Total number of comments: 44 (since 2011-03-22 15:56:04)
casaananda
Journalist, editor, novelist with focus on Mideast and travel.
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- And we live on… 0
- US official — we went to Israel first 2
- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status … 22
- Israel takes 30 dunams of land near Salfit ‘for security … 4
- Aaron David Miller: After a short ‘peace process,’ look … 38
- Rafah march for deteriorating hunger strikers as family appeals for … 0
- Rafah’s nicest tunnel: Siege meets surf in Gaza 7
- Iranian talks fail after neocon ‘blitz’ — as Obama dispatches … 28
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- BDS victory: South Africa strips Ahava’s ‘made in Israel’ label 713
- Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from … 475
- Day after pogroms, Likud MK calls for internment camp for … 427
- Neverending Nakba: Israel breaks lull, attacks Gazan farmers 413
- ‘This is not fair play’: Mahmoud Sarsak’s family demands his … 389
- March of the Flags 345
- Neocons in Washington Post: Military strike on Iran would ‘calm … 323
- Nabi Saleh’s Bassem Tamimi convicted by Israeli courts based on … 293
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- The Messiah’s Donkey: Settlers fire on Palestinian villagers as the … 235
- Aharon Appelfeld’s rage at the German language (and Arendt’s need … 156
- US to differentiate between ‘personally displaced’ Palestinian refugees and their … 129
- March of the Flags 127
- Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism 110
- Feeling the hate in Long Island 97
- Israeli judge to issue verdict in Rachel Corrie case 94
- WaPo’s Walter Pincus says US is ‘going above and beyond … 87
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Recent Comments
click link to see last 100 comments- US official — we went to Israel first (2)
- Annie Robbins: a U.S. official…asked to remain anonymous owing to the sensitive nature of the issue. sensitive?...
- Carllarc: proof of ‘Israel firsters’, for sure
- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status for millions (22)
- traintosiberia: Spain has been allowing ( under pressure) any descendants of the victims of inquisition to settle in...
- Blake: Boy, history won’t be kind on you reprobates. I doubt anybody can be as despicable to you though as you...
- Talkback: Fredblogs: “Frankly if an odd sentence in a cherry picked report, and some obfuscating change of...
- Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism (110)
- US to differentiate between ‘personally displaced’ Palestinian refugees and their descendants (129)
- talknic: Fredblogs May 25, 2012 at 7:24 pm “For thousands of years, and even since then for anyone who isn’t...
- Aaron David Miller: After a short ‘peace process,’ look for war with Iran in 2013 (38)
- NickJOCW: Yes, it’s almost as if this is a delaying tactic, bounce the ball around while waiting for something else...
- Rafah’s nicest tunnel: Siege meets surf in Gaza (7)
- Blake: Good comment Avi but I should have entered his whole quote in my comment to put it into perspective:...
- US official — we went to Israel first (2)
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It is really pitiful when you have to have some big name think tank explain something that common sense would tell anyone with an IQ of 100. Yeah, duh, attacking someone does not make them compliant or friendly. Attacking a largely Muslim country does not make Muslims worldwide well disposed to any attacker. Those who engage in aggression always, in time, wind up the loser. Duh.
More pandering, more crap.
Some people just now waking up to the fact that the NYT is not a fair news organization, at least with regard to I/P? O, give me a break.
As a journalism student at Columbia in 1975 I wrote the very first long report on conditions and attitudes in Gaza after a month there. The NYT claimed serious interest but then sat on the story for a year and finally, literally, threw it back at me (85 pages of hard copy) angrily. THAT was not a report the world was ought to read, according to the NYT.
And what about the NYT coverage in the lead up to the assault on Iraq in 2003? Remember that travesty?
BUT, if I were Jewish, and many at the NYT are, it is not all that likely that I would not be at least marginally biased in favor of Zionists, whether on the far right or of a more liberal persuasion.
It's nothing new, what the NYT and Wapo are doing. The Zionist captivity? I should say, but it's so bizarre, because most in the world understand what's going on and who the enablers are.
Read "The Girl from Ha Giang" -- available on Kindle/Amazon now. A somewhat fictional treatment of the racist Occupation.
For such a shitty little country, Israel gets far more attention than it deserves. Period.
Go to Amazon in three days and download "The Girl from Ha Giang". A novel set in Vietnam that touches strongly on I/P. And Mossad.
Very fine piece, Mr. Weiss. M Love
Mark Perry is one of the few notable journalists in DC who's "independent" and has a brain, it seems.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out the what's happening in the Middle East. Hell, I saw it back in 1970 and wrote about it, gingerly at first, until I went to Gaza in 75 and spent six weeks in a refugee camp.
Gingrich's life is a monument to shoddiness, personal and political. Glib he is, though, and he's got the X'tian crazies in his pocket, too, which is hard to believe given his background. Time to leave the US permanently if this moron becomes President.
Look at Cantor. He looks like a frat boy at UVa. What can he possibly know, or not, to be so ill-informed about the Mideast. One wants to scream. He's dragging the US down a deep hole, just as Likud is doing in Israel. All the military might in the world won't, in the end, halt the slide.
Adelson does not give a damn about any kind of peace. Such mind boggling idiocy is beyond contempt. Pity both the Palestinians and the Israelis of sound mind and conscience.
On the night Obama was elected, I was with family and friends, one of them John Hope Franklin, the top Black historian in the US and professor emeritus of Duke University. We were so happy to see Obama's election. John Hope died four months later. Now, I am glad he's no longer around to see who Obama really is: a man in over his head as POTUS, and a weak and unprincipled man at that. In many ways he's more despicable than Bush....
Thanks David Bromwich. I knew Yale, where I went for a grad degree, is good something, after trashing Dr. Juan Cole. You!
Change? Well, it may be happening, but the real change will only occur when the US is is such dire straits economically that people begin to connect the dots between a corrupt Wall Street, a complicit mainstream media, and a bought government as cause for their ills and the influence of The Lobby.
Absolutely stellar piece. Thanks you Philip and Adam.
Gotta love the Turks for showing spine. Hope they follow through. A bit a good news here amid lots more bad. Bravo to Turkey!
I can understand the rage. I don't like the venom here, but at the same time, it's still vitally important that Israel be treated like any other country the US must deal with, and not be favorited any longer. Why is it that 6 mil Israelis are so much more important than than 300 million Arabs and Aran countries who see the injustice the Israelis have done for decades? And which more Americans are finally, at long last, "getting" now.
Marty has been around a long time. Too long. Rich boy buys a mag soapbox. He is has has always been a lightweight.
Eljay: you are a complete and utter MORON.
That said: it's about time Americans woke up.
I had the honor of sitting with the the greatest Black scholar in the US the night Obama was elected. This was John Hope Franklin, retired from Duke University and well in to his 80s. He was happy that night, thinking Obama would be THE man to turn thing around in the US. I'm glad he did not live to be disappointed, because he died four months later. He, too, recognized Zionism for what it had become: racist and immoral. A colonialist venture run amok. But he also said, speaking generally: "Things will have to get a lot worse before they get better." Well, they have. So bad, in fact, it may de dawning on Americans that our government has pursued horrible policies, esp over the last decade: undermining our social fabric and economy at home, and our standing overseas with the Israeli-centric foreign policy that has catered to the worst elements in Israeli society.
This stuff has been intact for years. In 1975 I got the full treatment at Ben Gurion, and the goons even took my cell phone and computer. Four hours of interrogation. (I had been in the West Bank, in Tubas, for several weeks, helping with a privately financed American school there.) Yeah, for sure, it was so stupidly unpleasant I felt I did not want to go back to Israel ever, but did again a year later, though not to the West Bank.
With lots of Jews on staff at the Times, under any circumstances, it would be difficult for the paper to be objective. If there's ever a turn, it will ONLY come when many Jews realize Israel's current trajectory is self defeating and destructive of the very things Israel wants to preserve: above all, respect from the international community. Or maybe they just don't give a damn and feel they can thumb their nose at everyone.
Disheartening and sickening this is. This beast needs to be in the dock at The Hague, not regaled in DC. What is it going to take for the world to wake up? It would seem nothing less than complete economic collapse in the US, and I can hardly wait: full repudiation of Israel and complete rejection of the dollar and US bonds, which fund Israeli terrorism.
One of these days the far right and AIPAC are going to overplay their hand and the majority of Americans will finally "get it" and realize the US is being used and abused. The sooner the better.
It has always been my view that IF Obama were a true leader re Israel/Palestine, given his apparent eloquence and potential didactic skills, he might have had the capacity to do an end run around the Zionist Lobby and the Christian crazies and go directly to the American people with a honest message about the necessity of a settling the problem once and for all, as a necessary component of restoring US standing in the Mideast. My bet has been that in time this would be successful, not such a huge expenditure of political capital. Many, having become enlightened, might support him. One huge problem anyway is the sorry ignorance of so many Americans sans a President who will speak the truth.
Someday. someday, a lot of people in influential positions in the US, harboring shady affiliations with Jewish extremists and racist ideas, will be exposed and ultimately discredited as people who have anything but the best interests of the US in their hearts, if indeed they have hearts. Weisenfeld is just one among this rich and influential scum. And they are just that -- scum.
Disgusting to see young people so unlike my generation was during the Viet war. Many of the young today have apparently been co-opted and brainwashed by the media and gov propaganda over the past decade.
One of these days the tide will go out in the US for Israel. Marginally, people are waking up to the distortions induced by the Lobby, founded on the naivete and ignorance of many in Congress who know little of history or truth in the Middle East. And behind is all is a threat: fall in to line or you will not be reelected. And who is the USA serving: not Israel as a whole, but primarily the fanatics there, the settlers and their reps in the Knesset, Netanyahu and Leiberman, etc. It is MOST shameful.
Obama is worse than Bush. At least with Bush one knew what to expect. With Obama, he's saying one thing and doing another. He had such an opportunity to push real, positive change on so many fronts, but has done nothing and the probs domestically and overseas just fester and boil. I have maintained for years that only an economic collapse, even a monentary collapse, will or can force the kind of changes necessary to begin to heal the world's ills.
This is nauseating. I was in Egypt in February for two weeks, four days after Mubarak was ousted. Egyptians of ALL stripes and kinds in Tahrir, and most definitely not as described here in attitude or outlook.
In some respects, I pity Goldstone. He must be a savagely tormented soul now, though I don't doubt he imagined he was doing something "constructive" with the original report. When it became clear he isolated himself from his community and family, and came up against an unmovable rock of Israeli denial, defensiveness and intransigence, only then did he reconsider. But in his heart of hearts he knows war crimes were committed, deliberately. He knows, even if he won't admit to it now. And he's going to have to live with this the rest of his life.
Who IS this Kershner? A shill. Nothing more. And certainly no serious journalist. The Times lost its mojo a long time ago. I hope it goes bankrupt.
I was in Tahrir in Cairo in February, enthused by what I saw, happy to see some real change. Coming back to the US and the pompous, ignorant charade in DC about the Middle East and particularly the Palestinian situation has been just flat depressing. These Congressional clowns are a disgrace, and so are many of those whose votes they seek. They should be shipped to Gaza for a month for a real education.
That's the one thing admirable about Israel: that their media offerings and newspaper commentary INCLUDES those who question the Likudniks and their kind who dominate the government and policy. Gideon Levy is just one example. It just stuns me that the US remains largely absent AJE, that what can be said in Israel cannot be broadcast, by and large, in the US. On the other hand, Israelis need to know what the Arabs are thinking and doing, they being neighbors, but I suppose in the US our population needs to be kept dumbed down so that the US can continue to "enable" Israeli warmongering.
I went to Yale for grad school and I saw undergrads like Leiberman: arrogant little pricks they were, and not all that bright. Hugely lacking in judgement and character. I remain astounded that he was picked by Gore to run with him as VP. What a horrible year that was: picking between GWB and Leiberman as VP anyway.
Thank you pabelmont.
The application of Israeli arms has always been wildly disproportionate to the intended aims of using force. It's been murder for fun backed by the US. Another thing to be clear about: a good man Israelis LIKE war and unhappy neighbors. How else can the absence of peace be explained? The world has had to suffer these very sick people like Netanyahu and Leiberman, etc., and the settlers for too long. And I do mean SICK -- like mentally and emotionally challenged.
People can quibble the Goldstone Report forever, round and round. Cohen wrote a good piece, though. Bottom line: when over 1400 Gazans are killed, many of them women and children, and a handful of IDF soldiers die, what else can you call it but a brutal massacre? Did any of the IDF doubt that by bombing and flinging artillery and more on Gaza this would be the result? Let's get real here. Israel deserves pariah status.
One wonder if the Wash Post tinkered with the editing of the article. Probably not, but the paper is a nest of neocon columnists. No matter what people say, Israel's record of cruelty and atrocity stands. It has stood for decades.
This is nothing but an utter abomination. Or should I say Obamanation? Utterly sickening. And where does it lead? To yet more discredit of the US in the Arab world, if not worldwide. One has to wonder what Goldstone could possibly have gotten from this change of heart.
The most vital and important site about the core problem in the Mideast is right here. Discovering it a couple years ago was like winning a lottery ticket: at last, lots of the truth, in one place. Thanks you for creating Mondoweiss.
W&M did indeed do a great service in opening up a debate about the extent to which Israel and the Lobby influence US foreign policy. It was both a brave and thoughtful expose that cannot be denied -- except by raising the argument that because of the Holocaust, Israel must get a pass on everything and that any criticism is thereby disallowed. It's not a good argument, never has been, and to say so is not a denial of the horrible things European Jews suffered during WWII, or that Jews ever suffered. I don't recall who wrote it but it has been written: Those to whom evil is done do evil in return.
Same old. In 2005 after three months working at an American owned school in Tubas in the West Bank I was held at Ben Gurion for four hours, stripped searched three times, lost my computer and phone. They were all little minded sadists, but for one soldier, who knew what was happening -- and sheepishly said "sorry" to me inaudible to his comrades. They make you never want to return there, and indeed, this seems to be the intent. Too bad this is the "Holy Land" and tourists still flock there.
Likud, Netanyahu, Leiberman, etc -- they are bullies. Really, frightened, small minded, unable to see anything but a hostile world, incapable of making a positive contribution anywhere. Israel becomes a racist police state, increasingly isolated, relying solely on vast military power to maintain itself. I have been in region many times since 1969, met decent people along the way, both in the West Bank, Gaza and in Israel proper. That such thugs have had their way for so long, allied with the insane settlers, is just heartbreaking and amazing. I just hope I live long enough to see the end of it.