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Total number of comments: 659 (since 2009-07-31 12:30:56)

Sin Nombre

An average schlub.

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  • What forestry teaches us about ethnic cleansing
    • Sin Nombre May 19, 2012 at 12:29 pm

      Yet again while having validity we see what I think is the wrong perspective on this Israeli argument.

      Yes, sure, Phil and others say with that measure of validity, we *used* to do those things but don't anymore. But the jibe still resonates.

      Seems to me the added retort ought to be "so if you want to behave like ethnic cleansers and racists of old go ahead, but don't then pretend you're something else just to get American money and support."

  • Walzer says Jews were on the left because the left supported Jews
    • Sin Nombre May 17, 2012 at 8:04 pm

      Head-snapping. Up until now its been called about as classic as classic can be an anti-semitic libel to say that jews only do things for others when it benefits them. A Protocols-level libel, if not in fact *in* the Protocols. And now, no less than Walzer saying it.

      Goodbye universalism then, goodbye anti-nationalism, goodbye pluralism even (not to mention multi-culturalism), goodbye true democracy even ... hello blood?

      Nah, that's for Walzer's Chosen only and not for the rest of us.

      Indeed though I think this piece by Walzer *was* only for his Chosen, and a desperate piece it is too: American jews ain't gonna agree to this on the whole, leaving Walzer where exactly? As a source for the Stormfront/David Dukes out there.

  • The left lacks an analysis of the neocon rise
    • Sin Nombre May 15, 2012 at 12:00 pm with 1 replies

      You know why the Left gets all quiet and gets absorbed into examining its fingernails when talking about the neo-con rise? It's because the neo-cons came from the Left, many, but for their enthusiasm for what now passes for the Right's view on ME policy, still *are* of the Left and are just pretending otherwise, and many who never put on the false mask of being a neo-con and being of what passes for the new "Right" are still of the Left.

      If, that is, because of some gamma-ray cloud or etc. passing over us in the night, the Right recovered even a few of its pre-George Bush I.Q. points and traditional values, and suddenly woke up and said "hey that's right, we don't belong involved in a conflict in which we have no interest," by the very *next* night there wouldn't be a neo-con left on the Right or in the Republican party.

      They'd all be back where they will end up back which is among the Democrats and Progressives and the Left. And you know what? They'd fit right in with the Democrats as can be seen from how the Democrats (including Obama) have marched in lockstep with Netanyahu and Sheldon Adelson and etc. and so forth.

      And you are wondering, Phil, why the Left suddenly gets quiet about the neo-cons? You are forgetting that, not just figuratively but in a number of cases *literally* these guys fathers were just oh so in love with good old Lev Trotsky and his ideas about, say, slaughtering 99% of a population if that's what was needed to fulfill his ideas of goodness? (With those same people now piously if not nauseatingly talking about how taken they are with allegedly home-grown American ideas and democracy how much they love Alexander Hamilton and etc.)

      You are forgetting that neo-condom (to coin an apt word) really started in the late '60's with stalwart Democrats and Lefties realizing—via either Podhoretz Sr. or Kristol Sr., I forget—that gee, the Left was going too far in opposing U.S. militarism and military adventuring and etc. because this could hurt the U.S.'s ability to be the arms depot of Israel.

      And since, on *what* other "conservative/Right" issue—*aside* from keeping the U.S. armed to the teeth, hegemonic over everyone else sufficient to keep anyone from helping the arabs, and liking military adventurism in the Mideast—does anyone associate with neo-condom? None. Why, because *overwhelmingly* they *have* none, period.

      Some restraint on the welfare state? Oh, maybe insofar as it might endanger military expenditures and abilities. Some restraint on immigration? Oh, maybe to the extent that hispanics don't seem to accept the idea that the Holocaust makes them responsible for everything Israel wants. The classical conservative/Right idea ("isolationism" versus FDR; Eisenhower versus Truman on Korea; JFK and LBJ being really responsible for Vietnam) that the U.S. should absolutely *not* be the world's policeman? What a joke. Of *course* that's *the* huge thing that they hate.

      And on and on and on.

      The Left doesn't lack an analysis of neo-condom; the Left knows that the neo-cons are *of* them, and once again if conservatives/the Right ever regain their sanity *will* be them again. And the Left knows the money that goes with neo-condomization too, and won't mind it a bit when it comes back to them.

  • AIPAC's Iran resolution (What if Congress had told JFK he couldn't 'rely on containment' with Soviets?)
    • Sin Nombre May 16, 2012 at 2:54 pm

      ahhiyawa wrote:

      "The best Netanyahu and his gang of traitors can do is whine, screech and snivel loud enough in the hopes of sabotaging the negotiations between the p5+1 group and Iran."

      No, they *could* just launch a strike on Iran (giving the U.S. some mere hours of formal notice) and then plan on Iran's retaliation at the very least grazing the U.S. or attacking effective U.S. protectorats in the Gulf to put Obama–before the election—in a position of either piling in against Iran, or looking like he's a coward or doesn't support Israel.

      And as to the NPT talks, everything I've seen suggests that Israel's red lines are not near what Iran is possible to give, such as Iran totally abandoning enrichment, or closing the Fordow site. And indeed there's some suggestion that during his recent AIPAC meeting with Obama that Netanyahu got Obama to make these *America's red lines too, or close to same.

      I dunno, ahhiyawa, you may well be right, but I smell something I never smelled before. Notice how the drumbeat for war, going like crazy for awhile, then suddenly let up and got quiet right after those Bibi/Obama talks during the AIPAC conference? Just in advance of the new talks with the Iranians? Smells like setup to me for the Iranians: We send signals of our new flexibility/willingness to talk knowing that after some decent interval of appearing happy to talk we can walk out saying that despite all our good faith the Iranians were playing games and blah blah blah and suddenly Israel has the green light to go ahead.

      Maybe not and maybe you're right though; you certainly make some good points. But *something* happened in those most recent Bibi/Obama talks. Things changed alot since then, much of same being things getting quieter, and I'm suspicious of quiet.

      And what about Israel's perception of its position post-American election? They gotta admit to a lot of chance of Obama getting re-elected, at which point admit to a lot of chance he'll be far less subject to pressure then.

      Bibi, I think, feels he's gotta have a big war to put him into the jewish hall of historical fame, and what would be bigger than Iran?

      Gonna be interesting to watch at least....

    • Sin Nombre May 15, 2012 at 10:41 am with 2 replies

      ahhiyawa says:

      "my guess is exactly the opposite."

      Well of course you might be right, and I didn't say I'd bet my house on it, and indeed I'd love it if the reason you are right is the reason you give. Sure as hell would be nice seeing us playing the game on Israel it has so perfected on us, wouldn't it?

      Still, to me, Netanyahu's lining up his ducks for when, after a decent interval, the Iranians in these talks don't fold completely, and he can then attack before our election so putting Obama up against the initial wall of cheers that always accompany such things. Mofaz may be his big obstacle, but then you gotta wonder why if Mofaz is an obstacle at all Netayahu would have brought him into his government at all.

      Of course a large part of my thinking rests on the belief that a re-elected Obama would feel it easy to tell the Israelis where to step off and make it stick, but I'm worried there since that *is* just my hope, and when thinking collides with hope you're in danger.

      Obama has been just so absolutely, totally wet so far; I just don't know what explains same that doesn't involve a terrible and even utter lack of backbone. And unfortunately to me again the only things he really seems to get enthused about is ever-more junky, stupid racial-type politics and issues. I.e., rousing the Lefty racial/multi-culti rabble and etc. You can understand it to a small degree given the satisfaction it produced in angering the Righty racial/multi-culti rabble, but in terms of being a governing agenda....

      The guy worries me deeply now. I used to like him lots indeed.

    • Sin Nombre May 15, 2012 at 7:29 am with 4 replies

      MHUGHES976 wrote:

      "I still don’t think I hear the drums of war or the diplomatic thunder of ultimatums."

      My guess: Wait just a little while longer, after one or two more meetings with the Iranians don't turn out with them pledging allegiance to Hashem, before our elections, and without drums or thunder. Just wake up to find Israel attacking Iran, Iran hitting back and hitting us, and ... ta da.

      Right now I can almost hear Shaul Mofaz's bones creaking under all the pressure and promises Netanyahu and Barak are making to him and Kadima.

    • Sin Nombre May 15, 2012 at 7:19 am

      That too. Each branch can essentially throw sand into the gears of the other.

      I think this is *partly* the reason why so many people get frustrated that they don't see this branch or that battling like crazy between them in down and dirty, all-out fights: It's because the system makes cooperation between them on damn near *everything* necessary, so that in a knock-down drag-out *neither* side would be likely to get *anything.*

      I'm sure this has had its bad aspects, but also it's good in terms of getting us into horrible gridlocks all the time over relatively "little" issues that could then grown into some sort of civil war even. That's the sort of scheming and fighting that the Framers saw occurring elsewhere and essentially giving lots of other governments life expectancies of only a decade or so.

      Thus our Framers did pretty good in those terms: 200 years and counting.

    • Sin Nombre May 15, 2012 at 12:20 am with 5 replies

      American wrote:

      "Insane, that’s all I can say.
      Congress absolutely is pushing a war for Israel."

      Insane *and* bizarre given that in their heart of hearts the vast majority of those Congressmen and women know that no war is necessary for the U.S. and most of those Congressmen and women probably *don't* want war.

      Hostage wrote:

      "You really can’t argue that Congress hasn’t been delegated the key war powers associated with foreign policy, or that it must consult the executive."

      Well theoretically it doesn't have to consult with the Pres. to declare war or not, but it's in a pickle if it were do declare a war and the Commander-in-Chief were to tell the troops to sit on their hands.

      Just one of those separated powers the Framers liked to manufacture to deprive any one branch of all powers in certain things. On the other hand the Supreme Court has said and there's almost no dispute about it that the President is the sole U.S. voice in terms of articulating U.S. foreign policy and speaking for the U.S. in foreign affairs. Once again though, just like the power to declare war sounds total, a Pres. can announce any foreign policy he or she wishes, and if the Congress refuses to fund it....

      It's a fractured thing for sure, and it's correct that this new AIPAC thing isn't the first time the Congress has stuck its nose deep in foreign policy setting.

      On the other hand, when it's clearly done so agitating for war, at the behest of and for the benefit of a foreign power ... if *that* isn't stupifying I don't know what is.

      Hard to think of our government ever having descended so low, manifesting such total degradation.

  • We're still losing
    • Sin Nombre May 13, 2012 at 4:11 pm

      MHughes976 wrote:

      "The rot from within will only become serious when many insiders begin to lose confidence in their cause...."

      Wrong. The cause will only begin to lose when the insiders are deprived of the resources to continue it.

      Again, that's why so much of the posting here is misdirected: Those that aren't just expressions of anger think by dissecting the injustices delivered unto the Palestinians by the Israelis the Israelis and their American partisans are going to change their fundamental minds.

      And yet, this is still written right in the face of Phil's story about this woman who he had even cornered beforehand and "sensitized" and then who went there and saw (or had the opportunity to see) for herself. And what happened?

      The rot from within will only stop when the American people realize the damage they are doing to themselves by subsidizing that rot, and that they have been are are being fleeced by a foreign power. All the rest of this stuff is akin to street theater demonstrations: Fun and exciting and stimulating to be a part of maybe, but ineffectual.

    • Sin Nombre May 12, 2012 at 2:00 pm with 1 replies

      Phil Weiss wrote:

      "I thought, we're losing."

      Well all I can ask, Phil—somewhat assuming that this lady is jewish, but not necessarily—is why you seem to think you will have better luck persuading American jews or American elites to change their fundamental ideas here because Israel isn't helping but rather hurting itself, as opposed to persuading Americans *in general* that America's support of Israel is causing *America* and *their* interests all kinds of great great harm?

      Indeed it seems to me it's this precise mistargeting that's the biggest strategic mistake being made by lots of folks, wasting a whole lot of energy, resources and etc. Indeed, it's choosing to fight on the very grounds Israel wants you to fight on: Choosing Israel or the Palestinians.

      Wrong grounds, possibly catastrophically bad framing; the question is choosing Israel ... or the United States.

  • Liberal Zionists are afraid their parents will reject them if they come out
    • Sin Nombre May 12, 2012 at 9:38 am with 3 replies

      Eleanor Kilroy wrote:

      "She comes from a Jewish Texan family, and yet she says ‘we’ the Israelis."

      You know, I didn't even notice that, and yet how perfectly it invites the kind of questions that I asked before. E.g., how do American jews view the rest of us Americans?

      Obviously for this woman at least "we" ain't her, and this is perhaps what most bothers me about, say, the J-Street crowd, Beinart and etc., and it's kind of counter-intuitive.

      One the one hand this woman and Beinart and J-Street are clearly the young guns of politically active American jewry, and yes they say better things about how Israel should treat the Palestinians than the old guard is wont to say.

      But how do these young guns view *us*? From my perspective at least the old guard were concerned and cautious about the idea of dual loyalties and etc. Indeed very very concerned and cautious to the frequent point where this or that figure would stand up and say to the Israelis even that "hey, remember we're Americans first."

      Look even at Dershowitz at that recent event telling his listeners to never ever openly boo the President of the U.S. in relation to Israel.

      Now however I get *no* sense of that from the young guns at all. *None.* (Admitting I haven't read Beinart's book.)

      So while everyone's celebrating their feelings of solicitation for the Palestinians (or perhaps just how standing on the necks of the Palestinians so much hurts Israel), while I'm happy to see that how come I can't be concerned about their feelings towards me and *this* country?

      For all I see, to be blunt, it's an ever more open "Fuck you you ain't us."

      So I'm still supposed to prefer the new young guns to the oldsters?

    • Sin Nombre May 11, 2012 at 5:03 pm with 4 replies

      American wrote:

      "Take yourself, your AIPAC parents and the rest of the 7% and move to Israel before your “Israel love” creates so much resentment in this country you actually have to."

      I suspect that's the voice of exasperation speaking, God knows how validly prodded if still over the top a bit.

      But I do think this kind of thing from this young woman, which can seem so representative in so many ways—the unrestrained statements above all the love she feels towards Israel, and the utter absence of any statement of feeling for the U.S., and etc.—raises the question of just how do most jews regard America and us, their non-jewish co-American citizens? E.g., are we *always* regarded as something of "the other" even when non-Israeli issues exist?

      I mean, from this young woman's comments, quite aside from the "Texas strip mall" snark which may be otherwise explainable, it's almost as if ... the U.S. is just a place where she stays alot and ... and uses as a stage to act out her politco-moral superiority over the inhabitants, with her supposedly deep politico-moral sensibilities however not even leading her any further than J-Street in terms of ever-so-gently disagreeing with Israel.

      What has this country ever done to not earn the kind of love or affection from her that this young lady feels for Israel? Yes it's had it's bouts with anti-semitism, but her presence on the J-Street wagon shows she knows that Israel itself has problems with anti-arab racism and etc.

      Calls to mind a comment I *think* that was made by that Chief Rabbi of American Reform Jewry (Yoffie) where he was speaking to some jewish gathering and as he mentioned Israel he said with seeming deliberateness "the one country we can unreservedly love."

      What's the reserves then about here? About us? Can it really be such historical blindness to believe jews have never been the tormentor of others, and only always the tormented?

      And it's funny, for all the American jewish authors and writers and etc. I don't know of any books or pieces or etc. that focuses on and discusses this one particular point about how American jews view their relationship with America and us co-citizens in any depth, even though you would think it would attract at least some attention.

      Maybe I have just not heard of same, but its certainly swamped out by all the things said all the time that are instead like this young woman's J-Street comments: Somehow we are all just supposed to fill in the blank when it comes to her view of America, if notice at all that this is a question given her own utter lack of mention of it.

      It makes me wonder too about this "love Israel with all my heart" type of modern sentiment about the future with that sort of individual, since of course history is never static, in terms of what happens if—or perhaps more accurately "when" given history's certain changebility—the U.S. and Israel get seriously cross-wise at some point. (It has, for instance, seem to dally with getting mighty cosy with China of late, and who knows where American/Chinese issues are going.)

      For a long time even after Israel's birth in '48 that is, and indeed despite the newness of that birth, my sense was that American jewry never had any problem with saying that in such a circumstance of course they sided with the U.S. Just as—to my knowledge at least—when Eisenhower told Israel in no uncertain terms back then to back the hell out of the attempted taking of the Suez Canal and pushed it hard to do same I don't recall reading about this causing any huge anger or etc. in the American jewish community.

      But now, with all this "all Israel all the time love it with all my heart" stuff, well hell, you wanna ask: "*ALL* your heart? None for the U.S. and us here? And if otherwise, how much, and when?"

      I realize it's a complex thing for jews, but hell, its been a complex thing for lots of folks coming here from lots of other places too.

      For what it's worth then I'd really be interested in some book or piece exploring this in depth and giving some better perspective on it. Maybe, contra J-Street and Peter Beinart, that indeed is the issue that the American jewish community itself ought to be considering in and amongst itself, although I see no indication that is so. Instead from what I've heard about Beinart's book, once again it's just about how to *best* love Israel.

      There's a very odd marriage here, causing a very odd marital discord: Diaspora American jews, seeming to positively define themselves in that diaspora not by their Americanism, but instead by their liberal universalist views, suddenly having all sorts of angst when those views run up against what Israel does, with most then just jettisoning in large part their former self-definition so as to support Israel, but never quite to the point of moving there.

      Angst, hypocriticalness, irony ... you name it. But where's the talk of it? Just the ability to so far pretend that the U.S. and Israel have no daylight between them? But isn't it obvious that same can't last forever, even if it still actually existed before? So have they even *considered* this point and where they would be then?

  • 'NYT' child abuse story is latest episode in a great awakening
    • Sin Nombre May 11, 2012 at 11:35 am

      Phil Weiss wrote:

      "The truth is that sexual abuse has gone on everywhere, in countless institutions where children and power intersect."

      Yes, and in light of how exclusively it was made to seem a Catholic Church problem now ask whether or not the smell of anti-Catholic bigotry wasn't and still isn't prominently on display amongst our cultural elites.

      Hey man, it's about the *only* bigotry left that's not just acceptable, but will get you laughs and applause galore.

  • 'Let go of two-state solution insanity' -- says Illinois congressman who supports transfer
    • Sin Nombre May 6, 2012 at 7:16 am

      You know, one consideration I think people overlook in assessing the Israeli perspective on all this is the issue of the flow of American dollars.

      Say you are *very* moderate Israeli, that is, one who doesn't like the idea of a either becoming a formal apartheid practitioner or an en-mass ethnic cleanser, and realizes that doing either—such as this Walsh guy advocates or as Danny Danon does in that link to Beinart's pages that AMERICAN provides—will only result in continued hostilities with no end in sight.

      Okay, but what's your option now? To argue for a two-state solution that the Palestinians might actually accept (as Olmert says) and thus no doubt provide an incredible additional amount of real peace?

      Well but ... what does this two-state solution do for Israel though really? It's already essentially invulnerable from conflict with the Palestinians, so how is true peace with them all that much better given that it may mean that the flow of dollars from Uncle Sucker starts to dry up?

      Not that this isn't a dynamic that people haven't forecast before, just that now especially as things seem to be coming to a point where Israel has to make some change in its posture, this consideration would seem to loom very large indeed even in the most moderate of minds.

      What good is a peace deal, after all, if it gets you not much more security you had before, and a cut-off of that previous fire-hose of American dollars that you received before?

      Speaking objectively then, what seems in Israel's best interest is not true peace at all, but instead really a chronic, never-ending low-intensity state of conflict with its neighbors. And bad objective realities are bad because even though the good-hearted person in the world might try to resist them, it's all too easy for everyone else to just shrug and say that they have to accept reality.

  • 'NYT' fails to disclose Kershner's tie to Israeli government-linked think tank
    • Sin Nombre May 4, 2012 at 6:36 am

      Now now, you guys can take this too far you know. You're acting like you'd have had some problem with Magda Goebbels covering Nazi Germany for the Times back in those days.

  • The benedictions of Benzion Netanyahu's racism
    • Sin Nombre May 3, 2012 at 12:53 pm

      I'm unsure of just how much this applies to Bibi's Dad, but nevertheless one can smell the same sort of little ... elision in stuff like this eulogizing certain folks.

      Sort of like ... how would one feel about a Hitler obituary that merely said "he was an adamant and even hawkish life-long believer that Germans and German culture and therefore in essence Germany were under sustained attack by implacable foes who could never reconcile themselves to a unified Aryan state and who it was futile to try to negotiate with...."

  • Beinart's Blindspot: Israel has always been a non-democratic apartheid state
    • Sin Nombre May 1, 2012 at 5:39 am

      Well for sure nothing you say is unreasonable, American, although it's a different issue as to whether it's reasonably doable. I just don't think the world community has the stones to try to enforce all of same, even if Abbas says that he'd like to go back and change the Palestinian's rejection of 181.

      In a way then there is some sense to the idea that the solution is for the parties themselves to reach an agreement, but of course as we've seen that solution isn't possible with the U.S. subsidizing Israel not to reach such an agreement, thus leaving the situation insolvable really.

      This isn't hardly any brilliant observation, but what's amazing is the willingness of Israel to essentially commit itself to untold decades of future war so as to attain its desires. There's something so ... UnWestern about that mindset: "Oh yeah, we know that we're going to be at war for all our lifetimes and the lifetimes of our children simply because of our territorial desires. That's okay...."

      Except that's not exactly the way it's working out as a good number of Israelis seem to be getting sick of the constant state of war, and then especially seeing hard-core Zionists in the U.S. funding people like the settlers and so seeming to say that unlike those "sick of fighting" Israelis, they will fight to the last Israeli.

      What a mess. And to think of the depths of stupidity and corruption that got us into the middle of it and keeps us there. It's like watching someone consciously feed their hand into a wood chipper. First the fingers, then the hand, then to the elbow....

    • Sin Nombre April 30, 2012 at 8:33 pm with 2 replies

      AMERICAN wrote:

      "That is the core of zionism and Israel. It’s exceptionalism ... without which it could not exist, least not in the form is now does."

      Well I think that's true enough, but the reason I talked about the secondary problem of *degree* of exceptionalism being a huge problem too for Zionists is because I think that for at least one good reason *some* exceptionalism ought be allowed.

      I know that most would ground it in the Holocaust and maybe I'm influenced by that, but even moreso I'd grant Israel proper's legitimacy just simply based on the idea idea that there's got to be some statute of limitations on these things. The U.N. spoke back then, and even though if it spoke today it's values would dictate saying something different or more, that's just not fair. You can't go back uprooting everything root and branch back to some Day Zero to keep according with ever-changing morals and etc.

      So like I say, I'd grant that basic exceptionalism recognizing Israel proper. But it would stop there, and that's the problem for a Beinart or etc., because of course the harder-core Zionists say hell no our exceptionalism allows us to go further and further and there's no logical stopping point then, and yet a Beinart or etc. feels they have to come along.

      For instance, I think part of what Beinart is saying is "enough settlements right now are enough," which I think is bad enough. But even if he said "all settlements be emptied" and even though we'd all cheer, he's still got that problem in the future with demographics in Israel proper, doesn't he? And it's there that I think yeah, he would go along with some sort of ethnic cleansing (probably getting the U.S. to pay arabs to leave), and/or some sort of deprivation of the right to vote from the arabs in Israel proper.

      Thus, at any rate, to me the issue *is* "exceptionalism" in way, but it's really the ... "what degree of same" question that's not only fair to say, but also the most acute too given, as I noted, everyone seems to accept *some* exceptionalism for Israel.

    • Sin Nombre April 30, 2012 at 12:11 pm with 6 replies

      Matthew Taylor wrote:

      "I find Beinart's new book to be brave, important, and blinkered...."

      But I suspect you're wrong here Matt if you think that Beinart is "blinkered" about the reality that you further discuss. He's too smart and too knowledgeable. So yes, that is, he knows that despite that hypothetical Alabama situation came up with precisely describing Israel's situation, he's still okay with it, eyes wide open.

      One of the more amazing things that strike me in the discussions that involve folks like Beinart and etc. who can be called part of Phil's "Jewish Establishment" is the strange, chronic lack of asking them about this same precise kind of double standard. And that goes not only for the discussions in the mainstream and other media, but here too and in other blogs.

      There is, it can seem, somewhat of an unconscious acceptance of the idea that yes, to a very considerable if not absolute degree one simply cannot hold Israel to the standards held to everyone else, and this seems to me a huge thing. (Not just in general, but also because there's never any talk of the *degree* to which Israel is holdable to at least some of the same standards.)

      What, that is, do we *know* would be the reaction from Beinart and the rest of that Jewish Establishment to any American or Westerner who came forward and, say, advocated a Constitutional amendment perfectly legally declaring their country to be a "Christian" nation? And accompanied it with talk about how this might be needed in the future to legalize some actions to keep it so?

      Well of course I think we know what the reaction of Beinart and his Establishment would be: Any such advocate or movement would be instantly denounced as fascist. Filth. Forget just being called "anti-democratic."

      Beinart knows this. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to find some similar behavior on his part already in his writings on, perhaps, Pat Buchanan. Maybe even Buchanan opposing more immigration into the U.S.

      So it's not a matter of being "blinkered." Instead I think the inevitable response is that the history of the jews allegedly justifies a double standard, which of course even if accepted still leaves Beinart, et. al. with the problem of the *degree* to which jewry/Israel is entitled to same.

      And that's not a small problem, which is why I think you never see even the most open, Holocaust-centered jewish partisan talking about it. The Beinarts of the world of course don't want to have to admit to any double standard at all and that they believe Israel unlike every other country has this double standard), but even when they are forced to openly acknowledge that they still aren't blinkered: They know that that's what they want, *and* they also know they can't articulate just how far it goes. Because *they* know it may have to go very far indeed in which case they'd still support it.

  • Anna Quindlen's religious disaffection is good copy (what about anti-Zionists?)
    • Sin Nombre April 29, 2012 at 12:09 pm with 2 replies

      I think it's oh so ever cute and polite of so many of you here to view Ms. Gross' behavior at least (I dunno so much about Lehrer) as just essentially and innocently being a teensy bit selective when it comes to religious stories.

      Instead, frankly, just like so many other jewish media figures and outlets, it strikes me that what we're seeing is not just some oh-so-natural-and-even-sweet-essentially-innocent aversion to telling jewish stories out of school as it as a ... fuck-you-in-you-face refusal to do so coupled with a fuck-you-in-the-face-manifest hostility to and hatred of the Catholic Church.

      If even 1/10000000000 of the anti-Catholic (leaving out even just the anti-Christian) slanting of the media were directed at judaism and jews we would be told that this country had gone over to Joseph Goebbels.

      What story, no matter how small even, that casts the Catholic Church in a bad light doesn't go lovingly dug into and repeated by the media over and over?

      And the absolute topper, the absolute undeniable proof, is the sexual scandal in the Catholic Church. Oh you bet it was bad; bad bad bad. But oh you bet has it been covered.

      Go take a look then at failedmessiah.com on the relevant issue in the jewish community in the NE especially apparently. Hundreds and hundreds of kids—there's no way of telling because lots of the scandal has been the jewish communities covering same up, and with these seemingly involving mostly real children rather than the adolescents the Catholic priests preyed upon—apparently abused by rabbi after rabbi for decades and ... something like three little stories in the New York Times in all about same. Three, over the last decade or so. Grotesque evidence even of entire jewish communities of suborning the local District Attorney to not prosecute these cases, not give out info on them, keep them quiet and/or etc., and still ... where's Ms. Gross? Where's ABC/CBS/NBC the Washington Post and on and on and on?

      Rabbis fleeing prosecution to Israel, story after story about families being put under incredible in-group pressure to hush things up, and ... silence from the Ms. Grosses of the world. Too busy digging for the next angle to slime the Church.

      I'm no Catholic, not even a Christian, but this is so obvious and palpable it's not even funny. Let some mere Catholic priest somewhere say something even arguably non-universalist and ... wham, front page stories somewhere. Terry Grosses here and there exploring in microscopic detail the guilt some woman felt as a girl growing up due to her feelings of repressed sexuality due to the Church, or f0r using contraceptives ... and absolutely *nothing* about jewish women who were damn near *captives* of this or that jewish community here somewhere and basically had their children and lives ripped from them by that community when they decided to break free. Absolutely *nothing* similar from the Catholic communities comes to mind, and yet ... silence.

      Or let such a mere priest either here or in Rome (much less the Pope) making any even arguable anti-jewish statement and ... the media world explodes. Indeed, decades now pumping the story about how the Pope during the Holocaust didn't do enough or etc. *Decades* worth of stories about same.

      But—and I speak here just of statements topically made, recently—Israeli jews or American jews of high and even official standing saying that even basic mercy in war is not a jewish value, or that millions of non-jews are not worth one jewish fingernail, or that non-jews are as cattle for jews and ... not a freaking peep.

      Suddenly, the "whole world and its issues are our microscope slides" for the Grosses of the world don't exist anymore.

      And I'd even bolster this via looking at popular culture: Oh the uproarious laughs jewish (and admittedly many non-jewish) comedians get out of, say, mentioning Catholic priests when touching on the subject of pedophilia! What freaking fun! Or the idea that the Church warns of blindness with regard to masturbation! God how many laughs has *that* been good for? Or Catholics involved in politics wearing their religion on their sleeves and too openly talking about it, such as Sarah Palin? What a freaking *blast* to ridicule that! You couldn't find a talk-show host who uttered even a peep of discomfort about that kind of thing to save your life! Nuts, what joke at the expense of the Catholic Church can you even *imagine* generating any objection much less such a peep?

      And the balance is...? About the most modern savage laughter one can think of gotten at the expense of jews is ... Seinfeld. Oh ho ho that Uncle Leo. Bobka bopka bobka....

      So let's not pretend that the "jewish Establishment" that Phil talks of somehow oddly is a purely defensive thing all the time and in all its workings. While I have no doubt that most American jews at least reject anti-Catholic or anti-Christian bigotry like crazy, and that even the majority of that "Establishment" rejects it too, that Establishment at the very least tolerates the hell out of it by its members who *are* bigots.

  • Yoffie rallies American Jews to determine 'character of the Jewish state' without a word about our obligations as American citizens
    • Sin Nombre April 30, 2012 at 3:06 am

      I think Elliot's analysis here is a very very sharp one showing Yoffie's impossible job.

      In the main I still think that the fundamental intent behind Yoffie's piece was to just sort of combat some of the implications some American jews might take from Beinart's book and re-affirm and reinforce the idea that no, American jews simply must continue to support Israel. But in doing so he also needed to add some other things along the lines of explaining *why* that can be done within the bounds of acceptability.

      As Elliot so beautifully shows though—and what ought not be missed for its great future importance—is that this essentially does consist of trying square a circle. It just can't be done ... unless indeed some form of either ethnic cleansing or some permanent denial of arab voting rights at least gets ... accepted as being acceptable.

      Thus in a big way Yoffie is being very smart and reactive here to Beinart's piece: He isn't just calling Beinart names, or denying the turning away from Israel that Beinart says is happening. He's trying to genuinely meet Beinart's arguments and get out ahead of them. But of course he can't come right out and say openly—yet—that this includes acceptance of ethnic cleansing or permanent second-class citizenship for arabs, even though those would indeed seem to be his and Israel's only options. (Again as per Elliot's fine writing here.)

      Very keen piece of work Elliot. Very keen.

    • Sin Nombre April 28, 2012 at 12:51 pm with 2 replies

      Well I think it's pretty clear, Citizen. Not that discussion of the intricacies of the I/P conflict aren't valid, but as I said, in our discussions about the thing never lose sight of the forest that is the American perspective that says we have the right to hold our interests as paramount in favor of some endless disquisition on the minutia of Zionism or etc.

      So it's just as Phil hit the nail on the head here in what and how to *first* analyze and respond to a Yoffie. Not by getting sucked in to talking about... just how much Diaspora jews should have to say about Israeli affairs or the quantum of democracy Zionism might conceivably possess or etc. It might be interesting, but it's playing on their field. And it's giving them an absolute pass on what, after all, is not just our *inarguable* right to put our *own* interests at the top of our list of concerns, but is also *their* most invalid and weakest and dangerous issue as well: Without American support just how much of their little project over there could sustain itself? Just how much war would they want then without the U.S. making them invulnerable to same?

      And thus for instance too I see this sort of failure when it comes to publishing things about, say, J-Street. Right away people get drawn in about being thankful it's not as bad as AIPAC about the settlements but boy we wish it went further about the Right of Return or some other such stuff. And there goes the J-Streeters, *completely* left off the hook having to defend what seems to me is their complete silence about *American* interests, with the obvious implication that same are matters of secondary importance at best.

      Same, I wouldn't be surprised with all the eclat over Beinart's book, although I don't know for sure. But I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't just a great vast black hole in it essentially failing to talk to any reasonable degree whatsoever about American interests. So nobody says anything about same with this book or others in which it's certainly true, and nowhere comes any impetus at all for any reviewer or interviewer to start pressing Beinart or whomever on this, the very issue which Americans have the absolute right to be *totally* concerned about.

      Same with Yoffie: Where's the *real* challenges being devised that he should be presented with? Here after all is the guy who just a few months ago was in Israel and said to an Israeli paper how, when he retires, it will be to Israel because "I prefer to live with jews."

      In essence, patting himself on the back for the horror he's been experiencing having to rub shoulders with us goyim over here hauling water for Israel. And nobody says a thing about it. Nor about the no-doubt innumerable other things to be raised with Yoffie: How he casts himself as this great moral figure here condemning even the slightest whiff of racism, or those who are concerned, say, about unrestricted illegal immigration into the U.S., all the while he's shilling for an obviously racist regime in Israel that now seems on the verge of building actual camps to house captured illegal immigrants there, and which just had fire-bombings of immigrant quarters.

      Like I said, it's as if people are choosing not to argue their inarguable points, but instead want to push the interminably arguable and indeed unanswerable ones. No-one here knows the perfectly fair and just solution to the I/P situation, but boy for some reason they want to argue the most minute intricacies of what might or might not go into same instead of first just insisting on the answer to the clearer-than-clear one which is why the hell should the U.S. be involved in that conflict at all when it's so blatantly contrary to a whole constellation of our interests to do so?

      Someone here long ago ("AMERICAN"?) said that the situation is never going to get better while there's such an asymmetry in the debate: The Yoffie's and the AIPACers and etc. get to set the bounds of the debate. E.g., call people anti-semites left and right, if not terrorist sympathizers or Nazis or whatever, and everyone on the other side is just terrified of not obeying what *they* say is the proper bounds of debate.

      Well MJ Rosenberg has shown the efficacy of just goddam setting our own bounds of the debate by using the term "Israel Firster." And not even because it's efficacious *but because it's right* that oughta be shouted out first and foremost and repeatedly as what must be responded to by those who appear to fit the definition like Yoffie.

      We have the absolute right to consider things from the perspective of putting our own interests first. And while I can think of all kinds of bad things that might (further) happen to the U.S. due to being stupidly and corruptly involved in the I/P conflict, I can't think of anything more dangerous or damaging than letting that first principle be degraded. And, predictably, that degradation is the *first* if not the *supreme* priority for the Israel Firsters.

    • Sin Nombre April 28, 2012 at 4:29 am with 4 replies

      Phil Weiss wrote:

      "Let us go to the simple issue: What are my obligations as an American citizen? I am commanded by Yoffie to support Israel."

      Hurrah to you Phil for your patriotism here, my fellow American. Because obliterating that issue is *exactly* the point that Yoffie's entire piece was subtly aimed at. Just as hurrahs go to MJ Rosenberg posting in the thread about your dinner with those jewish society members at Yale calling 'em Israel Firsters.

      And just as with that thread I'm just amazed at the comments here so far. Here after all is an American—Yoffie—telling other Americans to put the interests of another country first, and the reactions here are ... to quibble with his view of what Zionism means? To get into the minutia of ... UNGA (181) Resolution?

      Or (and I can't help being so harsh, jon, despite your obvious good intentions), the forehead slapping comment that no, "pitting Israeli nationalism against American nationalism is [not] the best way to frame this argument .... I think a better argument would be framing this issue as Jewish cosmopolitanism versus Jewish nationalism."

      As if .. riiiight ... because after all Americans are much more likely to be moved towards a better policy towards the I/P conflict not by arguments that their political system is being manipulated and their blood and treasure is being taken advantage of, but because deep down ... they have fretted over the distinctin between jewish cosmopolitanism and jewish nationalism and prefer the former....

      Riiiiiiight.

      Yeesh.

      Like I said in that Yale society thread: Go ahead and ignore the constant open appeals of people like Rabbi "I prefer to live with jews" Yoffie to other Americans telling them to be Israel Firsters. And go ahead and (unlike Phil) don't raise the issue when they go on and on about the importance of Israel and etc. and never ever utter a molecule of concern about American interests no matter how greatly and gravely they are immediately implicated. (With nuclear weaponry issues even.)

      Go ahead instead—like so much commentary here—debate the Yoffie's of the U.S. over the intricacies of what Zionism or democracy means, and whether the Mufti was really a bad guy or not and whether the Palestinians said X or Y back during Conference A or Conference B or blah blah blah, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

      Go ahead. The Rabbi Yoffie's of the world *love* you for it. They'll argue with you until the cows come home over this crap! Delighted to do so! First off of course you ain't never going to move them from their opinions. But the greatest thing of all is that you're just impliedly reinforcing the idea that oh of *course* the U.S. should be up to its neck in the conflict over there! That ... there's innumerable matters of great and vast concern and interest for the U.S. over there that we *must* be involved in! After all, all *you* appear to be saying is that, gee, maybe we ought to be a little more even-handed....

      Or go even further if you want, and they'll love you even *more* for that: Go "take the Palestinian/arab/persian side" and see what fun they'll have with you. Siding with bin Laden and Yassir Arafat and the lunatics of the Taliban and the loudmouth from Iran who doesn't even know to wear a freaking tie when speaking to the U.N....

      Go ahead. Hell, you're like the Rabbi Yoffie's best friends in the world! Giving them a free pass to exhort Americans to put the interests of Israel first, and then ... to not even have to *argue* whether America has any true interests over there worth our blood and treasure! What a pal!

      As I said in that Yale society thread, nobody on the planet much less here can say with any good degree of certainty or credibility whatsoever what's the perfectly just and fair solution to the I/P conflict. And damn near everyone here agrees the U.S. is just being used like a cheap prostitute and that involvement is hurting the situation.

      And yet ... so much of the sensibility here seems to be that no, Americans don't care so much about their country being used like a cheap whore, and the real solution is to just make all Americans Ph.D's on the vast intricacies of Zionism and jewish and Mideast history and this will result in a fair and just solution, despite the fact that nobody here can even articulate same with any confidence or credibility.

      Pfui.

      All the more glad you nailed it here Phil, and MJ Rosenberg in that other thread. Not that these other substantive issues aren't interesting or aren't worth discussing on their own, but damn, a Yoffie talks like that and all that is noticed is the freaking trees and nobody even mentions the forest?

  • Shmully and guilt
    • Sin Nombre April 27, 2012 at 12:28 pm with 2 replies

      A million "hurrahs" for you and this, Mr. Rosenberg. While I understand that the people here are especially deeply interested in and knowledgable about the I/P issue, reading the first 50 or so comments made in response to Phil's comment more than a little disappointed: All the intricate, substantive rebuttals to what this or that member of the party said to Phil and etc., so seeming to me to be so secondary if not tertiary if not worse. Sure, still interesting and probably mostly right and all, but to me missing the freaking biggest point of all because I think at bottom most Americans couldn't give a shit really compared to just simply not wanting to see their blood and treasure used for another country's sole interest, especially when it damages their own, period.

      Yes, that is, one can agree 100% with those sorts of posts—and I'm not disparaging them in the least or wish to see them diminish—but frankly I don't think that sort of thing taking the perspective of the Palestinians essentially does diddly much in terms changing things. Take the perspective of the American people, on the other hand, and ....

      Tell Americans , that is—as you did here—that you've got a bunch of people putting another country's interests ahead of their own (your "American Firsters") and *then* you're playing in the big-boys league. *That's* when you've graduated to using a real serious argument that the other side fears the hell out of because of its inarguable nature.

      Sink back into the intricacies of this and that and the relative Israeli/Palestinian arguments, and see how much it delights the Israel Firsters: Whang they pull out the image of the undeniably corrupt-and-stupid-beyond-belief Yassir Arafat. And whang they pull out the Palestinians supporting Saddam Hussein. And whang they pull out that indeed there was some dancing in the Palestinian streets after 9/11. And then of course they pull out the biggest whang of all which is the Holocaust.

      They will talk *forever* on those grounds, and just love love love it.

      So what's the idea behind the perspective of playing on that game field? What's the idea behind how that's going to accomplish change? That ... first, you make millions of ordinary Americans into Ph.D's in Mideast and jewish history, and then....

      Moreover, what's the subtext behind so many of these pro-Palestinian types of posts and arguments? Essentially it's nothing less than the crazy (and certain-loser) idea that ... oh yeah, it's perfectly right and *good* that the U.S. is up to its eyeballs in all this Mideast crap. It's just that we're on the wrong side....

      And whang! again comes out the easy home run in the form of "you're really supporting those Afghan crazies who burn women and are shooting at our boys?" And whang again comes the idea that ... "you're really supporting arabs like bin Laden and the nutjob over in Iran?"

      The entire subtext just reinforces exactly what the Israel Firsters are claiming: That you bet the U.S. belongs neck deep over there. And they will love love love to death debating you every day every second as publicly as possible which side the U.S. should be on.

      *Not even the people here,* with all their extensive knowledge of the I/P conflict, can with any real credibility say that they know to any degree of refinement whatsoever what a perfect solution is to that conflict. A total retreat back to the Green Line? An absolute total Right of Return beyond that? One-state no matter what? (When the Palestinians themselves are rejecting it?)

      So what's the further idea behind pushing this pro-Palestinian perspective? To not only make a vast swath of Americans Ph.D.s in the field but then ... to convince them to support some solution you yourself can't even articulate? That you yourself cannot say is surely the right one that will correct everything and is fair to everyone and is workable and etc.?

      Pfui. A million times pfui. If there is any hope it's merely pointing out that the U.S. has absolutely no interest in that mess over there and that being in that mess over there just brings us nothing but dead Americans, hatred, and the hemorrhaging of billlions upon billions if not trillions of our dollars.

      And, not coincidentally, this too is the only hope of seeing any decent solution over there too via stopping the U.S. subsidizing the grandiose schemes of Israel and putting both parties more on a level playing ground of seriousness and cost/benefit analysis. I.e., by letting *them* decide *that* way what "fairness" they are going to insist on and what unfairness they are going to accept. Because in the real world—often overlooked here I think—there is certainly going to be *lots* of unfairness that's going to have to be swallowed.

      So bravo bravo bravo, Mr. Rosenberg, with your bringing what I think is the right perspective back here. Nobody here knows with any certainty whatsoever the unanswerable question of what is the perfectly fair solution over there. Nor even what is the fairest possible solution. Nobody on earth does, so stop pretending.

      What I think the vast majority of people *do* know however is that they don't like to see their country getting used like a cheap whore, so let's start talking from the perspective of what people know, instead of what nobody knows.

    • Sin Nombre April 26, 2012 at 9:34 pm with 2 replies

      To me the secret to Phil not feeling guilty was simply something he's spoken about wonderfully but just forgot. Just not internalized by him really, understandably enough given his upbringing and the milieu in which he was raised, but nevertheless to me a complete answer to this attempt to make him feel as if he is/was doing something wrong.

      As Phil has hit on before, he's an *American,* and here he's sitting in the midst of a bunch of people, here in America, presumably many if not most also Americans, clearly however invested first and foremost with another nation, and indeed another people.

      All that talk about Esau and Jacob and God granting land titles and the detailed history of how the Israelis or jews did this and the arabs or Europeans did that and blah blah blah. Well, I say, while I have some interest in same and would like fairness and right to come out on top, the bottom line is I don't give a good goddamn. Not to the extent that it ensnares and immerses me and my fellow Americans in all that shit.

      And, moreover, I think that's the view of most Americans too, including most jewish Americans. People came here historically understanding they were making a deal: They weren't coming here to enmesh their new fellow citizens here in their fights from the Old Country. Of course they may still have their loyalties and allegiances there, but by becoming a citizen here you were declaring a new primary loyalty and allegiance—to your new fellow citizen Americans.

      So not only did you not try to enmesh them in all that crap you left behind but indeed you shouldn't *want* to if it didn't intimately involve them and their interests. And I think that was true of the vast majority of folks who came here, gentile and jew.

      And yet here in New Haven what did you have but, it would appear, a bunch of Americans obviously hyper-emoting not over any risks or damages to American interests, but to someone else's, on the other side of the globe. And their chiding of Phil was clearly lots due to this blog: To the idea that gee, he might be encouraging Americans to start to think of their own interests rather than Israel's or foreign jews. He might be encouraging Americans to see their interests as being less tilted toward Israel, or, gasp, being neutral. To realize that no, they have no real vital national interest in the conflicts over there and should extricate themselves from that fight and stop expending their blood and treasure on behalf of Israel and foreign jews.

      So ... *Phil* comes away from this feeling guilty? In *New Haven*? An American comes away feeling guilty from a debate with a bunch of people obviously looking upon American interests as something at least secondary to other interests, if being of any value at all?

      Take your freaking fights back over the horizon where they belong, say I. Nobody's stopping you. Go and fight your heart out forever because of the way you read some ancient holy book or the intricacies of what happened on the other side of this globe 2000 years ago or yesterday or whenever that the U.S. had absolutely no hand in. But don't sit here, with me owing my allegiance to you as a fellow American citizen and thus willing to devote blood and treasure for you, with you however sitting there wanting to enmesh me to expending same for some other country or some other people on the other side of the world.

      Like I say, I have no doubt most American jews, while having obvious, natural and even admirable feelings for Israel and jewry generally, feel the exact same way: First and foremost before the U.S. submerging itself up to its chin in troubles U.S. interests are determinative. And *not* the overwhelming sense that these New Haven folks gave off here not appearing to have even a molecule of concern about what's good or not for Americans. (Or at least none that Phil mentioned.)

      Go meet 'em again, Phil, and challenge 'em on this. Challenge them on where they get off criticizing you for being an American citizen and feeling loyalty to your fellow Americans as you've demonstrated here. Challenge 'em to be true to their words and start to recognize that loyalty themselves if they are Americans, and so start to question how they can be honoring that loyalty if they are wishing their fellow American citizens to get and stay neck deep in a bunch of fights in which their obvious best interest is to stay as far as hell away from as possible.

  • Knesset members celebrate latest E. Jerusalem settlement by posing on evicted Palestinian family's sofa
    • Sin Nombre April 24, 2012 at 10:56 am with 2 replies

      One might be tempted to note the precise similarity of this kind of grind-it-in-their-face posing with some of what the Nazis did except for Alan Dershowitz telling us that any such parallels are per se anti-semetic.

  • Israeli celebrity says she enjoyed video of IDF attacking Danish activist because he looked like a Nazi
    • Sin Nombre April 18, 2012 at 7:25 pm with 1 replies

      I've said it before and I'll say it again now, both as to this Israeli celebrity's emission and that of that U.S. writer: This is exactly what you get succeeding generations with an ever-increasingly lopsided understanding of history. E.g., the jews as unique. As victims, and as being free from villainry.

      You can talk theory and sentiment at 'em all you want, it's our understanding of what's really been done to us and what we've really done to others that makes a difference. Everything else is mere grit under the steamroller of myth-making.

  • Israel lobby group committed to 'new media' uses mushroom cloud in tweet (updated)
    • Sin Nombre April 14, 2012 at 11:52 am

      This ramping up of things is just another (relatively tiny) thing that, in addition to a whole lot of bigger things makes me rather suspicious that we are getting close to seeing an Israeli attack on Iran.

      I never thought we were that close in years past, but I'd at least put the chances now at a good spit over 50%.

      Netanyahu and Co. were beating the drums about it *very* hot and heavy at the beginning of the year—to the point where Obama's people were out there openly saying they suspect a near-term strike are trying to restrain Israel from doing so—but then suddenly after Bibi meets with Obama around AIPAC time things oddly got very very muted on both sides. Indeed, with Israeli outlets suddenly suggesting that Bibi might be giving things a year or so and allowing sanctions time ... much of which easily seeming designed to get Iran to let down its guard as much as possible.

      Following clear Israeli leads/demands then what does Obama do on the eve of these present talks with Iran but start issuing what are surely unmeetable demands, all the while we skeddaddle as many of our folks out of Iraq as possible, and a second carrier fleet is quietly moved into the Gulf, along with alot of other naval assets.

      Lots of evidence to me that Netanyahu, knowing Obama is at his weakest now before the election, told Obama they were going to attack, period, with Obama accepting it as a fait accompli, knowing that the U.S. is almost certain to get dragged in and thus setting up this round of talks with Teheran to fail as a casus belli for Israel to attack and the U.S. to support it.

      Netanyahu goes home and gets ready, and starts to cool the war talk as much as possible to cool the Iranian's jets as much as possible, and yet on the other hand in the U.S. starts to gin up the P.R. machine to support Israel after the mask is dropped and the bunker-busters are falling.

      Hope I'm wrong, but it smells like hell to me. And if it happens Obama will be worse than Bush, amazing enough. At least Bush probably believed in his heart of hearts, genuinely, that Saddam had WMD and the country had to go to war.

      Obama knows freaking well Iran has no weapons program; that even if it did it isn't any serious threat to the U.S.; and that anyway pushing a Nuke-Free Mideast Accord is what is really in America's best interest by a mile.

      Thus, if he doesn't at least openly oppose any Israeli strike and allows the U.S. to get dragged into same it'll be utterly without sincerity or genuineness, and totally for Obama's political benefit.

      I almost feel for the guy given the screws that have been applied to him and what I suspect is/was his relatively non-tough nature. (And has anyone seen the close-up pics of him lately? Geez he's looking haggard almost.)

      Won't help him though if indeed he folds: Taking us to war knowing it's on utterly false grounds, is bad for us, and is entirely unnecessary .... One can hardly think of a worse civic crime for a Prez. of this country to commit.

  • The Grass just keeps on growing
    • Sin Nombre April 16, 2012 at 2:49 pm

      Taxi wrote:

      "My friend, you cannot prove that israel has ANY good will towards ANY of its non-jewish neighbors...

      I have a feeling that you’re more emotionally attached to the state of israel than I could ever be...."

      Well I have absolutely no emotional attachment to Israel whatsoever and indeed as an American who thinks Israel has and is using my country like a piece of toilet paper have emotions that run in quite the opposite direction, but I think you have hit the nub of our difference in perspectives precisely here:

      I.e., the idea that emotions ought determine judgment rather than something else, with emotions of course naturally tending to lead not toward modesty and balance, but instead toward the binary, absolutist conclusions that tends to be all they know. ("ANY goodwill, towards ANY of its non-jewish neighbors....")

      Not my cup of tea.

      "Emotion has taught us to think."
      ~Anonymous~

    • Sin Nombre April 16, 2012 at 7:35 am

      Taxi wrote:

      "Why don't you tell us which part of the poem you find untruthful?"

      Gladly:

      "It is the alleged entitlement for a first strike,
      which could extinguish the Iranian people...."

      And then of course the talk about the submarine, which Grass obviously objects to not because of it carrying any conventional weapons but because of its capacity to carry nukes.

      Like I say, the clear message of the poem is that despite nobody but nobody having talked about this, much less anyone in any position of knowledge or authority, there's immediate reason to be concerned that Israel—later amended to "it's regime" by Grass—is thinking if not planning a nuclear strike on all of Iran, including its civilian population.

      A "first strike" no less.

      Now, if that isn't a slander I don't know what is. And forget the idea that it's okay if you're a Palestinian or a Martian because if I turn it around on them or anyone else any sensible person would find it just as slanderous.

      E.g., how about we should be concerned about the Palestinians—or the PA—spreading poison gas over the Israeli? Or spreading some bio-weapon to "extinguish" them all?

      And no, first of all Yaoz-kest's sentiment is not on point here at all because what he's talking about is his feelings about things if Israel is first obliterated. In less poetic terms a "second strike" sentiment, and even that overstates it because he's not longing for such a strike, but instead saying he wants that capability more just to deter such an obliteration. I.e., precisely the deterrent idea that the U.S. embraces in keeping its nukes.

      And if you want to criticize that, fine, except it's a totally *different* thing from Grass' "first strike" slander.

      And secondly it then essentially says that no, even if Iran was working for nukes because *it* wants a deterrent then that treatment it is presently receiving is justified because no such deterrent right exists.

      All this is just so obvious: Simply because Grass might have moved the debate in a direction some people approve of he's getting applauded, with a blind eye to his means because people are so frustrated at seeing their ends not being achieved. And not only do I think this historically just serves to encourage such ugly tactic use on the other side of such arguments, but suspect that Grass' riff here is ultimately going to hurt that cause of opening up debate in Germany.

      And clearly it already has hurt the idea of recruiting any Israeli or jewish sympathy to the idea that Israel is on the wrong track, so objectively getting Grass precisely the opposite of what he says he wants. What Israeli or jewish individual with any sympathy for Israel isn't just going to feel libeled by this, and react accordingly?

      Hardly unforseeable, and thus even further contributes to the idea that Grass' intention here wasn't really to change minds or alert people to a real issue, but instead to slander and libel, and poke a finger in the eye of those he doesn't like.

      I'd still say that this wasn't intentional and was instead the result of a shambling old intellect, but either way I think he's actually hurt the cause he says he was writing for by writing such ugly, utterly unsupported words.

    • Sin Nombre April 16, 2012 at 1:56 am with 7 replies

      CloakAndDagger and Taxi:

      You do your perspectives proud, but it still seems to me that at bottom what you're really saying is that your ends here—opening up Israel to legitimate criticism—justifies Grass' means, or that it's justified because some other outlying nut on the other side has done something similar.

      Those are just such sad old rationalizations though, aren't they? Seemingly indispensable at the time, always in retrospect we recognize them has having been unfortunately given in to as way-points on a downward ratchet.

    • Sin Nombre April 15, 2012 at 3:02 pm with 10 replies

      Klaus Bloemker wrote:

      "To begin with, are you a 'shlub'?"

      I think people are failing to put this Grass poem in relative perspective.

      What, after all, would we say to someone who used poetry and its poetic license to escape the normal requirement to talk about at least a molecule of evidence or logic or etc. in asserting that, say ... it's really something to actually be worried about that the Germans of today—indeed their present leaders—will be firing up the ovens in concentration camps again? That same is something really topical and possible enough to occupy our attention?

      And yet, this is *exactly* what Grass has done as regards Israel and it's present regime and the idea that they are seriously thinking about the nuking all of Iran.

      God knows I've been critical of Israel and God knows I don't like its present regime and think that the latter's ideas about Iran are as selfish and bad as it can get almost.

      But not to the point of believing 'em wanting or thinking about nuking all of Iran.

      The fact is there's not been a speck of talk of Israel nuking Iran generally; not a fucking speck. And indeed I suspect that any Israeli in any political position who came out and talked like that would be ejected from the body politic of Israel like a rocket, not least out of a *genuine* belief by the jewish population that they oughta be the last people on earth to be casually talking about unleashing a Holocaust on someone else.

      And yet here comes self-appointed Gunter, with his picture eerily showing an old man in just about the same shambles as his "thinking" is in his poem, casting that precise aspersion on all of Israel.

      ... and then, *absolutely devastatingly* considering that it means "gee I'm sorry for so horribly slandering all you others because it was so shambolic," having to say "oh no, gee, I only meant Israel's current *regime.*"

      (Despite the fact that of course the submarine sale that set him off is to the Israeli permanent government.)

      Like I say, the only thing that saved Grass was the dumb nature of the reaction from Israel seeing Grass as being a Nazi rather than a man with a stupid, hysterical shambles of a thought process, and then others trying to say that all Grass was doing was saying criticizing Israel is okay which of course it is.

      It was a terrific slander, an incredibly stupid slander, and if it makes me a "shlub" to say so then I'm a shlub.

      And what an irony: Just as Grass was saved by the dumb reaction of Israel, so in a sense is Israel saved by the stupidities of people like Grass. What a gift, after all, for Netanyahu and his sort! "*This* is the level of argument that we have to contend with in the West? *This* sort of stupidity instead of any informed, really trenchant stuff? Essentially accusing us of wanting to nuke everyone? Oh thank *God* for you, Gunter!"

    • Sin Nombre April 14, 2012 at 7:56 pm with 5 replies

      For what it's worth I think Grass is sort of getting a pass, not least however by the predictably knee-jerk "Nazi Nazi Nazi" reaction from Israel, but also by people overlooking what he actually was talking about so as to see some good in it.

      Look, Grass wasn't just talking about the dangers of an Israeli strike on Iran's nuke facilities: He was talking as if there's some real, tangible threat to be concerned about now with Israel nuking Iran generally. (Hence the talk about the subs.)

      And that's just either the product of a fevered, amateur, suspiciously obsessed mind at best, or blatant fear-mongering at worst.

      So what saves moron Gunter? Well first is Netanyahu and Co. Instead of saying it's repugnant—which I think it probably is—to suggest that there's any evidence that Israel would ever use weapons of mass destruction on another country or even possess them other than to prevent or retaliate against them being used against it, no, they go the "Nazi" route.

      And this then just contributes to either the overlooking or pretending away of that nub of what Grass was hyperventilating about so as to pretend that gee, all Grass was saying was that it's okay to criticize Israel now, which of course it always was.

      Grass does seem an idiot politically. Lots of countries have nuclear weapons. And there's not a particle of evidence that Israel has any idea of using the ones it has in any way different than the most responsible of the others. I.e., simply as a deterrent. And yet his poem sure seems to suggest a big real danger that Israel is at the very least contemplating if not happily planning to annihilate all of Iran.

      That's just totally, utterly unsupported, and so extreme as to indeed suggest that if there wasn't some malice involved there it must be the work of the crudest of hysterical, self-absorbed minds.

      Unfortunately because of the reaction in Israel the focus is on the malice possibility which doesn't seem to fit. But the rest sure does and it isn't flattering that's for sure.

  • When is someone going to lose his job for calling someone an anti-Semite?
    • Sin Nombre April 13, 2012 at 7:12 pm

      No John, I'd extend much of the sentiment I expressed to the Guillen thing too.

      It's much worse when Progressives/political correctness jihadists/whomever enlist the law on their side in such things, such as damn near requiring the gagging or firing of an employee because they say un-PC things that other employees can then sue the company over.

      But here too with Guillen: So the hell what he likes Castro? It's the road paved by the PC police that says fire him from same, despite it only involving a freaking sports team. It's the sensibility of certain (selective) things justifying total nastiness, knifings essentially, not just disagreeing with people, but trying to deprive them even of the ability to earn a living. As if they're subhumans, fit maybe only to haul garbage.

      (After all, if his pro-Castro sensibilities disqualify him from some sports job, well my God what job could he possible be fit for? So break him, man, reduce him and his wife and kids to trailer-parkdom....)

      It's moral preening, is what it is, and it's making it impossible for people to talk reasonably about issue after issue.

      So who's surprised at what the U.S. has been roped into doing vis a vis the Palestinians? You cross the perhaps most-dreaded of all dread PC lines and become an anti-semite, well Dude, you ain't even gonna criticized much *directly.* The damn near first and of course biggest response if at all possible anyway is gonna be ... "Go after his job. His very family, man. Shut him up, grind him down, make an example of him...."

      ... and then talk about how much you just want everyone to get along and the need for compassion and tolerance.

    • Sin Nombre April 13, 2012 at 11:14 am with 8 replies

      After a giant horselaugh I had to say that within his own standard Beinart is being very consistent and brave here.

      The horselaugh however was indeed for the Beinarts of the world—supposedly oh-so-smart— just now starting to find out where that standard leads.

      After all it's the Beinarts of the world—Progressives/the politically correct/whatever—who think that you're damned right a person should be fired for his or her job for being "anti-semitic" or "racist" or whatever. Hell, when *aren't* they out on the constant fun hunt for someone's job?

      In essence (and forgetting even their disdain for their supposed love of "tolerance" and "diversity" and all that other self-congratulatory crap they churn out) imposing private speech codes where the government under the First Amendment could not.

      So just now they're finding out how fickle a thing this is gonna be however! Today it's "You're fired for being a 'racist' as defined by ... [faddishness as much as anything else]."

      And tomorrow it'll be ... "You're fired for not being racist [or whatever] *enough*." Or, more topically ... "You're fired for saying something pro-'terrorististic'!"

      You just have to love the Left, believing that their worldview of things is just always going to rule. Thus, of *course* having society throwing people out of their jobs for having what they regard as unpopular ideas is fine and dandy, because of *course* nobody is ever going to disagree with that opinion much less hold a radically different one.

      And yet, over what is a historical blink of the eye term, by their own lights first using the term "negro" was okay but is now probably racist to say, and then "African-American" was okay but now is being looked at squinty-eyed in some quarters, and tomorrow saying "Black" may well be found high indicia of an evil soul.

      Go ahead though, you Beinarts, see where the groundbreaking you've done like this gets you when your enemies become ascendent and come happily trotting over all that nice ground you've broken for them.... See what happens when you presuppose you know the absolute moral truth about things and prefer that over freedom. See what happens to *your* freedom sooner or later to question *other's* moral truths.

  • NYPD helped Mort Zuckerman--8 years later, his paper shills for NYPD spying
    • Sin Nombre April 11, 2012 at 6:06 pm

      Oh, at least Zuckerman is being consistent: He'd be praising the NYPD for its muslim spying anyway.

      Want an even richer one? See today Mayor Bloomberg calling American self-defense laws such as the Stand Your Ground one in Florida a "license to murder" and an excuse for "vigilante justice."

      (link to politico.com

      See just a year ago or so Mayor Bloomberg shilling for the incredibly heavily and indeed officially armed settlers in the occupied territories—where their very *presence* is illegal—so much so that Bloomberg was saying he might not be able to support Obama because of what Obama was merely *hinting* at then as regards to same and what Israel's borders should be and etc.

      (link to newyork.cbslocal.com

      So let's see, today for us self-defense laws are are "not the kind of laws a civilized society should have," but if you're Israeli, parked on illegal land, well my God do you ever need those Uzis....

      Seems to me some 'discriminatin' is goin' on in the mind of Mayor Bloomberg. Of the "us" and "you" type.

      And none of us Americans are supposed to notice this.

  • Amira Hass explains why Israel's U.S. model of ethnic cleansing failed, and why 'Jewish regime' will 'crumble'
    • Sin Nombre April 11, 2012 at 4:36 pm with 1 replies

      Phil Weiss wrote:

      "Amira Hass explains why Israel’s U.S. model of ethnic cleansing failed, and why ‘Jewish regime’ will ‘crumble’"

      I'm sorry, but I must have missed Hass' version saying why exactly it will crumble.

      Oh, there's some argle-bargle in there about how "things are different here and now," but as Hass herself says, it's been 64 *years* now, and counting. And despite the West's total immersion now in ideas of multi-culturalism and pluralism and revulsion to ethno-racialism and on and on Israel hasn't climbed on board with any of that, and seems to care ever less about ever doing so.

      Does anyone really see Israel as having become *more* liberal over the past years?

      Does Hass really believe that Israelis will not eventually go along with ethnic cleansing of some sort, and overlook that same is exactly what it undertook in '48 and has been doing in slower motion since?

      It's a mark of how far apart Hass is from the Israeli mainstream that she feels it really wants to be like the U.S. in some fundamental way. Sure, in some ways that mainstream does: It wants our sort of cities and toys and cars and jobs and life and etc. But it don't wanna rub shoulders with too many non-jews; no way.

      It's an oldie but a goodie that a big problem in gauging conflicts arises from seeing "the other guy" as fundamentally being just like oneself. Judaism however isn't just like other more modern religions. And Zionism isn't just like other modern nationalisms.

      This isn't to condemn judaism or zionism one whit; just observing that when you hear a Bibi Netanyahu or a Shaul Mofaz or any even relative "moderate" Israeli talk (much less an Ovadia Yousef) you aren't listening to a person fundamentally coming from a modern Western perspective. They don't give a damn about that perspective, indeed, adopting that perspective—at least for their fellow Israelis—is precisely what they are fighting against.

  • Iran has 'promised' 'another Holocaust' -- CBS commentator
    • Sin Nombre April 9, 2012 at 10:34 am with 8 replies

      I like Ben Stein. He's funny, he's smart, he's humane; there's damn near nothing not to like about him. There is no way he is indifferent to anyone's suffering.

      But here once again we see the utter lack of any historical balance that in my mind is at the very center of allowing the inflamed thinking that it incites. Even in the soundest of people. Here, in other words—indeed in Ben's own words—is the kind of utterly unbalanced history that has even unbalanced a Ben Stein. An unbalanced history that is gradually but utterly blotting out the blatant obvious moral truth that all humans are capable of being beasts.

      I'm so sick of this unbalance. How often—to use as many of Stein's words as possible—has anyone seen anything like the following?

      "About 90 years ago enemies of the Christian and other religious people rose up in the form of the Bolsheviks in Europe and their many eager helpers, including in America. Given their relative population, a simply staggering proportion of those enemies of Christians were jews, especially in the Bolshevik leadership and secret police. Their hands were not stayed, In the cruelest imaginable ways, including prolonged intentional mass starvation of millions alone and the attempted genocides of a number of small nationhoods via forcible displacement, they basically wiped out some 20 [or 30? or 40? or 50?] million Christians and other religious people in the Soviet Union.

      Basically, not only did the world do nothing to save them, but when the Bolshevik's eager helpers were not busy denying and lying about what was being done, they were defending it, justifying it, and even cheering it on."

      Without some corrective balancing of this sort it seems to me only natural what is happening; indeed even logical: Progressive generations, utterly ignorant of the reality of all of what happened, of *course* believing that there's some human uniquenesses out there. That ... only *some* people can ever behave as beasts, and that only *some* people can ever be victims.

      Correct that imbalance, in my view, and you've gone a long long way towards helping *everyone.* As Chekhov said:

      "Man will become better only when he is made to see what he has become."

  • Grass smears in 'Times', plus new translation of his 'I've had it with the West's hypocrisy' poem
    • Sin Nombre April 7, 2012 at 6:29 pm

      biorabbi wrote:

      "But, Grass hits me quite hard. There is an ugly rich symbolism in Grass condemning Israel...

      The issue of selective condemnation...."

      Alright, let's talk about "selective condemnation."

      Salomon Morel was a Polish communist who rose in the ranks after the Germans were defeated and became the commandant of the prison at Lublin castle where, as Wikipedia unequivocally states it, many anti-communists were tortured and killed. Morel then became the commandant of what Wikipedia once again unequivocally states as the "infamous" Zgoda camp, which had been set up by the Soviet KGB. Prisoners sent there needn't even have been charged with any crimes, just sent there by the communist secret police. And sometimes even their children were sent there. As Wikipedia once again says unequivocally "It is estimated that close to 2,000 inmates died in the camp where torture and abuse of prisoners were chronic and rampant."

      For what it's worth—nothing in my view—many of those at Zgoda were ethnic Germans who found themselves on Polish soil after the war.

      After the communists fell Morel moved to Israel. In 1998 under the new, democratic Polish government, Poland requested Morel's extradition to face war crime charges.

      The Israeli gov't refused, saying ... the statute of limitations had run out on war crimes.

      In 2005, another extradition request was made to Israel together with fresh evidence and that charge that Morel had committed "communist crimes against the population," including the starvation and torture of prisoners. As Wikipedia states, the new evidence was based on the testimony of "over 100 witnesses, including 58 former inmates of the Zgoda camp." This request was again formally refused by the Israeli government. In addition to rejecting extradition on the grounds that the statute of limitations against Morel had run out, Israel said it was possible he might be the subject of an anti-semitic conspiracy.

      So you know, biorabbi, the unnatural deaths of non-jews counts a little too. And among the beasts of men have been a good many non-gentiles too, believe it or not.

      Next time you wanna talk about the Holocaust and the Germans and the Nazis then, let's remember how "selective" that can be.

  • Another mainstream voice, Robert Wright, informs Americans that two-state solution is on 'deathbed'
    • Sin Nombre April 6, 2012 at 10:47 am

      Robert Wright wrote:

      "That's the depressing thing about the Israel-Palestinian conflict: It results from the Israelis and Palestinians acting more or less the way you would expect people in their shoes to act."

      Very largely true—*except* as to *the* big issue here, which is where Wright's analysis/sentiment breaks down.

      Very largely true, that is, that the history of the jews and of course especially the Holocaust would condition them to, say, fight against having a Palestinian state that could pose any threat to them and to thus insist on cosmically defensible if not impossible borders that no-one else has.

      But what's so special about jewish history that says that they alone are entitled to a (relatively) pure ethno-racial-religious state that they and they alone control? Simply because in some other states at other times those states have turned on them? Well, different states have turned on damn near everyone in the past and of course if you even so much as mention the idea in any other state today that it should enshrine this or that other ethno-racial-religious group as its permanent official overlords the very first screamers of the word "fascism" would be jewish groups.

      Wright's analysis and sentiment stops short at providing any support for the rejection of a One-state solution.

  • The liberal Zionist predicament
    • Sin Nombre April 4, 2012 at 2:43 pm with 2 replies

      David Samel wrote:

      "Liberal Zionists are caught in the middle. Their “liberal” side propels them toward equality, but their Zionist inclination makes preservation of the Jewish State the paramount concern."

      I think this is letting them off lighty, albeit unintentionally. Being "caught in the middle" implies at the very least being torn between two poles, if not actually having to choose between same.

      The fact is there's been no choosing nor—at least as far as eye can see least—cvvtearing on any big scale for liberal Zionists: How many after all have become One-Staters? And yet, how many have openly or even otherwise rejected the main tenets of liberalism outside of Israel?

      Instead of being "caught in the middle" then clearly the far more accurate is that they want it both ways. They want every place and person on earth other than Israelis or Israel to be "liberal"—and indeed condemn those there who are not in the most thundering, derogatory fashion possible—but can't imagine applying any of those ideas to Israelis generally or Israel.

  • Flabby Zionism
    • Sin Nombre April 3, 2012 at 1:32 pm with 15 replies

      Dan Crowther wrote:

      "I never knew the Bill of Rights and the Constitution were designed to confer 'minority rights' – I thought they just outlined what rights all men have inherently. This is the problem with calling yourself a “(fill in the blank) american” — As far as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are concerned (and after some important 'updates') men are men. That’s kind of an important thing, I should say."

      Yes, and now we're seeing some of the damage caused by the New Left in pushing that poisonous little idea that one's "real" identity wasn't national but instead was something else (racial, ethnic, religious, etc.) that, at the very least, needed to be hyphenated/appended to one's description as an American to advertise that same was—again at the very least—just as important as that Americanism if not in fact much moreso.

      Rather funny then (in an unfunny way) seeing all the Lefties/Progressives here trying to put this toothpaste of theirs back in the tube essentially. On the one hand tell everyone that who they *really* are and who they *really* owe their allegiance to is their co-ethnics/racial members/religion sharers. And on the other then tell 'em to stop fighting for same and regard everyone else as equals.

      Nice bit of incoherence there....

  • 'Peter Beinart's offense against liberalism' and the spiritual crisis Zionism has wrought
    • Sin Nombre March 27, 2012 at 8:54 pm with 4 replies

      Jack Ross wrote:

      "But for such political discourses to be the basis of a religious discourse is the moral monstrosity that has characterized most non-Orthodox Judaism for the last 70 years."

      "Moral monstrosity"?

      Oh come on Mr. Ross. This is, after all, the exact same sort of language as used by those on the far other side always pretending to sit upon some moral Olympus hurling down unquestionable thunderbolts of judgments upon this or that person or issue. Those on the other side, that is, who are much further there than the rabbi in this video who one certainly can disagree with but who one can hardly call a moral monster.

      For what it's worth I liked the guy. Yes I think he's very wrong in any number of ways, but he's manifestly a humane man and not an evil one, liking violence or being indifferent to human suffering. And while his world-view is most definitely not the universalist one of Mr. Ross', neither, I would tenderly point out, would that seem to be the world view of most of humanity at this point.

      In any event what I at least found to be the most fundamental and hence instructive thing he said was at about 4:50: "Israel reminds us that at the core of Judaism we do not speak about the individual and our Maker as religion is commonly understood in the West. Rather, Judaism is about community."

      This, it seems to me, is a very deep statement, providing an absolute ton of explanatory power across a very wide spectrum.

  • The Toulouse killings and the false specter of European anti-Semitism
    • Sin Nombre March 27, 2012 at 3:58 am with 1 replies

      Just as a matter of logic, but made particularly pungent by that recent incident in J'slem by those Israeli soccer fans, it seems to me that the proper metric for gauging anti-semitism somewhere would be the same metric for adjudging anti-gentilism in Israel, no?

      And of course in adjudging the degree of either in a country one would think that the incidence of *official* (legal) discrimination would weigh very very heavily indeed.

  • Zionism totalled
    • Sin Nombre March 24, 2012 at 7:25 pm with 3 replies

      In an earlier thread this huge issue sort of came up in a sideways way—under the broader guise of talking about ethno/racial/cultural separatism—and while I posted a comment in response to KEITH there it really didn't belong in that anyway dead thread. It seems far more relevant here and so at any rate it's why I think it's wrong to condemn Zionism per se so I'll reproduce it for what it's worth:

      Keith said:

      “Under these circumstances, this selective memory [focusing on the Holocaust for instance] helps to replicate in general terms that which it opposes in specific terms, hence, no good has ever or will ever come of it.”

      Well I agreed with you up to here, Keith, but I wonder if some … lesser, non-fetishized selective memory *necessarily* leads to a group doing terrible things to others. I mean, to some degree *nobody’s* memory/consciousness is broad enough, right?

      I am well aware of the liberal/progressive universalist slant of many if not most people here, and certainly respect the idealism behind it. And I’m not dogmatically against it but do believe there’s reasons to believe it just isn’t possible and won’t work.

      And even perhaps believe that it can’t work, and think that attempts to make it so have led to terrible trouble if not misery already, and might be unavoidable.

      I guess maybe this isn’t the place to explore this, but look, culture not unsurprisingly tends to be shared on the same basis as race and ethnicity, and culture is about more than just what style of music one likes but is about values too.

      And values are what people fight over.

      Idea’s like “multi-culturalism” certainly sound nice, and certainly one can point to the U.S.’s experience in trying it so far and say see it can work. But maybe because of its nature the U.S. is a unique or semi-unique place. (A “creedal”or “propositional” nation rather than one rooted in soil or shared history.) And it’s awful early yet in this experiment here. Nuts, in general we don’t even pay any attention to movements or ideas that have lasted less than 100 years or so in terms of asking about their workability. Here, it’s only been what? … 20 years or so that the term “multi-cultural” has even been around? Maybe 30?

      It’s just awful awful early yet.

      And then I look at that careful study done not all that long ago that resulted in that academic or quasi-academic journal (Foreign Affairs or etc.?) that was widely praised for its carefulness and lack of ideology where the political science author noted that while in a splotch of the West sure, we all think that everything’s moving towards multi-culturalism. Except that across the entirety of the rest of the world basically it’s not, and indeed it’s moving mammothly and resolutely in the opposite direction. No ands, ifs or buts about it, and just as a simple, undeniable factual matter.

      This isn’t to deny for a second the great potential evils of ethno/racial/cultural nationalism, after all we have the Nazis fresh in our minds.

      But it’s funny: With much validity we indict a big slice of the Israelis and jews with seeing everything through the prism of the Holocaust and Nazism, but to a degree liberal, multicultural universalists do too: Sure of course it showed the great potential evils of separatism, but what about *them* looking beyond Germany and Hitler for a second? Indeed, looking just over the border from Hitler’s Germany?

      I.e., what about the great uber-liberal multi-culti universalist experiment that was Bolshevism in the USSR? And for the sake of argument let’s forget even its early crimes: Every new regime is gonna be guilty of some brutalities early on.

      But what did the Bolshies find as their time went on? *Totally* contrary to what they predicted? Ethnic/racial and cultural differences were far far stronger than they ever believed. And, predictably—and worrisomely—what this caused was the regime to become ever more savage trying to stamp it out. To the point of killing or incarcerating so many it changed the demographics of that huge country. A literal orgy of violence and blood, that went on and on, and was stopped only long enough for the USSR to go fight Hitler for little while.

      Not all that different than the experience of Bolshevik China, or Pot Pot’s Cambodia.

      Like I say, it’s early yet for the liberal, multi-cultural, internationalist dream. Indeed perhaps it’s not even fully out of the womb, and in only a very few places. And then there’s that Bolshevik experiment … perhaps suggesting that for that dream to work it’s inevitably going to have to use ever more force, and that even when using what amounts to a demonic degree of same it *still* won’t work….

      It’s early yet.

  • Holocaust consciousness-raising = harming Palestinians
    • Sin Nombre March 24, 2012 at 9:33 am

      Keith said:

      "Under these circumstances, this selective memory helps to replicate in general terms that which it opposes in specific terms, hence, no good has ever or will ever come of it."

      Well I agreed with you up to here, Keith, but I wonder if some ... lesser, non-fetishized selective memory *necessarily* leads to a group doing terrible things to others. I mean, to some degree *nobody's* memory/consciousness is broad enough, right?

      I am well aware of the liberal/progressive universalist slant of many if not most people here, and certainly respect the idealism behind it. And I'm not dogmatically against it but do believe there's reasons to believe it just isn't possible and won't work.

      And even perhaps believe that it can't work, and think that attempts to make it so have led to terrible trouble if not misery already, and might be unavoidable.

      I guess maybe this isn't the place to explore this, but look, culture not unsurprisingly tends to be shared on the same basis as race and ethnicity, and culture is about more than just what style of music one likes but is about values too.

      And values are what people fight over.

      Idea's like "multi-culturalism" certainly sound nice, and certainly one can point to the U.S.'s experience in trying it so far and say see it can work. But maybe because of its nature the U.S. is a unique or semi-unique place. (A "creedal"or "propositional" nation rather than one rooted in soil or shared history.) And it's awful early yet in this experiment here. Nuts, in general we don't even pay any attention to movements or ideas that have lasted less than 100 years or so in terms of asking about their workability. Here, it's only been what? ... 20 years or so that the term "multi-cultural" has even been around? Maybe 30?

      It's just awful awful early yet.

      And then I look at that careful study done not all that long ago that resulted in that academic or quasi-academic journal (Foreign Affairs or etc.?) that was widely praised for its carefulness and lack of ideology where the political science author noted that while in a splotch of the West sure, we all think that everything's moving towards multi-culturalism. Except that across the entirety of the rest of the world basically it's not, and indeed it's moving mammothly and resolutely in the opposite direction. No ands, ifs or buts about it, and just as a simple, undeniable factual matter.

      This isn't to deny for a second the great potential evils of ethno/racial/cultural nationalism, after all we have the Nazis fresh in our minds.

      But it's funny: With much validity we indict a big slice of the Israelis and jews with seeing everything through the prism of the Holocaust and Nazism, but to a degree liberal, multicultural universalists do too: Sure of course it showed the great potential evils of separatism, but what about *them* looking beyond Germany and Hitler for a second? Indeed, looking just over the border from Hitler's Germany?

      I.e., what about the great uber-liberal multi-culti universalist experiment that was Bolshevism in the USSR? And for the sake of argument let's forget even its early crimes: Every new regime is gonna be guilty of some brutalities early on.

      But what did the Bolshies find as their time went on? *Totally* contrary to what they predicted? Ethnic/racial and cultural differences were far far stronger than they ever believed. And, predictably—and worrisomely—what this caused was the regime to become ever more savage trying to stamp it out. To the point of killing or incarcerating so many it changed the demographics of that huge country. A literal orgy of violence and blood, that went on and on, and was stopped only long enough for the USSR to go fight Hitler for little while.

      Not all that different than the experience of Bolshevik China, or Pot Pot's Cambodia.

      Like I say, it's early yet for the liberal, multi-cultural, internationalist dream. Indeed perhaps it's not even fully out of the womb, and in only a very few places. And then there's that Bolshevik experiment ... perhaps suggesting that for that dream to work it's inevitably going to have to use ever more force, and that even when using what amounts to a demonic degree of same it *still* won't work....

      It's early yet.

    • Sin Nombre March 24, 2012 at 12:07 am

      No, Moose, I don't even know if the great Solzh ever totted up the numbers or etc, but others have and indeed manifestly uber-fair folks like Richard Pipes has written extensively about the issue, acknowledging the truth. There's just no denying it that the ranks of the Bolsheviks—especially the leadership responsible for the Bolshies taking power in the first place, and then also especially amongst the secret police—were just filled with jews; mammothly over-represented in terms of their numbers in the general population.

      I hasten to add however (that unlike, for instance, that guy who seemed to try to "blame" ordinary germans for the Holocaust), this is only meant to note my belief that no-one is immune from behaving as a beast, and no-one is immune from being treated beastly, period.

    • Sin Nombre March 23, 2012 at 11:49 pm

      I wouldn't be so cynical, Pixel. I think if you look at how the Holocaust has been talked about since the end of WWII, even and indeed especially amongst the jews, you'll see a change. Everyone back then knew that Europe—including the Soviet Union—had just gone crazy and beast-like. The essential lesson from the shocked West was essentially the absorption of the idea that any man could indeed be a wolf to any other man—because they had.

      A couple of generations go by however, and the lack of preservation of that balanced understanding shows I believe, unconsciously. You just didn't see the utter sort of obliviousness that you see with Ms. Wasserman-Shultz and other younger jews today. I honestly think they're just so innocent of any broad historical truth that this is at the root of their wild statements.

    • Sin Nombre March 23, 2012 at 2:21 pm with 7 replies

      You know, I don't think there's anything wrong with retaining consciousness about the Holocaust. Indeed, except for fetishizing it–just as fetishizing anything is dangerous—I think it's virtuous. We in America especially think that nothing happened of any consequence before we were born, and yet think of all those men killed in the Civil War, groaning without anesthesia. And all our WWI and II men and women ... they deserve our memories.

      The problem I have is the lack of *balanced* consciousness.

      Not long ago for instance Phil noted the American Democratic Party woman—Wasserman-Shultz—commenting about how jews "need to have a place to go," as if nobody else has ever been hounded and tormented. As if everyone else was safe as gold in Fort Knox.

      So here's where some balance I think should come in but doesn't. Certainly, for instance, if there was some balance Ms. Wasserman-Shultz wouldn't have been saying what she did if, say, she read Solzhenitsyn. Knew of the huge over-representation of jews amongst the Bolsheviks, especially in their secret police who murdered and tortured and starved so many non-jews. Indeed, who so concentrated on Christians.

      Certainly then she would see how she couldn't be saying what she did, else Christians generally (and certainly Christians in Europe) could with equal validity be saying they needed to be free of jews to really be safe.

      It's not consciousness in general that's bad, it's partial or unbalanced consciousness that leads to extremism.

      "We are all in the gutter," some poet once said (a line stolen by the great Chrissie Hynde); that was so clearly true right after WWII especially and the revelations of folks like Solzhenitsyn about the Bolsheviks that it's only with the fading of *some* consciousness that a Ms. Wasserman-Shultz is out there doing what she is doing with the Holocaust.

  • Israeli police use attack dogs on Palestinian protesters in the West Bank
    • Sin Nombre March 16, 2012 at 6:42 pm

      And now, while predictable, the topper:

      "George Clooney, Jewish Leaders Arrested At Anti-Sudan Protest In Washington"

      Headline to Haaretz story here: link to haaretz.com

      Delicious quote from some big-time Rabbi there: ""We know better than anyone what happens when people stand by when innocents die."

      Yeah, you get your ethno-racial state, which is evil for anyone else to have!

    • Sin Nombre March 16, 2012 at 5:08 pm

      And now we shall see all the innumerable Lefty jewish types who so loved to put pictures of Bull Connor's dogs attacking people at the top of their impassioned pieces denouncing white Southerners as obvious monsters ... just look away. Far far away....

      (Except of course the Alan Dershowitz type who will assert that this is different because they are *Israeli* dogs—the most moral in the world.)

  • Chair of DNC says: 'Israel is our rightful place... a place for us to go'
    • Sin Nombre March 15, 2012 at 6:54 pm

      I don't know where or how else to ask this, but I posted a comment to this piece this a.m. and it either didn't make it here, or was censored.

      It seemed to go through, but I can't believe it was censored since it came nowhere close to any criteria I've seen posted here for doing same. (And indeed seemed pretty anodyne to me otherwise and anyway too.)

      So ...?

  • Israel is sucking up all the oxygen in the White House
    • Sin Nombre March 11, 2012 at 6:06 pm

      @Bruce:

      Ah, didn't really think you were ranking, just was doing it myself a bit I guess, so absolutely no criticism intended, especially as I admired your piece for doing some very penetrating thinking.

      Poor wording on my part, please forgive the erroneous implication.

    • Sin Nombre March 11, 2012 at 6:00 pm with 8 replies

      @ Keith:

      Dude, on the one hand you say the reactions to this are "so far beyond the pale," (although I don't know that anyone actually said that "most of our problems can be traced back to 'the lobby'" as you charge), and then you say that "[a]ll of the [U.S.} deficits are ... designed to create de facto debt servitude."

      .... and, contrary to lots of the post here you criticize which offer at least some logic for the link(s) they posit (and indeed reasoning and evidence), you do so without a molecule of same for yours.

      (Not to mention using utterly meaningless phrases like "terminal financialization.")

      So if you want to criticize, you might want to try doing so with logic, reasoning or evidence (say, vis a vis my linking our support for Israel with high energy and petroleum prices), and if you want to posit, you might try using some of the same as well.

    • Sin Nombre March 11, 2012 at 3:53 pm with 4 replies

      For those who say that Mr. Wolman is overstating or being too speculative about the costs we pay due to our support for Israel consider what I think should have been his #1, which is the incredible, incalculable cost and damage done to us by that support in the form of higher oil prices.

      How easy it is to forget the '73 oil crisis, despite its magnitude in almost totally re-altering our economic fundamentals, and then too the longevity of the economic wreckage it left with all those people shoved out of their jobs and all that money going out of our country and system. Indeed I don't know if all of history has ever seen such a huge transfer of wealth from one group of countries to another. And the damage to the West was simply incalculable.

      And then of course we get to the continued conflict premium we have paid for oil ever since, ignoring even the crisis premiums we pay whenever things have gotten particularly hot, which they have often enough to make the cost of *that* premium insane standing alone.

      One cannot even begin to imagine the trillions of dollars and dislocations and other costs involved in all this, and the millions of Americans terribly affected.

      The fact is this and this alone—involving, as it did, orders-of-magnitude permanent increases in the price of energy which was and clearly remains the very life-blood of our modern economy, not to mention the centrality of petroleum otherwise—essentially re-ordered our entire way of life. And given that it did so via increased costs, did so in no positive way one can think of.

      To try some attempted comparison, one might as well start thinking about what the effect would be if we started having to pay some significant, daily, on-going amount for the oxygen we breathe.

  • New 'Daily Beast' blog on Israel/Palestine features 'the cousins'-- no US realist
    • Sin Nombre March 10, 2012 at 6:18 am

      Yes that was exactly my question too, Les, maybe put another way: How many of these commentators on this new U.S. blog are U.S. citizens, and U.S. citizen alone?

  • 'New Republic' says Obama 'detests' Netanyahu and treats him shabbily
    • Sin Nombre March 8, 2012 at 9:51 am with 2 replies

      In response to my post OlegR said:

      "So basically you are saying Israelis are not human."

      No, I'm categorically saying that about "folks who share Halevi's sort of sentiments," which is the exact verbiage I used and you pretended didn't exist so as to try to undermine what I said, quite obviously because it is valid and you don't like people hearing that, and yet you could not undermine it with either evidence or reason.

      And what I'll add is that I think when someone just takes words out of context or twists them, much less blatantly pretending they don't exist as you just did, it constitutes a sort of irrefutable proof of intellectual bad faith on their part.

    • Sin Nombre March 8, 2012 at 1:18 am with 3 replies

      Yossi Klein Halevi said:

      "For me to trust Obama on Israel’s ultimate security threat, I need him to speak directly to Iran, not to American Jews and the Israeli public. I need ...."

      Who cares about Halevi saying Obama hates Bibi, or indeed if Obama hates Bibi. To me instead what's noteworthy is Halevi's tone as in the above, demanding his "needs" from our President.

      Seems to me the appropriate response is ... "Go screw yourself and your needs, Israeli."

      Don't the folks who share Halevi's sort of sentiments have the least amount of shame constantly demanding we take care of them? (And constantly implying that we aren't doing enough?)

      Unfreakingbelievable sense of entitlement. Unbelievable lack of appreciation for past help given. It's like dealing with some different species.

  • Friedman warns war could hurt American Jews
    • Sin Nombre March 7, 2012 at 12:04 pm with 6 replies

      Actually, I wonder if all this slow-motion attempt to push us into war isn't more damaging to Israel and the Lobby.

      In the first place the present situation seems to just be gradually pulling in the marginally interested. Once the shooting starts however, the impulse to just root for the flag tends not to be the greatest for encouraging examination and reflection.

      Further makes me wonder if Phil's "tipping point" hasn't subtly been reached sometime before now, being some subtle thing to begin with. E.g., just the expansion of the conversation to talk about separate interests, together with amazement that anyone would be talking about another war after Iraq and Afghanistan? Coupled with the Lobby's need to be more full-throated in boosting one against Iran?

      I know some may say it was W&M's book, but I doubt it, not in terms of the general public. And yet it does seem that where we see movement is in the general public—with someone I read recently mentioning that even amongst the Tea Party crowd there's a goodly amount of skepticism about our ties with Israel. And of course it is the general public's feelings with which Tom Friedman's piece here is concerned.

      I note also a certain populism in Obama's remarks now, clearly feeling there's an audience for them: Talking separately about our interests and then Israel's, and talking about how those popping off don't pay the price of war and etc.

      (Not to mention how interesting those remarks were in the form of firing shots across the Lobby's bow: "You want more of this?" they can easily be interpreted as saying.)

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