Christopher Hitchens has a great column at Slate describing the "national humiliation" of the United States by Israel in the latest deal that Netanyahu has extracted. Hitchens's language is colorful, and is a reminder that generally when a writer writes with literary freedom about gentile-Jewish relations, in a critical manner, he/she gets smacked down for anti-Semitism. I wonder whether this will happen to Hitchens. He says Netanyahu has made a Shabbos goy of Obama (a servant who can perform duties a Jew can't on the Sabbath) and links the U.S. treatment with extreme Jewish religious attitudes-- with the idea that gentiles must serve Jews, as articulated by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
Hitchens predicts that the talks will fail, and then says the mystery is why the U.S. submits to such treatment. It's not a mystery. The answer is obvious and was denied by Hitchens himself when Walt and Mearsheimer put it forward, the Israel lobby. Hitch, what is missing from your column is Netanyahu's statement, "the U.S. is something that can be easily moved." Hitchens:
Last month, [Rabbi Yosef] announced that the sole reason for the existence of gentiles was to perform menial services for Jews: After that, he opined, their usefulness was at an end.
Lieberman has another distinction that I believe is unique. He does not live in the country whose foreign ministry he heads. He chooses, rather, to make his home in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim, a tenaciously held outcrop with a population of fewer than 1,000 people...
This is a national humiliation. Regardless of whether that bunch of clowns and thugs and racists "approve" of the Obama/Clinton grovel offer, there should be a unanimous demand that it be withdrawn.
The mathematics of the situation must be evident even to the meanest intelligence. In order for any talk of a two-state outcome to be even slightly realistic, there needs to be territory on which the second state can be built, or on which the other nation living in Palestine can govern itself. The aim of the extreme Israeli theocratic and chauvinist parties is plain and undisguised: Annex enough land to make this solution impossible, and either expel or repress the unwanted people. The policy of Netanyahu is likewise easy to read: Run out the clock by demanding concessions for something he has already agreed to in principle, appease the ultras he has appointed to his own government, and wait for a chance to blame Palestinian reaction for the inevitable failure.
The only mystery is this: Why does the United States acquiesce so wretchedly in its own disgrace at the hands of a virtual client state? A soft version of Rabbi Yosef's contemptuous view of the gentiles is the old concept of the shabbos goy: the non-Jew who is paid a trifling fee to turn out the lights or turn on the stove, or whatever else is needful to get around the more annoying regulations of the Sabbath. How the old buzzard must cackle when he sees the gentiles actually volunteering a bribe to do the lowly work! And lowly it is, involving the tearing-up of international law and U.N. resolutions and election promises, and the further dispossession and eviction of a people to whom we gave our word. This craven impotence will be noticed elsewhere, and by some very undesirable persons, and we will most certainly be made to regret it.
Juan Cole says Obama is caving to the Zionist-controlled Congress.
link to juancole.com
Juan nails it
>> What is clear is that [Rep. Ros-Lehtinen] is a vigilante urging the violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949, i.e., urging the recognition of the conquest of territory by military means and the vast alteration of occupied territories by the occupier. That is, she is maintaining the legitimacy of the kind of behavior exhibited by the Axis Powers in World War II, a repeat of which is what the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and the UNSC resolutions were aiming to prevent.
She’s not a vigilante – only non-Jews are that. She’s an “asserter”, asserting the right for Israel to take and keep and punish and destroy with impunity, and for Palestinians to give and lose and be punished and have destroyed with humility. That’s the “humanist” way. They call it “justice”.
Hitchens”The only mystery is this: Why does the United States acquiesce so wretchedly in its own disgrace at the hands of a virtual client state? A soft version of Rabbi Yosef’s contemptuous view of the gentiles is the old concept of the shabbos goy: the non-Jew who is paid a trifling fee to turn out the lights or turn on the stove, or whatever else is needful to get around the more annoying regulations of the Sabbath.”
Wondering if Israel’s endless threats to attack Iran are the bottom line in negotiations?
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The racism, bigotry, ethno centric teachings in
Deuteronomy 20:10-14 (Today’s New International Version) are sick sick sick
10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies.”
1When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— 2and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.a Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah polesb and burn their idols in the fire. 6For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”
Kathleen,
How is this (citing biblical verses that offend 21st-century sensibilities) different from the games that Daniel Pipes and Pam Geller play with the Quran?
BTW, the concept of the “shabbos goy” is controversial within halakhic Judaism, for reasons having to do with the principles of Sabbath observance, and there is nothing in the relationship itself that is demeaning to the non-Jew.
Hasn’t the US played ‘shabbos goy’ with the rest of the world for the past century or so? And that, too, is controversial. American and Israeli exceptionalism feeds from a variety of sources. Religion, or specific self-serving interpretations of religion – be it Judaism or Christianity – is but one.
Antidote,
Hitchens borrows a religious/cultural reference, as a dig against “the Jewish state”, without quite understanding what it means. His explanation is imprecise, to say the least.
Meanwhile, the battle continues to rage on various Mondoweiss threads regarding precisely who pulls the strings of US power and to what ends.
“who pulls the strings of US power and to what ends…”
Who’ll turn off the light for all of us? I hope not
Hitchens, an avowed atheist, needs to critique Israel from the point of view of religion but this ignores the fact that many ardent Zionists don’t believe in Holy spirits either.
Shmuel – those verses are used by the Zionist extremists to justify their treatment of the “Amelekites” today, so I’d say they’re relevant.
Potsherd,
Sort of. And the phrases cited by Pipes and Geller are sort of used by Islamic extremists. So?
Shmuel,
I have to agree with you on this issue. I always found it a bit odd to cherry pick one verse or another from holy books and advance that in criticism of an entire religion and its adherents.
I can understand the use of religious verses for their poetic/literary value in support of one’s argument, which I sometimes do. But to advance those verses by themselves as a form of proof is really not my cup of tea.
Shmuel,
Incidentally, just for the record, I disagree with you on Evildoer’s objection to the term HomoSovieticus — as in HomoSapien — in criticism of aliya.
So, there! ;)
Avi,
I agreed with Evildoer that there is more than a modicum of racism in anti-racist discourse concerning I/P. The aliyah remark (Phil’s “reaching” and E’s reply) was beside the point.
I hope to give you a chance to argue with me on the subject pretty soon :-)
This is why I keep on pleading for someone smarter than me (and darn it, if that isn’t a wide enough bailiwick, I don’t know what is) to do a post on how the ‘Jewish community’ actually works and operates.
Once again, I believe I see in Kathleen’s comment the idea that there is a coherent and central Jewish theology, in which Jews are ‘catechised’, excuse the expression. But that’s not the way it works, but indeed, how does it work?
i’m not smarter than you mooser, but the gripe i have with you and shmuel (and you can toss in evildoer as well) is your dismissal of judaism as a political force on account of disagreements amongst its practitioners. zionism cannot be explained purely in terms of european colonialism.
Let the inimitable martin kramer explain it to you:
There is one lie that has been told to the Palestinians by a variety of people, and that has done them an immense amount of harm. The failure of intellectuals, and especially of academics supportive of the Palestinians, is that they have become disseminators of this lie. On some campuses, like this one, it has been taught. I would call it the root lie – a lie from which grow many other lies.
It is this: Zionism is a form of colonialism. It was not the national movement of the Jewish people to create a state. It was a foreign-backed colonial project, by which settler-colonizers dispossessed an indigenous people. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a tragic clash of nationalisms between peoples who have comparable or even equal claims. This is not a contest between two nations, with national identities and narratives. It is a straightforward case of nineteenth century style colonialist dispossession, committed by a non-nation – a collection of land robbers – against a nation from time immemorial, the Palestinian people.
Zionism and its progeny, Israel, are therefore inherently unjust. They are not the rebirth of a long-suppressed and oppressed people. They are the last breath of a dying colonialism, sustained not by hope, but by hatred. Zionism has created the myth of Jewish nationhood. But the Jews are not a nation, and as such they cannot have nationalism. They have only racism: a false sense of their own supremacy and the inferiority of others, above all the Palestinians.
This is a very great lie, and it is a self-serving lie. Those who believe it can sustain in their hearts the hope that in any given span of a few years, Israel will disappear. America will decide to dismantle it, or the Jews will decide that it is too costly to maintain, and so will go to other countries that are safer and more comfortable. For colonialism is something that is transient and lasts only so long as it is cost-effective. But authentic nations are forever, the ties of nations to their land are never really severed, and nations are bound by ties of solidarity that cross the generations.
This lie, told to the Palestinians by others and by themselves, explains why they have repeatedly underestimated Zionism, Israel, and Israelis. By now it should be self-evident to any objective observer that Zionism and Israel are driven by nationalism as deep as any other nationalism. Their aspirations and contradictions are comparable to aspirations and contradictions in all nationalisms. But to acknowledge this is to accept Israel’s permanence, and even its de facto legitimacy.
that is one of the unfortunate things about religion/ideology: you just have to have enough people to believe in it to give it authority.
Marc,
Kramer refers to Jewish nationalism, and Zionism is certainly a Jewish nationalist movement, in the tradition of 19th-20th- century European nationalism. Its founding mythology and cultural ideals indeed draw upon Jewish religious tradition, carefully selected, highlighted, moulded and manipulated – just as the mythologies and cultural ideals of other national movements draw upon their respective traditions (real, imagined or invented out of whole cloth). As such, Zionism is far more of a Jewish version of nationalism than a nationalist version of Judaism. I think Shlomo Sand explains this view (and the ambivalent attitude of Zionism to Judaism) quite well.
Contrary to Kamer’s assertion, nationalism and colonialism are, of course, not mutually exclusive.
So, Shmuel, there is a difference, I maintain, between a group misusing their own scriptures for a political purpose and a group misusing someone else’s. But when a group misuses its own, it is legitimate to point this out.
“Zionism is certainly a Jewish nationalist movement, in the tradition of 19th-20th- century European nationalism.”
Except, of course, that Jews are not a nation in the sense of 19th-20th- century European nationalism.
Those nations typically consisted of a contiguous territory in which most of the people spoke a particular language (e.g. Finnish) as first language, and in which most of the people who spoke that language as first language resided. Usually, the language group had resided in that territory for many generations.
None of these were characteristics of Jews as group.
Of course, “Jews are a nation” is a driving force, even if it is a fiction.
In what sense? Can you mention several examples so I’ll know more specifically what you’re referring to?
Better late, than never ;)
Potsherd,
My contention was that Zionism misuses Scripture as a justification rather than an inspiration. You can agree or disagree, but when you assert that the Bible is the/an inspiration, you have to take into account that there are a whole lot of people (present and past) for whom those texts are very significant, and who are not inspired by them to go out and kill and steal (on the contrary). That awareness would at least demand context and specifics, rather than a general “Deuteronomy is sick”.
Of course, “Jews are a nation” is a driving force, even if it is a fiction.
That’s the point. False or not, that’s the way Zionists (and others) see it, and that’s what has to be dealt with.
And I just dealt with it. I showed that Zionnism is based on a fiction. Now it will go away.
shmuel,
‘jewish nationalism’ is nothing without the biblical narrative. a few quotes that i don’t have the time to tie together satisfactorily right now:
The message of the Chosen People makes sense in secular, nationalistic and historical terms . . .. The Jews can be considered a self-chosen people . . .. Though I reject theology, the single most important book in my life is the Bible. Ben-Gurion
Ben-Gurion’s ‘historicized’ Bible is still an indispensible element of ‘Jewish’ education today.
Most Israelis today, as a result of Israeli education, regard the Bible as a source of reliable historical information of a secular, political kind. The Zionist version of Jewish history accepts most Biblical legends about the beginnings of Jewish history, minus divine intervention. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are treated as historical figures. The descent into Egypt and the Exodus are phases in the secular history of a developing people, as is the conquest of Canaan by Joshua. The Biblical order of events is accepted, but the interpretation is nationalist and secular.
. . .
Claiming this ancient mythology as history is an essential part of Zionist secular nationalism, in its attempt to present a coherent account of the genesis of the Jewish people in ancient West Asia. It provides a focus of identification to counter the rabbinical, Diaspora traditions. Teaching the Bible as history to Israeli children creates the notion of continuity. It is Abraham (‘the first Zionist’, migrating to Palestine), Joshua and the conquest of Palestine (wiping out the Canaanites, just like today), King David’s conquest of Jerusalem (just like 1967). Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi.
Two of the points I take from these quotes are:
1. The absence of ‘divine intervention’ from the historical biblical narrative is not as significant as would first appear.
2. Beit-Hallahmi refers to the Diaspora traditions that the historical narrative has replaced. In other words, political Zionism’s use of the Bible as history has resulted in a more uniform interpretation of the Bible for nationalistic, cohesive purposes
rushed comment. apologize for errors.
Marc,
I agree. The Bible provides Zionism with its mythological foundation – transformed (minus the supernatural bits) into historiography by its ideologues (again, see Sand).
The average Israeli may have been forced to study Bible at school, but is far more influenced by the Zionist version of history, than by anything that is actually written in Scripture. You might argue that the early Zionists themselves were inspired by the Bible and biblical concepts, but Herzl certainly wasn’t and to read many of the other early ideologues, neither were they. They talk about anti-Semitism and “blood and soil” and the “new Jew” and the spirituality of physical labour and especially agricultural labour, and national pride, and the need for national territory in order to become a “normal nation among the nations” and cultural rebirth, and even “national marxism” – none of which are particularly biblical ideas.
There’s a lot to unpack here, Shmuel. It’s clear that the religious species of Zionist is indeed using these scriptures to justify their killing and stealing, using them selectively to justify their actions. So far, I think you’re quite correct.
Yet as an atheist, I have to maintain that Deuteronomy and the other genocidal books are sick. It was in large part through reading this stuff that I came to the conclusion that, if such an entity as YWHA did exist, I could only curse and reject it. The god depicted there is an evil one, and I can’t help believing it’s not a coincidence that Israel’s curent course so closely recapitulates this genocidal founding myth.
Potsherd,
Religious Zionism is not monolithic and does not exist in a vacuum. The theology of Modern religious Zionism differs significantly from pre-Zionist and pre-modern Jewish religious beliefs. Besides, I think Marc’s (and Kathleen’s) assertions were referring to Zionism as a whole, not specifically religious Zionism.
I too am an atheist, and agree with you that by 21st century humanistic standards, the parts of Deuteronomy cited by Kathleen are indeed sick. But why look at them in that light? The Bible was not written yesterday, and reflects a very different ethic (or range of ethics), as well as emotions and ideas not so different from our own. The same goes for all ancient literature.
Believe me, even those who consider the Bible the literal word of God , don’t necessarily view every single verse as a a “how to” guide.
That elitist, we do what we want, you are here to serve us is an undercurrent that still exist in Israel and in the states. Do you deny this?
Looking at the source of the undercurrent…what is taught or assumed that feeds ethnocentric stances to this day
I think those quotes/beliefs from Deuteronomy affect thinking to this day.
Hitchens “After all, the local Palestinians may still have some labor to perform before the divine plan is through with them.) ”
Follow the money
Israeli society, a society once founded on the work ethic has for years developed a dependence on foreign workers who come here to send money home.
By Moshe Arens
link to haaretz.com
How did we ever get into this mess? Whole neighborhoods populated by foreign workers, some here legally, others without a permit. Thousands of children of foreign workers, born in Israel, speaking Hebrew, wanting to stay here, and government ministers breaking their heads over how to get rid of them. As Deep Throat said to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward during the Watergate affair: “Follow the money”. It’s all about money.
Israeli society, a society once founded on the work ethic (then it was “Hebrew Labor,” now it should be “Israeli Labor” ) has for years developed a dependence on foreign workers. Each year some foreign workers are deported and more are being brought in. They call it the revolving door. Theories have been developed to explain this aberration. Presumably, Israelis, just like our well-off neighbors in Europe, are no longer prepared to do manual labor. And since an economy, even a modern one, requires a certain amount of manual labor, workers must be imported from abroad.”
I think those quotes/beliefs from Deuteronomy affect thinking to this day.
How and by whom? The general idea of the Promised Land and conquest, or these specific verses and the ideas of genocide and rape?
Kathleen, that was what was supposed to happen, everybody, the Jews, God, thought they were getting the better end of the deal. But Deuteronomy is near the beginning of the Old Testament, isn’t it. See, if you keep reading, we didn’t live up to our end of the deal, and God didn’t feel compelled to keep hauling our ass out of trouble. I hope the Israelis aren’t depending on those verses, as far as I know, that contract was voided.
Shmuel may have more info on this.
Yep. Slaying and inheriting privileges thoroughly revoked. Of course we were warned.
Mooser, you’re simply the best. Thanks for the entertainment.
Where does Israel think all of this is going ?
Even if Bibi says he can get a settlement freeze the machine is unstoppable :
link to haaretz.com
I had lunch with an Israeli colleague today. He said Israelis stopped voting Labor “because they are weak on security”. Wasn’t that a very nifty formulation by the settler lobby as cover for the YESHA project ?
Now that the settlers have what they want, what’s next?
Where do Israelis think they are going to be in 2020?
In the 1930′s I believe it was called appeasement.
Well done Hitch for pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes, but does have fully stocked arsenal of mass destruction for those who dare point it out.
Hitchens ” This craven impotence will be noticed elsewhere, and by some very undesirable persons, and we will most certainly be made to regret it. For now, though, the shame.”
Former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit Micheal Scheurer, Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, Former CIA analyst Kathleen and Bill Christison, Queen Noor, Former President Jimmy Carter, the 911 Commission Report and more recently Former President Bill Clinton have all stated that resolving the I/P conflict fairly would result in less hatred, less terrorism directed towards the U.S. We know Netanyahu and the I lobby (Ros Lehtinen, Schumer, Cantor) do not care about this.
>> … have all stated that resolving the I/P conflict fairly would result in less hatred, less terrorism directed towards the U.S.
A fair resolution would presumably involve some form of justice and accountability, but Zio-supremacists and “humanists” don’t want justice and accountability. They want to see realized their fraudulent form of “justice”, which absolves the criminal of all his crimes and forces the victim to forfeit all he has lost.
Anything else is maximalist, destabilizing or – if it’s a few Jewish people holding up some banners in a room in the U.S. – “a junior form of terrorism”.
“Remember the Holocaust!”
Diplomacy is humiliating. Hitchens knew that long in advance.
The tests are different than that. The tests are whether one accomplishes the goals of greater good.
Peace is that goal. If Netanyahu accomplishes advantage but not peace, then he will have failed and humiliated. If he accomplishes peace, then the US and Israel are on the same page, whether contention is displayed publicly or kept private.
Is that what you do here, witty, you engage in diplomacy on a regular basis and inevitably end up humiliating yourself with all the enigmatic statements you make? If that’s the case then I think everyone owes you a great deal of gratitude for taking 100001 for the team.
RE: “Diplomacy is humiliating.”
FROM TED RALL, 07/22/10: …Umberto Eco’s 1995 essay “Eternal Fascism” describes the cult of action for its own sake under fascist regimes and movements: “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”…
SOURCE – http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/22-1
P.S. In summation: Diplomacy is humiliating and thinking is a form of emasculation. Enough said?
Dickerson, I feel completely safe from contradiction when I tell you that Witty hasn’t the foggiest idea of what you mean. He doesn’t know whether to “contest” or “contend”.
But by all means, let’s hear it for the will to action! Where would ZIonism be without it?
d3870 i mistakenly hit the report button when trying to reply. i don’t think it went out, but to men and women behind the editorial current, mea culpa.
i’ll have to read eco’s ‘eternal fascism’. sounds like there should be references to the looney futurist movement, the aesthetic underpinnings of mussolini’s movement, frat boys zooming about, running over dogs and peasants.
current should be curtain.
They really need to move the Report link back over to the right side.
Agreed potsherd.
It’s bad design to have content (comments & associated links) & functional elements in the same style. The “Report this comment” should be in a different style to comment links, it should be in the same style as the “Reply” button. I shouldn’t be able to do this:
Report this comment
“Diplomacy is humiliating. Hitchens knew that long in advance.”
Witty has a real talent for opening his mouth to change feet. We should compile a list of Witty top 10 quotes beginning with these:
1. Diplomacy is humiliating
2. Ethnic cleansing is no longer necessary
>> 2. Ethnic cleansing is no longer necessary
Actually, RW said ethnic cleansing is “currently not necessary”. Given his insistence on precise/specific language – so as to thwart “opportunists” who might misconstrue any vague statements or sentiments – the open-endedness of “currently not necessary” (as opposed to “no longer necessary” or a more truly-humanist “horrific no matter when it occurs”) is both *extremely* clear and very disturbing.
Hitchens is loathsome. He can be a talented writer. He did support, for lack of a better term, ‘progressive’ causes. But, in my opinion, he long ago sold his soul and pissed away any journalistic credibility he had through his support for the propaganda machine that helped sell the Clash of Civilizations meme to the general public. I didn’t need his blubbering, indulgent ‘expose’ to learn that water boarding is torture, and I have no interest in his opinion of US/Israeli relations. He is Andrew Sullivan with an accent.
Ditto.
Hitchens hates religion. It’s the only part of his booze addled brain that keeps on automatic pilot from the days he was a Marxist. That means that when there is a secularist government in Israel and Tzipi Livni would lobby for a war against Hamas or Iran, he will be in favor of the Israeli Lobby pushing the President towards war against Islam, but when the Lobby sounds too “Jewish,” i.e. religious, then he is getting on any bandwagon that is there to bash the lobby “humiliating” Obama.
Of course, again, my “patronizing generalization”. Weiss welcomes anyone who is willing to piss on his pet peeve, “the lobby,” even someone who would tomorrow advocate that the US invades Indonesia to root out Islam.
That is the problem when you have no real politics.
i wouldn’t necessarily agree that weiss has no real politics. it’s his breathless, jerky navigation of developments that can be disturbing. every press release, every editorial, every demonstration or counter-demonstration is the pivotal event which signals the beginning or end of something or other. activism as practiced by a manic-depressive. to be fair, i interpret much of what he does as being fueled by his motivation to build morale (or more cynically, to hold the attention of readers) but, alas, i can only read minds in person.
in this case, hitchens’ analysis has no significance, none, except possibly as a point of polite debate between him and his pal goldberg. if ‘vanity fair’ or whomever feels a sense of loyalty to hitchens, let him play out his last moments on the stage before he finds G-d on his death bed. but, of course, that won’t really be him. the true hitchens is the one pounding vodka martinis, jetting about on speaking engagements, surrounded by nodding heads, shirt open, chest exposed like the anglo-saxon bhl. what a world in which the two of them are public intellectuals.
marc b, i think hitchens is returning to some of his early adulthood understanding of palestine now he’s sick. it’s like tony judt calling david remnick and other editors “useful idiots” for the iraq war in new york magazine. i dont think he would have done this if he had a long horizon. and we havent seen this kind of argument in slate
“
i don’t take this article as evidence of a death bed conversion, nor do i anticipate a conversion in the future. he is still beating on the same war drum even if as he has a controversial hiccup of two.
in another recent ‘slate’ column he bemoans the millimetrical progress of sanctions on the Ahmadinejad regime while simultaneously criticizing the narrow, tribal debate taking place among zionists over what to do about the atomic mullahs. of his friend, goldberg’s article on iranian nuclear designs (‘The most significant and detailed such contribution’ on the topic) he has this to say:
The keyword of the current anguished argument—the word existential—is thought by a strategic majority of Israel’s political and military leadership to apply in its fullest meaning. To them, an Iranian bomb is incompatible with the long-term survival of the Israeli state and even of the Jewish people.
hitchens’ six-point analysis in the article, however, after asserting the pointlessness of diplomacy, leads hitchens to this conclusion:
Is it not obvious that the international interest in facing this question squarely, and in considering it as “existential” for civilization, is far stronger than any political calculation to be made in Netanyahu’s office?
so here he is again calling for war in the ME, not because of israel, no, no, but because the survival of ‘civilization’ requires it.
it’s his breathless, jerky navigation of developments that can be disturbing. every press release, every editorial, every demonstration or counter-demonstration is the pivotal event which signals the beginning or end of something or other. activism as practiced by a manic-depressive.
i do not agree w/this assessment in the least wrt a determination this article is not somehow a watershed. i watch trends in the news. i am not a fan of hitchens in the least however this article says something rare i have not read before in any kind of news source one might consider ‘moderate’ (and slate is moderate).
it calls out israel’s religious fanatics ( yes, we’ve heard that before) it explains their immersion in the knesset (we know that) it explains their prominence in the ministries of interior and housing, it describes some of their beliefs as they pertain to non jews and jerusalem and then it places all this in context w/the political nightmare going on now AS IT pertains to the immediate pandering of the WH to israel.
now if you think that is in anyway normal for any mainstream heavily trafficed site by all means link to it. i’ve been waiting for an article like this for a long long time.
i don’t care if hitchen’s wrote it, i don’t care who writes it although hitchens (sans any reputation for being a fringe leftie), while i don’t like him after he threw iraq to the wolves and sided w/the neocons, is a zionist as far as i know and isn’t a bad mouthpiece for this kind of information.
i sent this article out earlier today on several listserves (something i don’t do w/every article in th least). it’s important just for the fact it exists. people need to get it thru their brains fanatics are tipping the political scales in israel and religious fervor is driving this policy both inside israel and the US.
and religious fervor is driving this policy both inside israel and the US.
make no mistake i think it is a colonial enterprise but i think the seculars in israel are positioning themselves in the background. this religious fanatism is not being denounced. the housing ministry basically in charge of permits for expansion is controlled by shas, this is insane and the US is handing them jerusalem.
why not just hand the WH over to cantor and one jerusalem, who needs obama.
“A few months ago, he favored his devout audience with a classic rant in which he called down curses on the Palestinian Arabs and their leaders, wishing that a plague would come and sweep them all away. Last month, he announced that the sole reason for the existence of gentiles was to perform menial services for Jews: After that, he opined, their usefulness was at an end. A huge hubbub led to his withdrawal of the first of these diatribes. [...] The second sermon, so far as I know, still stands without apology.”
I’m no fan of Yosef, but: Hitchens presents the ‘second sermon’ along familiar lines. But is this widespread reception not a distortion similar to the frequently noted demonizing misuse of Ahmadinejad’s ‘wipe Israel off the map’ remarks? As far as I can tell, Yosef was talking about the Jew/Gentile relationship in Messianic end times – after the arrival of the Messiah. Note that Jews are no better off from the analogous perspective of Christian eschatological views. Maybe someone more familiar with Yosef than I am or ever aspire to be, and with what he actually said (in Hebrew) could clarify this point.
Hitchens says a lot, not enough, but a lot. And hits one nail squarely.
Whatever Obama/Clinton meant to accomplish by this groveling (and donation of $3B of taxpayers’ money) — and let us hope it results quickly (and of course magically because contrary to 20 years of previous experience) in a “just and lasting peace” — IT ALSO ACCOMPLISHES SOMETHING ELSE: Obama “proves” and copiously and fulsomely demonstrates just how abject and powerless the USA is in this matter, how handmaidenly to its great and cruel Mistress Israel, how cringing to the Zionist Lobby — and one can expect that if the American people ever wake up to all this, there will be Hell to pay (and pain for those whom the public will imagine to constitute the Zionist Lobby).
Perhaps the New Orleans 5 will help the Jews of America wake up to how awful it all is, but they won’t make peace in 3 months and either will Obama.
My best guess in the latest office I/P peace pool.
“Hitchens predicts that the talks will fail, and then says the mystery is why the U.S. submits to such treatment. It’s not a mystery. The answer is obvious and was denied by Hitchens himself when Walt and Mearsheimer put it forward, the Israel lobby.”
Yes, I agree, but I believe it’s evolved into something much worse, more insidious and more difficult to cure, and I’m sure Israel and its proxies are thrilled that all their manipulations have achieved their goal beyond their wildest dreams.
I would compare this unhealthy relationship between Israel and the U.S. to “Stockholm syndrome”. This unconditional servitude and adulation for Israel has turned into a collective psychological aberration where the hostage can no longer disassociate his best interests from that of his kidnapper and puts the needs and interests of his kidnapper before his own.
American foreign policy is not the only thing being held hostage by Israel. Congress, the President, the media are all willing hostages and public opinion proves that regrettably a large majority of Americans have fallen prey to this same “disorder” for quite some time now.
Americans are Israel’s victims just as Palestinians are its victims only Palestinians suffer the worst fate of all; their captivity is physical and Israel is intent on breaking their spirit. However, you have to give Palestinians credit for their amazing persistence in defying submission to the will of Israel for so long. Maybe this means that Americans are not as strong as they might think, and are indeed more enslaved than the Palestinians if you consider that freedom ends when you surrender your inner power to another.
hitchens knocks it out of the ball park. kudos to him and slate. he places israel’s fanatics in their proper context within the political arena and their impact wrt hideous disasterous ‘offer’ from obama.
The question arises once again as to why a U.S. President grovels before the various Israeli Prime Ministers? The consensus on MW, for whatever that’s worth, is that that said subservience is due to the power and influence of the Israel Lobby. This, despite what the infamous, but yet untried war criminal Henry Kisssinger’s statement that nations have interests, not friends. So leaving passages from ancient religious scrolls of dubious authenticity and authorship, what else might explain this seemingly sacrosanct (or at least inviolable) U.S.-Israeli special relationship? Could it be that what keeps U.S. Presidents from standing up to Israel is concern that if they should do so, the truth about America’s underlying reason for supporting Israel will come out – that it has to do with Empire’s hegemonic interests, control of Mideast oil in particular. Yes, it could improve its frayed relationship with Arab/Islamic nations by demanding that the settler-state return Palestine to its rightful owners, except Empire has little interest in merely getting along*, controlling things and places is what it’s all about. And as we well know, controlling the world is very, very costly in terms of lives and resources. So much so that it requires continuous belt-tightening (such as destroying the safety net) on the part of the public, something that a government can only get away with in times of war, when fear and hatred subvert reason and judgement. Isn’t that why, for all of this and most of the past century our government has been into the demonizing of others? So what’ll happen if suddenly President Obama says, “Listen here, Mr. Israeli PM, the BS ends now, you sit down with your Palestinian counterpart and agree to Justice for Palestine or the U.S. will end all military and other aid to Israel. Isn’t it just possible that such a voluntary tunnabout in Mideast policy would effect our society down to its very foundations. Might not people be asking, “If that’s the way Israel is, why has our government been toadying to that nation all these years? And if that’s the way it’s been in regards to Israel, what about Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, name the country?” In other words, once the cat’s out of the bag, how will the elites who run Empire, put it back in the bag again? In summary, not to fall for the easy way to explain this relationship – two millenia-old quotes and delving into personalities and trying to read their minds.
Obama’s offer — What is it exactly? According to the Israeli press (haven’t seen this in the US press, but not looked very hard either) the military gifts on the horizon far exceed the 3 billion mark:
“Twenty jets are immeasurably more important than the temporary friction that Bibi [Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – ed.] may have with some Likud Knesset members,” Barak told IDF Army Radio.
“We wanted to purchase 40 jets, but because of the cuts in the budget we could only purchase 20, at a cost of three billion shekels,” he explained. “The Americans are now offering to complete the missing part of the deal in exchange for a 90-day freeze. In addition, if we can reach an agreement [with the Palestinian Authority] they are offering us a deal six or seven times bigger.”
link to israelnationalnews.com
So here we’re talking ILS, not USD, with the prospect of another 18-21 billion ILS deal (somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 billion USD) in case of an agreement. JPost reports the same story/figures as USD — unconfirmed by US sources:
link to jpost.com
So which is it? I honestly don’t see how Washington can sell this to either Congress or the US taxpayer – certainly not in the 21 billion USD range. We’ re talking serious money – for a 90 day settlement freeze and some contrived I/P handshake at the WH, with no likely compromise on EJ and the Palestinians far from being united and happy with the deal. I’d expect a tea party like we haven’t seen in over 200 yrs. In that case, the GOP would likely have to step up and vote against supporting Israel.
the tea party’s dream girlie wears a joined US/IS flag pin on her lapel. she was discovered by the weekly standard and is heavily funded by zionists. don’t expect them to complain about anything wrt israel other than the idea we don’t support them enough.
yes, I’m aware of the twin pin. But I wouldn’t put it past Palin to hang her flag into the wind, whichever way it’s blowing.
Obama wore one of those when he gave his speech at an Aipac conference.
Think Kristol discovered her on a Weekly Standard Cruise to Alaska.
Pissed of Patricia (forget which blog) said it best “every time Sarah speaks we all feel smarter” I added “and some men get harder”
The rethugs added another g to their strategy. God, guns, gays, gonads.
If an unattractive woman got up on a stage and said what Sarah says she would have been gonged long ago. Gonad strategy
Note to many men…Sarah Palin is not going to screw you. Well maybe she is
you’re asking ‘what is it’?
from your INN link
“They will not dictate to us that by Day 60 we must solve the refugee problem and by Day 90 we must solve the border problem, but they want there to be a real discussion.”
it’s a fancy way of lavishing israel and getting nothing in return. it’s a downpayment on a headache for the adminsitration and more ethnic cleansing for palestine.
I meant, specifically, whether we’re talking shekels or dollars. Not clear from the various reports on the offer.
“How the old buzzard must cackle when he sees the gentiles actually volunteering a bribe to do the lowly work!”
What anti-semitic tripe from Hitchens, repeated by Phil.
Hanan Ashrawi and the Arab League agree that excluding East Jerusalem from the “freeze” area of settlement building, make this a non-starter. I personally hope it collapses before and not after Obama pays the $3 billion bribe.
Back to Mearsheimer’s thinking
“Mearsheimer: There will be no two-state solution, only a greater Israel, and Palestinians will need the int’l community in the coming fight against apartheid”
link to mondoweiss.net
How convenient for the powers that be that most of the conversation now is about Jewish this, Jewish that, and hardly anyone talking about a convergence of interest between Israel and America. Nice for the elites who run our country, since it let’s them off the hook.