Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 12 (since 2010-01-12 21:13:02)

concerned, for a long time

Showing comments 12 - 1
Page: 1

• Anti-Muslim law enforcement trainer cited by Norway killer rakes in U.S. taxpayer cash
  • JBL July 27, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    Agree with Donald. The Oslo massacres should be a wake-up call to European governments to stop allowing Israel and its friends to incite anti-islamic paranoia. Breivik went one step beyond the programmed response - hate and fear muslims - and attacked his own society. He believed the propaganda. When it starts costing you the lives of your "best and brightest", maybe governments - even in the US - will realize that the poison of islamophobia is no longer acceptable. CNN's handling of Walid Shoebat and other recent stories linking Breivik to the Israel lobby is a positive sign that our societies have had enough.

• Libya/Gaza
  • JBL March 20, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    Gaddafi is a minor irritant compared to this obscene sham of yet another "humanitarian intervention" designed to re-colonize another Arab country with lots of oil.

• Guilty of being Muslim: A review of 'Entrapped'
  • JBL October 19, 2010 at 11:36 pm with 1 replies

    I thought there were laws against entrapment?
    Anyway, these cases demonstrate that the line between fact and fantasy is getting very fuzzy. Another example is the recent "Couple Accused of Passing [Nuclear] Secrets to Venezuela" case. The New York Times told us, on 20 September:

    [first paragraph]
    ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — A physicist and his wife who are accused of trying to help Venezuela develop a nuclear weapon pleaded not guilty on Monday.
    [10th and final paragraph]
    In a 22-count indictment issued Friday, the couple were accused of offering to help develop a nuclear weapon for Venezuela through dealings with an undercover F.B.I. agent who was posing as a representative of Venezuela. The government is not making the accusation that Venezuela or anyone working for it sought American secrets.
    link to nytimes.com

    What can you say?

• Islamaphobia, sexism and American demagoguery in the 21st century
  • JBL September 11, 2010 at 12:46 am

    Exactly, eljay! 9/11 is our annual two-minutes' hate, where the paranoia is renewed. That's why we have headlines now like "Islam controversies cast shadow over 9/11 events". Cast shadow? But that's the whole objective of the 9/11 celebrations. Us-and-them, divide-and-rule. But take a good look at this puppet show - this "pastor's church" has 50 "faithful", and the demonstrations of "outraged Muslims" attracted 300 people in Indonesia, and another couple of hundred in Afghanistan. And look at what the outrage produced - some deluded fool "would-be suicide bomber" in Denmark who tries to blow himself up in a hotel toilet. That's the global Islamic threat, along with that other guy with something inflammable in his underpants. The "Muslim world" is as much a mass hallucination as the other player, the "Christian world" (also known as our "Judeo-Christian civilization").

• From Shatila Camp-- What does the right of return mean in 2010?
  • JBL July 30, 2010 at 4:35 pm with 1 replies

    Wow, thanks Walid. Truly awesome.
    Yes, we all wish... truth, justice, that whole 50s thing, but the reality is those Palestinians - and we love them, we really do - should get used to, well, the sad truth, that they really have no rights and Israel is - and let's be brutally frank - ruthless, so it's useless bothering them with this right of return stuff. In the end, it is all the Arabs' fault.

• Jewish group said to prepare boat to go to Gaza
  • JBL June 5, 2010 at 12:15 pm with 3 replies

    The BBC is always flabbergasting. This is from their "Q&A: Israeli raid on aid flotilla":
    link to news.bbc.co.uk

    1. How did the confrontation begin?
    The six ships were boarded in international waters, about 80 miles from the Israeli coast. Commandos landed on the largest ship by descending on ropes from helicopters. They were attacked by the activists on board and opened fire.
    2. Who started the violence?

    Seriously.

• Now, Goldstone is trying to delegitimize US sovereignty (and maybe impose Sharia law too)
  • JBL May 5, 2010 at 11:38 am with 2 replies

    ...and "complimenting" is probably not what she meant.

  • JBL May 5, 2010 at 11:37 am

    I particularly liked this part of the speech (emphasis not added):
    In this sense we are all Israelis and our counter-lawfare strategy must be a multi-faceted plan that recognizes the role lawfare plays in complimenting violent strategies
    Whaddaya mean "we", white man?
    Apart from that "lawfare" is a dud name.

• How's life on the planet of Israeli hasbara, Thomas Friedman?
  • JBL March 29, 2010 at 4:52 pm with 5 replies

    I've been re-reading (browsing) From Beirut to Jerusalem, Friedman's book of 1989. Back then, it had a weird effect - he'd witnessed Israel's invasion of Lebanon, Sabra and Shatila, and the first intifada, and it seemed to me he had built a water-tight case proving Israel was racist state that systematically denied the existence, not just the rights, of the population it had dispossessed. Then, when he got to "Now how I'd solve this mess" at the end, it was shock - basically "I'd tell the Palestinians, forget it. You are getting nothing more. This is ours. Shit happens. To avoid having to give back the stolen goods, we will grant you a castrated mini-state for the rest of eternity, and if you ever even dream of crossing us, you go back to square one." I'm paraphrasing, but that was the spirit of it.

    It struck me that Friedman could not really see what he was so clever at describing. For example, he visits a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon where two PLO factions have battled for control and two women discover their house has been looted. Friedman describes how they tear at their clothes and wail in grief, protesting to the new guards, "for 10 years we worked, now everything is gone, you took it!" At which point Friedman is "on the verge of tears myself, before the other woman started to scream at the top of her lungs: 'We are not Jews! We are not Jews! Why did you do this to us?'" Which Friedman, heart quickly turning to stone, takes as just one more reminder of "how visceral and tribal this conflict really is".

• 'Dennis Ross more sensitive to Netanyahu than US interests' (Surprised?)
  • JBL March 28, 2010 at 2:14 pm with 1 replies

    The NYT pieces includes this:
    "Iran also conducts terror attacks against European targets, in hopes that governments there will turn on Israel and the United States. "
    ...which is straight out of the War on Terror comic book (the cringing French, the cowardly Spanish).
    In vain I search for some key word in either piece that indicates concern over the effects on life in Iran of having several nuclear production plants blown up - words like "fall out", "radiation" and "Chernobyl", even "Three Mile Island".
    How do we let leaders, opinion-makers and news media get away with that?

• The New Yorientalist Times
  • JBL March 26, 2010 at 10:47 am

    It's not just the New York Times. The BBC also has a tendency to gloss over the facts about settlements, although the latest formulation is probably an improvement:
    "They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. "
    link to news.bbc.co.uk
    Search Google News for "disputed East Jerusalem" and you get 2,541 pages; for "occupied East Jerusalem" 1,084. But, interestingly, the tables are turned - 1,110,000 to 3,240,000 - if you search the web, not the "News" sources.

• CNN viewers: Time for the US to get tough with Israel
  • JBL March 19, 2010 at 2:15 am

    Evenin' all.
    In these cases, scan for the "O" word. McCafferty prefers to say "disputed East Jerusalem". Maureen Dowd also uses "disputed" (link to nytimes.com), which is also the standard NYT adjective.
    Not a promising sign.

Showing comments 12 - 1
Page: 1