Why are Israelis so indignant at the international outrage that has greeted their country’s lethal attack last week on a flotilla of civilian ships taking aid to Gaza?
Israelis have not responded in any of the ways we might have expected. There has been little soul-searching about the morality, let alone legality, of soldiers invading ships in international waters and killing civilians. In the main, Israelis have not been interested in asking tough questions of their political and military leaders about why the incident was handled so badly. And only a few commentators appear concerned about the diplomatic fall-out.
Instead, Israelis are engaged in a Kafkaesque conversation in which the military attack on the civilian ships is characterised as a legitimate “act of self-defence”, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it, and the killing of nine aid activists is transformed into an attempted “lynching of our soldiers” by terrorists.
Benny Begin, a government minister whose famous father, Menachem, became an Israeli prime minister after being what today would be called a terrorist as the leader of the notorious Irgun militia, told BBC World TV that the commandos had been viciously assaulted after “arriving almost barefoot”. Ynet, Israel’s most popular news website, meanwhile, reported that the commandos had been “ambushed”.
This strange discourse can only be deciphered if we understand the two apparently contradictory themes that have come to dominate the emotional landscape of Israel. The first is a trenchant belief that Israel exists to realise Jewish power; the second is an equally strong sense that Israel embodies the Jewish people’s collective experience as the eternal victims of history.
Israelis are not entirely unaware of this paradoxical state of mind, sometimes referring to it as the “shooting and crying” syndrome.
It is the reason, for example, that most believe their army is the “most moral in the world”. The “soldier as victim” has been given dramatic form in Gilad Shalit, the “innocent” soldier held by Hamas for the past four years who, when he was captured, was enforcing Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza.
One commentator in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper summed up the feelings of Israelis brought to the fore by the flotilla episode as the “helplessness of a poor lonely victim, confronting the rage of a lynch mob and frantically realising that these are his last moments”. This “psychosis”, as he called it, is not surprising: it derives from the sanctified place of the Holocaust in the Israeli education system.
The Holocaust’s lesson for most Israelis is not a universal one that might inspire them to oppose racism, or fanatical dictators or the bullying herd mentality that can all too quickly grip nations, or even state-sponsored genocide.
Instead, Israelis have been taught to see in the Holocaust a different message: that the world is plagued by a unique and ineradicable hatred of Jews, and that the only safety for the Jewish people is to be found in the creation of a super-power Jewish state that answers to no one. Put bluntly, Israel’s motto is: only Jewish power can prevent Jewish victimhood.
That is why Israel acquired a nuclear weapon as fast it could, and why it is now marshalling every effort to stop any other state in the region from breaking its nuclear monopoly. It is also why the Israeli programme’s sole whistle-blower, Mordechai Vanunu, is a pariah 24 years after committing his “offence”. Six years on from his release to a form of loose house arrest, his hounding by the authorities -- he was jailed again last month for talking to foreigners -- has attracted absolutely no interest or sympathy in Israel.
If Mr Vanunu’s continuing abuse highlights Israel’s oppressive desire for Jewish power, Israelis’ self-righteousness about their navy’s attack on the Gaza flotilla reveals the flipside of this pyschosis.
The angry demonstrations sweeping the country against the world’s denunciations; the calls to revoke the citizenship of the Israeli Arab MP on board -- or worse, to execute her -- for treason; and the local media’s endless recycling of the soldiers’ testimonies of being “bullied” by the activists demonstrate the desperate need of Israelis to justify every injustice or atrocity while clinging to the illusion of victimhood.
The lessons imbibed from this episode -- like the lessons Israelis learnt from the Goldstone report last year into the war crimes committed during Israel’s attack on Gaza, or the international criticisms of the massive firepower unleashed on Lebanon before that -- are the same: that the world hates us, and that we are alone.
If the confrontation with the activists on the flotilla has proved to Israelis that the unarmed passengers were really terrorists, the world’s refusal to stay quiet has confirmed what Israelis already knew: that, deep down, non-Jews are all really anti-Semites.
Meanwhile, the lesson the rest of us need to draw from the deadly commando raid is that the world can no longer afford to indulge these delusions.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.
The world has damn good reason to hate them, and more so every day.
Hatred isn’t very productive. With respect, I think anger would be a better word.
It isn’t that Israel doesn’t give people cause to hate. What they do with this is their own choice.
potsherd : The world has damn good reason to hate them, and more so every day.
Colin Murray: Hatred isn’t very productive. With respect, I think anger would be a better word.
Colin, disgust would be an even better one. Israel has evolved into a big obscenity.
Nothing is a good reason to hate anybody, especially a whole group. Many Palestinians fear the Jewish state. But as many Jews, in Israel and elsewhere, fear, or even are terrified by the Palestinians. They hate the Palestinians and muslims all over the world because as victim-pro’s this is rooted now in their psyche. So are Palestinians, They too claim to the “victim pro diploma” and they fear Israel and the Jews. They (= both Jews & Palestinians) choose to hate the other because they dare not face the other. so the other is demonized and “you can hate and do everything that comes to mind to harm a demon”…… Walid , you can only see hate of Israel, but you’re blind to the huge wave of hate towards Muslims and Islam ???? Can’t you see how Europeans react to Muslims in their countries? No, you’re not blind. but you probably say that this is racism and that Muslims are hated for no reason. I cannot do anything to change the Palestinians’ views of the Jew and Israel. I can (or could, while I’ve lived in Israel) work on the Israeli side ( To get out of the occupied territories, help create a Palestinian state, and give real equal rights to whatever minorities within Israel ) . Believe me Walid, hate and violence is an endless game where no one wins and everybody lose.
“So are Palestinians, They too claim to the victim pro diploma” and they fear Israel and the Jews.” “I cannot do anything to change the Palestinians’ views of the Jew and Israel.”
So it’s an equal playing ground and all just a misunderstanding and with an attitude adjustment on the part of both Palestinians and Israelis everything would be ok Danyeilat??
Please spare us the platitudes and the condescension. There is no equity between the occupier and the occupied. It’s like comparing a rape victim to the rapist.
Israelis are not being killed on an almost daily basis by Palestinians; Israelis are not being held in the world’s largest open-air prison; Israelis are not being beaten up and humiliated by Palestinian security forces on a daily basis; Israelis are not being kicked out of their homes and thrown into the streets by Palestinians; Israelis are not being ethnically cleansed from their land and having their homes destroyed regularly by Palestinians; Israelis are not being refused entry to their country or deported from one part of the country to another by Palestinians; critically ill Israelis are not being held at checkpoints in ambulances while some pimply-faced 18-year-old kid with a big gun decides whether or not the patient should be delayed for hours and bleed to death, be turned back or be allowed to pass. I could add to this ad infinitum.
I’m neither Muslim nor Arab but as somebody who lives and works in the Palestinian territories I can assure you Palestinians don’t need a circle-jerk of kumbaya choruses from people who live/have lived within the Green Line telling them “how it is”.
I don’t claim that there is any equity there, I have faught against Israel’s policy since i was 13 y/o, right after the war of 1967. I’ve been arrested by the “Shaback” ( Israeli General security services) more than once or twice ( and they tried to recruit me too ) also I’ve been attacked by the same people I’ve been fighting for, in Gaza, people I knew and trusted…so don’t misunderstand me and do not accuse me of platitudes and the condescension. The conflict is much more complex than you might think, and seeing only the Palestinian side. politicians on both sides play, on a daily basis, each into the other’s hand. both the Hammas and the Israeli government make sure the hate and violence go on and on and on. In the middle are the victims on both sides. This pimply-faced 18 y/o with the gun doesn’t know it yet, but he’s a victim too. I hope that one day soon Israel with withdraw from the occupied territories and both peoples will be able to heal their wounds and start leaving side by side, and there will be no more need for human right activists or humanitarian aid.
I’m well aware of the so-called complexities of the situation having spent about eight years in East Jerusalem/ West Bank and Gaza so don’t try and bother explaining it to me from an Israeli’s point of view. I’m well aware of how they think they are the victims too- if not the main victims – even if you personally don’t feel this.
Actually it is not that complex. There is international law and UN resolutions which Israel continues to flout. Settlement expansion, racism and of course the occupation. The PA has bent over backwards to accommodate Israel and Israel continues to spit in its face. Even Hamas has agreed to accept the ’67 borders. I’ve interviewed several of their leaders on this aspect. Palestinians have lost the bulk of their historic homeland and generally accepted this.
While you agree that there is no equity between the occupied and the occupier, you yet again talk about the “victims on both sides”. as if the suffering was 50-50. BULLSHIT. I’m not going to list ONCE AGAIN how Palestinian suffering on a daily basis is far, far worse than what Israelis suffer, or how the Israeli brat with the gun who beats the shit out of a Palestinian kid who then has to be hospitalised is suffering equally.
To recap there is NO COMPARISON between the occupied and the occupier. So spare me the Zionism-lite tripe.
“not suffering equally”
with respect, perhaps you missed the larger point, Colin: “the world has a damn good REASON to….” express whichever label you prefer to use.
Israel has never accepted or internalized any sense of behaving in a way that ineluctably prompts a response of at best, resentment, at worst, homicidal fury. This trait permeates Israel’s history from its ancient roots.
hatred eats away the soul of the person who experiences it therefor the very idea of empowering that which you despise access to devour your being is contradictory and completely self destructive.
no, we must use that anger or disgust or whatever it is to give us strength to rise above and change the situation, we can’t surrender, hatred it surrender.
i meant hatred is surrender. whether we realize it or not that is what it is.
You mean the surrender or enslavement of the whole self to a part of the self, therefore a negation of humanity?
“This trait permeates Israel’s history from its ancient roots.”
Gosh, I never knew you were around then, and taking notes. But then Gods are immortal, I suppose.
Cook wrote, “Jewish people’s collective experience as the eternal victims of history.”
He also wrote, “Meanwhile, the lesson the rest of us need to draw from the deadly commando raid is that the world can no longer afford to indulge these delusions.”
I think the “eternal victim” status is bogus, not supported by facts. Where does it come from? We are told that Torah is the essential core of Jewishness and that Exodus is the core of Torah, Israel’s ‘ancient roots.’ Sharansky points to the Exodus story as the key to Jewish identity.
Exodus story is not history, it’s mythology. The mythos is selectively interpreted: it is conveniently forgotten that Hebrews lived in Egypt for at least 200 years and maybe as many and 430 years; that a relative few Hebrews left Egypt, that before they left they plundered Egypt; that killing the children of the people who had given them succor from famine, rewarded them with the choicest land, had provided a civilizational context in which they could flourish was not an action that should be expected to elicit happy feelings.
“The world can no longer afford to indulge these delusions.”
Israel has invested its identity in the reality of a mythos and it’s putting the rest of the world at peril.
I respect you, Mooser, and would not harm you for the world.
But this delusional mythology of Israel’s is responsible for killing a thousand or more Lebanese civilians; more than a thousand Palestinians; 9 Turkish peace activists. This delusion has parked nuclear-capable submarines off Iran’s coast, targeting and threatening Iran’s people, cities, ancient architectural treasures. Israel is threatening the lives of 70 million people.
You’ll forgive me if I offend your sensibilities in an effort to shake others out of their homicidal delusions.
so, annie, are you saying it’s peachy keen for Israelis to continue to gin up hatred, but it’s incumbent upon the rest of the world to resist it?
does Israel have any obligation to grow up and stop acting in ways that incite hatred?
“Israel has invested its identity in the reality of a mythos and it’s putting the rest of the world at peril.” The identity you’re talking about is not shared by all Israelis but by the religious orthodox groups ( who are too powerful politically and are thriving to be even more so) … Israel is not putting the rest of the world in peril, the world could (and maybe should) ignore Israel or treat it like they do any other state. Jews were accused exactly of that, being a threat to the rest of the world, in the past and it has proved ,always, BS. what people like you are doing, is giving Israeli politicians that feeling of power and influence, the feeling of being at the center of world history. Iran’s Akhmedinejad probably understands the Israeli culture much more than you do, and he enjoys the real deep fear the Israelis feel with this nuclear game he’s playing. He enjoys provoking Israel knowing they will try to react ( if only to get a feeling that “we did something, we’re not helpless”) In the war in Lebanon, I’ll try to remind you, the Hezbollah has used civilians as human shields, and many Hezbollah fighters who were killed/injured where stripped of their weapons to present them as civilians. This doesn’t mean that no civilians were killed, but can you show me one war where there were no civilian victims? And the 9 Turkish people killed on the Marmara, I’ve seen videos on the French TV saying that these were no peace activists but IHH militants ( Google it to know more about this organization), who are as peace-loving as the Iranian revolutionary guards and were getting ready in advance to a violent conflict with the Israeli army. With this flotilla Israel became victim of its own stupidity and played, again, into the hands of the Hammas.
I’ve seen videos on the French TV
Just saying that renders your argument invalid : French TV is, like most medias, biased (I know, I’m French). They are just relaying informations from different sources (IDF, MFA, AFP, AP, …) without any investigation.
IHH is registered in the UNHCR as an NGO Partner, just before “France Terre d’Asile”, page 39 of this document.
“We’ll be back — with bigger flotillas”
Mel Frykberg, The Electronic Intifada, 9 June 2010
link to electronicintifada.net
————
Did the activists provoke the Israeli commandos into using deadly force?
Howaida Arraf: This is nonsense. We went out of our way to inform the Israelis that we were an unarmed civilian boat delivering aid, that we presented no threat to them and there was no need to board our vessels. We explained repeatedly who we were and what our mission was. Our boats were checked by different security at the various ports of departure and we also hired independent security personnel to verify that we were arms-free.
Oh, and just to be clear about French TV : news for June 6th showed the pictures of the injured IDF soldier, reported them as being published in a Turkish newspaper (which is right) but they didn’t show the ones were they were being healed and taken care of. Instead, we had a nice segment from Avital Leibovitch claiming once again that because the people on the Rachel Corrie were arrested without violence, those on the Mavi Marmara were dangerous activist seeking to kill Israeli soldiers.
Since June 6th, no more infos on the subject.
danyeilat, your response proves my thesis, almost point for point.
Natan Sharansky is neither religious nor orthodox. He writes in his book on Jewish identity that he had never read Torah until he was well into his adult years.
Israel is stationing nuclear submarines in the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean, with missiles trained on Iranian cities. A rogue state with unsupervised nuclear weapons and a history of wantonly attacking innocent peoples and destroying their lives and infrastructure, using internationally proscribed weapons, is at loose in the transit point for at least 40% of the world’s oil. Israel has made it clear over the course of the last 40 years that it pays no heed whatsoever to international law or the norms of civilized conduct.
But you say Israel does not put the world at peril?
As I see it, the world has not seen a more dangerous moment since the Bay of Pigs.
I heard Steve Walt make just that recommendation to a delegation of Jews from a synagogue in Ohio and the regional AIPAC director. You would have thought Walt had asked the Jews to jump off the 6-story building. One after the other the delegation took to the microphone and complained, wa wa wa, Israel is surrounded by Arabs {apparently Herzl didn’t notice that in 1897}; boo hoo hoo, in the 1200s Austria did thus-and-so, and we poor pathetic Jews whine whine whine. It was a disgusting display of self-debasement.
But let’s take you up on the offer: let’s treat Israel like any other state. We’ll start by having a neutral third party investigate Israel’s commando raid on peace activists ‘armed’ with kitchen knives who, apparently, used those kitchen knives to wrestle 30 bullets from IDF and insert them in the heads of 8 Turkish and 1 American citizen. Deal?
so, those Lebanese people who were killed and towns, buildings, power plants, infrastructure — all BS.
The university in Gaza that IDF destroyed — bs.
Izzeldin abu Laish’s daughters who were killed — not true, it’s really a Hallmark moment: “they are not dead it’s just bs.”
The white phosphorus burns treated by Norwegian doctors after Israel’s slaughter in Gaza 2008-2009 — just bs.
right.
well, you got me there, danyeilat. Ya, so we were sitting around noshing on some cherry tomatoes and hummus, just me and Bibi and Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban, and I sez to Shelly (his close friends call him Shelly), “Shelly,” I sez, “you’re spending too much of your money propping up Bibi here, with your free newspaper that’s all Bibi all the time; let me take over. I’ve got a little bit left after I pay my US taxes to support US wars for Israel; you relax, enjoy life, go the beach; maybe gamble a little.”
Then I turns to Haim and I sez, “You too, Haim; take it easy a little. I’ll run the Brookings gig for a while, tell Hillary and the Congress what they think and who is the center of the universe. You relax; spend some time admiring the artifacts stolen from Iraqi museums that you have in your California mansion. Mazel tov.”
yep, you’re right again; I empower Bibi to think he’s the center of the universe.
That’s rich.
I’m going to task your math abilities here, dany; you’ll have to demonstrate the ability to count all the way to ten. Are you up for it? Here goes:
Israelists/AIPAC goaded Bill Clinton to enact the first set of sanctions on Iran in 1995.
Got that? 1 9 9 5.
Ahmadinejad was elected to Iran’s presidency in 2005.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 — that’s right, use every finger: 10 years after Israel started hyperventilating about Iran, Ahmadinejad appears on the scene.
Ahmadinejad may push Israeli buttons, but only after Israel had spent at least 50 years building buttons to be pushed, and indoctrinating its children with morbid victim-worship that has permanently screwed up the thinking processes of an entire generation of otherwise overindulged brats.
fail
try again.
you must be one of the new hasbara recruits, seyadim? is that what Israel calls it’s citizen’s liars brigades? The pos paragraph above has more twists and turns into and thru lala land than Bre’r Rabbit’s path thru the brier patch.
What deluded mental processes make you think anybody buys any of this godawful crazy? It doesn’t even pass the laugh test, much less nudge any half-way sane person to invest a grain of credibility in it. Israelis are apparently so crazy that they think everybody is as crazy as they are. How did it happen that Israelis got so collectively stupid?
googled.
Your video might have been wrong. Was it made/doctored by that peace-loving IDF perhaps? Maybe some of the pepperspray that peace-loving IDF usually reserves for spraying in people’s eyes harmed the video feed?
anyway, here’s what teh big orange google sez re IHH:
Which brings us to the final (thank god) statement in your vomit-inducing screed:
victim again. Israelis just can’t shake that victim thing, just can’t catch a break.
The Hammas made me do it.
The dog ate my brains.
Israel, hear this:
I’m an American and I DON’T like Israel.
Israel sucks. big time.
Great post PG. Israel is indeed destabilising the region and thereby threatening world peace. There is a whole new power balance being brought into play as a direct result of the deadly raid on the flotilla. It has been building up for a while but the raid was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Turkey a former ally of Israel is now sympathetic to Hamas. No more intelligence sharing and joint military manoeuvres betweeen the two countries.
Erdogan’s Justice and Development party is now winning support away from Turkey’s historically secular military – all to the benefit of the Islamists. Syria is backing any further action that Turkey takes in regard to Gaza. Iran is threatening to send Red Crescent aid ships, escorted by Revolutionary Guard frigates, to Gaza which could well trigger war. Added into the scenario is Hezbollah to Israel’s north and Hamas to its south which will both be on Israel’s case.
So much for the West and the US in particular trying to divide the Mideast between a Shi’ite crescent on one side and a Sunni power base on the other. The Americans are worried about Turkey’s new moves. Obama is trying desperately to breathe some life back into the Palestinian Authority which is despised by most Palestinians as proximity peace talks die before they were even born.
Someone tell me the above is not a sure recipe for a new and major conflict in the region and as a result of this world peace will not be disturbed.
Do these Israelis include the Americans as part of the world’s endless anti-semites? And hence, deduce that American leaders are simply bought off to always favor Israel, or they believe that the US strategic insterests are always identical to Israel’s? Anyone have a clue? And some evidence to support such clue?
I don’t have time to construct a supported argument, but I get a strong impression that a substantial number of Israelis either disrespect or despise us, mostly for being suckers who are so easily used.
I wonder if the average Israeli knows what proportion the US gives to Israel (& to Egypt to make nice with Israel) of its annual foreign aid? And does he/she know Israel is the only one given foreign aid with no strings attached? Or is the average Israeli as ignorant of that fact as the average American? Same re the US pattern of continually vetoing all movement in the UN security council to tame Israel?
link to haaretz.com
spend a few minutes watching the “Pigs for Palestine” and other Blumenthal videos. then you decide.
Hasbara prescribes that polls be fixed to produce the result required to support the agenda, so polls are meaningless, in my view.
But, you may protest, these are just a random sampling of people in an emotionally charged atmosphere….
To which I respond: Helen Thomas.
Since you mentioned polls Psychopathic, it is a bit more complicated than just rigging the poll. You have what I call the elite use of polls, and it is used in this fashion all over the world.
Polling was introduced by the PR industry as a tool for the control of the people, it is a “science” for measuring the direction or intent, the will of the people. What many do not understand is that he (or those) that controls the environment, what people see and hear, control the will of the people.
Always before a major poll is launched by the corporate media, there is a major campaign of concentrated propaganda repeatedly voiced through the major (major in the sense of the monopoly) media sources – national, such as NBC CBS CNN FOX, etc. Why? Because they wish to set a precedent of opinion, that is they try to garner authority through the majority, which has been influenced by the said propaganda blitz. This is layered, and can go on for a long period of time, to make sure that the right message is embedded in the psyche of the population.
Only after the above is done, is there a poll taken, and that with specific questions related to the media propaganda. Essentially what the polls do is verify “how effective” the propaganda blitz has been. So, when a decision is taken by the powers that be, whatever the subject, they look legitimate – as if they are just following the major “view of the people.” THAT is the major use of the poll in the weapon arsenal of the PR firms, and their cognate media sources. Mind you, this is an exact science, that has been perfected to manufacture the consent of the people (to use a phrase coined by Noam Chomsky).
So, whenever you look at polls, as used by the so-called “major sources” it is good that you keep the above scenario in mind. What polls are for the most part, is the way to measure how effective the propaganda blitz has been. Plain and simple, they are a synthetic methodology, used in a cynical fashion, by a ruling elite. The question they ask themselves is “have we been effective in this quest to move the will of the people?” (lets take a poll and see).
HOW THE RULING ELITE USE POLLS
This is as true for Israel (in some senses even more so) as any other nation. The process is always destructive, in some cases more destructive in some countries than others.
“Do these Israelis include the Americans as part of the world’s endless anti-semites? “
I tell you and I tell you and nobody listens! Remember the ziocaine syndrome I’m always ranting about? Americans can be on a new rampage of anti-semitism, at exactly the same time that they are Israel’s strongest protecter and supplier. The ideology of Zionism judges ideas, or opinions, on their ability to stimulate the ziocaine syndrome. If it gets the ziocaine flowing, it’s right.
Good lord, Citizens, how many times do you need to see our trolls sling the most henious accusations at anti-Zionists, accusations from intellectual whoredom to sexual perversion, and anti-semitism, anti-semitism, anti-semitism, and then whine just a few comments later “nobody treats me with respect, like I treat you”?
So please, don’t look for a rational basis or any consistency! Not for Zionist-supporters that hobgoblin of small minds!
If it makes the ziocaine flow, it’s right. and anyone who interferes with getting a good high going is an anti-Semite. And that’s about all there is to it, except in those cases where criminal culpability is being excused or personal interests give rise to special pleading. But that last one is taking a two-week vacation. Much-deserved, I’d say.
That Ziocaine is an interesting drug, numbs you to other peoples pain.
spot on
“Meanwhile, the lesson the rest of us need to draw from the deadly commando raid is that the world can no longer afford to indulge these delusions”.
Precisely. Citizen; all non-Jews are generally seen as anti-Semites by Israel – look at how convinced they are that Obama truly hates Israel -despite the obvious: Obama is one of Israel’s biggest supporters, perhaps even more than Bush…
their army is the “most moral in the world”
I’ve always wondered where this quote comes from ? Anyone got a clue ?
It’s part of the smoke and mirrors show, like the rest of its phonyness Melka.
hm, I thought those were the words of our national propaganda artist Bernard Henry Levy, but he must have taken it from the Hasbara Handbook.
Speaking of this book, there’s this delicious quote :
I’ll let you savour this and much more :
link to middle-east-info.org
I’ve read the whole thing and seen those arguments spewed forth relentlessly.
Melka, there’s a bit of B-HL in every Israeli. It ws reported today in the Telegraph that he has now become the butt of intellectual ridicule after copiously quoting a leading authority on Kant who, it transpires, is a modern-day hoax written about in le Canard enchaîné .
link to telegraph.co.uk
Ha! Bernard-Henry Levy. Funny guy.
Yeah, some French media got him angry, constantly making fun of him for 3 whole weeks. He almost lost another button on his shirt and his haircut all messed up, it was funny.
He’s the epitome of your average, media-friendly philosopher, nothing more. Good hair, though.
Bernard Levy elicits the strangulation reflex in me. I knew he wasn’t to be given any credence when he signed that useless letter of European “intellectuals” bleggh!
Meaning every time I see or hear him I want to reach into my TV. And strangle him. Usually Charlie Rose..he seems to lurve him.
Why would anyone take a French “philosopher” seriously?
Don’t get me started with Mr. cleavage BHL..Two days before the flotilla massacre, ce fils de pute was giving a lecture about the IDF being the most democratic blah blah..
“Bernard-Henri Levy: I have never seen an army as democratic as the IDF
French philosopher addresses ‘Democracy and its Challenges’ conference sponsored by the French Embassy in Israel in cooperation with Haaretz.
link to haaretz.com
Why would anyone take a French “philosopher” seriously?
RoHa..France produced some of the greatest philosophers. I fail to see a reason why a French can’t be a “serious” philosopher. Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Lyotard, Sartre, Althusser to name only a few of the modern/post modern ones..
Descartes was a real philosopher. One or two other Frenchmen were real philosophers. Sartre was a real philosopher.
But the others you mention are just pompous windbags. They are best summed up by Dennet’s definition of “lyotard”
- “lyotard, n. The new clothes of the present King of France. ”
link to philosophicallexicon.com
RoHa
It’s a tenuous subject to take it on now but to make it short:
In philosophy as in art, cinema, music etc. different approaches, different voices should be welcome. While I can’t say I’m familiar with Lyotard I have a problem thinking that Baudrillard, Deleuze or Foucault are not “real” philosophers. In the same vein I hear many say that French cinema is not real cinema. No action, no plot, too this and too that. The same with music..(you must be joking! they say!) I don’t know but I tend to think that Americans have a preconceived idea of how should things look like. unfamiliarity often breeds contempt.
BTW, reading some of the comments in the link makes me think he’s poking fun rather than seriously assessing, which is fair enough..but!
“chomsky, adj. Said of a theory that draws extravagant metaphysical implications from scientifically established facts. “Essentially, Hume’s criticism of the Argument from Design is that it leads in all its forms to blatantly chomsky conclusions.” “The conclusions drawn from Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle are not only on average chomskier than those drawn from Godel’s theorem; most of them are downright merleau-ponty.”
BHL is Alan Dershowitz in French.
“BHL is Alan Dershowitz in French.”
I never met a single person who takes BHL seriously in France. That he’s famous is largely due to three factors a-He gravitated around the the 1968 student movement and coined the term “Nouveaux Philosophes” to a coterie of young writers such as Finfielkraut and Glucksman ) who all decried Marxism as “evil”, . b- Unbottoned white shirts mostly revealing absence of chest hair and a rather nasty piece of “cleavage”. c- He married a somewhat famous movie starlet, Arielle Dombasle.
You forgot, ze hair…ze hair! It is tres philosophe!
what the hell is a “democratic army” ?? They take a vote on whom their going to kill that day????
“You forgot, ze hair…ze hair! It is tres philosophe!”
You’re onto something there!! True for Glucksman, Finkielkraut, BHL, Jambet (not anymore though!) and Dollé
“In the same vein I hear many say that French cinema is not real cinema”
Who says that? Anyone who says that Godard or Pialat or Bresson aren’t cinema doesn’t know what cinema is, in my opinion.
Or is this like “freedom fries”? Is it unfashionable?
thankgodimatheist, you forgot one factor (and that might be the biggest one), his relationship with the medias and jewish associations. Remember when he wrote this book about the Murder of Daniel Pearl ? Everyone in France (well, at least every newspaper, TV show, etc…) said that it was a fantastic book. But he got pwnd (sorry for the geeky language, but this term seems to be the most appropriate) by a lot of great international book reviews, like William Dalrymple. Same thing with American Vertigo, being considered one of the best “road-book” in France, while the NYTimes slams it.
Dieudonné, a controversed french comedian, calls him the “billionair philosopher”.
Melka..I had left France (where I lived 30 years) to Australia when this book came out so I didn’t really follow since . I’m aware of his connections though and it doesn’t surprise me that he’s cajoled in some circles in the media. As for the Dieudonne controversy, I followed a bit then but much less now and have no idea what the whole thing boiled down to nowadays.
Atheedieumerci
“Godard or Pialat or Bresson”
The new generation is not bad either..Jean-Pierre Jeunet ( Delicatessen, The city of Lost Children and Amelie) , Mathieu Kassowitz (La Haine) , Leo Carax( not very prolific but very talented and …crazy)..
As far as that lot are concerned, I, an Australian, agree with the American.
But this is not a forum for rubbishing the fashionable pretentious nonsense this lot produce (see Sokla and Bricmont, or Eagleton for that) so I will leave it here.
I don’t really have an opinion on whether French or American cinema is “better”, but I’ll let you read this nice piece (in French) of a cinema critic about Avatar (yep, this movie). In short, there was some kind of controversy : there’s no more real cinema critics in France because Avatar was appraised. Rafik Djoumi says that the problem with “real” critics in France is that they take cinema as a modern and contemporary artform, when american cinema is an entertainement and is more close to the old artform of fables like La Fontaine.
link to arretsurimages.net
Personnaly, I don’t care, I like a movie because of it’s narrative form (Primer or The Taste of Tea), visual impact (Cameron’s or Lucas’ work), etc…
But we’re not on a movie forum, sorry about that
Sokla and Bricmont
Yes I followed the ‘Sokal affair’ and I have a great admiration for Bricmont ( author of The De-Zionisation of The American mind, a great piece). He was right about Lacan, Kristeva, and maybe Guattari as well but I’m not sure Deleuze deserves ridicule. In any case, it’s true that it’s not the right tribune to discuss French philostuff.. But while we’re at it. Here’s Bricmont’s article, right on topic:
How to Deal with The Lobby
The De-Zionization of the American Mind
By JEAN BRICMONT
link to counterpunch.org
Among the various bits of paper showing what an unbearable smart-arse I am are enough degrees in Philosophy for me to recognize, not only that he is poking fun, but exactly why he is giving that particular definition of a name. Look at the one for Chisholm. It’s hilarious.
It’s been said numerous times, most recently by Lieberman in supporting the IDF’s role in flotilla massacre.
The great majority of uses of this interesting phrase now seem to be scathing or sarcastic. Richard Ben Cramer in his 2004 ‘How Israel Lost’ has a long analysis of what he regards as the degeneration in the atmosphere of the Israeli armed forces. He cites the phrase Purity of Arms, which goes back at least to 1948 and is attached to instructions given to Israeli soldiers not to use force beyond military necessity. Purity of Arms is clearly linked to other concepts like Light to the Nations and Most Moral Army. Cramer is in effect sceptical about whether the Israelis were ever that pure or moral in the use of armed force and considers that by 2004 they were becoming, because of the development of Israeli law and because even former peaceniks had by then decided that there was no partner for peace, more and more unrestrained. He notes that nothing spreads faster (in Israel or anywhere) than what are initially a few little exceptions to the rules.
An interesting essay but I still can’t pin down the first use of all these remarkable terms.
goes back at least to 1948 and is attached to instructions given to Israeli soldiers not to use force beyond military necessity.
Surely you are not saying this seriously. I am in the middle of reading Pappe’s “Ethnic Cleansing” and unless you are ready to make the case for the military necessity of ethnic cleansing, there is nothing moral about the IDF.
The opening of the Ben Gurion papers sure ended any myths about that guy’s idealism re how the IDF should conduct itself. Why haven’t more Israeli historians looked fully into that trove of real time information?
Benny Morris talks about purity of arms in “1948.” Israel was “forced” to kill, at about 7 times the civilian casualties inflicted by Arabs, because, “our backs were to the wall.”
once again, failure to accept any responsibility for its own actions; justification for otherwise morally untenable situation by hyperbolizing sense of victimization. The pattern… the future of a delusion
“Most of the nation retains a simplistic collective memory of the
conflict, a black-and-white memory that portrays us in a very positive
light and the Arabs in a very negative one,” says the professor from
Tel Aviv University. This memory, along with the ethos of the conflict
and collective emotions such as fear, hatred and anger, turns into a
psycho-social infrastructure of the kind experienced by nations that
have been involved in a long-term violent conflict. This infrastructure
gives rise to the culture of conflict in which we and the Palestinians
are deeply immersed, fanning the flames and preventing progress toward
peace. Bar-Tal claims that in such a situation, it is hard even to
imagine a possibility that the two nations will be capable of
overcoming the psychological obstacles without outside help….
In a telephone interview from New York, Nets-Zehngut
says it is very clear that those with a “Zionist memory” see Israel and
the Jews as the victims in the conflict, and do not tend to support
agreements or compromises with the enemy in order to achieve peace.
This finding, he explains, demonstrates the importance of changing the
collective memory of conflicts, making it less biased and more
objective – on condition, of course, that there is a factual basis for
such a change.
and yet it is the Palestinians, and Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal, who are taking the lead in performing mental hygiene, attempting against all odds to help their children to overcome traumatic experiences that would — that DO — destroy with PTSD symptoms, adult members of the US military by the tens of thousands.
Guys, I wish I could share your view that the world is figuring out Israeli. The people might be but I just don’t see the governments moving in the right direction. Two pieces of evidence that are troubling. The first is expanded UN Sanctions against Iran voted in the UN today. The peace deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey was derisively dismissed by the United States. With contempt may I add. This is huge and very indicative of our future actions. Second is the slow turn by The New York Establishment Times and other establishment players that are starting to paint our NATO ally as a traitorous ally. What’s Up is down in their world. Plus the increased attacks on NATO troops in Afghanistan that seem to already be taking effect. I don’t see anything good coming out of this. God help us.
I agree, Conrad, nothing good will come out of this. UNSC Resolution 1929 which passed a couple of minutes ago is the start of something very ugly about to happen.
This is a very important indicator. Any hope that the US will actually shift its mideast foreign policy can go down the toilet now.
I couldn’t agree more. It is wishful thinking to imagine that our governments are on the verge of moving in a different direction concerning Israel. The evidence strongly suggests otherwise. It will remain business as usual for the forseeable future unless a strong and sustained campaign is taken to form a third party movement in the US and repudiate political leaders worldwide who support Israel. Zionist money speaks louder than angry e-mails, protests and wishful thinking.
It is also somewhat naive to imagine that the public is waking up to Israel and the destructiveness of our special relationship with Israel. A Rasmussen poll quoted in Haaretz showed only 19 percent of like American voters blamed Israel for their attack on the flotilla, while 49 percent believed pro-Palestinian activists were to blame. The views of the public are still heavily determined by Zionist propaganda in the mainstream media, and even an event as appallingly and obviously criminal as this pirate attack can be successfully spun as just another example of evil anti-Semites victimizing Israel.
That Poll is very depressing. Reminds me of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. 51% of the American population knew for a fact that Sadamm and company were behind 9/11. Uneducated people are the greatest threat to World Peace. Without them our evil leaders would be powerless.
The sanctions should be on Israel, compared with Iran, as they violate international all the time and whenever they feel ‘threatened’.
Israel, while constantly complaining about the UN,
gets it wish with these sanctions.
Sad, but depressingly true.
Now we know what Israel’s idea of a probe into the flotilla massacre means: dig up dirt to blame the victims. link to haaretz.com
As if the IDF were not an armed group prepared for violence.
Jonathan Cook’s analysis is on the money. There certainly is a concerted effort to forge a simplistic identification of today’s Israel — one of the most militarily powerful countries in the world today — with the defenseless minority Jewish population of Europe that was slaughtered by the millions 65+years ago. It is as illogical as identifying today’s Japanese civilian population with the murderous Japanese military that rampaged through Asia during the same time period. It is astounding how many reasonably intelligent people believe that Jews are perpetually on the brink of annihilation.
Indeed, the exploitation of the Holocaust for pro-Israel purposes needs no further proof than the treatment of Bernadotte – a true Holocaust hero who finds almost no mention in Holocaust museums and websites, because his assassination is an embarrassment for Israel. Israelis and their supporters are outraged at comparisons to the Nazis, comparisons which I think should usually be avoided, yet invoke the Holocaust themselves at almost every opportunity, compulsively comparing virtually every “enemy,” including Goldstone(!), to Hitler or Nazis.
When TV, radio, novels (both fiction and non-fiction), movies, plays, Rabbis, community leaders and K12 school teachers keep reinforcing that notion over and over, then it becomes clear as day how “reasonably intelligence people believe that Jews are perpetually on the brink of annihilation”.
I was watching the history channel a few days ago, and whenever WWII came up, the Jews were mentioned as Hitler’s only victims. It’s as if the millions of non-Aryans who were also the victim’s of Nazi genocide never existed, it’s all about the Jews (In my view, that’s a form of Holocaust denial, too).
AVI- “In my view, that’s a form of Holocaust denial, too.” I agree completely. The Zionists have commandeered the term “holocaust,” and in so doing have left the impression that mass-murder is an isolated event, an aberration effecting only the Jews. I can’t help but wonder what the result would be of a poll of high school students asking “how many people were killed in World War II?” Anyone care to guess the response? 6 million? 10 million? How many high school students would answer that well over 50 million people (6 million Jews plus over 45 million Gentiles) were killed? What were those 45 million plus Gentiles, chopped liver? Or the over 10 million Blacks killed by King Leopold’s Holland? Or the native Americans the US nearly exterminated? Or the cities that Rome put to the sword, etc. The sad reality is that mass-murder is the historical reality, not the exception. Never again? Only when applied to ALL peoples. Anything less is an abomination and a disgrace.
Throw the starvation of the Christian Ukraine farmers in the 1930′s by the Bolshevik revolution in the 1930′s, Japanese treatment of the Chinese in the 1930″s a.k.a. Rape of Nanking, the horror of the Rwandan Holocaust, probably the most despicable and evil case of mass murder in history due to the brutality and speed of it. Don’t forget all the Vietnamize slaughtered by such “humane” weapons as the napalm bomb, the killing of a large proportion of Iraq citizens and the contamination of their land with depleted uranium forever. And then the brutal treatment of the world’s poor through our economic fascist policies implemented by the elite of the world. I’m sure the Africans have no love lost for their capitalist white brothers. You’re right. Never Again applies to all or it applies to none. Justice for all or Justice for none.
Avi
“and whenever WWII came up, the Jews were mentioned as Hitler’s only victims.”
I grew up with that sort of nonsense. It was only because I’m a history nut that I later discovered there were many others given the same genocidal treatment by the nazis. That distortion of history is not just because of Jewish insistence that they be considered the prime victims, though. The u.s. establishment (non-zionist corporate oligarchs) really never quibbled about nazi extermination of the left, in fact, they wholly endorsed it, were envious of the nazi’s freedom to persecute at will. This part of the usa establishment had no interest in documenting nazi atrocities against the left, The last thing they wanted was sympathy for the left. So if nazi genocidal policies were all against Jewish people, all the better for their propaganda, as well. They also saw no problem using nazis to further their own ends after the war, no matter what disgusting crimes these people committed, precisely because these nazis, and those running the usa in the 40′s and 50′s had a lot in common.
Forgot something. By making it out that the nazis only victims were Jewish people, the u.s. establishment could then ignore the crimes the nazis did against the left. It’s not that the u.s. establishment condoned the other racial/cultural groups being murdered, outside of leftists, it’s it really didn’t matter to them who got genocided, as long as the left was destroyed. Highlighting the others, would invariably show leftists as victims as well, and Soviets, and the u.s. establishment didn’t want these people getting the sort of sympathy Jewish people got. One cant very well promote a cold war with an enemy everyone sympathises with. So highlighting Jewish suffering and ignoring all others worked for them because it better served their own propaganda. Sympathy for Jewish Holocaust victims would not spill over into sympathy for leftists or Soviets, and for the vast majority of americans, it never did.
HAYATE- In any fair and impartial examination of the facts, both the Zionists and the US have a lot to answer for in their relationship to the Nazis before, during, and after the Holocaust.
The elites were busy scooping up postwar Nazi talent. Not to mention the Intelligence agency rat lines. link to operationpaperclip.info
agreed, David S. well said
I’d have thought that the actual response – highly vocal solidarity within the group, no concessions or sympathy for outsiders – has been exactly ‘what we might have expected’ and I’m really surprised that Mr.Cook, who lives in the very heart of the problem, might have expected anything else.
The West does not find it convenient to see the truth, though every one of these incidents tears more holes in the veil behind which the truth hides and the endless Hitler comparisons cause indulgence rather than belief.
I think that the Security Council members have been persuaded by the United States that Israel has to be indulged and treated to new sanctions against Iran, in return for which the much-threatened attack will not take place. The United States government has in turn been persuaded that Israel, if indulged endlessly and made to feel secure, is only too ready to behave reasonably. But the Zionist ideology in which all non-Jews are suspected of anti-Semitism and must every day prove their innocence all over again means that Zionists never feel secure (or must at least make a show of being in constant fear), always lash out at the slightest hint of trouble and objectively make more and more enemies.
I too wish I could think, in line with the general optimism of this site, that it’s a dark hour but the dawn is near. I reckon it’s still the middle of the night.
Perhaps “expected” wasn’t the best word of choice in that sentence. But, Mr. Cook is basically saying that any decent human being, especially the Israeli collective which has repeatedly claimed to be an inseparable part of the enlightened and civilized western world, wouldn’t and shouldn’t have responded that way.
Hebrew has a lot to do with the cult of victimhood. The language was reinvented for a colonial enterprise. Much of the slang comes from the army. Anyone who counts joins the army. The whole worldview is poisoned by the army. The neighbor procedure describes the use of human shields. There are plenty more examples.
Then nobody else speaks the language. Israel has no linguistic links with any of its neighbours. It truly is an outpost in the desert. There are no meaningful business or cultural links with any of the neighbouring countries. Israel plays soccer with Europe, not Asia.
The Mizrahi have been fed the bullshit for 62 years and they too now speak of the hatred of the goys. Before they went to Israel none knew what a cossack pogrom was. Israel is like a greenhouse for feelings of persecution. A nation suffering collective PTSD. The national glue is the Shoah and the cult of the fallen soldier. Why are they so hung up on Gilad Shalit ? Because every soldier is precious. Why? Because the whole culture is built around imposing Zionism in an alien territory, around defence and walls and the difference between the world inside the wall and the hateful world outside it. The whole history of Zionist architecture is a history of inch by inch land grab.
How they got the mizrahi to join with the program is one of the great achievements of the ashkenazis.
“..How they got the mizrahi to join with the program is one of the great achievements of the ashkenazis.”
I understood that it was forced on them against their will. Ben Gurion holding up his nose and saying something or other about how their “Arabness” was stinking up his countryside.
They told them it was something they couldn’t have – so they wanted it.
Sephardim will send t heir kids to Ashkenazi schools to be spit on and crawl on their bellies for the privilege
In my mind it’s akin to poor white conservatives — supporting a worldview that’s against your own interests!
i just read this great 05 article from the middle east forum called Post-Zionism and the Sephardi Question that breaks down the trajectory of mizrahi ‘assimilation’ in israel, or lack of.
Annie, I like this little chestnut “For me, however, they are not among the traits that I wish to see in the society that my spiritual fathers and I dreamed about establishing here: an exemplary and modern society laced with the most beautiful visions of humanistic liberalism. [Still] the advocates of Jewish love and brotherhood say, “Do not call them [the Mizrahim] Khomeini-like or primitive. It makes them even angrier.’[2″ I can imagine the warm welcome The Falasha received upon their “Aliyah” I understand they weren’t even considered real “Kosher Jews” and to take The Mikvah and be re-converted. Similar to the Palastinians they have a stronger historical lineage to the ancient Jews from what I understand.
That’s an astute analysis regarding the language, as language tends to form culture not the other way around as I understand. BTW. Does anyone remenber the “Israeli Black Panther” phenomenon? Saphardic and Mizrahi descrimination was a very rel phenomenon.
Sephardic. Shouldn’t have used phenomenon twice. I swear its the phone. Although I’m not a good typist, the phones keyboard magnifies my deficiancy.
The story of this gentleman, on the Neturei Karta site, makes mention of the panthers:
link to nkusa.org
His whole story is fascinating.
That’s great Bumbleye, thank you for that. I’m going to read that now.
If I may just correct, Hebrew is in the Semitic language group as is Arabic, both under the Afro-Asiatic language umbrella.I think they were refered to as “Hamitic” at one time.
Hebrew has a lot to do with the cult of victimhood. The language was reinvented for a colonial enterprise
The language pre-dates the Holocaust, Ben-Yehuda, many say the father of Modern Hebrew, immigrated to Palestine in 1881. I don’t see the connection.
Of course you don’t. Ben Yehuda was part of the first aliyah. Why was there any need to change the language of the Jews who already lived in Palestine?
What strikes me about Hebrew is the arrogance of its users. Most Israelis who speak to Palestinians will only speak in Hebrew. It is the language of the conqueror. As if it is an important language. Which it isn’t. Only in the Zionist bubble. Nobody else speaks Hebrew. Nobody else reads books in Hebrew. Nobody else listens to songs in hebrew. That’s 6.5 billion people.
A great rant that touches upon many of the same things as the Cook piece here:
It’s Amazing What Decades of Shit Can Do
by Mark Drolette / June 9th, 2010
link to dissidentvoice.org
There’s a great quote in there from a human rights lawyer on the legality of the incident:
i agree, awesome rant. thanks for linking
Cheers, both of you.
Instead, Israelis have been taught to see in the Holocaust a different message: that the world is plagued by a unique and ineradicable hatred of Jews, and that the only safety for the Jewish people is to be found in the creation of a super-power Jewish state that answers to no one. Put bluntly, Israel’s motto is: only Jewish power can prevent Jewish victimhood.
Ironically, the only reason that Israel gets so much mileage out of the Holocaust is because the West has placed it high on its agenda. Take for instance, the much vilified UN. The UN ratifed the Jewish state in 1947 in response to the Holocaust and created a Holocaust memorial day (Jan. 27) just a few years ago.
As Hannah Arendt saw early on, Israel itself is the anomaly.
Look Mama, a real journalist!
Good work, man, thank you Mr. Cook.
Have you been to his website? So many articles that will just, well, read some:
http://www.jkcook.net
PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2010 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES
link to wrmea.com
Thank you Chu, I’ve been looking for something like this. It’s good to put a number on things.
just the facts
“Israelis have not responded in any of the ways we might have expected.”
Good piece, but I have to disagree about the Israeli response.
Israel knows it can get away with murder and the most the USA will do is ask Israel to conduct its own investigation because Israel is so credible–is this true, even as to Americans killed by Israel? Ask Rachel Corrie’s parents, and ask these guys:
link to mycatbirdseat.com
Yet the Beidens & our congressmen go on tv and assure us we can trust Israel to objectively handled things, do their own investigation…. What the hell, the American killed aboard that flottila ship–what’s to worry about? Besides, he was a young citizen of Turkey too, eh?
Citizen, I know you’re interested in USS.Liberty Google “Operation Cyanide” I can’t find the links to the articles now, but you’l find the same as I within the first couple of pages. I was reading up on the harrassment of US.Marine Forces in Lebanon by the “IDF” and Ostrovsky’s detailing of Mossad obscurantism in aiding US.hostage recovery efforts and was taken on a tangent.
If we cannot beat them, join them, infiltrate them and eroad them them from within.
Jonathan Cook informs us that Gilad Shalit “when he was captured, was enforcing Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza.”
I will provide both the questions and the answers.
Q: How was Israel’s occupation of Gaza illegal in 2006 (when Shalit was captured)?
A: It was illegal because Israel did not admit that it was occupying Gaza. An occupation requires certain duties from the occupying power and Israel was occupying Gaza (by enforcing a limited siege on imports and exports) but was unwilling to fulfill its duties as an occupying power.
Q: But Shalit was located in Israel proper and was not in fact occupying Gaza.
A: Because Israel was in fact “occupying” by enforcing a siege (which became much more stringent later on, but was already in effect in June of 2006), Shalit as a member of Israel’s army, even though he was located on Israeli soil, must be considered participating in the occupation, even if his duty was on a border where nothing illegal was occurring.
Q: But what about Shalit being deprived of visits from the Red Cross?
A: Now you are playing the victim. There are prisoners in Israel whose families from Gaza cannot visit them. Sure they can be visited by the Red Cross, but that is besides the point. They do not have the full rights that prisoners of war should be entitled to and therefore bringing up the mistreatment of Shalit is playing the victim.
You should stop wondering and start getting informed. I’ll keep this short. For the Shalit stuff about not having Red Cross visits, read the following on Israel’s secret prison where no Red Cross is allowed to see prisoners held by Israel. It’s a Haaretz article no longer available because of their new set-up; found it for you elsewhere:
link to hamoked.org.il
Since Israel is at war with Hamas, Shalit as a soldier is fair game and he has been taken prisoner to be used in a swap for some of the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. As you saw of his condition in the video, he looks in better health than most people in Gaza. With Israel monkeying around in the negotiations since 4 years, he’ll soon become another disappeared terrorist like Arad.
“I will provide both the questions and the answers.”
Yes, we know that. That’s the problem, dummy!
Wondering, you are so downright stupid sometimes it’s hilarious! “I will provide both the questions and the answers” So now we have a Zionist definition of a “discussion”. And as I said above, both the questions and answers are designed to produce the ziocaine reaction.
Not to mention the completely disarming utter lack of moral pretentiousness! So artlessly ingenuous you are!
The day Israel frees the 80 paralyzed Palestinians in its custody, will be the that I myself will march to Gaza and free Shalit.
Avi, did you know that in 2006, Israel “captured” a former Hizbullah fighter that was schizophrenic that had been sitting on his front porch while the place was being attacked, took him back to Israel where he was kept for a full year inspite of Red Cross’ pleading all this time that the guy was a sick and harmless old guy. One wonders what Israel did with or to a schizophrenic during a year. He was finally released in a swap for the body of the drowned Ethiopian-Israeli swimmer that had been found on Lebanon’s shore a couple of years earlier. Also released with the sick man, were the bodies of 2 Hizbullah fighters that had been killed by Israel during the war and dragged back to Israel to be used for future swappings (Israel’s words).
With all the stories of Mengele-types running loose in Israel, you’d have to wonder what Israel is doing with or to the 80 paralysed Palestinian prisoners.
I agree with WJ here. This is a fair assessment.
“I will provide both the questions and the answers.”
That’s the purpose of hasbara, no?
:D
Everyone reading I am currious that those detained briefly after nine eleven then released should be enough proff for the whole world as to whom really did nine eleven, Zionists did it with the help of their infiltrators and our patsies with support of aparthied israel. HOW? MAY I ASK EVERYONE
could someone be here to document an event that took the whole world by surprise???? Preknowledge, the four trucks found of explosives !!!
Israel and their zionist christains evangelicals are responsible, hang them in ny times square
Jonathan Cook employs an old motif: the Holocaust should have made the Jews better citizens of the planet:
“The Holocaust’s lesson for most Israelis is not a universal one that might inspire them to oppose racism, or fanatical dictators or the bullying herd mentality that can all too quickly grip nations, or even state-sponsored genocide.
“Instead, Israelis have been taught to see in the Holocaust a different message: that the world is plagued by a unique and ineradicable hatred of Jews, and that the only safety for the Jewish people is to be found in the creation of a super-power Jewish state that answers to no one. Put bluntly, Israel’s motto is: only Jewish power can prevent Jewish victimhood.”
The assumption that the Holocaust should make the Jews better people has been constantly debunked by Mooser, for one. The idea that suffering ennobles is so absurd, that one would think that every child who suffers child abuse would go on to be a great parent and all that you, reader, need to be a better person is a good kick in the shins as long as it is painful enough. Suffering makes people defensive, embattled and mean, as a rule. It is the rare individual that is ennobled by suffering and Jonathan Cook is guilty of foisting a false hope on us, his readers, with his assumption that the noble route was the more logical or expected one.
WJ –
I think you are being too generous with the Israelis on the issue of the Holocaust.
1. Many Holocaust victims, Jewish and others, moved to other countries and did not create societies as problematic as Israel.
2. Zionism predates the Holocaust.
3. The founders of Israel were not Holocaust survivors and all the Sephardic Jews were not Holocaust victims. The majority of Israeli Jews are not Holocaust victims or descendants of thereof.
So, Israel is responsible for the choice to take on the Holocaust in a particular way.
Nobody is asking Israeli Jews to be better victims than anybody else, but, since they chose Holocaust victimhood as part of their national psyche and since they use the Holocaust to justify horrendous acts against others, their relationship to the Holocaust is subject to scrutiny.
“The assumption that the Holocaust should make the Jews better people has been constantly debunked by Mooser, for one.”
You are a lying piece of shit wondering Jew. I have never, ever said that, and please do not impute to me the kind of pretentious know-it-all bullshit you traffic in, okay?
The simple fact is, wondering Jew, you do not know how to open your mouth without lying.
Not to mention that you completely misunderstand, for your own purposes, whatever I might say. Okay, maybe you don’t do it with any purpose (beyond getting your ziocaine flowing) you do it because you’re stupid, I don’t really know.
Please, please, if there’s one thing I don’t want to be associated with, it’s the cheap, tawdry omniscience all Zionist-supporters assume. You can’t think any other way, so you assume everybody else does.
Mooser- When you mention my name in my absence I am supposed to be silent and smile, but when I mention your name in your absence you’re supposed to unload with your humorless rant. (Whatever happened to your sense of humor, by the way. Did you flush it by mistake? Haven’t even cracked a smile from one of your posts in weeks.) I know I’m being self pitying. Have fun ragging on me. Bullwinkle is a dope.
WJ –
Don’t take it personally. Mooser accused me of being a racist on the night of the flotilla attacks. My offense: I suggested that some of the Turkish activists were willing to martyr themselves for the cause.
Others here accused me of insinuating myself into the inner circle and then betraying the cause. It was quite the pile-up.
Subsequent reports confirmed my conjecture.
I have yet to see an apology from the angry bunch.
I value Mondoweiss a lot. I learn from it, but the nastiness is a downer and I periodically get away from it. It’s not worth it.
Perhaps it’s the format, but considering that we have never met, don’t even know each other’s names for the most part or the first thing about each other, why is there so much offensive behavior?
And how come such excellent critical thinkers fall into the trap of groupthink and mob mentality.
I don’t expect this will elicit an apology from anyone. I expect immediate acid responses. This is just for the record.
Yonira was struck down and Witty fled, and I guess WJ is aiming to take up their standards as well.
You made a most heinous remark, literally blaming the death of the victims on themselves. To say that the activists were wishing for martyrdom is no different than saying than that rape victims were “asking for it.”
You are not entitled to any apology.
I said repeatedly that the IDF and Israel bear full and sole responsibility. This is a separate issue and you willfully choose to read it that way.
The fact is that the activists did resist – as was their full right. And they risked death. You don’t take an IDF commando hostage without that.
And, they spoke about martyrdom.
What’s so hard to follow here.
The fact is that the activists did resist – as was their full right. And they risked death
Risking death is not the same as willing martyrdom.
One is an act of bravery, the latter of subservience to ideology.
You did not say that they “spoke about martyrdom,” you said they “were willing to martyr themselves for the cause.”
How is that any different than the right-wing Zionist apologists who accredit the death of the activists by the hands of the IDF, yet frame it as a “trap” set by the “martyrs” wishing for death?
You made a contemptible remark laying the crux of the fault, and even the cause of it, to the victims themselves, further demeaning their cause and character by saying that their mission was to be killed.
“And how come such excellent critical thinkers fall into the trap of groupthink and mob mentality”
I didn’t see your post and don’t care to get into it. But you’re right that there’s some groupthink and mob mentality here sometimes.
In some cases it might be justified, but in others it’s just reflexive and unfair. I think it’s pretty common at political websites, especially ones like this where the majority of us are angry over the distortions and lies in the mainstream press. So when someone says something that sounds a little close to the mainstream, there’s likely to be an angry reaction, often given without allowing the person to explain himself.
There’s also way too much paranoia, where people imagine that anyone who doesn’t completely fit into the mold around here must be a hasbarist in disguise.
There’s various ways to deal with this–one is to snap right back at people, though that is likely to get them thinking that their suspicions were correct. I’ve gotten bad tempered online, so that’s my first impulse these days. The other approach is to just be reasonable and not let it bother you. It’s just a damn website–take what’s useful and ignore the BS. Hard to do sometimes.
Elliot,
How exactly did subsequent report confirm your conjecture? Read on. Don’t stop here.
There are two ways to look at any situation, one either looks at it from an objective point of view, or one looks at it from a biased (sometimes racist) point of you.
Suggesting that someone was willing to “martyr” himself for the “cause” is not the same as standing up for universal human rights and values, certainly not the same as defending oneself from violent, murderous soldiers. Did you forget that there were several killed well before the Israeli navy rappelled onto the deck of the ship? How do you explain THAT?
What I’m getting at is when you describe the actions of the activists using the newspeak/hasbara lexicon, then your motives become questionable.
Do yourself a favor and don’t play dumb with me. An honest answer would be great.
Thanks, Donald.
“It is the rare individual that is ennobled by suffering and Jonathan Cook is guilty of foisting a false hope on us, his readers, with his assumption that the noble route was the more logical or expected one”
So Israel lived down to the worst expectations, and we’re supposed to love it for that? You just told us to always expect the worst from Israel and Israelis. Thanks, it’s good advice, but probably wasted on us. But thanks for the analysis.
WJ is going for attacking the messenger. I guess red herring doesn’t work anymore. Perhaps you could use some variety. How about logical fallacy? Do you think you have it in you to step up to that level or are you content at the bottom with your red herrings?
Funny how Zionists make the very best anti-Semites, huh.
hey Avi,
I watched “five minutes of heaven” the other night on your recommendation and it was a good movie. Thanks.
video of israeli soldiers killing Furkan:
link to dailymotion.com
sorry but that is blatently not 4 head shots with a 9mm. It does look like kicking the crap out of someone on the ground and adding some paintball teargas/pepper-spray to remind us all of who is superior.
Have you seen any evidence of paintball use in this “incident” or anywhere else on board, or any previous use of pepper spray with an assault rifle at point blank range? Who said Furkan Dogan was shot with a 9mm gun? That was was the six-shooter who went on his own killing spree.
It may not have been Dogan, but it was a killing all right. The shooter even reloaded before the final ‘killer shot’.
Hi Richard, the autopsy reports 9mm ammunition being used:
‘Each of the nine victims on the Mavi Marmara in international waters off the coast of Israel in the early hours of Monday morning was shot at least once and some five or six times with 9mm rounds.
The results also reveal how close the fighting was. Dr Haluk Ince, chair of Turkey’s council of forensic medicine (ATK), said: “Approximately 20cm away was the closest. In only one case was there only one entrance wound. The other eight have multiple entrance wounds. [The man killed by a single shot] was shot just in the middle of the forehead with a distant shot.”
‘
link to guardian.co.uk
The gun itself has a similar profile to the ubiquitous H&K Mp5 that has become so depressingly familiar rather than a folding stock Uzi with a silencer. Looking closely though, there is no guard piece around the barrel, no magazine and the goon appears to make a cocking motion below the barrel axis like a pump-action weapon with every shot. I also don’t see any kick or flash, his stance is too casual to be firing a 9mm, he reminds me of myself as a child in an all out war of extermination against whatever garden insect I was picking on at the time. Relentlessly attacking whatever it was with a rain of .177 webley fire until my arms literally ached, fun at the time, and politically educational with regard to the pointlessness of war, live and let live, leave the tarbaby alone etc.
and no I haven’t seen any positive proof of ‘paintballs’ yet, I’m still waiting on the final versions. I have seen the pepperspray paintball mentioned a number of times, and it would be logical anti-riot weapon though, as the exposed nature of the ship would make traditional tear-gas less effective on deck.
BluePearl,
I don’t see anything in that video that would lead me to that conclusion. In other words, it’s dark and there is no clear indication that the person being kicked by the Israeli goons is actually Furkan Dogan who was shot 4 times in the head. The autopsy confirmed that he was shot 4 times in the head from above, i.e. either from the helicopter hovering overhead the deck of the ship where many activists were standing at the time or from the upper deck of the ship while standing on the lower deck of the ship.
In order to provide some relevant context to this issue, I am going to quote at length from TOWARDS AN OPEN TOMB by Michel Warschawski.
“During the 1988 Knesset campaign, the former army chief of staff, General Raphael Eitan of the far-right Tsomet Party, used to say that if he was invited to join the new government he would not ask for either the ministry of defense or the ministry of police but the ministry of education. Journalists rather enjoyed questioning him about this odd ambition, since they knew that this peasant general was more of a kulak ignoramus than an intellectual. Even in the officer caste of the time he was one of the least educated. But Eitan always gave the same answer: peace is an illusion; sooner or later we’ll be in a real shooting war again; the younger generation is fed up with war and is dreaming of a normal life, but it is mistaken, our priority has to be to reeducate young people in the spirit of 1948 and regenerate their virile, combative spirit.
Ariel Sharon and some of his ministers share the old general’s point of view completely. The sacrifices that a return to 1948 requires mean a ‘reeducation of Israeli society, which has acquired a taste for peace, security, prosperity, and the beginnings of normality during the last two decades.’ This society therefore had to be prepared for the years of war to come, meaning ‘a real cultural, ideological, legal, and institutional counterreformation.’
In order to ‘return to 1948’ an entire people is being reeducated and its ideology and behavior adapted to a situation of permanent warfare. This is primarily the task of the ministry of education. When he formed his new government, Ariel Sharon was prepared to let the Labor Party have foreign affairs and defense, but not education. He gave this ministry to Limor Livnat, one of the leaders of Likud’s right wing.
In the space of a few months Livnat carried out a thorough housecleaning in the school system. Under the motto, ‘More Zionism, more Bible,’ she reorganized the curriculum and scrubbed all ‘defeatist’ odors out of the manuals for history and civics instruction. In particular she banned the history textbooks that the Rabin government had introduced a decade earlier, in which the ‘new historians’ influence was detectible, and eliminated the courses on peace and democracy.”
Well, what people don’t know, usually ends up hurting others.
Being a “victim-pro” or professional victim is a cultural trait for us Jews.It consists of a few “components: 1) Whatever happens we are always victims.
2) If there’s a victim anywhere, it is us. no one else can be a victim. 3) Being a victim means we cannot be a victimizer. 4) Because we are victims, everything we do to others is justified. It is always self defense.
to these, we must add the “we had the shoah. You cannot say anything to us”.
But the jewish (usually “right-wing-jew”) are now losing monopoly over being victims. Part, a large one, of the Palestinians have learned the trick and claim ownership on being victims. so whatever they do, it is their right because they are victims. Now is becomes interesting. The jews have a long history, indeed, of being victimized, which culminates in the holocaust. And since the holocaust they do not recognize the existence of any other genocide or victim ( unless they are victims of nature). If you dare criticize the israeli state/government you’ll be defined as an antisemitic nazi.( If you’re jewish you’ll be a self hating jew or a Kapo. I know that, I’ve had the experience). Imagine this “game” between the two societies, each claiming to be the other’s victim. Each claiming all they do to the other is by right ( not even self defense but by “the right of the victim”)…..Sometime i think I’m going to laugh myself to death, or almost, if it wouldn’t be so tragic.
Of course. How silly of Jews to think they were the victims of Nazis during WW2; or for blacks in the former South Africa to think they were the victims of Apartheid; or for Cambodians to think they were the victims of Pol Pot; or for Palestinians to imagine they are the victims of a brutal Israeli occupation. They all should have just adjusted their silly attitudes and whistled a Mary Poppins tune.
PS: Hope your case of the giggles eases soon and that something other than the abject misery of others will amuse you.
The psychosis has its genesis in believing that “God chooses a people”. After all there is no arguing with God [or the people God chooses.] One derangement leads to another. Look at the Christian fundys who are climate change deniers. The training in having one fact-free belief makes it easier to have other fact-free beliefs.
“God’s chosen people” is a motif that links settler-colonial soceties in northen Ireland, Israel, South Africa and the United States. The Torah adds the cherry on top but the belief in manifest destiny is found elsewhere- it was very prominent in the presbyterian unionist community in northern Ireland and also amongst SA Afrikaners.
In Zionism’s case the state had to be built up from nothing against the existing natural order- Zionism is about scrubbing out 2000 years of history and starting again from scratch because we are chosen by God.
The problem with Zionism’s memes is that in deconstructing them all you are left with is apartheid.
More photos released:
link to angryarabscommentsection.blogspot.com
link to angryarabscommentsection.blogspot.com
link to angryarabscommentsection.blogspot.com
More photos released:
link to angryarabscommentsection.blogspot.com
link to angryarabscommentsection.blogspot.com
Sorry for the double post..I though I’ll repost a shorter list since the first was awaiting moderation which usually takes a day to show. Interestingly enough it was approved just a little while after.
Are we living in friggen bizarro world? Israel murders a bunch of peace activists including an American in international waters and the US. Passes a sanctions regime against Iran for their non-existant nuclear weapons program. Is this correct?
Israel murders a bunch of peace activists including an American in international waters and the US. Passes a sanctions regime against Iran for their non-existant nuclear weapons program. Is this correct?
Almost.
From link to counterpunch.com
I’m happy they have our best interests at heart, and their priorities in order.
The problem with the proposal was that it was a Brazil-Turkey proposal and not one by 2 European countries. It’s that simple and the decision to go ahead with the sanctions was already taken and nothing would have changed it. It was like during Saddam’s last days in power when he was practically begging to have the observers come in for a look and the Americans were not interested in hearing about it.
Yeah Walid, that’s about the size of it. Someone else here said that they won’t take yes for an answer.
Israel’s behavior over the last 62+ years:
Ratzachta Ve-gam Yarashta
You murdered and inherited, too.
I would respectfully ask that my comments are not moderated and censored.
As I have mentioned, I have not broken the comments policy, though every comment I post most be moderated. This has the effect of delaying the comment and creating discontinuity in the discussion.
My question: Why do you not allow comments that do not violate the comments policy.
Nowhere does it say that comments can be rejected because Phil or Adam don’t agree with them.
One of the Americans who was on the Mavi Marmara wrote about his experiences a couple of days ago. In case you guys have not seen it:
June 7, 2010
Reflections by a Former US Marine on the Mavi Marmara
On Cowardice and Violence
By KEN O’KEEFE
(excerpts)
“And yes, we fought.
When I was asked, in the event of an Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara, would I use the camera, or would I defend the ship? I enthusiastically committed to defence of the ship. Although I am also a huge supporter of non-violence, in fact I believe non-violence must always be the first option. Nonetheless I joined the defence of the Mavi Mamara understanding that violence could be used against us and that we may very well be compelled to use violence in self defence.
I said this straight to Israeli agents, probably of Mossad or Shin Bet, and I say it again now, on the morning of the attack I was directly involved in the disarming of two Israeli Commandos. This was a forcible, non-negotiable, separation of weapons from commandos who had already murdered two brothers that I had seen that day. One brother with a bullet entering dead center in his forehead, in what appeared to be an execution.
I knew the commandos were murdering when I removed a 9mm pistol from one of them. I had that gun in my hands and as an ex-US Marine with training in the use of guns it was completely within my power to use that gun on the commando who may have been the murderer of one of my brothers. But that is not what I, nor any other defender of the ship did. I took that weapon away, removed the bullets, proper lead bullets, separated them from the weapon and hid the gun. I did this in the hopes that we would repel the attack and submit this weapon as evidence in a criminal trial against Israeli authorities for mass murder. I also helped to physically separate one commando from his assault rifle, which another brother apparently threw into the sea.
I and hundreds of others know the truth that makes a mockery of the brave and moral Israeli military. We had in our full possession, three completely disarmed and helpless commandos. These boys were at our mercy, they were out of reach of their fellow murderers, inside the ship and surrounded by 100 or more men. I looked into the eyes of all three of these boys and I can tell you they had the fear of God in them. They looked at us as if we were them, and I have no doubt they did not believe there was any way they would survive that day. They looked like frightened children in the face of an abusive father.
But they did not face an enemy as ruthless as they. Instead the woman provided basic first aid, and ultimately they were released, battered and bruised for sure, but alive. Able to live another day. Able to feel the sun over head and the embrace of loved ones. Unlike those they murdered. Despite mourning the loss of our brothers, feeling rage towards these boys, we let them go.”
link to counterpunch.org
Avi:
There are two ways to look at any situation, one either looks at it from an objective point of view, or one looks at it from a biased (sometimes racist) point of you.
LOL at your typo!