Total number of comments: 1057 (since 2009-12-08 10:00:12)
ritzl
One summer in Germany, a while back, I met many returning US kibbutzim. The exuberance and energy was affecting. Influenced by that, a few months later in college I started to physically protest/jeer from the Israeli perspective. On one occasion we all headed to the Cleveland City Club to hear and jeer Chomsky. Between our interruptions (which he handled gracefully with a "noted" and went on), I heard him speak about water theft. For some reason, being as swept up in the Uris-like glow about Israel as I was, I had never heard (listened?) or asked about anything remotely disturbing about Israel. Afterward I started asking basic questions like, "If this is true, how can one people do this to another people, and we cheer it on?" and got few even marginally responsive answers. All the contradictions between Israel-reality and Israel-myth that appear here, were present then. The veil was pierced and my perspective flipped almost immediately. It was the '70s, Kent State, and we were supposed to be FOR civil rights. FOR everybody. I felt grossly stupid and more than a little betrayed. My former physical tactics and experience mirror what goes on here an in the larger net world. I understand the desperate need (by Israel) to clamp the lid down hard (and keep it clamped) on the deeply troubling reality of everyday Palestinian life. It also suggests that just one little glimmer of reality that gets through can make a difference, one person at a time. One never knows which glimmer that might be...
Excellent!!
But now cometh the gush of "hostile environment" "anti-semitism" claims.
Satirical success! Good one.
Israel is a freaking country-wide "Milgram" experiment. They can hear the screams, but keep pushing the button. Diverse and increasingly bizarre rationalizations ensue... (internally and externally)
link to en.wikipedia.org
Great comment, Pam.
@Bumblebye Bingo.
Along sort of the same lines, there's a great article on Meshaal and Hamas' moderating political evolution at the Jerusalem Fund (Munnayer's site). It was originally in FP Magazine's site.
"We Are Not Fanatical Killers..." link to thejerusalemfund.org
Meshaal touches on a lot of issues, all positively, imho.
It seems that everyone is moving toward solving the problem, except of course, Israel.
So Joudah, a citizen of the US, who teaches at a USAID-funded Quaker school, has been allowed into Israel previously to do so, and has been vouched for by a US Congresswoman, is denied entry as a "security threat?"
Joudah's case by itself should be the cudgel to beat this legislation in mush. It shows that Israel has no mechanism or intent for reciprocity, and it underscores that their "concerns" are purely ethnic/bigoted/racist. This bill has no place in a diverse society. None.
Similarly, if Boxer succeeds in getting it passed, she will pay for it politically, using the Joudah case. Joudah's experience resonates and if Boxer gets it codified as normal she'll lose a lot of votes on the left. Hopefully enough to lose the next election. It's just that wrong and I hope she's forced to choose between career and codified discrimination.
The only comments against the criticism of this bill at Open Zion are of the "all Arabs are terrorists [until proven otherwise, and we don't need/intend to try to prove otherwise]" "Islam evil." variety (and I think those from some Israelis that post there, maybe VickiV can confirm or clarify that).
I think most normal people are getting how stark the issue is on this proposed legislation. And how demonstrably non-reciprocal Israel's past [is prologue] behavior is.
Thanks for the article.
Yep, and they harassed Donna Shalala, former HHS Secretary, because she was of Lebanese descent. A country that does that has ZERO intention of reciprocity. Not ever.
We really don't need foreigners with that mindset having free access to the US. We've got enough problems without that injection of messed up "values."
If that WaPo bigotry map is ever fleshed out to include Israel, it could well make support of Israel a liability within the politics of diverse communities.
Aye. Good points. Noted.
Great comment Shmuel. Everything Sandra said is poignant and true, but wrt #1, it's just so terribly easy to destroy/deflect/devolve Palestinian leadership efforts with any pseudo-solidarity claim (I don't know if the person was a plant or not, but it doesn't matter, imo) of the anti-semitic variety. As you said the discussion immediately and completely turns away from the principle issue.
As Ms. Tamari said, anti-semitism has no place in their movement and should be immediately shed/tossed out like the plague-infested rat of a concept that it is, but, and I think it's a pretty big but, less sensitivity has to be shown for (a lower priority has to be given to) combating/discussing anti-semitism than for advocating Palestinian justice. It's impossible to do both, imho. And by less sensitivity, I mean by both supportive Jews and Palestinian leaders.
I don't know if I said that right, and even if I did, it's a reflection on a very crappy, imperfect world, but it's hard enough for Palestinians to get traction on their more narrow leadership/advocacy effort without continually being so easily forced to broad-front unresolvable (within the context of their precious time, resources, and personal energy), external issues.
You, others here, and this site in general do a remarkable job of walking that fine line between subordinating what must be pretty hurtful observations about Jews this and Jews that, and unreservedly fronting and supporting Palestinian justice. It must be tough, and I, well, will just reiterate that it is remarkable. A model, in fact.
Peace.
An interesting first pass. The methodology needs to be reviewed and expanded though. Ireland, Denmark, Portugal, Austria, Greece, and Estonia are notably also not characterized, all within the OECD framework which includes Israel. Tough to objectively compare and conclude a universal with a good portion of the data missing.
The "interesting experiment" is how long Israel can continue to "sway public opinion" in its favor with the ongoing, expansionist death and dispossession it metes out on a near daily basis.
@marc b. @Citizen I have to say that as a small business owner in the almost exclusive domain of the "bigs," I TOTALLY get what Phil, Adam, Alex, Allison, Scott and Annie are trying and actually doing here. The discussion on this issue has become more, I don't know, vastly more "variegated." More open, in no small part due to their efforts. In order to continue to do that, they have to Believe. In my own experience, without the belief that a change is coming to your advantage it becomes impossible to fight the good fight. You have to Believe to push, push, and push again. Always trying some new avenue. You never know what might be the "big" turning point. Nobody's that prescient.
Does PW, et. al. claim turning points a lot. Yes. Again I totally understand the sentiment and need to express that personal and public sentiment. But I would ask, or better, posit that each "little" turning point is a win. It increases the veining of the discussion of this issue. That veining is by no means inevitable, and any one of those tendrils of morality/logic may be precipitous.
To me, the process that is MW is the turning/pivot point.
Sorry to ramble on. FWIW.
@marc b. Yeah, you're right. So much for going from memory...
As for disappointment, I always take it in relation to what they can say and what they do say. From memory again... but his 2006 show was about the senselessness of random bombing, by Israel. Not enough for sure, but an oblique point was made, and there was a real-time view from the Lebanese POV. Some brief but actual insight amidst the fire-hosed Israeli propaganda, imho.
Thanks for the correction.
Bourdain is Lebanese. The Beirut episode was great, and honest.
I just caught an episode of Globe Trekker the other day and the host reflected on her time in Lebanon (friendliest people she's met on her travels...) and then lamented that a week later they were being bombed. She didn't mention Israel, in fact said intifada (is that a Lebanese term as well?), so it's hard to tell who or what her lament was directed against. But she did mention it. And then there's the Rick Steves epiphany (covered here) and prospective coverage of the WB and Israel.
Maybe the travelogue people will be the vanguard of info on this to the proverbial masses of infotainment consumers. Perhaps they will give just enough info, however tangentially (or better, directly), to get people to start asking questions for themselves.
Thanks for the article.
Great job Annie and Hostage! Thanks.
@Hostage In your experience, is it possible that this was strategy, as opposed to afterthought or unexpected side-effect?
Sounds like a lose-lose (looze-looze?) for Israel. Pretty clever if strategy.
A) It seems neither unhealthy nor an obsession. Just the opposite. He's so extraordinarily prolific (probably has a veritable bevy of assistants ginning this stuff up) and conscience-free that it's just a full time job wading through all the "stuff." Somebody's got to do it... :)
B) Good info and/or exposure. It's hard to overstate how much your persistence helps people like me make sense of it all. Many Thanks.
Well better late than never, RJ. :) He's an amazing advocate, and amazingly consistent (i.e. principles are THE only operative dynamic) advocate for doing the right thing, across a broad front of issues. Sadly, along with Moyers, a current, but hopefully not future journalistic anachronism.
There are a few other just-slightly-off-MSM folks that are like him though. The Leveretts (as Kathleen points out), I like Nancy Youssef at McClatchy, and maybe Ali Gharib. There may be more on that short list. But Greenwald has a knack for quickly and directly applying his universal principles across a range of issues and in conversations like this, on camera, that seems unique. I wish there were many more like him. God I hope he's inspiring some journalism school students to emulate him.
Thanks Hostage, as always. It was a rhetorical question, and I added the "or legal" specifically to acknowledge your posts on the subject.
WRT:
I hope that any/the Palestinian lawfare effort here in the US can use and build upon your observation. It always makes me cringe that the assumption [of this ADL-type pushback, and broader acceptance of same] is that the proverbial discomfort some Jews may [perhaps even legitimately] have to endure as a result of direct, public challenges to Israeli policy and practice seems to be the singular actionable starting point for any discussion on this facet of the I/P issue. It's just not the case.
Isn't the word "Apartheid" by definition a political or legal term? So wouldn't use of the word be by definition political or legal speech.
And this (correctly observed):
is a laughable contention. How can something be a hate crime that is "designed to delegitimize" (whatever that means) a country? I get that the contention is that Israel is the Jews, but, well, it isn't so this isn't anti-semitism. It's bare-knuckle geopolitics.
Glad more billboards like this are popping up. I hope you all and the growing and increasingly informed grassroots keep supporting them.
@Maximus I've noticed that too. But I kinda like the universal ratings at CiF, as it makes every comment a poll of sorts. At least every early/upthread comment. I think it's a useful gauge of broader sentiment, at least within the Guardian's audience, and acknowledging that the hasbara troops are always poised to pounce. And in the course of current articles on this issue, there, to me usually ultimately reflects the acceptance of the Palestinian PoV. You can only vote once there, so there may be early recommend "stuffing," but ultimately it becomes more or less representative.
If you mentally discount the "stuffing" aspect, the CiF results are even more stark.
FWIW.
Focusing (if possible) only on Dersh's intra-Jewish insularity, how can he say that Israel is the project of the [entire, as I read the excerpts] Jewish people, and at the same time tell non-Israeli Jews to butt out? It makes no sense, even within his reflexive, soda-straw world view.
As Sumud said, keep talking AD.
And as Taxi said in yesterday's thread on Hawking, this does have the feeling of a pivot point ["avalanche"], if only as suggested by Dersh's literal, yet increasingly desperate and louder (even for him), nonsense. If this debate was internet written, methinks Dersh would be in ALL CAPS, all the time. I sense serious concern, if not fear, about Hawking's decision.
And speaking of insularity, what is Beinart trying to salvage exactly in these debates? It's almost like he's trying to salvage the word Zionism itself from historical oblivion/wrongheadedness. He's less myopic than Dersh, but he's late to his current adjusted views, and events are/have outpaced even those adjustments, even in the time frame that he's held them. I don't know who his audience is, but I guess he has a dais of sorts and therefore must use it.
Yeah. In the case of al-Araqib anyway, they are being cleared out resettled to their own ("recognized", now that's some mitigating positivity, isn't it.) village to make way for trees (in the desert) and a new Jewish town. If Israel wasn't an Apartheid state, and this was an actual exercise of eminent domain, the Israeli-citizen residents of al-Araqib would be simply be bought out/fully compensated and allowed to go anywhere they wanted to live in Israel, or (horrors) simply given homes in the new town. But no, they must be separate(d). "Unsuitable" indeed.
If I was China and I wanted to minimize the risk of my PG oil supplies being interrupted, I would start sabre-rattling in SE Asia so that the US has to re-allocate military resources and diplo/mil attention away from the PG.
There's a really bad case of target fixation going on in the PG and China may/could well do themselves and the world a huge favor by manufacturing "tensions" elsewhere. Redirect the energy. A bit of geopolitical Feng shui.
But as a US citizen it's sad (in many, but not all, ways) that the opportunity to insert geopolitical sensibility into the global mix is being ceded to China. This is just another example of the US losing its credibility/shit over the Israeli agenda.
Well said, yt.
And he came to his decision rationally and over time. He's gone to Israel and Palestine several times over the last decade or so. Each time he expanded his contacts with Palestinian academics and saw that their opportunities for scientific exchanges were restricted. He made known his desire to meet with Palestinian scientists to Israeli academics. Then Cast Lead. Now he makes this choice.
link to guardian.co.uk (I think this is the original Guardian article on this)
The high-profile rationality of his decision process should scare the bejeebers out of people that believe the oppressive status quo is in any way maintainable (or worse, ignorable). A good thing...
Ditto, Shingo.
Great job, Pam. Great news!
Yeah, it's hard to grasp what was actually said or ultimately paraphrased, and to who's liking, as you say. It's just so odd that Fayyad would seemingly go on record with a known entity, Cohen, and then immediately retract. Fayyad had to know to whom he was talking and the context of the use of his opinions.
Thanks Annie. Your info range is so much larger than mine, I thought you might have seen something "pop up" wrt the immediate retraction.
It's still weird. :)
Weird. What do you make of that?
This highlights yet another double standard between what the Jews did in '48 vs. what the Palestinians, specifically Hamas, does now. Hamas violently, and I'd say ruthlessly, reined in the outlier rocket launching groups during the pre-Cast Lead truce, post Cast Lead, and pre- and post-Pillar of whatever. They were condemned for it by, in my discussions, lib-zios as proof of their intrinsic violence. When DBG did it, it was/is hailed as a laudable unifying step in the pursuit of a greater goal.
Same procedure. Which is it, condemnable nature or pragmatic necessity?
No matter what the Palestinians do, they get hit from all sides. It's brilliant Israeli/Zionist strategy, but it's also a clear indication of raw bad faith.
I sure hope there's a stick-back/rebuttal article allowed at FPM. But even that raises the question of why these types of utterly bogus and gratuitous ruminations are [seemingly] always presented as a first thought/principle there. They're so obviously intellectually bankrupt, so why does FPM offer them up first, or at all. Having read Hounshell's tweets, it's pretty clear his editorial predilections are firmly informed by the conventional wisdom.
They publish Stephen Walt's observations, but is that how they balance out this garbage. Walt's informed, if arguable (though not by me), realism vs. Shamir's agenda-driven hyper-castigation. Where's the middle of that, editorially speaking? What melding (or just understanding) of opposing views can a reader come to if Shamir's views are one pole of the FPM debate?
Thanks for this article.
Meanwhile, Google Earth still lists Palestine as "Palestinian Territories" but responds to a search of Bil'in, Palestine correctly. I think you used to have to put in Israel to get to a WB town, iirc, as of a few months ago.
Progress...
Great news!
It builds...
I just watched a PBS (US) program on the anti-Apartheid movement here. That movement started out as a ridiculed idea (check), then through some quirks of fate became a broad issue (maybe check), then Reagan and Thatcher proposed the highly reactionary "constructive engagement" position (check), then it became an unopposable position.
Admittedly mine is a highly condensed version of what happened wrt SA Apartheid, but you/we, imho, are in the throes of the reactionary (it has to be a reaction to very real political pressure in order to elicit this type of response) "constructive engagement" phase of the "getting Israel to accept the seriousness of its self-imposed situation."
BDS is having effect. Well done!!
So Israel is overtly supporting the [al-Quaida, "Islamic extremist" "terrorists-who-wish-us[Israel]-harm-should-they-win-the-civil-war" "rebels?" Curious. #sarcasm.
And yeah, the Israelis can sure dish it out...
Thanks, Taxi.
@Annie Three words... Hegemony, Hegemony, Hegemony. A perpetually destabilized Syria is an Israeli objective, imho, as not one but two uncontested, militarily (from Syria) or politically (from your cite) Israeli airstrikes into sovereign Syrian territory in one week show to be the case.
It's so, I don't know, exhausting, to track what this deliberate and perpetual destabilization means for US interventionist advocacy and what that, in turn, means for some mother's son in Kansas, US, who's off to join up.
I'm really, really tired of the circular totality of it all.
@Taxi But, But, But, it had to have been "new" weapons bound for hizb, "Also Sprach" the Israelis.
But can you clarify this?
They, I take it, is Israel, but why would they bomb a rebel foothold?
Syria, to me, is a mish mash of competing and shifting deadly interests. Any insights?
Confirmed by Israel.
link to aljazeera.com
How in the hell can you assimilate when you are singled out and persecuted? Foxman's views seem pretty self-fulfilling. And from a Jew, no less. Disgusting.
@James Canning
A) Annexing is such a legal/loaded term. They're not annexing anything...yet. They're surrounding enclaves of Palestinians with territory (Area C in the archaic sense) that they are never going to give up/back.
B) Pressured? They (Israel) are doing it. No pressure involved...
I understand your angst about 1S, but my take is that it is the current and foreseeable reality. It's not so much about a desired or preferable outcome. It's about what IS, by Israel's own hand.
So there's not so much "magic" about making 1S1P1V a just outcome to this problem. It implies, nay screams, protracted struggle to bring about that justice.
The "magic" to me is more about what might precipitate a 2S outcome (imho "out of the blue"). There are structures and motivations, current and potential, to make that happen but Israel seems capable, politically, of resisting them (while it blathers about "self-determination" and/or "historical claims" and goes about cleansing and assimilating the WB and otherwise making a 1S outcome even more likely).
The weight of Israel's ability to resist a 2S outcome coupled with its inexorable and probably irreversible absorption of the WB have almost certainly dictated the outcome at this point.
I'm may be completely wrong about this, but if there is to be a Palestinian state, it's probably going to be a resource-rich, free, and non-Hamas led Gaza.
FWIW.
I'm so glad he's going to live. And live to tell his story to the world. I hope he writes a book and comes to the US to talk about it. I'd like to meet him and shake his hand. What courage. What tremendous courage. I mean it, deeply and sincerely.
But...
He likely won't be allowed out of the WB or Gaza (if "deported" there). He is likely to be re-arrested. He certainly won't be allowed back into the WB or Gaza should he write the book and get the opportunity to tell his, and the story of his people abroad (i.e. he likely won't leave to do so).
Israel inflicts this pain on people seemingly without cost. But then the incremental awareness is valuable. I hope the trade (and future trades) is worth it from Issawi's POV. A hero. Unquestionably, but at great cost.
Yes, great interview. I'm "glad you asked that [last] question" as well. It's important, the ask and the answer.
Ehrenreich's answer was an unambiguous [and correct] discernment, backed up by the fact that he equally unambiguously acted upon his discernment in the article. He is his mother's son.
At the risk of being fanboyish, I think you are at your best while interviewing. You bring out, or maybe better, narrow/shape the discussion around, your worldview on this issue. It's [not a criticism] a bit harder to tell from the topics you choose to post here, but in your spoken interviews (whether you being interviewed, or you interviewing someone) you are more focused on what you believe to be important, globally on this issue. I think you nail core issues when you are in free discussion. You make it all make sense, contextually.
That specificity is good for people like me who can't read everything all the time.
Thanks. And thanks to Ehrenreich, and his mother.
@PW Sorry to be dense, but what is "The Sore Point?" The heresy of a Jew pointing out morality wrt the Palestinians?
Way to go Kathleen!!
@flyod Yup. Meanwhile on PBS/Washington Week on Friday (just happened to be watching while writing and couldn't turn away from the absolute trainwreck of a discussion) the two main topics were "Islamic fundamentalism as motive for Boston," followed immediately "the probability of the US invading Syria (Chemical weapons! But the weapons were Chemical! they protested amongst themselves)." Nobody on the panel (of the usuals) showed any signs whatsoever of connecting the dots they themselves laid out.
And these are the self-proclaimed elites... Total groupthink. Totally ignorable, if it weren't for the fact that the soda-straw view assumption sets have such grave, self-fulfilling, and self-perpetuating consequences.
And as Citizen says, Dick and Jane are never going to get it with this kind of narrow and selective info making it's way into their living rooms.
Disgusting.
link to video.pbs.org
As others have said here, Moon of Alabama has deconstructed the chemical weapons(!) claim. link to moonofalabama.org (among others in the last few days.)
@Shingo
"Time for Rice to go." was a bit glib on my part, but the fact that she fully, and publically, subscribed to complete fabrications by hasbaratchiks does, to me anyway, cast supreme doubt upon her ability to operate our UN mission.
I mean is she this susceptible to obvious fabrications as a rule? That would suggest that she is grossly incompetent. Or maybe that's just her role in the Obama admin, akin to Colin Powell on Iraq, but with suggestive and clarifying retrospect (She's being intentionally obvious).
If she is being obvious, and obviously careless, there does seem to be some counter-intuitive diplomacy going on now wrt Israel. Maybe of the reaffirming the obvious to get a reaction, sort (e.g. her statement that she spends most of her time on Israel). Kerry did it with the Mavi Marmara callout in Turkey. Obama got BN to modestly, yet publicly, apologize to Turkey. I don't know, but there seems to be something "going on." Subtly, but something.
Who knows?
Wow! Thanks.
Time for Rice to go.