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- Video: Medea Benjamin interrupts Obama speech on US drone … 6
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- Half of Israel’s eligible youth don’t enlist– and ranks of … 4
- Chelsea Clinton’s multifaith initiative 7
- More on the ‘creepy’ al-Dura report 7
- Exile and the Prophetic: Does John Kerry have the keys … 6
- Wolf Blitzer looks for a religious state 12
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- Two friends meet for 5 minutes in Jerusalem 1699
- Palestinian-American Raed Zidan plants flag on top of Everest, dedicates … 1360
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- In photos: Gaza marches and rallies mark 65 years of … 442
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- Israeli report on al-Dura case is vengeful and ‘surreal,’ says … 399
- International Criminal Court opens preliminary investigation into attack on Mavi … 355
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- International Criminal Court opens preliminary investigation into attack on Mavi … 96
- Kennedy’s insistence on right of return prompted Ben-Gurion to rewrite … 93
- Barbara Boxer’s visa bill for Israel comes under concerted attack 93
- Abulhawa declines to ‘balance out’ several Israelis in ‘Al Jazeera’ … 87
- Washington Post’s racism map omits Israel 73
- Uncompromising hope inspired by Ghassan Kanafani 63
- Dershowitz should stop lying about Tutu’s record 56
- Two friends meet for 5 minutes in Jerusalem 48
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- RT @alexbkane: Obama says expanded surveillance raises "difficult questions" , but his Justice Dept. has stalled on an inquiry into NYPD sp…, 9 hours ago
- RT @samknight1: Flashback: Israel helped train Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt, recently convicted of genocide. https://t.co/oYsxDokunE, 10 hours ago
- RT @samknight1: Israel to train Chiapas police? Well. Say goodnight to the Zapatistas and probably a whole lot of indigenous groups http://…, 10 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…, 10 hours ago
- RT @allisonkilkenny: I've never seen this level of outrage from journos levelled at the president for, say, droning people in secret. But f…, 10 hours ago
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click link to see last 100 comments- Glenn Greenwald on the Woolwich attack and blowback from the ‘war on terror’ (16)
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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
If the choice is between collective punishment of the Israeli people and the status quo, I'm leaning toward the latter. But I would be willing to consider B.D.S. efforts that are targeted against those who are complicit in specific Israeli policies.
The Lobby would be unable to stop Hagel from winning confirmation, just as it was unable to stop Bob Gates despite his position in favor of diplomacy and against war with Iran.
Just 70%? Isn't that significantly lower than the 78% of the Jewish vote that Obama won in 2008?
Prosecuting Iran's leaders for alleged incitement to genocide is listed on AIPAC's website as part of its legislative agenda. Maybe that's where Romney got the idea from.
If I was a Jew, I would be against intermarriage.
I don't think he's arguing that Iranian leaders' statements should be accepted as true. He's just pointing out the double standards and anti-Iran biases of Goldberg and other commentators.
While I agree that Iran wouldn't nuke Israel, it's not necessarily true that doing so would kill all of Israel's Palestinians. Israel is generally divided into separate Jewish and Arab areas, so I guess it might be possible to bomb Israel's Jewish areas while killing a relatively small proportion of the Arab population. I'm certainly not endorsing such a scenario, I'm just pointing out that Rubin's argument isn't entirely correct.
Most pro-Israel and pro-Zionist student activists I know aren't interested in intellectual dialogue either.
I especially liked this part of Rebecca's article: 'Several other recommendations also suggest limiting Palestinian speech. None of the proposals call for such conditions to be placed on “pro-Israel” events — nor would I urge that.'
Most pro-Israel groups aren't in any position to accuse others of bias, imbalance or insensitivity. While trying to keep campus advocacy civil and respectful isn't necessarily wrong, Israel shouldn't be accorded any special protection for being "the Jewish state".
"Putting oneself in Israel's place" is a euphemism for uncritically propagating Israeli government talking points
Abe Foxman is a fraud and a despicable person. Does he really think that the role of the NYT should be to serve the Israeli government?
Ross's article implicitly acknowledges that Israel is a liability, not an asset, to the United States.
"overwhelming pro-Israel American electorate"
Is he being serious? Does he really think that American voters care less about their economic well-being than they do about fighting Israel's wars?
If only the purpose of the Zionist forces actually was to protect people
Wasn't it Congress, not the Obama administration, that cut funding to UNESCO? I thought there was a Congressional law requiring the defunding of any U.N. body that recognized Palestinian statehood against the wishes of Israel.
I don't blame the Israeli people for the injustices committed by their government against Palestinians. Israelis who vote for Likud and other anti-Palestinian parties don't necessarily do so because they want the oppression of Palestinians to continue; there are other that factor into Israeli elections and governance. Only those who decide to perpetuate or directly participate in the oppression of Palestinians should be held responsible.
Supporting Israel fully and unconditionally while opposing any pro-Palestinian effort to gain leverage or rights isn't one-sided at all. Do pro-Israel propagandists know how absurd some of their arguments are, or are they just that brainwashed?
This talk about having a "love affair" and "falling in love" with a country is really awkward.
I don't know what they think about AIPAC, but Franken and Sanders voted for the Kirk-Menendez Amendment, so I bet they too are constrained by pressure from the pro-Israel lobby.
Why is Beinart put in the same category as Israeli government shill Jeffrey Goldberg and far-right ethnic cleansing advocate Daniel Gordis?
J Street's position on Iran doesn't go far enough. It opposes war but still supports "crippling sanctions" as opposed to serious diplomacy that might resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.
What a shame and a disgrace to America that our President--like him or not--has to sink so low in order to appease the Israel Lobby.
The Zionists say they want the Jews to have their own nation-state just like all other peoples do, but this outdated embrace of ethnocracy and of vague and romantic nationalist ideas is actually what differentiates the "Jewish state" from other nation-states.
Jerome Slater: "in both the U.S. and Israel, Jews who receive religious education are precisely those most likely to reject—indeed, detest—Peter Beinart and what he otherwise stands for."
This is certainly true of most Orthodox Jewish education, but I'm not sure about the more liberal branches of Judaism. It seems to me that secular Zionists and religious Zionists are most likely to have hardline views, but Jews who are moderately religious have a much greater capacity for criticism of Israel and for transcending tribalism.
Alterman says that most Israelis are pro-peace and then says "the two populations [Israelis and Palestinians] happen to hate one another". How can you be at once pro-peace and pro-hate?
Kirk is the same guy who said sanctions against Iran should be intended to hurt the Iranian people and that "it's okay to take the food out of the mouths" of Iranians. He's a disgrace to Illinois and to the U.S. Senate. But not to AIPAC. His lack of humanity represents and serves AIPAC quite well.
Disgusting. I don't know why the woman bothers to argue with these whackjobs.
I agree with the view of U.S.-Israel relations depicted by the cartoon. The only part I disapprove of is the sexual part. But I'm glad Foxman is offended by it. That shows that the cartoon is generally useful.
"apocalyptic mullahs publicly pledged to Israel's annihilation"
As if Krauthammer needed to give us more proof of militaristic fearmongering and bias.
Are publicly-funded schools allowed to teach their students to follow a certain political ideology? I don't know, but I would guess there might be a law against it.
Could it be that Mofaz was talking about peace with Palestinians just to differentiate himself from Netanyahu and weaken his image? Maybe he doesn't really care about peace with Palestinians, and his talk about it was just politically motivated.
After all, Mofaz's "bi-national state" scenario is too far off to be felt or recognized as a real threat by Israelis.
It's a typical hasbara ploy: compare Israel to western-style democracies. Some of the hasbara agents even try to say that Israel is an ordinary nation-state like Sweden and Greece and not an ethnocracy.
"Shore also founded the Clarion Fund, and under its auspices produced another documentary, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West."
This says all you need to know. The Clarion Fund is closely linked to Aish HaTorah and has also produced The Third Jihad and Iranium. Even Jeffrey Goldberg has called Aish HaTorah "Jewish extremists".
Shameful pandering. I hope Obama is doing it only for political purposes and knows in his heart that this exploitation of the Holocaust is wrong but that he must participate in it if only to appease the Israel lobby.
I think tribalism or ethno-centrism would be a more fitting descriptor than nationalism, because Beinart himself is Jewish nationalist but not an ethno-centrist or a tribalist.
Although I agree with your defense of Jewish education, I don't agree that Dana's argument is a red herring. The point isn't that Zionism requires all Jews to move to Israel, it's that Beinart's choice to live in America belies his arguments for why a Jewish state is necessary. Besides Beinart, the Israeli govt. has to beg Jews around the world to make "aliyah" and to convince Israeli expats to return.
I'm hopeful yet skeptical that these meetings will accomplish anything. It remains to be seen if the Obama admin. is willing to make any concessions. Plus, AIPAC will swing into full force to try to scuttle any deal that is reached, and Congressional sanctions may already have accomplished that.
Speaking of "wiped off the map", Israel itself has literally wiped Palestine and part of Syria off the map
Dersh is nothing more than a shill
I read the blog post about "annihilating" the Israeli people when it was first published. There's nothing linking the blogger or his views to Khamenei. I think the reason that Alef published the blog post may be its detailed discussions of Iran's military capabilities, not b/c it represents Iranian policy.
The WND article was written by "Reza Kahlili", the pseudonym for someone claiming to have been a CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guards. "Kahlili" the propagandist has a long track record of scaremongering and lying about Iran. Even U.S. intelligence officials reportedly have debunked some of his claims about Iran's nuclear program.
In relation to Beinart, I wish to say that the lack of depth and sophistication of most "Open Zion" posts is truly disappointing.
I just don't understand why politics should be based on such vague notions as "culture", "ethnicity" and "peoplehood".
Is there any other example in history of an ethnic group requiring its own state for "self-protection and cultural expression"? When has the State of Israel ever been needed to protect endangered non-Israeli Jews? The Soviet and Ethiopian examples are dubious, to say the least.
Didn't the pre-"Exile" Jews speak Aramaic, not Hebrew?
"The issue of selective condemnation"
Your point would be stronger if Grass was Iranian. He's German and he's criticizing his own country's government for selling nuclear subs to Israel. Why should that be less important to him than Holocaust denial in Iran? As bad as Holocaust denial is, it really has nothing to do with policy. It's purely rhetorical
"direct linkage between Mr. Grass' earlier vision . . ."
So, is Mr. Grass supposed to go back in a time machine and undo the Holocaust, which would've happened even if he had never been born?
Tom Segev is a hack
He says that there's supposedly a "vibrant" debate in Israel about Iran, yet he himself opts to simply repeat right-wing Israeli propaganda on Iran
Rather than participate in the "vibrant debate" taking place in his homeland, he decides to attack and smear a writer in Germany for daring to express his views on the matter
Anyone else see the irony?