Total number of comments: 9 (since 2012-02-16 22:03:16)
Born in 1965 into a non-practicing Jewish family. Grew up in upstate New York and, unfortunately, still live there. I'm a failed musician and spend most of my free time and spare energy (neither of which are bountiful...) trying to learn/write about the conflict.
Oh snap! Didn't know this was up here. I was directed here yesterday after I received info from a tweet by Max B. I think... Thanks Annie :)
endtheoccupation.org had a video "contest" recently for ads countering the sodasatream super bowl ad. i found out a bit late and only had half a day to put mine together, but here it is anyway:
link to youtube.com
i assume there's no way to embed video here so click on the above link if interested. some of the other vids were worth a viewing as well. maybe some folks saw them and thought twice about buying sodastream afterward. a guy can dream :)
too bad we didn't have 3 million dollars to waste like sodastream did to buy time actual air time during the super bowl...
agreed American. the second i heard about this bus bombing i thought the same. i guess we'll see.
and by way of showing this kind of thinking is not what simpletons would label "conspiracy theory," from David Remnick’s “The Vegetarian” in The New Yorker magazine, 9/3/12:
“[Reporters] Yigal Sarna and Anat Tal-Shir once investigated a story that, before the Israeli’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon… Meir Dagan (former Mossad director) led a secret unit across the border whose mission was to instigate terrorist events that would justify an incursion. Military censors killed the story..."
and this - from a 1976 interview where Moshe Dayan talks about a relatedly devious Israeli technique (used just pre '67 6-day war) in provoking hostilities while making it seem like the Arabs/Palestinians are responsible for the escalation:
"We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was..."
we don't know yet about the bus bombing. but since there has been no claim of responsibility yet, and considering the above historical facts/anecdotes, thinking it may have been administered by the Israelis themselves is in no way an absurd idea.
Great article Alice! I wish I could've been with you.
Thank you.
Hey seafoid. I assume the "Nice try" was for me? That reads to me like some kind of accusation of me trying to justify Israeli actions (ie: Operation Cast Lead) or of my trying to play down the war crime that was OCL. You have no idea how offensive that is to me.
From my understanding the generally accepted/agreed upon number of Palestinian civilian casualties during OCL is approximately 700-800. This means, B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, etc… While I understand the argument that the number may be higher depending upon differing classifications of “civilian” vs. “combatant” (police, etc...), making a blanket statement like “All 1,400 were civilians…” is not useful. Why is it not useful? Because it gives Israel apologists something to point to and say crap like, “Look! The Israel haters lie w/ their statistics to justify their hatred of Israel. Why do they hate us?!” You’re giving them ammunition. And so is Rosenberg by putting it in "print." Don’t give them the chance to say that shit. Isn’t the conservative estimate of 700 civilians killed, 300 of them children, horrific enough? Of course it is. And since it’s accepted, it can’t be argued against. It was a massacre even by the conservative estimate. I say stick w/ that for now and don't give the apologists a chance to evade the truth of the crime by giving them the chance to focus on some other detail.
Decent article by Rosenberg. Except this:
"...I say tell that to the people of Gaza, including the 1400 civilians (300 kids) who heard all about that context in 2009-2010."
This seems to be referencing Operation Cast Lead (OCL), right? With the numbers that are used, the dual-year date marker "2009-2010," and the specification of Gaza - Rosenberg must be referencing OCL, right? What else could he possibly be referring to? I agree w/ his point about "contextualizing," but with an event this historic, he's got to get his facts right. And since Mondoweiss put this article up on their site (presumably having read it through), they need to get it right as well. It wasn't 1,400 civilians killed in OCL, it was approximately 700. 1,400 is the number of total palestinians killed (I use the word massacred). And it wasn't 2009-2010. It was 2008-2009.
Sure, some people could say that parsing numbers and details like these is unimportant. I'm not among them. Get it right.
That being said, I would be interested to read your longer take on J Street. Perhaps MW could give you my email address (fine with me) or forward your essay to me.
I'd be more than happy to forward/send you the little essay on my J Street experience. That's nice of you to be interested. But I don't know how :( I'm totally new to the board here and it seems there is no way to "private message" another member on the board. Maybe I'm missing something simple? At the moment I'd prefer to not put my private email up here. However, I have listed my little youtube channel address in my personal info here at mondo. If you have a youtube account maybe you could message me over there?
Hey David (and Mondoweiss…).
General info: while the New School may have recorded the event, there was a gentleman there from C-Span as well who told me that it would be up on their site shortly.
I also attended this talk/debate and like you, David, was also very impressed w/ Baltzer.
There was disagreement over the term Zionism. Norman argued that it should be avoided, because it means different things to different people… Anna responded that we have no business telling or advising Palestinians not to use the word…
This awesome exchange brought us the most hilarious soundbite of the afternoon from NF: “For most people, Zionism is a hairspray.” Priceless! While I agree w/ NF about the currently confused nature of the term “Zionism/Zionist,” by no means should anyone be told not to use the term. If you’re speaking w/ someone who uses the word, and you’re not sure what they mean by it, simply ask them, “What do you mean Zionist?” NF should not be in the business of trying to restrict someone else’s language but simply holding them accountable for how they use it. Many words are slippery and broad in meaning – shifting in specifics from context to context. People have different views of the term/word “Jew.” Is it a religion, a race, a culture, a nationality, etc… Should we stop using that word as well? Or should we simply demand clarity when it is needed? I, and it seems Baltzer, side w/ clarity and not the unnecessary narrowing of language. This is particularly personal for Baltzer as she is, from what understand, involved w/ IJAN (Internat’l Jewish Anti-Zionist Network). Somehow this reminds me of an old SNL mock TV commercial: “It’s a floor wax – No, it’s a dessert topping. Wait: It’s both!”
Anna had an excellent line about J Street. While expressing her differences with the organization, she called it a “gateway drug,” explaining that Jews who are attracted to its message as an alternative to AIPAC could be persuaded to move further along and leave J Street behind
While this may have worked for you David, I’m personally skeptical. I had a very negative experience w/ JStreet and feel they may even be harmful. I wrote up a JStreet event I attended a while ago, but it was unfortunately too long for publication here a Mondoweiss. (I’d be more than happy to send my little article to anyone who is interested. Just lemme know). The “Gateway Drug” analogy for me is suspect. JStreet puts itself across as a “Progressive/Liberal” organization representing the majority view of American Jewry. From where I stand, it is no such thing. But American Jews who hear the words “Liberal, Progressive, Majority” and want to start learning about the conflict may join because they consider themselves to be progressives. My fear is that people starting out learning about the conflict from JStreet will be convinced that JStreet’s stance is actually “progressive” because that’s what they’re being told. This contributes to the general deterioration of the true “Liberal Left,” similar to what is detailed in Hedges’ “Death Of The Liberal Class.” JStreet is a very slick scam imo.
The last question selected by Shatz for the Q&A happened to be from me. And, imo, Shatz showed some chutzpah for choosing it. It brought up the issue of the ubiquitous Two State Solution vs. the increasingly proposed One State Solution. For me, this is where I have the biggest issue w/ NF. He is completely and immediately dismissive of even discussing the possibility - to the point of close-minded condescension. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve read a good amount of NF, seen him speak twice and have a HUGE amount of respect and admiration for the man. I don’t see that ever changing. But I feel on this issue he has something of a “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” syndrome happening. He’s been focused like a laser beam on the Two State Solution for, what, 30 years now? After all that time and professional/emotional energy spent, switching from that to a quite different attitude could be, dare I say, near impossible and maybe too much to ask. Though I disagree w/ him on his dismissiveness of the option, I can understand his inability to wrap his head around its possibility. As for his spoken justifications for the Two State Solution being the only solution worthy of consideration, I may try to write something more on that after the video is published. He has a very specific reason for his argument, and I have a very specific reason I disagree w/ his argument.
Hello Mondoweiss ☺
u-s-officers-in-israel-for-military-exercise
However.
Time said Washington had reduced the number of military staff going to Israel, as well as the number and strength of missile defence systems that would be used during operation Austere Challenge 12.
Of the initial 5,000 US troops lined up to take part in the exercises, only up to 1,500 will take part. US Patriot missiles will be sent as originally planned, but not the crews that were to operate the batteries, Time said.
In addition, only one of two Aegis anti-missile cruisers is bound for Israel, and even this is not certain, according to the magazine.
Raw Story (link to s.tt