Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 263 (since 2009-07-31 06:14:34)

homingpigeon

American pilot who flies in Africa and the Mideast; libertarian pacifist; bilingual in Arabic, studying Hebrew during my second half-century;

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  • US to differentiate between 'personally displaced' Palestinian refugees and their descendants
    • homingpigeon May 26, 2012 at 6:41 am

      Thank you for the pilpul reminder. I again bring to the attention of new commenters and remind old ones of what I call the eggplant phenomenon. Just when there is an intelligent discussion happening, a hasbarist can declare that Israelis were the first to develop eggplants. Then the commenters will work themselves into a frenzy looking for ancient references to eggplants in Hebrew and Arabic literature, bringing in eyewitness accounts of who was cultivating eggplants in Palestine in which year, arguing over the definition of the eggplant, and the various species thereof, and who developed which cuisine first from the the eggplant, and who was the first to market these eggplant dishes in Kansas.

      It is a powerful and effective trap. I see people falling into it all the time. Bring the discussion back to the core: A movement of immigrants came to a populated land, claimed it as theirs, displaced the majority of the inhabitants, and set up its own state with weird definitions of citizenship, and continues to displace the native inhabitants on a daily basis.

  • The left lacks an analysis of the neocon rise
    • homingpigeon May 16, 2012 at 10:22 am

      I agree. I speak as a dropped out naval officer who was the sorriest excuse of an Ensign to ever walk the decks of a warship.

    • homingpigeon May 16, 2012 at 10:20 am

      Habibis, (aHbaab), resist the temptation to argue about whether the military industrial complex, the neo cons, or the corporate empire is to blame. In any disaster, there are several events which occur simultaneously, many of which would be innocuous if occurring in isolation, and together they combine to cause illness, storms, or plane crashes. In the case of airplane crashes, (which I have to study professionally), there are an average of seven such events occurring, which we refer to as "links in the disaster chain," leading to the accident. If any one were to have been removed, the crash would not have happened. The causes presented for the Zionist disaster in this discussion are all correct. The only error in any analysis is when there is insistence that one is the cause and the other isn't.

      Remember that there are millions of Americans who believe they are hastening the return of Christ - or his first arrival - by supporting Israel. That is one more link in the disaster chain. There are at least a dozen more we could think of.

  • 'Tablet' describes American veterans of IDF experiencing 'dual loyalty' issues
    • homingpigeon March 17, 2012 at 8:11 am

      I'm glad you brought up John Walker Lindh. It's a good case to show the inconsistency in principle of the current situation. Lindh joined the Taliban at a time it was not at war with the US. Then the US attacked the Taliban and he is suddenly guilty of taking up arms against the US. Let us imagine a scenario (unlikely, but work with me) in which the US went to war against Israel, perhaps after another USS Liberty type incident. What would be the status of the Americans serving in the IDF?

      Personally I believe no one should join any armed force - that of his own ruling killer class, or that of a foreign nation. I would use all powers of persuasion to try to convince a young fellow not to join up. But I disagree with the idea of shunning those who enlist during moments of weak judgement and misguidance. And when they return from serving in a foreign armed group, be it the IDF or the Taliban, I would welcome them home with as much warmth as possible, and hope they never do such a thing again.

  • A Palestinian student asks, 'Can I go on Birthright?'
    • homingpigeon March 8, 2012 at 1:21 am

      I have recently discovered Abayudaya, a small tribe of Ugandans who practice Orthodox Judaism. They do not claim descent from any lost tribes or from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. They have converted over the past century. Could someone elaborate on their birthrights and property rights in Palestine, especially in the context of Palestinian Jews who have converted to Islam or Christianity and been dispossessed?

    • homingpigeon March 8, 2012 at 1:16 am

      A year or so I read an article in which an Israeli was arguing that they shouldn't be so quick to dispossess Palestinians as so many of them were of Jewish origin, some clans having converted as recently as two centuries a ago. Anyone remember it or have a link to the subject?

    • homingpigeon March 8, 2012 at 1:14 am

      Ah how happy I am to see this picture at the top. The lady on the right, Ellen Siegel, did much more than appear in this famous picture. She later served as a nurse at Sabra Shatilla and was eyewitness to the massacres in 1982 and was almost shot herself by the Phalangists. She testified at the Kahan commission.

  • Opposing boycott, Walzer shares stage with speakers known for attacking Islam
    • homingpigeon March 5, 2012 at 3:31 pm

      Actually, I am grateful to Walzer for helping me make the argument that there is no such thing as just war. He wrote a book in which he argued that Israel's wars were examples of just war.

  • Ahmed Moor in WaPo: Harvard One State conference 'informed by the uncontroversial view that all people are created equal'
    • homingpigeon March 6, 2012 at 1:26 am with 1 replies

      Hey Oleg, I thought long and hard about it. We are all wrong you are right. Transjordan is really part of Palestine. The Zionists only stole one third of Palestine. Now could you now please tell us why you think this is relevant? Does it make Israel any more legitimate? Should the uprooted Palestinians be only one third as annoyed as they are?

    • homingpigeon March 5, 2012 at 3:24 pm with 2 replies

      Annie and Woody, I have to jump in with my eggplant alert. (Hasbarist claims Palestine on the basis that Zionists developed the eggplant and Palestinians and their supporters go into a frenzy trying to prove that the Palestinians grew the eggplant first and people argue on about an irrelevance).

      In the case of the Mandate the relevant fact is that the whole concept was illegitimate. In the case of the Balfour Declaration Britain neither owned nor controlled Palestine at the time it was made and it was not Lord Balfour's or His Majesty's to give away (or "view with favor" its disposal).

      There was a very brief period after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and before the Hashemite Emirate was established when the few small towns east of the Jordan River were administered by the Mandate Authorities. But this was also before Winston Churchill drew the boundaries of "Trans-Jordan" with Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia on a Sunday afternoon in Cairo. So it would be unclear how far this area extended into the desert or how large it was during that short period. By the time "Trans-Jordan" was defined it was no longer part of the Mandate Administration.

      A case could be made that "Jordan is part of Palestine" but certainly not in the sense that the Zionists would have it. Certainly it should not bear on the core fact of the displacement of one set of people by another. The idea that the limits of theft by a colonial settler state should be defined by the limits of a the preceding imperial administrative apparatus is rather astonishing.

      It is essential that we not be manipulated into wasting our time debating Hasbarists in irrelevant arguments that they have framed, including the contents of the Balfour Declaration and arcania about the extent of the British bureaucracy east of the Jordan River immediately after World War I.

  • Finkelstein's prescription for a two-state solution is not realistic
    • homingpigeon March 2, 2012 at 11:35 am with 1 replies

      "These arguments may be countered by more reasoned analysis from the other side, but submitting hyper-technical legal arguments to the whims of the public is not a sure thing."

      Good point, and there is another concern about the "whims of the public" - or more charitably, the inability of much of the public to focus on the history and the issues long enough to develop a deep understanding.

      Let's imagine that an agreement is reached whereby settlers are forced out of their settlements. Think of the scenes they will create on TV screens, the trauma, the screaming, the civil disobedience, and the hasbara about ethnic cleansing. Then imagine them inside Israel "proper." Would these angry displaced settlers not turn on the Palestinians in the Galilee and the Negev with the logic that as they were displaced from their homes in the West Bank to make way for a Palestinian state, so now should the Palestinians depart Israel? After all the Jews had to move out of the Palestinian state to the Jewish state, and now the Palestinians can move out of the Jewish state to the Palestinian state. Astute historians can argue with the greatest of eloquence that the two transfers are not morally equivalent, but they will not command the sound bytes on the TV screens. Such a trade of population would sound very logical to the gullible American public and more importantly the US Congress. To be fair, I certainly didn't have the background or stamina to sort out the relative merits of various population transfers and cleansings in the Balkan upheavals.

      I think the odds of success are better aiming for a deal with the Palestinian right of return and the settlers staying in place. It will be complex and difficult, but much less traumatic than the two state "solution."

  • Dershowitz claims he 'exposed' CAP and Rosenberg, and calls out Barbra Streisand
  • Shit Zionists say
  • Where is the Bedouin Intifada?
    • homingpigeon February 12, 2012 at 11:34 am

      "Ten of thousands have applied for Israeli citizenship and have gotten it. But I doubt the moderator will allow this to be published – in the past I’ve ben blocked for pointing this out.

      Tens of thousands. How can that be? Why do they want it?"

      They are the pioneers of the one country solution.

    • homingpigeon February 12, 2012 at 10:46 am with 1 replies

      AngelaJerusalem, a few years ago, well thirty four years ago, I visited "Zbeidat" the name of the tribe and their village in the Jordan Valley, not too far from Jericho. They were Bedu refugees from the Beersheba area. As a community they volunteered their men for service in the Jordanian Army, and in exchange after twenty years of residence on the state land they had settled they were to be given full title. (These former nomads were in transition to sedentary agricultural lifestyle - a common trend). However as the West Bank was captured from the Jordanians in '67 after they had only been on the land seventeen years they did not receive titles.

      Sure enough, Israeli settlers used the lack of titles as an excuse to confiscate large tracts of their land, pump their well water into the new settlement's swimming pool, dry up the Zbeidat orchards, and so on. Whatever became of them?

    • homingpigeon February 12, 2012 at 10:33 am

      Coming late to the discussion I offer a few observations:

      In the dynamics of colonialism there is a common phenomenon of foreign oppressors making common cause with native groups who are victimized by other native groups. Local group B is oppressing smaller group A and foreign group C joins up with A to dispossess B. This happened with the US Cavalry - when they went in to massacre a particular tribe, they had allied trackers from a tribe that had been dispossessed by the tribe they were about to destroy. The Nationalist Chinese regime and Army, in fleeing the mainland and taking control of Taiwan, and asserting control over the indigenous Taiwanese (who were ethnically Chinese but a distinct community from the mainlanders), made common cause with oppressed non-Chinese aboriginals. The CIA, to make trouble for the Nicaraguan Sandinistas began "supporting" the various marginalized aboriginal tribes of the Miskito coast.

      In the case of Palestine (and pretty much all over the world) there is a natural cultural rift between the Bedu and the peasantry going back to Cain and Abel, manifested most commonly by Bedu goats invading peasant cucumber patches or peasants planting their cucumbers where Bedu graze their goats - depending on your perspective.

      And the urban people would show contempt for both the peasants and the Bedu, not unlike the attitudes of urbane Americans to rural Appalachians.

      These differences, as well as other cultural separations with the Druse and Circassians lent themselves to Zionist manipulations. The people who became "collaborators" had a choice between resisting and being driven out, or accepting the new order. They served it to various degrees, and kept their land as a result - at least until now.

      I would agree with Shmuel that it is a complex human tragedy. It is not helpful to demonize the Bedu of the Negev as traitors.

  • 'Romeo and Juliet' and the politics of occupation
    • homingpigeon February 5, 2012 at 6:18 pm

      "As he kissed me, his gold necklace, the shape of Palestine, pointed into my neck as we moved our bodies together in the night, his first night out of jail, the point going in between my bowed and swelled chai."

      Wonderful piece of writing. Waiting for your book.

  • Abunimah and Woolsey debate BDS in the 'Philadelphia Inquirer'
    • homingpigeon January 30, 2012 at 7:18 am

      Excuse me, could you say that again? I'm not sure you could possibly mean what you wrote. An immigrant family from Brooklyn who by choice moves into a home on private property confiscated by an occupying authority from indigenous inhabitants is to be judged equally with a refugee family evicted from a village in one part of Palestine and moves against its will to a camp or neighborhood in another part of Palestine? On the other hand you might have an interesting point to pursue, - where would you suggest the Palestinian "settlers" go? I know where the settlers from Brooklyn could go. Don't even go into comparing the Jordanian administration of the West Bank with the Israeli occupation. There are issues with it, but not ones that would support a Zionist hasbara. The main grievance being that it was done in tacit collusion with Israel and served to guard the 1948 armistice line from refugees intent on going back to their villages to retrieve property or commit some retaliation against those living in their homes.

  • Jack Ross in Brooklyn tonite-- on Elmer Berger and the 'foreign nationalism' of Zionism
    • homingpigeon January 27, 2012 at 12:55 am

      I keep realizing that we don't need to debate and argue so much of this stuff. Bright lights have done so already. We just need to bring out their writings into the light of day and see whose analyses and predictions stand the best test of time.

  • Why Christian Zionism is nothing short of outright heresy
    • homingpigeon January 24, 2012 at 12:27 pm

      Oh and I forgot to mention the Red Heifer! That's the best one of all. Check out the article by Laurence Wright in the New Yorker. The first step necessary for things to start happening is for a perfectly red heifer to be ritually sacrificed in the reconstructed temple in Jerusalem. As soon as this Christian fundie in Missouri genetically breeds a perfect red heifer and sends it to Israel, the Jewish part of the group will blow up the Haram to get the sequence of final events on course and speed, rebuild the temple, sacrifice and burn the heifer, and welcome the messiah!

    • homingpigeon January 24, 2012 at 12:20 pm

      Actually, I would have to disagree (but in an agreeable manner). These folks are philo-semitic. It's just as weird as anti-semitism, but just as the anti-semites will dwell on all the faults of Jews, the philo-semites in Christian Zionism dwell on the virtues and blessings bestowed on Jews. Philo-semitism is ultimately as harmful as anti-semitism. In apartheid South Africa, superstitious philo-semitic Boer officers and sergeants, upon hearing there was a Jewish soldier in the unit, would order this soldier to accompany them whenever they went on any dangerous drive or combat mission in the belief that the "lucky Jew" would protect them. The "lucky Jews" were thus exposed to danger more often than anyone. In the case of the philo-semitic Christian Zionists, their backing for the most fanatical irrational of the Israelis is as harmful as any anti-semitism. The prophetic interpretations from some Christians of a certain number of non-converting Jews dying in the final days is just one of many end-times scenarios these people come up with. It is not in itself anti-semitic as they believe just about everyone gets fried, drowned, plagued with locusts or whatever.

    • homingpigeon January 24, 2012 at 1:34 am with 1 replies

      The phenomenon that has led to modern Christian Zionism is more diverse than might seem at first glance. As humans we have a yearning to discern the future, through tea leaves, coffee grounds, the I Ching, the Kabbalah, Tarot cards, and so on. Attempting to decipher and make sense of the various prophets of the Hebrew scriptures (who were ranting, hallucinating, blessing, and cursing according to political and military crises during a specific time) combined with the mad visions in the book of Revelation is part of this phenomenon. Those most successful in this process are the ones who view current events as they happen, and then work backwards to find verses that fit. If there is a war between Egypt and Israel, a verse can be found that fits. If Egypt wins, there will be a verse. If there is peace, another verse can be found. For example, when the space shuttle Columbia crashed, one could refer to Obadiah 4, "Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD." The original verse refers to Edomites that lived on a clifftop in what is now known as Petra in Jordan who managed to annoy Obadiah, but you can titillate people, collect money, and start a cult with this technique.

      Long ago I discovered a Christian Zionist book published before WW II. Author had the name of Rice I think. (Craig did you ever come across him?) He predicted that Mussolini would set up the Jewish State, that Italy would win WWII, and the Jewish State would be the Antichrist.

      Another set of interpretations has it that Israel will be defeated and the survivors will take refuge in Petra. About fifty years ago a fellow went to Petra with Christian evangelical tracts written in Hebrew and wandered around leaving them in the caves for the benefit of the coming refugees. The bewildered Jordanian tourist police invited him to leave.

      The Jehovah's Witnesses figured out that Jesus would return in 1913.

      The Rastafarians have found the considerable number of verses referring to ancient Ethiopia and have developed their own weird Zionism involving Jamaicans going back there. And of course every appearance of the word "herb" refers to cannabis.

      The Iraq wars and verses about Babylon drove TV evangelists into a frenzy. Money was collected!

      There is also the phenomenon of the British Israelites who discerned that the Anglo-Saxons were descended from the lost tribes (Danube = Dan?, etc). Queen Victoria is alleged to have taken this seriously. This theology survives in the Aryan Nations and remnants of the Klan in the US.

      Every crisis in Palestine, from the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD through the Islamic and Crusader and Islamic conquests of the city, provoked predictions of the imminent Second Coming. In modern times it started again with the Napoleanic invasion, got another wind with Allenby capturing Jerusalem from the Turks, and continued to brew with the establishment of Israel in '48, the Israeli capture of East Jerusalem in '67, and every crisis thereafter. It's a good way to make money as an evangelist, or a career as a politician.

    • homingpigeon January 24, 2012 at 12:52 am

      It's true, Christian fundamentalists started on modern Zionism before Herzl was born, and there was more than one source to this unfortunate stream. Scofield was one. There was also a stream within the Anglican Church which manifested itself in Christ Church in Jerusalem, built in 1830 or so in the design of a synagogue, with Hebrew scriptures on the walls. Its mission was, and still is, to preach Christianity to returning Jews.

  • The Mondo crew hosts WBAI’s 'Beyond the Pale' to discuss Ron Paul, Dennis Ross and the myth of Obama's 'Jewish problem'
    • homingpigeon January 21, 2012 at 12:04 pm

      Regarding "liberals" who give higher priority to their concerns with libertarian domestic ideas than what should be their agreement on issues of war and peace abroad, I am reminded of a psychology test I took in my youth.

      At the beginning of my training as a Naval Aviator I was given a thorough test. Before they send us out to drop white phosphorous, napalm, cluster bombs, and nuclear bombs on people they want to make sure we pilots are stable. It was a test similar to what many have taken, with choices, word associations and so on. Does "breast" make you think of a chicken or a woman? etc. One question was so weird I never forgot it. "Would you rather have a door slam on your thumb or vomit on a crowded bus?" Years later I found out that the obvious question was whether you would rather punish yourself or other people. Would you rather pay extra for your gasoline or kill a bunch of people abroad? This I believe is a major question for our society, and the answer given by individuals shows their final stance on questions of war and peace, especially when weighed against their own personal comfort.

      When people shy away from the chance to vote truth against the empire, and when they hesitate to withdraw consent from the artisans of death of the Washington regime for fear that their favorite domestic social programs might be harmed, I think they really don't have a deep understanding of the horrors the war machine inflicts on the planet.

    • homingpigeon January 21, 2012 at 9:08 am

      Thank you for this question about US foreign policy relative to Israel/Palestine.

      Answer: (1) an unconditional ending of all US government funds transfers (i.e. tax money of citizens) to any regime or entity between and including Morocco and Iraq with no exceptions, including Sesame Street.

      (2) an unconditional cancellation of all military alliances with every nation between and including Morocco and Iraq with no exceptions.

      (3) withdrawal of US forces from all nations between and including Morocco and Iraq with no exceptions.

      (4) an end to all military sales to all nations between and including Morocco and Iraq with no exceptions.

      (5) issuing immigrant visas and welcoming deserters from all armed forces from all nations between and including Morocco and Iraq with no exceptions.

      (6) free trade, unsupported by US government intervention, subsidy, or protection, with all nations between and including Morocco and Iraq without exception.

      It's a good policy for the whole world, but you only asked about Israel/Palestine.

      On an individual level, vote for libertarian candidates for everything from President to dog catcher.

  • Bombshell: Israeli intelligence posed as CIA to recruit terror group for covert war on Iran
    • homingpigeon January 15, 2012 at 1:52 am

      In reply to all you Habibis discussing the power dynamics between the Washington regime and Israel --- the mention of dogs and tails and wagging reminds of of a friend who owns a pit bull. It's an expensive one that wants lots of food and makes lots of demands on my friend. He uses the pit bull to intimidate other people but this pit bull has a mind of its own and often goes off and and attacks other people which is why my friend is not so popular. People argue about whether the pit bull or the owner of the pit bull is at fault every time this dog goes rogue. They even get annoyed with each other in the debate. This pit bull, for all the food and pampering from my friend, has even been known to attack my friend himself but this guy loves his pit bull so much he insisted to everyone that it was an honest misunderstanding on the part of the dear dog, his only reliable friend and ally.

  • Ron Paul on Israel
    • homingpigeon January 13, 2012 at 2:54 am with 1 replies

      PS, "you wouldn’t get a tax break for your contribution" Actually, some libertarians would say that everyone should get the tax break for the contribution,whoever it might be to. Current policy gives the tax breaks to those who donate to Zionist projects and prison for those who contribute to Palestinian ones.

    • homingpigeon January 13, 2012 at 2:41 am with 4 replies

      OK Habibis, last one for now on libertarians and our favorite sad subject.

      On this one there are some comrades who would disagree with me. There are some who crank on about dual citizenship and dual loyalty. I have no problem with this as I have dual loyalty, indeed triple and quadruple loyalty myself. Maybe more.

      There is no problem with dual loyalty. I understand why a Jewish American could have a soft spot for Israel as I would understand why a Palestinian American would have the same feelings for Palestine. It is good to have lots of friends and connections around the world. We are made up of immigrants, many of whom will have sentiments to their countries of origin which we cannot turn off with a switch. There are others who through their travels and accidents of history develop attachments. It wasn't my choice to go live in Jordan at the age of one, but that's where my American parents took me and where I was brought up and the Palestinian girl who took care of me taught me everything I needed to know before I was six. Well, nearly everything.

      So this dual loyalty is not a problem when the two countries are allies, but when the two are in conflict it is a problem in our present political situation. Again, I ask my Zionist American friends how they would feel if they lived in a world where there was an alliance with Palestinians equivalent to the current one with Israel, and the situation of Jews in Palestine was equivalent to that of Palestinians now. Their dual loyalty would be very stressful indeed. So in a libertarian society this would not be an issue at all. You could be as loyal as you wanted to a foreign state, as long as you didn't make me contribute to murdering the people I am loyal to. And I won't make you contribute to murdering people you are loyal to.

      But what I'd really like to do is work on the one country solution, and we could all be loyal to it. And let's accomplish this without grovelling and whining and manipulating for tax money out of the Washington regime.

    • homingpigeon January 13, 2012 at 2:23 am with 2 replies

      More on how libertarians think on Israel-Palestine, this time on the matter of personal financial contributions. (Sorry, I'm not always with internet and free time so I have to blast a few off).

      An American citizen should have the right to contribute personal funds to whoever the citizen wishes, regardless of whether I or anyone else approves of the recipient. So you can donate your personal coin to Israel or to Hamas. I would disapprove but not attempt to use the power of the state to stop you.

      And oh yes, you wouldn't get a tax break for your contribution.

      But then again, we're working on repealing the personal income tax anyway, but that's another subject.

    • homingpigeon January 13, 2012 at 2:17 am with 1 replies

      Further on how libertarians would think on Israel-Palestine.......

      While we might disapprove of a citizen joining a foreign army, we would not want the US government to forbid any American citizen from serving in either the Israeli Defense Forces or the Palestinian fighting forces. At the same time we would want the US government to easily and quickly process the visa applications for deserters from either of those armed groups.

      I personally would use every reason I could come up with to persuade a young person not to join the armed forces of any country or movement in the world.

    • homingpigeon January 13, 2012 at 2:12 am with 1 replies

      To process the statement from Ron Paul it is important to clearly understand how libertarians think. Citizens of most nations are conditioned to think that if we like something we must call upon the government to support it and if we don't like something we must call and the government to suppress it and if we want something we need to beg the government to give it to us. Libertarians think exactly the opposite on these things.

      So, on Israel/Palestine - foreign aid and military support should go to no one in the libertarian world view. A citizen offended by Israel should not be compelled to support it via tax money any more than one offended by Hamas should be compelled to support it. Within the libertarian movement there is strong sympathy for the Palestinians and angst about the blank check to Israel. There are also Zionists in the movement who buy into the (incorrect in my view) theory that by subsidizing Israel to the extent that we do, the US has some influence over it. These Zionist oriented libertarians, who I think are few in number, make the case that the US should stop aid in order to give Israel more room to make its own decisions. While the analysis will differ, the conclusions will be the same and the path towards coming to these conclusions are one in which we agree to disagree.

      In conversations with American Zionists who are offended by the idea of cutting off Israel's welfare check, I would ask them how they would feel if they lived in a world in which a Palestinian regime was oppressing Jewish residents of Palestine and in which American politicians had to fall all over each other every election to prove who could send the most money and armament to that Palestinian regime. I suspect they would find the libertarian way of thinking attractive.

  • Israeli Supreme Court upholds discriminatory citizenship law: 'Human rights shouldn’t be a recipe for national suicide'
    • homingpigeon January 13, 2012 at 6:13 am

      fascinating story about your family! Two weeks ago, on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Uganda I sat next to an African with a kippa. I thought maybe he was a Moslem with a small skullcap. But he opened his laptop and was listening to a sermon from a rabbi. (Wasn't trying to peek, but couldn't help it). He wasn't Falasha, I could see that, and he spoke English the way Ugandans do. So I had to ask, and sure enough there is a community of Ugandan Jews. I googled later, being one who has reason to know the tribes of East Africa. Sure enough there is a community living out near Mbale, Uganda called the Abajudaya. Some chief of a small tribe a century ago was pissed off with the English at a time when Ugandans were converting to Islam and Christianity. He decided Judaism was the real thing and started working it out. Some western Jews participated in the process of kosherizing them and here they are, about 1500 of them! Definitely not from ancient Judea, but they are kosher enough to go home to Palestine.

  • Just wars-- and civilian casualties
    • homingpigeon January 9, 2012 at 11:06 pm with 8 replies

      Ok, Habibis, I have a thought exercise. Let's all travel in our imagination to Germany in 1930 something. We have befriended a young seventeen year old physically fit German fellow who is trying to decide what to do with his life. I and several other commentators will do our best to persuade him not to join the German army. I will offer to help him find a way to escape the draft. I will conjure every argument I know against war and service in any nation's death machine. Others when in conversation with this fellow will talk about the virtue of just war and the theories thereof. Others will talk about humanitarian intervention and the merits of protecting the oppressed Finns from the aggressive Soviet invasion. Others will talk of the virtues of this war or that war and what a great honor it is to die for one's country.

      Now who would we hope would win the battle for this fellow's soul? I especially ask those who believe World War II was the goodest war of all to contemplate this.

      My point is that all efforts at just war, humanitarian intervention, "self defense" of the state, or whatever other arguments we contrive to validate military service, are ultimately building blocks in the edifice of our own incineration chamber.

    • homingpigeon January 9, 2012 at 10:45 pm

      I would be honored and amused if Mooser considered me worthy enough to ridicule.

    • homingpigeon January 9, 2012 at 10:42 pm with 21 replies

      Well said! A very strong argument against "just war" is the fact that Walzer could write a whole book about the concept and then shill for Israel's wars as just.

  • Ron Paul's foreign policy should be embraced
    • homingpigeon January 9, 2012 at 11:26 pm with 3 replies

      "Ron Paul’s positions would stop the US from doing immoral things in the world, but they would also stop the US from providing needed assistance."

      Stopping Jack the Ripper would deprive London of the services of a trained surgeon.

    • homingpigeon January 8, 2012 at 11:31 pm

      "True, but isn’t that a reason to oppose almost all wars, with very very few exceptions for cases like WWII?"

      An excellent article but we should examine this insistence on proving the worth of our argument by reassuring readers and listeners that we believe World War II was a good war.

      The alleged goodness of this war is always used as the first argument in favor of any war, and anyone opposing a given war seems to feel called upon to nervously reassure the reader or listener that indeed World War II was a just war. Even the death of civilians will be justified because civilians died in this supposedly most worthy of all wars.

      This phenomenon will be thoroughly examined in the first chapter of the book which refutes the World War II mythology.

  • Is Paul a precursor of a more presentable candidate in 2016?
    • homingpigeon January 9, 2012 at 12:15 am

      Quoting Pat Lang above: "Paul should run as a representative of a new party."

      Teachable moment. Paul actually did run for president on the Libertarian Party ticket in the 80s, and is a life member. The results were miniscule, unfortunately. Although the Libertarian Party has not reached a critical mass, it is the most stable and enduring of all parties that have come into being in the last half century.

      Within the libertarian movement, there is a debate which parallels that of socialist inclined Americans. The question is whether to set up new independent parties or to join and influence the Republicans or Democrats respectively. The arguments for and against are similar in both cases. In the case of libertarians there is a sometimes respectful and sometimes rancorous divide between those who wish to build the party and those who choose to join the Libertarian Republican Caucus. The rise of Ron Paul has boosted the argument of of the latter, and the members of the Party are waiting for the nomination process to complete before deciding whether to run a candidate. In the event that Ron Paul is not nominated, the Libertarian Party will run a candidate, possibly Gary Johnson. It is hoped that the Ron Paul people will then turn to the Libertarian Party.

    • homingpigeon January 8, 2012 at 11:40 pm with 1 replies

      Yes, that means AIPAC could give all the money they want to a politician. However said politician would be unable to give our tax money to Israel or work to compel American military allegiance to it.

    • homingpigeon January 7, 2012 at 2:08 pm

      We have focused on how out front the man is on issues of foreign policy and war. But libertarians are also the most tolerant on issues of immigration. I wonder when the attack will start on that. It will be curious to see how the liberal Democrats and progressives will deal with someone who is most compassionate about the right of foreign born people to earn an honest living within our borders and send some income home to their families. How will they try to diss this spontaneous transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor, and how will they sneer at this wonderfully just and efficient manifestation of people's foreign aid.

    • homingpigeon January 7, 2012 at 1:51 pm with 1 replies

      For all that the mainstream media have tried to ignore Paul, it might be that he gets plenty of great publicity from liberal social fascists who are freaked that a free marketeer is more peace oriented than anyone they can come up with. What impressive discussions come up in comment sections whenever a liberal Democrat attempts to twist up a case that libertarian social theories are more horrifying than their own white phosphorous, their cluster bombs, their ghastly humanitarian wars, the gutting of the Constitution by their darling President, and on and on........!!!

      The attacks against Ron Paul invite responses and hence more publicity and opportunity to discuss libertarian concepts. It's wonderful!

  • Ron Paul's antiwar position is simpleminded
    • homingpigeon January 7, 2012 at 1:29 pm with 2 replies

      Now as far as Ron Paul goes, may we remind ourselves that we are not trying to elect a Pope on the basis of infallibility. It is foreign intervention and war waged by the American death machine. The quibbling about anything else in Ron Paul's program shows how little people really know about the realities of war. To even list it on the same balance sheet as domestic social programs is absolutely ghastly. I'm thinking that if there were Roman Senators who were speaking against massacring villages in Gaul and nailing dissidents to crosses there where a bunch of liberal Romans whining about possible cutbacks in subsidies for the bread and circuses for the mobs, renovations to the stadium, maintenance of the public baths and so on.

    • homingpigeon January 7, 2012 at 1:18 pm with 1 replies

      I see the foundations of something very troubling in the essay. No, not "everyone" thinks World War II was a just war. With the right amount of time I can make a very articulate case. But that is not the point. Where do you get off saying "everyone"? There's a body of literature and argument against it. I even know a holocaust survivor who lost a mother in Auschwitz and suffered through Dresden who makes a convincing case against it being a just war. Whether you like it or not, we do exist.

      And as for just war theories, I am not impressed. The just wars will require that certain conditions be met. Those wishing to make a war have the power to convince us that those conditions have been met - a la Kuwaiti babies being thrown out of their incubators. By the time we discover that we have been misled, the war is long over.

    • homingpigeon January 7, 2012 at 9:44 am

      I think the people of the world have had to try to defend themselves from the occupiers of the North American continent since 1492.

  • Ron Paul challenges liberals on love of 'big finance' and 'big-ass wars'
    • homingpigeon January 1, 2012 at 6:54 am with 1 replies

      Much of the discussion by my Habibi commentators above uses the words "right" and "left." These terms, originally used to describe the seating arrangements which separated quarrelsome factions in one of the French Parliaments, are inadequate, indeed meaningless, for analyzing current events.

      In libertarian thinking the concern is whether a particular process empowers or dis-empowers the state. This is the dividing line. Hence one finds people as disparate as John Birchers on the one hand and Catholic Worker anarchists on the other under the libertarian umbrella.

      But the mainstream of the movement is made of up regular people who don't approve of the violent imperial interventions abroad or the intrusive social fascist interventions at home.

  • More responses to Ron Paul's surge
    • homingpigeon January 1, 2012 at 7:21 am

      This Ron Paul surge is defying expectations and analysis. I'm reminded of when we all (I mean those of us of a certain age) thought that the Romanian dictator Ceaucescu had no significant opposition, when one day at the back of the crowd some people started spontaneously heckling his speech and the next thing we knew the whole crowd was howling. Not long after that he was led off to the firing squad.

      Not that I want these artisans of death who rule us shot. They need to work as orderlies in VA hospitals for the rest of their lives. Or clear landmines, clean up toxic military waste, and so on.

    • homingpigeon January 1, 2012 at 7:08 am

      "The U.S. also provides humanitarian aid that is meant to fight disease, dire poverty, starvation, the impact of natiural disasters, discimination against women and all kinds of other evils. Paul would ban all such aid."

      Paul and other libertarians would not ban such aid at all. They would welcome you contributing voluntarily. They would not force to contribute if you do not feel called to do so.

  • Ron Paul prose on Israel allegedly makes woman cry
    • homingpigeon December 30, 2011 at 2:32 am

      Heh heh, I can assure you it was a parody. There was a young fellow, slightly unbalanced, who made a hysterical crying video telling people to "Leave Britney Spears alone." It's worth watching. Then this young lady made one about Israel, using the same language, gestures and so on.

  • Ron Paul's stunning antiwar performance: Iran threat recalls Iraq, 'a useless war that killed 1 million Iraqis' and 8000 Americans
    • homingpigeon December 16, 2011 at 5:39 pm

      Stopaipac, please consider that the Roman Legions are wiping out entire villages in France, capturing slaves, nailing dissidents on crosses. We have someone trying to put an end to this. Should our first concern be bread and circuses for the mobs of Rome? And maybe fixing the cracks in the Coliseum?

    • homingpigeon December 16, 2011 at 5:33 pm

      I can't help wondering if when journalists write this stuff to diss Ron Paul they are actually attracting favorable attention to his views.

    • homingpigeon December 16, 2011 at 5:31 pm

      Habibi Mooser you have described exactly the type of capitalism that libertarians OPPOSE, not support. We use this turn of phrase ("privatizing profits and socializing costs and losses") to describe the imperialism and corporatism of the status quo. In true free enterprise the government, meaning the taxpayer, would not pay for armies or mercenaries to protect investments abroad, nor would it subsidize any enterprise nor would it protect any enterprise from competition.

      Closer to my heart, and to yours, would be the concept that the state does not have the right to choose friends and enemies for its citizens, and further does not have the right to force all taxpaying citizens to subsidize those friends and harm those enemies.

  • 'New Yorker' editor tells American readers one thing-- and Israeli readers something else
    • homingpigeon December 15, 2011 at 11:48 am

      I like bringing up the example of Jamaica and specifically the Rastafarians. They have their own weird sort of Zionism, with selective reading of Biblical verses promising God's blessing to the ancient Ethiopians and Cushites, and further believe they are the legitimate heirs to those blessings. (For good measure every appearance of the word "herb" is interpreted as marijuana). But these folk are not stealing land from anyone, they have not manipulated the US Congress into falling all over each other seeing who can increase the welfare check to an artificial Rasta nation which is wreaking havoc on another indiginous people across the water.

      Their music is nice too.

  • A single-state vision must go beyond Israel vs Palestine, and be inclusive
    • homingpigeon December 14, 2011 at 6:17 pm

      I am reminded of a few lines from Mahmoud Darwish's State of Siege, as translated by Fady Joudah:

      "....Then we'll disagree over everything: over the design of the national flag
      (you would do well my living people if you chose the symbol of the simpleton donkey)
      and we'll disagree over the new anthem
      (you would do well if you choose a song about the marriage of doves)....."

      One important point, very important, is that in the original Arabic it is pigeons, not doves!

      Anyway, when we see the enlightenment which would bring the one country solution to fruition, I suspect the name will not be a contentious issue. But I really like the idea of a flag with a donkey on it.

  • JNF board member resigns over eviction of Palestinian family in Silwan
    • homingpigeon December 14, 2011 at 6:51 am with 6 replies

      When someone on the wrong side of justice makes a principled choice to move in an ethical direction we should welcome that person. It is destructive to the cause to chastise them for their past misdeeds while they are in the process of trying to make amends and move to the camp of decency. We should extend the hand of friendship and welcome. Maybe in a year or two this fellow will be an articulate advocate for the one country solution.

  • Obama ad attacks Romney, Gingrich and Perry for wanting to cut aid to Israel
    • homingpigeon December 12, 2011 at 12:07 pm with 1 replies

      I just predicted it on this blog two days ago but I thought it would take a little longer than that to come true. But again, what disturbs me every election is that so many of my friends who understand the Palestine issue will put it aside and vote for a Zionist American sharmoot politician based on other platform issues. And I even have Palestinian friends who do this, Ya LaTiif!

      We need to persistently communicate to these politicians that as long as they compete to see who can be the most extreme Zionist, we will vote for neither.

      The Libertarian will get my vote, but if you aHbaab (Habibis) have problems with them at least vote Green or write in something.

  • Gingrich comment that Palestinians are an 'invented people' enters primary debate
    • homingpigeon December 12, 2011 at 12:41 pm with 3 replies

      I agree with NorthofFortynine so much! Too often we allow the Zionists to set the terms for the debate and end up their countering absurdities with other absurdities - the Big Swinging Dick Contest, as you put it. In the past I have given "eggplant alerts." A Hasbarist announces that Israel has the right to the land because they were the first to cultivate eggplants and friends of the Palestinians work themselves into a frenzy trying to prove that the Palestinians were the ones who invented the eggplants.

      So we do have to return to the individual rights, including property rights, and the rights of individuals to live in their ancestral towns even if they own no real estate. It does not matter if Palestine was ever a state, if the Palestinians ever existed as a "people," if Jerusalem is mentioned more times in the Torah than the Koran, if Trans-Jordan was governed under the Palestine Mandate adminstration for a brief period, if the word Palestine was imposed by Emperor Trajan or used by Pliny 500 years earlier, if Jews are descended from the ancient inhabitants or if they are Khazar converts, or if the Palestinians are descended from the nomads from Arabia or the ancient Canaanites.

      We must break away from the eggplant cultivation debates and focus on the fact that a community of people lived between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. They were descended from a mix of all peoples who had ever lived in or conquered the land, and there were several minorities that hadn't quite mixed in. They overwhelmingly spoke Arabic along with a smattering of other languages. They were predominantly Muslim with a few dozen religious minorities (counting all the Christian sub-sects). The majority had written history of their presence in the land on specific locations far longer than that of the immigrant civilization of North America. And there were a few who were more recent arrivals - a Bosnian village here, and Uzbek community there, and an African quarter there. (That's a bone for you Hasbarists to play with).

      And the fundamental truth remains that the bulk of these people were either wrenched from their homes and farms by Zionist immigrants or allowed to remain under a harassing military occupation. And it didn't stop with the initial onslaught - it happened to one more house yesterday, is happening to one more farm today, and will happen to one more olive orchard tomorrow.

      Foreign immigrants are dispossessing indigenous people - we must hold our focus on that core fact.

    • homingpigeon December 11, 2011 at 3:47 pm

      The Democrats will compete to be more extreme on this issue than the Republicans. But what is disheartening is that so many good people will support the perceived lesser of two evils, thus colluding with and enabling the process.

  • Why the tight security at J Street president's Syracuse talk?
  • Game changer: Hillary says Israeli restrictions on women remind her of Rosa Parks and Iran
  • Sabra alternative: Inching towards social responsibility at DePaul University
    • homingpigeon November 24, 2011 at 6:14 am

      Interesting brand name "Sabra." It contains so much of the nature of the conflict in layers of meaning and metaphor.

      Sabra the Hummous would be named after "sabra," the word used to describe Jewish Israelis actually born in the land, to distinguish them from the immigrant Israelis. In the mid eighties, the number of "sabras" rose to equal about one half of the Jewish population. The proportion slipped in the early nineties with the arrival of immigrants from the Soviet Union. Not sure what the proportion is now, but it would be approximately half sabra.

      Those slightly well-read in America know that this word was chosen for the native born Israeli in reference to the sabra cactus, or prickly pear, which is "tough on the outside but sweet inside."

      But there is another layer. The name of the fruit is actually the Arabic name for it. And the Arabic name means "patience." When I ignored warnings about fifty years ago and picked one with my bare hands and found them filled with the almost microscopic fuzzy looking thorns the local kids I was with explained that you needed patience to get to this fruit and hence its name. (Sabr is the abstract and collective word and sabra the singular).

      And there's more. This cactus is an excellent natural fencing, an organic barbed wire. You plant it around your gardens to keep the goats out. (Unfortunately camels will eat their way right through it though). But the roots remain indestructible. Chop down, burn, or bulldoze the sabra cactus, and it will grow back. So the best efforts to destroy the evidence of Palestinian villages are frustrated by the resilient sabra which continues to sprout and remind us of that another people had gardens here.

  • Kissinger: 'Is there a more self-serving group of people than the Jewish community?'
    • homingpigeon November 19, 2011 at 9:47 am

      There's another story behind this story:

      "Among the appeals flooding the White House was one from the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to President Richard Nixon in August 1972 asking him to protest to the Kremlin its levying of fees for exit permits."

      Members of the US Senate, falling all over each other in an effort to please AIPAC, jumped the gun one day and drafted legislation to penalize nations which charged fees for their citizens to emigrate. (The penalties related to free trade, tariffs, and so on if I remember correctly). Just as the bill was on its way out of committee, AIPAC discretely got in touch with the esteemed members, and essentially said, "ahem, that bill isn't really helpful because we charge fees for Israelis who want to emigrate." The idea was quietly dropped. In both cases, the excuse for the fees was the same, - that money had been spent educating the said citizens.

  • Romney promises to abdicate American foreign policy towards Israel . . . to Israel
    • homingpigeon October 29, 2011 at 4:08 am

      I accept and understand that the campaign between the Republican and Democratic candidates will be to see who can be most subservient to the most extreme tendencies in Israel. What disturbs me more though every election is that so many of my friends who have a more sophisticated understanding of the issue, be they liberal Zionists with a pretense of a guilty conscience about the Palestinians, be they anti-Zionist Jews, be they "pro-Palestinian" Americans, or even be they Palestinian-Americans, will vote for the lesser of two evils on other issues, and thus enable the perverse process.

      Meanwhile the American Likudniks will care only about a commitment to increasing the size of the welfare check to Israel and increasing the level of diplomatic and military support to Zionism. All other issues are irrelevant.

      An American politician will have nothing to fear from people of conscience on this subject as long as this process continues. Only when we have the courage to reject the candidates from both major parties, and make them aware of our rejection, will there be a chance of a shift.

      I vote Libertarian, but hope that good people will choose any third party or an independent candidate.

  • In Cairo, the SCAF consecrates sectarian bloodshed

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