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- International Criminal Court opens preliminary investigation into attack on Mavi … 96
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- Israel announces NYT's Kershner 2 receive all scoops absolving IDF of blame 4 deaths,both real & faked,of "civilians" http://t.co/EYttKLFKQy, 33 mins ago
- "The northern NJ city of Paterson raised a Palestinian flag at City Hall" - NJ city honors Palestinian-Americans http://t.co/Fwlsv796MT, 1 hour ago
- RT @jonmosesjackson: @Mondoweiss Waiting to hear appointment of the special @StateDept anti-racism envoy. Oh wait. http://t.co/Drgq008P4R …, 2 hours ago
- The Special Envoy's purpose? To buttress the case for standing with the Israeli government, no matter what it does. http://t.co/P44n68nxpH, 2 hours ago
- Wht does the Special Envoy do?He does same thing AJC's David Harris does(except Harris doesn't do it w/ taxpayers' $) http://t.co/P44n68nxpH, 2 hours ago
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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
Annie, most German soldiers were not members of the Nazi Party. More than 20 million German men served in the Werhmacht during WW2. Nazi Party membership rolls didn't exceed 6-8 million by the end of the war and a huge percentage of them were civilians. Many millions of Germans were communists. There is even evidence that several German soldiers (former members of the German Communist Party) deserted to the Soviets on the eve of Barbarossa to try to warn them that Hitler was about to attack. I'd provide detailed citations but alas I got rid of that portion of my book collection to focus on other areas.
That said, most Germans, including German soldiers, supported Hitler and the Nazi Party as the rulers of Germany once they were at war. (rally-round-the-flag) Most bought into racial supremacism to varying degrees, although we should keep in perspective the ugly reality that the VAST majority of Europeans (and those of European descent in the US, Australia, etc) in the early 1940's were racists. What was different about Germans was that they tended to obsess most over Jews while others from nations with greater colonial interests obsessed most over darker-skinned Africans and Asians.
The take-home message is that most German soldiers were NOT members of the Nazi Party, but most were racist. Likely Grass was too, at 17 years of age. Is he now? I don't know what's in the man's heart, but I don't see the least bit of antisemitism in the English-translation of his poem. Is that not the question that we should be focusing on? And if the answer is negative, we should move the discussion on to the validity or lack thereof of its message.
"When Ron Paul says his message has appeal to Democrats and Independents, he is right."
I think both establishment parties will be jaw-dropping shocked at how quickly Pres. Obama's independent support migrates to the Republican side if Ron Paul becomes their candidate.
"I already have secured from a donor who said they will personally pay for the ambassador's home to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem."
She is openly promising that she will pursue a privately-funded foreign policy for those foreign interests who can pay for it.
"I would hope that the Israeli aircraft would be shot down by us in Iraq before they got there."
This is not going to happen. Central Command officially ceded legal responsibility for Iraqi airspace to its government several weeks ago. Given that the Obama administration has shown itself desperate to find reasons to leave force structure in Iraq and that the Iraqi government currently cannot defend its own airspace, it is not unlikely that the hastiness of our withdrawal was motivated by Pres. Obama's desire not to face having to make a lose-lose shoot-down decision.
I think Abbas knows full well that the UNSC route will 'fail'. There isn't even a remote chance of success: there will be no Palestinian state.
He is doing it anyway because it FORCES our government (and others) to finally, at long last, very publicly choose sides. Abbas is attempting to reshape the international political environment to be more favorable to the inevitable civil rights struggle that his people face in order to obtain representation in the government that taxes and rules them.
He is trying to shake the earth between political and social fault lines. He is forcing Pres. Obama and the grandees of the West into a corner. When the vote fails he will say, "Now that you have disallowed us the right to govern ourselves on our own land, you must allow us full civil rights within the foreign government you have allowed to exert its control over us." He hopes to begin the civil rights struggle against Israeli extremists with the West on the defensive and more inclined to constrain the more egregious misconduct of the Israeli government.
Also, he cannot hope to successfully wage such a campaign until he convinces his own people that there is no other choice (that there will be no 2ss). What better proof could he offer than that which he is maneuvering Pres. Obama to provide?
The IDF ground force, Col. Patrick Lang, Sic Semper Tyrannis
Will the Palestinian police responsible for the killing of Ben-Joseph Livnat receive a harsher punishment than Israelis who routinely kill unarmed Palestinians on Palestinian land? Is there a double standard among Israelis for what constitutes criminal misconduct?
Were the colonists armed when they "tried to break through a local (Palestinian) checkpoint" on Palestinian soil? If armed Palestinians "tried to break through a local (Israeli army) checkpoint" inside Israel, how would Israelis have responded?
Mr. Metzger's choice of words is interesting. A"mutual interest" is an advantage or benefit belonging to or true of two or more people. Mr. Metzger thinks it is in Pres. Obama's interest to pardon the confessed master spy Jonathan Pollard because otherwise he won't be reelected. Blackmail is a more apt description than mutual interest for such a quid pro quo. I wonder how exactly the consequences of disobedience are to be administered to Pres. Obama?
Olmert: There can be no forgiveness for Goldstone
I'm shocked. Really. /yawn
How and by whom is "mainstream Jewish space" defined?
I have been wondering how rigorous are Israeli police chain of evidence procedures. If they botch a frame job of some Palestinian villager and get caught, then the political environment will be well pre-conditioned for near-unanimous UN General Assembly blessing for the PA when it declares statehood later this year. However, I think they are feeling pretty desperate now and arrogance has long been a besetting sin of Israeli government authorities.
Avi, your take dovetails with my unease reading this Haaretz article earlier today: Israel on verge of breakthrough in probe into Itamar massacre. Is it normal Israeli police practice to announce that one is "on the verge" of a breakthrough in a creditable criminal investigation? Either there has been a breakthrough or there has not. Announcing to the press that you are about to have one reeks of almost having finished arranging it.
I hadn't know that the sentences of the child human shield criminals had been suspended. Credit card fraud -> 225 days in the pokey. Push a little kid ahead of you at gunpoint on a combat patrol -> nothing. Priceless.
Good show, Louise.
I wonder if he has dropped his enthusiastic plan for an internet kill switch for Americans now that they are firmly associated with authoritarian regimes ... and why he and his buds think they need one.
Roger Cohen is telling it like it is, but not in the NYT edition that the vast majority of American readers will see? Can anyone confirm that this op-ed did not appear in domestic print? Is telling the truth to an American audience still too much to expect from NYT management?
Roger Cohen is owed a round of kudos. I am particularly pleased to see his explicit outrage at the galling result of Israeli 'investigations'.
Well spoken ... Rest in peace, Matthew Phillips.
Mr. Levy's article also had this line.
Every other army in the history of human civilization has contained some murderers (and rapists), but not the IDF? I assume he is mocking the ridiculous IDF 'purity of arms' exceptionalism.
Your criticism would be valid if Mr. Moor had said "Judaism and truth; ...", but he did not. Islam is a religion. Zionism is an ideology.
It definitely scares me. However, the alternative is to bare our throats to the AIPAC'ers and let them do what they want with our civilization. The Israel Lobby is highly corrosive to rule of law, our civic culture, and our economy. What will happen to our country if the AIPAC'ers aren't checked scares me more. Also, we Americans simply don't owe to anyone toleration of their level of misconduct.
I think a "national discourse" is certain to happen. We are well on our way. What matters now is how the conversations are guided so that the people having them leading up to the "critical mass", i.e. those spreading knowledge and understanding, have accurate information from which to form opinions. Otherwise, simplistic explanations WILL lead some to antisemitism who might not have gone there otherwise.
American Jews fearful of or interested in understanding gentile viewpoints should ask themselves what data most gentiles receive from MSM from which to form judgments about Zionist activity both here (the Israel Lobby) and in Israel. We are bombarded with the notion that Judaism and Zionism are essentially the same thing, e.g. "the American Jewish establishment" for the Israel Lobby and "the Jewish state" for Israel. What conclusions would you draw if you were a gentile trying to understand the Lobby and Israel with overly simplistic and erroneous data?
It may be that the woman who spoke up at the meeting wasn't intrinsically antisemitic, but didn't have data from which to express a more nuanced opposition to American Jewish support for Israeli crimes such that she didn't come across as antisemitic. Her agreement that "it was meaningful to her that the three co-editors of the Goldstone report book ... are Jewish" suggests to me that she left the conversation with a personally verified datum on which to chew: not all American Jews support Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
I think communication problems are partially a result of the high level of abstraction commonly used, e.g. "Judaism equals Zionism" or "a Jew is either a Zionist or not and all Zionists are exactly the same." It seems to me that there is a "continuum of Zionicity" that needs to be analyzed to better categorize people and ideas. Not only could this be a wedge to crack open the orthodoxy, but it should be preferred that, when we reach a true national discourse, gentiles are able to at least differentiate between pro-ethnic-cleansing/Israel-first Zionists, less radical Zionists, and non-Zionist Jews.
The idea of post-Zionism is all fine and good for a conversation within the American Jewish community, but the ugly reality is that, unless miraculously unforced the Israel Lobby closes up shop and the Israeli government decides to stop robbing and murdering Palestinians, eventually someone is going to be held responsible within the court of public opinion. It is obvious that it would be better if the predominate label for the guilty party were "extremist Zionists" rather than "Jews".
This will necessitate a split in the American Jewish community. There is a hardcore of the pro-ethnic cleansing/colonization, eretz-Israel-first crowd that will never compromise. I hope their numbers are few. Irregardless, let them take sole responsibility for their actions.
Abrams has his rose-colored glasses on. The VAST majority of Americans haven't the faintest clue what the "Western Wall" is and most of the rest of us couldn't care less whether it lies inside Israel or not. Abrams is projecting his own Zionist desires onto those whom he claims American and European Jews "should stand apart from."
*******
from Elliot Abrams, Jewish Virtual Library, A Division of the American Israeli Cooperative Enterprise
I feel sorry for Mr. Goldstone. He is at an age, following a distinguished career where he made far above average contributions to human civilization, when most people of similar means are comfortably retired playing golf (or whatever) and playing with their grandchildren. He chose instead to do the right thing one last time and was viciously ostracized by many of his own people, including with what are essentially public accusations of racial treason. I fully expect that his family felt the full brunt as well.
He tried to make some little amends to his attackers with modest qualifications of the original report that come off like formulaic self-denunciations at a Stalinist show trial. This brought condemnation from former supporters and, of course, isn't enough for his detractors. I have not seen in seven years of paying attention to this issue an instance where supporters of Israeli ethnic cleansing and colonization have forgiven one who has publicly crossed them. I don't know whether his being Jewish will make it more or less difficult.
The poor guy has more than done his bit. I don't know where the balance of honor and obligation lies for Mr. Goldstone, but whatever he chooses to do, we should cut him slack and wish him the best.
I think the number of Zionists who don't give a hoot about international law, or rule of law for that matter, is much more expansive than just the rightwing. Recall Tzipi Livni who is in what passes for a left wing in Israeli politics.
"I was the Minister of Justice. I am a lawyer… But I am against law — international law in particular. Law in general." ... from the Palestine Papers
Kudos to Hirschmann and Levy for a well-reasoned response to Netanyahu.
*****
I knew I had heard the name Peck before. The following is from his endorsement on the back cover of Grant Smith's Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy
"Meticulously detailed in this riveting addition to his earlier exposes, Grant Smith reveals yet another facet of the extent to which the pro-Israel lobby is beyond dangerous, and has become a serious threat to a broad range of American ideals, objectives, and interests abroad as well as here at home. This book contains many highly disturbing, documented revelations. Read it." - Ambassador Edward L. Peck, former Chief of Mission in Iraq and former Deputy Director, Cabinet Task Force on Terrorism, Reagan White House
If you haven't read it yet, I cannot more highly recommend Grant Smith's Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy.
I think it is a stretch to ascribe this motive to Prof. Slater. One doesn't have to look down upon others to not want to share political power with them, one just needs to not want to share power. It's a perfectly normal human reaction exhibited countless times throughout human history by both individuals and groups.
I suspect that the motives of American and Israeli Jews may differ to a significant degree. Sharing of power would end legally enshrined Jewish privilege that has been embedded into the social, political, and economic fabric of Israel since 1948. Generations of Israelis know nothing else. They have a culture of unconstrained entitlement. Many American Jews, on the other hand, are in my opinion more motivated by inculcated fear of gentiles and the need for a safe haven from a potential resurgence of antisemitism, whatever the cost.
While I quibble with your choice of words, I strongly agree with the notion.
I again quibble with your choice of words (it's not an 'alliance'), but think the answer to this question should be common sense by now for anyone paying attention to this issue.
I hope I live to see the day. I'd rather see Israelis preempt such an eventuality by forging a just peace, of course, but the harsh reality is that their political establishment simply has no interest in one and their population is growing more racist, fascist, and violent as the secular founding generations die off. There will be no salvation from below.
Israelis have clearly chosen the path on which they wish to tread, and via the Israel Lobby are dragging us along behind while attempting to obscure our view of the way ahead so we don't attempt to bolt for the bushes.
The final confrontation to neutralize the Israel Lobby will be painful enough for most Americans. It is preposterous to think the United States might go beyond this by taking the harsh stance against Israel vitally necessary to change the embedded will to ethnic cleansing and colonization of its entire political establishment. If a majority of American Jews aren't willing to do it to save Israel as a Jewish state, why should the rest of us? I think most of us simply want a comprehensive and definitive termination to our involvement in Israeli affairs.
This was nicely done. Kudos to Phil and Adam for letting Shiri Raphaely voice her opinion here. While I agree with and appreciate Avi's comments, especially the one on left-leaning members of the Knesset, we ought to cut Shiri some slack. She hasn't been in Israel long enough to learn all the nuances of Israeli politics and undoubtedly has some unlearning to do, in my opinion a process everyone goes through when they first make a serious attempt to understand politics of any kind.
It's a powerful photograph. I wonder what is going through his wife's mind? "OMG, now I have to raise 3 kids by myself on welfare for a year and a half."
John Mearsheimer did this superbly in The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners.
from Cook's article:
Forced by whom?
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
That's intellectual integrity in action.
It is frightening; I'm glad Phil thought through to the 'why?'. I think the process is similar to trying to understand how living in a state of permanent war under the continually cultivated shadow of the Holocaust has unhinged many Israeli Jews to become unrepentant ethnic cleansers and thieves. We can only find the optimally peaceful solution if we understand where the other guy is coming from, even if we still think he is a dangerous lunatic.
Translation from Zio-speak:
This shtick has always worked in the past. We are deeply unhappy that it no longer does.
TYVM for the link.
Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy is an outstanding follow-up read which is both extremely well-researched and documented.
How can the American elections be fair if only candidates approved by AIPAC can run? Don’t make a fool of yourself.
Senator Barack Obama, AIPAC Policy Conference, June 4, 2008, official AIPAC "trophy" page
I think I understand Phil and Adams' reticence about such comparisons. It almost certainly puts off some Jewish readers who might otherwise be willing to listen to criticism of Israel. It is unfortunate that it also happens to be imo the disturbingly best analogy as long as one qualifies with "pre-1939."
I agree that you are "demonstrably correct." However, what is more important, optimization of historical analogies or maximization of number of people awakened to ongoing ethnic cleansing and colonization? Most people who have been so thoroughly misinformed that a portion of their personal identity is tied up in myth and fabrication can't handle too much truth at once.
Victory is achieved one person at a time. Adam and Phil understand the portion of the Jewish community that is their target audience vastly better than I do, so I defer to their judgment. It can be appropriate in other venues, but this is theirs.
4th Geneva Convention
Section III. Occupied territories
Article 49 - Population transfer
Art. 49. Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.
Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased.
The Occupying Power undertaking such transfers or evacuations shall ensure, to the greatest practicable extent, that proper accommodation is provided to receive the protected persons, that the removals are effected in satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, and that members of the same family are not separated.
The Protecting Power shall be informed of any transfers and evacuations as soon as they have taken place.
The Occupying Power shall not detain protected persons in an area particularly exposed to the dangers of war unless the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand.
The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
I'll take a wild guess. He was there before the Israeli conquest in 1967. His home in Jerusalem is legally classified as occupied territory under international treaties to which Israel is signatory (4th GC & others). The Israelis 'revoked' his Jerusalem ID with its attendant residency status. It's the equivalent of revoking citizenship, with Israelis running the de facto Palestinian government.
Mr. Fahmy is being deported from occupied territory in which he was born. This is ethnic cleansing, pure and simple. It's yet another example of why Palestinians need a state on their own land. It reminds me of eerily similar treatment of Jews by Nazis prior to World War 2.
Anti-Jewish Legislation in Prewar Germany, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Reich Citizenship Law (September 15, 1935), Jewish Virtual Library
What is your point? Zionists seized it at gunpoint and now on a daily basis prevent Muslims from going there to pray. I'm not in the least surprised at their attitude nor am I in the least sympathetic to your whining about it. Ire directed against one is the least that one can expect when one robs people, Richard. What did you think they were going to think?
So its actually Zionists who are harassing Jews at UCSZ? ROFLMA Why am I not surprised? We can safely bet that Kenneth Marcus won't be investigating these incidents. Thank you, Rebecca Pierce, for bringing this hypocrisy into the sunlight.
Thank you very much for the link. Craig is one of few voices I trust.
IIRC, this was something that Ron Paul warned about. A no-fly zone is an act of war because suppression of ground-based air defense is the the first thing that has to be done. This means dropping bombs on anti-aircraft weapons and sensors on the ground. Arab League leadership whining over this now is disingenuous repositioning for public opinion backlash. Did they not pay attention to how this has been done by the West before, especially in Iraq? I find it hard to believe they are that stupid, but then I think of some of our past leadership ...
Good catch. "WE" didn't blow it up anymore than "THEY" did. Also, if we are going to start properly pointing fingers at culpable individuals, then we must include the Israelis apprehended after being seen in New Jersey laughing, cheering and filming the destruction of the towers. The "high-fivers" story was very widely covered shortly after 9-11, including in the Forward.
I agree. Sarah Palin horrified me with her stunning ignorance during her latest North/South Korea gaffe. If she becomes President, she WILL get Americans (and others) killed to no purpose. I knew she was ignorant as a rock beforehand, but I guess I figured even a rock would know that North Korea was not our longstanding ally, especially after years of (obviously futile) Republican party attempts to brief and educate.
Sure I'd rather Pres. Obama came right out and called the Israel Lobby traitors in conjunction with a massive release of decades of FBI counter-intelligence surveillance documentation, but a President who gets a few jabs in here and there when he thinks the Lobby isn't looking is still a big improvement.
If any Jews at UCSC have been harassed for being Jews, then I support the FBI being involved, not the DOE. However, I have not seen a shred of evidence that that is the case. What we have here are American Zionist extremists who want to enforce (at US taxpayer expense) Israeli standards of political censorship onto American citizens in violation of our sacred constitutional rights and in service to a foreign nation. Leave Israeli anti-Americanism in Israel, thank you very much.
It is illegal to call 911 except for a true emergency. It wastes taxpayer dollars and ties up resources that could have been used for people truly in need.
This Rossman-Benjamin farce seems to me to fall squarely into the same category. I hope there are legal mechanisms akin to those for 911 abuse for punitive measures against Rossman-Benjamin and Marcus for wasting taxpayer money attempting to subvert Americans' first amendment right to free speech.
Thanks for the culinary tips, guys! Shoyu and tamari are now on the next grocery list.
No, they are not. That is the whole point of BDS. Israeli's who are "advocating for civil rights paying attention and keeping the dangers in view" have failed. I admire them for their efforts, but I won't blind myself to the reality that they have lost the battle and that fascists rule Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories with the support of at least a plurality of Israeli Jews. The best we can do for civilized Israelis is welcome them here with open arms when the wackos eventually drive them out.
Hehe, Steve Walt is setting a high standard. There are few people in the West who have made greater practical contributions, as opposed to disingenuous hypocritical bleating ('liberal' Zionists providing cover for literalist and maximalist brethren), to creating the groundwork for a serious public discussion of the necessity for a just two-state solution than he and John Mearsheimer in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.
I don't care if there is a precedent or not. What are we, blocks of stone who can't do anything new? Sure its a film with political ramifications, but the last time I checked politics was what the UN was all about. The blowback from Israeli ethnic cleansing and colonization is an international security problem: it is completely appropriate to screen the film at the UN.
People who don't want it screened there don't want it screened anywhere because it will focus more attention on Israeli ethnic cleansing and colonization and they don't want to see more pressure on Israel to stop stealing. End of story.
Chaos4700, your comment about your Dad reminded me of an old housemate who ranted against liberalism, especially liberal spending. He was broke and literally dying of obesity and its myriad complications and was only alive because of publicly funded health care, but just couldn't make the connection that if his political vision (or rather, his brainwasher Glen Beck's) came true, he would be left out on the street to die.
There is perhaps some truth in his viewpoint: the food stamps/card he got enabled him to buy staggeringly unhealthy food which contributed to his decline. I'm 100% for the food stamp program, but its managers really need to tighten up on what is permissible to buy. I have no doubt that there is considerable corruption initiated by various food corporations to make sure that their products make the approved list.
mmmm... stuffed cabbages. I know what I am making for dinner Wednesday night.
I will agree that the UN is an odd place to screen it. Perhaps HBO would be a better venue.
Translation: Please censor the unpleasant truth on our behalf. We gave you a statue! You owe us.
I couldn't make this stuff up. ROFLMA
This is excellent, David. It also recalls to me that Russia for many decades before 1917 was constantly suppressing serf rebellions over its vast territory which were equally as ruthless. When one group of people treat another as subhuman and violently grind humiliation into their faces decade after decade after decade, they create conditions where some of the victims cease to see their oppressors as human. I suspect that those who go off the deep end won't see an infant, but the next master who will whip, abuse, exploit and murder their own children.
Were they murdered because they were Jews or because they had the extreme misfortune to have parents who were thieves and brought them on their messianic ethnic cleansing and colonization expedition? "Honey, grab the kids and your assault rife! Let's go ethnic cleansing!"
The murderer most certainly deserves execution, but it is nothing but mewling cowardice not to acknowledge that the murders of these children were entirely preventable. Their parents were civilian colonists living by choice with their children in a zone under military occupation: a war zone. Just because it gets quiet for a while doesn't mean its not a war zone anymore. It just means it's quiet ... until the certain next time that it isn't. It's tragic that these children paid the price for their parents' poor judgment and character. Reality is harsh: unfortunately, they are far from being the first and they will not be the last.
The Impact of the [Israeli-Palestinian] Conflict
on Children
This is simply bigoted language. It is no less offensive than if someone said "the radical Jewish threat." These fools are deliberately exciting dark forces within human nature which are normally constrained and dissipated by a healthy civil society.
The horrors of Europe's internecine religious warfare, e.g. the Thirty Years' War, were very much in the minds of George Washington and our other founding fathers when they designed and constructed our system of governance. It was certainly one of the fears that prompted George Washington's warning in his 1796 Farewell Address that "a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils."
I am reminded of Peter Beinart's poignant question from his The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment, "If the line has not yet been crossed, where is the line?" Americans should ask themselves where for them the line lies beyond which the damage that extremists within the Israel Lobby do to America becomes greater than that which might result from confrontation leading to their political toxification and defeat?
This is the main difference imo between 'right' and 'left' in Israel: disagreement on the need for a smokescreen to conceal Israel's ethnic cleansing and colonization from the rest of the world. It seems to me that no small portion of the Israeli right simply doesn't care what anyone else thinks and is confident that the Israel Lobby will be able to shield them from consequences of their actions.
This is a timely reminder that the two-state solution is dead and that the newest addition to the American Jewish political establishment, however well-intentioned, is fighting a battle that has already been lost.
I am reminded of John Mearsheimer's unwelcome but important piece The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners. The veil concealing the messianic racial supremacism that has consumed Israel is frittering away and Israel as an institutionally Jewish state can only continue over the long-term by race-based subjugation and oppression of the indigenous people of Palestine or by ethnically cleansing them.
Will J-Street support a democratic bi-national state or will it wring its hands helplessly until Israel initiates a second Nakba?
What a bunch of pathetic, whining claptrap. Israel can do an enormous amount to fix its "plight", hostility from Arab neighbors in response to Israeli ethnic cleansing, colonization and repeated military attack. A good first step would be to stop ROBBING Palestinians. No one respects a thief and few feel any sympathy for a thief's "plight".
Palestinian political leadership won't engage in new talks with Israelis because the latter are currently ROBBING their people blind. A cessation of thieving is a very reasonable precondition for negotiation and Israeli refusal puts to the lie any notion that the Israeli political establishment has more interest in peace than in conquest, ethnic cleansing, and colonization.
We can, in point of fact, "pursue American interests without getting a two-state solution." Israeli and American Jewish establishment intransigence (the Israel Lobby and its raison d'etre) is responsible for the demise of the 2ss. Halper is blaming American realists for his own mistakes in helping shield Israel from the results of its own misbehavior. American realists didn't kill the 2ss, and owe no apologies for seeking to pursue American interests in the aftermath of its passing.
A well-intentioned effort to protect Israel during its infancy has extended well past its adolescence, resulting in a state with a spoiled political establishment that has never learned to properly assess its (rather than US) capability to deal with the consequences of its actions.
I try not to be too acerbic, but this statement is just plain frakkin' STUPID. Either Halper is a blithering idiot or he thinks the rest of us are.
The continued existence of our civilization is dependent upon liquid petroleum. Without it, self-sustaining economic activity intense and widespread enough to support our 300 million people won't happen, especially production and distribution of food. Millions of us would die. This is ugly reality until such time as our political leadership can reconfigure our energy infrastructure.
Israel could cease to exist tomorrow and America would go right on as before in much the same way as we survived the dissolution of Rhodesia, except for being freed from many billions of direct and indirect costs, e.g., the badly misnamed Israel-United States Free Trade Agreement. Given that the existence of Israel is irrelevant to core United States national security requirements, where does Halper get the preposterous idea that Israel's democratic status is of greater importance to American well-being than our not undergoing economic retrenchment or collapse with attendant poverty, misery, and death? That Halper labels the notion that it might not be 'absurd' shows just how tenuous is his grip on reality.
It is not explained by Jewish votes, but by Zionist money. Most American Jews live in states that reliably vote Democratic at the national level, hence even a radical shift in Jewish voting patterns would do little or nothing to change US government policy. Zionist campaign contributions and base party funding, on the other hand, comprise around half of the funding of the Democratic Party, and around a quarter of that of the Republican Party.
The Israel lobby and the Jewish kings
Yediot: Shift in US-Israel policy result of Jewish financial pressure on Democrats ahead of mid-terms
Halper's choice of language reveals a worldview where criticism of American Zionist establishment political activity on behalf of the militarily expansionist colonial apartheid state of Israel is equivalent to antisemitism. Not wanting to subsidize Israel (a wealthy nation whose political establishment almost unanimously chooses to invest a massive portion of its human and material resources into military expansion, occupation, ethnic cleansing, and colonization) is not the same thing as anti-semitism, the best definition of which is imo hating Jews for being Jewish.
Halper's fear of a reincarnation of the Nazi murderers of the past blinds him to the legitimate rights and needs of others who don't want to finance or be victimized by Israeli apartheid and conquest, and that opposition to victimization is not necessarily exterminatory hatred. Halper needs to learn to see more nuance in a world that is neither black and white nor revolves around his needs.
[Oops, this wasn't supposed to be a reply, but a new post.]
If Weiner is Zionist of political convenience rather than a true believer, why would he volunteer to debate?
"The payments" ARE the peace treaty. The piece of paper that was signed is just that; the Israeli political establishment has never not violated an agreement when it was in their interest to do so ... and when they thought they could get away with it. The Israelis have invaded Egypt twice with full intent to occupy, colonize, and annex Egyptian land up to the Suez Canal. The $1.3 billion we give Egypt annually enables them to maintain air and tank forces enough to deter Israeli attack.
If subsidies to Egypt stop but continue to Israel, Egypt will be forced to adopt a more hostile attitude out of simple self-preservation. Egyptian military leaders aren't fools. They know that if they can't defend the Sinai, IDF tanks will roll at the command of Israel's expansionist leadership.
Doing the right thing when one has to pay even a very small personal price is hard for most people. I have no doubt Rabbi's Rosen and Wise pay a very high one for their public stance and think 'moral giants' is an appropriate appellation.
bijou is correct. The Israeli attack that destroyed the ceasefire took place on 4 November when US media was entirely focused on our presidential election. Hamas retaliations occurred later when US media was back into normal mode and they were thus spun as having attacked first, unprovoked.
Anyone interested in learning about Israel's "economic miracle" should read Grant Smith's Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy
Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy
I think what Ross is concerned with is that Israel is losing its monopoly of conventional capability for remote destruction of civilian infrastructure. The day is coming when Israel will no longer be able to adhere to the Dahiya Doctrine, the destruction of civilian infrastructure as a "price tag" for resistance to Israeli attack, without the surety of its own burning in retaliation.
eee is right in this argument. The only utility J-Street has is that is has made it easier to criticize AIPAC in public spaces, opening the door to other organizations who will more substantively oppose it as an agent of a foreign government. When the chips are down, and they are down, J-Street has taken no policy positions that would hinder, much less stop, Israeli ethnic cleansing and Jewish colonization in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and AIPAC-facilitated American government support thereof. J-Street, however noble its intentions may seem to its supporters, lobbies American government officials on behalf of Israel and should be required to register under FARA along with AIPAC.
This obsession with Netanyahu is silly. The entire Israeli political establishment has supported ethnic cleansing and colonization, not just Netanyahu and his Likudniks. 'Liberal' Zionists just disagree with conservatives over choice of tactics, preferring a slower rate of cleansing that draws less attention and resistance.
Netanyahu will be politically defeated sooner or later, but ethnic cleansing and colonization won't stop even in the unlikely event that a worse criminal like Lieberman doesn't come into power. There is no politically effective resistance left in Israel to continued Zionist colonization in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and there will be no Palestinian state.
some relevant historical review:
HOW HEZBOLLAH DEFEATED ISRAEL
PART 1: Winning the intelligence war
PART 2: Winning the ground war
PART 3: The political war
well spoken
This is a very insightful piece, Phil. kudos
How different is Iranian behavior from Israel sending submarines with nuclear weapons through the Suez Canal to sit right off Iran's coast? It's crystal clear who taunted whom first, and with nuclear weapons. Whiny, arrogant, and petulant behavior is par for the course from Israel, but this wild reaction over one decrepit Iranian frigate and a supply ship sets a new standard.
This was an excellent response, Phil, and as usual Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and Jewish colonization of their land is a foundation of discontent. I think Israelis would be shocked at how much less they would be disliked if they would simply stop robbing people.
The 'free trade' agreement we have with Israel is another form of non-military aid, albeit paid for by American businesses and workers.
Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy
Israel learns of a hidden shame in its early years
Of course, there are differences between the two incidents. The Israeli "mob" was the IDF, their victim was murdered in cold blood after they finished gang-raping her over three days, and no one has tried to defend the Egyptian criminals or cover up their crime as was done for the IDF miscreants.
The objection isn't to generic residence. It is to residence on stolen land. It boggles my mind that after all this time you just can't seem to get your head around the fact that Israel colonies are planted on ground ethnically cleansed at gunpoint. Objection to race-based armed robbery and squatting isn't fascism.
Lieberman is an ambulatory showcase for Israeli colonial Zionist arrogance and supremacism. His prepared statement cited in numerous articles explicitly refers to "Iranian insolence." There are many words that can be used to accurately describe Iranian government policy, but his choice tells us far more about him than about Iran.
definition: insolent: boldly rude or disrespectful; contemptuously impertinent; insulting
This is liberal Zionist delusion of the most pitiable and tiresome sort. Israeli leadership to the left of Netanyahu have had plenty of opportunities to ink a just final status agreement, but they chose not to. Their administrations chose instead, every last one of them, to plant more Jewish colonies in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.
It is clear from the PA documents and other source material that no Palestinian offer was ever going to be good enough. They were being strung out, played. It was always going to be just out of reach. The 'peace process' benefited Israel colonial interests both by keeping Palestinian resistance mollified and involved external parties like the US from peering too closely at incessant Israeli crimes committed during the colonization process. That's why Israelis refuse to stop building colonies during negotiations. The negotiations were there to facilitate their construction.
I don't have the citation handy, but I read recently that he wanted to resign some years ago but was told that US/EU funding to the PA would cease if he stepped down, presumably the reason being that there wasn't a reliably compliant replacement ready. It could be that the simplest answer is correct: he wants to milk US/EU taxpayer-filled PA coffers as long as he can and his subordinates are expendable if their departure can buy him a little more time.
If King County has actually received Zionist threats over the bus adds, why isn't the FBI involved? Perhaps they are. I think it was last years FBI terrorism report that said that 7% of incidents were Islamic-related ... and 8% were Jewish related. Unfortunately my co-religionists were in the double digits, even if not explicitly classified as such. :(
Free speech should not be squelched for fear of terrorism. It's simply cowardice which to my shock and dismay seem to be pretty widespread in America. It hasn't always been this way. When and how did we lose our gumption?
That's a great article. Thanks for the link. Everyone should read it.
He may be correct, but the chances of a government forming who will actively seek to attack Israel are nil. The Egyptians will be lucky if they can form a genuine republic. They certainly won't be forming a true democracy, which even only a handful of nations come close to.
I don't see the Muslim Brotherhood as any different from our (American Christian) religious right. Our radicals would like to impose their version of sharia on us. They harp about the invalidity of church and state. We keep them in check because we have a civil society with well-established institutions.
If supporters of Israeli were wise, they would assist its development in Egypt and other authoritarian Arab societies instead of seeking to prop up dictators. Sure there will be more criticism of Israel, and because they are engaging in state sponsored ethnic cleansing and colonization they richly deserve it. I don't have any sympathy, especially while the Israel Lobby is busy looting my country to send money to subsidize it.
It's not "calling names" when it is true. I've been reading the American Jewish and Israeli press for around eight years. He is a product of his environment: the entire Israeli political establishment lies like they breathe, except perhaps for the extreme right whose negligible regard for others is such that they often can't be bothered with subterfuge.
Also, his choice of words is revealing, if the translation was correct. Freedom isn't "granted." It is seized, as any mediocre student of history knows.
I love it. :)
I hope whatever government forms in Egypt initiates legal action to seize back the tens of billions of dollars that Mubarak and cronies have stolen and salted away in foreign banks. Leave Mubarak penniless.
I hate to be a party pooper, but if Suleiman takes over and the protesters just go home, they will be culled out like sheep for the slaughter to fill secret police torture chambers.
Who Is Omar Suleiman?
The 1973 war was a strategic defeat for Israel. It led to the evacuation of Jewish colonies from the Sinai.
I could not more strongly agree, Chaos4700.
I strongly agree with this statement. One division is between the very upper crust of the Egyptian military who benefit from the current utterly corrupt military-dominated economy and the vast majority who collect tiny paychecks. One thing holding army violence back is inability of military elites to be sure that orders to shoot at protesters would be obeyed by the rest of the military. Shooting protesters was supposed to the the job of interior ministry forces, not the military proper. Also, we should not underestimate Egyptian patriotism.
Regardless, it looks like Egyptians are joining Palestinians in settling down for a very long civil rights struggle with our Zionist-dominated government supporting murderers, torturers, and thieves on behalf of the 'only democracy in the Middle East.'
Rothmann and fellow travelers do not hold this view just for Egypt, but for the United States. Our fungible lives, health, prosperity, and freedom are also sacrificable.
Maintenance of a treaty (not necessarily in the current form) with Israel, as long as it is backed by the United States with troops on the ground, is going to be in the Egyptian national interest for the simple reason that Israeli expansionism has not only not waned, but arguably grown more acute. Israel has twice invaded Egypt in surprise attacks with full intent of conquest, colonization, and annexation up to the Suez Canal. This is historical fact. Are there any indications that the current Israeli political establishment is less rapacious?
If the notion of an Israeli invasion of Egypt sounds crazy, recall eee's rhetoric from last week. Is he atypical? I think not.
It is highly likely that Israel will be able to maintain a peace treaty with Egypt as long as the guarantors, US taxpayers, continue to provide enough military assistance to deter Israeli aggression. Such aid doesn't have to include assistance to Egyptian political police and torturers.
speaking of Stu ... his legacy:
Good-bye, Mr Insubordination
... an Israeli angle on internet kill-switches ... I'm shocked. Really.
Killing the Internet Not Just a Problem in Egypt
Now there's an entertaining euphemistic use of the word 'complex'. The majority of Israeli trade that doesn't consist of implements of killing or repression is with Europe, and good relations would be a national security priority to any rational political establishment. But Israelis would rather steal Arab land and water ...
@ Gellian February 2, 2011 at 9:25 am
Ethnic cleansing and colonization operations are mostly carried out by Israeli Jews. American Jews who facilitate these crimes aren't forcing Israelis to do anything the vast majority don't want to do.
If any terms of Petersen-Overton's contract were violated or any laws broken, then legal action must be taken.
The Muslim Brotherhood has just called on the army to oust Mubarak, according to AJ.
He says he is sacking the government. LOL
For those who haven't tuned in yet, Al Jazeera English.
I think we should. While I agree that she is an "unprincipled hack who blithely talks out of both sides of her mouth," her statement is a public declaration about which way she thinks the wind is blowing.
Your view is predicated on erroneous assumptions. No amount of policing can completely eliminate terrorism: the best one could hope for is to end up like you Israelis.
Policing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for prevention of terrorism: the only stable long term solution is an adequately healthy civil society. A post-Mubarak government not addicted to Israel Lobby-arranged handouts may not be able to achieve this, but you as a colonial Zionist have a transparently vested interest in convincing others that any change in Egypt will be for the worse.
Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism
I wonder if Petersen-Overton has legal options.
Good catch, Alex.
This kind of drivel begs for hard questions to be asked. Where did Mr. Cohen receive his religious and social training? Is he a product of American institutions? If so, how anomalous is he with respect to his peers?
There is not a religion, ethnicity, or nationality that doesn't have extremists of one sort or another. There is no shame in belonging to one that does (everyone does), but there is in standing meekly by while extremists who claim to speak on one's behalf commit grievous crimes against man and God.
When the second Nakba comes and Mr. Cohen is in the 'front lines' murdering, torturing, raping, and looting ala 1948, who in the Unites State will be guilty of contributing to his being there? Who are the righteous and who are the New Afrikaners? The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners
Another thing they fear is that at long last they are, by virtue of being public figures and intellectuals, going to be forced to publicly choose sides or lose personal influence and relevance.
The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners
Respectfully, I think it is a mistake to immediately reach for traditional right/left labels. In exactly the same way that opposition in the United States to the excesses of the Israel Lobby transcends conventional political models, if Israel is to have any hope of pulling out of its nosedive to apocalypse then self-described Israeli conservatives must be able to find a seat at the new table. Having only the most superficial understanding of Israeli politics, I have no suggestions.
I read an article some years ago that I am pretty sure was by Hayden. It contained a brief description of the Israel Lobby's informal 'vetting' system within the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, I wasn't saving articles in pdf at the time and have been unsuccessful in finding it to add to my archives.
Egbert, your link is empty so I am taking the liberty of adding it. HTTrack Website Copier
Israel’s Orthodox Rabbis: ‘Palestinians to the Ovens!’
I didn't think that you were, or more specifically, that you want to be. I like the way Richard Silverstein put it in a comment to Rachel on his blog:
You are still standing at one of the forks not taken 30 years ago. Corporeal reality has long since passed by. You are trying to cast a write-in vote in an election already rigged by the establishment candidates. The only difference between the Bibi Netanyahu's and Ovadia Josef's of Israel is preferred timing on the next regional war and second Nakba with its inevitable blowback on American lives and prosperity. It will happen, and I won't be above telling you "I told you so."
I didn't choose the teams. I'm just pointing out the roster and noting that liberal Zionists stay on the benches unless they toe the extremist line. I'm not saying that there isn't more than one kind of Zionism. I'm saying that there is at the present time only one politically relevant kind of Zionism. You have no control over what its leadership does, but you do control whether you blind yourself to the full extent of their intentions and actions.
Richard, read the writing on the wall. Which side will you be standing?
Israel’s Orthodox Rabbis: ‘Palestinians to the Ovens!’
What we are witnessing is the maturation of Zionism. Whatever social or religious versions might have preceded it, contemporary politically relevant Zionism is fundamentally about racial supremacist ethnic cleansing and colonization carried out by murder, torture, rape, and intimidation.
Your dream is just that; it's a fantasy of Zionism without corporeal influence. Zionist violence is going to get far, far, far worse in the coming decades. Unless diaspora Jews can dissociate themselves from it, thanks to the efforts of Zionist extremists who assiduously try to link Judaism with Israeli state policies before the eyes of gentiles, they will reasonably be assumed by many to support it.
The most progressive approach would be for Zionist colonists and their supporters to stop stealing what doesn't belong to them. If that's too much to ask for, then perhaps a cessation of the murder, torture, and indefinite detention of peaceful protesters could be a good start.
I use Web2PDF Converter to save articles of note.
abstraction alert: Who exactly are "the Americans" holding this view? Bush-era Zionist bureaucrats, half of whom were also dual Israeli citizens, don't reasonably abstract to the generic 'Americans'. Also, it would be nice if they were explicit about for whom exactly a Palestinian state would be a disaster. The notion that it would be a disaster for us is beyond asinine. /obviously-rhetorical Do they really think we are that stupid?
from The Dubai Job
As one very senior German intelligence expert told me: "The Israelis' problem has always been that they underestimate everyone—the Arabs, the Iranians, Hamas. They are always the smartest and think they can hoodwink everyone all the time. A little more respect for the other side—even if you think he is a dumb Arab or a German without imagination—and a little more modesty would have saved us all from this embarrassing entanglement."
eee,
Your concerns are worthy of a reasoned response which I don't have time to make right now. I'll reply tomorrow.
Yes, there are racists among any nation's teenagers, or among any other population.
However, the racism and disgusting behavior of these particular teenagers stems from their colonial Zionist racial supremacism.
How so, exactly? I said, "Their misbehavior is fundamentally rooted in their (Israeli Zionist) notion of Jewish identity." I clearly identified as the problem the Israeli Zionist Jewish identity embraced by these particular teenagers. I made no assertion, explicit or implicit, about larger Jewish identity.
It is no more antisemitic to point out that the racism of these Israelis stems from their version of Zionist Jewish identity than it would be anti-German to point out that the racism of Nazis stemmed from their version of German nationalist identity.
Not all German nationalists are racists and they certainly aren't all Nazis, but one cannot understand Nazi racists and their actions without accounting for their version of German national identity. Nor can one understand Israeli racism against the indigenous people of Palestine without accounting for how Palestinians' inconvenient existence conflicts with Israeli Zionist notions of self-identity. Discussing Jewish and Israeli identity is no more off the table than discussing German, or any other, identity when it is relevant to do so.
Exactly how have I done this? I am well aware that there are good Israelis who oppose their slide into fascism, but one has to be foolishly optimistic to dismiss the mounting evidence of pervasive Israeli racism as 'anecdotal'. When half the population admit that they are racists, then the 'few bad apples' excuse rings hollow.
Israel's top Reform rabbi: Israeli society falling into deep pit of racism
Report: 44% of Israeli Jews support rabbis' edict forbidding rentals to Arabs in Safed
I think what gets your goat is that I am NOT generalizing about Jews, but that I pointed out that there is marked and increased divergence between the Jewish identities of young American Jews and young Israeli Jews. Young American Jews by and large don't buy into Israeli racism and you the fear political consequences for Israel that will inevitably manifest when they come of age. Such fear is wise, but you should do someone constructive with it instead of wasting time trying to pass off these Israeli kids' misbehavior as "something that could happen anywhere in the world" (yet simply DOESN'T) instead of a symptom of a much wider and deeper problem.
Are you claiming that diaspora Jewish teenagers don't call non-Jewish grandmothers 'whores' because they are "a minority living sometimes in fear but always with some anxiety about their safety and future?" That's crazy. A much simpler and more reasonable explanation is that diaspora Jewish teenagers are raised to display a much higher standard of public conduct. It's cultural. There is a reason that Israel is losing the sympathy of increasing numbers of young American Jews.
I agree completely. I expect Israeli teenagers not to go around calling elderly women 'whores' ... exactly the same standard of behavior I expect from teenagers everywhere else on the planet.
Their targets were gentiles and were singled out because they were gentiles. Are we supposed to ignore facts because you find them embarrassing?
Their misbehavior is fundamentally rooted in their (Israeli Zionist) notion of Jewish identity. It is silly to think that it is fundamentally antisemitic to point this out, and doing so does not necessarily constitute judging them as "Jews not humans". I suspect your sensitivity is rooted in a desire to avoid examination of the very substantive differences between diaspora and Israeli political and social cultures.
LOL, which efforts would those be? Please make a list for us.
Richard, nobody asked Peretz to leave. He is shaking himself out. Don't worry, though. The door will be open when he decides to come back claiming he was just on an extended vacation.
My favorite Marty story: The Connection Man
Maybe those cables comprise the Crown Jewels in the his encrypted 'insurance policy' file. "Wack me, and I'll really embarrass you."
Pay close attention to the language. At least King County had admitted that they backtracked under threat of violence. I optimistically expected the ads to run and realistically expected them to be vandalized.
By whom?
By whom?
U.S. colleges with few Jews building facilities to draw more, JTA
There seems to be some bad feeling about this point. I submit that it is irrelevant whether it is true or not. What matters to reaching the target audience of wavering or uninformed American Jews is that the Jewish tradition of intelligence/intellectual tradition, irrespective of how it compares or has compared to any gentile grouping, is now rotting from the poison of Zionist occupation.
4. Our intellectual tradition is being corroded by what passes for contemporary political Zionism. (Young Jews are now learning to argue that Jim Crow is a beautiful thing. Lord Acton said power corrupts, and our tradition of intelligence is dissolving under the weight of power.)
I think it is extremely unlikely. A far more logical explanation is that it is a career-limiting-move for a State Department employee to criticize Israel in more than circumspect ways. Putting substantive explicit direct criticism into writing in a cable sounds like career suicide. Self-censorship on Israeli and Jewish issues is rife in the U.S. press. It ought not surprise us to see it in government.
Respectfully, I don't see much equivalency here. Vanunu is an Israeli political prisoner with no ties to the United States. Equivalency would be trading Pollard for all surviving Israeli war criminals who participated in any way in the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty. Those murderers should be rotting in Guantanamo.
Uri Avnery on the subject ...
Ship of Fools 2, 20 Dec 2010
I think Hizbullah's impressive electronic warfare performance in 2006, almost certainly courtesy of Iran, particularly sticks in the collective IDF craw.
Hophmi, hophmi, hophmi. :) How does "Gaza fly in the face of [Israel being expansionist]?" First let's recall that something like half of Gazans are refugees or descendants of refugees from parts of Palestine that Israelis ethnically cleansed before 1967. Then the IDF rolled in and ethnically cleansed Palestinians off 40% off the Gaza strip, of course including the best arable land. If driving into a new place with tanks and machine-guns, herding people off their land like animals and then planting permanent racial colonies on the ground-swept-clean with the intent to eventually annex isn't territorially expansionist, then nothing is.
The Israeli political establishment tried and failed to steal both Gaza and Egypt. The point you are missing is that failure at armed robbery doesn't mean that the robbery attempt never happened and that one is not a robber, it just means that one is a less than perfectly successful robber. Don't feel too disappointed: Israel is still in possession of both Syrian and Lebanese land which its political establishment has zero interest in ever returning. A partially successful territorial expansionist is still a thief.
Here is a relevant article by the distinguished Uri Avnery: Ship of Fools 2
Why? The Israeli political establishment is territorially expansionist, solidly across what passes these days for an Israeli political spectrum. The acquisition of land by military conquest has been viewed with strong disapproval since the end of the Second World War and every dead Israeli civilian allows victimhood-steeped breast-beating to distract from Israeli ethnic cleansing and colonization.
We should recall that Palestinians are not Israel's only victims. Israel has attempted to steal land from the Lebanese, Syrians, and Egyptians and still occupies the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms. Egypt recovered the Sinai, conquered and colonized by Israel in 1967, by counter-attacking Israel in 1973. While Egypt eventually lost on the battlefield, the enormous damage they did to Israel in lives and heavy equipment in my opinion psychologically pre-conditioned the Israeli political establishment to eventually accept Pres. Carter's peace plan under which Israeli colonies were withdrawn from the Sinai and Egypt resumed its rightful sovereignty ... in return for staggering annual bribes to both Egypt and Israel underwritten by American taxpayers. The desirability of re-opening the Suez Canal for commercial traffic probably played a major role.
As long as Israel continues to covet the land of its neighbors, it will never be at peace. It's long past time for a just final-status agreement with FIXED borders.
The danger isn't that "[Israel] will lose its Jewish image" but that Israeli usurpation of territory, i.e. ethnic cleansing of indigenous people and Jewish colonization of their land, will become 'the Jewish image'. Howard Berman and other members of the Israel Lobby are helping make it happen. Who exactly is this good for?
I'm delighted to see this. I've ridden a lot of miles on those buses.
I agree completely. Sama Adnan has correctly identified money as the primary tool of political leverage, but it is not enough to merely compete with AIPAC in handing out cash. Israel-firster money deserves to be and must be made politically toxic.
Kudos to Matthew Lee, a real stand-up guy.
Palestinians don't control 22 states. They don't have even have political representation in the one under which they live.
OH! You meant Arabs! I guess we are back to "Let's pretend that Palestinians don't exist!" games. Complaining that it is unfair for European and American Jews to not be able to ethnically cleanse and colonize Palestine because Arabs have so much other land is akin to saying that it would be unfair for them to not be able to ethnically cleanse and colonize Denmark because Europeans have so much other land.
Of course, it has nothing to do with Israeli state-sponsored ethnic cleansing and Jewish colonization, and from a partisan American perspective The Israel Lobby (and its malign influence on) U.S. Foreign Policy and the U.S. economy.
Ethnic cleansing is the first of a two-step process. It paves the way for the second: Jewish colonization of the ethnically cleansed land. It is obvious to me why the notion of Jewish colonization makes liberal and progressive American Jews highly uncomfortable. However, being unhappy with reality doesn't make it go away.
Ethnic cleansing and Jewish colonization is being done in their name whether they like it or not. I liken it to being the the victim of identify theft by a close cousin. One doesn't want to get one's cousin into trouble, but if one doesn't speak up the cousin will eventually damage one's livelihood and destroy one's good name.
Life isn't fair. Sometimes we are faced with problems that do not have good solutions. It is foolish to meekly sit and watch while others decide to solve a problem with a solution that is terrible to one's interests and well-being when one can speak up and solve the problem with a solution that is merely unpleasant.