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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
Yes, it’s almost as if this is a delaying tactic, bounce the ball around while waiting for something else to happen. It’s a bit of a wild guess but it might just have something to do with Azerbaijan. If Israel establishes bases there, the need for practical cooperation from the US for at attack is diminished. There was this link to presstv.ir
and although it’s a denial, the issue is obviously floating about somewhere.
Now, what does anyone suppose this is all about?
link to presstv.ir
The perception of the Iran ‘problem’ that people in the US etc. have is so at odds with what much of the rest of the world sees and accepts that one or the other is necessarily illusory. US/Israeli sanctions are a nuisance to Iran, of course, a fairly serious nuisance that threatens to get worse, but they are not anywhere near fatal.
The kindest thing one can say about Netanyahu is that he is demented. But he is also dangerous in the manner of a Rottweiler or Pit Bull; the Pit Bull locks its jaws onto its booty until it is dead and can mangle a human to death. For the time being Netanyahu has to be accommodated. That imho is what is going on. We have another scheduled meeting in June, after that we will doubtless have another. Sooner of later Netanyahu will be caught off guard. Given the circumstances, what else can anyone do. I hope I live long enough to read Obama's post-presidential memoirs.
Why is it no one ever mentions Egypt when deliberating the consquences of an Israeli attack on Iran?
Sorry
link to english.farsnews.com
Although the West makes a hobby of regime change, the populations seem unable to distinguish between a regime and a nation.
Annie, Here is another of these distortions coming into existence before our very eyes like one of those foetal monsters from Alien. Note the Yahoo headline link to news.yahoo.com
and then check what the guy actually said link to english.farsnews.com
And look at the slavering comments!
They won't give up. They're running around pissing on everything. Here's something you may not see in the NYT.
link to presstv.ir
Ira, I understand your point but I do not think Ashton would make so bold and provocative a statement as implied here. This is a quote of something said and one can easily convey the phrase 'nuclear weapons program in Iran' in inverted commas by intonation. By doing so she would be referring to the issue of, not any Iranian program per se. If, as I suspect, that is the case then her phrase implied quite the opposite, that there isn’t such an Iranian program, only the issue which is a US/Israel construction. Heaven knows what Iran is working on, but I do not believe it to be a program dedicated to the construction of a nuclear bomb to drop on Israelis, or anyone else for that matter. It is not conceivable that all the informed experts, security, military and scientific, many of whom would just love to find Iran guilty, should be unconvinced there is such a program. Let's face it, the US wants to disable Iran and Israeli paranoia has been a convenient Trojan horse for the purpose. However, the ploy is coming undone at the seams because in reality there is no Iranian nuclear weapon program, the emperor has no clothes after all.
Ashton is not that cogent. I imagine she meant to say the beginning of the end of the nuclear weapons programme in Iran as an issue, or the issue of.... Slip of the tongue, that's all. Most people like her are fed up to the back teeth with all this nonsense.
The only entity capable of stopping Israel’s inhumanity is the US, but that is not going to happen. The idea that the IDF or anyone else in Israel will do anything is pie in the sky. There is no global ‘morality’, people do what they can get away with and international laws and conventions are like the Queensbury rules, not a lot of use in a street brawl. All the UN and the Geneva Convention do is let people off the hook by providing a cabinet in which issues can be filed; proving this or that action to be ‘against the Geneva Convention’ doesn’t stop it, nor does it help the Palestinians, at best it provides a degree of catharsis for some observers while simply engendering a further sense of helplessness in the victims. Nor can anything be gained by attempting to shame the perpetrators since in their communities they are probably heroes where spitting in a Palestinian’s mouth gains applause, even more when the action receives media recognition. What is necessary is for US policy in the ME to change dramatically, and an Israeli attack on Iran could be the most immediate way to effect that.
Not everyone wants to become involved in intractable problems that don't concern them directly. This is particularly true of the silver haired who have lived through a lifetime of ups and downs, developing a degree of stoicism along the way There is always injustice somewhere, when has there not been? That’s the way the world is. Besides, What would justice be without injustice?
Good advice. According to RT TV earlier today there are 70 million evangelical Christian supporters of Israel in the US. I have no idea if that is true but the claim was they are more significant in determining the electoral outcome than AIPAC.
A sexual interest in young children (pedophilia) has always existed and been frowned on by society generally. It is only fairly recently that western legislation has deemed it criminal. Previously its practitioners would simply have been ostracized, or ignored if they were persons of power, like the emperor Tiberius or a quattrocento cardinal . Generally enforceable legislation against it is probably less than 100 years old. It shouldn’t really be confused with ephebophilia, a sexual preference for pubescent and adolescent boys which is also illegal in the west, but more morally ambiguous and frowned on less in some societies.
I don’t imagine there are more of either in rabbinic society than elsewhere. However, it is the ability of some groups, as American writes above, to divert the laws of the land, whatever they are, that is principally at issue here and it is not a phenomenon restricted to sexual activities. It is quite natural for an individual to seek to wriggle out of punishment but when you find a group within society defying the law to protect him then that is a whole other matter and in a sense more dangerous than the contained offences themselves.
Why not?
And recall how contrite she was when the cards fell to Rome, and how little good contrition did her.
lysias, My point precisely, although I am not entirely persuaded Rhodes was mediating rather than playing to hedge her bet.
There is a danger in imagining that Israel is the only factor in US/Iran relations. The US has global purposes that far exceed Israel’s domestic preoccupations. For over half a century the US hoped to keep Iran out of the big league, and Israel’s paranoia has been useful but it is becoming less so. When the chips are down, Israel is an ally of the US, just as Rhodes was an ally of Rome, and the apparent corollary is simply courtesy.
link to aljazeera.com
I bank with them and use their credit card so I've dropped them a big thank you too! They carry a lot of weight.
This is very good news. The Coop is a long established group and also a significant bank, I remember the stores as a child in WWII. It has a policy of ecological and humanitarian responsibility and should wield a lot of influence link to co-operative.coop
They regard the farmers as squatters and are treating them as such. The US has emasculated all supra-national organisations that were supposed to prevent this sort of thing and suborned those nations that might have been inclined to intervene. We are experiencing the Descent of Man and will soon revert to Neanderthal values.
I believe all Israelis would really prefer one state but with no Arabs in it and they behave broadly as if that is what the area is. The West Bank and Gaza are simply prisons with low and medium levels of security, and then there are a host of smaller higher security prisons. So what you have de facto is one state with a lot of prisons of varying security, and some Arabs out on parole. It's not that different from the US penal system if you include Guantanamo and so on, probably another of those 'shared values' we're so often reminded of.
ToivoS, There are only ever two choices. The ‘third’ and ‘fourth’ you mention are, I would suggest, both routes to one state and broadly in line with Israel’s current policies. The solution may lie in one state for all but with an autonomous region for diehard Jews.
By the way, I still think this is possible, with one state embodying an autonomous region.
I agree. Those were the borders deemed appropriate by the UN and they should have been quite enough. The concept of a home for Jewish people should be an abstract idea with a modest geographical reality, like Mecca, or the Vatican and St Peter’s.
If the Turks and the Egyptians can do it…
link to rt.com
link to guardian.co.uk
It is, of course, ugly and short-sighted but they are getting desperate and beginning to live from one crisis to another while pretending their Titanic isn't actually sinking. From their point of view, they avoided the possibility of a cancellation. True they have exposed themselves to a level of stricture and criticism but it is less dramatic, more equivocal, and probably the lesser of two evils. Meanwhile, it is obvious that the Egyptian cancellation of their gas contract with Israel is anything but a 'simple commercial dispute' as everyone is claiming, and Turkey banning Israel from the next NATO conference unless there are apologies and compensation for the flotilla slaughter? Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin?
The Haaretz piece was intended to be ironic, but the real irony is it isn’t.
It would be completely impossible for Iran to wipe Israel from the map; Iranians are not magicians, they don’t wield magic wands. Only Israel can wipe itself out and seems to be making a fairly good job of it; comparing Israel’s status in the global community a couple of years back with how it appears today you would be hard pushed to identify the change as positive. While one can count negative Israeli actions over the period on the fingers of a hundred hands, I am at a loss to think of one that has commanded respect, gratitude or praise.
Dan Meridor was a shade out of his depth, they shouldn’t really have let him loose.
Going back to the 'face of the earth'. I understand Ahmadinejad, who spoke in Farsi, was quoting something Imam Khomeini said on his return from exile in Paris after the regime of the Shah had vanished from the page of time. One could as well argue the comment discourages anyone from seeking to accomplish the removal of the regime in Jerusalem since it will happen anyway, as it does with all regimes. Herbert Stein’s Law: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop". Thus there is no need to do anything at all as it will stop of its own accord.
US support for all things Israeli could be becoming somewhat overstretched by this Iran business. Aside from the US
populationvoters, the same groups in Europe are seriously unenthusiastic about the effect all this is having on fuel prices. Here in Spain electricity has just gone up by 7% and gas (the kind you use for heating) by 3.3%. Few spend much time disentangling Euro austerity measures from the embargo on Iranian oil imports, so you have a potential for even more destabilising demonstrations that are likely to mean Europeans would refuse to get involved militarily in any conflict with Iran, which could be embarrassing for Obama. From yet another angle, the US/NATO retreat from Afghanistan, which grows daily more urgent, could benefit from some rapport with Iran. No army has ever retreated over those mountains without catastrophic losses. Here is what de Spiegel wrote about it recently: link to spiegel.deMy suggestion is that there is developing a powerful nisus towards some US accommodation with Iran that has nothing whatever to do with Israel.
smndoerksen,
Of course Israel can stop anyone from entering. That is self-evident since it happens all the time. It is not, however, the point. The point is what is happening now in this particular place and time and the impressions it evokes, profoundly negative impressions that tend to be filed with other negative impressions evoked in the past. If you don’t give a damn what others think perhaps it doesn’t matter to you but, whether it matters of not, you can’t stop others drawing conclusions from your actions which is exactly what they are doing here and elsewhere right now.
The highlighted phrase as they deserved is employed ironically. One Haaretz commentator also fails to appreciate it so you are not alone. However, you cannot really expect Levy to write exclusively for kindergarten minds.
Surely there were students who received these flyers and found the action worthy and effective, or whatever. Wouldn’t it have helped to quote some of them? By concentrating solely on the protesting Jewish response are you not in danger of helping make it seem the anti-Jewish act that it wasn’t? Just asking.
The other option, of course, is for Israel to ' curl up in a ball' and leave Fate to deal the cards. Here is an interesting perspective from Der Speigal:
link to spiegel.de
Similar analyses are also fairly common from Russia these days and while they cannot be described as anti-Israel, cumulatively they do begin to shine a relentless light leaving ever fewer places to hide.
The harassment of the two and a half year old is just plain eerie. Nature has endowed the human race, and many other mammals, with an innate affection for, and instinct to protect, the very young, an instinct so powerful it is evoked even for species likely to present a danger when mature. To learn to override that can’t be easy. Is there any evidence to suggest these soldiers may be stoned?
It’s all but impossible to connect with the current Israeli psyche.
link to presstv.ir
Russian TV ran a recent feature, including interview, claiming that IDF soldiers are encouraged to kill themselves, or each other, to avoid embarrassing capture.
link to youtube.com
Look, a nutcase went out to slaughter police. Deterred from his purpose, he entered the nearest building and started firing and killed the kids. I read that before he died he said this himself. It would be the same tragedy whoever were the children, but when Lady Ashton tries to express that concept and rise above the details to a level of distress all humanity can share, what happens? She gets castigated for anti-Semitism, Heaven help us. As John Donne wrote in his Xvii meditation: Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
________________
Totally unconnected but kind of interesting, I just found this old map.
Be generous, it doesn't matter what opened his eyes at last.
It’s not only in the NYT, I have frequently seen these type of comment in the LA Times, the Washington Post, and many other threads worldwide. They are always reasoned and invariably literate; it is the hawks who try to appeal to our baser emotions and ‘scissors and paste’ the same nonsense over and over like a fast food ad.
It’s an indication that the whole system over there is disintegrating, morale, discipline, leadership, the lot. They don’t even bother to make their cover story credible, we are asked to believe that not only was this just one man (conveniently filmed giving himself up, weapon to the ground, hands in the air, cool as a cucumber) but he had just returned from killing 16 people, covering their bodies with blankets and setting fire to them. The lot of them were more than likely stoned, which brings one back to a disintegrating system. It is high time US citizens said, Enough is enough.
Asked by Chris Hayes link to video.msnbc.msn.com
(third section around 14) what could be done to keep the two state window open, General Shlomo Gazit offered three points which I transcribed as carefully as I was able.
At this point he gives way to the lady in the pink suit who brings up the image of a million Israelis today taking refuge in shelters against rocket attacks from Gaza. He goes on:
I cannot imagine any sane person, Jew or otherwise, not finding that constructive, practical and possible.
...That authorization would make it clear that any effort by Iran to enrich uranium to weapons grade levels will be met by overwhelming force.
Well, that should be a relief for everyone, including the Ayatollahs, since Iran is not doing that and the IAEA inspectors are there 24/7 in case they might ever change their minds. It's actually more comforting than Obama:
I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say.
Every affirmative implies a negative. McConnell's implies that overwhelming force would not be used so long as Iran doesn't enrich uranium to weapons level. Obama's affirmative is more equivocal since it doesn't identify any red line. But then, it's an election campaign speech after all.
Objectivity is ever a problem since absolute objectivity is an abstract concept and can only really exist in the mind; the minute you bring it into real life it is inevitably distorted; can you imagine 'objective' coverage of the stoning of an Afghan adulteress? The only real solution is to throw the problem firmly into the viewer's mind. In the case of Syria spend some time with Iranian link to presstv.ir
and Russian link to rt.com
English language TV. The former was carrying a detailed piece just now on the week long virtual absence of electricity in Gaza, due to the Egyptians cutting off fuel supplies through the tunnels, and it's effect on life, schools, and hospitals. Also the progress of the draft Syrian constitution, all but ready for a referendum, with details of the clauses covering the most contentious issues. Little wonder the UK has taken Iran TV off the Sky satellite, and for the last week it has been jammed extensively throughout Europe. The Russian channel meanwhile provides extensive coverage of the riots in Bahrein which appear quite s bloody as anything in Syria.
Russian TV has reported several times recently that a growing movement in Israel is calling for a halt to the escalating accusations levelled at Iran, getting cencerned, apparently, at where it seems to be leaving. Does anyone know about this?
Like so much else that comes out of that Godforsaken country, it leaves me numb. It's nothing to do with it, but Russian TV has covered several Palestinian issues these last days including the recent law for breaking up families. There is also an escalation in coverage of some more negative aspects of current US life and policies, and an interesting perspecive on Syria. link to rt.com
is worth some time if you can spare it. If anyone is going to bring the US to heel on this matter it could be Russia. They also report that the West is actually arming one of the Syrian insurgent groups and that UK and Quatari forces are already there helping one group.
apropos
link to haaretz.com
You are, perhaps, a shade unkind. It's not that easy to turn the other cheek when provoked by those who know exactly what they are doing and are good at it. The BDS might better invite Gur to give their assembly a short address and listen in mature silence.
I don't believe any thinking person would allow this to pass as rational since it plainly isn't. I note, however, that Gur is in a department that encompasses the medical speciality devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. Now, that is scary.
Someone help me here. I don’t understand why Israelis themselves don’t raise a fuss about this. There doesn’t seem to me, but I am neither, to be any great difference between Arabs and Jews if one compares one socio-cultural level with another, I mean a small Arab farmer cannot be that different from a Jewish farmer and I can’t imagine that not applying to surgeons, scientists, etc. It certainly appears true of religious extremists. Is it that they are just not aware of stories like this? The same goes for that poor construction worker they ran over. If that happened anywhere in Europe, for instance, there would protests in the streets. If the answer is that Israelis are largely comfortable with all this, then I don’t see how international protestation will help. It might if it was one off but this appears to be endemic. Or am I wrong?
Another thing, I watch Iranian TV, only online now since the UK took the station off the Sky satellite the other day, and I have NEVER heard an anti-Israeli comment in a broadcast, the nearest would be documentaries sympathetic to the Palestinian predicament and, even though their selection might be viewed as biased, I do not think them biased in content. On the other hand Israelis say the most shocking things about Iran and Arabs; one commentator recently actually said Arabs ‘stink’. Imagine saying that about a Jew and managing to keep your job.
Is there a sane Israeli movement anywhere within the country? If so, they are the ones who need support.
Israel is not in a particularly healthy condition, hasn't been for some time. Attacking Iran could be like a guy with a dicky ticker having a go at the 4 minute mile. Whatever the Israeli panjandrums may think, most of us have had quite enough of this confrontational approach to anything this or that nation doesn't like, and an Israeli attack is likely to annoy a lot of people; not exactly what our strife torn world needs right now. Strange as it may seem, even a nuclear armed Iran doesn't bother many, at least not as much as a similarly armed Israel. Israelis delude themselves that they are loved by many, but it isn't true – sullen acceptance would be closer. Of course, there is an overlay of capitalist enthusiasm, but Western capitalism itself is under scrutiny. We have also seen how groups like LGBT, whose success in their foundational aspirations has left them open to other causes, have adopted the Palestinians. What I am suggesting is that there is a hell of a lot of anger out there, much of it roaming around like a hungry lion, and although it is not specifically targeting Israel as prey it could converge on it. No nation wants Israel to attack Iran. Just imagine, this tiny little nation, whose population scarcely exceeds the number of inmates in the US prison system, taking upon itself to do something so irresponsible, something that cannot conceivably benefit a single member of the human race. It would be perverse to do so, but one could imagine oneself wishing they would try.
I have a strange feeling that Obama’s ‘by a special route’ warning to the Ayatollah not to close the Straits was designed to separate the issue of an Israeli attack on Iran from the closure of the Straits. That is to say, What you and Israel do is up to you (and doesn’t involve us) but if you try to close the straits you will have us to contend with. That might also be a signal to Israel that it cannot expect US support for such an adventure. Maybe I am being fanciful but there is something like that in there somewhere.
Watching Russian TV yesterday, I would say the Russian view of the Iranian nuclear threat is that it is a ‘fantasy’ crisis. The commentator pointed out that Iran is entitled to nuclear power and to develop a capacity to export surplus energy, has no nuclear weapons, doesn’t want them, has conformed to IAEA requirements, has threatened no other nation, and hasn’t initiated a conflict in living memory. Israel on the other hand…
I cannot imagine Russia and China simply standing on the sidelines if an attack were to escalate beyond Iran's passive acceptance of a couple of targeted bombs, as it surely would. The problem of oil prices is bad enough but there is also the further dissemination of the residual depleted uranium that is causing such horrific birth disorders in Iraq, has contaminated the bodies of returning veterans, and threatens the genetic structure of the human race.
The Israeli hierarchy appears unhinged, an individual displaying such characteristics would be confined to a strait jacket in a psychiatric clinic. Human beings are not born ‘rational’, it is a discipline acquired through subsistence relationships with the natural world or serious intellectual training; both, alas, now cloudy dreams. I am not even persuaded Obama knows what he is doing, if ever there was a time for the Security Council to get together to fulfil the peacekeeping purpose of the UN, it is surely now.
Bye the way, one guy suggested that Iran should commission a TV documentary featuring IAEA officials and other experts being given an exhaustive tour of all Iranian nuclear facilities.
The UK has taken Iran's English language off the air link to presstv.ir
which could be a prelude to something bloody.
It is interesting to contemplate the implications of where this piece appears. link to spiegel.de
The UK has highly accessible health, social security and education systems and this is obviously an attraction to economic immigrants. Some way needs to be found to distinguish between those who genuinely want to join in the life of the country and those who are only coming in for the ride. This is an enormous burden on the immigration authorities who must navigate through complex and opaque situations, often involving customs and languages with which they have little familiarity; you don’t need more than a dollop of commonsense to realise that more time will be spent considering applications of a less straightforward nature. Such a system will inevitably result in errors but the guiding principle is the pursuit of truth and the rejection of deceit. To compare this imperfect but honest endeavour to an unequivocal policy of denying citizenship to non-ethnic spouses is too silly for words.
dumvitaestspesest, I was simply writing that I don’t think Ahmadinejad will start assassinating Israeli scientists. It isn’t necessary, Israel is doing a fine job alienating itself from a world that would much sooner not have to consider all these moral ambiguities. One would be less disturbed by house flies if they didn’t make such a god-awful noise; you try to ignore them but when you have had enough, swat!
Dumvita, I don't think it’s as simple as that. Iranians are stoic, they will more likely chalk it up as further confirmation of their views of the ‘regime occupying al-Quds’ Anything else would involve descending to the Israeli level. Just as with the Palestinians' predicament, the world's response is one of growing distaste for this kind of thing, which gets added to that stolen passport business last year. A few more like that and there will be serious calls for sanctions on Israel.
Although they do some really appalling things, I don’t think the Taliban would piss on a corpse. Israelis do piss on Palestinians, I remember an account here of one grandfather subjected to that at a checkpoint, so they didn’t even wait till he was dead. I read the most horrifying story a few days ago about an 8 month pregnant prisoner in North Korea whose child was yanked from inside her and thrown to the prison dogs. I didn’t register the URL because I was so shocked I ‘ran away’. Is there, do you think, more of this kind of thing in the world today or is it just that we have media access to it?
Our lives are full of things we have the capacity to do but don’t. The speedometer on my car suggests I could do 150 mph but I rarely do more than 75, the maximum legal speed where I live. Indeed, anyone with a kitchen knife…you could go on forever. I don’t know the technicalities but it would seem unlikely one could develop a system to enrich uranium to 20% without acquiring the knowledge and latent capacity to enrich it further.
That The Merchant was written as a comedy does not simply mean it has a happy ending but that the audience were there for a good laugh. In fact, Shylock was written as an archetypical Jewish joke figure, played for laughs. Consider also Marlowe’s Jew of Malta.
Shylock’s daughter has run off with his treasure…
Shylock would be a wild character, possibly with red hair, raging about the stage, providing the comedy actor endless opportunities to have the audience it fits
Portia’s famous speech is part of this, she is fooling everyone (except the audience) and it’s played deftly to bring the whole thing to a nice comfortable solution. Clever Portia.
Unless one sees the play that way, it doesn’t work as a comedy. Of course, it cannot be put on like that today but if you read it with that in mind I think you will appreciate it works very much better.
Palestine in another age, from John Masefield’s ‘Cargoes’.
From the w/e I have put a link to this site on all my emails, and I just had a response from an English lady asking, Why don’t we know about things like that? So I replied, Well, now you do.
That should go down well on US campuses. link to haaretz.com
To many the fact that it is Israelis and Palestinians is simply not that relevant. It is the inhumanity and injustice that riles and it would be the same if it were Eskimos and Finns. I just caught the end of a Press TV report about a guy who didn't want to sell his family land and has ended up on the 'wrong' side of a new motorway in Israel, they are providing him an underpass with electronic gates to access his village, only his family can use the pass and his house is to be surrounded by lights and surveillance cameras. No doubt there is another side to this but the man gave a very sympathetic interview, he didn't rant and rail but his concern about the effect on his 10 year old son was very affecting. Israel may be able to bribe some to turn a blind eye but all the money in the world wont convince students its actions are anything but inhuman.
A very moving account that will stay burned in my memory. Since I read it this morning, something has been nagging me and I just now realised that it echoes back to that time immediately after WWII when details of the treatment of prisoners in Nazi camps began to filter through to people like my parents. I was only about 8 but I have a recollection of their shocked incredulity. Despite the horrors of the war and the bombing (we were Londoners) most people had no vocabulary for what they were hearing, my mother would frown slightly and shake her head, it was too awful to trigger emotion. They saw the pictures but it was as if they still couldn’t believe it. Strange, after all these years, to rediscover such feelings.
I watch a fair amount of Press TV link to presstv.ir
It has a slightly amateur charm but never strays into hysteria and largely confines its news to straight reportage. It does scrupulously announce NATO fatalities but makes no further comment. It has little coverage of Israel itself, which it seems to see as an irritant, one of those unfortunate things one has to put up with, but broadcasts sympathetically about life in Gaza. It has film and discussions about darker US/UK issues but never personalises its coverage of foreign leaders and on the whole takes a somewhat Olympian view of US and the UK policies, portraying them as tiresome and misguided rather than evil. It demonises no one and I have never seen anything where my immediate response has been that it cannot possibly be true. It carries little or no domestic news but neither do the other main national English language channels. It does no harm.
You will rarely get the truth from one source and it is perhaps a tad naïve to expect to. Read as many divergent contributions as possible then make up your own mind.
Here is one thought provoking perspective: link to eng.globalaffairs.ru
and here is another pertinent quote from Arendt:
Annie, fifty some years I developed malaria and although it was cured and I have had no symptoms since, I am told that it is still dormant in my system (a reason I am not able to give blood). In the same way, fifty some years ago there was manifest anti-Semitism in Europe and I suspect much is simply dormant, lying deep inside people who show no symptoms, do not say anything anti-Semitic and certainly would not perform any anti-Semitic act. Superficially they are as free of anti-Semitism as I am of malaria. However, as the predicament of the Palestinians becomes more widely known and efforts such as these naff videos (which I cannot imagine fanning anything but incredulity if not disgust) are seen for what they are, it seems to me possible that the distinction between Israelis and Jews will become ever more blurred so that the negativity both the Palestinian predicament and this kind of propaganda inspire will tend to provoke the latent anti-Semitism. If you consider what is allowed to be said about Arabs but cannot be said about Israelis there is a festering imbalance which has the potential to break out. If people are going to get worked up by the injustices in Gaza, where else is their anger and disgust to be directed? In other words, I suggest that videos like these are more likely to fan anti-Semitism than Islamophobia. To an extent, the same applies to the demonisation of Iran.
There is a well documented tendency for oppression of minorities to develop during periods of economic stress. The sort of thing in this post looks like a deliberate effort to divert the phenomenon away from those Jewish communities in the West which have traditionally born the brunt of it. However, instead of uniting Jews and non-Jews in a common distrust of Arabs, it is more likely simply to fan Islamophobia. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are similar phenomena, they are social diseases and one cannot be employed to cure the other. The principle difference is that Anti-Semitism has largely been driven underground. A second distinction is that the largest visible section of Arabs in Europe is among the unemployed, which is far from true of Jews. Overt examples of both lie predominantly with younger, socially disenfranchised males, the sort of people who desecrate mosques and synagogues, but while there is less Islamophobia (not to be confused with general anti-immigrant feelings) among middle class Europeans there is a fair bit of anti-Semitism. This is identifiable, for instance, in defensive remarks like, Many of my best friends are Jews. You are as unlikely to recognise an anti-Semitic European as you would a homosexual 60 years ago whereas Islamophobes are out of the closet and thus appear more numerous. The real problem lies in the manner in which anti-Israeli sentiments, fostered by humanitarian sympathies, may activate distasteful but essentially harmless anti-Semitism. I am aware this is a generalisation unsupported by direct example, but if you regard it as a lens and just look through it for a moment you may detect some truth in it.
Does this convert the sighted? Do the uncommited fall for it? If not, it is like watching a man wading in filth then washing in sewage. One shakes one's head in disbelief.
By the way, why does the IDF need to run a telethon? link to haaretz.com
Off topic but I have been watching the series of short films running on Al Jazeera under the title Two Schools in Nablus. link to aljazeera.com
It’s worth watching anyway but also encouraging that it is broadcast. The resilience of the caged Palestinians is impressive and heart warming; it reminded me of London in the blitz; I was only 6 in 1943 but I recall the same kindness, togetherness, and determination to get on with things. ¡Feliz Navidad!
A great deal of harm is caused by inhibiting people from saying what is true on the grounds of social sensitivity. What Ron Paul said about young black boys from deprived backgrounds should have evoked a response that it was very likely true and something should urgently be done to improve their environments. What happens instead is he is castigated years later, not because the observation was inaccurate, which would certainly have made it racist, but because people just don’t want to think about things like that. Many here are bold enough to speak the truth. Why is one ugly truth acceptable and another not?
It was a great joy reading this and watching the clip, seeing them having such fun while doing so much good. Doing good is fun, isn't it?
Mr Witty, I don’t get how a sincere seasonal greeting can be ever spam, even when ex tenebris lucet.
(it shineth in darkness. For those unfamiliar with the Gospel of John)
Yes I would like to see that too. Klein needs be more economical with his comma sprinkler. The use of the two commas expresses precisely the meaning Goldberg took from the sentence whereas without the first comma it conveys what Klein says he meant to write. Perhaps his distress is being caught flagrante in such grammatical inelegance.
I wouldn’t read too much into it. Europe, which is little more than a cartographical arrangement of borders, is forever seeking political importance through 'conjoint' activities of various uselessness. That said, there is an awakening of the peoples of Europe to the behaviour of Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians, particularly those in Gaza, and that is of political significance to both individual nations and the EU generally, the more so considering the growing influence of Arab immigrants in present and future elections. European democracy may not be a perfectly oiled machine but it runs better than many and the last thing any European government wants is manifestation against Israel breaking out in the streets, so it makes sense to adopt some kind of public face of humanitarian and democratic sensibility to allay or divert any such threat in good time. We have, after all, seen efforts to arrest Israeli’s for war crimes, efforts that obliged the UK government to change the law in order to protect them; a law deemed perfectly acceptable for the arrest of Pinochet but quite unsuited to the likes of La Livni. Nonetheless, it is a good thing it was thought necessary.
This is becoming like a gangrene spreading through the world.
If the UN can investigate the flotilla debacle why can they, or some other body, not investigate atrocities like this? It might not change anything but it would extend awareness.
Also, why is there no accessible memorial to these victims? Imagine a series of granite slabs with names carved and an option for people, collectively or individually, to sponsor slabs or the carving of names. Cairo would be a good place for it since the Israelis would hardly dare desecrate it there, and it is accessible place of pilgrimage. BDS is fine and worthwhile but out of the hands of most ordinary sympathisers like me. Such a memorial would be something we could support as well as being a significant place for better known people to visit and pay their respects.
Armies are necessarily hierarchical. Someone needs to be brought before an international court for this inexcusable and inhuman behaviour. Where does does responsibility rest, what is his name and rank or job title?
When you live with lies your conscience withers.
There is a piece in the LA Times about Israeli super rich which is worth a read, particularly for the balance in the comments.
link to latimes.com
You mean all the Palestinians need do is be patient while Zionism implodes? Oddly, that is what the dreaded Ayatollah said when he foretold the ‘Zionist regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time’, or words to that effect. Let's hope it doesn't take Israel with it.
‘Liberal Zionist’ is perhaps something you may be called, rather than something to call yourself. It was clear watching the video above and reading through comments here that Zionism has many different meanings, not all of which are comfortably compatible one with the other; Wittgenstein, thou shoulds’t be living at this hour.
One moment that has not been mentioned here is Wayne Firestone’s evocation of a Jonathan Swift essay in which it is told that while the Temple was burning to destruction, the Jews were killing each other. That undoubtedly derives from Josephus, but does it seem to anyone significant that, albeit bounced off Swift, it should come up again in Denver?
As an outsider, I have unalloyed sympathy for any people who seek a home and, if they feel the need, a refuge but I have difficulty understanding why it has to be a state. Does Zionism really need a divided political party system, nuclear weapons and international treaties? Surely it is reasonable to have reservations about a mightily armed entity with aggressive territorial ambitions and such a heartless and selective attitude to international law?. Much of the world not under the US heel is, frankly, growing more wary of Israel than Iran. This is not because Israelis are Jews but because they are increasingly seen as a loose canon.
Would not Zionism flourish better, economically, socially, and culturally in a fully autonomous region within a greater state, and if such an autonomous region is not enough then something like the Vatican centred on Jerusalem. Put another way, why does a home for the Jewish people have to tie itself to the flexibilities necessary to sustain US hegemonic ambitions in our fast changing world?
Clinton’s leaked remarks were obviously intentional and their significance is clear from the ripples. Taken together with Panetta’s impatience and the Belgium ambassador’s recent comment, they suggest an impending adjustment towards a more ‘normal’ relationship between the US and Israel. Kristol, who may be misguided but not a fool, probably sees this coming as does Ron Paul, and a host of others only now peeping out of the closet. My take, for what it's worth, is that it is all strategically directed towards the liberal US voter. The mention of Iran was very feminine, pure revenge. Nice one!
Kristol may be shooting his own paw. I doubt most US citizens, I mean the numerical most, have any deep concerns about the Middle East which is, after all, one of those things you elect someone to deal with. I also doubt most have ever heard of Kristol although I imagine they know of Panetta and likely hold him in some respect as a plain speaker in the good old American tradition, ‘get back to the damned table’ is about as unequivocal as you can get, quite apart from Panetta’s awesome responsibilities for their safety and security. Furthermore, if this guy, whoever he is, says “Obama’s message is loud and clear: the world would be a safer, simpler, and more peaceful place if not for the troublesome Jewish state,” perhaps it’s true. After all, Obama is the President and he’s supposed to know about these things.
By the bye, if ToiVos is watching, the ‘W’ in my name does not stand for ‘whatever’ but is the initial of my surname just as ‘J O’C’ are the initials of my middle names and are concatenated here purely for purposes of economy.
Charon, that is a very interesting perception, it touches something that has nagged me for years but I don’t think it as simple as the motivation you put forward; while that aspiration may be true of some Christian fundamentalist thinking it is not enough to explain Israel’s blind, almost mystical, acquiescence to what often appear to others to be doomed courses of action. You imply the possibility of a conspiracy to destroy the Jewish people but the opposite could also be true; a conspiracy to destroy all others than the Jewish people. The provocation of the US and its acolytes to embark on acts of mutual destruction with the Arab world could well be a step in that direction. There simply has to be some ulterior purpose to the current escalation of anti-Iranian activity. Perhaps that is it?
Back on topic, I seem to recall that one of Netanyahu’s solutions to the Israeli housing problem was dormitory accommodation for students. Why didn’t they think of dormitory accommodation for gay tourists?
Ignoring diverse sexuality is liberal, promoting it is not.
ToivoS, if you wish to be brutally correct on this, US imperialism germinated with intervention in WWII (and by extension) WWI. I don’t want to get into ‘what would have happened if’ but that is the fact of the matter.
link to nytimes.com
All judicial systems require the ability to enforce their findings which is maybe why the Israeli courts drag their feet. If a judicial system is not able to enforce its findings then it will be reluctant to take on a case since what actually happens is up to the most powerful contender. This was the situation in Europe in the Middle Ages, laws but no justice. Oddly, it does not apply to Israel's 'despised' Arab neighbours since however some of their laws may offend Western sensitivities they have no problem enforcing them.
Thank you, john h.
dumvitaestspesest, I was recounting what Ben Gurion said; there is no reason on earth to imagine he would have said the same thing about Hitler. The subject had arisen when, on a low table, I noticed a copy his latest book Le Renouveau, which de Gaulle had sent him. They were both in their 80s then, politics and strife were over, it was February, de Gaulle was to die in November; I found the moment deeply affecting.
I met Ben Gurion in 1971 and we touched on de Gaulle who he told me he had always admired, which was something of an eyebrow raiser, but he went to say that it had ever been de Gaulle’s duty to put the interests of France first, de Gaulle had always done that and he admired him for it. Perhaps we are just not used to people coming out with the unvarnished truth.
I am logging in to say, Goodbye. I came here a while back when Zionist pressure forced Goldstone to leave a small sample in the Washington Post. What this site is doing is admirable, but those who comment far too often enter the fray to win points with individual nut case Zionists rather than recount how they have managed to promote the message in this place or that, or suggest practical ideas about what to do next. Dedicated though they doubtless are, many seem content to contend with fellow members of the audience or engage in mutual compliments and then retire with warm feelings of having won their point. What is going on is not an entertainment, it is grotesquely real and we are not spectators, we are facing a virus dangerous to our species. Zionists have access to enough fire power to ignite a conflagration that will take us all to the martyrdom of Masada.
Thanks, come visit my cloud one day.
To date, there have been no negotiations there has only been bargaining. There are two main types of bargaining, one where the price goes down until agreement is reached and the other where it goes up each time agreement is close. The Israelis specialise in the latter. A negotiated solution is not possible because Israelis possess neither the intellectual flexibility demanded of negotiation nor the will to achieve a solution. By intellectual flexibility, I mean the approach proposed by Chaim Ganz in his OUP book A Just Zionism which is essentially an Hegelian dialectical approach where each side acknowledges the rights of the other until they progressively rise above them towards accord.
A two state arrangement might have been workable in the past, for instance if the UN had started off with discussions with the Palestinian and Jewish occupiers of the land after WWII and reached an understanding on the establishment of a state for Israel and another for the rest with clearly defined borders, and if the refugee Jews had then arrived in the friendly, neighbourly spirit most of us adopt moving into a new area. However, there is no way two states can resolve the situation on the ground today. There has to be one occupancy of the land and resources by various tribes. This will not happen until Israel becomes a thorn in the bosom of US foreign policy like Saddam after the Iraq/Iran war or the Taliban after the departure of Russia from Afghanistan, or any one of the innumerable examples with which history abounds. This process will take place over time and is arguably already under way, and it is not susceptible to long-term deviation either by Israel, AIPAC or anyone else. I believe that Obama is well aware of this and that his policies will one day be seen to have been the best way simply to let things happen. It is the sensitivity of the US bosom to the Zionist thorn that those keen on a resolution should seek now to enhance.
She writes as if she’s approaching a self-induced orgasm. She really shouldn’t do it in public. Someone tell her, cool down, go jump in a fjord.
Let me try to put this another way. If you are ideologically persuaded you are right and the other side is wrong, then you may be convinced that infractions of accepted standards are excusable and, even if something specific you report is not actually true, it’s OK to leave it in the window if it sufficiently represents a broader truth of which you are ideologically persuaded. It amounts to the eager substitution of belief (which is fallible) for knowledge (which is not). What this Rubin writer appears to have done is, perhaps, less to be excoriated when you consider the innumerable contexts in which other journalists do exactly the same. You can't blame a skunk for making a stink.
All humans, and many other species, are naturally provoked to affection by their own and other young. This cannot be simple inhumanity; it looks more like a deliberate policy to keep the tinder dry so that it can be ignited at a convenient time. Like next month?
If you look at that comment, it is exactly what the Reut Institute is doing. It is a technique used in the popular press, and involves denying something nobody had thought of in the first place and thus putting it onto the table anyway. “In a statement issued by his office Mark Regev emphatically denies that he was dancing barefoot in Trafalgar Square in the early hours of Sunday morning.”
There are indeed people who seek to de-legitimise Israel and there are also those who question Israeli government policy. There are also those who are privately or publicly disturbed by the acts of both individual Israelis and collective groups of them. There are also anti-Semites. However, it is the Zionists and their advocates who conflate them just as they do with legitimate criticism and anti-Semitism. The real purpose of this is to divert attention from what is actually happening on the ground and unfortunately it works more often than not.
Tehran Times
This phenomenon is occurring pretty well everywhere except that in some countries it is ‘the’ government, although still not government itself. One can speculate on far it will go before it settles, not as far as some might hope, perhaps, but still a significant distance. An optimist might see it as the silver lining of globalization, a growing sense of unity and interdependence among ordinary peoples.
The Israeli economy is pretty fragile. There is an interesting piece here in Haaretz this morning illustrating the extent to which the Israeli economy feeds off the Palestinians. (Don’t read the comments below the piece many of which are disgusting. I sometimes wonder if anti-Semitism isn't in part a mirror of the way some Jews look at the rest of us.)
longliveisrael, I don’t fully understand what you mean by ‘freedom for the Egyptians’. The revolution was about overthrowing Mubarak and the system that had evolved around him. That revolution is not yet over, in part because of US interference, but it is ongoing and whatever the outcome will involve the emergent authority paying closer attention to the will and wishes of the people.
Freedom is what people relinquish to authority in exchange for justice and protection. If the authority abuses its position, in time the people come together and do something about it. The Egyptian revolution has nothing whatsoever to do with Israel but was and is an entirely local matter. The outcome, however, is potentially disturbing for Israel because the Egyptian populace feel a natural sympathy with Palestinians as brothers in both religion and oppression, and when this is reflected, as it must be, in the conduct of whatever authority emerges there will be significant changes in areas Israel has come to rely on. The US can try to buy off the new authority but it is not very likely to work because the only way it could would be through the reinforcement of precisely those oppressions the revolution was raised to overthrow and the populace is on to that one.
MrPresident Obama has already done everything he canreasonably do; he set out his proposals, bent over backwards to facilitate
negotiation and endured Israeli slights and insults with dignity and equanimity. Aluf Benn offers a coherent analysis but he may be overestimating the need the US has for Israel, the potential for creative diplomacy, and the prospect for lasting stability in a two-state solution.
It is highly unlikely that any of Israel's neighbors now in turmoil will
emerge with Western style democracies. What is more likely is something closer to benevolent autocracy, that is a system in which the people and the authority have a closer, mutually respectful relationship, and the US will doubtless seek to be more pragmatic in its dealings with them, a pragmatism unquestioning support for Zionism would not allow.
The two-state solution is passed its shelf life. It is no longer practical
given the cost even a halfway fair division would represent for the settlers. It might have worked after Oslo but not now when both sides would consider that the other had achieved too much. Besides, it is fanciful to imagine that Israel would treat a new Palestine any differently from the way it treats Lebanon, worse even. It is a disturbing thought, but the future looks bloody. Just as Israeli actions gave rise to Hamas, so they have given rise to the settler movements and the settlers have too much to lose to accept compromises; they must know they will be sacrificed in any deal and they simply will not accept that role. That is where the Masada analogy gets real.
What these exchanges cannot conceal is the increasing isolation of Israel’s leadership. It is one of the unfortunate by-products of modern democracy that rather than resulting in the pursuit of the wishes of the majority, it over adapts to accommodate extremists. Israel has always been particularly riven by internal dissension; a distinguished Jewish publisher once suggested to me, lightly of course, that Israel was the only place anti-Semitism would pass unnoticed since the Jews were rife with it, one group to another. The simple truth is, Zionism has reached its sell by date and is no longer fit for consumption. This is an irreversible state.
We are swept up in a process which has, alas, no longer any peaceful resolution. The isolation and desperation of the Zionist/Settler movement is increasingly disturbing because of the martyrdom many will be prepared to seek to sustain mythopeic convictions that have no meaningful relevance in the 21st Century. We can only shade our eyes in human despair as they sink beneath the quicksand of their misguided beliefs.
Unfortunately you can and they do it all the time. 'Dishonest' is like 'fair' and neither have anything to do with this battle which is bloody, ruthless and to the death.
We must expect more like this and certainly not take these things too lightly. The Settlers know full well that when the crunch comes they will be sacrificed while proper Israelis stay home by the pool painting their toenails. If there ever is a two-state solution, it is after all the territory these people live in that will be lost to Israeli occupation, not Tel Aviv. What would be useful, if the talent can be found, is satirical counter video because any attempt at reasoned response, as we well know, just takes the whole 'debate' glug, glug, glug down the cistern.
These people have a lot of resources, they used to be fairly amateur but they are learning. However, I just caught this. I have long had a sneaking suspicion that Obama’s long-term strategy has been to ease the US/Israel relationship towards something closer to other US allies and, having his hands tied and being unable to do anything positive to achieve this, his tactic has been to allow Israel’s leaders to do it all by themselves. I can’t remember the exact words but I recall him saying at the start of the abortive negotiations that the results would show which side was really in favour of a peaceful settlement, and that certainly happened. True, he has thrown them a few scraps but what he hasn’t done may be more significant. He has done no maintenance on the relationship, he hasn’t even paid them a visit.
The point is these presentations will not convince anyone. It is moral and humanitarian realities that carry weight.
Kind of Romeo and Juliet at the checkout. Perhaps they have eloped. Sweet. Meanwhile back at the farm, the Israelis are apparently charging for knocking down Bedouin homes!
Grammatic, dear dimadok, is the root of the adjective 'grammatical'. It is not a noun in the plural or the singular. clairseoir is quite right, you should work on your English and your Logic. After all, you don't want to stay a 'dimadok' all your life.
It's not that crazy. Settlements are good places to park those extremists proper Israelis don't want as neighbours. Plus they provide a protective buffer and, if a two-state solution is ever forced into existence, they can be abandoned, with a deal of rhetoric and hand wringing it's true, but little real grief.
It is scarcely to be comprehended. Norway is not a large country and on a comparative per capita basis this would be the equivalent of around 480 US children. Silence is perhaps the only response.
This is clearly the work of a
nutcasesick person, and it is only marginally less credible to attribute it to Zionist rather than Islamic fundamentalist inspiration. We must be careful not to enter that arena which treats the truth as a competitive spectator sport.In debate there are traditionally accepted ground rules but Zionist apologists here are either unaware of them or deliberately flout them. I suspect the latter. I challenge any of them to provide rational justification for the treatment of the Palestinian people. Rational justification does not have to be moral it just has to be the product of a mental rather than emotional process. Such a justification might go something like this:
We seek all the land from the Jordan to the sea and the Palestinians are in our way. We should have exterminated them earlier but since we failed in that we are left with this ongoing problem, and because we are constrained from more extreme measures by external considerations of human values we are obliged to employ these as the only means at our disposal.
I may be wrong but if that or something like it is the rationale, then why do they not just come out and say it. A proposition expressed in that manner could be responded to in a rational way and spare us all the mud slinging.
eee, BDS is specifically directed at the Israeli occupation. You might just as well ask: Why, if someone is cleaning their teeth they are not cleaning their shoes instead.
Interested in the origin of IDF treatment of Palestinian children, I sent an enquiry to Professor Avigdor Svengali, the Iran Segal professor of Zionist Anthropology at the University of Halamish. This is his reply:
I have no direct information regarding IDF policy towards young Palestinians. However, it may in some way reflect the findings of a research project undertaken by our department, published (1998) in the Zionist Anthropology Review, issue 199684 pages 1257/81, outlining our findings that Palestinians display a marked fondness for their offspring, particularly the young males. I must add that this was consistent with our findings for many other biped species covered in the same review. I have no more to add. Remember me to your mother.
This is astonishing. It scarcely seems possible human beings can enjoy behaving like that. Could they be stoned? Military personnel are known take that route in morally untenable situations.
I would like to draw attention to this piece in Der Spiegal because, although the article is not anti-protesters, it touches an argument and an attitude that has a potentially negative impact on the movement; I have heard similar from Mark Regev and others. In its simplest form it goes: All this protest is just a bunch of ignorant activists seeking a day in the sun because Gaza is flourishing. Such claims have the subtle capability to divert debate from the issue of oppressive and illegal occupation towards bars, shopping malls and silver Audis and one needs to be prepared to swat them on sight.
Very few Israelis do not speak English. The reason they cannot persuade the goys, as you so indelicately describe their only allies, that Gaza is a land of milk and honey is that it perfectly obviously is not. What is true is that Israelis do not speak Farsi or they would know that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s mistranslated comment on the Zionist regime is as far from what he said as Marxism from the philosophy of Marx.
Stereotypes are not reversed, they just fade into irrelevance until they become little more than bits of mosaic from a forgotten past. In Elizabethan England, Jews were joke figures, and The Merchant of Venice was a comedy with Shylock played for laughs. The fact that it cannot be played like that today is why it appears such an unsatisfactory play.
It’s also a strike against the Euro because the activists opposing austerity measures have added it to their list of anti-government complaints.
Thank you for this. I didn’t really go for the ‘US pressure on Greece’ version, it would be too risky in the present climate; the US is more likely to have said something more diplomatic along the lines that they ‘do not look favourably’ on the flotilla and left it at that. This account, on the other hand, has a very Israeli feel to it; short-sighted and ultimately counter-productive.
The special relationship has begun to weaken. It is less solid today than it was 30 months ago. Although the reason is raw US self-interest, with little or nothing to do with any new-found US enthusiasm for the Palestinians, the problems Israel insists on fostering in Palestine are making US electors look more closely at a relationship that seems to cost so much while providing nothing but unwelcome attention to those less salubrious elements of foreign policy that would be better left off radar. Both parties keep stressing the opposite, insisting the relationship is as strong as ever and so on, but the necessity to keep up with this mantra of denial is itself proof all is far from well.
eee, you have just penned a perfect illustration of exactly what I expressed above, let me take you by the hand. ‘Rational’ is an adjective and means ‘based on reason, logical’ but you misuse it as a noun; ‘The rational for Zionism is simple’, you write. That sentence is to all intents and purposes meaningless. If it was a typographical error and you meant ‘rationale’, i.e. fundamental reason, then you are expressing your view on the origin(s) of Jewish attitudes and you may well be right, but that does not make them rational. Consider, a man’s drug addicted mother and drunken father may provide the fundamental reasons why he became an axe murderer. But do they make his actions rational?
Your ultimate paragraph is ad hominem (see above) since America and Canada are totally irrelevant both to the nature of your argument the situation on the ground in Palestine.
I have been following threads here and in Foreign Policy for a while now and it is clear to me that there exists no rational justification for Zionism and its actions. I hope you will not consider it out of place if I share some of my thoughts.
All pro-Zionist arguments tend to be ad hominem like the introduction of Syrian or other oppression to counter criticism of the IDF, or invalid syllogisms like blaming all Palestinians for the actions of a handful of extremists. Other techniques involve selective abstractions from History and their own mythopeic (myth making) literature. By pointing out these errors, as often happens, the original argument insensibly transforms into a debate about debating from which they retreat unscathed leaving the reluctant conclusion they are simply never going to listen. It is totally useless, indeed counter-productive, to reason with the irrational; like trying to extinguish a fire by talking it down. Better to dismiss such arguments curtly: "That is a ridiculous argument, sorry."
Personally I cannot foresee a day when US public opinion will support the Palestinian cause against Israel but I can imagine public patience with Israel's influence on US politics running out, the more so if it is constantly brought forward. Is there anywhere a database of all candidates receiving pro-Israeli funding? I also believe many voters can be roused by reminders of the aid dispensed to Israel. These are astronomical sums that can to converted into 'hypothetical' hospitals, scholarships, public works and so on until they become familiar sound bites. Of course accounts of horrors and injustices also play on emotions but they tend to provoke most Americans to sympathy rather than action. Better to touch their pride or their pockets; sorry if that sounds cynical. This may seem a shade distasteful but it is not irrational to employ the irrational rationally.
The objective must be to get voters questioning the basic US attachment to Israel, quite apart from the question of Palestine, until it begins to worry sensible Israelis (there is evidence it already does) and they increase pressure on their leaders to become rational. Has anyone heard a Zionist defend US aid, or say 'Thank you' for that matter? Before Netanyahu’s last address to both houses, Haaretz ran a piece about what he might usefully say. I left a comment suggesting that thanks to the US people might not be a bad idea. My comment earned five thumbs up and seventy-eight down!
The flotilla would likely have been stopped anyway and the negative publicity arising from this pre-emptive prohibition is not without some value since it casts light on US/Israeli wheeling dealing which is unattractive to many regardless of the Palestine issue. The Greek government is not popular, to put it mildly, and may shortly fall in which case this policy could well be reversed. Anyway the flotilla
canwill try again.Off subject but you may have noticed appeals in Haaretz for donations for starving Israeli children, and there does appear to be some agricultural vulnerability developing in Israel see here and here.
This is curious since the area has ever been a breadbasket which is one of the reasons it has been fought over for ever. I have two thoughts on this, that it may help provoke internal Israeli political discontent with the prospect of a more coherent government, but it is also likely to make the Israeli hold on Palestinian land even more tenacious.
I accept that but it is still a top priority to find the perpetrators of this crime and uncover any Israeli links, should they exist, because even those neutral to the issue of flotillas will be roused by such a vicious and irresponsible act. I am waiting for Lieberman to claim the sabotage was the work of
activiststerrorists to cast blame on Israel.This was clearly a serious criminal act that potentially endangered many lives. It ought to be possible to identify the perpetrators and bring them to public justice. The Irish authorities should be encouraged to undertake a criminal investigation. If Dubai can do it so can Ireland. This sort of thing is totally unacceptable as an internal issue but with international involvement, if that is the case, it approaches an act of war. Is it possible Israel has handed the world a golden gun?
I am going to jump in here. Anything that divides a group, in this case readers/supporters, is fraught with potential dangers and the more innocent it looks, the more dangerous it could be. The Nazis used it in the Warsaw Ghetto by issuing identity cards in two colours, and then…well, you know that story. The fact that you don’t see that it is a bad idea is actually a very good reason for not doing it.
The same thing happened to me! I couldn’t believe this was Hartman on Israel, and followed the link in a state of incredulity and bewilderment. It was almost a relief to find his concerns were for the Syrian middle classes rather than the Palestinians next door since it at least it explained why the sky had not fallen down.
Did you get this refreshing piece from the Washington Post on Sunday? link to washingtonpost.com
My question is: would a government led by the dissidents be any better? The mirror question is: Could it be worse?
There will never be an Israeli leader fond of Palestinians, nor would it really help resolve the issue if there were, it would have the same effect as if some outsider, like the US, were to force a solution on the parties. My impression of Dagan is of an Israeli patriot who is also a realist and a man with a deal of intellectual acumen, a combination that has potential for statesmanship. He has a touch of Ben-Gurion about him. It isn’t easy to explain what I mean by that but I did meet Ben-Gurion in his later life and we talked, not about Arabs because European enthusiasm for all things Israeli was only then beginning to fracture, we were talking about de Gaulle who had just sent him a copy of his latest book. He expressed genuine admiration for de Gaulle, which surprised me. He said that it had ever been de Gaulle’s responsibility to put the interests of France above all others, that he had always done that, and he admired him for it. That was a man who could play hard but still respect an opponent.
The present Israeli leaders veil themselves with images of the holocaust and mythopeic promises to Moses, and one is as likely to succeed in moving them to reason as one could a Scientologist. The further problem is that the sincerity of their fantasies is questionable because the land is inexorably disappearing rather like the oysters while the Walrus and Carpenter talked of shoes and ships and so on.
Anyone looking beyond their nose sees that absent the intervention of a deity, Israel’s situation is heading out of control. Unfortunately, due to the phenomenal arsenal it has acquired, any collapse is likely to be attended by unacceptable collateral damage. Israel badly needs new leadership and this may be why these voices are being heard. One should try to avoid bringing up a lot of murk from Dagan’s past, everyone worth his salt has some; St Augustine had been an enthusiastic sinner (Lord, make me chaste but not yet) and many a poacher has turned gamekeeper.
Several columnists on Haaretz are are also baffled and appalled by this degrading performance*. What do you think it would take to organise a massive petition for US abstention on the Palestinian UN statehood application?
*link to haaretz.com
I believe you to be absolutely right, straightline, and that is indeed Obama’s concealed agenda. Since he cannot with any impunity harm the Israelis, he allows them time and space to harm themselves and they are doing a good job of it if you consider the relative levels of Israeli support at the end of 2008 and now.
It is important that the one state solution be introduced in the US because most citizens do not know enough about the conflict even to be aware that it has always been not only the most likely but the peaceable solution. Netanyahu’s outburst attracted much attention in the comment columns and it was illuminating to read contributions innocently asking why the two sides don’t just share the land. Impatience with the conflict in the face of so many more pressing issues plus wider awareness of the dollars flowing to Tel Aviv may well prove to be AIPAC's Achilles heel.
Might you be being too dismissive of Obama? After all, he is not able to make Israel do this or that, not least because his hands are tied. However, consider what he has not done since the Arab Spring sprung and what he did not say in his address. He might have sent a fleet to the Israeli coast as a gesture of solidarity when Mubarak fell, in his address he might have made consoling reference to Israel’s new levels of insecurity, he might have slanted his remarks to make it clear that any move against Israel would be peremptorily dealt with. He did none of this nor did he make any reference to the conniptions Israeli leaders are enduring, despite fierce anti-Israel protests in Cairo and the significant underlying majority Egyptian attitudes* towards an ally with whom the US shares so many ‘till death do us part values. Instead he uttered an unexceptional phrase that sent Netanyahu into one of his characteristic outbursts. It is inconceivable this was not deliberate since it is as reliable as turning a tap to get water; Ahmadinejad does it frequently, he makes a quiet provocative remark and Netanyahu explodes and starts waving bits of paper all over the place while Ahmadinejad watches quiet as a Persian cat that has just eaten something intended for your dinner.
It is easy to misinterpret these events, but it seems sometimes that the door is being left ajar for an Egyptian inspired solution to the rehabilitation of Palestine.
* link to guardian.co.uk
The Walt/Mearsheimer response to critics of “The Israeli Lobby” provides, inter alia, illuminating insights into long-term Zionist plans. If you are unfamiliar with it, you will find it illuminating.
link to hbpub.vo.llnwd.net
Walid, too true. I was picking up the point that enemies may readily want, or not want, the same thing; if they were planning a duel to the death neither would want a thunderstorm at dawn. People are relatively easily united in agreeing what they want to abolish or escape but less so when it comes to what they want in its place. This, of course, is because what they have had enough of exists whereas what they want is still in their heads. My concern would be that if Syria fell into chaos the US/Israel alliance might move in for 'humanitarian' reasons.
Assad has certain similarities with Saddam Hussein and it might be better for everyone including Syrians if, for the time being, he could be persuaded towards benevolence rather than toppled because like the former he does keep the lid on an otherwise highly volatile mix.
As the mist begins to clear, I glimpse what looks like a Palestinian state with an autonomous region for Jewish extremists.
"...smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs”.
There us one objective and one only, to establish a Jewish state in all Palestine and it has been pursued with various ups and downs since around 1550 BC when monotheist nomads crossed the river and levelled Jericho. The indigenous population resist the encroachments as they ever did and they are dealt with as they ever were. The only way they could be stopped is by force but even then they would be back in time. Debates about human rights or UN investigations simply catalogue progress. That is all there is to it. Here I illustrate it with a picture and two quotes: link to njow.co.uk
The most humanitarian solution might be to let Israel take over the whole area since they have all but done it anyway and the see how the mix pans out in time.
Israelis are concerned about what he (Goldstone) thinks, so concerned that they put thoughts into his head which he has to disavow and the least we can do is be behind him. This may connect very acutely with your point about the main show being in Gaza because some people suspect Israel to be fomenting incidents on the Gaza border in order to ‘justify’ another attack. The last one cannot coincidentally have been undertaken at precisely the moment one President was packing his boxes and the other had not yet entered the White House. Once the ME social turmoil has settled, it will become increasingly difficult to embark on Cast Lead II and, although hopefully it won’t happen, it is not overly fanciful to imagine the thought being processed somewhere..
I believe the movement of an entity, nation or otherwise, towards pariah status is more effective than punishing a handful of individuals because the latter can be taken as wiping the slate clean; extensively publicising the IDF’s ludicrously cosmetic compliance with the investigative process could prove more effective than incarcerating a handful of soldiers for a year or two. Donald (above) provided a link to Amnesty International’s updated assessment of Israeli and Palestinian investigations and it’s as good a place to start as any.
One contribution we could all make is to cease referring to the ‘Goldstone Report’ and call it instead The UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict or UNFFM or whatever so that Goldstone’s personal relationship to the document in restored to a more appropriate perspective.
Regardless of whether international law has any ‘validity’, we share this world and it is important we know what goes on in it. Peer disapproval may not have much authority but it can have a significant effect.
The attacks on Gaza lasted 22 days during which there was all but continuous live coverage from Ayman Mohyeldin and other Al Jazeera correspondents that included interviews on both sides of the border. I know this because I watched it. I no longer work. It was winter and cold and I spent hours each day following it. The events examined in the eponymous Goldstone report were occurring in real time and isolated incidents were almost daily put to Livni and the Israeli spokesman, Regev, both of whom wriggled defiantly or, when confronted with something like phosphorous raining down, retreated behind ignorance, “I have no information on that”. Whether the innumerable events unfolding before one’s eyes over three weeks were intentional or not there was clearly no intention to stop them.
You have a neat talent for synthesising my verbiage. One thing that bothers me, and it doesn’t only apply to this matter, is that with one’s head down, picking apart events like Goldstone’s op-ed, one can too easily lose sight of the on-going process of which it is but a part. It is like a pickpocket’s trick where concentration is distracted while the wallet disappears. I have been sitting here toying with an illustration of this point which you may care to glance at: link to njow.co.uk
And, yes, I did see the petersz video. These things take me some time to view as I am in a small village in Southern Spain with an Internet connection that is supposed to be 1 MB but rarely reaches 600 kB.
We are being treated these days to some remarkably tortured legalese, which may not be altogether surprising given Goldstone’s background in jurisprudence. Bear with me while I try to pick some of it apart. Goldstone did not write that his report would have been different, rather that it ‘probably’ would have been so, a qualification one can imagine being accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders as if the differences would have been only minor and not enough to affect the conclusions in any meaningful manner. The wording appears to have been carefully selected to preserve Goldstone’s integrity while allowing Netanyahu a foothold from which to dismiss the whole report.
Next we are told the Obama administration read the op-ed with interest. Just like everyone else. We are also told that they didn’t see any evidence the Israeli Government committed any war crimes, nor intentionally targeted civilians. That is consistent with their having read the op-ed since there is no such evidence in it.
Turning to this business of targeting civilians intentionally, targeting something involves selecting it and aiming at it and I do not see how that can be done other than intentionally; one might select the ‘wrong’ target so that civilians and civilian infrastructure simply got hit unintentionally but the scale on which one would have to accept that explanation in Gaza would make the IDF the worst trained army in the history of warfare. Which it obviously isn’t.
There exist rules of engagement designed to minimise collateral casualties. Being a bit like requiring rapists to employ condoms such rules operate in an equivocal area but they do exist. In February 2010 the UK newspaper, The Independent, carried a persuasive piece about the way these rules may have been modified for the Gaza incursion. link to independent.co.uk
. I prefer not to quote or summarise any part of it because it is important and needs to be considered in context. If one accepts the broad validity of this piece, however, it is clear that although no one actually drove them off, the stable door was opened and the horses were left free to escape.
Israel is edgy; in eight weeks a far larger flotilla will be headed for Gaza on the anniversary of the Mavi Marmara debacle and they are understandably anxious to whitewash everything in sight.
Hi, I just registered here to make a simple point that seems to have fallen foul of monitors elsewhere. Commonsense suggests that if Goldstone came to the conclusion that his eponymous report was flawed, he would have contacted the others who shared in its preparation and, were they similarly persuaded, they, or he alone if they were not so persuaded, would have drawn up a detailed erratum document for the UN Human Rights Council, which had appointed them to the investigation, presumably paid their expenses, and to whom they had delivered their report. Surely that is what anyone would do. It beggars belief that he would instead simply pen an ambiguous op-ed for a US newspaper.
In Ynetnews, Avram Krengel, chairman of the South African Zionist Federation, is quoted boasting with distasteful self-satisfaction of the pressure Goldstone was exposed to at home.: "He (Goldstone) suffered greatly, especially in the city he comes from. We took sides against him, and it encourages us to know that our way had an effect against the international pressure and made him admit and regret his remarks." link to ynetnews.com
Goldstone is a man of a certain age, he is retired, he has a family. His piece is carefully non-committal and I think I can guess how he was persuaded unload it.