Jews of Generations X and Y. It is worth observing that this is the first time in history that we have four generations of adults sitting together in workplaces, each shaped by their own generational experiences. For Jews of the Traditionalist and Boomer Generations, the realities of the Holocaust and its aftermath, the creation of the State of Israel, the existential threats of 1967, and personal experiences with anti-Semitism shaped so much of their collective persona. They grew up in Jewish neighborhoods, had Jewish friendship networks and had a strong primary Jewish identity.
This was not so for most of Generations X and Y: the most educated, self confident Jewish generations in history, proud both of their Judaism (though not well educated in this component of their lives) and the diversity of their American lives, with broad friendship networks and experiences so very different than the previous generations. Their part-time Jewish education provided neither meaningful cognitive nor emotive relationships to Israel. Interpretations of Zionism as a (secular) national liberation movement have been largely lost. Their Jewish identity is but one of a multiplicity of identities and their emotional connection to Israel will only develop from the experiential education, such as those provided through trips like those of Birthright Israel.
Beinart’s brilliant analysis highlights the multiplicity of regrettable factors both in Israel and in the United States. However, his title, The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment, suggests that one must look deeper into that failure. It is a systemic failure, going well beyond those named organizations. Every synagogue, Hebrew school, Jewish Community Center, and Jewish federation shares in the failure of understanding how the power of freedom, self confidence, and education would put brain ahead of heart in the American Jewish relationship with Israel.
Jeffrey Solomon is president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies.
That was a fascinating article. I am absolutely delighted that Jews are calling upon other Jews to examine the American Jewish Establishment, although I am disappointed that few of the right questions have yet been asked. However, asking any any questions at all is a big step forward. The last sentence is particularly revealing.
I find the “brain ahead of heart” conclusion troubling. I get that he is saying younger American Jews are less attached to Israel because of “freedom, self-confidence, and education” that their elders lacked.
However, why does this mean they have put “brain ahead of heart?” What are ‘brain’ and ‘heart’ supposed to represent?
Perhaps empowerment has merely changed their hearts, such that they don’t see themselves as victims waiting to happen? Is Mr. Solomon’s recommendation of “experiential education” a call to ensure that younger American Jews share in Israel’s siege mentality without noticing that the mentality itself is fostered by the Israeli political establishment’s unrelenting permanent military occupation, ethnic cleansing, and colonization of Palestinian land?
It isn’t “free, self-confident, and educated” young American Jews who need to be changed by Israel, it is Israel that needs to be changed by them.
Why should American Jews have an emotional connection to any foreign country at all?
Why to Israel, rather than Britain, which is the founder country of the USA?
Why to Israel, rather than the country of their ancestors?
Why to Israel, rather than Canada, which is a close neighbour and strongly resembles the USA in many ways? (Albeit cleaner and more polite.)
Why to Israel, rather than Mexico, which is the other close neighbour?
Why to Israel, rather than Belgium, which produces great beer and wonderful chocolate?
Roha,
Why do American Muslims have an emotional connection to Mecca or Catholics to Rome?
Muslims do not have an emotional attachment to the country of Saudi Arabia (at least none I met do). They merely have a religious obligation to make a pilgrimage to Mecca (a single city in Saudi Arabia) if they have the resources to do so.
Furthermore, Muslims aren’t trying to move to Saudi Arabia with the intention of settling their and expelling the Saudis from their land are they?
Because Judaism originated in the area. Get it? At least inform yourself about the object of your hatred. Your questions make yu sound rather daft.
An American Jew might feel a sentimental attachment to the territory, similar to that felt by Muslims to the Hijaz, because that is the territory his/her religion originated in that territory.
But my question was “Why should they have a emotional attachment to the state ?”
Why the obligation to feel the attachment?
Why is it directed to that state rather than (e.g.) Britain, the state which provided the origin of their country?
May be they are not making the distinction you are making between Israel as an idea and Israel, the state. When you grow up in a traditional Jewish environment, Israel is an important part of one ‘s cultural and religious identity. It is hallowed ground.
The prayers, the rituals, the festivals and holidays are all connected to the place. It is complicated. Can’t be summed up in a paragraph. Look, Canadians of Irish orign have an emotional attachment to Ireland even after many generations. Why?
Did Canadians of Irish origin send money to the IRA, generally? Just curious.
I would have thought that when you grow up in the US, the US, and its history and institutions would be an important part of your cultural and national “identity”. Since much of the culture and the institutions fo the US stem from Britain, why wouldn’t Britain be equally as important for American Jews?
And you haven’t told why American Jews should have an attachment to Israel.
“Look, Canadians of Irish orign have an emotional attachment to Ireland even after many generations. Why?”
They are taught some nonsense about being Irish, even though they are Canadian. Should they be taught this tripe? No!
Damn HTML.
Only “should” should be in italics.
When you grow up in a traditional Roman Catholic environment, living a virtuous life is an important part of one’s cultural and religious identity. The soul is hallowed ground. Rome is a place in Italy where the Catholicism established its institutional headquarters about 600 years ago. Catholic prayers, rituals, festivals and holidays are all connected to shaping a holy life, sanctifying the soul. It’s complicated. Can’t be summed up in a paragraph. Look, this American of Italian origin has an emotional attachment to Italy even tho this American has never seen the land where parents were born. Why?
Why? Because my Mother told me how much she loved her home and her village, and how happy she was there. Here’s where the real “it’s complicated” comes in: Mother never, ever taught me that I should be so attached to that farm that I should reclaim it from the people who now live there. If I so much as formed the words that it was alright to kill in order to reclaim her farm, she would have brought her rolling pin down on my head. To kill to reclaim her land is profoundly unjust, even tho the land was taken from my Mother unjustly. Because my Mother was so attached to the Roman Catholic religious principles that called on her to shape a virtuous life, accepting the deprivations and sufferings that life handed her with grace and dignity, she could be a happy and giving person despite the loss of the home that she loved.
Mom visited Rome once. She liked the shops.
Didn’t Christianity originate in the same area? And weren’t Christians persecuted as such over history? Do they all get to move to Jerusalem? Should all Americans have dual citizenship? When’t the last time the Vatican had an army more powerful than the Swiss Guard with their pikes?
>> This was not so for most of Generations X and Y: the most educated, self confident Jewish generations in history, proud both of their Judaism … and the diversity of their American lives, with broad friendship networks and experiences so very different than the previous generations. Their part-time Jewish education provided neither meaningful cognitive nor emotive relationships to Israel. Interpretations of Zionism as a (secular) national liberation movement have been largely lost. Their Jewish identity is but one of a multiplicity of identities and their emotional connection to Israel will only develop from the experiential education, such as those provided through trips like those of Birthright Israel.
Wow, that is so unbelievably cult-like and creepy! How dare these “educated, self confident” Jews develop “[b]road friendship networks and experiences” but not “cognitive [or] emotive relationships to Israel”! The self-loathing bastards! Quick, book ‘em on the next “Birthright Israel” so that they can be indoctrinated, stat!
“Birthright” – what a joke.
Yeah, looks like we’ll have to dream up a false flag operation that’ll scare these kids into giving dough to Israel for the rest of their lives because they need to know Israel is the only place on earth they’ll be safe.
Talk about tribal stupidity.
I heard an Ir Amim rep speak at a synagogue some month ago. He was well-informed, passionate and stuck to the facts. He lives in Jerusalem and served in the Israeli army as an officer.
In the Q & A, an American Jew criticized him as “betraying Israel’s cause”.
We absolutely can’t have Israelis talking about their future in a way that makes Israel look bad for the rest of us.
I think maybe other American Jews need to start calling out persons like that for having more loyalty to a foreign country than they do the United States, to be blunt.
This particular American Jew resigned from the synagogue in protest at hosting the talk. I think the community sent him the right message.
Fair enough.
Phil wrote, “I don’t know why [Oppenheimer] is not speaking at community centers and synagogues…. it’s just a matter of time…”
or of delegation.
Sarah Kreimer will be at a JCC in Pennsylvania tomorrow:
Finkelstein versus Benny Morris, in a cross talk
link to youtube.com
Morris is disgusting as usual. Laughing about the destruction of civilian infrastructure.
The guy is a good symbol for Israel. Spoiled, rich, sadistic, self-absorbed child.
My impression was that Finkelstein utterly failed to address the questions that the interviewer posed, and that Morris did do so far more convincingly and confidently.
Again and again, Norman undertook an effort at character assassination, rather than agreeing or clarifying the extent of disagreement.
For example, if the question of the right of return ends up as the maximalist ‘any descendant of any Palestinian refugee has the right to return to Israel currently’, and that that is a critical component of reconciliation or none, then none will be the result.
My impression was that Finkelstein utterly failed to address the questions that the interviewer posed, and that Morris did do so far more convincingly and confidently.
Translation: Exposing lies, racist ideology, double standards and hypocrisy, it’s all double standards as far as Witty is concerened.
Finkelstein aknowledged the complexity of the refugee issue, but Witty regards Morris’ ethnocentric view as uncluttered and decisive.
Witty also shares those views, which is shy they are clear to him.
Actually, if you follow the line of questioning, and the rivalry between the two which is obvious – then it’s understandable why Finkelstein brought up or attempted to bring up, the despicable things Morris has said in the past.
And there was no ‘maximalist’ definition given, you damn liar.
Anyone here, can watch the video and hear Norman giving the definition. Who are you kidding? Are you getting that old, that you’re going deaf? Or are you senile?
Anyways – your BS aside – it was Morris who was utterly pathetic and wouldn’t allow Fink to finish. In fact, the summation of Morris’ views is that Jews innocently wanted to ‘return’ (nothing else) and that ‘Arabs’ hate Jews irrationally.
Why would anyone allow a bunch of European colonists, to create a State on top of them, the indigenous population?
How much land and property did the European thieves own?
Lies upon lies upon lies.
I’m honestly wondering if RW watched the same video, because all I see is Morris fumbling to reconcile racist ethnic supremacist views with his knowledge of what happened in 1948.
Norman in no way described the refugee problem as complex.
I was very surprised (not really actually), that Norman chose to demean Morris rather than agree to the goal of definition of borders.
Its self-fulfilling.
>> For example, if the question of the right of return ends up as the maximalist ‘any descendant of any Palestinian refugee has the right to return to Israel currently’, and that that is a critical component of reconciliation or none, then none will be the result.
But if the question of the right of return ends up as the stabilizing “any descendant of any Palestinian refugee has the right to return to Israel currently AS LONG AS he/she comes bearing some green yarn”, and that that is a critical component of reconciliation or none, then reconciliation will be the result. :-)
I also heard Norman seeking to dominate the conversation, not Morris particularly.
Its a tragedy.
>> In fact, the summation of Morris’ views is that Jews innocently wanted to ‘return’ …
“Return”? You have to have left something in order to return to it. Oh, I get it, this is part of that whole “long-term exile” joke of Mr. Witty’s. Funny. :-)
“I was very surprised (not really actually), that Norman chose to demean Morris rather than agree to the goal of definition of borders.”
What’s not surprising is that Witty can watch the same video clip and come up with an interpretation that gas no basis in reality. How Witty can see what no one else sees.
It’s howWitty formilates allhis arguments so as to avoid debating injustice and hypocrisy.
“I also heard Norman seeking to dominate the conversation, not Morris particularly.”
Translation: Norman was bringing up inconvenient facts and sticking to the topic. That’s called ridicule and condmation in Witty’s world.
witty, the moderator had to explain to morris how he got his turn and not to talk over norm, all that dual talking was going on during norm’s turn to talk. anyone can watch the video.
>> witty, the moderator had to explain to morris how he got his turn and not to talk over norm, all that dual talking was going on during norm’s turn to talk. anyone can watch the video.
Clearly that is your narrative. The facts themselves are but abstractions, events to be mis/interpreted. The best one can hope to do is to avoid destabilizing judgements.
>> Clearly that is your narrative. The facts themselves are but abstractions, events to be mis/interpreted. The best one can hope to do is to avoid destabilizing judgements.
Forgot my smiley face: :-)
Like I said, Witty has this unique facility to rad or watch something and create a whe reality with no connection to what he actually witnessed.
Lord know why Witty has to make an idiot of himself, every time.
It’s astonishing what you will say, Richard. Well, not really–we’re all used to it by now.
I just watched the 23 minutes–it was a waste of time, because of the format. The problem on Finkelstein’s side was that he wasn’t given time to make his points. That is partly because of the limited time on television and partly because Morris would interrupt. Norman also wasted a bit of time complaining about the situation–he was right, but he shouldn’t have wasted precious seconds. To be fair, Morris was also not given enough time, but as far as interruptions were concerned, he was the bigger offender.
I note that you applaud Morris’s performance, even though he does spend part of the time smirking and laughing about Israeli human rights violations in Gaza.
And it’s not character assassination to try and quote Morris’s defense of ethnic cleansing, which is what I assume Norman was going to do.
Norman needs to improve his presentation technique on TV–given the opportunity to talk about Goldstone, he should not have wasted a minute or so complaining about Morris’s behavior. He should just let the viewer notice that for himself or herself–the laughing,the smirking. Of course, you didn’t notice that,Richard, but people not utterly blinded by ideology would.
It’s not that Witty didn’t notice it, necessarily.
It’s that he approves of it.
“. He should just let the viewer notice that for himself or herself–the laughing,the smirking. Of course, you didn’t notice that,Richard, but people not utterly blinded by ideology would.”
Ridicule only offends Witty when it is directed at Israeli propagandists like Wiesel.
You’re such a pathetic liar, Witty. You always have to characterize things as an interpretation.
In fact it might get to the point where we will have to count how many times Morris interrupted Norman, and vice versa.
Of course, by then, Witty will have slithered away from this thread.
Thanks for representing ‘Liberal’ Zionism, you slimeball.
See my comment in the thread under Phil’s article on this video clip debate. Judge for yourself if Witty is sane.
“for about half an hour we tried to figure out how things could work per the two state solution. ”
Waste of good drinking time. The two state solution has dropped off the twig. It has kicked the bucket. It has turned up its tootsies. It is an ex…
Mr Witty, I humbly venture to disagree. Mr Finkelstein did not engage in any ad hominen or character attacks whatsoever. He tried to make a few, limited points based on international law. Mr Morris tired to override him on every substantive point, shouting and near to hysteria.
Of the two, Mr Finkelstein came over as the rational and careful one. It is important to remember that surprisingly he is a supporter of the two state formula, but a careful and nuanced one. My view is that Mr Morris’s strategy was deliberate, and intended to prevent him having the chance to discuss the legal basis for a reasonable solution.
Philip Weiss Oppenheimer said the settlers and government have been working overtime to prevent the possibility of Palestinians ever creating a true capital in East Jerusalem. I asked her how the Clinton Parameters could still even possibly work in this situation, and with hope in her eyes, Oppenheimer dragged her pen around Silwan and Ramat Shlomo and Bustan and Gilo and the Maale Adunim corridor and every other part of the hilltop colonization of East Jerusalem (that Jeffrey Goldberg defends) and tried to show me.
“With hope in her eyes”, she tried to show you what? All these named areas are those that are already partially colonised, or will be when the ‘settlement freeze’ comes to an end in September, and the building spree accelerates. Ramat Shlomo is a typical hilltop settlement built to keep Haredim away from attacking Ashkenazi Saturday carparks. It’s a long walk when you can’t use a bus.
The Clinton Parameters were presented as a fait accompli in 2000, and, more or less, gave the Palestinians only a politico-religious salient into Jerusalem. Arafat rightly rejected it, and suffered a ‘terminal illness’ as a result.
He remembered the Latroun Salient, that the ‘Arabs’ held throughout the hard fighting of 1948, and then until 1967. It was a tiny area of three villages overlooking the Jerusalem road, that pointed out from the West Bank into the area of Israel’s 1948 conquests
Established in 1979, Al-Haq is a Ramallah, West Bank-based independent Palestinian human rights NGO. It published:
link to alhaq.org
“Where Villages Stood: Israel’s Continuing Violations of International Law in Occupied Latroun, 1967 – 2007,” and dedicated it “To the people of Imwas, Yalo and Beit Nouba, and to all Palestinians who remain displaced from their homes, their villages, their land.”
…..– expulsion meant permanent displacement;
– Latroun was to be part of Israel and all traces of their former land destroyed, except in their collective memories;
– village destruction was a punitive land grab accomplished by bulldozing and blasting with explosives, not the result of war; reportedly, some residents who remained were buried under their homes, a willful act of murder;
– destruction was complete, including homes, schools, mosques, archaeological landmarks, a medical clinic, wells, an agricultural association, and a police station – everything leveled to Judaize it.
One participating soldier said it was “the blackest hour of my life. Things were done here which should not have been done, and I participated in an action that I shouldn’t have been part of.” Others felt the same way as they witnessed innocent civilians, including the sick and elderly, persecuted and displaced. Those too frail to leave were buried alive, an act too horrifying for some to bear.
In 1973, Bernard Bloomfield, president of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) of Canada, led a campaign to raise $15 million for a recreational park for Israelis. His vision was realized where Imwas and Yalo once stood:
“a proud tribute to Canada,” in his words, “and to the Canadian Jewish community whose vision and foresight helped transform a barren stretch of land* into a major national recreational area for the people of Israel.”
Beit Nouba was turned into a Jewish religious settlement
link to paltelegraph.com
*Well, of course the land was barren. The villages were razed to the ground 6 years earlier, and not much grows on stone ruins.
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