Total number of comments: 26 (since 2011-04-14 22:41:32)
Steve Macklevore
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- Netanyahu govt to impose fines on mayors of cities that … 0
- Resume builders: Be a broken record on Iran, cheer authoritarians … 1
- UN Committee: Israeli system ‘tantamount to apartheid’ 0
- Slater on Beinart 9
- And we live on… 1
- US official — we went to Israel first 3
- Israel lobby’s favorite senator tries to erase Palestinian refugee status … 23
- Israel takes 30 dunams of land near Salfit ‘for security … 4
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- BDS victory: South Africa strips Ahava’s ‘made in Israel’ label 713
- Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from … 475
- Day after pogroms, Likud MK calls for internment camp for … 427
- Neverending Nakba: Israel breaks lull, attacks Gazan farmers 413
- ‘This is not fair play’: Mahmoud Sarsak’s family demands his … 389
- March of the Flags 345
- Neocons in Washington Post: Military strike on Iran would ‘calm … 323
- Nabi Saleh’s Bassem Tamimi convicted by Israeli courts based on … 293
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- The Messiah’s Donkey: Settlers fire on Palestinian villagers as the … 235
- Aharon Appelfeld’s rage at the German language (and Arendt’s need … 156
- US to differentiate between ‘personally displaced’ Palestinian refugees and their … 130
- March of the Flags 127
- Affirming a Judaism and Jewish identity without Zionism 113
- Feeling the hate in Long Island 97
- Israeli judge to issue verdict in Rachel Corrie case 94
- WaPo’s Walter Pincus says US is ‘going above and beyond … 87
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I have a horrible feeling that one day Israel will reap the terrible whirlwind it has so brazenly sown.
Beware the wrath of the United States - it can be very cruel to small client nations.
Eleanor,
You were rather unlucky to encounter a crazed Zionist in London - my experience has been that the majority of people are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, although the tactic of suicide bombing during the second intifada did immense harm.
Fortunately that tactic has stopped while the Zionists have become even more intransigent and are as brutal as ever.
Ah, yes....
"It felt bad even at that time. They said Palestinian police are connected to terror and that the [killers] passed through the checkpoint. Maybe the police are connected to terror but for sure they didn't pass through all the checkpoints [attacked that day]."
Kill and weep. Kill and weep. Kill and weep. The same old Israeli mantra since at least 1967 if not before.
Benzion Netanyahu was an extreme right wing bigot. No crocodile tears please.
Makes me wonder just at what point would the apologists actually criticise Israel?
Would they apologise if instead of using his rifle butt, the officer had actually shot the cyclist? What about if the officer had shot the cyclist dead? What about if the officer had killed two cyclists? How about three? What about five?
I suspect the article above would have been essentially the same. A tragic accident, a good man loses it momentarily for the first time in his career, evil anti-Semites get what they deserve, makes me feel bad but good also, shows how wonderful the IDF is the rest of the time, appalling but entirely atypical incident hasbara hasbara hasbara...
Conclusion? People like Jack Engelhard suffer a complete morality failure when it comes to Israel. Israel can literally do no wrong in his eyes.
Robert Wright's article is excellent, but I've just spent a miserable time reading a hundred or so of the comments.
They reveal the all the standard Israeli prejudices and legalistic arguments. The settlements are built in government land, Palestinians want to destroy Israel, you can't negotiate with fanatics etc etc etc blah blah blah.
I see zero sign that Israel is changing, and find it impossible to imagine any policy changes anytime soon. SIGH. Sorry for being so negative.
Maybe someone should tell Beinart that "Am Jewish orgs" enthusiastically fund settlements, usually with US Charitable status, and so tax free.
It's irritating that people such as Anne-Marie Slaughter always make their pro-Palestinian comments when safely out of office, never when in power.
Phil, you're much too kind to Wieseltier in this piece. Personally I believe he made up the personal settlement boycott on the spot. The truth of the matter is that he hasn't boycotted anyone or anything.
Proof? Simply the man's over-weaning arrogance and self absorption. There is no way he could have carried out any political act in secret for years and not told everyone about it.
Superb article - the weird self absorption by the likes of Naomi Paiss partially explains why 44 years of military occupation has gone on and on and on.
Interesting that she quotes Joan Peters.
Exposing the fraud that is "From Time Immemorial" lost Norman Finklestien what would have been a promising career in academia. Embarrassing the likes of Barbara Tuchman, who along with many other Jewish luminaries endorsed the book's evidence and argument was considered unforgivable by the American Jewish community.
One of the softer defences of the book is that it's considered a bit of a joke, especially within Israel itself. And yet here it is, used to support and encourage the armed robbery of land and livelihoods.
This is very good sign.
If the efforts to label Israel an apartheid state were completely ineffectual, then the Israeli government wouldn't bother doing this.
Somewhere deep in the hidden places of the Israeli government, analysts are whispering that once upon a time white South Africa appeared strong and determined, it's critics dismissed as cranks and idealists. Yet within a couple of decades of the campaign gaining traction, apartheid came to an ignominious end...
It's a very erudite essay, but for me it somehow dodges the issue that it was originally meant to address. The practice of Israelies adopting various elements of Palestinian culture and then renaming it and cliaming it as their own.
A perfect (perfectly disgusting) example of this were the navy blue and white Keffiyeh (scarves) on sale in trendy clothes shops the last time I was passing through Isreal.
As someone fortunate enough to converse with Christopher Hitchens on numerous occasions, I can assure Richard Witty that he would have treated you with the contempt he treated all other mouthpieces who keep repeating the party line.
There are times when I despair for the Palestinian cause when I see what we're up against.
Name after name after name in high finance, the United States government, political parties, the media, the law, the highest levels of huge corporations and even organised crime! Each one linked to another by friendship, professional association, sometimes even by family ties. Each one fiercely pro-Israel, to the extent that for many, Israel literally can do no wrong no matter what.
Then I console myself with the thought that despite the power and the money and law arrayed against us, the Palestinian case is being heard. Ideas and concepts that even ten years ago were never discussed (at least in the USA) do occasionally get an airing here.
So lets take heart and keep at it, and remind ourselves that any progress at all must be celebrated considering the incredible power of the lobby arrayed against us.
An excellent overview.
It repeats many of the points that ISM volunteers learn in their compulsory training in Palestine, and in pre-travel training in places like London (see the ISM London website link to ism-london.org.uk
)
After following this conflict for 30 years, Rachel's comment might be the most shocking I've ever read.
To think that she is the soul mate of a man who's been deeply influential in both Israel and the United States during that time is deeply disturbing.
Hopefully her comment will receive wide publicity - and we'll remember it and quote it whenever the subject of hate comes up in connection with the conflict.
To us long term Blair watchers, this comes as no surprise.
As long ago as May 2009, Blair was awarded a one million dollar 'peace prize' by an Israeli 'philanthropist and businessman.' There is no way that anyone working for the Palestinians would get within 100 miles of a prize like that.
None the less it'll be good to see Blair fired - he loves being an international figure, and the greatest revenge of all would be to see him reduced to obscurity.
The kindness and wonderful friendliness of the Palestinians is such a contrast to the shocking rudeness of Israelis. I believe many people, even those sympathetic to Israel notice this, but few come out and say it, because it smacks of racism and seems so trivial.
It's actually not trivial at all - I've seen Israelis on holiday manage to turn the entire staff of a hotel against them in a few days, simply because they don't seem to realise how unpleasant and ungracious they are. It's so very strange.
A compelling analysis.
None the less, I feel a bit more optimistic about a second term Obama. The Israeli electorate are historically intolerant of any leader who manages to threaten the US/Israel relationship, and the shocking flaws in Israel's proportional representation system ensure that no Israeli leader or government stays in power for long.
To end on a pessimistic note, I do believe the Palestinians may have face a determined effort to ethnically cleanse them from certain areas of the West Bank if the current situation remains and someone like Bush again occupies the White House. It's not too difficult to imagine a hard right US administration secretly telling Israel that it would be OK to (for example) ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem and to be prepared for harsh US words and the temporary recall of the US Ambassador to Israel but no further action. We already saw something like this under the Bush administration which concluded a number of secret agreements and understandings with Israel which, to it's credit, the Obama administration disowned.
I suppose everyone familiar with this conflict gets used to callous cross-eyed stupidity but when a Rabbi says:
"There are no innocents in a war."
That seems straight out of the sayings of Adolf Hitler.
It's very sad to see the leader of a very great nation, crawling and simpering to appease someone as loathsome as Netanyahu.
I have no doubt that Obama is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. But I also have no doubt that his advisers have shown him the importance of big lobby money in the forthcoming election campaign. It's going to be a near-run thing, and Obama has been told in no uncertain terms that a few million Palestinians aren't worth losing a second term over.
Despite that, I remain optimistic if Obama gets elected for a second term. Obama would be free from the financial pressures that the lobby is able to apply now, and also mad as hell from the repeated humiliations and threats from Netanyahu.
Given that freedom and anger Obama may be able to surprise us during his second term. I spoke to one of his staffers a couple of years ago, and she told me behind the cool rational façade there's a ruthless bastard with a vindictive streak and who gets things done when he puts his mind to it.
Lets hope so. If he doesn't, then frankly I despair for the Palestinian people, and suspect that Israel may feel emboldened enough to actually ethnically cleanse the West Bank at some point under a future Republican Administration under tea party influence.
The thing that always surprises me about Israel's behaviour is how dumb it is. Does any thoughtful Israeli genuinely believe that Islam Tamimi will forgive and forget after what he's been through? Will his parents, will his brothers and sisters? Will his friends and neighbours and others in his community?
By actions such as this, Israel is absolutely guaranteeing that the conflict will continue, that the Palestinians will redouble their liberation efforts, that thousands of people on both sides in the coming years will continue to suffer and die.
Lastly, the International community is reading and watching this stuff. The story is the most widely read of the entire paper that day. The Independent is a major British newspaper, highly influential within political and academic elites. Those elites shape policy, not least because in a democracy the citizens read and watch this stuff also.
If Israel continues doing this stuff, sooner or later (yes, probably later) it will find itself in the situation of white South Africa. Boycotted, sanctioned, hated, an international embarrassment almost universally loathed. It may take decades, maybe even a century or more, but Israel is doomed if it continues on this course.
I felt rather sorry for Jonathan Freedland as it would have taken a debating genius to overcome the handicap of Carol Gould on the team.
Gould is so extreme, dumb and obnoxious she can't even hang on to a gig at Pijamas Media or FrontPage!
I hope that all the other activists redouble their efforts and GUARD their ships!
Steel conducts sound and heat very effectively and there is no way this kind of sabotage could be done entirely silently and quickly. If the ship was well guarded then there is a great chance the diver(s) who attempted the sabotage be discovered.
The arrest of an Israeli diver(s) engaged in sabotage would be a major success for the flotilla.
I wouldn't worry about "Stop the ISM" as it's a one man band, not a group.
It's run by a rather obsessive individual called Lee Kaplan, who sadly isn't playing with a full deck. He makes all kinds of crazy allegations and misspelled rants. Depending on your point of view, he's either someone to pity for being mentally ill, or simply a Zionist clown.