Brilliant takedown of Krauthammer by Andrew Sullivan suggests he has fully imbibed the teaching of Walt and Mearsheimer: that Jewish nationalism, absorbed by its empowered American adherents, has distorted the idea of an American interest to the point that we went to war in Iraq. I wonder how long he's felt this way. The great thing is that he feels safe saying it, now. Of course Fukuyama hinted at this re Krauthammer years ago. And note that Krauthammer, whose piece is about the "final solution" now focused on Israel, is published by the Washington Post and is all over TV.
To read Charles Krauthammer today is to enter a twilight zone of an alternate reality. A country permanently occupying and colonizing a neighboring region, and treating its original inhabitants as dangerous interlopers, is the victim. An elite commando unit attacking a ship carrying toys and wheelchairs in the hours before dawn are those we should feel pity for...
This is a form of derangement, or of such a passionate commitment to a foreign country that any and all normal moral rules or even basic fairness are jettisoned. And you will notice one thing as well: no regret whatsoever for the loss of human life, just as the hideous murder of so many civilians in the Gaza war had to be the responsibility of the victims, not the attackers. There is no sense of the human here; just the tribe.
Something has been wrong here for a very long time, and now it is inescapable. Until the discourse is rescued from the victims of Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israel and America will slowly be drawn into wars they cannot ultimately win, lose every other ally they ever had, and embolden and fortify the very Islamist forces we are seeking to defuse and defeat.
Ibn Tufayl, who sent this to me, wrote, The lobby has lost the battle. And I think he's right. Which is why we will see a kinder, gentler lobby before long, with a new Israeli government, but the same tribal allegiances.
Yup, they’re starting to catch on to what anyone with half and eye and half a brain can see if she lives in a Palestinian area for any length of time. A derangement so complete, so shamelessly brutal, that anyone who tries to report the full truth of it to the outside world sounds like a madwoman.
I guess Israeli Derangement Syndrome (IDS) is the hopefully reversible physical damage to the reasoning and empathy structures of the brain by long term abuse of Ziocaine™Mooser, Inc. (patent pending)
dangit .. Ziocaine™Mooser, Inc.
Since the tribe is, according to the latest study (link below) a bunch of inbred cousins, IDS might have a genetic component.
link to huffingtonpost.com
And yet people will believe that a group of Turkish aid volunteers wielding kitchen knives rushed Israeli commandos unprovoked without a second thought. And that Palestinians blow themselves up because they’re jealous of Israel’s agricultural genius. And that Iran wants to nuke Israel, even though this means they would effectively be nuking themselves, just because they hate Jews so much (never mind that Jews are represented in Iran’s parliament).
Post-racial world, indeed.
pamela olson- (never mind that Jews are represented in Iran’s parliament)
Give me a break, please. (I assume you don’t believe that Ahmadinejad stole the last elections, but you do believe that having token Jews in the parliament represents the kind heart of Ahamdinejad’s government.)
I’m no fan of Ahmadinejad’s government or many of his policies. That’s a straw man. I just don’t think there’s any evidence he suicidally loathes Jews enough to wipe his country off the map in order to get at Israel (and, incidentally, incinerate about half the world’s Palestinians as well).
I was no fan of Saddam Hussein, either, but I didn’t think he was stupid enough to have WMDs pointed at America. I wasn’t shaking in my boots about a dictator half a world away enough to let neocon idiots predictably waste hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives (and hundreds of thousands of other lives) to teach him a lesson.
And I’m not about to believe the same idiots drumming for war again today. Are you?
Pamela- I am not in favor of war against Iran. But why cite something that is obviously there for merely decorative purposes if you aren’t buying Ahmadinejad’s bill of goods? Including propaganda (even in parentheses) does your argument no good.
Is that what Israel does–Have a few token Arabs elected to the Knesset for decorative purposes?
Israel and Iran have something in common, after all.
Yes, that is exactly what Israel has. And South Africa had a similar plan with the Tricameral Parliament.
I am “sure” that the Jews sit in the Iranian parliament nice and quiet. They know their place. The Arab representatives in the Knesset do not “know their place”. (Nor should they, for they are elected representatives and are not tokens. If they were merely tokens all this worry about the demographic threat wouldn’t be real. But those who fear that an Arab Knesset will vote Israel out of existence realize that in fact the Arab Knesset representatives are for real and not merely tokens.)
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Zing? Yes I think it is.
High five, Saleema!
WJ,
Whatever the argument happens to be, whether there are minority members in Israel’s parliament or not, the institutionalized discrimination throughout all facets of daily life is a strong indicator that Israel ain’t a democracy.
If you want to make the case that Israel is not as bad as Iran, or perhaps that Iran is far worse than Israel, then so be it. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that Israel is not a democracy in the modern western sense. Period. Full stop. End of story.
That’s great, wj, you’re not in favor of war against Iran.
Does that mean you’ll do your part to stop propaganda war against Iran, stop the persistent demonization of Iran that misinforms Americans with the goal of inciting them to wage war on Iran?
‘Tokens’ is exactly what Palestinian MK’s are. If the Palestinians are fully represented, where are the reps for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and exile?
LOL Robin,
Where are the reps for Afghanistan and Iraq in our Congress? An occupied ppl don’t usually have the right to vote in the country of their occupier.
And again, not to excuse Iran of other crimes, but which indigenous Jews do they exclude from citizenship/representation? This comparison makes Iran look good, amazingly.
“An occupied ppl don’t usually have the right to vote in the country of their occupier” And that my friend, is why Unicorns cry.
Sullivan’s opening paragraph IS absolutely brilliant. You should have published all of it.
Greenwald has a similar quote from Chomsky the other day.
“The same is true with any form of oppression. And it’s psychologically understandable. If you’re crushing and destroying someone, you have to have a reason for it, and it can’t be, “I’m a murderous monster.” It has to be self-defense. “I’m protecting myself against them. Look what they’re doing to me.” Oppression gets psychologically inverted; the oppressor is the victim who is defending himself.”
link to salon.com
“Which is why we will see a kinder, gentler lobby before long, with a new Israeli government, but the same tribal allegiances.”
I would like to see the lobby erased from the pages of US history, registered as a foreign lobby with little influence of the Congress. Putting a friendly palpable mask until the next conflict arises isn’t an achievement. But, obviously I am getting ahead of things here.
Note: “Israel and America.” For Israel to be afflicted with Israel Derangement Disorder is one thing. The victims live and breathe the collective madness.
But for America to be afflicted with it is another thing altogether. Here, this is not a natural infection but an artificially-induced one, deliberately induced. This is psychological crime.
I think that the US sufferers of IDS can be more poperly identified as having Acquired Krauthammer Syndrone [AKS]. I’ll leave it to the rest of the forum to note the specific symptoms.
The Republican Minority whip, Eric Cantor, has contracted a bad case of I.D.S. on his many trips to Israel, but I hear Phizer has been working on a cure for the last decade.
When project Israel becomes a liability for the Democratic and republican parties, that will be a new day for the nation. It’s already plainly talked about in British Parliament, with much disgust about the recent blockade. The speaker Hague handled all the questions well and even Milliband stood to denounce the criminal act of Israel. Their politicians were sincere with the questions about Israel’s rogue nature and what to do about it. [Also mentioned washaving international monitoring at the Gaza port! So simple]
When will our politicians actually debate this on the floor, and not on Hardball. What will the politicians say?
Chu-
International monitoring of the Gaza port sounds simple, but what of the international monitoring ensuring that Hezbollah would not import arms. That hasn’t worked very well, has it?
and what of the international monitoring of the israeli nuclear arsenal being called for? will it be effective? and if not, should israel be disarmed?
hamas shouldn’t import weapons as a tactical matter because it will only serve as a provocation to the isrealis, not because gaza doesn’t have a right to defend itself.
Hezbollah obtains the vast majority of it’s weapons through the Lebanese-Syrian border. So yes, international monitoring of the Gaza port is much simpler.
When will they start embargoing Israel to keep out arms?
So, let them have some Black Hawks, afterall, strafing from on high is self-defense.
WJ, you are not serious, are you?
1) To understate . . . Lebanon’s borders are slightly different than Gaza’s . . . are you really someone who believes that the closure of Gaza has anything to do with weapons? If so, this is the problem: Israelis and zionists believe their own propaganda.
2) From my perspective, it is a good thing Hizbollah had arms to protect themselves or Lebanon would be under Israeli occupation and therefore a country I could not visit. if you are an Israeli and covetous of the Litani, then your perspective may differ.
pulaski-
you are mostly right.
I think that it might be possible to control the flow of weapons into Gaza by an international force, certainly if the world takes it seriously rather than cavalierly which was the case with the weapons getting to Hezbollah. And certainly Syria’s influence over Lebanon is different than Gaza which has a border with Egypt (the Mubarak Egypt of the present tense rather than the Muslim Brotherhood Egypt of the future tense) that does not wish to arm Hamas.
I think the Israeli blockade is about putting pressure on Hamas by pressuring their population and it is not just a question of weapons.
“the flow of weapons into Gaza ”
Gosh, yes! That flow of weapons! The hundreds of Challenger tanks, the squadrons of SU-30s, the Dolphin-class nuclear armed-submarines! And there’re more! The list is endless!
Wundering J,
Do you suggest the world entrust Israel to scan all items, who confiscates fresh salmon and pasta?
Hamas haven’t launched too many rockets last time I checked. When is it Ok to stop starving the civilian population to prove a point that Israel is against democracies in the Middle East? (Lebanon and Gaza)
Chu- the last time I checked Lebanon was under the sway of Hezbollah’s weapons and the fact that Jumblatt and Hariri went to Syria to kiss Assad’s ring (euphemism), it had nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with weaponry.
You guys crack me up! Israel is occupying the Golan and Shiba’a farm. But the bad guys are Hizbullah and Syria!! The zionist mind never fails to astound me!!
Sullivan is on Bill Maher HBO tonight. I hope Andrew is prepared for Maher with facts such as Erdogan insists that the boats had been inspected to international standards in Turkey and Greece and no weapons were found. It is ridiculous to think the passengers were spoiling for a fight with masked IDF paratroopers on the “hate boat” with kitchen tools and wooden (not metal) bars pulled from the boat railings (probably after the killing started but the IDF erased the timecode from their video).
I’d like to see if Andrew Sullivan will be neutered by Maher and the bearing pressure from the Lobby, or if he’s going to stand his ground.
Perhaps Maher will try his darnest to avoid the topic at any cost, thus not giving Andrew the chance to refute his (Maher’s) lies with facts.
I think they’ll discuss it because Andrew’s really focusing on it today. It will be hard to watch though. It runs all week so I may wait until I can stomach it. With the Irish ship Rachel Corrie story nearing Gaza as Maher’s show tapes, I’m bracing for IDF’s flotilla attack footage with comments like “looks like a float in the NY St Patrick’s Day parade,” and lots of greasy skepticism about the intentions of the flotilla.
Submit a question to Bill Maher’s online stream that follows the on air show:
link to hbo.com
Maher is an odious rascist buffoon, Krauthammer is easily one of the most repugnant individuals I’ve ever seen, his face is as if an emblem of the ugliness inside him. Trying to discern who’s worse between the two would be a difficult task indeed.
It slipped my mind that I don’t have HBO.
Will this be made available online somewhere after the broadcast?
Bill Maher will eat up Sullivan
Bill Maher HBO tonight: Andrew Sullivan and Katrina vanden Heuvel made passionate arguments against Israel. Maher’s attempt to invoke the “tough neighborhood” seemed wistful. Pretty good for main stream tv.
It took a consortium of world powers to bring down Hitler. It will take the same to bring down Nazi Israel. There is no other choice now but to wipe Israel off the face of the earth
But Deb- even Nazi Germany was not wiped off the face of the earth. It was merely occupied, benevolently by the U.S., England and France, and harshly by USSR. I guess in your scheme of things, Israel is worse than the Nazis.
Israel has nukes.
What have the Nazis done lately?
And in your line of thinking, Jews can do no wrong like the Nazis or comparable crimes if give the chance?
Oh, why take chances? I say we wipe all people off the face of the earth. They might harbor fleeting Zionist thoughts or they might be Nazis, or they could be fans of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey”. None of these people should be allowed to live. Nuke us all from orbit–it’s the only way to be sure.
i forget, debonnaire, are you a zionist nut posing as an anti-semite, or simply a garden-variety nut? which is it: A or B?
marc b.,
Is there a C option that includes both?
I just heard The Corrie was intercepted. Goddammit!
Israel Derangement Syndrome
Shouldn’t that be Israel Derangement Fever?
An elite commando unit attacking a ship carrying toys and wheelchairs in the hours before dawn are those we should feel pity for…
As Doron Rosenblum put it in yesterday’s Haaretz: “Oy oy oy – they resisted us, there was a cache of two saws and some knives, and the dead guys were so big”.