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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
"Then he issues a report (an official State Department report!) that announces that anti-Semitism is on the rise."
I got a good motto for all professional Zionists or those who are doing anti-anti-Semitism for living: Semper simpering.
Power in relationships is usually unhealthy. I can only imagine the unscrupulous leftist professors serially bedding poor Jewish kids. Or worse, they can brainwash them.
Actually, on college level you do not need teacher certification, or even more strangely, any test of English proficiency. However, the good councilor may have heart in correct place, but I have serious doubts about the conditions of his brain.
For example, if Israeli education ministry will succeed in its attempts to close the department of political science at Ben Gurion University, it may create a batch of Israeli professors seeking a gainful employment overseas. I am not sure if they would satisfy homes of Hon. Fidler. On the other hand, Hasbara efforts were very successful in creating a lot of jobs in think tanks etc. for right wing political scientists, and thus it may be hard to find a qualified right winger for a position in humanities at City University , where the combination of cost of living, workload and pay are attracting predominantly people who disregard profit motivation -- and those tend to be leftist.
Security can be a jealous god, requesting increasing strictness in devotions and multiplication of sacrifices.
"China, Russia, Mexico treat suspected spies and saboteurs at their borders MUCH more severely than Israel."
I do not know the basis for that assertion. Also, the context is routine mistreatment of a large class of travelers rather then detention applied to few cases. For example, a number of Americans got into trouble on Mexican borders because while it is OK to drive through USA with a gun in your car, it is highly illegal to have guns with you when you enter Mexico, and you can get a serious prison sentence. Apart from cases like that, I never heard of any complains about traveling to Mexico, and none about China and Russia.
Jewish Press proudly features Moshe Feiglin as their regular contributor. Not that he writes for them often, once in two weeks, but the likeness of the adorable MK is displayed on top of the page. Clearly, this is not the frontline of Hasbara effort but the innermost sanctum.
Even so, the critique of Mandy Patinkin is strangely muted, as it starts with an aside that he is not an Israel-hater, but is guilty of "attacking" SOME Israeli Jews. The same can be said about Im Tirtzu -- and this very article for that matter.
"Jews living and working in Judea and Samaria."
It is a bit mind boggling to me. According to my textbooks, Samaria is the same as Shomron which is the same as Israel, the northern state of the Hebrews, while the southern was Judea and that was it. Thus Judea and Samaria are the lands that Zionists claim to be connected to. If so, one can propose a logical exchange: the territory to the west of Green Line to Palestinians and Judea and Samaria to Jews (small quibble why Jews have a connection to Samaria and not to Judea alone). This version of the 2 state solution would take care of all the settlements in a way most satisfactory for the settlers.
If I recall, Hagee's organization found Im Tirtzu to be too radical and discontinued their support. This is one of the most frankly fascist organizations on the Israeli scene. In particular, Im Tirtzu targets "enemy within", or "Jewish traitors". But can such radicalism be singled out as not conforming to "social and welfare programs"?
IRS is already in hot water for scrutinizing charities that support so-called Tea Party which probably means our domestic hate groups. There are some laws singling out Communists, but I am not aware if IRS can discriminate against fascists.
According to Wiki, Wendy Greuel is an active supporter of a peculiar American version of Apartheid, which is about making it difficult to move between communities with different income level (or property status). Check the passage starting with "Parking was an issue for the renters and the would use the north side neighborhood as overflow parking and cross a pedestrian bridge to their homes." The bridge was closed for good on her orders.
Wiki page is pretty good. Greuel is not without accomplishment, but she is also very vulnerable, e.g. "calendar controversy".
I very much agree with Heike. Everytime I hear "Jewish values" I think "another heretic is trying to hide the adherence to universal values".
In particular, the central premise of Israel project is that Jews should liberate themselves from galut thinking and redeem themselves by restoring the "special connection" with the Promised Land. In the process, a better kind of Jew is created, redeemed and elevated. Benighted Jews in Exile should shut up (unless they repeat what the elevated Jews say), contribute money and lobbying.
Thus the notion of "Jewish values" is heavily contested, and the interpretation of the activists is very much in minority. As someone without religious education and with rather sketchy historical education, I have no idea who is a more correct representative of those value. And it really should not matter.
But the issue is not as simple as that. The notion of universal rights is far from universal, for example it is heavily contested in USA as "outside the mainstream" and "radical". Perhaps we need arguments that those rights are not altogether weird, for example they follow from Jewish Values. And Federalist Papers for a good measure.
There is definitely something to be suspicious about here. One conjecture that I have is that Indians perceive caste/income distinctions as related to "race" even when we think about all these groups as being uniformly of "Indian race". After all, the caste groups are exogamous etc.
The second conjecture I have is that predominant factor of segregation in USA is by income, with people striving to be in "as good neighborhood as possible", and racial segregation is a bit of a side-effect. Additionally, admitting to racists attitudes is a bit shameful in USA. On the other hand, you can see a river separating lower-middle class white ethnic neighborhood (with some Black Brasilians?!) from purely Black neighborhood, so I guess it is not simply income that people care about. But the river I have in mind also separates so-so school district from a really bad school district and so on and so on.
Perhaps some American media will report the story later. Sometimes they are pretty slow. I am watching the story of police in Bakersfield, CA, killing a poor Latino man by beating with their sticks and confiscating phones of people who called 911 to stop the beating. For about a week the only English language media reporting the story were in Bakersfield, plus Russian TV. As we discuss NYT depictions of various events, you may be interested in this title "Fatal Encounter With Police Is Caught on Video, but Kept From the Public".
Perhaps what made the story "newsworthy" (or kosher?) was the fact that FBI agreed to investigate at the request of the chief of Bakersfield police who for a week seemed to trust the ability of his department to investigate itself. I will watch the case, because on one hand, law enforcement has huge whitewashing capacity, and on the other, they are really stretching the envelope here. But the perspectives adopted by the media is very interesting as well. For example, the most newsworthy aspect appears to be the confiscation of the cell phones (with one of the two videos erased?), and several experts were asked for opinion. To me, the most interesting aspect is how bestial police would have to be to be charged with murder (or at least homicide)? Instead, we have lyrical "fatal encounter",
Perhaps this is off topic, but the connection is the following: a very perceptive observation by Dershowitz that he have not met people who truly care about Palestinians. Poorly educated workers are in a similar category.
As a general note on fascism, in the world where the ruling elites were discredited by the nonsensical slaughter of WWI and economies were wracked by depressions, the "can do" ideologies, fascism and communism, were very popular. Even now it is hard to tell what is it that Im Tirtzu finds wrong about fascism (with the obvious exception when the Jews are the target).
Of course Żabotyński and his Betar had very good relationship with Mussolini until the latter turned against the Jews under Hitler's influence (around 1937). Im Tirzu very much continues that spirit. They invoke the pride... Does the Judaism say anything about the pride?
Dershowitz should stop lying? Have you no pity? And he should stop eating for a good measure? Do you want to take the air out of his lungs?
The article in Forbes is delusional. Yes, Netanyahu visited China and told his hosts that Israel can help China in developing technology. You do not rise to the top of Chinese politics without the ability of listening to most bizarre statements with straight face.
Israel is no more important to China than Malaysia. China gets technology from ANYWHERE and develops her own. Chinese pursue their own interests in foreign policy and there are no signs of them following any type of Western (and even less, Israeli) lead. They support Palestinian cause, if only verbally. They opposed any sanctions (or extension of sanctions) on Sudan, Syria and Iran and have economic ties with those countries.
Chinese also have a very complicated game with USA, and my private theory is that they successfully play Americans for fools. In a nutshell, the top Chinese priority is economic growth achieved in "mercantilist" style, while the top American priority is profit of American companies even if American workers get "deindustrialized", with the slogan of "free trade". But there are also pressures within USA for a more "mercantilist" or protectionist policies. To delay the onset of such policies Chinese dangle various chips, be it a more relaxed attitude to Israel, or more cooperative attitude in respect to North Korea etc., but it never amounts to more than that. That keeps the American attention suitably diverted.
My bad: this is comment on Maher, who annoyed me quite a bit and made me prone to mistakes.
I watched for about one minute and Maher is simply an annoying idiot. He even says something intelligent at random, but he simply is not integrating news that he reads into something coherent. What I see is that he embodies an average idiot from the street and thus he is selected as a TV host. Sorry for an elitist remark.
Example 1: Isn't it a bigotry of soft expectations to accept the fact that there are riots any time there are cartoons or movies offending "Allhah" (I think that Muslim are actually sensitive disrespecting the Prophet, P.B.U.H. to the point of disputes if it is OK to abbreviate Peace Be Upon Him)?
What I mean by "integrating the news" is that there are many Muslim out there and a lot of them belong to young poor male demographic group that is somewhat prone to rioting all over the world. And there are news report about those riots, usually we pay no attention to them so there is no issue of "accepting" or not. E.g. in civilized nations of Europe soccer riots are most prominent. Actually, the most bloody riot in Egypt was soccer related, so these guys are not all that different from civilized Europeans. East Asian countries have more esoteric philosophies so their riots may be harder to comprehend, like riots in China when they noticed, after 140 years, that Japan controls Senkaku islands.
Example 2: "I am not for dictatorship, but any time we overthrow a dictatorial Muslim government it is worse, like Egypt, Iran or Afghanistan." Who are "we", kenosabe? Reza Pahlavi and Mubarrak were deposed because their own military did not have the will to fight rioting crowds. "We" could perhaps bribe the generals, but you need lieutenants and captains on the street willing to charge the crowds rather than arresting their commanders.
Which comes to Example 3 that I anticipated and had to stomach to watch. How is it that as soon as those lesser people get the opportunity to participate in free elections they elect conservative incompetent bufoons? Unlike educated and predominantly middle class Americans who elect such brilliant people like Senator Cruz, Representative Allen West and hundreds of others (including George W. Bush)? I admit that the list can be expanded with Democrats, but after contributing 100 bucks to DNC I leave it to others. In the country of my birth, the democratically elected leaders seem to alternate between mediocrities and total idiots (meaning, more stupid than Maher).
Example 4 that I had no stomach to watch: bewilderment that people who have upper hand in civil wars are usually not nice. I heard the whine "they are not our friends" and my mental capacity to watch the idiot was exhausted.
OMG! Barbara Streisand will attend! She is all butter!
Sadly, the list starts with a certain Elliot Abrams who is a singularly despicable character. Just by himself he suffices to boycott the meeting. Most of you are too young to remember, but during civil wars in Central America he was all over TV defending murderers and rapists who were "our friends". Being Assistant Secretary for Human Rights, no less. A kind of guy who gives fascists a bad name.
And the chances are that his charming wife will show up to. It is hard to find a better matching couple.
Perhaps Zionist cherry tomatoes are more tasteless than other store varieties? With modern plant breeding technology you can eliminate such impediments in vegetables as excessive smell and taste, something that the Aztec would be ignorant of.
But indeed, what miserable world it would be if we had to use Samsung cell phones instead of Motorola, or AMD computer chips instead of Intel.
PS. Wiki quote to support my remarks about modern technology and taste: The Santorini cherry tomato developed from seeds brought to Santorini (Greece) in 1818.[7] It is known for its flavour and body.[8] International conferences dedicated to the cultivation, horticulture and agriculture of the cherry tomato are also held at Santorini.
The Tomaccio tomato was developed by several labs in Israel, the dominant ones being the lab head by Prof. Nahum Keidar and Prof. Chaim Rabinovitch from the Agriculture Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,[9] Rehovot Campus. It is the product of a 12-year breeding program using wild Peruvian tomato species to create a sweet snack tomato with excellent ripening time and shelf time.[10][11]
As a though experiment, suppose that Mr. X found a cure for breast cancer and once a week he rapes an 11 year old girl. Suppose that the state prosecutor has breast cancer, should she choose between prosecuting Mr. X or getting a treatment based on the discovery of Mr. X? The question makes no freaking sense!
The claim about "Intel Core i7 chip" is primarily based on the assumption that achievements in science and arts (and sports for a good measure) absolve crimes and stupidity. At the time when Russian ballet redefined the standards in one of the most beautiful art forms, it would be totally inappropriate to pay attention to pogroms committed by the Black Hundred.
Calm down, Hostage. Police threatened poor rabbi (who turned out to be chicken) with stripping him of the honorary position of a chaplain of York police department (I guess York is to Toronto what Yonkers is to NYC). I am not sure how Mounties could apply similar pressure to JDL. "We will not send troopers to your address during our annual fundraiser for the Fraternal Order of Police"? That would be weak...
Since it sounded a bit "unusual", I checked what kind of police repressions were applied to courageous Canadian rabbis. Black Hunded in Canada? Judge for yourself:
TORONTO - York Regional Police threatened to remove a rabbi as one of the force’s chaplains if he hosted a controversial anti-Islamist speaker at his Thornhill synagogue.
There is nothing disqualifying in having a "personal connection". You may have some scientific interest in checking if a fly can walk with 5 legs, or with 4 legs, or with 3 -- can she still crawl with 2 legs? But having a personal connection gives you a different perspective. You may oppose such experiments like ripping legs off even if some label it "dangerously naive".
Our humanitarian interventions are about as ethical as the experiments I mentioned above.
Çatalhöyük is incredibly ancient, dates a few thousand years "before the beginning of the world" if you wish to use Jewish calendar, and in this time frame it makes no sense to mention Aryans in this context, as they appeared roughly 6000 years after the beginning of Çatalhöyük, or even Indo-Europeans whose existence is purely conjectural in the period Çatalhöyük existed, and putative location totally uncertain.
Military justice system is a weird hybrid. It has cruel enforcers of the empire, as we seen in the way Manning was mistreated and humiliated. But many officers are in some sense weird: they are indoctrinated in the superiority of American system as it is based on democracy, laws and Constitution, which is normal to me, and they believe it! Earnest people in this time and age!
For this reason it was very difficult to make kangaroo trials for Guantanamo inmates. White House and Pentagon was trying to create ridiculous rules but the military defenders were effective and military judges listened to them. It is a contrast with the civilian system where it is hard to make a terrorist case too contrived to fail a huge sentence from the jury. To normal citizens and judges Constitution is a kind of a cherished decoration, very cute but also very quaint.
I have suspicion that this is the reason why the pretrial detention of Manning lasts so long. Military defenders can be more effective than the civilian, and military jury can also be more idealistic than a civilian one. You cannot easily predict what will happen.
PS. What I wrote here is based on some impressions and glimpses of news, but they fit together. I once asked an ROTC student what they are doing in ROTC classes, and he told me they they have classes about the Constitution. I asked him to tell me more, and while it was only a few sentences, I got an impression "he is a believer".
I am not sure what classes Bradley Manning took, but he knew that he is risking his life and that there are good chances that he will never see the light of day again. Perhaps he underestimated the risk, but he surely did not expect any gain.
More precisely, it should be "equal value" swap. In any case, the magnitude of the scam is way beyond this detail, because negotiations cannot produce an agreement.
Dubious details may hide the emptiness of the total concept. I remember hot disputes if Saddam's chemical artillery and missiles can reach Cyprus or not, or if they can be ready to launch/fire on two hour notice or at least a day. In the hindsight, British collected thoroughly falsified intelligence and then exaggerated conclusions from the pile of shit that was not as scary as Blair government needed. While there was a dispute about the ethics involved in the exaggerations, the ethics involved in the generation of the malodorous pile of "evidence" were to depressing to mention.
Concerning the swaps, no government of Israel will relinquish an inch without dire necessity. They will fight tooth and nail, or at least make a show of it. This is their patriotic duty as understood by the majority of their voters. As long as any show of resistance from GoI causes Washington to fold the only thing that will happen is expansion of settlements, dispossession and oppression.
As it is, the improved peace plan is a huge success, as it achieves its principal goal, good photo-op for Qataris and others.
W. Jones,
in my opinion, the differences that you mention are smaller than implied by political leaders of Russian-Israeli community. Israeli political scene is dominated by Likud and offshoots that were created at different times, Kadima and whatever is lead by Naftali Bennet (while Yisrael Beitenu fused back into Likud). It is a bit like considering what is most spicy: horseradish, garlic or ginger.
One aspect of Zionist immigration is than more liberally inclined Jews did not come to Israel or stayed there is briefly as possible.
Second aspect of the prevailing "Revisionist Zionism" is that the first generation of revisionist politicians spend the first 20 years in the opposition which mellowed their original fascist outlook (and their great friend Mussolini eventually turned against Jews). The new immigration did not go through such mellowing experiences.
The bottom line is that Miranda rights are somewhat symbolic, and violating them is also symbolic. It does not achieve anything except appeasing the segment of the public that is aghast at the notion that human and citizen right apply also to "very bad people". It is essentially a fascistic impulse, and Obama appeases it in somewhat moderate manner. Due to overwhelming popular demand we will suspend Constitution of 16 hours!
From the point of view of law enforcement, with the info at hand the state has only to decide if the prisoner will get death penalty or multiple live sentences (even if some people doubt the evidence, you can sentence a wooden peg in this situation). Then it will sail through any court and any jury. Preventatively, interrogators extracted info that the brothers allegedly started to plan an attack on NYC after the success in Boston, as disclosed by a person who just got multiple bullet wounds including one in the neck that was preventing him from speaking. Either he was writhing in pain or was in the la-la land from morphine.
In any case, the putative second plot could perhaps increase the number of life sentences of the prisoner, or not, but otherwise of no real interest.
Derschowitz argument, "the problem is that the vast majority of Muslims don’t see the two-state solution as the answer.” is a standard Harbara point, and quite meaningless. It is like "how can I stop beating up this guy if all members of his family hate me? bwahaha! sob, sob, sob". More precisely, the exchange normally proceeds like that "wouldn't it be better to expand settlements somewhat slower?" "settlements are not a problem! they do not like us anyway!". A tourist from Mars would have hard time believing that such signals are produced by intelligent live forms that actually survived for a considerable amount of time.
My least favorite argument is about "tough neighborhood". And also the place where Jews can live much more safely than in Boca Raton and Toronto.
Other parts of the Zionist master plan make more sense. It is really unnecessary for USA to protect Israel forever. Plan B1: Messiah will come (and with luck, not of the Christian variety, nor the Hidden Imam nor Mahdi) and will save the Jews (at least those who carry little Torahs with them, you can get them from Chabadniks). Plan B2: Israelis will depart for the subsequent Diaspora and they will have enough heroic stories to let them preserve their identity for another 2000 years. So there are at least two ways of resolving the problem "they do not like it anyway". In the meantime the priorities are clear: generate the heroic stories of reclaiming the land, smiting the Amelek etc. to either please the Messiah or for plan B2.
I have two remarks.
First, the dictum of Nietzsche is a paradox, a disturbing statements that zings in the mind as absurd but on the second thought has some truth. But it is not a universal truth by any means.
Second, much more importantly, stronger does not mean better. Everything being equal, it is better to be stronger than weaker, but strength through trauma has its dark side.
For example, in my mother tongue there is a word that can be loosely translated as "smart" but it also conveys "selfish, untrustworthy". It is often used in phrase "smart" fox. It is actually a grammatical form of a word that is rarely used, the form means "someone that has been blah" of verb "send dogs against" (something that is not done frequently nowadays). So our smart fox is a survivor of a classic fox hunt, chased by a swarm of hunting dogs, surviving through guile.
A street dog is a survivor, similar to a fox that has been hunted. It is untrustworthy because it has mind of his own, its own goals, it will not follow authorities blindly. Why should I attack the person indicated by the master and risk injury or death? If the master gives good food and shelter than it is fine, but if he gives a silly order and insists on it, perhaps it is the time to run away.
If I had but two questions to ask, the first woud be "Netanyahu, great PM or the greatest?" But for the second question I am at loss, what to choose.
Perhaps: "Now that Syria is brazenly using chemical weapons, shouldn't we give the attack on Iran a second priority? But what should we do, Mr. Ambassador, what can we do?"
Then if I had but one follow up question, I guess I would choose this one: "Can you give me a reason, Mr. Ambassador, to believe one word of what you were saying?".
The prison scandal is such that I would embark on a month-long tour of all possible markets of Maryland product. How to regulate prison conditions so sexual relationships between inmates and guards had at least approximately monogamous character? And why are the guards (and the prisoners) lacking contraceptives? Can an American prudish legislature tackle such issues in a rational manner?
Konrad, what you have described is totally pointless. The procedure of granting or denying admission is totally arbitrary and the agents were either simply harassing Frank or fishing for intelligence. In the latter case they already had a dossier on Frank and knew roughly who would be in the e-mail contact with him, so no artificial smokescreen would help.
The only question is if USA and other countries agree with such treatment of their citizens or not. Pressing citizens into cooperation with foreign intelligence is not something that we should be oblivious too and a reciprocal treatment should be applied to members of Israeli elite who travel in the opposite direction.
miriam6: clowns are but a kind of war of the ideas and they are deployed by both sides.
The clown danger was spotted long time ago by Israeli security authorities. PA attempted to sponsor an international meeting of clowns but Israel averted the danger, returning the clowns back to their home countries at BGU. Palestinian clowns were deployed in some demonstrations, resulting in photos of baffled IDF soldiers. Not to be outdone, Hasbara projects involve comedy, like an entire line of videos spoofing peace activists etc.
I spotted Dennis Ross a while ago as a rather unusual figure. He is not reciting standard Hasbara points, but being knowledgeable and hard thinking, he proposes original solutions that remind me a lot the jokes about Chelm Jews. Nothing in Ross's background suggests familiarity with those jokes so I think that he arrived at his style of thinking on his own.
This is not the first time that "de-zombification" of the peace process is attempted (the term in quotes is more commonly used for banks, I kid you not). Who said that history happens for the first time as a tragedy, and then it repeats as a farce?
In any case, I remember the last peace proposals of Dennis Ross and I think that he is a much better comedian that Jason Alexander. Mind you, he writes his own material!
It is a clear misrepresentation to call Boston incidents as "new moment in American vulnerability". The motives remain unclear, no pattern of political activism, no manifesto etc. Psychologically, perhaps it can be a cause for reflection.
Looking at American activities in "Third Word", largely Muslim, it is hard to discern what the West and USA stand for. Democracy? Only when we can complain that this or hat unfriendly leader is anti-democratic. Human rights? Massive application of torture in the areas under Western control showed otherwise. Economic growth? If natives manage to figure out how to achieve, all is well but otherwise no amount of aid, direct control and expertise that we can provide seems to be helpful (it does not work too well at home, for that matter). Securing strategic materials? In a totally avoidable way we allow China to produce 90% of quite strategic rare earth metals. What remains, chese burgers and Hollywood movies?
Then we try to exercise influence in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali, Somalia and the efforts unravel chiefly because there is hardly anybody there who likes us. This is my biggest misgiving in respect to the analysis of Walt and others. With no positive program or ideas of our own, the best we can do is to pick one side or another in a local conflict and support as "our bastards" and make the locals baffled how we arrived at our choice.
This lack of aims and vision is the background to the phenomenal success of Jewish (Israeli?) Lobby in shaping our foreign policy. On one side we see well funded efforts promoting a certain vision, on the other side -- nothing.
I personally think that attributing 9/11 attacks to "inside job" or to Saddam Hussein were equally unfounded, both stemming from a worldview that the evil in this world has a single source, or at least Evil, a grand demonic phenomenon.
People somewhat sympathetic to that worldview tend to view such opinions as "perhaps wrong, but reasonable" or "perhaps stupid, but this person has his/her heart in the right place".
I do not share the sentiments of Dickerson3870 in their totality. Do we prefer the looks of Fred Astaire or Cyd Charisse? I can imagine some people opting for Fred.
Even so, we need a fundraiser with some prizes for donors, like:
$50, 1024 x 1024 screen saver with the likeness of Annie Robbins
$100, glossy letter size printout of the same,
$200, poster-sized likeness in Mondoweiss T-shirt, and the T-shirt
$400, poster-sized likeness in wet Mondoweiss T-shirt
$800, this very T-shirt (dried for the shipping but not laundered)
......
$12,800, tour of Olympian wet forest guided by Annie Robbins
......
I think it was more like a million shekels per family, with some absurd amounts given to "farmers" of which they were not many. Also, in true Israeli style that was a boondogle element to it, so while the budget entailed perhaps two millions of shekels per average family, this was much more than they received.
And as usual, those who suffer least complain most (having energy and supporters to do so). The levels of whine were phenomenal.
To be fair, it is quite customary. Our own Department of Defense strays quite far from the modest mission of securing our borders against Canadians and Mexicans (plus whatever Coast Guard is doing for mere 10 G$ per year, the rest of DoD budget is 516 G$, plus the "war budget" for Afghanistan etc.).
This is fascinating. So Israelis who live within the Green Line have the right to confront "nationalist attacks" with live fire?
In the meantime, I checked the most recent threats besetting State of Israel by looking at ynetnews.com, and it seems that Israeli tourists are in bad shape. Today's story "Chile: Search on for missing Israeli" has these links:
Characteristically, ynetnews.com reacted with extreme measures: total redrawing of the map of South America:
Until recently the distance from Puyehue National Park to Venezuela was roughly the same as from New York City to San Francisco.
Islamic Republic of Iran and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are on the record too.
Insult to Israel? Israel is a rhinoceros that pretends to have thin skin. Insult?
I tried to find examples of stories on navies boarding ships in international waters and meeting violent opposition. As a rule, firearms are not used. A series of incidents concerns Chinese fishing vessels intercepted by Koreans. It seems like kung-fu versus takwendo. The bottom line is that whatever Koreans think about justice of their cause, they do not want to insult the Chinese.
Unlike Israelis who insulted Turkey with abandon. And they are so conceited that it is hard to explain basic facts to them.
Abrams is just being Abrams.
Publishing such a despicable person is moral obtuseness if not worse. Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. He was not an underemployed loner hatching plots in the basement but a representative of the American people. His depravity is our depravity.
"The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is watching, America."
Poor God. Shinto looks better and better.
I am with biorabbi here.
There are thousands of suicides every year, and this is not the realm of normal psychology. I am not saying that the brothers were insane, but the concepts like "achieving goals" do not fit to this kind of situation. More precisely, the goal included the death of the perpetrators and some kind of "good bye cruel world" which is not the way we usually think.
This is of course speculation, but the bombs were obviously well made, so the preparation was careful, but there was no attempt of making good disguises, and the final battle seems to be provoked.
"Mur I Weiza" should be "Mur i Wieża" (muhr yh vyezha).
Didn't we see a lightning striking the laboratory of Dr. Frankenstein (a.k.a. Sec. Kerry)? Not really, but the parts of dead bodies are being stitched to look like "the peace process". Some people say that the creature was alive some time ago but somehow it was killed and quartered, some pieces got missing and some rotted, but new it looks like new (if you do not pay attention to crude stitching). Yet, will there be a spark strong enough to put it in motion?
A tepid off the record statement can be enough to cause leg twitching of a dissected frog, but reanimation of a large body requires something much, much stronger... Suppose that all the senators who voted to confirm Hagel (plus Kerry, Obama etc.) would gather together and urge everybody to restore 1967 borders and make a treaty with (somewhat) equitable security guarantees? That would do it, I guess. Energy needed to produce that feat could be supplied by the combined output of all power stations in USA and China, we just need to invest in the transmission cables and so on.
My take is that while many people have frustrations and violent fantasies, not all have the state that enacts those fantasies for them. Hence the distinction between "the savage and the civilized man".
It would be so much better if abortion was available only for those who do not want it. ??? I never understood what is the beef with "abortion on demand".
I understand a belief that when an ovum meets a sperm an immortal soul enters and mere humans should not interfere with its fate. But a belief that abortion is OK if well regulated, followed filling a form with white, canary and pink copies and a meeting of a highly qualified panel rendering its decision is on a strange side, if you ask me.
If I had but one wish this Christmas season it would be for all idiots in the world to join their hands together and sing of harmony and peace. Unlike Steve Martin wish, it would solve some problems (but again, the impossible logistics!).
"They [the rebbes] couldn’t deny the obvious miracles (the late Satmar rebbe did; hard to understand) nor the message there-Jews are here to stay in the Holy Land. "
Astute theologians are alert to the fact that seemingly miraculous events may have mundane explanations. For example, I recall when a certain Ivan Boesky was on the covers of magazines on the account of his miraculous provess as a stock picker. Later he got a prison sentence for trading on insider information.
It is a bit of rhetoric ju-jitsu to turn "traitor" into a badge of pride, but this approach has a long tradition. After all, there is right and there is wrong, and it is a right thing to do to support the king, so opponents of the king were seated on the left. But did the "left" remain humiliated?
One right is to celebrate holidays in satisfactory manner. In Israel, part of the celebration is to lock down Palestinians, i.e. closing he checkpoint and crossings. Or to visit pilgrimage site in a satisfactory manner, which entails locking down a part of a Palestinian city.
Second aspect is to "feel secure". Israelis feel more secure when the undesirable riff-raff is humiliated at the airports (to mention on of many things that they need).
A tarnished cause deserves traitors. Marc Ellis calls them prophets and exiles.
If I can summarize what the Jewish cause is it would be identity and security. Both sound fine but if they can be achieved only by unceasing oppression of millions of people, then the cause is worse then tarnished, it is unredeemable.
Both "settler" and "radical BDS supporter" would believe that the Jewish identity and security (as a combo) indeed require oppression, with different conclusions if this is OK or not. Liberal Zionists or moderate supporters of BDS think otherwise, but this is a hard preposition to prove (but hard to prove does not mean false, Fermat grand theorem was proven after all these years!).
One rather unique aspect of the discourse on Jews and Israel is that anti-Semitism was given the status of ur-though crime. Were it not the case then it would be pointless to debate if opposing certain policies concerning Israel is anti-Semitic or not, we would need to dispute the merits of these policies. However, for all involved it is easy to get carried away.
I have seen articles with this pair of arguments: (a) it is anti-Semitic to equate Zionism with Jewishness and (b) it is anti-Semitic to oppose Zionism because Zionism is so overwhelmingly supported by Jews that you cannot credibly separate the two (traitors do not count). Join the Borg or admit that you are an anti-Semite, resistance is futile.
dimadok,
perhaps you are not familiar with curses heaped upon the memory of Hannah Arendt. This is what professor Ruben Gur wrote on the occasion of BDS conference at U Penn: " Sadly, [...] there are Jews among the posse in the assault on their own people. The macabre sight of the likes of Stella Kübler, (arguably Hannah Arendt) and the Capos in the extermination camps is about to be replayed here at Penn." So for some reason intelligent Zionists are putting Nazi collaborators, Hannah Arendt and BDS activists in one sentence. Adam did not mention Arendt gratuitously.
Another issue that you raised is that the strong side also has human rights. This is a fascinating topic: yes, the powerful are human too and they have their rights too. But it is also fair to observe that the powerful have their champions regardless of the activity on low cost web sites like mondowess.com. For examples, the rich also have the right to enjoy life, and many Republicans lamented their plight -- for example, the rich pay more taxes then the poor even though they have their needs too, and though they create jobs for the less fortunate. Moreover, exempting the poor from taxes simply encourages unhealthy behavior: it is documented that the rich lifestyle is healthier.
But you are traitors!
Some people claim that there is a war of ideas in the Middle East, and where is a war, there are sides, and where there are sides there are traitors. In the case of Max Ajl, his mother was clearly a contributing factor -- pluralistic upbringing? Proud of it? As could be expected. If I could admonish Mrs. Ajl, I would dedicate this song to her:
link to youtube.com
What countries Lake and Gogh are coming from?
Allegedly, Gandhi was asked what he thinks about Western civilization and he replied that it would be an excellent idea.
Honestly, this is not simply the problem in Israel. In Turkey children stone throwers have minimum 2 year sentence and they have thousands of such prisoners (Kurdish). Or perhaps not, because I read about it while surfing a Turkish website while the parliament was debating changing the stupid law. Ideally, UNICEF could make consistent appeals in all countries with "problems".
In the future, who knows? perhaps due process (and no duress) will be applied to children and adults alike? Even by Turkey and Israel?
From the latest news, the bombs in Boston were improvised, obviously deadly but made from widely available materials. So it could be done by "anyone". A friend commented that Boston has a huge population of grad students and postdocs who are often frustrated and may go "postal". Of course, in any particular year there seems to be about one story of a lethal grad student in entire USA, so this theory is somewhat far fetched. But the general outline, that this is an action of one or few disturbed (and alas, intelligent) individual rather than a trend is highly plausible.
Iraq is a different story. In the aftermath of the last war the society is deeply damaged, they do not have post-traumatic stress, the trauma is ongoing. This can go on for decades. For example, Colombia remains a divided violent society 60 years after La Violencia.
Title VI as a tool of Zionist organizations seems to be a spent bullet. So far, the pinnacle of their achievement in this respect are some federal cases that are lingering without resolution, as far as I can recall.
In this context, I am positively impressed by the rapid conclusions by CUNY General Counsel. Mind you, we are talking about top corporate lawyers of a huge public organizations, those people are usually risk averse and have considerable stature and reputation to lose. But attacks by the press and high ranking politicians raised the stakes. Basically, it started as a smallish event that should attract scant attention in a city of 8 millions -- City Council and the mayor really should have no problems finding more important potholes to debate.
I had a consultation with nutritionists advised by the family doctor, and I am supposed to eat more fruits and vegetables, so I started to pay attention to supermarket prices.
Something is really wrong in the result of the interaction of government, agro-business, farmers and the retailers. I grew up in a country that at the time was more or less self-sufficient in foodstuff and based on small farms. Staple vegetables were roughly 10 times cheaper than meat, reflecting the fact that from an acre of land you can get at least 10 times more potatoes, beets, onions, cabbage, turnips, carrots etc. than meat. Whole grain bread was cheaper than white bread, again, you have to throw out some stuff from the grain to make it white.
American system is very efficient in producing cheap animal products and very inefficient in supplying vegetables, and quite mediocre with fruit.
The report in Gainesville Sun is so inane that I am quite puzzled what really happened.
Berstein informed listeners that he is Jewish, secular and loves Israel. Not exactly newsworthy, but by the same token, not strange. Then he informed the audience that in 50 years of journalistic experience he learned to have multiple data sources. Wow! Whaa! Did it take 40 years to figure it out? Then he dropped a bomb: he is not relying exclusively on pamphlets received from AIPAC. This turned out to be controversial: "An audience member spoke out during the question-and-answer session, objecting to Bernstein's characterization of AIPAC." The idea that one may want to compare an AIPAC pamphlet with other sources (like Emergency Committee on Israel?) is hard to swallow. Thus Bernstein "stirred controversy", as he promised when he was invited.
Anyway, I learned a few new things today. (1) AIPAC is producing and distributing pamphlets. (2) Some people view them as Holy Writ. (3) Berstein does not, but he loves Israel so much that he does not ply his audience with memorable anecdotes on dubious AIPAC pamphlets.
Following Bernstein advised, I checked other reports about his speech. The Independent Florida Alligators informs that the audience of 150 consisted of students and elderly men (does the student reporter Julia Glum edit unsightly old women from her field of vision?). While I am convinced that Julia had to skip this or that for the sake of brevity, she provided two lengthy quotes. First one:
Bonfire of inanities.
I am interested in the problem how people actually think. However hilarious or appalling, this sentence was produced by intelligent people who did not strive to write nonsense. One possibility is that this sentence is a pun, literally, "tirelessly striving" means to strive without getting tired, either by developing strong muscles or by very carefully measuring the amount of effort, and the authors clearly follow the latter. However, this is very much against the ordinary usage of "tirelessly", so men of letters would not choose such sly formulation for purpose. I really think that they estimate their effort as very considerable.
Even if we fixed the meaning of "tirelessly", the sentence remains ambiguous. Should Issawi cease his hunger strike by being thoroughly impressed with the tireless striving of the authors, or they merely write the letter as the part of the striving. and they have to explain the readers why they are writing such a strange thing. Mind you, for a single writer the composition of this letter would take 30 minutes, but if there were several, every detail had to be scrutinized, so my estimate is that it took countless hours of debating and reformulating. Every word is a potential minefield!
"Peace between two peoples" -- a very safe choice, as there are many disputes how to name those people; "who will live side by side forever", a very good way of indicating the opposition to so-called transfer, but deftly circumnavigating the question how close those "two people" should live -- sharing apartments as they form families together, sharing apartment buildings in integrating housing, or just living in separate communities but not far away (the country being small).
"forever in this country" -- I am at loss here. Are the authors against a two state solution? Were they so exhausted that they left one of the key points unedited? This could explain why the letter is neither public nor private, they authors could not agree on either.
Nihil nove sub sole. Lucius Cornelius Sulla had been the Dictator of the republic in the year 81 BC. "In total control of the city and its affairs, Sulla instituted a program of executing those whom he perceived to be enemies of the state. Plutarch describes in Life of Sulla (XXXI) 'Sulla now began to make blood flow, and he filled the city with deaths without number or limit' [...] Sulla ordered some 1,500 nobles (i.e., senators and equites) executed, although it is estimated that as many as 9,000 people were killed. [many of the opponents were not noble, additionally the action had a momentum of its own.]"
Who is Mike Coogan? The Adversary? According to one of the comments at "The Hill"
SpectacledSpectator • 9 days ago
Is Mike Coogan the clown who is responsible for taking God and Jerusalem out of the Democrat party platform in 2012? Is he the reason why they then denied God 3 times?
What is the meaning of the term "liberalism"?
If I understood well a lecture of Chomsky, it may mean a manner of political control over the population that puts more emphasis on media manipulation than outright displays of power. But this is rather vague, or overly broad. To discuss the issue of "Zionism and liberalism" one would need to offer some examples of "not liberal".
E.g. what restriction on the institution of marriage are consistent with liberalism and which ones are not?
I suspect that RBJ understands the question as "can Zionism be consistent with muddled wishy-washy thinking characterized by futile attempts to please everybody", which does not have any good answer except "yes, but why one would wish for such a thing", so he uses the occasion to say something nasty about the Arabs
I guess that these cases can conceivably be classified as accidents, unlike some more clear cases. For example, an engineer who was running the power station of Gaza and subsequently emigrated to Ukraine was kidnapped, gagged, bounded, kept in solitary confinement, beaten up and produced most unbelievable confessions as a result. Now he is kept in solitary confinement until he admits his guilt per forced confessions.
Somewhat unluckily for Shin Beth, when the "juicy parts" of confessions were publicized to make a propaganda coup, details concerning Ukraine were very quickly shown to be totally wrong (he was alleged to study the design of rocket weapons, while not surprisingly, he studied only about electrical engineering and municipal power plants).
This is a small example of documented piece of sh..t. Shin Beth can capture anyone anywhere and "prove" everything. With signed confessions too. And keep the captured person forever, with a veritable smorgasbord of options:
1. declare that the investigation is ongoing, and "interrogate" for years
2. declare administrative detention and if "needed", renew every 6 months
3. make a kangaroo trial in front of a military pseudo court
4. make a trial in front of a more "realistically looking" civilian court.
They can torture the accused, they can torture "witnesses", they can forge proofs. Or simply keep people incarcerated without bothering with any of that. Or release. All combinations are used, so the life is not boring.
So the question is: what should you do if you can do everything?