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Jodi Rudoren loves a winner

Rudoren in tunnel, from her facebook page
Rudoren, from her facebook page, exploring a tunnel in Gaza. 

On July 20, Gideon Levy of Haaretz—if current trends continue, Levy may be the last sane man in Israel—published an op-ed entitled “What Does Hamas Really Want?” He wrote:

“Last week 10 conditions were published in the name of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, for a 10-year cease-fire. Hamas and Islamic Jihad demand freedom for Gaza. Is there a more understandable and just demand? Read the list of demands and judge honestly whether there is one unjust demand among them: withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces troops and allowing farmers to work their land up to the fence; release of all prisoners from the Gilad Shalit swap who have been rearrested; an end to the siege and opening of the crossings; opening of a port and airport under UN management; expansion of the fishing zone; international supervision of the Rafah crossing; an Israeli pledge to a 10-year cease-fire and closure of Gaza’s air space to Israeli aircraft; permits to Gaza residents to visit Jerusalem and pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque; and an Israeli pledge not to interfere in internal Palestinian politics such as the unity government; opening Gaza’s industrial zone.”

In the second lead story on the front page of this morning’s New York Times, “Israel Kills 3 Top Hamas Leaders As the Latest Fighting Turns Its Way,” Jodi Rudoren begins:

“Hamas is the party that keeps extending this summer’s bloody battle in the Gaza Strip, repeatedly breaking temporary truces and vowing to endlessly fire rockets into Israel until its demands are met. But the latest round of fighting appears to have given Israel the upper hand in a conflict that has already outlasted all expectations and is increasingly becoming a war of attrition.”

Rudoren then interviews three prominent former Israeli officials, beginning with Michael Oren, a shameless propagandist for Netanyahu, an “historian” whose writing and public statements are invariably thoroughly disingenuous. Rudoren quotes him:

“There’s a longstanding conventional wisdom that Israel doesn’t do well in wars of attrition,” said Michael B. Oren, an Israeli historian and a former ambassador to the United States. “That overlooks a broader historical view that Israel’s entire existence has been a war of attrition, and we’ve won that war.”

Later in the story Rudoren interviews two other pillars of the Israeli military and intelligence establishment:

“These [the assassinated Hamas leaders] are senior people,” said Michael Herzog, a retired Israeli brigadier general and fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “People in Gaza know exactly who they are, people in Israel know exactly who they are. In our bilateral context, it resonates strongly.”…

Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli chief of military intelligence [said]….”We’re now going to a war of attrition that was a threat of Hamas. Israel basically turned it upside down and said, ‘You want attrition? You are welcome. …Our firepower and our intelligence and our capability to sustain more days is much bigger than yours.’ This is the strategy.”

“There are growing calls for a more aggressive ground invasion,” Rudoren continues, “which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted, and intense opposition to the idea of making concessions in a cease-fire agreement that might seem to reward Hamas.”

Rudoren apparently did not interview any Israeli opponents of “Operation Protective Edge.”

…….

I have tried to imagine how Jodi Rudoren would have covered the French Resistance attacks on the Nazi German occupiers of Paris in June 1940. I’m assuming that after France surrendered and Paris was occupied, the primary reason that there wasn’t a “peace,” of sorts, is that the Resistance didn’t give up, “demanding” the end of the occupation.

So, in my imagined past, this is how Rudoren might have covered the ongoing battle in a lead New York Times news story dated August 22, 1940:

“Germany Kills 3 Top Resistance Leaders As the Latest Fighting Turns Its Way.”

The story begins:

The Resistance is the party that keeps extending this summer’s bloody battle in Paris, repeatedly breaking temporary truces and vowing to endlessly attack Nazi Germany until its demands are met. But the latest round of fighting appears to have given Germany the upper hand in a conflict that has already outlasted all expectations and is increasingly becoming a war of attrition.

“There’s a longstanding conventional wisdom that Germany doesn’t do well in wars of attrition,” said Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister of Germany. “That overlooks a broader historical view that Germany’s entire existence has been a war of attrition, and we’ve won that war.”

“These [Jean Moulin and other Resistance leaders killed by Germany] are senior people,” said Alfred Yodl, a leading German general: “People in France know exactly who they are, people in Germany know exactly who they are. In our bilateral context, it resonates strongly.”

Reinhard Heydrich, a high official in German military intelligence said….”We’re now going to a war of attrition that was a threat of the Resistance: Germany basically turned it upside down and said, ‘You want attrition? You are welcome. …Our firepower and our intelligence and our capability to sustain more days is much bigger than yours.’ This is the strategy.”

There are growing calls for a more aggressive ground invasion, which Chancellor Adolph Hitler has resisted, and intense opposition to the idea of making concessions in a cease-fire agreement that might seem to reward the Resistance.

 ……

Stepping back into the present:  For many years I have resisted drawing parallels between Nazi Germany’s occupation and repression of European countries and Israel’s occupation and repression of the Palestinians.  Lately, however, more and more Israeli and American critics (for example, Henry Siegman) have started to do so; and it is likely that such comparisons will increasingly be made. It ought to be blindingly obvious that anyone calling attention to some parallels are hardly suggesting that Israel is equivalent to Nazi Germany–only idiots would think that.

So, to make the obvious explicit, Israel is not Nazi Germany, and murder is not genocide.  What a relief! That there should be any parallels between the Israeli and German occupations, however, is staggering, and proof of the moral collapse of Israel.

This post first appeared today on Jerome Slater’s site. 

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““Hamas is the party that keeps extending this summer’s bloody battle in the Gaza Strip, repeatedly breaking temporary truces and vowing to endlessly fire rockets into Israel until its demands are met. But the latest round of fighting appears to have given Israel the upper hand in a conflict that has already outlasted all expectations and is increasingly becoming a war of attrition.” by Jodi Roduren

I read the opening paragraph and had to go puke… another gleeful warmonger journalist writing for the NYT.
How and when did American media become just so poor and shameful?

“That there should be any parallels between the Israeli and German occupations, however, is staggering, and proof of the moral collapse of Israel.”

How far they have fallen from the original high morality of the Nakba. Tragic.

Glad to see the list of Gaza’s 10 demands. So straightforward, reasonable, and just. That’s why Netanyahoo has to rant and rave about Hamas being the same as ISIS. He wants to get this earworm out there (Hamas = ISIS) lest anybody get it in their head to find out the truth.

“There’s a longstanding conventional wisdom that Israel doesn’t do well in wars of attrition,”

$60m per day, can’t afford to compensate Jews in Southern Israel, economy slowing down

Israel can’t afford much more. The government wouldn’t last- they are already all over the place

And the PR damage is out of the park.
They even lost MJ Rosenberg FFS.

The notion that history is over and Israel has won- I don’t buy it
It’s the longue duree that counts.

Why do things we find beautiful undermine power?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yjhpp22ygs

Things like rights for Palestinians