Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 22 (since 2010-02-24 20:08:06)

Charltonr

Retired management consultant/writer in Seattle.

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  • Arendt: Born in conflict, Israel will degenerate into Sparta, and American Jews will need to back away
    • Charltonr January 4, 2012 at 12:47 am

      You cam damn Hannah Arendt with faint praise, or dismiss whatever she says that may not agree with what you think or say.

      Let's just recognize the applicability of what she said in 1944 to the situation today.

      "Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana.

  • 'This is awful,' Bush said, coming into Bethlehem
    • Charltonr December 24, 2011 at 10:52 pm

      It's to become aware that these people with blinders about Israel that you mention, and, alas of many other Americans who see only mainstream media, including the New York Times:

      They haven't known and don't know what's going on. Worse, they don't know that they don't know. Even worse, they don't care that they don't know that they don't know.

  • Beinart says Israel must give citizenship to Palestinians under occupation
    • Charltonr December 6, 2011 at 2:59 am with 1 replies

      I disagree that Mr. Golub the Shalom TV guy argued with the student Donna Koran. He gave her a chance to add some informative details and to extend her remarks. This is an important -- essential -- part of this video.

  • 'It's good to be Palestinian for a change,' Sha'ath says-- and suggests that Palestinians will push Goldstone Report
    • Charltonr October 6, 2011 at 3:51 pm

      Dr. Nabil Ali Sha'ath is re-emerging as a lead stalwart person for the Palestinian cause. He was in the intense though ultimately fruitless post-Oslo negotiations with Shimon Peres, taking leave from his Cairo-Amman consulting firm TEAM. he was a minister in late Arafat cabinets who avoided the taint of corruption. He relates effectively to, and deserves the respect in which he is held by, the outside world, even the Americans. He holds a doctorate from the Wharton School. University of Pennsylvania. He has always been one of the few Palestinian leaders who was effective in dealings with the US State Department of Warren Christopher. Now only in his 60s, he has health, energy, smarts, and continuous experience at a high level on these issues since the 1980s. He deserves attention and respect for his integrity and candor in dealing with everyone who is sensible about the Israel-Palestinian mess, as well as the zealots on all sides.

  • Ashrawi and Tibi say Obama made it sound like Palestinians are occupying Israel
    • Charltonr September 22, 2011 at 2:31 am

      Update: The clip about Tony Bennett's statement on the Howard Stern Show, and his apology that did not say he was mistaken about what he, Tony, had reported or said ("violence begets violence," and that G.W. Bush told him in a conversation that his decision to go to war in Iraq "was probably a mistake") -- this clip was was deleted almost immediately from the MSN.com home page.

    • Charltonr September 21, 2011 at 5:31 pm with 2 replies

      The distinguished, renowmed singer/painter Tony Bennett was condemned and then apologized today for saying on the Howard Stern Show that violence begets violence and quoting George W. Bush as having told him that the Iraq Was "probably was a mistake." See msn.com home page for details.

  • Siegman says US has blessed Israeli 'crimes' going back to '48 landgrab
  • The education of Samantha Power
    • Charltonr April 13, 2011 at 1:07 am

      Recall that Samantha Power was a very active foreign policy adviser to Obama during the 2008 campaign, until she referred to his then-opponent, Hillary Clinton, as a "monster." She must have gotten zapped for that, and was forced to resign from the campaign. She probably let herself in for some marital discord too because of her alleged views on US-Israel relations that she now seems also to have recanted.

  • Born in Jerusalem, a Palestinian bookstore owner is stripped of his 'residency' and may soon be deported
    • Charltonr March 22, 2011 at 12:02 pm with 2 replies

      This is especially unconscionable. Everyone who has ever stayed at the American Colony goes to Munther's bookstore. I was a customer several times 1999-2000. The American Colony is the only international (not just Americans or Arabs or Muslims) hotel for everyone who doesn't want to or can't stay at the King David Hotel. Munther's store is integral to the hotel -- part of what makes the American Colony an essential place for many to stay. Faugh!

  • Helen Thomas asks why Americans have no understanding of Palestinian conditions
    • Charltonr March 18, 2011 at 7:36 pm with 1 replies

      It's been months since the Helen Thomas flap. but NOWHERE have I seen an interview with her of this length, or anything in print or in other media, to provide a forthright, accurate statement of what she said and why. Even here in Mondoweiss (thanks, Phil, for this post) some comments are only picking and sneering at a few of her assertions that were inaccurate or too broad-brush.

      When will we (the media, and all Americans) have the courage and candor to see, understand, and accept the damage and danger that Israeli policies and actions, as well as the Israel Lobby (AIPAC, etc.) in the US, together represent -- to Israel, to the Palestinians, and to America's reputation in the world?

      So, will this interview appear in Playboy? "If not now, when?"

  • From Shatila Camp-- What does the right of return mean in 2010?
    • Charltonr July 30, 2010 at 6:39 pm

      Fresh creative thinking like this, so equably expressed, is like manna in the desert. Toward a light at the end of the tunnel of the present and of the century just past, the only way out of what in Pilgrim's Progress is called The Slough of Despond.

  • L.A. Times: ‘Many’ Palestinians 'prefer the one-state solution'
    • Charltonr July 26, 2010 at 9:29 pm

      The West Bank, pockmarked with "settlements" amd hog-tied with Israeli-only roads and the Wall and border controls all around, is already de facto"incorporated into Israel." Gaza is just a place to warehouse many other other Palestinians who would be too expensive for Israel to clothe and feed and are too numerous to be incorporated into Israel, thus making Israel de facto not a "Jewish state."

      Let "foreign"aid" deal out flour and oil brought in on a few trucks through Israeli checkpoints or tunnels from Egypt, so Gazans can make bread. "Put them on a diet." Not starving. As Israeli leadership has already said out loud is their intention.

      Anyway, a "one state solution," the only plausile outcome of this 80 year old mess,would mean the end of Israel as the present leadership and AIPAC-minded Americans know it.

      My apprehension is that measures will be taken -- by I srael, by the US, or both -- to keep that from happening...

  • Aslan says 2-state solution is dead, and Indyk calls him a liar
    • Charltonr July 23, 2010 at 7:23 pm

      As do we all, Indyk mentions the facts and makes the points that accord with his basic underlying assumptions about the situation. We all do that, because one can't ever report or even mention all the facts about anything..

      Of course, ca va sans dire, our facts are better than his facts. We are right; he is wrong. The old saying: "I may be misinformed, but thou art wrong, and he is pig-headed." Ain't that the truth?

    • Charltonr July 23, 2010 at 2:17 pm

      Why weren't people like Rashid Khalidi and Martin Braverman there?

  • Beyond a 'strategic liability'--the special relationship has made the U.S. ugly
    • Charltonr July 22, 2010 at 11:41 am with 2 replies

      Remember that ALL the US "aid" to Israel is now military, and that it's mandated that 74% of the annual $3 Billion ($30 billion 2008-2018, by annual appropriation) must be spent with US industry. Thus fungible US taxpayer dollars support Israeli war crimes ,by providing weaponry to use against Palestinians, occupation of the West Bank, and imprisonment of Gaza (aircraft, military vehicles, electronics, and "security" installations such as the Wall and Israeli-only roads).

  • Olympia Food Co-op removes Israeli products from shelves
    • Charltonr July 19, 2010 at 9:02 pm with 2 replies

      Congratulations to the Olympia Coop. Here in Seattle we have been unable to get the Madison Coop Market (which is in the Co-op association with Olympia and many other co-opmarkets) to even consider boycotting Israeli goods. The Board of Directors of the Madison Market directed theirr Product Issues Committee not to bring forward even a proposal that a boycott be discussed. So for now, there will be no no further consideration at Madison Market of boycotting Israeli goods (or goods produced in the West bank in illegal Israeli "settlements" there) I hope that publicity about the action in Olympia may create enough pressure to force a reconsideration of boycotts by Madison Market Seattle. (I am a member and patron of the Madison Market.)

  • In the 'clash of civilizations', Israeli accountability means Western accountability
    • Charltonr July 12, 2010 at 1:37 am

      The belief that there has to be war perpetual between Us and Them because it is Us and Them is just pure George Orwell 1984 -- again and always.
      War is Peace
      Freedom is Slavery

      etc.etc.

  • Casual prejudice against Muslims
    • Charltonr June 19, 2010 at 3:42 pm

      Hannah Rosin was on The Colbert Report to be interviewed about her article in the Atlantic magazine, "The End of Men." There were no call-ins, of course, but the situation of non-American women was not discussed. I.e. she was ethnocentric but not anti-Muslim -- in that context.

  • Terry Gross has no empathy for Palestinians
    • Charltonr June 17, 2010 at 8:31 pm

      "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored" --Aldous Huxley

      ""You have a right to your own opinion, but not to your own facts" --Sen. Pat Moynihan

    • Charltonr June 17, 2010 at 8:28 pm

      She's not a problem for Palestinians, she's a problem for the US of A. Because she is feeding the conventional wrong-headed wisdom about the whole mess. Which one day is going to rabbit-punch us, when Israel turns on us because we stop doing its bidding.

    • Charltonr June 17, 2010 at 2:11 am

      Terry's blind spots and condescension are consistent with NPR's positions on these matters. E.g. on the News Hour when there are experts only pro-Israel or safely non-committal persons are invited (e.g. Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross). One exception to this, Hisham Melem, is rarely invited any more. And no mention is ever made of US military aid ($3 billion a year or $7 million a day) to Israel in violation of US and international law,.

  • NPR's Totenberg suggests the PLO is a terrorist organization
    • Charltonr February 24, 2010 at 8:34 pm

      So why can't we find out how or why Nina -- an otherwise responsible and accomplished journalist -- goes along with the usual claptrap?

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