Fabulous post by Max Blumenthal today on the strategy behind the refugees' protests at the border of the occupation, and Israel's violent response. Go to Blumenthal's post to read Rami Zurayk (whose book has just been published by JWB). But here is the Israeli stuff:
Yesterday, on June 5, the commemoration of Naksa Day, Palestinian refugees and their supporters returned to the Israeli controlled frontiers to protest the 44th anniversary of the occupation. Protests swelled at the Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem, where according to Joseph Dana Israeli forces tested out new and unusual weapons on demonstrators, and spread to Nablus, where Israeli forces fired teargas shells at a group of people protesting the occupation by planting trees. The most intense protests took place at the Quneitra crossing near the occupied Golan Heights, where Israeli forces gunned down at least 20 unarmed demonstrators as they approached the frontier fence (be sure to watch the video at the link). “We could have taken the easier route of uncontrolled fire, but we decided to operate in a very limited manner,” an army spokesman said afterward, reassuring the world that Israel could have killed hundreds more, but chose to pick off about 20 unarmed civilians in the name of restraint.
In the hours following the bloodshed, the Israeli response grew increasingly contorted. Army spokespeople claimed the demonstrators “were responsible for their own deaths,” claiming they stepped on landmines. No evidence of landmine deaths was provided by the unnamed military sources, only conjecture. Next, Israel turned to its favorite Syrian cut-out in Washington, Farid Ghadry, an AIPAC member and discredited “serial entrepreneur” who is widely regarded as the Syrian version of Ahmed Chalabi — Ghadry actually met Chalabi in Richard Perle’s living room. In a statement published on the website of his astro-turfed Reform Party of Syria, Ghadry claimed that the protesters at Quneitra were not actual Palestinian refugees, but impoverished “Syrian farmers” who had been paid $1000 each by the Assad regime just to show up, and $10,000 to die. Ghadry claimed he gleaned the information from “intelligence sources close to the Assad regime in Lebanon.”
Israeli military spokespeople appear to be pushing Ghadry’s press release, because the canard immediately showed up in a report by Yediot Aharnoth’s Hanan Greenberg, one of the many military correspondents in the Israeli media who dutifully report any claim by any flack in an olive uniform as though it were a substantiated fact. “Syrian Opposition: Anti-Israel Rioters paid $1000,” read the Yediot headline. But the story has not graduated beyond the pro-Israel blogosphere, probably because Ghadry and his shell of an opposition group — it is quite clearly a neocon front organization — have no credibility in Syria or anywhere else.
But since the Arab Spring arrived on Israel’s doorstep, Israel’s strategy has depended on lethal violence and little else. And it may be that it has no other strategy, that there is no Plan B.
The thing about Zionism is that it is ultimately an ideology with its own myths the most important of which is “the Arabs don’t belong here”. Ideologies die because they can’t map reality. Zionism is now going through this process.
Somehow Zionism has drifted into the space occupied by South Africa in the 1970s and 80s . There is that free palestine song where SA had Sun City. There are the killings of unarmed civilians in the Golan just like there was Sharpeville. There was BDS and there is BDS.
It’s all wonderful.
Israel may have only one plan, but 70% of Jewish Israelis have another–that’s the estimate on how many have approached other country agents to get a passport, mostly the US, Germany, Poland, and Russia: link to almanar.com.lb
Damn, that will stick a wrench in Hagee’s plan, and make the regular middle American bible fanatics I know who are just into their Jesus buddy & the notion that God wants them to support the Jews or get butkus in heaven–wonder what exactly about Israel they should support.
“butkus in heaven–”
And if heaven isn’t getting your butt kissed, I don’t know what is.
“70% of Jewish Israelis have another–that’s the estimate on how many have approached other country agents to get a passport, mostly the US, Germany, Poland, and Russia”
A large number (I don’t know how many) of Israeli Jews already have a second passport. (Or had, until Mossad “borrowed”it.)
If they, and half of the 70%, migrate to saner countries or to the USA, that will leave Israeli Jews as a definite minority in the area.
If the religious settlers get hold of the nuclear warheads, and send them over to punish Obama for ‘throwing Israel under the bus’ (what’s the reach of those German submarines?), Hagee can have the Rapture right at home in the new Zion, city on a hill. Well, I’ll go back to Berlin then, with my German passport, and hurl anti-semitic slogans at the Israeli ex-pats.
That’s right, no plan B.
After all,. they could have opened the gate and served tea — after which politely asking the visitors to go home again. If a line of tables had been set out just inside the line, and an INVITATION offered (so that there was no question of trespassing), Israel might have avoided gunfire (assuming the visitors did go home when asked to do so).
“If the Syrians are being clever, that is their consideration. But do you really think Palestinians need Syrians to make them want to return to Palestine? They are living in camps with sewage running openly, with no jobs and no opportunities.”
Great piece. Max is doing such great and informative work. Have tried to sign up for the comments section in the past. Some weird complication. Have not tried in a while.
Now according to Art Gish and others Palestinians have gone for the non violent strategy for decades. These folks have claimed that hundreds of non violent Palestinian organizers have been put in Israeli prisons over the decades.
More unnecessary deaths so so sad
There seems to be change in the air, Kathleen. Something to do with attention. I see it in the use of the Handala cartoon in that anti apartheid video and also at BDS flashmobs. Handala was the sign of the world that had turned its back on Palestine. Now he’s on the way to fame!
Israel went too far in its procrastination strategy. And of course Tahrir Square. Plus the flop in Iraq. As well as the lobby overextending itself.
Suddenly everything looks different. It seems as though for the first time ever it is the Palestinians who are setting the agenda . Even the settlers are forced to deal with the Nakba and BDS. It is nothing short of amazing.
I never thought it would happen so quickly- the whole settlement project is now in question.
“Something to do with attention. ” I think you are absolutely right. A real shift taking place in people’s awareness of the real issues. Will that take form in real change. Only time will tell. We must all keep pushing in any way we can.
Folks here in the states should call, write their Reps every week. Let them know we are out here. Hand out information from If Americans Knew link to ifamericansknew.org
at your churches, mosque, synagogues, schools, meetings, college campuses etc etc
Call into national and international radio programs. Spread Mondoweiss and all of the info coming out here at Max Blumenthals, Washington Note, Informed Comment, Race for Iran to other sites. Keep pushing.
Let’s keep pushing indeed. The door is going to give in.
Thank you for mentioning the Handala cartoon. I saw the image of Handala (for the people like me who hadn’t heard of this, Handala is an iconic cartoon figure of a Palestinian boy whose face is never seen) in the music video of “Freedom for Palestine,” and had no idea what it meant.
Here’s the video of “Freedom for Palestine,” a wonderful song,
link to youtube.com
And here’s a link to information about Handala:
link to palestinecampaign.org
“Handala, a cartoon character, a young barefoot boy whose face we never see, has become one of the most powerful and enduring symbols for the Palestinians, encapsulating both what they have been through and their hopes for the future. Today Palestinians and their supporters sport Handala T-shirts, necklaces, key-rings. …”
This is a better link to “Freedom for Palestine:”
link to youtube.com
(The one I first submitted seems to have the sound off-sequence with the film.)
And now here’s sad news: Coldplay has removed the link to “Freedom for Palestine” from their facebook page. 7000 angry posts was too much for them, I guess.
link to haaretz.com
Sorry, it was 7000 posts total, not all of which were angry.
“We could have taken the easier route of uncontrolled fire, but we decided to operate in a very limited manner,” an army spokesman said afterward, reassuring the world that Israel could have killed hundreds more, but chose to pick off about 20 unarmed civilians in the name of restraint.”
nazi behavior from the idf…. who whudda thunk it??
Blame the deaths of those who were killed on the ones who were killed. Twisted
Both the demonstration and the response were unnecessary, harmful, dangerous.
It is no coincidence that Hamas and Hezbollah prohibited similar demonstrations in their area of jurisdiction. It lends credence to the assertion that the Syrian demonstrations were as much an Assad directed distraction, as a grass-roots non-violent civil disobedience.
The overwhelmingly consistent response of Israelis that I’ve dialogued with is of “confirmation” that Palestinians desire to remove Israel from the map, NOT seek a mutual peace.
I counter that Palestinian thinking is various, that there is no “the Palestinians” that believe one way or another.
It is pressure in a pressure cooker. NOT good for anyone.
The prospective progress on the issue is electoral only. Its definitely a negligence and idiocy on Netanyahu’s part, but the consequences of repeated mass marches on borders will be massacres.
And, massacres without an out. This is not Amritsar, not the salt marches.
“Both the demonstration and the response were unnecessary, harmful, dangerous.”
No, the demonstration were none of these things and the response was criminal and barbaric.
“The overwhelmingly consistent response of Israelis that I’ve dialogued with is of ‘confirmation’ that Palestinians desire to remove Israel from the map, NOT seek a mutual peace.”
Then you are “dialoguing” with amoral paranoid lunatics. And if they’re not willing to establish a civilized state, but instead insists on their Judeo-supremicist one, then it SHOULD be removed from the map and replaced with something that is not evil.
“but the consequences of repeated mass marches on borders will be massacres.”
If so, it is only because the Israelis are a barbaric people, or, at the very least, a paranoid people who elect barbarians and criminals to set policy for them.
“Both the demonstration and the response were unnecessary, harmful, dangerous.”
Oh yes, I can see the almost uncanny equivalence. No doubt the demonstration killed even more people than the response.
The legal reality of Israel’s position in the Golan:
How is it wrong for an illegal occupation to be demonstrated against?
The Amritsar massacre was in 1919. Gandhi’s salt marches began in 1930. Britain quit India in 1947.
Give it time.
Lutyens’s monumental buildings in New Delhi, which were supposed to express the permanency of the British Raj, were inaugurated in 1931.
Oh, and the Sharpeville massacre was in 1960, about 30 years before the end of apartheid.
About the same length of time as between Amritsar and the end of the Raj.
Richard Witty said: ‘Here I go again. The worst I can say about Netanyahu is “negligence” and “idiocy” — even though he heads the government that opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, killing 22 of them. But I weasel around and blame the unarmed demonstrators for the “consequences” of their actions, which I imply cause the “massacres.”
‘This is called blaming the victim. I do it because Jews are more important to me than Palestinians. I pretend to be a religious, spiritual man. In fact, I am a complete hypocrite.’
Unarmed demonstrators storming a border.
Those that proposed it should be criticized grossly. It was a uniquely careless movement that only scares Israelis.
Again, Israelis are residents. It is a uniquely different relationship than the British in India, or South Africa.
There is no out from a mass raid on a border. There is no coherent demand, no proposal.
James,
I do care more about Israelis than about Palestinians. I’ve been very honest about that, as Saif early honestly declared that he cared more about Palestinians than about Israelis.
The question though is not about my equal sentiment, but if my sentiment is benevolent towards Palestinians or malevolent. I oppose solidarity. I believe that the provocative political dissent approach is counter-productive and doomed to exposure to gross violence.
I don’t see that this leads to a hopeful outcome.
Do you? How do you see it transpiring with both communities landing on their feet and not in civil war?
“It was a uniquely careless movement that only scares Israelis.”
That’s finger-nailing* of the highest order: They scared Jews so they had to die!!!
(*”One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” –Rabbi Ya’acov Perin in his eulogy at the funeral of mass murderer Dr. Baruch Goldstein.)
If they’re scared, emigrating makes a lot more sense than killing people, still less starting a war.
The Financial Times has a story on its Page 2 today about all those Israelis getting second German passports.
Sharpeville was not the work of the British (1960 was also the year South Africa left the Commonwealth and became a republic,) but of the Afrikaners, who were residents of South Africa, having lived there for nearly 300 years by the time apartheid was instituted (over 350 years by now). That’s more time than the nearly 200 years the Crusader States of Outremer managed to survive.
What border were they storming Witty? It wasn’t the border of Israel.
RW: “I do care more about Israelis than about Palestinians. …. The question though is not about my equal sentiment, but if my sentiment is benevolent towards Palestinians or malevolent.”
No Richard, the question is whether your sentiment is benevolent towards Israelis? For one of the great ironies of American support for Israel is that it has deluded Israelis into thinking that the US will save them (somehow) from the consequences of their strategic folly. And the Israeli Lobby is underpinned by the active or tacit support of hundreds of thousands of Jewish Americans like yourself.
Without the Israeli Lobby’s corruption of US foreign policy, I have no doubt that Israel would have long ago agreed to the Saudi-led proposal for a settlement on the 1967 borders, thus preserving “the Jewish state”.
Now that saner heads in Israel are dusting down the Saudi plan and saying “this doesn’t look so bad after all’, will you lend them your support by advocating for this within the US? You have already agreed that the 1967 borders are more defendable than the current gerrymandered borders.
If you fear civil war, then this is one way to take the initiative and avoid it. You don’t need to wait for any proposal from the Palestinians marchers.
Libra,
I’ve been doing so for close to ten years.
The 67 borders are only defensible in a peace agreement. None are defensible without, not 67 borders, not 49, not river to sea.
Netanyahu wasted his opportunity for a peace agreement, so now there is no possibility of one, and the only possible action is defense.
The urge for Arab spring won’t bring it there. It will bring Libya or Syria though.
I have no recommendation at this point.
I’m looking forward to a bunch of Israelis screaming “Kill Arabs” in the street and burning the mosques in ‘Eurabia’. Can I move to Israel then and live with the Arabs?
Antidote May 2, 2011 at 12:17 pm
“The fact is that the Nazis were intent on murdering Jews even when it was clear that they were going to lose the war”
Nolte made that point and, more recently, Snyder in ‘Bloodlands’. Has been debunked repeatedly in the decades bewteen Nolte’s and Snyder’s claim.”
I had not heard this before. I haven’t read much on the issue but I do know that the Nazis were keen on Jews leaving before the war. Also I figured that they just wanted to “dispose” of them once the war wasn’t going their way. I did a quick search and I couldn’t find any articles. Do you have a few in mind for the debunking?
Stone — aorry for the late reply, try searching ‘historian debate’ (Historikerstreit) and intentionalists/functionalists in connection with WW II/Holocaust. Here’s an overview
www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/Holocaust.doc
My point was, roughly, this: both Nolte and Snyder belong to the group of the so-called revisionist historians challenging the established view of the singularity of the Holocaust as the result of irrational, genocidal anti-semitism, the Intentionalist argument being basically tautological: The Nazis killed the Jews because they hated them, and they hated them because they were Jews, and they would have killed them regardless of circumstances, or whether they lost or won the war. Yet from Hitler’s perspective, it looks like the rationale for implementing the final solution (rather than removal of Jews from Germany and Europe by more or less forced emigration or resettlement in Palestine, Madagascar, or the Soviet Union) grew proportionally with the certainty of defeat, starting about 1941/1942 (marked by failure of Soviet invasion and US entry into war). In his political testimony Hitler contradicts what most people doubt (that he never wanted war) and confirms what David Irving disputes (that Hitler intended the final solution and was fully aware of the gas chambers.) Note that Himmler had described mass gassing not only as a more efficient, but also as the more ‘humane’ method compared with the prevalent methods of mass murder/genocide as practiced by Stalin, among others (mass starvation or mass shooting). The passage makes clear that Hitler not only considered Germany’s defeat in WW I and the Versailles Treaty, but also WW II and the ‘super-Versailles’ to be expected in the wake of unconditional surrender, as the collective responsibility of Jews for which they would finally receive their punishment, as announced in his ‘prophesy speech’ of 1939, and similar announcements:
“It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish descent or worked for Jewish interests. I have made too many offers for the control and limitation of armaments, which posterity will not for all time be able to disregard for the responsibility for the outbreak of this war to be laid on me. I have further never wished that after the first fatal world war a second against England, or even against America, should break out. Centuries will pass away, but out of the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those finally responsible whom we have to thank for everything, international Jewry and its helpers, will grow.
Three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war I again proposed to the British ambassador in Berlin a solution to the German-Polish problem—similar to that in the case of the Saar district, under international control. This offer also cannot be denied. It was only rejected because the leading circles in English politics wanted the war, partly on account of the business hoped for and partly under influence of propaganda organized by international Jewry.
I have also made it quite plain that, if the nations of Europe are again to be regarded as mere shares to be bought and sold by these international conspirators in money and finance, then that race, Jewry, which is the real criminal of this murderous struggle, will be saddled with the responsibility. I further left no one in doubt that this time not only would millions of children of Europe’s Aryan peoples die of hunger, not only would millions of grown men suffer death, and not only hundreds of thousands of women and children be burnt and bombed to death in the towns, without the real criminal having to atone for this guilt, even if by more humane means.
After six years of war, which in spite of all setbacks will go down one day in history as the most glorious and valiant demonstration of a nation’s life purpose, I cannot forsake the city which is the capital of this Reich. As the forces are too small to make any further stand against the enemy attack at this place, and our resistance is gradually being weakened by men who are as deluded as they are lacking in initiative, I should like, by remaining in this town, to share my fate with those, the millions of others, who have also taken upon themselves to do so. Moreover I do not wish to fall into the hands of an enemy who requires a new spectacle organized by the Jews for the amusement of their hysterical masses.”
Few historians today (or contemporaries of WW II) maintain that Hitler wanted war with GB, France and the US, or that he wanted to conquer the world. What ever one may think of this portrayal of Jews and Hitler’s motives and goals, the passage does testify to the fact that Hitler was perfectly aware of what was going on and fully approved of the Holocaust as an act of revenge and collective punishment. It was therfore irrelevant whether the victims were guilty of any offense, it was enough for them to be members of the ‘enemy race’. In this sense it is correct to say that Jews were killed for no other reason than being Jews, but it also defies the view that the Holocaust was inevitable and not influenced by circumstances, or that war on Hitler was the only way to stop or prevent it (saving Jews was definitely not among the war goals of the Allied governments). Himmler’s ‘top secret’ speeches delivered to the SS at Posen/Poznan in 43, which have been recorded and preserved, also leave no doubt that the mass murder of Jews was fully intentional and enforced at that point. Himmler tells the SS that the decision to kill all Jews, including women and children who obviously posed no threat to anyone, was a very difficult one to make but had to be undertaken in order to secure the future of the German people on whom the Jews would otherwise take revenge for generations to come. For the sake of the nation the pre-emptive strike against future aggression and oppression had to be executed. Obviously, this would only work if every single Jew was exterminated, and nobody was sorry to see them go. Which was neither doable nor in any way plausible. But even at that point the Nazis apparently preferred to win the war rather than kill all Jews. As late as May 1944 1 million Jewish hostages were offered to the British in exchange for 10 000 trucks needed for the Eastern front at a time when German production had seized to function and the foreign currency coffers were empty. The British reaction was to stick to the alliance with Stalin against Hitler, and give priority to German defeat and unconditional surrender: “What are we supposed to do with a million Jews?” What were the Nazis supposed to do with them? And what were the British expecting the Nazis to do with them?
The various attempts to use Jews in Eastern camps as hostages (also applies to the Jews deported to Belsen) in exchange for German prisoners or foreign currency failed, and neither threats or news about mass killings had any effect on Allied policy. In short, it was a repeat of the Evian conference convened by Roosevelt in 1938, to address the Jewish refugee crisis, during which 30 countries expressed great sympathy for the Jews without offering to rescue any. Hitler, not invited to the conference, said he would send Jews on luxury ships to any country that would take them. Increasingly, the Jews could not stay in Germany or Europe, and had nowhere to go. “Let England be at her best”, Roosevelt proclaimed at the beginning of the war, “and Germany at her worst.” Which, as far as Germany is concerned, was certainly the case. If Churchill remains a cherished figure for the British, and Hitler a national trauma for the Germans, the main objective for both Hitler and Churchill was to win at any cost.
The recent trend in WW II historiography is a combination of intentionalist/functionalist arguments. It is impossible explain the Holocaust from racial theory or anti-semitism alone, or any monocausal argument. Yes, the Jews, as excess humanity nobody wanted, were enlisted in the war effort as slave laborers, but the system became increasingly inefficient and unmanagable due to the collapse of the Reich and its infrastructure. Meanwhile, Jewish refugee ships were sent back to Nazi occupied Europe, and transported to the East. Petain unilaterally decided to deport all French Jews, not just the limited number requested for slave labor, to the East. So yes, ‘disposal’ as you say became pragmatic necessity reinterpreted in what Himmler declared to be the ‘humane’ solution: rather than spread disease and increase starvation, the selection ramp at Auschwitz would determine who would die almost immediately upon arrival, and who would go to the camp with a chance to survive, under increasingly brutal conditions, until the end of the war. The expropriation of Jews in Germany and the occupied territories, paid for at leat a third of the German war effort. Jewish gold, including dental gold extracted from Jews by Jews at the exterination camps bought milk for German children. Jewish hair was turned into insoles for Soldiers braving Siberian winters. It is as close as any civilized nation can come to cannibalism without actually committing it. Hitler was shocked that Soviet POWs at the Eastern front resorted to cannibalism to avert starvation. He took it as evidence for the inferiority of the Slavic Untermenschen. Instances of cannibalism are reported from Jews left stranded in locked railway cars stalled on route to Auschwitz, as well as from Germans under Allied occupation and the ‘hunger years’ following the end of the war.
As far as the camps are concerned, functionalists have focussed on individual camps and the considerable differences between and inside them and at different stages of the war. The streamlined Führer-dominated Nazi state ruled by ideology and strict discipline is largely a myth, mistaking Nazi propaganda films and war-time propaganda for the historical truth. Their conclusions suggest that none of the concentration camps in the Reich were designed to be death camps, as understood and proclaimed by the Allied liberators. all held a variety of prisoners with significant changes in the number and composition of inmates (including POWs and regular criminals). The Germans were perfectly aware of the existence of those camps but didn’t perceive them (as did the Allied liberators) as ‘death camps’ or ‘extermination camps’ which only existed in the occupied territories of Poland and outside the Reich. The inmates inside the Reich concentration camps were perceived as criminals/enemies of the state, and law and order. The rising death toll was due to overcrowding and collapse, and by that time, Germany outside the camps was generally littered with corpses as well, victims of the bombing raids. The Germans cared no more or less about dead and dying concentration camp inmates or British bombing victims than the British cared about German bombing victims or the Americans cared about how Japanese or German Americans were doing in US internment camps. Bomber Harris was knighted, a war hero for killing tens of thousands German civilians, most of them women and children. Much of this is reduced to choolyard level arguments of who started it. The Nazis started terror bombing in Poland. But the British started bombing Germany before the Germans retalliated by bombing Britain. The Nazis granted amnesty to German civilians lynching allied bomber pilots (a war crime) for destroying their homes and cities, and by 45, the shoe would soon be on the other foot. Dachau was operated after its liberation as a camp for German war criminals, civilian or military. But most civilians simply received collective punishment without trial, in both the Reich and the former German territories and Eastern Europe from which millions of Germans, most of them women, children and old people, were expelled, killed and perished on death marches for no other reason than being German, courtesy of the Potsdam Agreement and ‘civilization’. So it goes.
Pointing to the exceptional madness of the Nazis or Germans is not a historical argument. The madness of collectively blaming and punishing an entire people or segment (prisoners) of a diverse population was rampant not only among the Nazi leadership and the actual executioners, including significant portions of the German population who frequently attacked and killed the ‘zebras’ (concentration camp prisoners, be they Jewish or not) on their death marches back into the Reich as the victorious Red Army advanced. It also characterizes the equally insane response to Nazi/German aggression in Theodore Kaufmann’s “Germany must perish”, published in 1941, which in turn fueled German paranoia about influential American Jews plotting to wipe Germany off the map and kill every single German. Nazi propaganda promptly called for a “holy war” against “pan-Jewry” . See:
link to calvin.edu
If Kaufmann was a pacifist (sic) outlier with no known ‘influence’ other than sparking stunned and unfavorable reviews in the NYT and WP, the details of the post-war peace plan devised by Morgenthau verified years of Nazi propaganda. Morgenthau was a hate figure for Hitler and the Nazis and without doubt a man with considerable influence on Roosevelt and US foreign policy. He is commonly acknowledged to have paved the way for US entry into WW II, but was denounced a warmonger and Jewish hater by the Nazis. The Morgenthau peace plan was greeted with hysteria in Germany (but also immediately opposed in the US and the UK). A typical 1944 Nazi propaganda publication addresses the Morgenthau – plan, among other Jewish and non-Jewish destruction plots, as a repeat attempt to frame and target Germany for destruction since WW I.
link to calvin.edu
So rather than posit the classic intentionalist position (a consciously conceived and deliberately executed genocide as ‘race murder’ ), Nolte and Snyder argue along the lines of an escalation of Nazi anti-semitism – from the removal/resettlement of Jews from Germany and Europe to mass murder — in the context of the ideological, economic, propagandistic and military clashes and conflicts of the interwar and WW II period. The intention to remove/drive out the Jews, widely perceived as a dominant minority and alien elite in Germany and other European countries (as well as in the US) was perfectly obvious before and after the Nazis came to power. It was openly stated in the party principles and confirmed by the 1935 Nuremberg race laws that Jews were not entitled to German citizenship (including voting rights and holding political office), but to be treated like any other foreign resident and ‘squatter’ . Almost immediately after the Nazis seized power, legal measures were taken to limit the number of Jews in government, academia, commerce, the legal and other professions in order to correct their disproportionate representation. This was affirmative action from the perspective of Germanization/Aryanization, and gross injustice and discrimination from any other perspective, particularly the Jewish perspective. The Reichskristallnacht marked a turning point, but not the actual transition from removing Jews from Germany to the final solution of genocide. As the Functionalists argue, neither Hitler nor the Nazi leadership had a clear and unified view of what the final solution would or should be other than removing the Jews from Germany. Much more likely the Kristallnacht aimed at increasing the pressure on Jews to leave Germany, and on ‘World Jewry’ and the international community to respond to the heightened danger for Jews left in what was now officially ‘Greater Germany’ (an old national dream comprising the union of Prussia, Austria and the other German states that had already been unified under Bismarck in 1871). This was partially successful, the borders remained open, and Jews arrested and taken to Dachau or Buchenwald in the wake of the Kristallnacht were offered to be released immediately upon providing emigration visas.
As has been argued by several historians, the peculiarity of the Nazi Holocaust rests in its ‘anti-colonial’ motivation: In Germany, as in Hungary and elsewhere, the perpetrators (expellers) perceived themselves as being weak, vulnerable and threatened by their victims, who ruled over them as an elite minority inside Germany, and endangered their national or, in the case of Germany, provocative imperial aspirations by influencing the Western Powers with their anti-German hate-propaganda to wage war on Germany, rather than their natural ideological enemy, the Soviet Union. The final solution as mass murder was thus presented as conditional on the behavior of ‘World Jewry’ — if Jewry should once again succeed in unleashing a World War, it would spell not, or not only, the slaughter of Germans and Europeans, but the end of European Jewry.
The Historikerstreit (1980s) in Germany and abroad, quickly dubbed the ‘hysterical debate’ (Hysterikerstreit) was unleashed by Nolte publishing an article in a leading German newspaper that asked for an end to considering the Nazi period as marking a singular and exceptional evil in human history. While he was slammed as an apologist and relativist, the question he asked was whether this particular perception, in taking the Nazi crimes out of their contemporary context, does not rather perpetuate than prevent a repetition of the crime along the lines of “We/they are not as bad as the Nazis were”. Nolte argued that the attack on the Soviet Union was a pre-emptive strike rather than a war of aggression, that Stalin posed an objective threat to Germany and Western Europe, and would have attacked Nazi Germany sooner or later, and that Hitler’s brutality and criminality in conducting the war was the result of the enemy he was fighting. That debate, has raged ever since in the wake of post-Soviet Union publications such as ex-Soviet agent Viktor Suvorov’s “Icebreaker: Who started the World War?”, or German historian Joachim Hoffmann’s “Stalin’s War of Destruction”, both published in the 1990s. It is also clear that the Western Allies held this view both before and after WW II, and had supported Hitler as a hammer against the Bolshevist revolution spreading into Germany Western Europe. Nolte also unleashed a fierce debate on what exactly distinguished Stalin’s and Hitler’s mass murders, with Nolte arguing that Hitler had rational reasons to consider Jews (inside and outside Germany) as political/economic (rather than racial) enemies, as an enemy nation bent on the destruction of Nazi Germany, if not Germany itself. Hitler’s extreme anti-semitism and ‘alleged race-murder’, as Nolte put it, was a self-defensive reaction to Stalin’s ‘class murder’ and threat to the German ‘race’/nation. From critics of Nolte like Richard Evans or Deborah Lipstadt, this obfuscation or racial/political mass murder constitutes Holocaust denial. It is not illegal in Germany or the EU to question the 6 million figure or the existence of gas chambers, but it is illegal to deny the Holocaust was a genocide according to the UN definition, which includes (upon Stalin’s insistence) mass murder of political opponent. Which is why Nolte’s approach is controversial. The question is: does the historical truth (surely an elusive concept) need protection of the law? Why in this case?
link to news.stanford.edu
sorry for the confused post, I’m stressed out and have to pack a suitcase
Very interesting, Antidote, and clearly set out.
It’s historiography that’s confusing, built right into the subject!
Great responsive comment, Antidote; well-presented. I never thought it did any good in terms of trying not to repeat the mistakes of the past to continue to look on the Nazis as simple stupid rascists who wanted to take over the world. History never repeats itself exactly but a study of the competitive forces at play, and the contextual relationship between them at any given time and place goes pretty far to see new varients of the same patterns in the here and now, the better to not be fooled by political actors who are guided by the sense they are the doers (as Bush Jr put it), and make things happen, and it does not matter to them what intellectuals say at the time, nor what historians scribble after the fact–and then revise scores of years later when government documents are declassified piecemeal. If memory serves, the state of Israel has the longest period of wait before declassification, and many of its records of the establishment of that state and more immediate aftermath are still not declassified 64 years later.
Demonstrations and protests are normal customs in democratic states. And legal.
Don’t matter the spin on these peaceful protests by either side, fact is people are dying en mass and like how many murdered people does it take before we get to define these killings as massacres? These deaths are terrible and tragic cuz they are SO unnecessary – very regrettable – here I wish the best of health to the injured peaceful protesters: brave souls.
Point is, these border protests will grow in number the more innocents are killed, therefore drawing more worldwide attention, attention that can only further isolate israel . Israel has only one response to these Arab-Spring-inspired demonstrations: zero tolerance, indiscriminate and illegal assassinations of peaceful protesters protesting on their own land against the israeli occupiers. A buncha state-terrorist tactics that used to work in the olden days of pre January 25, 2011 BUT it sure as heck ain’t been working since. So like israel is in a tizwaz (“freaking out”, as Angry Arab is fond of saying): yes israel is “freaking out”, israel doesn’t know what to do about Arab people’s loss of FEAR – it’s never dealt with such a situation before – this is indeed alien territory (if you’ll pardon the pun) for israelis. Tsk tsk tsk oh deary deary me, poor little bully/murderer/thief/liar/racist.
Every new border demo by refugees is REALITY’s loud knock on the zios’ (stolen) front doors. Bang-bang: Reality’s fist will keep coming down unless ‘someone’ in there opens up the door and deals.
The chances of this happening? Remote.
But for sure, after repetitive banging, any door will indeed become unhinged.
“The overwhelmingly consistent response of Israelis that I’ve dialogued with is of “confirmation” that Palestinians desire to remove Israel from the map, NOT seek a mutual peace.”
I’ve spent a lot of time talking to patients with acute paranoia who all agree that the Feds are out to get them.
For a start I’d like to know how many of these Israelis (assuming they are persons real) actually have spent any time in the West Bank or know any arabic or have ever eaten knafiyeh or know who Fairuz is or have ever read Mahmoud Darwish or the difference between dabka and debka.
>> The overwhelmingly consistent response of Israelis that I’ve dialogued with is of “confirmation” that Palestinians desire to remove Israel from the map, NOT seek a mutual peace.
Interesting, given that:
- Israel is engaged in an ON-GOING campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder whose purpose, it seems, is to ensure that Palestine never makes it (back) onto the map; and
- Israel remains unwilling to engage in sincere negotiations for a just and mutually-beneficial peace.
…Israel’s strategy has depended on lethal violence and little else. And it may be that it has no other strategy, that there is no Plan B.
Joel Kovel who has a background in psychiatristry arrived at the same conclusion. The plan is to “break their bones” (Yitzhak Rabin) followed by “break more bones”. Kovel spoke about what he calls “bad conscience” inherent to the Zionist outlook in this audio interview (around minute 18):
Thank you so much for that link, Miura. Zionism is THE problem but breaking it is going to take time.
witty comment -…”but the consequences of repeated mass marches on borders will be massacres.”"
…”but the consequences of being jewish in nazi germany will be massacres”…
notice the parallels witty?
for no other reason then one’s peaceful unarmed protest, this is cause for israels terrorist action here?
you might as well be justifying the nazi’s massacre on the jewish people… it is plain crazy and i am surprised you are holding to this position…
What will happen if the mass border marches continue, is that the border fences will become much more intense than they already are.
They will be designed to contain and then funnel dissenters’ into very vulnerable settings.
Its not a good prospect, as much of an adrenaline rush as dissenters are getting over this (other peoples’ deaths as fodder).
Richard Witty said, ‘I don’t believe Palestinians are capable of planning their own nonviolent strategies for winning their human rights. So I contend that overseas “dissenters,” some of whom frequent Mondoweiss, are egging the Palestinian border marchers on because it gives the “dissenters” what I dismiss as an “adrenaline rush.”‘
‘I do know that some of these “dissenters” work in Palestine, and have close friendships among the people there. If I reflect for a second, I realize I’m accusing these “dissenters” of urging these friends to get themselves killed.’
‘In other words, I have harsher words for the “dissenters” than I do for Netanyahu, or for the Israeli soldiers who killed 22 unarmed human beings. But I don’t care. I need to hide from my guilty conscience.’
“If I reflect for a second, I realize I’m accusing these “dissenters” of urging these friends to get themselves killed.’
‘In other words, I have harsher words for the “dissenters” than I do for Netanyahu, or for the Israeli soldiers who killed 22 unarmed human beings. ”
When Israel kills innocent people RW never condemns the Israeli government. It’s always someone else’s fault. He really has an infantile view of the Israelis–they are like gigantic, two year old children with guns.
Donald,
You should be ashamed to refer to North’s “summary” of my posts as if they were my originals.
North’s summaries are helpful because they are more insightful (and sound more truthful) than your own comments.
Witty, your positions are disingenuous. You only care about this because it’s bad PR for your “precious jewel.” If it meant anything else to you, you would categorically reject the occupation and not make any excuses at all about “we hate that they make us shoot them.”
You explicitly support the “diet” that Israel puts Gaza under and you implicitly support the presence of Israeli troops in the Golan who are killing protesters in Syria because that’s where Golan is.
You say, only for this minute when things like stupid-ass bad for Israel, that you support the 1967 borders, but as soon as things quiet down you’ll go on again about how “land swaps MUST happen,” like you always do.
You’re a hypocrite, Witty, and nobody’s buying what you’re selling. Not even your garden variety Zionist can tolerate the levels of hypocrisy you labor under, which is why you take flak from your side too. It takes the really nasty ones like eee and hophmi to embrace you.
“Donald,
You should be ashamed to refer to North’s “summary” of my posts as if they were my originals.”
Don’t be silly, Richard. I am elaborating on North’s summary of your views. You know that. And you should be ashamed of your views, but you’d have to be honest with yourself and that’s evidently too painful.
“North’s summaries are helpful because they are more insightful (and sound more truthful) than your own comments.”
Yes, but North is not giving himself enough of a challenge. He should limit himself to one sentence, or a certain number of characters, or something. Otherwise it’s way too easy!
it’s impossible for witty to reach a position of objectivity… his thinking is clouded thru mis-identification…. instead of seeing how all people on the planet are one, he continues to identify as a jew and think an israelis life is somehow worth more then others… that is a position of ignorance which only fosters suffering, rather then lessening it…
witty quote where 2 wrongs make witty think he is right to hold dearly to his ignorance……………..
“James,
I do care more about Israelis than about Palestinians. I’ve been very honest about that, as Saif early honestly declared that he cared more about Palestinians than about Israelis.
RW: “They will be designed to contain and then funnel dissenters’ into very vulnerable settings.”
Richard, I’m sure your concern for the welfare of dissenters is genuine. But as you have just admitted you are more concerned for Israelis than Palestinians, I can only conclude that you (rightly in my view) fear more for the consequences to Israel were this to happen.
Perhaps over these last few days you have become aware of the very vulnerable strategic setting that Israel has managed to funnel itself into through its greed. Just like the monkey funnelled its hand into the cookie jar and got stuck.
Hopefully Israel will be the next beneficiary of your sage advice, possibly along the lines of letting go of the land it has occupied and escaping back to the safety of its 1967 borders. Or is there something more important to you than securing the future of “the Jewish state”?
“Just like the monkey funnelled its hand into the cookie jar and got stuck.”
Very apt metaphor for Israel and Witty both. It was the answer the great Zulu chief, Shaka, gave to the colonial British, responsive to the chief’s own question, “How do you catch a monkey?”
When did Shaka say that? He had very little contact with the British.
RoHa, well, maybe it never happened, at least not in the manner depicted in Shaka Zulu, the film–but it still seems relevant to the I-P dynamics–excerpt from film script:
“Shaka: [their final meeting before Shaka's return to his capital, where Shaka will be assassinated by his own aunt] … Tell me – How do you catch a monkey?
Lt. Francis Farewell: Well, a gourd is used… with a narrow neck. Bait is dropped into the gourd: a piece of fruit, or – or something shiny. The monkey puts his hand into the gourd to get the bait, and then he’s trapped… because he can’t get his fist out.
Shaka: Once he realizes he’s trapped, why doesn’t the monkey let go of the bait?
Lt. Francis Farewell: Because his greed makes him blind.
Shaka: And what is he greedy for?
Lt. Francis Farewell: What he thinks he cannot have.
Shaka: And now – What new bait have you brought for this monkey? Something shiny? Like the freshness of youth? Or lost love?
Lt. Francis Farewell: …Hating my people is not the answer. Together, we can find another way.
Shaka: No. You have already proven that you were never with me. You are a shadow, a man without a nation. Go. I have no need for you anymore.
Lt. Francis Farewell: GO? Go where? WHERE can I go?
Shaka: Where *I* have been.”
I have never seen the film, but that bit of script seems weird.
“Hating my people is not the answer.”
But Shaka granted Farewell a strip of land on the coast, after Fynn had helped to heal Shaka’s wounded arm. That doesn’t sound like Shaka hating the British.
“You have already proven that you were never with me.”
Why would Shaka say that? Is this the part of the film where Shaka has lost his marbles? Farewell and his group fought with the Zulus at the Battle of Gqokli Hill.
“You are a man without a nation.”
Farewell had been trying to establish a peace treaty between the British Empire and the Zulu kingdom. Why would Shaka call him a man without a nation?
(These are rhetorical questions to express my bafflement with the script. Don’t bother answering them, Citizen. History of Natal is a bit OT.)
The setting is vulnerable for everyone.
Again, Israel will not let go of the West Bank without a genuine peace agreement. And that will only come if both communities sincerely desire it, which both say they do, but both act as if assertion is more important than reconciliation.
If I were a supporter of Palestinians, I would NOT urge them to walk into their deaths by mass marches attempting to storm borders.
On the border of Egypt, when Gazans stormed the border, similar happened.
Its of enemies, not of comrades. Its not Russian soldiers refusing to fire on their comrades, not Egyptian soldiers refraining from firing on Egyptians.
Storming a border will not shift the hearts and minds of Europeans, the opposite. They will identify with the Israeli conundrum, not the Palestinian one, especially one set in Syria in the current situation.
Other dissent might be effective, but this is not it.
“They will identify with the Israeli conundrum, ”
Yes, either it is a one state solution or they fire live ammunition at unarmed demonstrators. No other choice could possibly be made. Those poor Israelis. I bet they were all shooting and crying.
Witty, how do you know the hearts and minds of Europeans? The same way you know Jewish Israelis are more valuable than Palestinian Arabs? For the reader here, here’s the results of a poll taken of Europeans regarding the I-P situation–including the questions asked, which might be more helpful to ascertain/suggest the mind and hearts of Europeans than Witty’s blanket statement pulled out of his tukus:
link to scribd.com
Are you so incredibly dense, Witty, that you don’t realize that you “claim” the 1967 borders are defensible and when you do, you EXPLICITLY highlight that Israel is killing people ON SYRIAN SOIL in Golan?
Chaos,
One thing that I find atrocious in your views, is the urging that Palestinians walk to their deaths in a stupid form of dissent.
There is good reason that Hamas and Hezbollah prohibited similar demonstrations.
Part of their reasoning probably remains that they would do similarly if stormed.
The rationalizations of “it wasn’t really a border”, is literally cruel self-talk from thousands of miles away, literally using real Palestinians as fodder for your “I told you so”.
“The same way you know Jewish Israelis are more valuable than Palestinian Arabs?”
Arabs themselves value Israeli Jews much more than fellow Arabs.
Current market price:
1 alive Arab + few dead Arabs cost two dead Israeli Jews
1000 alive Arabs cost about 1 (one) alive Israeli Jew
You should realize that Westerner’s point of view on this whole issue could not even theoretically be correct.
Witty, crying fat Beckian tears for Palestinians? And, why is it cruel self-talk to acknowledge that an armistice line is not a border?
Richard Witty said, ‘Chaos, I should read Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, in which he answers my charge that peaceful demonstrators “cause” the violence that is inflicted on them. I should also reconsider my statement, that
‘If I reflect for a second, I realize that I am endorsing a ban on nonviolent protest. I would never support such an unconstitutional move in the United States, but my moral code is transmogrified once we get to the Middle East.’
Interesting twist of my words, North.
Do you urge that Palestinians storm borders?
If so, why, knowing that the predictable result is military response, with many deaths and injuries?
Why would you support the intentional deflection of the Arab Spring in Syria?
Richard Witty said, ‘In the early 1960s, civil rights demonstrators deliberately “stormed” into the southern United States, eating at segregated lunch counters, riding on segregated buses, marching through the streets. Certain southerners attacked these people, arresting, wounding, and sometimes killing them.’
‘The southern response was “predictable.” The civil rights demonstrators were responsible for their own injuries and death.’
‘Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner should have given up and stayed home, and cultivated their vegetable gardens. They are responsible for their own deaths, as were the others in the civil rights movement, the people I dismiss as “solidarity,” who urged them on.’
“Arabs themselves value Israeli Jews much more than fellow Arabs.”
That may be the stupidest thing to say. The Arabs don’t vaalue Jews more than Arabs; they simply recognize the Jews’ racism on the point.
“Why would you support the intentional deflection of the Arab Spring in Syria?”
How is this a “deflection”?? The Zionists should go the way of Ben-Ali and Mubarak.
Good Job, James North. You hit the nail on the head every time.
RW
They would be “storming borders” only if:
a) they WERE actual borders
b) they were armed and dangerous, unless you count fearsome flags and brazen banners.
You contradict known facts.
1 – Arabs hate and value Israelis (Jews) because the latter managed to achieve more, and with less resources, than former could ever dream to achieve.
2 – Arabs hate and value Israelis (Jews) because the former have not been even close to victory in all war. An unbearable shame for those who’s fathers occupied these lands led by Salah ad-Din
3 – Arabs hate and value Israelis (Jews) because how many exactly Arab scientists have made great discoveries?
You see, before 1948 Jews in Arab countries were (somewhat) oppressed minority and have had very little value in Arab society.
Of course, Koran granted Jews (and Christians) special privileges that no pagan could hope to enjoy.
Yet Arabs were a dominant nation, Islam was a religion and Sharia – a law.
And all of the sudden yesterday’s lowlife turn into regional superpower.
And all “mighty” Arab nations can do nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Humiliation is the real reason for bad blood between Jews and Arabs and it’s a good thing that more and more Arabs every day realize that working with Jews is much more profitable and much less painful that waging wars.
Lightbringer, assuming “the facts” you assert, what do you think is the root cause or matrix of causes of such a broad discrepancy in accomplishments?
Does your discrepancy also apply as beteen Jews from Europe, say in 1948, and Jews from the middle east generally at that time?
Is there a similar discrepancy between Jews from Russia since the early 1990s and Jews from Africa?
Or even as between Jews from Russia and native-born Israelis since then?
On a different continent, is there a similar discrepancy between Mexicans born in the USA since, say 1950, and those who have come over the border illegally in the last two decades?
And, would the Jewish Israelis feel humiliated if the US suddenly switched all its support for Israel to total support for Palestinians?
Were the Jewish Israelis humiliated when Hezbollah sent them packing with less tools?
Did the 1948 Jewish military have more or less modern weapons than the Arabs?
Do Arabs feel inferior because they have not had the accomplishments Jews have had in areas such as predatory Banking and Pornography?
By your lights, should the Persians/Iranians feel inferior to the Jews because of disparity in accomplishments?
Should the Chinese Americans feel superior to the Jewish Americans because they do better academically?
Those aren’t “known facts” they’re more of your lame bigotry. The Israelis have been materially successful, but only because of the massive support they’ve received from the western world, since prior to its founding, which is also the reason it won those wars. Strip away that support and the Jews in Palestine would have been no more a military or economic force than were the Jews in the shtetls.
“3 – Arabs hate and value Israelis (Jews) because how many exactly Arab scientists have made great discoveries?”
Lets have some fun with our Hasbrist troll of the day. He wants to know about the discoveries of Arab scientists.
Here’s my offering, three words that begin with ‘al’: algebra, alchemy, alcohol.
“…three words that begin with ‘al’: algebra, alchemy, alcohol.”
Uh huh.
Arabic renaissance. A shot burst of light, and absolutely no progress whatsoever for next 1000 (one thousand) years.
P.S. BTW, Algebra was invented and developed by Indian scientists LONG before Arabs appeared.
Lightbringer, assuming “the facts” you assert, what do you think is the root cause or matrix of causes of such a broad discrepancy in accomplishments?
Causes are numerous. Most important of them are:
1 – In Arab (Muslim) families women are nothing but property, which essentially at least halves social potential
2 – High intelligence is not important success factor – growing olives requires MUCH less wits than studying Tora
3 – In Jewish families children are highest valued. In Arab/Muslim families a male child might be at times a bit more valued than a camel, but female child is worthless.
Etc.
“Does your discrepancy also apply as between Jews from Europe, say in 1948, and Jews from the middle east generally at that time?”
Yes, to quite large extent, but not entirely because both groups were studying Tora.
“Is there a similar discrepancy between Jews from Russia since the early 1990s and Jews from Africa? “A little, yes.
“Or even as between Jews from Russia and native-born Israelis since then?” To even lesser extent.
“On a different continent, is there a similar discrepancy between Mexicans born in the USA since, say 1950, and those who have come over the border illegally in the last two decades?”
As far as i know, US-born Mexicans consider themselves a higher lifeform, however I might be mistaken.
“And, would the Jewish Israelis feel humiliated if the US suddenly switched all its support for Israel to total support for Palestinians?”Nah
Do not overestimate US importance.
“Were the Jewish Israelis humiliated when Hezbollah sent them packing with less tools?”Of course. We should have kill few more thousand of Lebanese and get rid of Hizbullah once and for all.
“Did the 1948 Jewish military have more or less modern weapons than the Arabs?”Maybe just a little bit.
Same rifles, same grenades, same mortars.
Jews, however, were MUCH better trained and motivated, and have had a serious cause.
“Do Arabs feel inferior because they have not had the accomplishments Jews have had in areas such as predatory Banking and Pornography?”
Obviously. It humiliates to accomplish nothing, does it not?
“By your lights, should the Persians/Iranians feel inferior to the Jews because of disparity in accomplishments?”Persians were actually doing quite well until before revolution.
And now they are rather humiliated by fact that Arabs – who are considered as much lower lifeform by Persians – actually rule their lifes.
Which is, by the way, the reason why Arabs fear any possible union between Israel and Iran.
“Should the Chinese Americans feel superior to the Jewish Americans because they do better academically?”Chinese should – and actually do – feel superior to anyone, and in 30 year’s time we all will speak Chinese.
Massive support. Right.
That is the tale Arab leaders are telling to hide their own impotency and lack of wisdom.
Lightkiller, quit making bald misleading statements. Try these to get a clue on who invented Algebra: link to whoinventedit.net
link to wiki.answers.com
link to ehow.com
And when exactly did the israeli renaissance happen?
Oops sorry I forgot about the current cherry tomato zio-renaissance so impressively taking place these days.
Also, seeing that you know the ACCURATE history of Arabs in it’s ENTIRETY, do tell us how you rate ARAB JEWS – they too must be inferior in all manner of ways to convert jews from europe like you eh.
“Lightkiller, quit making bald misleading statements. Try these to get a clue on who invented Algebra”
“And when exactly did the israeli renaissance happen?”
I happens daily since 1948. During last 63 years Israelis contributed more to mankind more than Arabs did during last millennium.
Ah, Lightkiller, I see you chose only one of the several sources I gave you to show that your original flat statement about who invented Algebra was at minimum very misleading. Now, why not comment on the other sources? Cherry picking so blatently does not help your agenda. You did not say, initially, that nobody invented Algebra–you made a bald statement that one group did, and now you are and have been backtracking, and cherry picking. Did you learn that by your study of the Talmud? Figures.
Lightkiller indeed, Citizen.
Still, he did manage to make a complete ass of himself in this last post, to wit:
“And when exactly did the israeli renaissance happen?”
Lk: “I happens daily since 1948. During last 63 years Israelis contributed more to mankind more than Arabs did during last millennium.”
***
Thanks for looking up all that material on algebra. I came up with my 3 “al” discoveries from memory.
“We could have taken the easier route of uncontrolled fire, but we decided to operate in a very limited manner,” an army spokesman said afterward, reassuring the world that Israel could have killed hundreds more, but chose to pick off about 20 unarmed civilians in the name of restraint.
Thus spake the spokesman for “the most moral army in the world.”
Thus is revealed to the world how Israel, “the only democracy in the Middle East,” cares for the lives of non-Jews. Of peaceful protesters. Of anyone who stands in the way of the Jewish State of Israel.
This is the fascist State, the Jewish State of Israel, that Zionists in America – led by AIPAC – support so fervently with their money, their unparalleled organizing power, and their fanatical activism. This is the fascist State, in all its brutal horror, that Zionists in America say they “love,” the State to which they pledge undying devotion.
This is the people of the Jewish State of Israel, consumed with an expansive nationalism second to none among Western nations, second to none in territorial greed, second to none in its desire to impose military and political dominance over its neighbors, second to none in the starkly existential danger it poses for its neighbors, second to none in its willingness to slaughter multitudes of innocents. This is Israel – second to none.
This is the foreign entity that controls the U.S. government, through the agency of its organized devotees in America. How do those ardent American supporters of the fascist government of the Jewish State of Israel feel when they behold such actions as these of that Jewish State? Do they react with pride and ever greater donations to the Jewish Agency? Do their breasts swell? Is this yet more evidence of the superiority of the Jewish “race”?
How does it feel to be all alone with no direction home?
ot
Uri Avnery’s tribute to his wife of 58years. Sweet and sad. May she RIP.
“After she died, I sat for an hour with my eyes fixed on her face”. She was beautiful.
A German friend sent me a saying which I find strangely comforting. It translates as:
“Don’t be sad that she left you, Be glad that she was with you for so many years.”
link to counterpunch.org
Really ot ot. They sure are going after Weiner for trash
Weinergate. Oh no
link to biggovernment.com
link to salon.com
Rep. Weiner A Notable No-Show At NY Celebrate Israel Parade
link to newyork.cbslocal.com
On domestic issues you just have to love Weiner. On Israel, Iran, Jonathon Pollard he is crazed.
ok in just several hours the blogosphere is all about weinergate. Going to be like this all week aye yi yi
I watched a bit of the Weinergate thing last week and didn’t believe a word Weiner said. If he hadn’t sent that tweet he would have had the Capitol Police or FBI on it to figure it out and kill the doubt.
When he didn’t do that and hired a ‘private investigator and a lawyer” instead I knew he was toast.
Imagine my surprise NOT when I flipped on the news and saw him crying and confessing.
“On domestic issues you just have to love Weiner. On Israel, Iran, Jonathon Pollard he is crazed.”
Exactly, which means that he cannot be trusted on those domestic issues. If one really, truly holds progressive principles on those domestic issues, there is simply no way, short of personality defect (which seems to be the case with this person) which could lead to the conclusions regarding the Zionist issues. Thus, the only reasonable explanations are 1) he has a mental/personality defect (whether it be megalomania, an unnatural attachment for those who are part of his “group,” indoctrination, etc.) or 2) he does not hold those principles at all and is willing to jettison them in favor of his “group” or he believes that jettisoning those principles is necessary to garner votes.
Either way, he has no business wielding any power in the US.
Well that definition would apply to most of our Reps. Although those who lined up pushing for Jonathon Pollards release are interesting
How can you rule over anything when your nickname now is Mr. Creepy Underpants?
Kathleen, Sadly, that is true. I see few with any power in the US gov’t worth supporting now.
Kucinich, Whitehouse, Leahy, Edwards there are some.
Weiner represents a very Jewish district; also, he has stated that he’s a hard core Zionist and comes from a very secular Jewish household; in fact, in his youth he wore an “I am a Zionist” sign on his everyday clothing for some time. The only competition for his Zionism is his sexual ego. Clinton said Weiner was hot on his future wife for two years, and endlessly persistent while she kept backing away. So now, thanks to his sexual ego, he’s not going to be NYC mayor, same as his mental traveler is now not going to be the biggest honcho in France. Plus, he says, “Don’t ask!” about his dear mother’s opinion about his marrying a gentile–a Muslim one at that. You can imagine Baird’s opinion about the guy. Of course his best bud, Shmucky Shumer now has to eat his words about how innocent Wacky Weiner is about distributing photos of his weiner. ZOA’s not happy about his chosen wife either. I like his take on insurance companies because its true. I wouldn’t care who he sent photos to if he’d just quit conflating US and Israeli best interests. But that’s not about to stop. See link to momentmag.com
I just clicked on the first comment under your first link, Kathleen
Follow SunshineConnie 117p
Just an early retired widowed lady in Phoenix area who is getting involved because I am frustrated!
*Now confirmed that Weiner is just another Socialist PERVERT*
These bozos crack me up. Sex is a total no no. You you can do whatever you want with Israel. Vote AIPAC all the way but keep your zip up.
Phil- It is important that your readers should be clear how close (or how far) the Syrians and the Israelis were to an agreement in 2000. The Golan is occupied no matter if they were three kilometers apart or two millimeters apart, but either way it should be made clear to your readers.
It is also important that people know that it was Israeli’s covetousness over water resources that prevented that agreement.
Yeah that was 11 years ago and since then you’ve shuttled even more of your colonists onto Golan and razed more homes of people already living there. So basically the only thing Israel was “close” to was another deception.
Israel wouldn’t give the Syrians access to the sea of Galilee. 2 centimetres mean a lot when water is the issue, especially considering how much water Israel wastes.
Exactly right, seafoid. It’s easier to claim it’s all about antisemitism rather than explaining why Palestinians are on water restrictions while Israelis have lawns and swimming pools, while in the desert.
Here is another great report about the Israeli Palestinian water issue
link to bakerinstitute.org
Just went through the Netroots Nation line up. Loaded up on domestic issues. Such an incredible line up. But…. They have not touched the Israeli Palestinian issue. Never ever. Too much for this so called progressive caucus to even touch or whisper about.
There are two workshops/panels on the Arab Spring (and the issue can be brought up here) and another on leaving Afghanistan.
But it has been noticed that the Netroots Nation has been avoiding this issue since their inception
link to netrootsnation.org
Check it out