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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
This is merely one of the flood of articles which are designed to massage public opinion into thinking that war is inevitable, and that nobody can stop the process which has started. The same thing happened over Iraq, it is all part of the strategy of priming the media and the public so that in time it almost seems impossible to halt the juggernaut and there is a resigned apathy over it. In the midst of it all, the facts become irrelevant, since repetition (of lies and deception) is fundamental to propaganda. And the question that gets obscured and never asked is 'what threat exactly is Iran to the US?' The impression that Iran has nuclear weapons, and that they are irrational is enough, regardless of the truth. It worked for Iraq, with the same people cheerleading the propaganda.
No, it's whole strategy is to use US lives and money to carry out its demented, deathly policies. Israel won't have to sacrifice a thing, indeed it can use it as a pretext for more ethnic cleansing. Iran is not a threat to anybody. Israel manifestly is.
What a shame the US didn't turn up. Instead, in their place, an invasion of soulless bodysnatchers who impersonated US negotiators but were in fact swivel-eyed Israelis hellbent on provoking war and mayhem, not to mention spilling the blood of US kids and trillions of dollars of US taxes, with no cost to them. Shame on their murderous tactics.
You have a great penchant for changing the meaning of words whenever it suits your purpose. The usual cliched hasbara about the Arabs and partition just to spice the nonsense up.
What deluded nonsensical condescending platitudes. apparently you have no concept of who the aggressor is, in your blinkered world.
Fredblags, What a ridiculous and pompous crock. listen to yourself patronise the Palestinians who have been a 'people' in your elastic and random definition for thousands of years, yet you arbitrarily decide, for political advantage to decree 1967 as a start date. How long have zionist jews, as opposed to ordinary jews been a 'people'? since 1948? What a stupid game you play, making up definitions as it suits your ill-disguised prejudice and bigotry. You are making yourself out to be a bigger fool than you think, with all this childish "I can make a word mean whatever I want it to". Your 'people' concept is entirely bogus, and constructed to excuse the usual lies, bigotry, prejudice and hatred of the apartheid state.
Thanks, American. What an extraordinary story, and great example of the myth making machine in action. If it's not true, hey just make it up, but make sure it can never apply to anybody else. What a farcical ideology.
So if you 'self-identify' as a group, then all the myths and prejudices of that group are valid, over the rights and lives of others? Yes, you have very deep arguments, thousands of years of justification for theft, occupation and apartheid. All those scholars and this is the best you can come up with?
Now you're making it up, whilst indulging in existence-of-the-Palestinian-People denial.
right, so let's apply the same standards to Jews who claim some mystical 'right' to take over Palestinian farms, land and water, yet have no direct relations who ever had anything to do with Palestine.
Well whaddya know, the mob coughed up some hush money
If the talks were conducted by countries in good faith with a modicum of intelligence, I have no doubt that an agreement would be reached, one which all sane people would welcome. Unfortunately, one of the most eye-popping aspects of this round is the ease with which Israel has dictated the US position, taken over its Congress and put it in a position where Iran cannot trust it. How humiliated the US are by the upstart hooligan wanting other people to fight on their behalf.
The best hope is that the other countries (barring the UK, who are desperate to suck up to big brother) will make headway with a rational agreement, isolating the US/Israel, highlighting the indefensibility of their aggressive attitude. Israel is behaving like a demented dictator, although I believe it has an ulterior motive much closer to home, aka transfer and ethnic cleansing, under the cover of more US bodybags.
You, of course, consider yourself well placed to apportion blame to millions of Europeans, as well as sneerily undermining Caroline's heartfelt story, the moral of which you seem unable to understand.
Well done, a typically sour, ungracious irrelevant attempt to divert from the theme and the main point of a very well written and humane article.
Everything about it is pseudo. It is not their home, it is the home of the people who have actually lived there, built the houses and farmed the land for generations. You deny their right to their own home, and make up fantasies about returning somewhere you have never been to. Delegitimisation and the denial of their right to exist. Ugly.
So if you're Jewish it is incumbent on you to supports fascists like Lieberman, and apartheid? sounds like a good argument to leave the klan and join the human race.
What cock-eyed self-serving nonsense. Read the rabbi's eloquence and at least make an effort to understand what he is saying regarding the terror that the Jewish state is built on, instead of making cheap accusations with the absurd cliches which allow you to avoid the truth. Another one in complete denial. You not only miss the bigger picture, you paint a lurid parody of the truth with a typically distorted picture beyond all recognition.
Oh come on with the cheap hasbara, the rabbi deserves a lot more respect than such drivel.
Ah, a segregationist, and non-humanist. That's a pretty selective Judaism.
What a fantastic, powerful and moving post. Every zionist and their supporters should be forced to read and understand this before opening their mouths and spouting inane defences of their racism, apartheid and utterly inhumane policies. Thank goodness there are some decent, intelligent and ethical people prepared to rescue Judaism from the evil that zionism has done to it.
" they stole all the money in my husband’s pocket, which was over 3,000 shekels. You know what they did? They put a dollar bill. My husband didn’t have any dollar bills. One dollar bill, that was all that was in the wallet. To me, that’s basically telling me, there, America paid for the bullet, one of the bullets that hit my husband."
In a nutshell. A gangster tactic. cold blooded murder and petty theft from a corpse. all implicitly approved of and funded by US zealots. No it's not a 'rogue' individual. It is an entire culture, racist, supremacist and protected by an apartheid legal system.
A powerful and eloquent plea for justice and a modicum of humanity from the killers and their state. I wouldn't be hopeful, based on past evidence, and their indifference to human life which doesn't belong to their shabby, squalid klan.
So the Israeli courts are never, ever biased, the judges always impartial and never ignore the overwhelming evidence? (rolls eyes) On what fantasy planet is that?
How do you know that he collected 'samples'. Before going off on your usual fact free excuse binge, please provide some evidence.
How naive are you? What a senseless comment. Maybe when Israel knocks off the terrorism and the propaganda some people might start thinking about their racist attitudes. But I doubt it.
They aren't police in the normal sense of the word. As usual you haven't a clue.
Never lose a chance to defend the militia, do you. What was the offence? Holding a Palestinian flag - yeah, those 10 year olds, real criminals for doing that - as we know Israel locks up kids without trial, just to punish them and their parents. Where is your defence that this is normal in every country? Interfering with/assaulting kids is a crime in every country, whether by police or anyone. Not that you care.
Just bear in mind that these fascist and racist settlers are the people that Yahoo is manipulating the US to protect and enable through being embedded in endless wars, expenditure and the lives of its service men and women. A sobering thought. Bill Kristol and co are effectively cheerleading for these morons to maintain their lifestyles.
Thanks, tree, for clarification. What a bunch of racist goons they sound. And their sock puppets think we should believe their version of events, especially when they have a track record of arson and racist attacks? Please.
So you unquestioningly and credulously accept the IDF and the settlers' accounts, in spite of the evidence? I wonder why that would be, considering their track record. You believe what you want to believe, and have no interest in the rights of the people whose land it is, and have lived there for generations, whilst promoting the interest of a subsidised people who have no connection to the region and are protected by a foreign militia.
Yes, that Iraq war has really calmed the nerves of the hundreds of thousands dead and disfigured, not to mention the thousands of US vets with amputations. And those Afghanistan families who were bombed by drones, their nerves are shredded beyond calm now. The Gazans nerves must be calmer since the Israelis attacked them violently and put them under lock and key. And all so some people can feel the machismo of their 'mettle'.
What hideous, warped minds actually think like this? Oh yes, the entire neocon, aipac funded bunch of cowards who never suffer the effects of their warmongering, but daily seek new ways to prostrate themselves before the Emperor Yahoo and his messianic delusions. Newspaper editors and owners buy this blatant crap and serve it up? Unbelievable.
Translation of last phrase: Americans will have to suffer in order that Israelis don't have to and can continue their lives pampered by the US taxpayer.
But on the other hand Obama may pick up votes from people who are fed up with the obsequious, bended knee attitude to demagogic thugs like Baby N and his plans for endless wars.
Yeurgh, another one for the rogue's gallery. He could take his place alongside Gaddafi and Mugabe. About as ugly too.
It's a pretty threadbare argument which says that because genocide and ethnic cleansing occurred in the past, then it is fine for us to do it. It's almost a boast amongst these people, such is their perversion of history and reason. Perhaps they would also like to proudly compare their policies to Southern racial discrimination, Jim Crow, the Klan and public lynchings, since that is a more accurate parallel to what they are doing now.
I think you're missing the point, of why extreme right wing parties in Europe are so in love with zionism.
Fredblog, Whenever someone does you the courtesy of a comprehensive, sourced reply you just ignore it as it doesn't suit your lame statements (like the other hasbrats). And then you repeat the same generalisations, vague claims and outright rubbish in another thread. So why should anyone engage with your childish attempts at defending apartheid and occupation, when you don't listen or learn a thing? Why do ziobrats never have comprehensive arguments or facts at their disposal, or demonstrate any genuine interest in the history of their benighted country, but stick to the same old cliches and myths? That was a rhetorical question.
Fred, ask yourself why the money for the Palestinians is desperately needed, in contrast to the bloated, over indulged Israeli addiction to US citizens' wallets. Without the Israelis' vindictive siege, Palestinians wouldn't need funds to survive on the most basic poverty level.
Any creditable organisation would sack an employee with such racist views. The pressure on them would be intense. That would be the case in America and Europe. But in Israel it is just another unremarkable piece of hate speech, a discourse that is so routine it hardly raises an eyebrow.
American professors who speak up for human rights in Israel get smeared and their tenure threatened by bigots like Dersh. Yet out and out fascist professors who use hate speech in Israel, dragging their institution's reputation into the gutter, are indulged and never challenged. Spot the hypocritical difference.
Of course you can always fabricate a reason/justification afterwards, so what Oleg? The point is that the law is biased in its statutes and its application. Israelis can shoot to kill Palestinians without fear of consequence. Making flimsy excuses after the fact doesn't change the apartheid, selective use of laws according to what clan the perpetrator and victim belong to. There is no democracy without equality under the law.
Fred, I think you should look it up. So you have learnt a new word which you think you can be clever with. Unfortunately it doesn't mean what your grade book has said, and certainly doesn't apply in this context. If you want actual examples the many examples of Israeli deception would be a good place to start. Shooting unarmed civilians without reason other than intimidation is not perfidy. It is called murder. As usual, you don't know what you are talking about. You are way out of your depth here, with your laughably cheap attempts at defending the criminals.
Yes, the holy simplicity of your clutching at straws defence. Apparently you are blissfully unaware of the track record of the IDF and Israel in this regard. Blaming the victim is an Israeli sport, no wonder Israel comes equal with North Korea in people's impressions in the latest BBC poll, only just above Iran and Pakistan. People judge you by your actions, not your feeble excuses and lies.
Random acts of evil, followed by utterly insincere and insouciant lying.
You have to feel for Refaat and his family, attacked for no reason other than being who they are, and existing. Their legs lost for some sport for knuckle-headed morons in IDF uniforms who know no-one will utter a word of criticism of them. The most immoral army in the world, terrorists who hide behind their crappy mythology and their stunted, defective, ignorant culture. Sadists and cowards.
Listen to the overweening arrogance and the conviction of AIPAC's power over the political process, and then wonder what possible relationship these people have to democracy. This is the mob at work, intimidation and implicit threats everywhere, with a major protection racket robbing Americans blind. And if you don't have mob friends you are automatically suspect. What a crock these traitors are.
You're the one with the psychological problem, Oleg, as accurately portrayed in this piece, and your feeble response. Israelis live a cocooned bubble of denial. This is what people who come to Israel see, then go home and report. It is sick, disturbing and alienating.
The Palestinian authorities should prosecute Israel and its militia for burglary and theft. Israel has no right whatsoever to do this, the fact that it flagrantly abuses every law in the book has no meaning for these small-minded fascists. Fascists love bureaucracy, almost as much as they love smashing the administrative and legal structures of others.
They're so intelligent that it gives them the right to trample over people who are unfortunately born from the wrong mothers? Didn't that used to be called eugenics?
So however peaceful Palestinian protests are, the moronic IDF make sure that 'violence' occurs so that they can be violent in return and make arrests on trumped up charges. Surely the most immoral scumbag army in the world?
I'm hopeful that Phillip can throw out the pernicious and seditious lobby.
Yes, we know you don't care about anything or anyone except your narcissistic selves and your obsessive need to deny the cruelty Israel inflicts through its occupation and dispossession, you don't have to emphasise it quite so loudly.
Fascinating, and very telling. So these billionaires and manipulators aren't only selling out American interests, but even Israeli ones, such is their fundamentalist zealot frame of mind. And of course messianic fantasists and lunatics like Baby Yahoo only encourage them. What an alliance of deluded and dangerous fools - the most alarming aspect of which is how easily the US media unquestioningly kowtow to these fanatics, never questioning them, as do the legions of spineless Congress men and women, who appear incapable of judging what is not only in the US interest, but also the Israeli interest.
Ha ha, concern for human rights is, Terry thinks, 'sympathy for Arabs' - a racist notion he imputes to others.
Your comprehension skills are below school level. Or you just like misreading and deliberately misunderstanding a straighforward report.
Fred, you are utterly clueless. Are you a kid?
Interesting how the language is changing. As the zionists are stripped of their previous myths and lies about Israel, they are being forced into rebranding what is becoming unassailably clear: that they are hellbent on separatism, an Israel which extends to the Jordan, and no equal rights or citizenship for the people who have the wrong parents. In other words, apartheid. But no, it is being reframed with vague references to 'tribalism' and, no less, 'profound tribalism', as if somehow that was a getout argument, as if it were a good thing, a natural and inextinguishable part of being Israeli Jewish, and it must be preserved. It is such a ridiculous attempt to hide all of the racist assumptions behind a word they think is less controversial. They are really painting themselves into a corner with such gerrymandered language. And now the talk seems to be of a 'Jewish democracy', implicity conceding they can't pretend it is a democracy without any qualifiers. The twists and contortions necessary to keep the pretence up is grotesque, and reveals the inherent impossibility of defending the discriminatory and deeply racist society they are building. A thin veneer of window dressing, through the manipulated use of words like tribal, and appealing to others sense of cultural identity, as if that overrides all political and humanitarian concerns, is desperate - history will judge their attempts as a sham effort at concealing systemic discrimination and separatism, with vicious attacks on the already dispossessed.
If you haven't got an argument, you can always try that patronising tone - no doubt the same one that the Israeli bullyboys use with the Americans and Europeans. And with similar effect.
Fred doesn't do evidence or sources, just whines that we must provide it for him, even though he has convinced himself, like most ziobots, that Israel is never wrong (and thus will not pay it any attention anyway). He is not serious, just a lazy provoker. A typical troll, and typical lack of any shred of compassion or understanding for human beings who have done nothing except exist somewhere that gangsters covet. Existential threat? Yes, every day for the Palestinians under the Israeli boot.
God, you trolls are pathetic. It is 'illegal' under apartheid, gerrymandered laws? All those illegal settlements are just waiting to be demolished by those brave IDF suckers, aren't they, whilst the villages and houses of people who were there centuries before these arrivistes are suddenly illegal? What a joke answer. If you can't see the brutal discrimination and vindictive sense of cruelty here, you are as hopeless as you sound, blinded by your stupid ideology and your whimpering racist apologies.
You do get the feeling that although it has been part of the plan ever since the beginning, the principals are thinking that it is now or never. They have manouevred into a position where Congress might tut tut, they won't do anything, they don't care about the rest of the world, and they hold complete sway over the destinies of the Palestinians, with no constraints or opposition. As has been mentioned an Iranian war would provide the perfect cover, along with a raft of planted scare stories, provocations and control of the media. These people are ruthless, utterly without conscience and indeed 'messianic'. They are monsters, and I think they know time is running out along with their credibility. They will argue to themselves that they might never have a better opportunity, whilst they are all powerful and before the horrendous extent of their apartheid horrorshow is fully uncovered before the world, something which is fast approaching as their ceaseless propaganda unravels spectacularly. It is deeply worrying, but all anyone can do is keep exposing the appalling criminal nature of the ongoing dispossession and brutal treatment of indigenous people.
I think you will find Israel defended, and collaborated with, S Africa. Just because it isn't identical doesn't mean Israel has developed its own variant of apartheid, which in many ways is even worse than S Africa's, as Desmond Tutu has frequently pointed out. Israel has no 'legitimate' rights which derive from the Bible, there is no such law derived from mythology. Perhaps you'd like to help yourself to someone's house because you believe Gandalf gave you the right.
What 'legal tools'? do you mean the veneer of legal jargon to cover their limp excuses and prevarications? Btw the 'consensus' is not what you claim. When is Israel 'at war' legally in Gaza?
Again. Read the Goldstone Report, instead of posting feeble, unsourced speculative ripostes. They are not one sided, but are corroborated and cross-referenced. You are, in your failure/refusal to understand some basic statements and research. We should believe your idle dismissals, with not a shred of evidence or argument, on the basis that you troll threads you don't like?
So the message is: Israelis can carry on killing with impunity. A show trial for the foreign press will be conducted, but no charges or admission of responsibility for the deaths of innocent people will ever be made. After all, Palestinians aren't people like Israeli Jews, they are not allowed rights or any status, they are relegated to the category of nobodies, they are fit for wanton destruction and slaughter, because what Israeli could care less about the original inhabitants of their shabby state? Disgraceful doesn't get anywhere close, callous indifference and utter lack of humanity is slightly closer to their spectacularly supremacist heartlessness.
"People can hold so steadfastly onto beliefs that are fuelled by hatred, become so entrenched in bitterness, that they convince themselves that the construct of delusion is vital to their survival, to their very existence. It is not tradition but an innate evil to pass this practice on to children. To teach them in their innocence and naiveté, that certain people are to be feared, to be hated , to be despised. They are the enemy."
Yes, those Israelis are appalling, I agree. And this is an excellent example of their delusional self-belief and hatred of others, particularly the indigenous people of the region they have emigrated to.
If only Sammy would apply his nerdy obsessive amateur sleuthing (and cringe-making cod psychology) to the reams of Zionist propaganda and laughable video efforts....oh and take a course in editing before holding forth. tree has given a good response, but as with all hasbabrats you are not really interested in such responses, only in stirring things up with false assertions and questionable motives.
Messianic, fundamentalist screwballs - just what the world needs in charge of nuclear weapons and a hi tec equipped army of ill-educated ideologues, not to mention a craven echo chamber of useful fools in Washington. This is the Fox News Glenn Beck version of history - fantasy, myth and lies put in the service of manipulating public opinion and the politicians who court their votes.
What people like Frank fail to realise, in their blissful ziobubble, is that the conversation has changed. Smearing decent people like Remnick with such blatantly childish and ridiculous allegations doesn't affect Remnick one whit, but it does confirm for many the readiness of Israeli acolytes to lurch into hysterical hyperbole at the slightest provocation, making them look ridiculous, unbalanced and desperate. Undemocratic, promoting censure and censorship of anything they don't approve, demanding a mindless subservience to their highly biased, tendentious and simplistic narrative - one which it is obvious they know only too well holds no water at the slightest examination, they only emphasise how much they are losing their previous stranglehold on what Americans are allowed by them to say. The cat is out of the bag, losers.
Yes, a moral black hole
You're not doing much of a job in defending the indefensible, are you?
It only sounds non-megalomaniac to people brought up to assume they have a divine right to take other people's land, and then claim it is a 'burden' to have to administrate the apartheid they have created in the process. The old 'white man's burden' routine.
Just look at the hilarious photo of Barak in his Disney wonderland of zionism, complete with proto fascist salute. LOL
How many straws can a drowning zionist clutch at, in order to save their guilty consciences and maintain their total denial?
One of the characteristics of fascist and apartheid systems we have seen in the past is the construction of a bureaucracy in which the state ideology is invested. Laws and regulations are implemented, behind which the vast cruelty and sadism of the state towards those it deems unwanted are hidden. It enables the army of bureaucrats, officials and state police to claim that they are merely implementing 'orders' from the courts, as if they have nothing to do with the decisions, and shrug off any responsibility for the calculated dispossession, the casual sadistic treatment of people now classified as non-people. It takes some ingenuity to construct such a coldhearted, inhuman regime, and a great diligence to implement it. It also requires the participants to deny any shred of empathy or common humanity, projecting a hostile, racist contempt on to the people they are encouraged to sadisticallty victimise
Israel, well done, you are a hybrid of apartheid S Africa, China in Tibet and the old Soviet system. Where cold, calculated inhuman cruelty is not random, but built into every action and statute of the state.
If Israel wants to breed hatred of itself then consider the job done. No-one can possible continue making excuses for this ethnic cleansing and barbarism. They haven't got hearts, just blackened evil souls.
Oh why worry about the reality of Israel's savage occupation and blockade when you can get more excited about what to call it. Do you know the meaning of pedant, or diversion?
Still peddling your stale hasbara then. Despite many people on here trying to educate and enlighten you, it seems you are only interested in repeating the most feeble of cliches straight out of the hasbara for beginners book.
And what would be better cover than an Iranian war, fomented by Israel, waged by its US division, whilst Israel completes its long takeover of the West Bank, with many expelled and a rump in ghettos. Why else is Yahoo so fixated on Iran and the false stories Israel circulates daily?
What was it that one of the zionist apologists was saying in another thread about the only state in the ME where free speech is a right? Now that some words, and thus ideas, are illegal in that bastion of 'democracy', perhaps they will retract the absurd claim.
So you don't need ID cards to discriminate against different cultural groups. Well done. Yes, that is hilarious, isn't it? I believe in S Africa it was easy to discriminate based on skin colour and appearance, perhaps you don't understand the principle of universal human rights and equal treatment under the law of all citizens, regardless of their appearance. Side splitting stuff.
fail. That is not the meaning of pluralism, not when people are shot at when demonstrating against Israel's occupation and apartheid laws.
The state has decreed that memories are banned and must be destroyed. Big Brother is watching you.
I believe that the two sets of values are at odds with each other. Krugman, and many others, are beginning to realise it but retain some sort of muddled hope that the myth of Israel can be revived. The pressure to conform is huge, as he admits. The point is that his view is a bellwether of the change happening - it is a loosening of the straitjacket they are held in, and it will take time for the cracks to widen. But, like spring, it is coming.
Krugman is just reiterating a point made here more than few times: American Jewish culture and values are antithetical to Israel. Most know it, but the moral, political and career-harming blackmail that is employed by AIPAC and the army of zealots means most would rather look the other way. There is no shame in that, in my view, but the fact that he is expressing it is another crack in the facade that zionists are desperate to maintain, one which is false and designed to silence criticism. The forced and intimidating alliance Israel and its Israeli firster echo chamber impose on American Jews can't stand the increasing divergence of values. Doesn't matter what religion you are, no-one wants to be dragooned into supporting a system of apartheid and injustice by the fundamentalist thought police who favour censorship and smearing as their favourite methods (did anyone say Dersh?)
Ah yes, those bastions of truth and independence the Israeli courts. Pull the other one.
Straws. Clutching. Diverting. Ignoring. Trivial. Tw*t.
The crass insensitivity, the smug smirking triumphalism in having made a family homeless, just so they can celebrate some mythical claptrap, is quite sickening. The symbolism of this photo reeks of the arrogance of their racist presumptuous vindictive philosophy.
Ha ha, as usual you turn the whole thing on its head, in your hopelessly muddled efforts. No-one 'intimidated' the musicians to sign a letter. The only intimidation going on is, guess what, from the chief executive and his funders, who object to the free expression of individual views. And that is standard behaviour from the Israeli firsters who think they have the right to censor, smear and attack individuals who happen to not share their delusional opinion about Israel. They knowingly ignored the minor mistakes about attribution in the printed letter in order to intimidate and punish four individuals who spoke as individuals, no doubt in an attempt to silence any future actions or criticism. I should think they 4 have a very good legal case, and the executive should be sacked for his indefensible actions.
Interviewing people on camera is 'incredibly manipulative' - LOL! No doubt the Israeli bullies and propagandists have unattributable conversations with Palestinian Christians who are ardent zionists. However the Christians I have met in Jerusalem will tell you of their disgust at Israeli prejudice, racism and apartheid. If they were on camera they might temper it a bit, in order to save the aggravation they would suffer from the thought police in Israel, but in private they are scathing over the discrimination they feel over their religion and its historical infrastructure.
What people like Simon will find, should they stand up for honesty, is that the Israeli case falls apart as soon as it is exposed to the light of day. And of course that is why fakes and liars like Oren do everything in their power, leaning on executives behind the scenes, to stop any fair reporting about Palestine. The presumption that they have the right to be censors of what Americans hear and see is typical of their arrogance. The Israeli case won't last a minute in the glare of some genuine reporting, and they know it. That is why they go so apopleptic at any suggestion that this is what is happening. The bonus is their hysteria/panic/rage only exposes what a bunch of cheap charlatans they are, and they are to be mocked for the fools they so eagerly reveal themselves to be, with the added revelation of how contemptuous they are of Americans' right to know what is being done with their tax dollars. They are losers in any fair fight, and they know it.
Oh, that's why it's ok to attack them violently. They had banners, just shocking, and ohmigod, flags - quick, call the Israeli Death Force!
Since when is going for a cycle ride a 'provocation', and what right do Israelis have to tell Palestinians what to do in their own country, where Israelis have no right to be? These flimsy and laughable excuses - he is to be praised because, unlike many of his colleagues, he didn't actually kill someone - for the routine use of violence on defenceless people just make you look even more callous than usual. And as for the standard hasbarat attempt at 'just like other countries', just remind which of these countries operates an apartheid system under which cyclists and other civilians are subjected to state violence and thuggery on a daily basis, with no recourse to the law?
Ha ha, the trap of a good atmosphere! Oh no, can't have that, we demand a baad atmosphere, prompted and manufactured by those veterans of hate and war, Israel. Hilarious. True colours leaking out. These goons think they are so powerful in the US, so impervious to criticism or reason, that they can wheel out this stuff without realising the poison they are dripping into people's ears is utterly transparent and contemptible. When has Israel ever been involved in anything generating a 'good atmosphere'. They are spoiled beyond belief. Great negotiating tactic and propaganda point. Not.
And don't talk to us about stalling, you shmucks. Israel has stalled on negotiations for 60 years, stalled on the implementation of justice and human rights, stalled on living up to its so-called promises and commitments, and oh yes, stalled on admitting its nuclear plans and facilities to international inspection. You have no ethical right to criticise Iran, given your woeful track record.
Ha ha, gilad has been reading his guide to zionism for five year olds. Complete with a little bullyboy threat at the end. Well done, your teacher will give you an inverted dunces cap
Maybe it's something to do with your failure to come up with any coherent rationale for the degradation of judaism that zionism has inflicted on it, and the callous inhumanity of its very own version of apartheid.
The Methodists should call their bluff. It's the same old hypocritical game of blackmail and diversion, anything to obscure and quieten the truth. The subtext, as ever, is 'you will be antisemitic if you proceed with this'. So the threaten an end to 'interfaith harmony' - the question should be was there ever such a thing anyway, or was it a useful way of exerting pressure to acquiesce in the apartheid and land grab. If that is 'harmony' let's be done with it, the truth and justice is far more important. Would the Methodists have been intimidated by the South Africans into ceasing their anti-apartheid campaigns on the grounds of some spurious 'harmony'?
Correction: most Jews are coerced and appropriated by zionist fundamentalist and apartheid supporters. The price for speaking out is high, most would rather avoid the subject. The zealots and hasbabrats are a minority but make the noise, obscure the truth, intimidate the gullible, bribe the officials, and attack the political system at all levels.
Israel is an arms junkie, addicted to more hits every year, as the US taxpayer buys their fix for them. A country awash with military hardware gets out the begging bowl and whines for more cash as the US taxpayer struggles to make ends meet. It's not only the Palestinians they are robbing blind.
What a creep, craven and seditious, crawling to his paymasters.
Beyond disgusting. The cruelty and calculated sadism of Israel is a dark menace in the Middle East. How anyone can defend this kind of fascism is a mystery, though thousands will try, through the lens of their denial. What a legacy of shame they are leaving behind.
Ah yes, those gaping holes - the left are not racist enough, and don't constantly peddle hate speech like the majority of Israeli commentators. And they don't approve of unprovoked violence and assault, as this goon does (who doesn't just approve, but positively revels in it and applauds it). It wouldn't matter what one idiot thinks, but the reason it has traction is that it exposes the widely held isolationist, prejudiced bigotry of Israeli culture, one which it encourages in poorly schooled bullies like the above.
Yes, racists are hilarious, though not smart.
The crutch of the Holocaust to excuse any violence by Israelis is quite sick. It is especially insulting to Europeans and their descendants who fought the Nazis, helped rescue Jews and died for their efforts. But it is most insulting to the Jews who died at the time. It appears modern Israelis have, tragically, learnt nothing from history or their forefathers, but instead are determined to desecrate their memory by cheap resorts to their suffering in order to justify racism, violence, theft and the dispossession of an entire people. Ill. If you must make cheap comparisons to the Nazis, then there is only one in this scenario, and he isn't Danish.
How touchingly naive you are, or affect to be, since it saves you having to face the reality.
So if there's no camera around, they have carte blanche to attack, kidnap and hurt people. The only fault was being seen on camera, and no doubt that was all planned by those dastardly protesters who upset the occupying bullies so much.How typical, instead of showing some remorse or self-awareness, the classic Israeli response is to deny, lie and go on the attack. Like a child caught out they will say anything, with the conviction that the indulgent parents will absolve them of any duty to telling the truth or acknowledging their role in injustice.
Israel has never shown the slightest awareness of the meaning of the word 'diplomacy', seeing it solely as a means to further war and propaganda, with a dose of blackmail and threat thrown in. The clueless lack of any sense of the effect of their blundering, swaggering lying 'diplomacy' is quite astonishing (barring Gideon Levy and a few others), and is part of their inability to see any of their actions from another's point of view - a fairly basic requirement of diplomacy, you would have thought. Zionism hasn't just built walls around their landgrab, it appears to have built walls around their minds as well.
And I suppose Palestinians dream of being hit, dragged, kidnapped and imprisoned without trial. What a nuisance for those innocent IOF sissies who wouldn't hurt a fly. Head, sand, in.
Ha ha, the bitter voice of a conscript speaks. I think they should be given awards by countries other than Israel for standing up to the bullying, mendacious government which attempts to use the army as its ideological conscription tool. Obviously it worked a treat with Fred. lol
Seeing Palestinians with their friends having some fun and enjoying the Palestinian countryside is like a red rag to a bull as far as the IDF joyless thugs are concerned. What a provocation it must be for their tiny minds, as well as for their settler bosses.
The occupation has so corrupted Israel and its values that this is normal, and is praised by their representatives in the Knesset. What a hideous place.
Yes, of course I dream of it all the time. Your assertion betrays your absurd childish state of mind. Saves you having to think, I suppose.
I don't believe that Iran has been unreasonable. There was a deal to be had via Turkey a year or so ago. It is a wonder Yahoo and his gangsters don't stage a little sideshow to divert attention and ruin the talks, as they have done so many times in the past when important negotiations have threatened the Israeli war hawks and ideologues.
Respect.
You must share the same sense of adolescent petulance and feign feeble humour to disguise it.
You think these risible fools who write such claptrap have consciences about blocking the rights of the indigenous people?
Ha ha, this has the whiff of the childish, resentful hasbarist comments you can read all over the internet. Condescending, sanctimonious, arrogant and mixed with a threatening subtext that betrays an awareness of the weakness and hollowness of their position. Obviously these cartoon politicians cannot see the contradiction between the first and second letters, in particular with regard to their hollow claims of 'democracy' - a democracy where visitors are forbidden to talk to, or even acknowledge, the original inhabitants of the land they are visiting. It is an indefensible posture, and the worst of it (for them) is their blissful unawareness that such condescending, disingenuous tripe only continues to put them in the category of fools and liars that run despotic, fundamentalist states like, er, Syria and Iran. Maybe that is why the activists come to Israel... the land run by the lords of unreason and delusion. Alfred E Newman is about right for that impostor of a politician Yahoo and his little gang of wannabes.
This is Orwellian stuff, the thought police patrolling the boundaries of what you are allowed to think or say. And a sad indictment of what passes for justice and freedom of speech, not to mention the necessity for real evidence when convicting somebody, as opposed to speculation and guilt by association. No doubt learned from the security apparatus of states like Israel, who specialise in separating people according to their beliefs and looks.
They are trying to go to Palestine, not Israel. That is the whole point. Duh
Why has Israel got any 'right' to prevent people coming and going to Palestine, including Palestinians themselves?
You idiot, they are trying to enter Palestine. That is their right. They are not interested in a diddly squat country called Israel.
If you actually read Levy's piece, it is a hilarious deconstruction of Israeli paranoid bully mentality, and its consequences. Result: a state that is ridiculed and loathed in equal measure.
You're desperate for this to be true (even though it obviously is not), since you view it as a justification for all of the vindictive, callous brutality and violence that the Israeli state stands for. Not that that would have anything to do with it, would it? If you insist on saying that Israel represents all Jews (which it clearly doesn't) then you can't complain when people are repulsed and worried by Israel's addiction to violence and occupation, not to mention lying about it incessantly, and therefore see it as an unstable belligerent threat to everybody in the region. Which state has been threatening and waging war for the last umpteen years in the ME? Your inept propaganda dept has tried to make it taboo to discuss Israeli violence for years - it is becoming impossible to ignore now, people are appalled and want to discuss it - that's called freedom of the speech btw, an alien concept for you I know.
Israel, of course, goes straight into denial mode and starts shrieking wildly about those 'nasty provocateurs'. Not a word will be forthcoming from their carefully controlled news managers about why this protest is taking place, or why Palestinians have to grovel before their masters and kiss their ring before they can travel in and out of their own country. And for many of them that won't suffice either. Oh for the situation to be reversed, just for a week or so, so we can listen to the howling outrage and the claims of imminent destruction of the entire country as they suffer unto them what they do unto others.
LOL
WTF are Israeli thugs, aka police, doing in Hebron and what jurisdiction do they have there? They don't belong there, are in a foreign country and are acting like skinhead Klan members. Just another day in the day of 'the only democracy' that acts like no democracy on earth, but like a fascist teenage moron.
It's a classic hasbara attempt at thread hijack/diversion. Nothing to do with the topic under discussion. Although I have enjoyed the answers to the lame question.
Unrelentingly hostile, vicious zionists are trying to destroy Palestine, as they have been for the last 70 years. Arabs are fighting for democracy, which means destroying the apartheid system in Israel, not destroying Israel. Unless you accept that apartheid Israel is the only Israel that can ever exist, which apparently you do.
If they 'scare' these hypersensitive Jewish souls, what do they think the real notices do to the Palestinians? I think the point is made, or are Jews allowed to be outraged and hysterical over a symbolic eviction, whilst Palestinians must accept the very real theft of their homes and possessions without demur? Perhaps the synthetic outrage and manufactured 'threat' to Jews should be turned to real outrage over the treatment of innocent Palestinians - then we might have some respect for these fools and propaganda addicts.
So if we are to be consistent, should all countries bar members of the IDF? According to those Israeli ethical scholars, there is no excuse for being conscripted into an army which continually carries out war crimes, harassment, humiliation and attacks on civilians, child kidnapping and arrests, even if and individual doesn't participate directly in the brutality. Are the teenage thugs in the IDF now barred from re-entering Israel since they are apparently in the same boat as Grass (a lot worse actually, since their crimes are documented)?
Israel might do better to ponder why neo-fascists in the UK and Scandinavia proclaim themselves Zionists.
Well, another excellent example of Israeli hypocrisy. Apparently Grass is 'fanning the flames of hatred' (although hard to see how his political views of Germany supplying an unstable country with nuclear subs fans any flames other than responsible concern). Israel has spent the last 50 years fanning real flames of hatred, against Muslim culture in general, and Palestinians in particular. And now they are leaving no stone unturned in fanning the flames of hatred against Iran and its citizens, none of whom actually threaten Israel in the way that Israel threatens them, daily. What a bunch of self-obsessed hypocrites who see no contradiction between their acts and their sanctimonious proclamations.
more fomenting the flames of hatred which apparently Israel objects to when it claims to find it in a German poem. Is it only Israel and its eager little mouthpieces who get a free pass to 'foment the flames of hatred?
Would that be a cultural boycott of Grass, of the kind Israel regularly denounces and gets very heated about when applied to it - and not just for poems people disagree with, but political and economic crimes against the people of the region. So it's ok when they do it, but when others do it......
UK tv has been showing his deeply compassionate and humane interviews with people in the US 'On Death Row' - powerful stuff.
The other great 3D movie is Wender's Pina.
Hey proudhasbarist, have you been to the WB? Or did you wear your zio tinted specs. Try Hebron and see the mindblowing ugliness of Israel and its apartheid occupation.
Hebron expresses everything that is truly ugly about Israel and its inhuman practices. A city in lockdown, ruled by a military junta, all for the benefit of a small bunch of appalling racist zealots who attack the local people with impunity, under the watchful eye of their dumb bodyguards in the IDF. Gideon Levy had it right - anybody who goes there, who has an ounce of decency, will be appalled at the casual violence and deeply unpleasant, phobic, pathological nature of the so-called settlers - what kind of person dedicates their and their family's lives to rancid hatred, harrassment of innocent, powerless people, a more bitter hateful bunch of racists you won't find anywhere in the world. And this is Israel's grand project - to protect and encourage them, to make the local people's lives unbearable. A noble enterprise? don't make me laugh.