Total number of comments: 550 (since 2009-09-16 20:15:12)
Rusty Pipes
"I am a Progressive Christian who wants to see our government act evenhandedly in resolving the conflict in Israel/Palestine, bringing about a just peace." I have been an active participant in I/P diaries at Daily Kos and related blogs (Booman Tribune, Talk to Action, Street Prophets) since 2005.
Website: http://www.beyondbethlehem.blogspot.com
Well, there's this from Obama's speech:
"'We are working to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians — because it is right, and because such a peace could help reshape attitudes in the region,' Obama said."
Jordan's King appears nervous about the role his country is playing regarding the conflict in Syria. Not only are they overwhelmed with Syrian refugees and hosting US vetting and training of "approved" insurgents, they have recently given explicit flyover permission to Israel if it wants to attack Syria again. In addition, Jordan has a large percentage of its citizens who are Palestinians. Jordan's King is in a tight spot economically and politically -- not only is it humiliating to be perceived as Israel's lapdog, in the context of the Arab Spring, it could be a threat to his future role.
This is going to be a surprise for American Christian tourists: you need a military permit from Israel to visit the birthplace of the Prince of Peace in Palestine. But then, even religious pilgrims might notice that the Church of the Nativity still has damage from Israeli bullets and has badly needed repairs that have been held up by Israeli and American opposition to Palestine joining UNESCO.
That's from the EUMC's "Working" Definition of Anti-Semitism, which was basically drafted by the AJC. Even though the Israel Lobby pushed hard for its adoption, under Condi Rice, State wouldn't adopt it. As soon as Hillary took the job, State adopted it (any little gesture to court potential 2016 major donors helps). Ironically, even the EU has backed away from its "working" definition.
After the insurgent cannibalism video surfaced this week, this may not be the best time for another Kelly McEvers feel-good story about Syrian nonviolent activists who have been forced to take up carbombing. Abramson fills in with a feel-good story about the Only Democracy in the Middle East.
"...will be free" sounds like a threat to you? The white supremacists in Jim Crow South were just as afraid when they heard uppity BDSers sing: "We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes."
Thank you, Ms. Tamari, for all that you do!
Even if it isn't getting wide distribution through AP, getting coverage in the SF Chronicle is significant. With the previous coverage in the LA Times of George Bisharat's OpEd and Boxer's response, the story is gaining legs in the papers of record in both Southern and Northern California. Especially since Boxer lives in the Bay Area, getting this covered in the Chron might help mobilize some pushback to this legislation in Northern California. Even though it is very expensive to run a Senate campaign in a state the size of California, it's important for Boxer to know that there are many of her constituents who think differently about this issue than the AIPAC donors who lobbied her in DC a few weeks ago.
Rather than "why are you focusing on ME?" the response is more likely "Why are YOU focusing on me? Your mother is a hamster and your father smelt of elder berries" -- or some other deflection from himself.
In what universe is Stephen Hawking an "ignoramus?" Dersh is having to get more and more creative to find new ways to delegitimize himself as any sort of credible spokesperson. Tenure is a wonderful thing.
Landis may not begrudge Tabler's privileged treatment at NPR, but its listeners who care about balanced coverage should. In the past year, Tabler has been interviewed on NPR 23 times, while Landis has only been interviewed 14 times. Other prominent non-neocon commentators or reporters are hard to find at NPR on Syria, while Israel Lobby-affiliated pundits get plenty of NPR air-time. Pundits from WINEP alone have been on NPR 46 times in the past year, 30 of those in stories with Syria in the title.
Especially when he doesn't get as many laughs there as he does here.
An important reminder from vanden heuvel's column that there's no legal justification for US involvement in Syria:
That's: Tom "suck on this" Friedman has spoken. Why does this man still have any credibility, much less a job?
"is there anything israel doesn’t like that is NOT perceived as “existential threat”?" But surely if Americans shout "we do believe in fairies" and clap long enough, that will help Israel recover from any existential threat.
Joshua Landis is not pro-Assad -- far from it. Up until a few weeks ago, the poll question on his site was "Will Bashar Assad be gone by June?" Now the question is "Will Syria maintain territorial integrity post-conflict?" Judging from many of his recent statements, he doesn't think it will -- he's projecting an Assad retreat to an Alawite coastal region. Yes, he says that American involvement in Syria could end up like our adventure in Iraq, but here's his rationale:
Putting Landis on a panel about Syria is about as far as the MSM has been willing to veer from the neocon narrative. Over the past two years, they certainly haven't been willing to bring on someone who has been harshly critical of American saber-rattling toward Syria , like journalists Robert Fisk, Franklin Lamb, Charles Glass or Patrick Seale. They're also not putting Glenn Greenwald or As'ad Abu Khalil on their panels -- even when they think that it is necessary to have someone "balance" the proposals from an Israel Lobby thinktank, like WINEP.
Yesterday morning, David Green introduced the segment about Syria by saying that Americans are not paying close attention to Syria. Considering NPR's role in banging the drums for intervention in Syria with its daily coverage of that country to the neglect of other developments in the Middle East (like Palestine and Bahrain), it is more that the coverage of Syria has become background noise. The American public has heard these drums before and many of us remember where they led us.
I take Block's mention of Landis' Alawite connections as less an accusation of dual loyalty than as setting Landis up as a foil for the guest from WINEP.
I do see some hopeful signs that the MSM narrative about Syria might be getting more challenges (especially from liberals who stick closely to the neocon-led angle and don't touch the rest of the Israel Lobby) in the past week from Matthews, Maddow and Stewart.
As I reflect on the tens of millions of dollars the State Department has acknowledged spending for activist groups in Syria on communications equipment and media training, I am reminded of the Morsi government's early clamp-down on Western democracy-promoting NGOs -- like the State Department-linked NED. I lost track of how that story developed. Has Egypt's MB changed its mind about the NED's color-revolution, media tactics?
Once guerrillas gain a toe-hold in a neighborhood or village, they may use it as a base to launch attacks on government troops (i.e. hiding behind civilians). If the Syrian government starts targeting the insurgents' positions, many of the residents often flee. Since this has become a pattern through out Syria, civilians who do not want insurgents in their villages either form Popular Committees (to prevent them from coming in) or if the insurgents take the town, take massive flight to avoid the fighting between the government and the insurgents. Some villages have, in the majority, welcomed the insurgents, and have been willing to live with the insurgents' imposition of order (which includes their variation of the application of sharia).
More like "Insurgent-aligned Palestinian Refugees from Syria speak out." Even though there were many secular activists involved in the beginning months of nonviolent protests (when the demands were for reform), once militant factions highjacked the movement (demanding nothing short of Assad's ouster), the opposition has been overwhelmingly Islamist (Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda) and armed.
Speaking of the Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Damascus, the Angry Arab notes that "Palestinian leaders and organizations in Syria (who are opposed to the Syrian regime) mildly and politely ask the Free Syrian Army to end its crimes in the camp"
So, when is/are the protest(s) at Boxer's SF office?
Wasserman Schultz and Lewis are fundraising for their ongoing legislative campaigns through good relations with the Israel Lobby. The question is not why Dionne is attending an ADL gala, but why he is still working for Brookings, which is now solidly part of the Israel Lobby -- the takeover began first, through instituting the Saban Center, then through promoting WINEP's Indyk from Saban to Brookings vice-President of Foreign Policy.
I'm assuming that the UN Watch (and those that followed) put Tel Aviv in quotes, not because they think it should be called Jaffa, but because Falk used "Tel Aviv" as we would use "Washington" -- shorthand for the leadership in our nation's capital. For hardline Zionists, any suggestion that Israel's capital is somewhere other than Jerusalem is treasonous (and possibly anti-Semitic, Holocaust Denying and Blood Libelous as well).
Fayyad was imposed upon the Palestinian people by the Bush Administration after it could not accept the unity government of Haniyeh and Abbas after the legitimate election of 2006. The Bush administration pressured the PA to "professionalize" its security services (including training Dahlan and his thugs) and "liberalize" its economy, along lines which the IMF has imposed on other Arab countries. Bush's idea of a 2SS was another Arab strongman with limited autonomy -- and he couldn't even deliver on that much to the Palestinians. Good riddance to the unelected Fayyad. The Palestinian people deserve better.
It's a good interview. Scahill was relating a story about Bradley Manning from a few years ago, before Manning became known through Wikileaks . Manning sent Scahill a tip that he knew about through a personal friend, not a classified source, about Prince's planned trip.
The Obama Administration's policy is big-time payback to all of the major donors and congresscritters who supported him in the Fall election and in voting for his cabinet appointees, by taking along two of the lobby's top go-to congresscritters on his trip to Israel right after the initiation of his second term, but before the AIPAC conference. He has to reassure skittish congresscritters that none of his moves for peace in Israel/Palestine will scare away their major Zionist donors (they wouldn't want electoral side effects like Democrats got after Jimmy Carter's peace deal). The majority of the trip was all about show -- maybe he slipped in a few hours of substance on the side.
Obviously, the new baseball caps are there to disguise the fact that they are Arab. After all, if they aren't wearing white peaked hoods on Boyleston Street, they couldn't possibly be white supremacists.
Israel's Housing Minister recently announced new building in E-1. Abbas has said that E-1 is his red line -- any new construction there will impede his participation in peace talks and he will start actions at the ICC. Kerry may not even have two months, much less two years to "negotiate" a 2SS. Abbas could just resume enforcing one through the UN track.
Thanks for the excepts, Citizen. A few sections caught my notice:
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On the final point I am reminded that part of the strategy of Zionist Lawfare actions is not only gaining legal punitive measures against Israel's critics, but also to wear them down by wasting their time and resources. When this kind of action is pursued through the American courts, there is a possibility of penalizing pro-Israel groups by applying SLAP suit laws. Unfortunately, when Zionists bring these frivolous actions through government or civic organizations, like this British Union or like American universities (e.g. the numerous baseless complaints lodged by a Zionist UC lecturer), there are no consequences for their wasting the time and resources of an overtaxed organization.
Native Americans introducing a term, like pinkwashing and greenwashing: redwashing
Talk about strange timing: Abbas will raise the 2002 Saudi-proposed API at the Arab League meeting in Qatar? This is the API which endorses the return of all occupied lands, including the Golan Heights. The Arab League, under pressure from Qatar and Saudi Arabia has just given Syria's vacant seat to the Syrian opposition. The bufferzone between the Golan Heights and the rest of Syria has been under the sway of various insurgent groups, who have augmented their fundraising efforts by kidnapping UN peacekeepers -- to the extent that some of the countries that supply UN troops are reconsidering keeping personnel there. Israel claims that it is afraid that some of these insurgent groups in the buffer zone may attack them. And yet, Obama and Kerry continue to reiterate Clinton's call that "Assad must go" and continue to assist Qatari and Saudi arms in getting to the insurgents.
Abbas, on the other hand, has continued to say that Palestinians should not take sides in the Syrian conflict. How is he supposed to get the support of the Saudis and Qataris for renewing efforts on the API? Or maybe Kerry is trying to convince Abbas that if he renounces Bashar, America will guarantee a Palestinian state (as though America could actually do that).
Considering how his off-the-cuff response to a question at a White House press briefing about Henry Louis Gates was blown out of proportion by Fox News, derailing his momentum on his agenda for months, Obama may have felt that it was not worth the risk of giving the right-wing any excuse to derail the conversation right before he had to get some crucial cabinet picks through the Senate. The right-wing has no interest in learning from "educable moments" about race in America, when it can use them more effectively to scare their base and undermine even the slightest progressive steps.
After many months of supporting the Qatari-backed insurgent factions in Syria (to the extent of Syrian and Palestinian MB fighters driving other Palestinians out of Yarmouk refugee camp), according to the MB-sympathetic UK newsource, Hamas is now denying involvement in the Syrian conflict.
For another perspective on the challenges of Palestinians from Syria, here's Franklin Lamb at Counterpunch, When the Yarmouk Palestinian Camp Fled:
h/t Angry Arab: Happy International Roma Day!
... persecution and discrimination that includes losing a quarter million Roma in the Nazi Holocaust.
MJ, good to see you back after your comments about "'pro-Palestinian network' (i.e, non-Muslims & non-Arabs)" anti-semitism got more than 100 responses two weeks ago. Glad to know that the vigorous and varied replies did not frighten you away. Of course, you are just as free to monitor the comments and links on your blog and twitter account as Phil and Adam are to monitor the comments here. I can't imagine they'd tell you how to run your site. The comments policy for this site has gone through many stages and refinements over the past few years. I doubt that Phil or Adam believe that it is quite perfect yet, so I would not be surprised if they continue to tweak it even more. But shut it down? Surely you can't be serious.
(Just an aside: has your site been bothered by more concern trolls lately -- the kind who worry about your being considered a serious man if you associate with this site? The concern troll who used to smear this site as "Mondofront" over at the garish orange site finally got banned there several weeks ago, and I've noticed him trying to fill his time since then by smearing Mondoweiss at some other Liberal Zionist sites.)
That was Pussy Riot.
Oslo is dead. Sharon declared it so years before he became comatose. Why should the Palestinians be limited by its boundaries and obligations when the Israelis do not feel so bound? Arafat recognized the '47 partition in 1988.
For Democrats, Zionist donors have always been a much bigger factor in presidential elections than Zionist voters. Even so, concentrations of Zionist voters in swing states, like Florida, are a relevant part of a Presidential election. Carter was defeated because of several factors -- and Israel and the Israel Lobby were part of more than one of those factors, but not all of them (like the anti-nuke voters who supported John Anderson because there was "no difference between Carter and Reagan").
The Israel Lobby was crucial in swinging the elections both against Jimmy Carter and Poppy Bush, making them both one-term presidents. The Jewish-American vote was one part of that calculus, though not the only factor. Contrary to popular perception, the Jewish-American electorate is not and has not been overwhelmingly liberal -- at least not in the decades that the AJC has been taking annual polls: only 40-something percent define themselves as liberal and 50-something percent register as Democrats whereas around 15% register as Republicans and and 20-something percent define themselves as conservative. Which leaves about a quarter of American Jews as swing voters. And they swung against both Jimmy and Poppy. Large percentages of Jewish Americans voted for the Republican presidential candidate in the 1980's.
Begin did not like being pushed by Carter at all in the Camp David process and did not want to see him reelected. For his part, Carter has said that he had gained assurances from Begin about the Palestinians that Begin did not carry through on after Carter was out of office. The Christian Right, with whom Likud leaders had been cultivating ties for years, were another crucial element in Jimmy Carter's defeat. In addition, the Iran hostage crisis undermined Carter's image with middle of the road Americans.
Poppy Bush eroded Zionist support for Republicans by leveraging Israeli compliance through withholding funds and by instigating the Madrid Peace process. At the same time, Bill Clinton had been successful in forging an alliance of pro-business, hawkish and Zionist interests through the Democratic Leadership Council, which attracted many Jewish swing voters (and major donors) back to the Democratic Party. Thanks to Ross Perot's strong third-party distraction, Clinton was able to swing enough votes to gain a plurality and win the Presidency.
They're "giving back." Charles Hurwitz, the only 1980's corporate raider who did not go to jail, continued to take over companies, strip them of their assets and drive them into the ground. But leaders of the Jewish community in his hometown defended his character because he "gave back" so generously to charities.
Which came first, NPR's $7 million budget shortfall (announced shortly after nationwide pledge drives) or its neocon narrative dominated Middle East coverage? Maybe, just maybe, in an era where more and more consumers are seeking news on the internet, appealing to new listeners could have more to do with the slanted coverage of Israel/Palestine by Larry Abramson and Syria by Kelly McEvers and Deborah Amos than by hiring young reporters who sound like valley girls for Marketplace or investing in breezy newsmagazines like Here and Now.
Teenagers who can throw boulders? Clearly the Israelis are wasting their time trying to starve Palestinians by limiting their access to clean water and offshore fishing or poison them by polluting their fields with sewage. Kryptonite is the only thing that can deter Clark Kent.
From the link: 'Among other items on the agenda in Doha, according to a senior Palestinian source, was an effort to urge Palestinians not to intervene in the Syrian civil war and to remain neutral.
"We are not part of the struggle and won't intervene to push ourselves into this struggle," the source said.'
Like Marc Rich, who "gave back" millions to Birthright and got Barak's intervention with Clinton for his pardon, while they were supposed to be negotiating a peace deal.
Other than maybe, they'd rather be doing something other than clocking in at work that day or thinking about whether they'd picked up all the stuff they need for Easter Baskets for the spouse and kids. Maybe a few are reflecting on their own shortcomings and more apt to feel compassion for another guy's flaws.
Thank you, Annie!!!
Speaking of Middle Eastern appeals to BRICS, Assad calls for BRICS support
The Hasbara is strong in this thread.
The government of the State of Palestine certainly is feeling economic and political pressure from having its tax revenues held for ransom. But is Abbas really desperate to return to another round of negotiations (while Israelis continue to build, even if not in E1) when he has other options through the UN and the ICC?
If Garrison Keillor could make a career off of Lutheran humor and comics like George Carlin could get a lot of mileage out of Catholic guilt, there may be a niche for Methodist humor. Your routine might need some work, though.
There was a big kerfuffle about Bush's interference in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the early aughts, which was pretty widely covered in the MSM. The conservative leadership was giving both TV and radio a hard time. I don't recall a specifically Zionist slant, although if they were pushing the whole agenda of the Republican party, it would have included the perspectives of neocons and Christian Zionists.
Mearsheimer and Walt write about the pressure that MSM outlets were under in the run-up to the Iraq War, as well as the well-orchestrated media pressure campaigns by Zionist groups like CAMERA:
It is also worth noting that the headquarters of CAMERA is in Boston.
And we gave up Howard Dean's grassroots leadership for this.