Netanyahu
David Gregory has walked back his jarring statement, on twitter.
This am I called Israeli PM the leader of the jewish ppl. Better to say he’s leader of jewish state.
Gregory had gotten hammered. By Scott Roth: you made a serious mistake in referring to the Israeli PM as the “leader of the Jewish People.” Josh Marshall doesn’t like it either. The underlying question is, Why did he say it? David Gregory is Jewish; does he believe at any level that Netanyahu is his leader?
Let’s unpack this some more. Netanyahu at the General Assembly a year ago said he was the leader of the Jewish people:
On behalf of Israel and the Jewish people, I extend that hand again today…
As the prime minister of Israel, I speak for a hundred generations of Jews who were dispersed throughout the lands, who suffered every evil under the Sun, but who never gave up hope of restoring their national life in the one and only Jewish state.
But I guess you are the leader of the Jewish people if Israel is declared the nation of the “Jewish people.” Netanyahu to Congress:
President Obama rightly referred to Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people…
The idea of Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people” was at the center of modern Zionism, which emerged in the late 19th century in response to centuries of often virulent anti-Semitism and emerging nationalism in central and eastern Europe. Jews would never have a secure place in the nation states of the West and East, the argument went, because anti-Semitism was immutable and inevitable whenever Jews lived among non-Jews. Thus the need to create an ethnic-Jewish nation state in Palestine, into which Jews could be “ingathered” from their “exile” in the Diaspora.
But then, as now, the majority of the world’s Jews did not imagine themselves in “exile” from an ancestral homeland. Most chose to live elsewhere and to — naively in the minds of the Zionists — integrate themselves into other nationalities. Only a couple of hundred thousand moved to Palestine to help build a Jewish homeland.
plus, the interview was pre recorded. they could have cut it, they didn’t. oversite? i doubt it.
I’m not a fan of Gregory, and think he dropped the ball on this interview in other ways. But in his defense, I suspect that he never planned to say that phrase, and it came out wrong. If it were in writing, rather than spoken extemporaneously, I would have a different opinion. He was trying to goad Bibi into responding to his question, and he went a little overboard.
Also, in one respect, Bibi could make a claim to be the leader of the Jewish people. Israel purports to be the State of the Jewish people, and Bibi is the leader of the State. Of course, that says more about the perverse conception of Israel as the State of the Jewish people than it does about Bibi actually being the leader of Jews worldwide.
The non-stop racist depiction of Palestinians by our media motivates many American Jews to emigrate to Israel and to occupied Palestine where they get to demonstrate their racial superiority. I think it is less of an issue that they are Jewish than that they are white racists produced by American culture. Justifying this because they are Jewish, requires a shrink, not a historian.
For David Gregory to claim (and this is obviously what he really believes) that Benjamin Netanyahu is “the leader of the Jewish people” opens the door to legitimate speculation about whether Diaspora Jews owe greater loyalty to Israel than to their respective nations of citizenship and residence.
No wonder Gregory is now trying to walk back his incredibly inflammatory statement. But he can’t walk it back. He said it and he meant it. And he has managed to richly entangle his Judaism with his Zionism — a political blunder of the highest order which has also been made by the worldwide Jewish establishment.
“And he has managed to richly entangle his Judaism with his Zionism”
Other religions promise a reward in heaven, but a strong enough Jewish belief can get you a condo, mit Schwimmbad in occupied Palestine. If other religions haven’t been smart enough to use enticements like this, it’s their own fault!
Essentially, though, if he ever admitted being “Jewish” he now declared in public that he is an “Israel-firster”. A so-called walkback on Twitter is ridiculous.
Everyone around here should push hard enough to have the label stick to him with fish glue. Any and all propaganda mouths need insistent campaigns to discredit them. Why not request officially a real, prominent and effective “walk back” on his station, with the threat that he’ll be targeted from now on? Not that threats are effective with Zionists, especially retards…
By silencing all dissenting voices the mainstream media is really missing the story, which is a general disapproval across the country for a third round of these wars of choice. I would say that the President’s stance is a pretty accurate reading of where the country (outside Washington) is on more war. The analysis is pretty simple, and involves our doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Most Americans have clued in that more war will not reverse the damage done to our reputation. We are not winning hearts and minds.
$3 Tril later, this is how the world sees us link to theatlanticwire.com
Romney’s numbers have not recovered from his trip to Israel. Nobody says it out loud, though. Funny how that works. Mr. Romney is proving an inadequate messenger and the PM is looking a bit desperate.
You make good points, Sandhillexit. There’s something akin to a tabu about saying certain things, so people refrain. My lone neocon friend at a dinner recently said loudly that he and another of his outlook were discussing how they didn’t know how a single Jew could vote for Obama this time around. Several of us were well aware of Jeremy Ben Ami’s Newshour interview recently where he goaded Dan Shapiro to the effect that Obama’s got 75% of the Jewish vote, so what he needs is more Jews, but who wants to take on neocons in a loud voice in a public place talking about Jews this and Jews that? Silence does not equal acquiescence, however.
What irks me is the attitude which too many people buy into that the public cannot handle open criticism of Jews, because they’ll overgeneralize and Anti-Semitism flames will be fanned. America is about limited government and one of the most important limits is a well-informed public. Efforts to keep them in the dark are inherently un-American. And they’re not in the dark on this subject, at least not anymore, they just haven’t found their voice yet (other than Mondoweiss).
Now with the Arab mobs up in arms about this vile movie clip, there’s no way Americans are going to buy into invading to occupy still another country.
Was Cathy Crowley’s interview with Netanyahu on CNN the most important American news footage in the history of American foreign policy in the Middle East?
Here’s a must-see exchange Cathy Crowley and Netanyahu on Face the Nation – there are a set of 4 questions that Cathy Crowley where Cathy refuses to be cowed by the Israeli Lobby-mafia rules of the game with Israel and smokes these critical followups right by Netanyahu – his decompensation and his shock over having to defend any of his lies at all is palpable.
This is a liar scrambling cover up having been outed for his lies –
link to cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com
~ the set really gets going at about 4:10 on the tape but watch the whole thing
[Here is where Cathy Crowley won't put up with the lies has told innumerable times on the American news networks and talks shows:]
CathyCrowley Followup: Do you mean you (Israel) and the US know that? Because from what I read and what I hear I don’t get the sense that the US has the certainty that you do or the urgency that you seem to have – is there a disconnect there?
[Watch Netanyahu decompensate and try to cover his lies –
he immediately loses his balance and tries to backtrack on his lies because he could see the headlines:]
CC Followup: Do you mean you (Israel) and the US know that? Because from what I read and what I hear I don’t get the sense that the US has the certainty that you do or the urgency that you seem to have – is there a disconnect there?
CC Followup: I get the sense that your hour long phone consveration with President Obama did not get you where you wanted to go insofar as US unwillingness to set this red line – is that correct?
CC Followup: Is the answer then that ‘NO’ you don’t’have the red line you would like to have from the US – can you at least tell me that?
=
In my opinion this is some of the most important exposure of Netanyahu and Israel in the modern history of the conflict
You are right, Candy did not toe the line a-la Mr. Gregory.
What’s wrong with Candy? She doesn’t appear to be sufficiently in love with the idea of Israel.
Netanyahu:
“We value, we cherish, * the bipartisan support for Israel in th United States…”
*we pay good money for
How about this exchange starting right at the 4:00 mark. Has to be a world record for totally contradicting onself and lying about doing so:
NETANYAHU: …Come on. We know that they’re working towards a weapon. They’re not — we know that. It’s not something that we surmise. We have absolutely certainty about that. And they’re advancing towards that nuclear program.
CROWLEY: Do you mean you and the U.S. know that, because I don’t from what I read, from what I hear, I don’t get the sense that the U.S. has the certainty that you do or the urgency that you seem to have. Is there a disconnect there?
NETANYAHU: First of all, I talked about the certainty of their enrichment program, and I didn’t talk about the other elements. And I spoke about the difficulty of knowing other things…
@gingershot
Thanks for the Crowley interview; she did not buy his conflation line at all. Neither as to US v Israel interests, or POV on Iranian uranium enrichment, nor on Obama v Mitt having a POV on Iran closer to his own. Pretty amazing. He had to switch from his”this is how it is” to this is how it “should be.” Wonder if any media pundits will pick up Crowley’s quarter-backing?
Interesting. Over the past few years, Gregory studied Judaism with Erica Brown, who from what little I read seems to be a mainstream liberal American Jew, i.e. progressive except when it come to Israel and Palestine. Her Rosh Hashanah message barely touches religious wisdom or faith before plowing into a litany of Judeo/Israeli-centric celebrations or claims of victimhood. There is literally nothing in her message that connects Judaism to the rest of the world — but plenty that separates it. I find this urge for separateness chilling. If this is who Gergory has learned his “faith” from, no wonder he sees Bibi as the leader of the Jewish people. link to shalomdc.org
Too many “liberal” Jews in the media who have a warm, fuzzy place in their hearts for Zionism.
Somewhere out there, millions of Palestinians are collectively thinking: “how the hell did these people become OUR problem?!”
RE: “. . . But I guess you are the leader of the Jewish people if Israel is declared the nation of the ‘Jewish people’.” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: Uri Avnery sees this issue as perhaps being Israel’s “Achilles heel” (so to speak).
FROM URI AVNERY (VIA BERNARD AVISHAI), February 2010:
SOURCE – link to bernardavishai.blogspot.com
P.S. AND NOW “PASTOR” JOHN HAGEE AND THE “CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS” ARE EXACERBATING THE PROBLEMS CAUSED BY WHAT URI AVNERY REFERS TO AS THE “WHITE LIE” OF ZIONISM! ! !
SEE: “A Serial Obstructionist”, By Rachel Tabachnick, ZEEK – Forward, 3/15/10
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to zeek.forward.com
Gary G. Sick (born 1935) is an American academic and analyst of Middle East affairs, with special expertise on Iran, who served on the U.S. National Security Council < under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He has authored two books on U.S.-Iran relations, in addition to a number of co-edited books and numerous articles and scholarly contributions.
link to garysick.tumblr.com
"Mr Netanyahu is correct in his apparent assumption that the US can do a much better job of destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities than Israel can do alone. However, his unconcealed pressure on the president of the United States during the final stages of an election is a power play without precedent. The small ally tail does occasionally attempt to wag the American dog, but seldom so blatantly."
In 1992 Gary Sick wrote a book called “October Surprise.”
Barbara Honegger had been the first to tell this story, three years earlier in a book with the same title. Sick did not acknowledge the earlier book, nor its title.
Barbara Honegger had been the first to tell this story, three years earlier in a book with the same title.
point well made. there was some amazing research done into the evolution of post-war iran back in the 80′s. david emory, before he devolved into full blown insane islamo-fascism mode, had an excellent series on the history of the october surprise, which essentially had roots back to mossadegh’s iran. see his interviews with fara mansoor, a synopsis of which is provided via harry martin:
link to dmc.members.sonic.net
an interesting note relevant to the assassination of the US ambassador to libya:
On February 14, 1979, two weeks after Khomeini’s return to Iran, the U.S. Embassy in Teheran was seized by Khomeini supporters disguised as leftist guerrillas in an attempt to neutralize the left. U.S. hostages were seized, but to the chagrin of Khomeini’s Fundamentalist, the Iranian coalition government restored order immediately. Ironically, in the same day in Kabul, Afghanistan, the U.S. Ambassador was also kidnapped by fanatic Islamic Fundamentalists disguised as leftist guerrillas and killed in the gunfight.
so at the same time that it is alleged US intelligence assets loyal to reagan/bush are manipulating events in tehran, the US ambassador in kabul is assassinated. what a coincidence.
Interesting proposed sequence of events by Mansoor. Perhaps Carter was lucky to lose only the presidency and not his life for following in JFK’s footsteps in trying to clean up the CIA
The lines can get blurry:
link to nytimes.com
A more serious slip by Gregory would have been to label Netanyahu, King of the Jews.
Gregory is incompetent. How about Crowley for the job?!