-
-
- Singing sensation Mohammad Assaf has given us a ‘national umbrella’ … 8
- State officials in California sign letter denouncing BDS movement on … 7
- After Kerry visit, Israeli and Palestinian leaders quietly re-open economic … 10
- Snowden shows up Obama on leadership 5
- Taking on Bill Clinton and the ‘bigshots’, Chris Matthews says … 9
- Judge who acquitted war criminals at Hague had ‘close and … 5
- Latest DC mantra: The two-state solution is dead, long live … 42
- ‘I wanted to make a film [on] the conflict between … 6
-
- ‘Girls on Fire’ tell Alicia Keys — Don’t play Apartheid … 197
- The horror: ‘Breaking the Silence’ releases women’s frightful testimonies of … 134
- Meet the Israeli-linked firm that sold Big Brother machines to … 95
- An Israeli veteran comes forward to decry ‘how shitty we … 93
- House committee votes to give Israel another 1/2 billion in … 93
- Palestinian activist Abir Kopty: Oslo should go, the peace process … 87
- World Bank, the PA and Israel work together to confiscate … 83
- Looking for ‘a new devil,’ Israeli leaders and supporters left … 79
-
- US and Israel are accused of manipulating Hague to acquit … 133
- The kids are back, and it’s not alright 132
- The horror: ‘Breaking the Silence’ releases women’s frightful testimonies of … 126
- Approaching 60, Norman Finkelstein reflects 116
- Palestinian activist Abir Kopty: Oslo should go, the peace process … 102
- The MSM tries to distinguish between Manning and Snowden. Don’t … 86
- I’ve got Mohammed Assaf fever 72
- Weiner should be ‘hounded’ for his support for apartheid 50
-
- Taking on Bill Clinton and the ‘bigshots’, Chris Matthews says American people are opposed to Syrian intervention http://t.co/2su8cb7we2, 9 mins ago
- Judge who acquitted war criminals at Hague had ‘close and confidential relations’ with U.S. gov’t http://t.co/eAUlITpDxm, 14 mins ago
- Latest DC mantra: The two-state solution is dead, long live the two-state solution! http://t.co/ScDXoh4awZ, 19 mins ago
- Interview with David Koff on his groundbreaking 1981 film ‘Occupied Palestine’ http://t.co/NpYmQvFkdo, 23 mins ago
- RT @BuzzFeedBen: Friends, my story tonight on Michael http://t.co/dm3jC7UpD9, 4 hours ago
-
Recent Comments
click link to see last 100 comments- Latest DC mantra: The two-state solution is dead, long live the two-state solution! (42)
- talknic: @ hophmi “So why do the Palestinians need an army if it is no threat to Israeli hegemony?” You...
- talknic: @ Woody ” Scratch a zionist”? No need. It ooooozes out like settler excreta over Palestinian...
- talknic: @ mondonut ” If the Palestinians are not interested in either negotiating a 2ss or in their own...
- Judge who acquitted war criminals at Hague had ‘close and confidential relations’ with U.S. gov’t (5)
- Hostage: I find this view a bit naive. It’s a separation of executive and judicial powers built right into the...
- Looking for ‘a new devil,’ Israeli leaders and supporters left scrambling after election of moderate Rouhani (43)
- Yitzgood: Just because he believes something foolish, that means that the israelis have a right to bomb and murder...
- Singing sensation Mohammad Assaf has given us a ‘national umbrella’ — writes Palestinian political prisoner (8)
- Annie Robbins: thank you so much Enass. your cousin…like so many before him and so many after. i will pray...
- Enass T: I really have to thank Annie for giving me the opportunity to contribute a little to this amazing story. I...
- Annie Robbins: Inanna, Enass has translated the judges comments for us, and then some. we will be posting them with...
- After Kerry visit, Israeli and Palestinian leaders quietly re-open economic negotiations (10)
- Latest DC mantra: The two-state solution is dead, long live the two-state solution! (42)
Our Writers
More WritersBlogroll
The War of Ideas in the Middle East
Thanks for all this! Interesting stuff. I'll look around a bit myself and let you know if I hear anything more (or different).
MHughes976,
Do you have a reference by chance? I'd like to read up about those coins.
Interesting report. Thanks.
Libra,
With all due respect (but no more), that's a cartoonish oversimplification. In all invasions some of the people want it, others resist. But of course there are precedents for what we'd proposed with Iraq. Look at how the American army was greeted in Sicily back in World War 2--literally with flowers. The Italians believed or pretended to believe that we were liberating them from a great tyrant. Look at Libya just a few months ago. Many people welcomed foreign intervention.
"Let ask you something Gellian…what made you think that the US could turn a Muslim country with a thousand year old civilization of it’s own into a western style democracy by militarily invading it?"
Bingo. That's the magic question, and the answer is: Germany post-WW2.
Let me explain before everyone shoots me down. We live in an age in which Holocaust 'remembrance' and 'never again' have become litmus-test mantras, and the idea that liberating a country from their own tyrannical leader is considered a good thing. Such at least is the mantra, and in some ways I still subscribe to it. It's easy for many here either to forget or ignore that Saddam was one of the worst tyrants of the second half of the 20th century--he maliciously invaded Iran and used chemical weapons against them, costing millions of lives of both his own and Iran's citizens.
I thought the reasoning would be relatively straightforward--we cut off the head, assist the Iraqis to birth democracy as we assisted denazification in western Germany after WW2 and via the Marshall plan, and bingo, the Arabs would want democracy which, they could see from the generally acknowledged material superiority of the west, seems to be the way out of miring poverty.
Clearly I was wrong about that and have underestimated the deep reservations Arab/Muslim countries have for statism in general and democracy in particular. As I say, I'm not a political scientist. On the other hand I don't think my way of thinking can all be chalked up to 'neocon propaganda'. I do think there was plenty of propaganda going about, but I still thought the reasoning I outlined above was correct.
Thanks to Jeff Blankfort above for the gracious reply, too.
"And yet we still have people like Gellian promoting the idea that overthrowing Iraq had anything to do with establishing a democracy. "
I'm not promoting that idea myself, not at least as I mean to explain myself. What I'm saying is that this was the idea that was in the air, that I remember discussing myself with a fair number of people including academics who knew something of the matter (of which I of course wasn't one). To say that overthrowing Iraq hasn't didn't end up accomplishing that goal is merely to state the obvious, but with the benefit of hindsight for those of us who didn't foresee things turning out this way back in 2001-2-3.
What most impressed me at the time was the anthrax, still to this day a mystery. While those letters were circulating and everyone was freaked out and nobody knew where it was coming from, it didn't seem wildly implausible that Saddam was connected with it. He was the only leader in modern times to use chemical warfare and we'd been crushing his country with punishing sanctions for years. That was another factor that persuaded me to support the invasion even though I, like many others I knew, had no illusions that Iraq was responsible for 9-11.
It's easy to condemn people like me now, especially those of you who were wiser at the time. What I'm trying to offer here is an honest assessment of the political climate at the time.
Phil,
Here's another way of getting at the issue. Poll us your readers, those of us who were in favor of invading Iraq. Ask us how many of us really think we were fooled by Jewish neocons. That will help clarify the issue, because right now I frankly still don't see what you're driving at. I mean, most of the debate about invading Iraq happened out in the open. The idea that democracy would flower in the Middle East if we could set one example of it going in Iraq sounded like a good idea to me--wrong as hell, as it turns out, but that's hardly to say those promoting it were doing it because it was all about Israel.
It was also about us. I was one of the ones who thought promoting democracy in the Middle East would be a good idea, not because I cared then or now about Israel at all, but because I thought it was less likely to get us killed here in the U.S. going forward.
What about the rest of your readers?
Wrong; that footage was real. See here: link to snopes.com
If Palestinians were dancing in the streets in 1993 the first time the towers were attacked, that's only to their greater shame.
"Your memory is a little off on that. The second intifada began mostly with Israeli soldiers gunning down protestors. The suicide bomb attacks came months later."
In this case I'm sure it's not my memory that's off but rather literally the time at which I came to awareness of the conflict--or at least the media through which I first heard about it. It was a day in September 2000 so I guess pretty early on, and sitting in a cheapie pizza place with a friend killing time. She (Jewish) already knew all the background to everything. I was a newbie. She explained things as she understood them and, of course, I'm sure she was biased in her presentation of things toward the Israelis.
So I do mean what I said earlier about "not knowing exactly what was going on". I certainly didn't, though I don't dispute you on the facts.
"i am not interested in having my assumption labelled as “ludicrous”. 9/11 would be the biggest false-flag in history, seems inconceivable, but things do just get bigger and better- it’s the american way"
Your assumption is ludicrous. You need to be told that. No one did that operation except bin Laden's team who, as you surely know, went on to take credit for it.
I guess I am with Kampeas on this one. He makes good replies, though they're self-servingly phrased. (Which is only to be expected, though - kind of like asking the Pope to condemn Catholicism. He ain't gonna do it, for professional reasons if no other.)
Phil I think pushes the Jewish angle of the Iraq war too hard. I do think he's right that a huge number of influential Jews supported and promoted the war and that yes, they did it because they love Israel and wanted this opportunity to help that country.
But I remember the days and weeks post-9/11 as clearly as anyone else and I remember most of us being fighting mad, ready to strike a bunch of Muslims wherever we could, and fast. Show 'em who's boss. Show 'em they'd better not attack the U.S. again, ever. And so on.
I remember the footage of the dancing Palestinians on 9/11 and thinking, not really sure why this makes them happy but SOLD - I'll sign up and take 'em out, whatever their beef is. And I'm very far from being alone in that theory. Because seeing them then reminded me of when I first came to consciousness about Palestine back in 2000, having just arrived back in the U.S. and listening to NPR one day when the second Intifadah broke out and not knowing what exactly any of that was about. I do remember bombs going off everywhere and limbs flying and thinking, that's not right.
So to laying part of the Iraq war disaster at the feet of Jews is correct, but not (I'd say) in the way Phil and others around here keep saying. Cheerleading the war wasn't that big a deal. We didn't need to be cheered on for it. Many of us wanted it. Many of us knew Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. But many of us also knew Saddam was an evil tyrant and hoped that getting rid of him would dial down the tensions with the Arabs/Muslims.
Jewish responsibility for 9/11 goes further back. Inasmuch as bin Laden himself said our antagonism of the Palestinians was a major reason he attacked us then, Jews worldwide who supported Israel in its various conquests and occupations deserved blame.
But blaming the neocons' role in cheering on the Iraq invasion is kind of beside the point. It was too late then. Most of us--regardless of our religion or ethnicity--wanted that war.
We shouldn't go rewriting history now.
Nice work, Gazacalling. Very nice work indeed! You're smart to quote the Constitution because if there's anything we've learned about Paul, it's that that's his master text.
One of the critics (Digby) says this:
"Let's say Paul becomes President and does reduce US militarism, foreign interventionism, eliminate Federal drug laws, etc. His States Rights position would allow states to pick up the slack in all of these areas. From my reading of Paul, the Federal Government would stop supporting Israel, but he would have not hinder New York and California cutting their own deals with the Israelis if the states so chose."
That last bit is pretty interesting and admittedly something I haven't considered. Is Paul really that much a believer in federalism that he'd allow individual states to "cut deals" with foreign powers?
Anyone with knowledge or experience, please weigh in. What could such deals mean in practice?
Well, in fairness to Ron Paul's enemies, many of them are right in pointing out that a lot of his support is coming from people that are anti-Israel (i.e. against the permanent Likudist incarnation of Zionism that's been on offer for the last forty years).
The amazing thing is that pointing this out doesn't do the pro-Zionist crowd any favors, because it's the ultimate chance to see that Zionism as it's turned out is a philosophy that's antithetical to what most Americans actually want.
So by supporting Ron Paul on this issue, Americans are, perhaps coincidentally, actually looking out for their own best interests!
My sense is there's no meaningful difference between the two. This again is to interpret the zillions of comments below Ron Paul pieces on the net but they seem pretty obviously to be saying that this war with Iran is a war for Israel, no doubt about it. The reality is America has no beef with Iran and doesn't want war with it, and everyone here knows it. Ron Paul is right on that one, too: if we (and South Korea) could learn to live with a North Korean nuke, surely the world will learn to accommodate an Iranian nuke, assuming they're even after one (as they indeed seem to be).
Those who are against Iran having a nuke should insist that Israel be deprived of her nukes, a la South Africa. That will dial down the regional tension considerably.
Phil,
It's becoming clearer every hour that Ron Paul's entire candidacy has become a referendum on the Israel relationship and lobby. To read comments below any opinion piece about Paul, anywhere, is to see this. (In fact I just a piece in which one commenter dubs Paul's followers 'Paulistinians'.)
It's amazing, and it's incredible to see that the whole country understands this. You should do a post on it.
Interesting post because it prompts a question--a 'what if' question of the kind that historians always tell us are invalid but are fun to speculate about anyway.
Namely, What would life be like for Israelis/Jews today had the Zionists gone to Madagascar rather than the middle east?
It's becoming increasingly clear that 1948 Israel is only the last of the crusader kingdoms. It will never cease being fortress Israel because it has too many enemies. Neither the one-state nor the two-state solution will likely save it in the long run, and history shows that crusader kingdoms only last c. 80 years. So give the old girl another couple of decades at most.
Meanwhile suppose the Zionists had gone to Madagascar. It seems like that's been a pretty peaceful place since 1948, and its being a island must give its population a measure of security that no country in the middle east can ever feel.
Betcha Block has a job with 24 hours--my money is on him working for Bibi directly.
"The reason I work on this issue is I wanted to be in Israel, it’s the national homeland of the Jewish people… [inaudible]… and I’m proud of and my children and my grandchildren will be proud to be a part of. That’s why I’m in this …."
Then why doesn't he live there?
Well you're making a different point now than you were before.
I suppose your view of whether "Americans treat knowledge like a disease" (as you say) depends on your experience of America. My own is hardly representative but in it Americans are at least as well educated as anyone I've met in foreign travels, and I've traveled quite a bit (in Egypt, too).
Which is to say, some Americans are educated and want to be so, and some aren't; and that's exactly how it's been everywhere else in the world I've been. That goes too for your remark,
"Yet, when it comes to world affairs, to knowledge about other cultures, to basic information about the world around them, Americans remain sheltered, and ignorant"
Not my experience at all--but of course, my experience probably isn't your experience. I was at a party last night, for example, with some of the most knowledgeable people I've ever met. They could talk to you about Venezuelan politics or Japanese geography or Danish cuisine, most of them from firsthand experience of traveling there.
It all depends on your point of view and the kind of circles you move in. What's unfortunate about your remark is that you tarred us all with the same bigoted and slightly hysterical remark.
But that gets to my point exactly -- we should build monumental internet cafes, not "libraries" in the traditional sense. That's what the great research libraries at american universities are transforming into. It's amazing to see, and not necessarily a bad thing either.
"Your gloating is out of place."
Gloating? Certainly not what I intended to convey, not at all. I love libraries and I love monumental architecture. My only thought was that monumental internet cafes, rather than dusty stacks, seem to be humanity's preference going forward (at least to judge from universities back here in the U.S.)
I had great replies lined up to all of you, ready to zing you all each in turn.
Then the internet access at the cafe I was killing time at blipped and I lost them all.
So I suppose that's the best reply I can make, though not the one I'd planned.
"only 20% of egyptians have internet access"
That's the crazy thing about the internet, and not just in Egypt but worldwide. Why haven't national governments decided collectively that the internet is a public good and expanded universal access to it? I'm very far from being a Marxist but the internet (and Wikipedia in particular, despite its limitations on all politically sensitive topics) has altered social life immeasurably--like the invention of the light bulb or airflight.
I don't think the government should simply dole out computers to everyone but I do think governments should pay for web access.
oooookay. Very helpful and insightful remark!
I'd disagree with you here--it's a lot easier just to lock the doors of a library or burn its books than (ultimately) control access to the internet.
You might say this is off-topic but my reaction is a bit different. Isn't really sad, or pitiable, or laughable (depending on your sympathies) that the Egyptians and their donors spent a colossal fortune on that building just a couple years before the advent of Google Books?
Here in the U.S. our universities are shuttering or repurposing physical libraries because the students and, increasingly, the faculty find it's not really necessary in the contemporary digital age to go to them. You can sit at home in your pajamas and research all or most of whatever topic you're interested in.
And that makes the physical restoration of the Alexandria Library seem like one of those breakthru technologies that arrive just before they're swamped by some more popular technology (betamax, high-def DVD, etc.)
On a more related note it really doesn't matter what books the Egyptian authorities (or anyone else) put in the libraries today because so much information is available on the internet. You can't conceal anything anymore--unless you abrogate or control access to the internet.
Another thing. Klein writes, "...I received an anguished email..." from Goldberg.
I challenge you, Mr. Klein: release that email for us your readers, and let us decide whether the tone is indeed anguished, or perhaps something else.
Release the email in its entirely.
This remark is really funny:
"And I find that the tendency to dehumanize all Arabs, especially Palestinians, and all Persians to be un-Jewish in the extreme."
Not to be impertinent, but on the evidence of the last decade (at least) I find this tendency to be quintessentially Jewish in the extreme.
I wish it weren't, though.
"[Yoffie]: I care about humankind, but I love my own group a bit more. I am more comfortable with them. I care more about them, just as I care more about my family than other families."
Then why the hell doesn't this man live there?
If this man is as you say, Phil, and thus a man of great intelligence, it's a sad and disturbing case: great intelligence yoked to a media arm in the service of propaganda. That makes him among the most dangerous sort.
And contemptible, too. Cowardice pure and simple is one thing; the man could have simply left the profession if he feared retribution.
Instead he became a collaborator, a willing executioner--of character, of policy analysis, and ultimately of real people.
Sickening and sad.
Phil,
You're very late to this party. The fact that Hitchens was of Jewish descent was known to all the people for whom that nugget of information would matter. It explains in a large part his ability to survive professionally over the years.
Wait a second. If it's all about Christian Zionists and their support for Israel, why is this ad appearing in places where not many Christian Zionists live?
Somebody help me out here
It's sad what Remnick is doing. It's basically bigotry; he finds himself more comfortable with foreigners--Israelis--than with his fellow citizens.
And that in a nutshell is the entire problem with Israelism.
Not at all, eGuard. That wasn't my point then, or now. I simply think that throwing a stone at these soldiers was foolish. Not a powerful or symbolic enough gesture to inspire others, not a powerful enough act to harm the soldiers he was fighting against. In other words, completely futile. And in the process, compromised what was branded as a peaceful protest. Why can't you see that?
I mourn this man and all like him.
That's awful. R.I.P., and hopefully not in vain.
"Gellian knows how excited with hatred the pejoratives “pal” and “pali” get him"
Believe it or not, this is completely news to me. I didn't realize Pal was a slur and apologize to any and all if I caused offense in using it.
Thanks for the perspective, MRW. It's a nice counterweight to some of the fervid-but-uninformed passions that arose from my earlier comments.
I should add, though, that I'm looking at the situation from the protestor's perspective. These soldiers have a proven track record of brutality toward Pal protestors--whether that's because they're frightened, untrained, ordered to be so, evil, lazy, whatever, doesn't matter. What does matter is protesting in a meaningful way.
Shingo, you are basically making my point with your comment, but not the way I think you mean it. You and others around here keep calling these soldiers a bunch of cowards and pussies.
They aren't. They're deadly dangerous.
That's why it is extremely foolish to throw stones at them. They'll kill you for it, as they did this guy.
And throwing a stone isn't the kind of symbolic act that will ignite a revolution, the way that Arab fruitseller who self-immolated earlier this year did. (And I am ***not*** suggesting anyone should do that!)
But throwing a stone at someone who will kill you for it is a futile gesture, and a dangerous one.
Sorry to see so few around here understand my point.
"The occupied have a right to violently oppose their occupiers."
I don't disagree with you, and despite what the replies to this and my earlier comment imply, I'm not on the Israelis' side. I'm simply saying it's (1) absolutely foolish to throw rocks at teenagers with guns who have a history of shooting people, because you are very likely to get shot yourself (as witness this poor man), and (2) you can't throw rocks at people while claiming you're making a peaceful protest.
The principle is the old one: if you shoot at the king, you must kill the king.
"Throwing rocks at the occupier is NOT a violent act. "
What on earth are you talking about? It certainly isn't a peaceful act, irrespective of what Israel does.
Your attitude is white supremacy with a smile, and it's offensive. You're tacitly holding Palestinians to a lower standard than you do others (this is what I take your comment "It has its own history for Palestinians, even before the first intifada" to mean).
As I said above, shooting teargas canisters at people's faces is horrific and criminal. And of course it's an act of violence.
But what the hell is the point of throwing stones at soldiers? Do you think they aren't going to react? Should they just stand there and allow themselves to be stoned?
Would you?
I don't condone shooting people in the face with tear gas canisters, not at all.
But if it's a peaceful protest, why was this guy throwing stones?
For that matter, why do I hear constantly of Palestinians throwing stones at Israelis? It seems a very stupid thing to do, like prodding a rotweiler with a stick. Especially if you want to call your protest 'peaceful'.
You can throw David Brooks in there, I'm sure he's made the same point (I remember reading it)
Phil, get a grip. Schalit was held hostage. You don't have to love Israel to call a spade a spade!
Farewell, Mr. Pincus. It was nice knowing you.
Am I crazy? I saw that for a second and could have sworn it was a picture of David Bowie.
Wow.
In point of fact, Nima's references are right. You don't need to worry about translations. I just checked the originals of some (Herodotus, Ovid). In fact, the list could easily be extended just by looking in the right dictionary. A big Latin dictionary, for instance, shows that references to Palestine or Palestinians appear in Pliny, Ovid, Tibullus, Statius, Jerome, the Vulgate, and the Historia Augusta.
But also in point of fact, the Zionists are right about this one. It's ridiculous to refer to Ben Hur as a "Palestinian". That's the name Hadrian gave to what had been called Judaea by the Romans previously. The Greek gospels constantly refer to Ioudaioi (= Judaeae in Latin script), i.e. Judeans. A Roman in the time of Jesus called the place Judea.
That's not a point in favor of the Zionist mythology, though. It's just a historical observation.
Interesting contrast here with American Jews. Almost all the ones I know have housekeepers, always minorities, every one. Never other Jews.
Marc,
You are one hell of a conspiracy theorist! The police planted a gun on the mobster -- this is "SOP" for British police, you say -- and they "executed" him "in broad daylight". Not killed accidentally, but executed. Oh, and this was all done -- as it "historically" is by the British police to direct attention away from the hacking scandal.
There's a riot here, Marc, but it's you.
The Palestinians are being politically oppressed and occasionally lash out in violence both at their occupiers and one another. The poor who rioted weren't protesting occupiers; they're already receiving extraordinary entitlements from their government. They didn't issue any political protests of any kind; they didn't steal food, either. They stole luxury items.
Phil, do me a favorite and make this a real post, not just a comment. Let's see what others think.
Keith,
I didn't mean 'it was strange of these guys to do the analysis,'; I meant 'what a bizarre way to analyze the situation'.
I would have thought that was obvious, but I guess not.
What nuance do you want? That these rioters are poor and/or do not have the items that they wanted to steal? This isn't a left or right political issue; it wasn't a political protest, though it did start out as one (viz. the mobster's nephew who got shot when firing back at police). Do you really think austerity restrictions on welfare caused these individuals to steal expensive shoes, electronics, clothes, and to burn down a carpet factory? It doesn't follow.
Folding this kind of riot into the legitimate political protests does a disservice to everyone. It's a stupid narrative to construct.
Strange analysis; those riots had little to do with politics, as far as I could tell from the various media. They looked more like a jolly good opportunity to pick up some natty trainers, flat screen TVs, and so on. Austerity had nothing to do with it; criminality, everything.
YES! eGuard you just made me snort soda out my nostrils I laughed so hard. Uri Geller. YES!
I bet everyone on this site is pissed and thinks it's insane that the Israelis sabotaged the boats. But you have to admire their creativity -- at least they're trying to avoid a repeat of the last flotilla disaster. This is a pretty good way of doing it without anyone getting hurt.
Where are Gazans getting the money to stay in luxury hotels? Who is traveling to Gaza that would stay in one anyway?
The whole thing is weird, even if it's true.
Yup. Remember the famous Palin-Biden debate? Go back and find it on Youtube, and watch her ridiculous, confused remark to him that 'Well, Joe, I'm glad to know we both love Israel'.
Even my Jewish wife thought that was pretty weird.
I mean, love?
Hmmm. I actually think Bachmann doesn't go nearly far enough with this disgusting, anti-Semitic speech. Shame on her for thinking we should stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel. We should be SUBSERVIENT to Israel.
She is going to have to learn, dammit.
Ha, nope. Phil never writes me back. It's unrequited love in this case.
And c'mon Mooser. Show me a bonafide Jewish Joe Sixpack. The thought itself is absurd.
Well, apart from Freud, who is the biggest charlatan or madman to have hurt humanity unintentionally in the last hundred years (recovered memories, anyone?), I'm with you, Phil.
Jews are hard workers. They're smart, too. But more than that, they are damned dedicated workers. I have worked with a whole bunch and have never met a lazy one yet, or one who took pride in a half-ass piece of work. Probably you guys have some of those in the population, but they definitely don't rise to the upper ranks.
My heart goes out to them, too, because - how can you be Jewish and successful and not get accused of this or that or clubbiness or whatever? You can't, really. I mean, some Jews are clubby and whatever, but so are other groups of people. Those who aren't and really don't care, still get tarred with the brush.
I think about all this now that I've got a halfling for a daughter. Will her successes be attributed to connections and stuff? I hope not.
Anyway, cheers to you guys. Fix the Zionism thing, and you've got my full backing.
These are admirable individuals. And I am really impressed with their courage, since Israel has gone so far to the right that any act of civil disobedience is sure to get an investigation and a record started, for whoknowswhat purposes down the line. Kudos to them!
And I reiterate the point I've made a few times, that it is time to call for a boycott of America, our own country. Now is the time to start putting pressure on Obama not to veto the Palestinian declaration of statehood this September. Time is already slipping away but it can still be done.
And these brave Israelis are showing us how it's done, signing their names and everything.
Gilad,
What frightens all these people is that you're making sense. If you lived here in America, you'd learn that this isn't a freedom we're allowed.
"us? who are you speaking for?"
The white male power elite. The people you want and need on your side.
"Gellian, do you see anything wrong with the term “Unser kampf”, as in “our struggle”?"
The answer is yes, because it simply looks like a take-off on Hitler's book. Niger is the Latin word for 'black,' but I wouldn't ever advocate using the n-word, in any circumstances. It looks like a schoolboy's excuse when he gets caught.
But you - and esp. Woody in his much-appreciated-courteous-reply - have a great point. *Any* word the Pals. use is likely to be co-opted and twisted to mean simply 'Intifadah redux'. That's a problem that isn't going to go away, for the obvious reasons.
Still, I would at least try something else. 'Intifadah' to most of us sounds like a call for more suicide bombing, just like 'jihad' sounds to me like a call for more skyscrapers coming down. Muslims may love it, but it doesn't make me love them. Find a good synonym and go with it.
"The same is not true here. Palestinians and Arabs do not see the word “Intifada” the way that the Israelis/West do, and they have different views of the events of that time."
Good point; I share it exactly. What I am trying to say is, the Palestinians should pick a new word precisely because people like me find it offensive and reflexively side against it. I don't know Arabic but c'mon, there must be a few dozen synonyms.
And for what it's worth, anyway, the translation I remember hearing back in 2001 was always 'uprising,' not 'struggle'. Both words are the common coin of violent movements. Better to go the MLK route with something like 'civil rights movement'.
"General" Choomin,
You sure do give an odd and frothy reply. My point is, Palestinians need to convince people like me, who already have the power, to join their side. I'm tempted to do that. But not if we're going to see Intifadah 3.0; I saw the last one and it was pretty rotten. What you have to understand is that it doesn't *matter* whether Israelis did awful things in 2.0; what I and the 300 million other Americans like me saw on the news every night were Jewish limbs and blood flying through the air in pizza parlors, and Arabs being the ones causing it.
This isn't a question of justice; it's a question of branding. Are you going to get my sympathy with a title that makes me feel safe and open to new ways of looking at things? Or are you going to frighten me with your rhetoric and make me want to circle the wagons against all those 'other' people who don't look like me and whose religion scares me to begin with?
I can assure you, though, that your 'third way' of calling me 'sick and twisted' is probably the least helpful approach of all.
Danaa,
You say, "Intifadah means “struggle”".
Right. The German word for struggle is "Kampf".
Let's say you're German and you want to give your latest struggle a name.
Are you going to call it "Mein Kampf"?
Would it be reasonable for people to push back hard against that label?
With some words there's no going back. The Second Intifadah is over and the Palestinians lost, and the Jews/West wrote its history. Pick a new name if you want to garner sympathy.
Nah, c'mon. Bullshit. I am with the Israelis on this one. It's a good example of what the Palestinian movement needs to pick their priorities and seriously think about how their news is going to be received. I mean, the app is called 'the Third Intifada'? Seriously? In Intifada 2.0 random Israelis were getting blown up left and right in restaurants and on buses. This is like that muslim Harvard valedictorian back in 2001 who titled his graduation speech 'my personal Jihad' or something like that. It's not that the content is evil necessarily, but the branding definitely is.
You don't have to be Israeli or Jewish to think it's a stupid thing to call your news website. I'd push back pretty hard, too.
In every generation there are those who rise up to found a center for studying anti-Semitism.
Because without the constant vigilance, who knows what the hated foe might do?
Huh?
"I am sure that Cole was kept out of Yale because people made comments like he “was too political” etc., "
Umm... Cole's nomination was actually accepted by both of the two departments he was to join. It was the higher ups that killed it. Your comment is a total non sequitur.
Besides, it doesn't matter whether you've got some affiliation with the Yale political science department or not. That's not the point I was making, which is that students who go to these places end up succeeding largely because decision makers realize that most of the decision making has been done for them just in their having been admitted to Yale.
I guess you could say that's conservative in outlook, although having spent way too much time around fancy colleges and universities in my life, I don't think ivy leaguers are any less creative or even political than other university or college students. More conservative than you'd see at a San Francisco gay pride parade? Sure. But then again, most of the country is like that. Less conservative than the contractors who do work on my house? Absolutely.
"The Yale connection is also interesting. I believe that the role of a very small number of very elite universities in securing American oligarchy is being downplayed (and the issue of American oligarchy is downplayed to begin with). George W. Bush went to Yale. Leading Israel fanatic Joseph Lieberman did, too. For many years, Yale was a key source for C.I.A. recruits. "
This is kind of dumb. Yes, it does earn you an accusation of conspiracy theory-ism. What exactly are you getting at? That Yale as an institution is somehow complicit? Gimme a break.
The reason the Yale connection seems like it's worthwhile is because Yale has always been one of the best places to go in the country. It's a combination of meritocracy and ethnocracy/legacy-ism. The CIA guys in the 50s were all recruited from Yale because they were WASPs and it was a mark of noblesse oblige that, if you basically already owned most of the real estate in the country, it was your patriotic duty to give back to it. At the same time the tip of the iceberg was shifting from WASPs pure and simple, as it probably had been for a couple hundred years, to Jews on the way up, who had to be damn smart if they wanted to break the barrier. Hence you find Liebermann that at the same time that the Bushs, Kerry, etc., etc., etc., and the CIA guys are being recruited there.
No matter how smart Yale students were in the 1950s/60s, and they may have been really, really smart, there is no way that there are many dumb students at Yale or similar universities now. I know; I've seen it. Competition to get into these places is so off the charts that even low-end Ivies are turning away 5 out of 6 applicants, and even many of those rejected have perfect S.A.T.s, valedictorian status, national merit finalist, you name it. These are students who have never made a mistake.
I don't know about you, but if I were running any organization, from a country to a corporation, I'd want to hire these kids if I could get them. I wouldn't bother recruiting anywhere else unless I had to. It's simply a matter of playing the numbers. You might pluck a genius out of a regular university, but if you have limited time, are you going to go searching for one? Or are you going to figure that the system has already filtered a nice batch of really promising students for you to skim?
That's why it's not a conspiracy that Goldman, etc., hires Harvard kids. It's just the smart thing to do.
Everything in this piece is just so much obfuscation.
The question amounts only to this: are gays at greater risk to their personal safety or rights under an Islamist government, or not?
I say, Probably yes. I don't know, but if we judge from Saudi Arabia or Iran, it looks like *everyone*, not just gays, is at greater risk under Islamist governments. But if I were gay, I'd be especially worried about a religious government. (As I would under any religious government.)
Gays are just the proverbial canaries in the coalmine.
"David Horovitz in the Jerusalem Post on the battle for Europe. Israel is losing Europe. But it's got the U.S., forever. The UN vote for a Palestinian state will be a "train wreck" that leads to greater boycott. "
Here's a plea to you Europeans out there, from a loyal and patriotic American. Help save our country. Organize a boycott of U.S. goods and services with the specific, public aim of pressuring Obama not to veto statehood in the U.N. this September.
You are the only ones who can do it. I floated this idea to Phil on email a couple of days ago and it's been gelling (excuse the pun) in my mind for a couple of weeks now. How can we ask Israelis of good will to participate in a boycott of their country, if we Americans aren't willing to do the same?
Sometimes the greatest form of patriotism is to work against your own government, even if you voted for it.
Help save our country.
Gellian
I guess we could debate that, Woody. They all said I was a man when I turned 18 but looking back at that with the benefit of many more years, I think they were all crazy. I could have used a lot more hand-holding, and I'm one of the lucky ones who never made many of the stupid choices many of my friends did.
But it raises another disturbing question, one that I'm sure I'll catch heat for bringing up - because, yep, it's a Nazi comparison.
I look at the video again and it makes me think of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler youth brigade). Granted these kids are older. But with the Hitlerjugend and similar movements under communism, the kids were encouraged to snitch on their own parents to the authorities.
I doubt that's happening in Israel now. But if I were an Israeli politician, I'd be looking to co-opt this enthusiastic movement for my own purposes. And that can get pretty worrying.
So again, I ask - Where are the parents? There's still time to stop this.
I watch this and I think,
Where are the parents?
Phil,
It's stories like these that make me wonder whether the label 'Israel Lobby' is really the right descriptor of this phenomenon.
It sounds to me more like an ethnic mafia.
Lobbies are out in the open. Where was Rosenberg's story for the rest of us to read back in 1988, when it actually happened? He could have actually changed some things for the world by shining a spotlight on it.
The whole thing reeks of omerta\.
We should consider changing the metaphor.
Huh? What is the difference between an 'expression' and a 'manifestation'?
This doesn't make any sense to me at all.
I should give a reference to Tacitus, who was a historian and consul (= president, basically) of Rome. A bigwig, in other words. I should caution that what he says will offend many people, but that's only because most of us have grown up in a society where Judaism (in its refined form of Christianity) became a world-triumph. Tacitus thought Judaism was basically the Mormonism of his time, with Moses = Joseph Smith, and so describes it in terms that you might hear bandied about of Scientology today.
Tacitus, Histories, 5.3-5
The whole of Egypt was once plagued by a wasting disease which caused bodily disfigurement. So pharaoh Bocchoris went to the oracle of Hammon to ask for a cure, and was told to purify his kingdom by expelling the victims to other lands, as they lay under a divine curse.
Thus a multitude of sufferers was rounded up, herded together, and abandoned in the wilderness. Here the exiles tearfully resigned themselves to their fate. But one of them, who was called Moses, urged his companions not to wait passively for help from god or man, for both had deserted them: they should trust to their own initiative and to whatever guidance first helped them to extricate themselves from their present plight.
They agreed, and started off at random into the unknown. But exhaustion set in, chiefly through lack of water, and the level plain was already strewn with the bodies of those who had collapsed and were at their last gasp when a herd of wild asses left their pasture and made for the spade of a wooded crag. Moses followed them and was able to bring to light a number of abundant channels of water whose presence he had deduced from a grassy patch of ground.
This relieved their thirst. They traveled on for six days without a break, and on the seventh they expelled the previous inhabitants of Canaan, took over their lands and in them built a holy city and temple.
[4] In order to secure the allegiance of his people in the future, Moses prescribed for them a novel religion quite different from those of the rest of mankind. Among the Jews all things are profane that we hold sacred; on the other hand they regard as permissible what seems to us immoral. In the innermost part of the Temple, they consecrated an image of the animal which had delivered them from their wandering and thirst, choosing a ram as beast of sacrifice to demonstrate, so it seems, their contempt for Hammon [8]. The bull is also offered up, because the Egyptians worship it as Apis [9].
They avoid eating pork in memory of their tribulations, as they themselves were once infected with the disease to which this creature is subject [10]. They still fast frequently as an admission of the hunger they once endured so long, and to symbolize their hurried meal the bread eaten by the Jews is unleavened. We are told that the seventh day was set aside for rest because this marked the end of their toils.
In course of time the seductions of idleness made them devote every seventh year to indolence as well. Others say that this is a mark of respect to Saturn, either because they owe the basic principles of their religion to the Idaei, who, we are told, were expelled in the company of Saturn and became the founders of the Jewish race, or because, among the seven stars that rule mankind, the one that describes the highest orbit and exerts the greatest influence is Saturn. A further argument is that most of the heavenly bodies complete their path and revolutions in multiples of seven.
[5] Whatever their origin, these observances are sanctioned by their antiquity.
Not to be overly rude, but trying to refute Christian Zionism or any other belief using the bible itself is sort of a waste of time. Neither Christians nor Jews that I know are much offended by most of the horrific stuff in the bible, such as the original genocide the Jews perpetrated on the people of Jericho when they stormed and took it.
I mean, isn't it just as likely that all this stuff -- the epics, the battles, the miracles -- is just made up, as it is in the book of Mormon? That's what the Roman writer Tacitus thought...and he inhabited the same world.
"Better off without me," probably not. "Me working against it" is the likely outcome. That's the feeling I have to fight.
Someone up above put it right: last week it was an Israeli Jew theater-director who went to live in Palestine and be an activist for them. The Palestinians killed him. Now it's this young Italian activist, who went to live in Palestine and be an activist for them. The Palestinians have now killed him.
And instead of condemning it, you crazies are spinning bizarro theories of Israeli false-flag operations?
Are you serious?
If this is the company I find myself in, I think I prefer the Israeli side. I just wish they'd get off Palestinian land so they could wash their hands of the whole thing.
Awful, awful stuff. May this man rest in peace.
Now the real challenge begins, by which I mean, maintaining support for the Palestinian cause. Every time a westerner gets killed or his head cut off or whatever, it makes me really want to circle the wagons and go back to the Israeli way of looking at things. Say what you will, the Israelis don't do this kind of thing; westerners don't, Muslims keep doing it. Every time I flirt with liberalism, someone ends up dead and I realize it's all a silly fantasy.
Yep, it's going to be a challenge this time around.
R.I.P., il mio amico.
Funny, when I read that letter I can see Netanyahoo's lips moving...
Follow the money. End of story.
"Bwhen a Jewish state controls the Mount, and thus could enable Jewish worship there if it so chose, the fact that Jews rarely visit, and certainly never pray there...naturally leads the world, and many Israelis as well, to conclude that the Mount is far more important to Muslims than it is to Jews."
Umm...
If "many Israelis" don't think it's that important, why does it bother "the Jews"?
Methinks the logic is a bit flimsy.
I don't disagree with you, Golden Rule, when you say "This is an anti-Israel movement, it is nothing more, nothing less. Don’t try to hide behind humanitarian BS anymore, even the name of this blog is misleading."
You're right. Being humanitarian means you MUST be anti-Israel. That's because Israel is anti-humanitarian.
So no argument there.
The funniest thing of all is the phrase 'Gaza War'. That wasn't a war. That was shooting fish in a barrel. That was ...extermination, for lack of a better word.
And since Israel is the new Sparta, it's perfectly legitimate for them to exterminate the helots occasionally. Good for social cohesion and all.
It's a bad idea to mix the Palestinian cause in with the illegal immigration problem in the U.S. That merely divides people's sympathies, not unites them. Palestinians are fighting to recover land stolen from them daily, to stop house demolitions, to stop being tortured in Israeli prisons, and to begin to get some semblance of a normal life. Latin-American immigrants are a different story. America isn't doing any of those things to Mexico, Guatemala, and so on. (Though we do still have an embargo on Cuba.) There are many reasons for Americans to resent and resist illegal immigration from these countries in the massive numbers we're seeing it, some sensible and noble, others horrid and bigoted.
The only similarity at all with the Palestinian cause is the fact that the Israelis have built a wall, and some Americans want to. On balance I would say this project is a failure, and of course it's especially ironic that it's taking place in Arizona, which is currently home to numerous individuals who have broken the law to take up residence there.
Derschowitz's comments about the black bishop's "smiling face" and the "decent people" of South Africa sure do remind me of bigotry. Just not the kind he's talking about himself.
I respectfully disagree, Phil. American Jews won't step away. They haven't done that in 60 years. There's no evidence they ever will. Tribal solidarity, or whatever forces they hold dear, will keep them at Israel's side. Period, full stop, end of story.
It's just not going to happen. Whatever claim to boasting about involvement in civil rights they could have claimed in the American south 50 years ago, is no longer valid. It's been trumped. That legacy is null and void.
I said this morning that liberals had egg on their face for Mubarak's refusal to step down.
I hereby accept egg on my own face for watching him step down without violence.
Even a stopped clock...!
"Uh, why?"
All I mean is that liberals, for all their great-sounding ideas and their big-heartedness, have to reckon with the fact that there are conservatives in this world. And that bad guys really do exist. Here's one of them on full display. He's not going anywhere without a big fight. And he may get his way -- just look at Iran last year.
That's eternally the problem with liberalism. It's not that it doesn't sound fantastic or aspirational; of course it does! In that regard it's like Marxism, which sounds like the solution to every problem in the world. The problem is that it just doesn't work in the real world. And the reason it doesn't work is because not everyone is a liberal. And a lot of those who aren't liberals and don't want to be, can be pretty rotten.
This is why I disagree with the analysis of a lot of the folks around here who think the peaceful demonstrations are really the transformative thing they are.
My fear now is for all those brave Egyptians who've shown up on TV or in print criticizing this regime.
Was it Emerson who said, If you shoot at the king, you must kill the king? I think so. He had a hell of a point.
Mubarak is playing brinkmanship with his life and that of his subjects, and peaceful demonstrations aren't the way to win this game.
Well, this development puts egg all over the face of the liberals around here.
See, bad guys really are bad.
Time for patriots to do what patriots need to do.
I dunno, Phil. I'm not nearly as optimistic as you are. I get the sense that the Egyptian revolution has definitely jumped the shark and that the people in the streets didn't win. I hope that's not true, but it's looking more and more that way every day.
The biggest problem is that there's no one to fill the power vacuum that would have opened up if Mubarak had simply skipped town. The only group that might have done so - probably would have done so - is the Muslim brotherhood. And that would be a very bad thing for the West, as it would certainly lead to greater friction and strife down the line, probably even war. Even in Egypt -- it's unlikely that the Muslim Brotherhood would end up giving the man in the street the kind of reformed, enlightened democracy that he's hoping for.
Egyptians should seize the moment of revolution to start building responsible, secular political parties, as fast as they can, in the clear space before them. And do it fast enough, before Mubarak starts to tighten his grip further.
Well, according to some. Oh and by the way, Shingo, God just told me that he promised me your house. Now clear the fuck out before I bring in a tank and some white phosphorus to make you leave.
"Parity of claims on the land"?
Is that a joke?
There ain't no parity whatsoever.
2007? Where the hell have these people been for three years? I applaud the aim but they need to work a lot harder to get their message out. They should cultivate academic relationships and get themselves invited to campuses to speak. That would really be the most effective way of going forward.