-
-
- Video: Medea Benjamin interrupts Obama speech on US drone … 18
- Glenn Greenwald on the Woolwich attack and blowback from the … 22
- Church of Scotland accepts controversial report on Israel/Palestine 5
- Half of Israel’s eligible youth don’t enlist– and ranks of … 7
- Chelsea Clinton’s multifaith initiative 14
- More on the ‘creepy’ al-Dura report 11
- Exile and the Prophetic: Does John Kerry have the keys … 8
- Wolf Blitzer looks for a religious state 12
-
- Two friends meet for 5 minutes in Jerusalem 1699
- Palestinian-American Raed Zidan plants flag on top of Everest, dedicates … 1360
- Christians denounce Israel’s manhandling of worshipers at Holy Sepulcher on … 952
- Barbara Boxer’s visa bill for Israel comes under concerted attack 809
- In photos: Gaza marches and rallies mark 65 years of … 442
- Washington Post’s racism map omits Israel 438
- Israeli report on al-Dura case is vengeful and ‘surreal,’ says … 399
- International Criminal Court opens preliminary investigation into attack on Mavi … 355
-
- Kennedy’s insistence on right of return prompted Ben-Gurion to rewrite … 97
- International Criminal Court opens preliminary investigation into attack on Mavi … 96
- Barbara Boxer’s visa bill for Israel comes under concerted attack 93
- Abulhawa declines to ‘balance out’ several Israelis in ‘Al Jazeera’ … 91
- Washington Post’s racism map omits Israel 73
- Uncompromising hope inspired by Ghassan Kanafani 63
- Dershowitz should stop lying about Tutu’s record 56
- Biden says Jewish ‘influence’ behind American cultural politics is ‘immense… … 51
-
- RT @Moe_Diab: Please take the time to read this touching article. Two friends meet for 5 minutes in Jerusalem http://t.co/1bXte5Ilc5 @Mond…, 1 hour ago
- RT @alexbkane: Obama says expanded surveillance raises "difficult questions" , but his Justice Dept. has stalled on an inquiry into NYPD sp…, 14 hours ago
- RT @samknight1: Flashback: Israel helped train Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt, recently convicted of genocide. https://t.co/oYsxDokunE, 15 hours ago
- RT @samknight1: Israel to train Chiapas police? Well. Say goodnight to the Zapatistas and probably a whole lot of indigenous groups http://…, 15 hours ago
- RT @RodrigoEBR: Medea Benjamin also told Obama "I love my country. I love the rule of law. Abide by the rule of law. You're a constitutiona…, 15 hours ago
-
Recent Comments
click link to see last 100 comments- Both Massad, and ‘Open Zion’, ignore the experience of Middle Eastern Jews (44)
- Hostage: To focus on the Zionist narrative entails that he looks specifically at the transformations in European...
- Jewish philanthropies stay away from org dedicated to Yiddish culture because it doesn’t focus on Israel or the Holocaust (34)
- Danaa: Sorry, RoHa, I didn’t make myself clear. It was the Dutch jewish community that was descendant from the...
- Shmuel: When I was a kid, my father used to listen to a Yiddish programme on the radio, hosted by a Yiddish...
- Shmuel: Yonah, Specifically religious culture is undoubtedly an integral part of Yiddish language and culture (as in...
- Another ‘NYT’ piece buys Israel’s al-Dura report– which PA spox calls ‘fantastical’ racist propaganda (10)
- eGuard: Woody Tanaka: Derfner’s a zio. He’s going to twist himself into the most nonsensical mental contortions...
- Kerry goes for the Hail Mary, but Obama is punting (35)
- Hostage: You should read Ed Luce’s comments in the Financial Times recently, regarding the depth of Kerry’s...
- Half of Israel’s eligible youth don’t enlist– and ranks of ‘gray resisters’ grow (7)
- Citizen: @ Annie Robbins Current suicide rate for US veterans is 22 per day. http://www.forbes.com/sites...
- Israel cracks down on American travel to West Bank by requiring tourists to obtain military permit (40)
- Djinn: Those Bantustans being part of Judea/Samaria in the minds of deluded Zionists.
- Kennedy’s insistence on right of return prompted Ben-Gurion to rewrite history: They fled ‘of their own free will’ (97)
- Shingo: I don’t know who has said the Zionists begged the natives to stay, and on what evidence, but even if this...
- ‘Forward’ piece on destruction of Palestinian neighborhood fronting Western Wall is not embraced by all ‘Forward’ readers (19)
- homingpigeon: jon s, Habibi, I would really like a reaction to the information that tree has provided. I am always...
- Both Massad, and ‘Open Zion’, ignore the experience of Middle Eastern Jews (44)
Our Writers
- Philip Weiss
- Adam Horowitz
- Today in Palestine
- Rob Browne
- Antony Loewenstein
- Jack Ross
- Max Blumenthal
- Ira Glunts
Blogroll
The War of Ideas in the Middle East
I think you misunderstand me. I certainly don't think stone-throwing by Palestinians justifies state-sponsored violence that ranges from the disappearance of teen-agers to the torturing to death of a family man. I have started to be concerned that Americans are no longer safe from this terrible behavior. The Israeli Border Police -often the worst - are now training the sheriffs in Oakland and Berkeley. disregard for civilians was a feature of the war in Eastern Europe (which did not end until 1989). Initially I was surprised that the IDF would be so unembarrassed at rolling out their fancy military equipment to terrorize civilians and use stone-throwing as sufficient justification. But now I think that it is part of a story that tries to tie Palestinians to the American frontier experience. It adds to the portrait of dangerous savages, and from there to the shared "white man's burden." Mr. Romney's ridiculous sneer about Palestinians lack of economic skills was part of this too, I think. The gap between this portrait and the reality is ridiculously wide. With all of the U.S. media in tow behind BHO, the Palestinians should not make it easy to play this useful fiction.
The Palestinians are educated Europeans. Many are Christian. Americans do not know that. I am glad the bride wore a white gown.
A multicultural and truly democratic I/P on the territory under contention would be a force for good in a "region" that stretches from the Ukraine to Somalia and Sicily to Persia. The truth is that even if Israelis "win" in Hebron or Gaza the truth of their behavior shames them. It certainly shames Americans. It is our Holy Land too. My sense of the Palestinians is that they have what the Japanese call "gaman."
There is no wisdom in extending the violence and subsequent need for forgiveness among neighbors beyond what is already demanded. Palestinians might remember what a nasty time 1946-1950 was in all of Europe. Ungvar and Nagyvarad no longer exist, nobody speaks Hungarian in Ughhorod or Oradea, and similarly across Poland, Slovakia and on and on.
I think that the crazy ideas expressed by the racist settler on the video linked here a few days ago create legitimate fears in the Palestinians. There is a sense that "they want us to be their servants, their slaves." It would be easy enough to put such fears to rest. If the French and Germans can do it, these guys can do it.
The Ottoman Sultan was shocked to discover that the King of Spain would send him such industrious new citizens in 1492. Similarly, the Israelis should be happy to have such good people as neighbors. truly.
More publicity stunts, yes indeed.
I think the "stone throwing" accusation is very important. It is an individual act and crosses the line into violence (hence "terrorist") as someone mentioned elsewhere on MW. As such it justifies all of the overreaction of state-sanctioned violence. But it does more than that. It turns the Palestinians into "primitives" that is, people not like us. It is similar to the efforts to keep the Bedouin out front. "Palestinians live in caves, didn'tcha know? What can you expect? It's the white man's burden." But even impoverished and disrespected, the Palestinians know their 2000 year history.
I get the sense that there is a more and more desperate effort in recent weeks to provoke violence from Palestinians before BHO arrives, in order to justify the money America has spent helping to "pacifying the natives." To spite this cynical campaign I hope that the Palestinians will demonstrate the forbearance for which they are famous.
There is a great scene in Frayn's play, "Democracy" where Willi Brandt is standing before a crowd of Berliners and calmly urging "patience, patience." But his "patience" includes alertness, and the crowd is vibrating like a violin string. Sometimes that is all the force of history requires. The play shows the victory of the Cold War minus all the American self-admiration. Such alertness and determination are the Palestinians' greatest weapons.
The State Dept. prevented Mr. Ramadan, a future leader in the profoundly important and friendly nation of Egypt, from entering the U.S. and teaching at the Univ. of Notre Dame, because, of course, the Roman Catholics of Northern Indiana were at serious risk of undue influence from radical, political Islam and had to be shielded for their own good. Such a dangerous thing, dialogue between university-educated American Catholics and university-educated Egyptian Muslims. It was positively Straussian in its incoherence. And today, when direct friendships with significant actors in Egyptian society...outside the army...would be very helpful, America has been handicapped for "our own good."
It is. The Friends High School provides both the education and the network which will make governance of a Palestinian State possible. I would argue that some of the impressive forbearance the Palestinians demonstrate goes back to the Quaker education they have all received. This thuggery highlights the de-development mentioned above. But what a good idea! BHO should take Malia and seven friends from Sidwell Friends to visit Ramallah Friends HS while he is touring.
To the extent the overweight white guy is actually "from" Judea, they are all cousins anyway. (see ftdna.com). He needs a bit more melanin I think, to persist, but time will tell.
Native Palestinians are just the folks who chose to stay despite the political ebb and flow of the Byzantine, Ottoman, and Arabic waves that washed over the territory. They have had plenty of practice at diplomacy and stubbornness. And why not? The land is beautiful, the food is good, the weather perfect.
Palestinian culture is a peculiar brew of Jewish tribalism, Greek philosophy, Christian charity and the radical democracy and fatalism of Islam (everyone is equal before the Almighty, who is calling the shots). It abides.
Wonder if Hagel will favor Texas and South Carolina with the base closures and other cutbacks in government spending they so loudly recommend. This should be interesting to watch. California welcomes the pivot toward the Pacific.
Well the Hagel brouhaha is not about some speech or other. It's about whether he would silence the drumbeat on Iran for another American war.
racist? race isn't the subject. The U.S. has spent breathtaking amounts in Iraq and Pakistan, which are supposed to function as strategic allies. Every U.S. taxpayer has the right to ask why we stubbornly persist in such a spendthrift and foolhardy way. In both cases, still after all these years, their defining feature as a nation state is that they have few national institutions that work. How did we end up wasting our patrimony on these botched post-colonial experiments? Chiefly, I would say, because they neighbor Iran. Our obsession with "pay-back" regarding the Shah, the hostages, the mullahs etc. is unseemly and contrary to U.S. interests. It is Iran that has the essential thing America needs in Central Asia. It is the one country that could do what we profess to want to do, which is bring the Muslim world toward a modern economy and democracy. It was a heartbreak to watch the Green movement struggle and fail. As Kissinger observed we seem to be on the warpath. Somehow, containment was ok for the Soviets but not for Persia. Why? I want a better answer than 'because all Muslims are terrorists."
link to upload.wikimedia.org
180 mm people. Few national institutions that function. Nuclear weapons.
Possibly we could discuss why Iran is not a U.S. ally. Unlike Iraq or Pakistan it is a real country, not just a mishmash of unhappy tribes. Like Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and India it is a keystone in its region and could help us to stabilize the Asian continent. The US has a particular interest in a ring of strong and thriving countries around Russia and China to buffer their influence on the oil-belt. When did we sign on to police the competition between Sunni and Shia? Let the Wahhabis win that competition if they can by constructing an attractive modern society, rather than have us trash the competitor. Sixty years of hostility toward Iran is one of the great conundrums of the Washington view. Beyond the orbit of the mullahs the average Persian likes America. It would be great if McCain and Hagel could lead us out of that cul-de-sac. Do we really have to destroy the entire Persian cultural heritage first? Surely the lesson of Vietnam is that US business engagement is the best way to bring a country into the global economic system. Oh course nothing said at the Senate ASC hearings engenders any optimism. It is not a forum that encourages creative thinking. (We need a Nixon....)
Israel, on the other hand, has an interest in weak neighbors all around, each struggling with domestic chaos and borrowing from the international banking cartel, at high rates just to muddle along. I would add Greece to that list by the way. Since the discovery of natural gas in the Eastern Med it is a dangerous competitor for Israel. You would think Deutsche or UBS would spot a business opportunity going begging but they follow the NY consensus like sheep.
When the global economy is desperate for effective demand the US allows a country of 80 million consumers, a country sophisticated enough to lead the rest of the Muslim world toward a European standard of living, to be locked out. Similarly the chaos in Egypt.... I think that there are really important issues at stake for the U.S. in getting someone like Hagel into the Administration.
Pollard...when they free Pollard it's really over for America.
Many people wanted BHO to win chiefly because it would take Netanyahu down a notch.
Huckabee is a dangerous joke, dangerous because he has a natural talent. We seem to have ducked a disaster there, but only because he was greedier than he was ambitious. (same is true with Palin). I am both shocked and frightened by the very public pushing forward of guys like Huckabee, the "magical thinkers." They seem to be supported by Kristol and others largely because they are malleable and not very bright.
Does Kristol really think he can control these stooges once they have real power?
Meanwhile it looks like the handover at State from Clinton to Kerry is being treated by the IDF as a window of opportunity in the Jordan Valley to win a round of "facts on the ground" while nobody is paying attention. It's pretty clear that Clinton was vigilant and quick to respond and pick up the phone. Where the heck is Kerry? I wonder if he's really up to the job.
I would suggest a follow-on to his Cairo speech. He should make it at the Friends High School in Ramallah. He should explain his vision of a civil society that can accommodate modernity and equality before the law. He should recommend the American innovation of a separation of church and state so that all groups who live in the Jordan Valley can fulfill their religious requirements while being good neighbors to each other. He should explain that this will require a special commitment to public integrity otherwise it won't work for long. He should talk about the progress the US has made just in the last 65 years toward fulfilling such a vision. He should tell the Palestinians that they are the best placed to lead the Middle East, by example, toward that kind of society. He should tell them how important their example will be to war-torn states around them. And he should tell them that the US and Europe want them to succeed.
He should ask to visit Abraham's tomb in Hebron and take a walk through the old streets.
He should go and visit Nasser Abufarha's olive oil co-op near Jenin (Canaan Fair Trade). According to the scientists at UC Davis the anti-inflammatory chemicals (oleocanthal) in their newest Rumi crop are off-the-charts. The Palestinian grandmas could have told you that it treats arthritis and prevents heart disease. Organic, fair-trade and righteous.
He should make a trip to the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, which offers young people from all three states, Jordan, Israel and Palestine a way to work together on the problems of the environment - air, water, plants and animals - that they all must share.
well, he could.....
We all saw the dim-bulb Los Angeles mayor lie on national television about the result of the vote we had just watched, at the Democratic Convention. The Progressives don't want the fight, but the drumbeat for another American war in the M.E. will likely be a match to tinder.
Phil is right to reprint this. The questioning was such an embarrassment and such an indictment of official Washington that the actual hearing has just disappeared from view. The overwhelming focus on the M.E., the groveling, the insistence that Hagel recant, none of it plays very well in the red counties that send boys to the military. It was a show trial and the U.S. government were made to look like fools before both our allies and opponents. Sen. Levin allowed the circus, though he was embarrassed enough to make an excuse for himself. Sen. Hagel is less adept that the President of leaning on the ropes and taking the punches. The rope-a-dope may again succeed but it was a terrible thing to watch.
hmmm. I read Rupert's tweet and went looking for the cartoon. This served to highlight the editorial position of his flagship newspaper. Mission accomplished, I'd say. Would never have seen it otherwise, as the Times is behind a paywall. The editorial position might be summarized as "We - the West - can't solve the problem until we name it accurately." The Times was calling out Netanyahu. Rupert seems to have played the international brouhaha perfectly, as now he has the US talking. This cartoon could not have been published here.
This ranks alongside the Max Cleland editorial on Mr. Hagel this weekend, which had to be published in the Guardian. The US press has abdicated the kind of accuracy and scope needed to lead in the world, to make international policy. London, which needs the US to function constructively, keeps sending these editorials, stories and cartoons "over the transom."
Murdoch has been moving very deliberately - I would say since his public apology for the wire-tapping scandal - back toward the family legacy, and it is a formidable legacy to be sure. 'Murdoch' meant telling hard truths to power, in order to build a better democratic society. The legacy deserves a dusting off. With anyone else I would say 'too late' but he's likely to have another 20 years, and all his wits.
No country sets as much stock in "fair play" as Australia. It has no history of anti-semitism and its inspirational founding myth is that the despised and discarded can work together to build something admirable and for the common good. It is always a pleasure to watch a casual demonstration of "Aussie" sportsmanship, equanimity and grit. I would say this is one of those times.
A well-traveled Palestinian commented to me, "Israel needs us more than they will admit.....We speak Arabic and Hebrew and English. We are Christians who understand Islam and Muslims who understand Christianity. We can travel where Israelis are unwelcome. Our children are wise-beyond-their-years, and make terrific diplomats. We are "green," we understand the land, the trees. We use water like people of the desert, not like Westerners who act as if wasting is a status symbol. This is a project for generations, so we hold onto family, very tightly. Our children know their grandparents." Country194 won a substantial victory by diplomacy last week, and that is only confirmed by the deafening silence. Your "venal" leaders play global chess quite well and are busy establishing a very positive "global brand." Don't diminish that accomplishment.
After all the flattery, back and forth, and the establishing her bona fides as friend, nay family, Hillary says two things which the AIP group must hear: first, half of the people you are bombing in Gaza are children, and second, you must reward efforts made by peaceful and diplomatic means or you will see more and more of the opposite. These are the cautions made by a friend to a friend.
I'd like to know who and why...... these "border" guys have been invited in to train the Alameda County sheriffs dept. Just not what Calif needs. (Problem with an empire is that the nasty stuff being done up in Germania or out in Parthia doesn't stay there, bad habits come back to the center.)
It's just a diversion to fill the news pages during the land grab. Nothing if not reliable. What kind of "joint military exercise" involves the deployment of bulldozers? The headlines are in Gaza but the dunums of farm land are in the Jordan Valley.
A Turkish colleague of mine commented that "the Arabs are builders." Thank you for showing that these are not aborigines in caves. That beautiful house was built with generations in mind. The film almost says 'how dare they aspire to such a graceful, idiosyncratic home'. No shoddy drywall, no cookie cutter mass-produced ugliness. It required such a big war machine to take it down.
Morgan Bach is trying to go university to university and church to synagogue to mosque to explain settlements and demolitions in Area 'C' based on her year in the West Bank. Help her stay on the road, or offer her a house-party to explain "facts on the ground" to your friends and neighbors and a sofa to save travel money. It turns out the little guest house Morgan started in Al Aqaba means that Al Aqaba is on the couch surfing website, but NOT on Google Maps!
link to indiegogo.com
I think that countries prefer when other people want to use their courts. The petitioners should take their evidence to a European court as the issue of legitimate financial transactions vs black market transactions moving through the international banking system is an important one. Let London or German courts create the precedents. It is a reproach to our system of justice when Arab speakers (180 mio) or Muslims (1 bln) feel they cannot be heard within the American system of jurisprudence. This is another step backward from international leadership. It is also a precedent that undermines Israel ultimately, because a disengaged US really does not need a forward base on the Eastern Shore of the Mediterranean.
Islam has a remarkable tradition of personal charity, it is a requirement taken very seriously. But many American Muslims are afraid to give other than cash to anyone - because of this case.
Like every other story about Palestine, the ugly behavior, and the efforts to document it, masks the incredible beauty of that thing the Palestinians are trying to preserve. Visiting Old Hebron is like visiting a beautiful museum alone. Everything is ready for visitors but they are afraid to come. Go to Hebron. What was most striking, in June was how many of the soldiers assigned to control the natives where African. So wierd when otherwise in I/P you rarely see a black face.
US tried this kind of economic warfare on a civilian population in Iraq for almost a decade but without the intensity and focus needed to be successful. (struggling to remember what we wanted them to do exactly, besides rise up against the dictator). Analogous in some ways to to the US version of concentration camps vs same in the hands of the properly determined. Gaza will be studied in war manuals for centuries as the best of its kind. Recognize that Americans imagine Gaza as Wounded Knee, a sort of last stand by the despairing in place both isolated and desolate. They would be shocked to know that this like taking Santa Monica and turning it into a hell hole. So who will be in charge of trying to destroy the civil life of Iran? The lackadaisical Americans or the properly focused Israelis?
I agree. The walls, the whole Eastern Europeanization of the land, is a crime against beauty. It is no great accomplishment to create such physical and spiritual ugliness.
It would be far better if Christian church leaders continued to talk to Congress without intermediation. Congressional representatives need to hear that they have understanding and support in their community for their efforts to do the right thing. They have been subjected to intimidation, both personal and professional, for a very long time over this issue. The "Summit" sounds like a diversion to palaver (def. a long parley usually between persons of different cultures or levels of sophistication).
In the Canaan Fair Trade pressing room there is script that reads "the olive tree, neither Eastern nor Western." it so speaks of a love of "this place."
they need to start to love this place...else, as Tacitus said, speaking of the hated Romans "... and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
The only way to end apartheid. I'd call these guys good Samaritans.
They visited Gaza and they were shocked. It takes a lot.
Thanks for these links. To think that the Palestinians gathered an army in 1834 sufficient to face 2000 cavalry and 4000 infantry. What an interesting prospect. Very different from the swaggering we see from an army whose chief accomplishment appears to be the terrorizing of civilians.
There is something more to it, I think. By denying the accomplishments of non-Jews and so limiting their advancement, you create the reality of Chosenness so necessary for tribe worship. It was wrong when the Poles and Hungarians did it and it's wrong for I/P.
maybe. it's like taking advice on foreign policy, war and peace from Snookie.
at least it answered my biggest question of 2012, which has been why, with someone as qualified as Bob Gates standing there, did the GOP tap a neophyte and neophyte jr. to manage foreign policy.
All built by those entrepreneurial Palestinians, you might add.
This debate should be at Quantico or West Point so that the audience has at least some sense of the true cost of the last eleven years. The military families should demand that it is moved.
By the way, if you haven't listened to Sen Webb's speech this weekend you should. It is a variant on the Clinton speech from the convention, that you do not have to worship at the Obama shrine, you do to have to put his picture behind the bar, to think he has a better plan for the country. This speech will play very well in western PA, NC, Florida Panhandle and southern Ohio. I would say that Sen. Webb is one of those guys whose political career has mysteriously not thrived, but he is beloved and would win in a fairer fight.
For some reason it is hard to find....here is a link to a clear, complete version
link to youtube.com
Settlement freeze - what a meaningless commitment. There are more than 12,500 demolition orders on Palestinian homes and barns on land they own in the Jordan Valley. It's not what goes up that must stop, there isn't population enough to fill all the new homes anyway in these Potemkin hilltop fortresses for the
It's what they are tearing down that must stop.
well its the whole "good as America" atmosphere. Israel truly invests in the country, but there is a sense that its to persuade new immigrants that its just like going to America. There seems to be no delight in being in this Middle Eastern space. I still cannot get over the black wool coats and fur hats, in 90 degree heat. In addition to dietary rules there should be proper dress for the Holy Land rules. If you listen to the earth it teaches you how to be in that place. But when I look at Israelis in Jerusalem, they see to be living somewhere else, either the Ukraine or New York.
The day the last Pharaoh Mubarak and his clan fell, the timeline changed. Everything that the GoI has done since that day has been an effort to disguise that fact.
The most insightful thing I have read on I/P was written by STRATFOR, looking at Israel purely from a geographical/political point of view. This geography is a focal point of the competition between empires, not for the first time. Picking the wrong side in that clash, at the wrong time, has resulted in expulsion, a whole population removed from the front line. It has already happened twice in 5000 years, in this space, on this coast, between the Nile, the Euphrates and the Bosporus. This pivotal coastline is part of a web of trade among Italy, Africa and the Nile delta, Anatolia and the hinterland of Iraq and Persia. That is what really stands out when you visit Israel for the first time. Not the self-involvement and self-interest and self-adulation. But all the missed opportunity.
Thanks be, for the innocence of nineteen-year-old boys. That this was asked of the grandsons of Holocaust survivors is a great crime.
I was in Jerusalem in June and spoke to a British NGO official informally about the current situation. He commented on the uninformed, ill-informed sensibility of young, well-intentioned Americans, Christian and otherwise, who come to help in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Jordan Valley. I think it goes to the parallel that all Americans make between Palestinians and Native Americans but also African Americans. It's the "white man's burden" missionary sensibility. We generally see photos of Bedouin living in tents and we are never reminded that there is 7000 years of civilization along this coast. This is the Riviera at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, with layer on layer of art and architecture. I see the word "savages" as a deliberate attempt to elide that this place is home to the Egyptian and Greek cultures that are the fundament of Western civilization. My British friend (he said Australian but I know Australian when I hear it) also said that the Russians operate in the ME by "telling the truth." That's all they have to do, the myth-making and mis-information is so convoluted that all the rest-of-world has to do is say fact-based things out loud.
Phil, what I wanted to say at the Brecht Forum was "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition." I love America like most of us who have a realistic sense of what our family prospects were in Europe before the wars. American civic ideas are worthy of striving toward, worth teaching. What's more, you cannot tell an American woman that there is no such thing as progress. Look to Title9 if you want to see the revolution. I do not want to see women in veils, with mental blinders. Your issue, your obsession, has become central to understanding what is happening to America.
I was happily trusting that globalization and economic prosperity would slowly but steadily resolve the problems of the ME, helped by the physical distance, the blessing of sunshine and the passage of time, from Europe, its grey winters, its dark history. I had great faith in the ethics at the heart of Judaism. However, in the last decade we have seen a pivot, with the ME version of crazy-making altering our laws and our civil rights and our safety. What you research and bring forward is profoundly important to THIS country, now. It is impossible to have a clear sense of what is happening without reading here, reading British newspapers, reading between the lines. Thank you for your courage even when it hurts your mother's heart. I think you are patriot in two countries.
The US military is really not amused by this. The PMofI is walking right up to the line beyond which the US military reaches over the heads of intimidated Congressmen to talk directly to the American people. It is possible. BHO has had four years to make some friends at the Pentagon. Mitt and his boys aren't really on the US team, they were all too precious to serve. McC isn't enough of an ambassador between the Pentagon and the Mitt dynasty; its cultural, the McC boys aren't shirkers. What's more, there is nothing the US military men hold in more contempt than the financial fraudster/evade-ster culture. I do think Benny and the Jets have misread the US zeitgeist.
Years ago, when we had small children and we lived in the highland park section of los angeles, I was really tired of looking at scantily clad women on billboards near my house every day. So I bought a super soaker and some nice japanese calligraphy ink, and took my children one sunday morning and gave the nice lady some clothes, because she was cold. I do think this falls within my constitutional right to free speech and the upholding of community standards. I think this falls within the same framework. a super soaker might be too dangerous in hyper-militarized NYC at the moment though. but a water-pistol?
By silencing all dissenting voices the mainstream media is really missing the story, which is a general disapproval across the country for a third round of these wars of choice. I would say that the President's stance is a pretty accurate reading of where the country (outside Washington) is on more war. The analysis is pretty simple, and involves our doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Most Americans have clued in that more war will not reverse the damage done to our reputation. We are not winning hearts and minds.
$3 Tril later, this is how the world sees us link to theatlanticwire.com
Romney's numbers have not recovered from his trip to Israel. Nobody says it out loud, though. Funny how that works. Mr. Romney is proving an inadequate messenger and the PM is looking a bit desperate.
Such contempt. Such contempt for us. We know why she was standing there. It is our Holy Land too. Rachel acted on her expectation of Israel's people and it was quite a compliment. She trusted them, in the end. (Closest allies, dearest friends, shared values...all that. We can trust them with our children.) She was wrong, twice.
The videos from Tiananmen Square of the young man in front of the line of tanks proved both the foolhardy courage of the young and the ethics of the "people's army." The government has worked for decades to erase that singleton act of courage in the face of military/industrial swagger, and they are still trying. The Wikipedia entry for "Tank Man" makes clear just how afraid the Chinese government was of this lone voice.
Shot by firing squad? possibly. Erased from history? not likely. link to en.wikipedia.org
Wags said the name of the "Tank Man" in Tiananmen Square was "One Dum Fuk." Israel's Court has told the Corries that their daughter was "one dum fuk."
Craig has famously said that it is important to give people the opportunity to do the right thing. He and Cindy have been so patient. If that is to be an American I am proud to stand with them.
Some evidence, by the way, is written with indelible ink.