-
-
- Resume builders: Be a broken record on Iran, cheer authoritarians … 0
- UN Committee: Israeli system ‘tantamount to apartheid’ 0
- Slater on Beinart 0
- And we live on… 0
- US official — we went to Israel first 3
- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status … 23
- Israel takes 30 dunams of land near Salfit ‘for security … 4
- Aaron David Miller: After a short ‘peace process,’ look … 38
-
- 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
-
- 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
-
Recent Comments
click link to see last 100 comments- Did Israeli Eurovision contestant watch too much Juliano Mer Khamis? (54)
- Annie Robbins: GL, urban dictionary has PEP, just no explanation of progressive except for palestine....
- German Lefty: Annie, it looks like you got infected with the Eurovision virus. Great. The more fans, the better. The...
- US official — we went to Israel first (3)
- traintosiberia: OMG! Why I don”t have that Stockholm Syndrome yet! How long do I have to feign that I have it.
- 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 (23)
- piotr: How many Jews who made aliya were actual refugees from Roman persecution? Thus the “Jew who taunted...
- Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism (113)
- yourstruly: what was that sound? the special relationship breaking down and the loud and sustained chorus that...
- MHughes976: I’m still a bit uncertain about what R.Brian means by ‘Zionism’: what proposition did...
- yourstruly: given, that the israel’s brutal occupation of palestine is why much of the arab/islamic world hates...
- Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from the country (and anyone who disagrees deserves to be raped) (86)
- Blake: Q. Where are ya from? A. Everywhere but Palestine but Palestine is ours.
- Did Israeli Eurovision contestant watch too much Juliano Mer Khamis? (54)
Our Writers
- Philip Weiss
- Kate
- Annie Robbins
- Adam Horowitz
- Today in Palestine
- Matthew Taylor
- Alex Kane
- Max Blumenthal
Blogroll
The War of Ideas in the Middle East
What proof did Mr. Perelman offer of having been attacked from Iran? Web logs with IP addresses? But were they verified by anyone, a journalist perhaps? I find it odd that Mr. Perelman refused to be interviewed. If I had to place his story on a scale of "B" for believable to "F" for fabricated, I'd give him the failing grade.
Jews may yet be able to be a light unto the nations if they will speak out against immorality and murder louder than anyone.
But as for the state of Israel, "blight" might be the best word.
The hotel's case states that several people were denied access to the floors of the hotel where they worked because of security "irregularities." I wonder what those irregularities were and what nationality all the "irregular" people were.
They'd service the Israelis for free.
Not that Egypt doesn't treat Copts badly, but this would be an impossible story to report:
link to guardian.co.uk
I'm sorry. I don't need Goldberg to speak for me. Lots of American Jews have been saying this for decades. I guess we have no voice unless "Jewish leaders" speak for us.
Hats off to you for choosing ways of countering their propaganda with creative yet dignified protest.
When Ken Starr took the helm of the Christian university, he said that it was his vision to be like "Barnabus, the encourager" in the New Testament's Book of Acts. Except that Barnabus apparently was known for his kindness and encouragement, not his suppression of unpopular views. But in a way this incident demonstrates how Evangelical Christians want to have their tidy views of what Jews should be and that when those views are challenged the Jews just have to go. While this case is about academic freedom and political repression (Starr's forte), it's also about a bunch of rightwing Christians telling a Jewish theologian to shut the f*** up.
While NK's ideas reflect mainstream Orthodox views of long ago, unfortunately they do not reflect current thought and they are a quirky sideshow whose antics have done little to change things. That doesn't mean they're wrong, but they are clearly the fringe on the fringe of the Tzitzit Jewish men wear. Reporting on their views is a bit like interviewing a radical Jesuit liberation theologist. We may love what he says and fantasize that there is hope for a particular organized religion, but unfortunately this is all such articles provide: fantasy.
Thanks, Alex, for this great interview. The fact that Lasn couldn't get a fair hearing anywhere else demonstrates how almost all the MSM, even the liberal press, circles the wagons around Israel.
What do the junkets actually do? Don't these evangelical Christians already know everything they need to know about Israel from the books of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation?
I watched the Loury-Mead discussion as well (it starts at about the 39 minute mark). At first, Mead was saying only what he has said before: that the support for Zionism basically reflects our own native Dominionism (Manifest Destiny, killing Indians, stealing land from Mexico, etc.) In fact Mead calls such Huckabee and Palin-esque attitudes "the right thing to do" and calls any challenge to this "immoral" and "anti-Semitic" (at about the 45 minute mark). In denying its Jewish leadership, Mead actually claims that AIPAC is a gentile organization. Aside from the goofy CUFI people, this doesn't sound right. Has anyone ever done a study of the membership of AIPAC to resolve this question?
Actually, both the US and Israel did help South Africa:
link to wisconsinproject.org
The "traditional homeland" of Jews is also the traditional homeland of a majority of Palestinians: 5+ million in Palestine, and and roughly the same number in the Palestinian diaspora. An amazing statistic when you consider that Israel was supposed to have originally been a land without people.
It wasn't always that way in Reform Judaism. The American Council for Judaism maintains a website that still promotes what they refer to as Classical Reform Judaism -- Judaism as as religion:
"Founded in 1942, the ACJ has long offered a distinctive alternative vision of identity and commitment for the American Jewish community. We interpret Judaism as a universal religious faith, rather than an ethnic or nationalist identity."
link to acjna.org
Oh, is *that* what he's doing? Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.
Sorry, Richard. Bronner is incapable of confronting or balancing bupkus. He's so deeply in bed with the lobby and all their institutions that every time he moves or speaks it's to become more deeply enmeshed in them. That's the problem.
"How could the liberation of a people from the depth of genocide and centuries of suppression be racism?"
If settlers had bought, instead of stolen the land, then in cases where non-Jews lived among them offered rights equivalent to Jews, and if the entire system of laws did not privilege only Jews, or were applied inequitably, then perhaps the charges of racism would be unfair.
But, since you asked, and since that's the reality of the state of Israel, it's Zionism is indeed racism. Spare me Tevye's violins and the martyrology. Just take an honest look at the present reality.
As usual in Orwellian depictions, up is down, right is left, and wrong is right.
The fact is, liberal Jews have had such a certificate on their mantel tops for years. When they [once] supported human rights, economic justice, and racial equality, they could still (thanks to the certificate) overlook those nasty Ay-rabs in Palestine who just wanted to push the Jews into the sea. And so they gave money to Zionist organizations to push the Arabs into the sea. Or, in the case of Gaza, to bomb the shit out of them when they were *in* the sea.
In 2009 the United States gave away $11 billion dollars of direct foreign military aid (link to census.gov
to dozens of foreign militaries.
If you look at the figures, there were only eight countries which received more than $100 million: Afghanistan ($5.7 billion), Israel ($2.38 billion), Egypt ($1.3), Pakistan ($429 million), Jordan ($238 million), all of Europe combined ($201 million), and Somalia ($102 million).
Afghanistan represents 53% of all American military foreign aid. Israel gets 22% -- for doing what? The rest of U.S. allies get the remaining 25%.
I think Pincus makes an excellent point.
I guess they missed or decided to ignore the 1000 Jews who probably had the most meaningful Kol Nidre service of their lives at the NYC protest:
link to 972mag.com
I thought Schectman discovered the properties of pseudocrystals at Iowa State before returning to the Technion. Doesn't that make it a product of U.S. research?
The participating countries were, as mentioned, overwhelmingly First World nations. Half of Latin America, a great chunk of Central Asia, and almost all of Africa was unrepresented in the study. As mentioned, only 30% of the sample opposed a Palestinian state; that number would have been a fraction if the sampling had been truly global.
Sounds like Yoffe would be fast friends with David ("I prefer to live with white folks") Duke.
A similar point was made at The Monkey Cage:
link to themonkeycage.org
There's an additional silver lining in the Rabbi's activism. Imagine how welcoming a congregation in which Judaism is the focus, not Zionism, could be to those who steer clear of services because of the inevitable politicization.
I'm not sure the case for American colonialism has been made, but I would agree that Israel is a colonial settler state, possibly the first one in which a variety of Colonial nations decided they could (1) outsource their own settlement efforts and (2) solve their "Jewish problem" all in one fell swoop. In this sense it's a predecessor of the "Coalition of the Willing." It was not a miracle that Palestine, Syria, Kashmir, India, and most of the British Empire was lost at exactly the moment that Israel was created. Within short order, the US, which had previously mainly saw its international interests closer to home in Latin and Central America, took on from England's hands the White Man's Burden. But the original development of Palestine as a colony was European, not American in origin. Even the number of Russian and Mizrachi olim have eclipsed the Norte Americanos. It's not all about American colonialism.
I'm for a single secular state in Palestine/Israel where nobody gets to kick a religious minority around. Besides, Zionists have already carved it up so much that Palestinians will have to become de facto citizens of an Israel which, over time, will have to abandon any pretense of being a Jewish state.
Ugh. Why not the flags of some of our colonies, like Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, or Samoa? We have a greater obligation to them.
While it's true that the Saudis are much more important to U.S. interests in the Middle East than Israel, they also love their oil money and wouldn't really want to shake the boat all that much, after all is said and done.
I'm not sure who appointed Tom Friedman Pop Prophet. He doesn't even bother to use logic or scholarship in his daffy analyses. While he famously equated the Tea Party with Hizbollah, he apparently doesn't find that it (and the majority who believe that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs 6000 years go) are putting our nation at risk of being a backward nation. Or his friends the hilltop settlers who believe much the same things. In Friedman's view Dominionism and Zionism do not stop us from being modern, enlightened democracies, but the Muslim equivalent equals backwardness.
What a strange situation. The Democrats are all tripping over themselves supporting Jewish Dominionism (Zionism), while the Republicans are into Christian and Jewish Dominionism. Who says the Republicans reject multiculturalism?
The number of Russians permitted to make aliyah was extended thanks to a revision of the Law of Return which permits people who are not halakhically Jewish (via mom) but who have grandparents or some other Jewish connection. If a pork-chewing Boris wearing a crucifix can be an Israeli "Jewish" citizen, then someone with a deep connection to Jewish institutions and justice is way more Jewish in my estimation. And Levy is right. Some flavors of Judaism recognize a Jewish connection through either parent, not just the mother.
Not sure I agree with you, Phil.
I saw the movie last night, too, and I liked it as a combination thriller and morality tale. In her lie "Sarah" keeps repeating that she was able to be strong because she remembered her mother. In the last scene, Sarah, who has left her story to a Ukrainian journalist, picks herself up and seemingly refuses to die, I think, because it is important for her to be able to explain all this web of deceit to her daughter. That was a nice twist.
And even her pregnancy, facilitated as it was by the Nazi gynecologist, is symbolic of the kind of Zionism that was built on the experience of European Jewry, as Hannah Arendt or Avraham Burg might explain it.
The film made me think again about the absolute weirdness and psychopathy of a nation plunked smack in the middle of the Arab world, yet with a national "memory" born in a romanticized, and to some degree fictionalized, European history. I think this is also the message of the film. You can see it yourself everywhere. Sderot, despite its closeness to Gaza, looks like a Bavarian town with sand. The JNF trees which were planted everywhere to conceal destroyed Arab villages were all pine trees you'd find in Germany or Hungary. The whole nation remains a European ghetto, with people continuing to surround themselves with barbed wire.
The message of the film, I thought, was not to "redeem" Israel but to argue for truth about the nation's history. Like the protagonist, before it's too late.
I found this part amusing:
When someone criticizes Israel on its racial laws or draws a comparison between Zionism and the German nationalism it is related to, that's "out of bounds." But the Nazi metaphors keep on coming from Zionists themselves.
This study has the same results as the THIRD (and previous two) done by the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung, a German-Israeli philanthropy:
link to fes.org.il
Can Hussein Ibish actually walk around in the West Bank without a security detail? Doesn't he really prefer to pontificate as "our" Palestinian in Washington DC?
The LOL's seem to be deserved.
Everyone can exult if they want, but I'm reserving judgment. The US/NATO campaign in Libya is not an example of a more cautious, humanitarian-driven Western intervention in the Middle East. The West has had a bullseye on Ghadafy for decades, even after he started selling Europeans oil and giving the US intel on salafists. His 2009 speech at the UN was probably the last straw: reminding everyone that the UN Security Council is really still only a White colonist's country club. Now that we know that there were plenty of boots on the ground and that hawks like Richard Haass want "in" on recreating a new Libya, and now that mainstream foreign policy wonks are obsessing about possible Islamists in Libya's future government, Libya will be another Iraq. Get ready for lots of foreign meddling in its selection of legislators, prime minister, defense chief. Get ready for lots of US bumbling which will foster the creation of factions and slow national reunification. Expect us to become the salesmen for new weaponry to replace all that's been expended, advocates for turning Libya into a heavily armed nation. Of course American advisors, mercenaries, security companies, and all the trimmings -- perhaps fresh from Iraq -- will be necessary to complete the transformation. Hell, if we keep it up and have only one war every 3 years we could keep Xe and companies like it employed for a long time. If Libya turns into another Egypt or Jordan, the Arab Spring will be a bitter joke. In fact, the jury's still out on what the accomplishments of the Spring are in Egypt, as influential as the military is. Ultimately the only thing we know for sure is that the Western colonial powers have flexed their muscles and shown those benighted people of the Middle East who's really the boss. Colonialism is safe, at least for a few more years.
I have been reading Mr. Witty's remarks for several years. I am convinced he only believes a portion of the nonsense he writes and must be classified as a troll. A case in point is the "respect" that Glen Beck and John Hagee have for Jews ("It is a relief though to hear Christian preachers speak respectfully about Judaism for a change.") Does Mr. Witty not realize that Beck is obsessed with Jewish conspiracy theories, including such putative Illuminatis as George Soros? And doesn't our persistent troll realize that John Hagee wants nothing more than for all of us to be eliminated in his Millenialist wet dream of the Rapture? What a waste of oxygen Mr. Witty is.
Funny, it's long been the Left that provides the only criticism of US militarism and American foreign policy hypocrisy. While many on the Left are opposed to the US solving every problem with the military (which apparently bothers Fulford), the Left also opposes American support of dictators. Where is your outrage, Mr. goliveinisraelyoushmuck, for what is going on in Bahrain? If you're as old as some of us, did you oppose the Shah or US support for Saddam back in the day when Rumsfeld was literally kissing him? Have you uttered a peep about dictators in Saudi Arabia or Jordan? Did you object to Mubarak? Of course you didn't. Your Israeli friends loved him. Did you protest extraordinary renditions to Syria? Of course not. You and your buddy Dersh love torture. And you sure as hell don't think the Arab Spring should ever happen in Palestine.
Besides AIPAC/AIEF, other Israel junkets congressmen have gone on have been sponsored by (this is a full list from legistorm.org) the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, the Brookings Institution, Center for Middle East Peace & Economic Cooperation, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, IDT Corp., the Jewish Community Relations Council, Makhteshim Agan, New America Foundation, Project Interchange, the Republican Jewish Coalition, numerous local Jewish Federations (especially Chicago), Tel Aviv University, Telos Group, United Jewish Appeals, and the World Jewish Congress.
It is unfortunate that many of the congressman's comments were antisemitic, but from many of the organizations on the list above it would appear that many in the Jewish community have moved beyond philanthropy, anti-defamation work, or Judaic studies -- into pure Zionist advocacy. If we Jews can't (or won't) make a distinction between Judaism and Zionism, how the hell do we expect David Duke, the Aryan Nation, or the Grand Kleagle to?
Or maybe they know how people are treated by Israeli airport security.
A little more economic pressure on Israel would be ideal. The Intel plants in Chandler, Arizona; Santa Clara, California; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Leixlip, Ireland; Hudson, Massachusetts; Rio Rancho, New Mexico; and Hillsboro, Oregon will keep supplying chips.
Let's examine Mr. Witty's argument. If we look at how Israel began -- as a colonial enterprise crawling with terrorists like the Irgun and the Stern Gang, blowing up hotels and murdering their British masters -- one could make the same claim about Israel: that it didn't deserve its statehood either.
This is the same Wiesenthal Center that bulldozed a Muslim cemetery and takes Islamophobic positions on mosques in the United States. Their use of the word "Hamastan" demonstrates they've been getting their world view if not vocabulary from people like Pamela Geller and Daniel Pipes. Now that the Holocaust has been over for many years and 99.999% of the perps are long dead, there is no further need for this organization. Get a real job!
I'm pretty sure we already do have export restrictions on nations which commit human rights abuses. We just look the other way regarding Israel.
You make a good point, and Israel milks the connection with American Dominionism, Manifest Destiny, genocide, or whatever it should rightly be called. Besides the ass-kissing that American fundamentalists do to Israel, the ass-kissing seems to be reciprocal, with ding-dongs like Glen Beck being received warmly in the Knesset, Christian editions of right-wing press and Christian outreach by AIPAC.
For people as hostile to multiculturalism as Christian fundies and Zionists are, they sure show a lotta love to each other.
Jerusalem Post - Treif Edition:
link to info.jpost.com
AIPAC's Christian outreach director (where else? Atlanta):
link to linkedin.com
One of the quotes in the NYT article shows exactly what is wrong with such junkets:
Rep. Grimm's responsibilities are to his New York constituents, not to Israel. The AIPAC money apparently clouds his brain.
That would mean that dual-national American-Israelis would have to be excluded from such forces, and that's something the US government -- well, not the US government but the Israel Lobby -- would have a hissy fit about.
I would disagree with Richard that the Likud flavor has killed Zionism. Like Montsanto GM grain, Likudnik Zionism is the only anti-semite-resistant variety that has survived, and it has managed to kill off all the rest of the "kinder, gentler" varieties. Maybe there are a few grains here and there in Petri dishes, but for the most part this is the state of affairs in Israel.
Sullivan is absolutely right. For years the Israel lobby threw around accusations of anti-semitism. But in 2005, Natan Sharansky cleverly redefined it to mean: opposition to the state of Israel, and the "3D Litmus Test" was born:
link to jcpa.org
Sharansky’s definition of anti-Semitism completely throws out ill-treatment or hatred of Jews as individuals or a people and replaces the “Jewish people” with the “state of Israel."
Damn! How could any Jew not be a card-carrying Zionist?
This essay describes how this new 3D tool is used:
link to freeyetinchains.wordpress.com
The site legistorm.com is a great resource too. For instance, Israel Lobby-funded Congressional visits since about 2001 are THREE time as frequent as to ENGLAND! -- because of groups like the ones you mention and the mendacity of these money-grubbing Congressmen.
1020 junkets to Israel:
link to legistorm.com
In comparison, there have been 2 to Palestine:
link to legistorm.com
There's a lot more interesting information here, too, where you can drill down and see the individual junkets:
link to legistorm.com
You'd think, with only 2 visits to Palestine, our Congressmen, if they really were serious about "fact-finding," would be scheduling more visits to Ramallah and Gaza and fewer photo ops at Yad Vashem.
The old "I couldn't do my homework on Shabbat and even if I coulda my dog woulda eaten it" excuse.
You are welcome to do whatever you want to do with your own children, but to argue that circumcision is a minor, unnecessary practice for Jews (as you do with your Swedish example) is a load of crap. I don't know if you self-identify as Jewish, but it sounds like you'd be a lot happier in a Jews for Jesus congregation. Or maybe the Catholic church.
Poppycock. What BDS has to do with circumcision is anybody's guess. Except that many of the Christian Islamophobes who have unleashed "anti-Shariah" measures have had a lot of Zionist help. And, unfortunately, many of these "anti-Shariah" measures are beginning to turn into "anti-Halakha" measures too. In the end, Mr. Dershowitz should look in the mirror and ponder how much his own actions have brought about things like this.
I've seen more disgusting REAL photos of displays of Israeli ass-kissing at AIPAC conventions. The only thing the Iranians did was photoshop all of these people together.
For people who manage to read through Mr. Steyn's whole screed without developing stomach cramps, the money quote is:
"More space for Islam means less space for everything else, and in the end less space for you."
How do you tell when Netanyahu is lying? When his lips are moving. For a better indication of how likely such a plan really is, consult the Likud Platform:
link to knesset.gov.il
Settlements
The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting.
Self-Rule
The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river. [..] The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state.
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem, including the plan to divide the city presented to the Knesset by the Arab factions and supported by many members of Labor and Meretz. [...] The Likud government will act with vigor to continue Jewish habitation and strengthen Israeli sovereignty in the eastern parts of the city…
The Jordan River as a Permanent Border
The Jordan Valley and the territories that dominate it shall be under Israeli sovereignty. The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel. The Kingdom of Jordan is a desirable partner in the permanent status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians in matters that will be agreed upon.
Security Areas
The government succeeded in significantly reducing the extent of territory that the Palestinians expected to receive in the interim arrangement. The government will insist that security areas essential to Israel’s defense, including the western security area and the Jewish settlements, shall remain under Israeli rule.
The Golan
Based on the Likud-led government’s proposal, the 10th Knesset passed the law to extend Israeli law, jurisdiction and administration over the Golan Heights, thus establishing Israeli sovereignty over the area. The government will continue to strengthen Jewish settlement on the Golan.
Goldberg was starting to get it right, about Update 4:
"Perhaps this attack will encourage governments to track the sale of fertiilizer more carefully."
Good advice for his own editors.