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- Dershowitz calls Hawking an ‘ignoramus,’ a ‘lemming,’ and likely an … 202
- In photos: Gaza marches and rallies mark 65 years of … 148
- Glenn Greenwald brings facts and reason to ‘Real Time’, ruins … 145
- San Francisco bus ads condemn Israeli apartheid: backlash begins 119
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- US Jews are so ‘polarized’ over Israel they can’t talk … 160
- Dershowitz calls Hawking an ‘ignoramus,’ a ‘lemming,’ and likely an … 149
- Glenn Greenwald brings facts and reason to ‘Real Time’, ruins … 88
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- RT @War_Times: Blood on Israel’s Hands from #Palestine to the Mayan Highlands http://t.co/hAHRMXYXMm #Nakba @mondoweiss @jadaliyya #Guatema…, 21 hours ago
- RT @WideAsleepNima: Thanks to @Jadaliyya for posting my @Newseum article: http://t.co/cmdi2bjwkb. Here's a brief follow-up on @MuftahOrg: h…, 2013/05/17
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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
I hope Landgraf has a job lined up after graduation because he will be blacklisted when he applies for any engineering jobs, just as reporters who write critically of the Israeli occupation get blacklisted at newspapers and TV stations.
I sometimes find it odd to listen to people here fret and worry about what it means to be Jewish. Posts here sometimes read like one of those Grimm's fairy tales in which some poor boy suspects he's really a prince with royal blood. Most people here, it seems, are on the left politically. So why all the worry with what at root are bloodlines?
Catholic husband that spends their mornings in church celebrating Mass, while wife runs around like a dervish getting their children ready, only to see him back in Church in the evening, and at a spiritual ( and child free) retreat at weekends. . .
I was raised a Catholic in a heavily Catholic part of western Pennsylvania and I must say I never knew anyone who lived like that. Perhaps you're thinking of some other religion?
I wonder sometimes who on earth decreed that there was a "special relationship" between the United States and Israel. The earliest reference I've seen to this supposed relationship was in some casual introductory remarks made by John Kennedy when Golda Meir visited Washington one day.
I must say, a mighty enterprise has been built upon this slender reed. And one I'd be more than happy to dispense with it. As the bandito said in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "we don't need no stinking relationships."
I think she's rather saying that to write about Israel without apologetics is to commit literary suicide. I have a friend who was told if he ever wrote in public what he said at at a certain dinner party he would never be published again.
I'm amazed at the high technical quality of the video that we are seeing nowadays. It makes these soldiers hesitate. It's not like the grainy fuzzy video we had in the Rodney King case where you had to watch 10 times to try and figure out what was going on. Rogue cops and soldiers must really just hate the advance of video technology.
But a Zionist Israeli would probably want to stay in Israel, would he not?
Why must Levine couch his discussion in terms of whether Israel has a “right to exist?”
Well you are right. No country has a right to exist. Countries don't come into existence because of rights anyway. They exist because someone had the power to take the land from someone else and so he did. It's always been that way--with all countries. That being said, it has always seemed to me that when Israel asserts its right to exist it is asserting a good deal more than merely to have what other countries have.
Obama might have temporarily outsmarted Netanyahu but what's so great about that? It's like outsmarting a Great Dane. In the meantime Obama has to go make homage to Jerusalem next week and do a blowjob on that donkey for Israel. Which he unfortunately will do without any regret for what was once the great and powerful United States of America.
If the U.S. releases Pollard the Israelis will celebrate it as a huge victory over the United States with parades, speeches, public appearances, frenzied dancing, all accompanied by denunciations of the U.S.'s allegedly cruel and unusual treatment of Pollard while in U.S. custody and attacks on our President. This would profoundly depress me, given that Israel has won so many other victories over the US in recent decades, starting with their attack on the USS Liberty. I hate to hand them another one, especially one that suggests Israeli and AIPAC control over the American government is powerful and ubiquitous.
A final point, if Israel is the slightest bit remorseful about the Pollard affair, why don't they return the stack of documents he stole--said to fill a room ten feet on a side?
Anyone who hasn't done it should read the comments by Washington Post readers on Biden's groveling to Israel. Nine out of ten of them are strongly opposed to Biden's remarks. Among other things, they consider them embarrassing, ill-advised and disloyal to America.
Jews who are worried (in my opinion needlessly) about their safety in America need only find themselves a gentile spouse. At that point they will have a fierce defender against all enemies, foreign or domestic. What's not to like?
A famous American scientist once told me the president could get the American people to go to war with any country with three speeches. Getting the American people to go to war with Iran on behalf of Israel would probably take only two. In fact all the president would have to do is whisper the words "war" and "Iran" in the same sentence and our congress would demand he start bombing tomorrow.
Sometimes America is such a tool of our betters.
Israel is asking the US Senate to issue a declaration of war. Furthermore it's leaving the decision in the hands of Israel. Are we nuts? Why don't we just Fedex the (launch authorization) football to Netanyahu so he can launch our missiles whenever he likes?
Will Hagel be a better secretary of defense for America than anyone else? In order to get confirmed, didn't he promise to love Israel more than America, more than his family, more than life itself? If Hagel is just another Israel-Firster how does that help anyone in this country?
If he does win the Academy Award I wonder what percentage of the audience will boo and what percent will cheer.
I don't understand this. Immigration (finally) let him into the country because he was nominated for an Academy Award. What if he was here merely to go to Disneyland or to visit the Grand Canyon? They would have immediately sent him home?
Tobin will say anything, true or not, if it helps Israel. Years ago when I told him in an email that Israel's West Bank settlements were an obstacle to peace he answered that Israel hasn't built any such settlements in over 10 years. When I replied that the US reconnaissance satellites that monitored illegal settlements in the West Bank proved otherwise, he answered that it was a "scandal" for the U.S. to waste its valuable satellite resources spying on an ally. He then announced that our correspondence was closed.
Well, it was closed but not so much as his own mind.
Didn't Obama first check with Netanyahu before nominating Hagel? I can't imagine that Netanyahu checks with Obama before selecting his own defense minister.
well said
I've never understood why Americans are expected to love Israel. No one expects us to love Iceland, Bulgaria or New Zealand. But if you are a public figure who shows insufficient love for Israel (not dislike, just insufficient love) your career is shot before it begins.
I have often wondered how our "special relationship" with Israel came about. It wasn't established by treaty. Yet it seems to supersede our relationships with Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Canada and Mexico.
It's not because the U.S. and Israel have common origins or similar founding philosophies. As far as I can tell, the earliest reference to any special relationship innocently started when President Kennedy used the phrase in some welcoming remarks for Golda Meir. And that casual beginning has become some sort of Magna Carta which makes our politicians fall over each other to show the most craven obeisance whenever an Israeli leader drops into town.
I just don't understand why our congress is so obsequious. I recently read that 80% of the questions at Hagel's confirmation hearing had to do with Israel. Don't our senators and congressmen know that in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky ordinary working class Americans are watching these hearings and saying, "What the hell is going on? I've been out of work for 5 years and all congress cares about is Israel???"
What a strange state off affairs. When Netanyahu addresses the US Congress they give him 29 standing O's. When Obama goes to address the Knessett Netanyahu has to beg the members not to boo the US president.
It is clear who holds the upper hand in this relationship. Obama is so picky about slights and insults with everyone else yet he allows Netanyahu to treat him like his not-too-bright serving boy.
I'll never forget the way Koch deflected dual loyalty charges. He said that the minute that Israel invades the U.S., he'd be on the front lines.
Koch might be right in saying he would have been on the front lines if Israel invaded the U.S. It just might not have been on our side of the front lines.
What kills me about Hagel is that he once said he would be a senator the United States , not the senator for Israel--an honorable and candidly refreshing observation for those who grew up in fly-over country and just assumed any American senator obviously put America's needs before those of any other country. But then Hagel goes into his confirmation hearing and in response to demands that he prove how much he loves Israel he repudiates his whole life and thereby destroys whatever respect ordinary Americans had previously accorded him.
The Israel lobby took a good (but unfortunately not a very brave) and humiliated him into pledging to love Israel more than any other country, including even America. If Hagel really believes what he said in the hearing room the other day it's time for him to fly to Tel Aviv and join the Knesset because he's clearly not suitable to represent his own country anymore.
If Hagel had refused to repudiate what he previously said about the Israel Lobby he wouldn't have become Secretary of Defense but at least he could have retired with his honor intact. Now that he has repudiated everything he ever believed he still won't become Secretary of Defense but now his retirement will be full of shame.
Israel apologists have already called Hagel anti-Semitic for saying this. They argue that his comment about being loyal to the constitution, not Israel, implies that Jewish Americans have dual loyalty issues and thus is anti-Semitic on its face. Either that or they just condemn such comments as having an "odor" about them.
I don't understand how Israel Firsters couldn't know that ordinary Americans watch performances like this and when they do it turns their stomach to see our public officials forced to say they love Israel more than life itself. This is worse than the loyalty oaths of the fifties. At least then people were required to love America. Today they have to promise to love a foreign country first.
Oh bull to you. Before seeing the cartoon I was expecting (and hoping) to be amused or impressed by it. I was neither. The cartoonist had a good idea and ruined it with his crude execution.
As far as my having a victimization complex, I don't think so. I am not Jewish and I certainly don't walk around hoping to see something I can claim offends me. I'll go further. I think people who compare everything they don't like to Hitler or the Holocaust are just plain dumb (or dishonest). Even so, my first reaction to the cartoon was dismay that it gave such an easy target for Netanyahu apologists.
The cartoon is offensive. But not because of the idea conveys--that Netanyahu's wall is killing the Palestinians, but because the execution of the cartoon counter-productively reminds the viewer of Nazi depictions of German Jews in the thirties. Perhaps the cartoonist intended that. If so, he made a bad mistake.
Obama talks to Netanyahu every day?
Surely that can't be true. I doubt Obama talks to Michelle that much.
There's another thing Friedman doesn't seem to recognize. Israel controls our Mid-eastern foreign policy. There's no other country in the world that could make us attack Iran, thereby destroying the American economy for an entire generation, killing tens of thousands of Americans and earning us the enmity of the rest of the world. Only Israel can do that. Americans have a right to have concerns about a country which is pushing non-stop to involve us in a ruinous war.
"No, I haven’t. And anyone who says that without seeing the film is a fool, a fanatic or worse."
You are so right. I find that even people I know and otherwise respect sometimes grievously mis-characterize films, videos and press conferences. If you don't go view the source material yourself you would come away thinking that the person being characterized is an idiot or a bigot. Then when you actually view the supposedly egregious material in context, along with the speaker's intonation and inflection, you discover that his remarks were completely reasonable and unexceptional. Or, as one of my writing instructors in college used to say, "over-checking has ruined many a good story."
The prosecutors in the Aaron Swartz case knew they would never get a unanimous guilty verdict against him from any computer literate jury. So they grossly over-charged him in hopes of scaring him into a plea bargain that would make him accept significant jail time. Instead they scared him so badly (he had always battled with depression) that he took his own life.
When I hear a song like "God Bless America" I sometimes wonder what America they're talking about.
I went to grad school at Berkeley in the late sixties. The famous free speech era, it seemed to me, was anything but that. Anyone who failed to share the prevailing left wing ideology was condemned, slandered and on occasion physically attacked. I had come to Berkeley directly from the US Naval aviation. It seemed to me that one was a lot freer to voice contrary opinions in the Navy than was ever possible at UC Berkeley. The Navy only cared that you did your job. At Berkeley, they had ubiquitous thought police trying to stamp out "badthink."
If the senate fails to confirm Hagel for not loving Israel enough, Obama should nominate Benjamin Netanyahu for the post. This way we won't end up with a Secretary of Defense who is torn between the neocon requirement to always put Israel first and the human desire to be loyal to the country of one's birth.
I took Woodward's statement to mean we would be talking more about Israel than we would like because a war had erupted in the Middle East.
You are more optimistic than I am about Maddow's aversion to talking about the Israel Lobby. She would choke on her blouse before ever saying "opposition to Hagel" and "Israel" in the same sentence.
"If Hagel simply says this, “The national security interests of the United States come first.” I will be thrilled."
I too would be thrilled to see anyone in public life say this. But it won't happen (and Hagel won't repeat this sentiment). There simply are too many supporters of Israel who believe that it's anti-Semitic for Americans to put America first because this carries the implication that people who support Israel don't put America first. While this is in many cases true, it is another of those things which simply can't be said in America today. I suspect if Obama does in fact nominate Hagel (and I'm thinking more and more that he won't) Hagel will suddenly start talking like he loves Israel so much he will bomb Iran before 5 pm his first day on the job.
As far as I can tell, the film is only playing in two theaters in the entire country. How does one get to see it?
"There is AIPAC and many similar jewish organisation working for the interests of a foreign country and there is the NRA, whose members collect private armouries to fight their own government under the disguise of the 2d Amendment."
Many of the Founding Fathers, such as James Madision, who wrote the Second Amendment, believed that American citizens needed the right to bear arms in order to oppose oppressive government. This is what Madison once wrote on the matter:
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms . . . offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.
Supporters of gun control often say they don't oppose the use of guns for hunting, target shooting or home defense but to the founding fathers, those were secondary applications. The highest and best use off guns was to oppose tyrannical rulers.
"Obama will capitulate. . . Everything we know . . . about him points to the fact that he is spineless. This is especially the case when it comes to the Israel lobby. "
Man, you are so right.
Too many Jews not only oppose Hagel but would fight to the death to keep him out of the office of Secretary of Defense. No American president can stand up to that kind of pressure, especially someone as spinally-challenged as Obama.
"Weakening the Jewish people is a bad thing."
I always thought if a Jew marries a non-Jew both of them get as much as they lose. It's not enough to say "our culture must be preserved." People ought to just jump into the ethnic stew and not worry themselves that somehow a bit of carrot got in the horseradish.
What foreign flags do Catholic Churches fly?
I've often wondered what would happen if someone bought an off-the-shelf remote control model plane, put a little explosive in it, and launched it at the White house from a Washington D.C. street or parking lot. The drone wouldn't have to do any real damage--just bounce off one of those impregnable White House windows and start a little brush fire--but our government would go nuts. Civil liberties would disappear. Everyone who has ever operated a model plane would get a visit from the FBI. You wouldn't be able to get on a train (or city bus) without going through a scanner.
We have to end all our foreign wars and quit using drones on everyone if we don't want to end up a police state here at home.
3. My formula for using these debates to decide who to vote for is: A. determine which one hogs the clock the most. B. Vote for the other guy. That’s b/c the guy who hogs the clock the most because is the bigger a-hole. Motor-mouth Mitt was clearly the bigger a-hole.
The debate analysis that I read said that, surprising as it might seem, Obama actually spoke three minutes longer than Romney.
hophmi: There is a recent AJC poll that lays waste to a central claim on this site, on which American Jews are frequently accused of dual loyalty.
I don't know that many people on this site think that Jewish Americans have dual loyalties. What many have said (including me) is that Israel Firsters are the ones (not Jews in general) with dual loyalty issues.
Is it possible to end "the Prophetic" series? No one is reading them and there's a new one every day. No one else is posting these many columns (except Weiss himself, whom I am always glad to read).
People see story after story about gangs of "youths" (i.e. black teens) randomly attacking people on the streets. No wonder the middle class is concerned. But this won't happen only if Romney is elected. Black-on-white attacks have been increasing throughout the Obama administration. And they'll continue if if he's re-elected too.
Well you're right that Birnbaum mistakenly assumes our goal should be to "better assist the Israelis." A lot of people now think America's goal should not be to assist the Israelis at all as long as they persist in colonizing the west bank, persecuting the Palestinians and threatening war with everyone else. In fact our goal might better be to de-assist the Israelis until they learn how to coexist with their neighbors (and quit calling gentiles cattle and grasshoppers).
tokyobk: People who support Israel perceive it as an important alliance for both countries, which is protected thought and speech. . .
For me, there is also no choice. America first second and third (Japan fourth). But if another American choses Israel, Pakistan or Syria second, or votes with Mexico in their heart, its frankly none of my business, or yours.
It's strange to hear that it's none of my business to complain about Israel-firsters who are doing their damnedest to get us to go bomb Iran for Israel and thereby wreck our economy for a generation, kill thousands of young Americans, and destroy our country's good name for the next century. In my opinion, if someone loves Israel (or any other country you'd care to name) more than America, he owes it to himself (and certainly to those of us who don't want to see this country wrecked due to his dual loyalty problems) to move there as soon as he can. If he doesn't want to leave because he thinks he can help Israel more by staying in America, he can at least obey the registration law for foreign agents.
"if to support Israel is to be a good Jew, it follows that to criticize her is to be a bad Jew."
Well said.
"I would ask Professor Birnbaum one question. Will Iran’s acquiring nuclear weapons make the world a more or less safe place?"
If Iran's having a nuclear weapon makes it less likely that Israel would start a war, an Iranian nuclear weapon makes the Mid-East a safer place.
"I’m picturing your average ‘Christian’ truck driver from Tennessee looking at this — and I think he’s going to figure out he’s being talked down to. He won’t like it."
Yeah, but then he'll see Netanyahu claiming God gave the Middle East to Israel and your average Christian will say, "The man's got a point. I read that too. It was in the bible."
There is no defense against people who believe fairy tales.
Wasserman Schultz takes her love of Israel to work every day. I wonder if she ever takes her love of Ireland, Italy, Germany, England or Africa to work with her every day too. If she doesn't, she might want to consider giving them equal billing, given that we have far more people here from each of those places than we do Jews.
When gentiles marry Jews the first thing they do is extend their umbrella of protection to their mates and children (and vice versa). Intermarriage is the best security, and on top of all that you get the bonus of hybrid vigor.
"Jewish leaders are bewildered, the media has grown harsh, Democratic congressmen are suddenly criticizing him in public and it’s clear to most observers that in his latest showdown with President Obama, it was Netanyahu who was forced to blink first."
If only it were true. Nothing changes in the Middle East. Things only slowly get worse, year after year.
The charge of double loyalty should be reinterpreted. The question for Jews has always been which side of the Empire Divide we choose. The two choices – empire or community.
If the choice for Jews is empire or community, what is the choice for gentiles?
Herman Cain, a very dark skinned black compared to Obama, was wildly popular in the Tea Party, a group which is overwhelmingly composed of religious whites. I don't know why Tea Party types would oppose Obama but support Cain unless their opposition to Obama was rooted in his politics, not his color.
I never did understand our supposed "special relationship" with Israel. It certainly wasn't built on shared values. I can't imagine there are too many countries with such differing founding philosophies than the US and Israel.
As best as I can determine the concept of a special relationship began in some pleasantries John F Kennedy made in his welcoming remarks when Golda Meir came to visit the White House one day. From that humble beginning the "special relationship" has metastasized into a multi-tentacled monster. If you ask me America has to get beyond the notion that we owe Israel love and devotion so great that it's hard to put into everyday words, let alone an actual treaty. What we really need to do is treat Israel the same way we treat any other county.
"Truman's feelings about the Jews - which bounced around from sympathetic to anti-Semitic dismissal - hardly played a role (in America's recognition of Israel)."
That's hard to believe. Truman's close friend and business partner in his haberdashery days repeatedly came to the White House to lobby Truman to recognize Israel. Gore Vidal claims that John F Kennedy told him that a group of American Jews gave Truman a suitcase full of cash in exchange for his support for Israel at a time when Truman's whistlestop express was so broke the train engineer had threatened to walk off the job until he was paid.
It's even harder to believe Harms's central thesis--that everything that America did to help Israel--money, arms, UN support, the Iraq war--was actually done for our benefit, not Israel's. If that were so, why has Israel maintained such a huge expensive lobbying effort in the US and invited so many congressmen to Israel in free junkets if America would have naturally done all those things on behalf of Israel even if there were no lobby?
Harms's contention that we want Israel to be a militarized state in continual preparation for war just so we can sell her arms is not only ridiculous, it shows astonishing mendacity along with enormous contempt for our common sense. How on earth does America make money on arms sales to Israel when we give them the money to buy the arms in the first place?
Obama’s place in the history books will be dependent upon his policies for America, as he knows. It won’t be dependent upon what wars he launched on behalf for Israel. . . "
well said
Graber is a "feminist" community organizer? Man I thought that kind of servile self-debasement went out of style 30 years ago.
Krauss: Opposition to mindless wars is good. But until we do it on the right reasons – what’s good for America – it won’t mean much.
I have often wondered if politicians ever stop to think what working class Americans sitting in coffee shops in Ohio or western Pennsylvania must think when they see these politicians making embarrassingly obsequious craven remarks when it comes to Israel. Supporting the Likud agenda for Greater Israel has never been a high priority with blue-collar mid-westerners. Most are wondering, I know, why politicians keep talking about Israel instead of doing something about out-of-work Americans.
I'm glad to see Earlham college taking a stand. If only Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Stanford would do the same.
Thursday morning, U.S. law enforcement officials confirmed Nakoula is the filmmaker behind the inflammatory movie that has incited riots in Egypt, Libya and Yemen
This movie didn't incite anything. It was just the excuse. The real reason for the riots was Muslim resentment of a decade of US wars in the region, drone attacks, and one-sided support for the Greater Israel agenda.
Yes I have heard that the DOJ is investigating this movie but all that proves is Eric Holder, like you, doesn't believe in free speech either.
By the way, you may not have noticed but Google has refused to take this video off of YouTube. Unlike the Justice Department they apparent still believe that people in this country still have the right to express "different opinions."
This film (Innocence of Muslims) didn't make Egyptians hate America out of the blue. Egyptians aren't stupid. They understand that one half-assed film posted on the Internet doesn't represent the views either of most Americans or their government. The real reason for the attacks isn't the film. All you have to do is look at America's approval ratings in Muslim countries. They've been in the toilet for years. Save with Turkey and, for that matter, many countries in Europe. Our problem is we keep bombing everyone (and doing Israel's dirty work).
If we waste our time worrying who made this film, we will end up ignoring why so much of the world hated us before anyone made this film.
In America, thanks to the First Amendment, we usually do not prosecute people for political speech, though, as your post indicated, some of us do not really endorse constitutionally protected free speech. Just because you call something hate speech doesn't mean the constitution doesn't protect it.
I emailed Storobin's office and asked him whose side he was on--America's or Netanyahu's. I doubt if he'll ever see the message (he's probably being flooded with invitations to speak to pro-war-with-Iran groups) but at least I felt better for sending it.
You're right. Obama is defending himself with the wrong argument. Instead of saying that we need to give sanctions more time he should just say flat out that it is not in America's best interest to start a war with Iran. If Israel wants to have one. Fine, that's her business. Just leave the US out of it.
I am so happy we are beginning to have a public discussion of the notion of war with Iran instead of leaving it after the election (or never at all).
The people commenting on the NY Time's story today on Netanyahu's pressure on the US to promise to bomb Iran are surprisingly supportive of Obama (and the US). I would say that 75% of the people posting comments are openly dubious of the notion that the US should go fight a war with Iran for the benefit of Israel.
This fills my heart with joy. If even the comment writers to the NY Times support America first I expect the people in people in fly-over country to be triple and quadruply supportive of the notion that America should put its own interests before those of Israel.
Israel may be to smart to attack Iran but Romney is not. If he were to win the election, the first order he'd give on inauguration day was to clear the decks on all our aircraft carriers and prepare to launch attacks against Iran's enrichment facilities. The next thing that would happen is that one of our carriers would be knocked out of action by an Exocet strike coming in off the water. And then, once American boys were killed, we'd be in the war up to our necks with bunker busters, tactical nucs, submarine warfare and amphibious assaults on Iran's shore based fast attack fleet.
And we wouldn't stop bombing and spending money for the next two years--which is about how long it would take til everyone on the home front was in bread lines or living off food stamps. India, Brazil, China, Japan and German would offer us foreign aid, which we would not be too proud, not to accept--how else to stop rioting in the inner cities?
I woulds sure like to see a chart sometime showing the benefits to Israel of a joint US-Israel attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and then right next to it a parallel chart showing such a strike's benefits (and disadvantages) to the United States.
The only big benefit to the US that I see is that we won't have to listen to congressmen and the media haranguing us anymore about throwing our ally under the bus. The big disadvantage of striking Iran is that it will put us in a decade long depression at the end of which we'll so closely wedded to Israel the only thing left to do will be to send out the announcements and buy the wedding cake. We will of course invite the rest of the world to the ceremony but it won't be a large affair --who would want to celebrate the union of two failed states boldly charging off together the wrong way.
It is difficult to tell just what do Americans themselves think when they see their candidates swear allegiance to Israel as if it were part and parcel of the national anthem and flag.
They think our politicians have surrounded themselves with so many people whose primary loyalty is to Israel that they have come to believe that all Americans feel the same way. In fact blue collar Americans in Ohio and western Pennsylvania sit in coffee shops and listen to government officials and members of congress swear eternal fealty to Israel and wonder what happened to them that they all switched sides on us.
"I bring my love of Israel to work with me every single day. "
That's fine. Now if we could only hear how you bring your love of America to work with you every day as well.
The vote sounded even to me. Certainly the ayes didn't have a 2/3's majority. It reminds me of the days when Mayor Daly dictated what happened at the Democratic convention. I am sure someone at home has a decibel meter. I'd love to hear how it reads on the two votes.
As long as the government, congress, and the media give full throated support for Israel on everything (and maintain that anything less than unconditional support is anti-Semitic) I can't see how public opinion will ever change.
If Israel were to bomb Iran we would see nothing but wall to wall coverage from our own media (not to mention demands from congress) urging us to go to war. Doing anything less will be called throwing Israel under the bus, failing to support an ally, or ensuring another Holocaust.
If any American soldiers or sailors get killed (by Iran on purpose, by jumpy Iranian soldiers acting without orders or in a false flag operation) there wouldn't be any way for the president (any president) to stay out of the war.
I remember once reading a story about a religious traveler who was hiking the world with a cross on his shoulder. He said the unfriendliest country he visited was Israel.
It's hard to believe a US president would have the courage to defy Israel like this, not to mention risk the wrath of his wealthiest donors.
by the by nice little war going on right now 12:45 pm cst on yahoo boards…regards isreal vs USA…..think usa is winning
I think you're right. The USA is winning on Yahoo, which is nice to see for a change. So often when it comes to war with Iran the posts seem mainly to come from Israel Firsters.
I don't understand why some people (i.e. Romney) are so eager for a war with Iran when the biggest, most immediate, most deeply critical concern to Americans is our collapsing economy and declining standard of life. Doesn't he know that war with Iran would put us in a 20 year depression from which we would probably never fully recover. Or if we did, it wouldn't be as a superpower. Superpowers don't have declining median incomes, a feral underclass, a shrinking middle class, dysfunctional education system, and declining national IQ.
As Theodore Roosevelt once said, American doesn't work if people don't assimilate. And yet many of the people who post here seem to assume that assimilation is some unspeakable horror that Jews must avoid lest the bloodline be despoiled. Americans need to be able to trust one another. But when your neighbor's primary loyalty is to a foreign power what basis is there for mutual trust?
McCain never saw a war he didn't like (or want us to get into). I don't know if Romney wants to fight every war in sight but he sure seems intent on one with Iran. I can't see how he squares that with repairing our economy, creating jobs and otherwise rebuilding America.
Maybe it's because I was in the Navy when Israel attacked the USS Liberty but I've never understood what it is about Israel that sets so many hearts aflutter. Bill Clinton once said he would grab a gun and "die for Israel." Steven Spielberg once said the same thing, though he at least had the decency to add he would die for America too.
As for Romney's claim that Obama threw Israel under the bus, well it's not remotely true and even if it was, ostensible allies who continually abuse us need to feel the bus tires once in a while.
It’s a hard act for the Republicans to criticize, can they really demand that more Americans be sent to Israel as human shields?
Unfortunately they can. They might even insist on it. That after all is the reason we have troops in Korea--if Americans die in a North Korean attack this country will have no choice but to go to war.
Netanyahu will only strike Iran before the election if he thinks Obama will win (because after the election Obama will have a free hand to resist war with Iran). But if Netanyahu thinks Obama is going to lose, he might as well wait till Romney takes office to launch any strike, given Romney's bellicosity on Iran and apparent willingness to fight Israel's war for him.
I didn't see anything wrong with this. It struck me as clever and funny. If anyone's being made fun of here it's the war hawks who are literally begging for permission to attack (and who jump to the conclusion that an innocuous remark about pudding is official permission to wage war). If anything they remind me of the George C. Scott character in "Dr. Strangelove"--a funny anti-war characterization.
As to what military the officers belong, it's ambiguous to me (as perhaps was the director's intent). NATO maybe? The black officer I suspect isn't meant to be Israeli. And the uniforms don't look Israeli to me (though how would I know, never having seen an Israeli general in anything but an open-collared shirt?)
jdfsau: Cut out this defense spending your will see places like Seattle, Houston, and Los Angeles, all of which all have sizable aerospace industries, going on like support. A place like Fort Hood, Texas will have its residents foraging for aluminum cans overnight if significant defense cuts are made.
It always seemed to me that if you spent money on bridges, say, instead of bombs you'd have something which would help a community for decades, whereas another bomb in Afghanistan only makes the rubble bounce and creates a lot fewer jobs than bridges, power grids or even sidewalks. What's wrong with sidewalks? Why would anyone oppose them? They last for 80 years or so and you can build them anywhere without opposition.
seafoid: There should also be time limits on corporate cash sitting in corporate treasuries doing nothing.
I have heard this argument before and never understood it. I thought rich corporations (like Apple) put their money in banks, which in turn lent out the money to other corporations, developers, whatever. If money sit's idle it's because the banks chose not to lend it out, not because the corporation which deposited the cash insists that it sit there.
In any case, wherever Apple's money is I'm sure it's not in an underground vault at the Apple campus in Cupertino. Someone is doing something with it.
Perhaps someone who understands how all this works could spell it out.
Rachel Maddow obviously knows what's up. She is so silent on the issue it's as if there is an elephant behind her chair and she's urging us to agree it's not there. I wonder what happens when (and if) she ever suggests having a non-Zionist on show. Or perhaps she's just so progressive except for Palestine she's just showing us what she really thinks.
Phil
Doesn't it strike you as a contradiction to call Obama the product of an interracial marriage and then in the next breath describe him as our "black president?" No one would call Obama our white president, which they could do with equal logic. So why is Obama our black president. I think you had it right the first time. He's our interracial president.
Iran is no existential threat to Israel. The only one out there is the one posed by Israel to the United States.
" if he was an Italian-American pol running in a heavily Italian-American district who visited Italian NATO troops stationed in Afghanistan and posed for a photo op donning an Italian uniform, I can’t imagine there would be any fuss."
There wouldn't be any fuss because no Italian-American would have such confused loyalties that he would even think of donning the uniform of a foreign power.
This reminds me of the time that Prince Harry wore a Nazi uniform to a fancy costume party. Storobin is so clueless he has no idea how this looks to the American people. Public officials should know better than to appear more loyal to a foreign power than they do to the United States.
My reaction also. People who want to ban hate speech just want to ban anything they don't want to hear. Once you grant them the right to ban hate speech then you will forever be fighting rearguard actions over whether a given statement is hateful or not. In the end they get what they wanted in the first place--the ability to ban political opinions with which they disagree.
Re Second versus First amendment. Sorry about that. I've done that a couple of times over the years. Some Freudian short circuiting, I suppose.
The people who want to ban hate speech really want to ban anything they don't want to hear. It reminds me of of the US policy of declaring an American citizen a terrorist so you don't have to hold a trial to blow him up with a drone. American Jews have traditionally favored free speech. The place where they and free speech part ways is free speech about Israel. If you can successfully label criticism of Israel as hate speech you get to oppose it while still (in your own mind) remaining a fierce supporter of the Second Amendment. A really robust democracy (of which we are not one anymore) doesn't get its shorts in a twist just because it's favorite democracy in the Middle East gets lambasted now and then.
"Liberty a friendly fire incident 45 years ago."
I was in the US Navy on June 8, 1967. When I was in the Med, I never met a single person who thought the Israeli attack was an accident. I've also talked with people who were on the Liberty that day. They didn't consider the attack a matter of mistaken identity either.
I don't know why the good senator bothered to put on an IDF uniform when he could have just hung a sign around his neck reading: "Israel is the most important nation in the world. I humble pledge to follow her lead in every matter. As for my American constituents, there is only one master race in the universe and you aren't it."
But it is happening. Don't you ever look at the maps showing how much land Israel continues to seize in the west bank? When Israel seizes a hilltop, or puts in another 4500 units in east Jerusalem, surely you don't believe the former Palestinian residents get invited back to share the new housing and use the swimming pools?
Some years ago at Christmas time I remember driving home listening to a rabbi on the car radio lamenting that so many young Jews were being taught that their history was nothing but a long tale of prejudice and oppression. The truth is, he said, for most of history in most parts of the world Jews enjoyed peace, prosperity and a higher standard of living than most of their fellow citizens. I can tell you from personal observation that here in the United States, among my extended family, it's certainly still the case.
hophni: Arabs have been attacking Israel since before its founding, and have made no bones about wanting to drive the Jews out of the Middle East."
And the Jews in Israeli have made no bones about wanting to drive Arabs out of Judea and Samaria.
Nice looking kids. I only wish as native Americans they would have wanted to join the US Marine Corps before a foreign army.
The US has promised to take military action of the Iran tries to close the Straits of Hormuz. If Iran starts sinking tankers then we start sinking the ships (or destroying the missile batteries) that attacked the tankers. Iran will almost certainly respond to direct attacks on her forces and once she fires a missile at a US aircraft carrier, we will massively respond, thus initiating the next great Middle East war. if not the beginnings of WWIII.
All it takes is a half dozen sailors to die and we're in the war. We started the Vietnam war on the strength of an unconfirmed (and later rescinded) sonar operator report on the Turner Joy that he heard high speed screws (torpedoes) in the water.
We lost 55,000 Americans in that war and the Vietnamese lost millions more. Wars are so easy to start, especially when everyone is so primed (as the world has been by the Israelis) to expect one momentarily.
I agree but it will also mine the Straits of Hormuz and fire cruise missiles at American ships in the Persian Gulf. The US would regard either act as an act of war and respond accordingly, which is to say, the US would join Israel in making war on Iran.
The US and Israel will end up one one side and the rest of the world will side with Iran. The situation will get out of control. When the war ends the resulting depression will go on for another 20 years. The US cannot afford to fund Israel's desire to annex Judea and Samaria.
Brazil, India and China have not spent the last couple of decades fighting useless wars in the middle east. And consequently they have far better economies than we do. The per capita income of their citizens goes up every year. Ours goes down.
An Israeli attack on Iran won't put any distance between the US and Israel. It will do the opposite. As soon as Israel attacks, Iran will attack our ships in the Persian Gulf, forcing us to enter the war on Israel's side. Even if Iran is too smart to do that, the US congress will demand that the US enter the war on Israel's side. Either way, any war quickly becomes one where the US and Israel are on one side, and Iran, and the rest of the world, are on the other.
The big winner--Israel. The big losers--Iran and the United States. The length of the depression which will follow any war with Iran--20 years.
"Jewish opinion, even anti war, should not be’ showcased’ to the general public. It reinforces the idea to Jews that their opinion when it comes to US actions re Israel trumps all non Jewish citizens opinion on US FP and reinforces to the Non Jewish population that Jews control the issue."
Good point.
It makes perfect sense for Israel to attack Iran. Iran would assume Israel acted in collusion with the United States. It would respond by attacking US forces in the Persian Gulf. Once American sailors die the US would have no choice but to retaliate. At this point Israel could sit back and let America fight the war for it.
The American public wouldn't object. And even if it did the media wouldn't run the stories. In the meantime the US Congress would fall all over itself professing undying support for Israel.
Israel has everything to gain by attacking Iran, especially since it wouldn't even have to fight the war. America would do that. Our congress would make sure of it.
You're right Dickerson. Israel is an existential threat to the United States. By attacking Iran she could involve us in a war which would put the country in a depression. And when we come out of it 20 years from now we won't be a first world nation anymore, let alone a superpower.
I see one reason for Americans to vigorously criticize Israel long and hard. It is the only country that has threatened to bomb Iran before our presidential election, an action, if carried out, will involve the US into a war we don't need, can't afford, which shatter our ailing economy, plunge us into a decades long depression and make America as much of an international pariah as Israel already is. Anyone who says we can't criticize Israel is nuts. Look what she's threatening to do to us.
Attempts to ban political speech which offends got their start in the civil rights movement where people like college administrators (no to mention the students themselves) absorbed the prevailing worldview that it was not only cruel and immoral but blatantly racist to say anything which upsets black activists. Since virtually anything upset them colleges soon began to ban any speech which upset anyone (especially if the speech came from people opposed to set-asides, quotas, reparations, or affirmative action). The rules have now evolved to the point where politically correct views may be advanced any time any place. Non politically correct views may not be voiced ever, most often on the grounds that (1) it's hate speech and (2) that it denies certain students a harassment free atmosphere in which to earn their degree.
No one ever asks whether this results in the school coddling students so much they fall to pieces in rage and frustration once they get out into the real world and encounter a point of view with which they disagree. And why wouldn't they fly into a rage? No one ever told them people were allowed to say things that offend them.
You're right. It would be called hate speech and judges would look for reasons to ban it. But to me that's just another reason to support all political speech. It makes it harder for someone to argue that all pro-Israel speech is protected but anything critical of the occupation is clearly beyond the pale.
"This is truly unbelievable! Inflammatory hate speech is protected because it is ‘core political’ speech???"
I'm surprised you're surprised. The courts have always given political speech the most protection. It's really the reason for the First Amendment--not Lady Chatterly's Lover.
I personally am glad to see ads supporting Israel. This will make it so much harder for pro-Israeli groups to try to ban ads that target the occupation.
Ryan: "America has no better friend in the Middle East than the nation of Israel. "
This might be true but, given that we have no friends at all in the Middle East, it's not the ringing endorsement Ryan thinks it is.
I believe you have it right--Israel is an existential threat to the United States.
Do any candidates for congress (or even the presidency for that matter) actually stay in the United States to campaign among the people they seek to represent? Or do they just say, no, my heart yearns for Israel and that's where I'm going to go?
"Memo: don’t provoke anyone to go ballistic if they indeed can do so."
I just noticed this, Piotr. Well said.
"Former Sec State Zbig Brezinzski says we should go up and challenge and if necessary shootdown Israeli planes if they try going over Iraq . . "
Brezinzski went a little nuts when he said this. I certainly believe he knows it would never happen. Americans can't shoot down Israeli planes. The resulting furor would make the attack on the USS Liberty look like a church social. No president would authorize shooting down Israeli planes (even to protect American lives--unless at this late date they want to break precedent and do what they didn't do to save the crew of the USS Liberty).
"If [Romney] doesn’t sort out his tax issues and refusal to disclose tax returns, all bets are off."
Well, you're right, though it didn't hurt Obama with the mainstream media that he never released his college records (perhaps, as some have speculated, because they showed he attended Occidental and Columbia as a foreign student).
If war erupts with Iran, it will at first confuse and confound the American people. Then congress will demand 100% support for Israel (i.e. massive strikes on Iran). Both Romney and Obama will conclude that the Iranian menace make this a moral necessity. The public, led by a cheerleading media, will slowly but inevitably agree. Two years from now our standard of living will have taken a huge hit. The resulting depression will take 20 years to resolve itself, at the end of which no one will ever again say world power and United States in the same sentence.
". . . they will intercept the Israelis if they go it alone."
If the Sauds try to intercept the Israelis we can expect to see a lot of Saudi fighters going down in flames. But it will never come to that. No one will mess with an Israeli attack, even the Iranians (at least till it's over and the Israelis have gone home). I expect the Israelis would have attacked long ago but they still see hope the Americans will do it for them.
Any Israeli attack on Iran will result in a disaster for the United States. If Romney becomes president he will happily join in the attack. If Obama remains president he will reluctantly join in the attack (but will still attack). And that assumes that they even have a choice.
If Iran us after Israel attacks them, our president, who matter who he is at the time, have to initiate a massive response. The dust won't settle for years. While the war goes on the American people (as happened in WWII) suffer a major drop in their living standards. The depression that follows will go on for another 20 years. And yet there are people in the major media (and some here on this site even) who can't wait for this to happen.
They suffer from the Pavlov dog syndrome. All you have to do is say "Israel" and "existential threat" in the same sentence and their common sense goes out the window.
"Be afraid, be very afraid"
What I'm afraid of are cliches like "be very afraid."
" American Thinker says Obama is being irresponsible by allowing Israel to prepare to attack Iran all by its lonesome:"
It astonishes me how many people truly believe that the US has an obligation to attack Iran for Israel.
Adelson could pay for a war with Iran out of his own pocket. Why does he even bother going to the trouble of electing Romney first?
AllenBee, fascinating post on monotheism. It reminds me of something I've often wondered. Why are people so worshipful toward the idea of monotheism? Your post was the first answer to that I've ever seen. It allows tree believers a useful rationalization for smiting their enemies, which is to say, everyone else.
Shingo: Probably because you’re too frightened to contemplate it.
Only someone who has never bothered to read any of my previous posts about dual loyalty, assimilation or Israel's attack on the USS Liberty (to give a few examples) would cavalierly assume that I fear for Israel's imminent collapse. What I really fear (as does Phil and most other people here) is the opposite--that Israel will continue to do as she's done for the last 40 years or so, which is to say, seize more Palestinian land, send in more settlers, involve the US in a war with Iran and otherwise make America as much of an international pariah as Israel already is.
But if Israel openly proclaims that the West Bank is theirs, the game is up.
Shoot, hasn't Avigdor Lieberman been proclaiming that for years?
I agree. Many critics of Israel predict her imminent demise because of the occupation (and other sins) but I personally don't see how that is going to happen. Israel is too powerful. No one can defeat her militarily. The occupation is expensive but with America backing her she can afford it indefinitely.
The only possibility that really comes to mind is an Iranian nuclear weapon landing on Tel Aviv. That won't in itself destroy the country (and Iran would quickly become a smoking wasteland) but it could convince enough Jews that Israel isn't the safe haven it was cracked up to be in which case the remaining population would move to the US, Russia, Germany, or Britain, leaving the country a shell of its former self.
Let me see if I have you right, hophmi. Gentiles owe Jews big time on account of the Holocaust? They owe them now; they owe them tomorrow; they owe them forever? And that's also the reason American pilots should go get themselves killed bombing Iran for Israel?
I'm wondering, Phil, since a two-state solution is impossible, what you think is going to happen there, and when? What will be the signs that something is going to happen? When the US attacks Iran for Israel, Netanyahu will use the chaos of any Iranian attacks on Israel to clear out Gaza and the West Bank?
Great line by Jon Stewart's Palestinian correspondent to end the show. "The Palestinians have been here thousands of years and don't even have their own country yet. Israel has only been here 60 years and, counting Florida, they have two."
"There is no reason to think that most of them would benefit from such a war, and every reason to think that they, along with the American economy, would probably be severely damaged by it."
You bring up a subject I simply can't understand. Romney would pledge to go to war with Iran even though Iran is no danger to us and the resulting war would put is in a thirties-style depression for an entire generation. I suppose Romney would answer that "we can't let down our most important ally in her hour of existential need."
But Israel's existence isn't in question (she has perhaps 300 nuclear weapons to Iran's zero). It's her hegemony over the Middle East that Netanyahu is so worried about, not her existence, which is not in doubt.
Worse than that, it's practically a crime to fail to announce how much you do love Israel. Bill Clinton became so enthralled with love of that country he once announced he would "grab as gun and die for Israel." This is the same Bill Clinton who told his draft board he "loathed" the military. Obviously he meant only the US military, not the IDF.
"No surprise that even some Israelis accused Romney of harboring "an extremist, dangerous, war-mongering agenda"
Whoever these folks are, the gentile world ought to declare them "righteous Israelis" and award them a peace medal.
winnica: Especially as you haven’t the faintest idea who I am or what I do, as is the case with most commenters here.
Why don't you tell us?
Winnica: I understand that the readers of Mondoweiss are convinced that Israelis routinely murder Palestinians, for sport, bloodlust or whatever other reason.
The "other reason" is to take their land.
I've often wonder why the US and Israel have a "special relationship" anyway. It certainly can't be due to common cultural traditions. Israel was created by Eastern European socialists and communists. America was found on a tradition of Jeffersonian democracy. In spite of this all the talk revolves around keeping the countries so close that no light shows between them. In the early years it was all light, as it will be again.
I'm surprised you don't count Baruch Goldstein's 1994 attack at the Cave of the Patriarch in Hebron where he killed 29 Palestinians and wounded 125.
"Aren’t these guns primarily a symbol of racial dominance?"
There undoubtedly is some of that. I think more thought it's intended to instill in the people that they belong to a warrior state for which they may need to fight at any time. Sort of like those high schools where the coaches require players to carry a football in all their academic classes--to make them realize they are football players first and only students as an afterthought.
"I don’t want ANY US politicians going to Israel."
You nailed it. As long as Obama and Romney are candidates for the presidency of the United States they ought to campaign in the United States. If they want to be president of Israel, then they can campaign in Tel Aviv. But until then they ought to at least pay lip service to the notion that Americans count as much in their calculations as Israelis do.
"All are proud Jews. "
What's the difference between a proud Jew and any other Jew?
As Teddy Roosevelt once observed, if you insist on being a "hyphenated-American" this country, which depends on assimilation, obviously isn't the place for you.
hophmi: "So stop demeaning their service. Who the hell do you think you are to demean the service of others?"
I'm a former naval officer who never met another person in the United States Navy who thought the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was an accident.
To address your other issue, I honor every American Jew who served in the US military. The ones I don't honor are those who would never join the US military but gladly volunteer for the IDF. It seems to me, when they finish their service, they ought to stay in the country they care about most.
If Jews are a separate nation why do they vote in American elections?
"It’s the new patriotism to fight for another country while refusing to fight for your own."
Exactly
So who did Wise surmise it was?