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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
I wonder if the Occupation of the t-shirt was even meant to represent Palestine. It really is not political. Occupy themes comes to my mind. Nevertheless, the Aipac tippers certainly understood the negativity of the word represented what Israel does to Palestinians, and they had to respond. The use of a stated economic punishment is instructive, explicitly communicating to their subject that presenting such a high moral view has a cost is a message for everyone.
The flag and emblem represent oppression, not representative democracy or an inclusive culture.
The British took over an Ottoman construct called Palestine and modified it into a European colony now called Israel. A colony backed by the full force of the US, which Palestinians have few capabilities to oppose.
Israelis practice a nationalism informed by Western culture that is foreign to Palestinians and other Arabs, whose culture has been historically dominated by geographically local imperialists who shared their religion for over a thousand years. Palestinians do not have the history of reinforcing their nationalist identity through the warring conflicts that ravaged Europe and molded those identities into independent states. The European colonizers of Israel have intruded their warring ways into Palestine, oppressing the indigenous people with an alien violence they had no historical knowledge to draw upon in opposition. Israel's dominance has become so severe, it can now just use nationalist symbols like flags and religious symbols like the menorah to intimidate its unwanted subjects while practicing representative democracy. Arendt and Orwell would be impressed.
Inhumane behaviors like compulsory contraception for people deemed inferior was supposedly one reason for Israel's creation, but Israel's reason for being is based upon a racial nationalism, which guides its every policy. As Israel matures as a state, those policies become increasingly transparent, and repugnant to those who reject such Twentieth Century ideologies because of the inhumane behaviors they unleash.
Hagel's appointment is a tactic by the president to manipulate Democratic liberals into supporting his conservative foreign policies because of their reflex to support whatever and whomever is opposed by neo-conservatives. Hagel is not a liberal and has always embraced the role of America as world hegemon. The president would not appointment Hagel to become Sec. Defense unless he was acceptable to most of the big war contractors and their financiers; factions liberals should fear and oppose.
I turned 18 the year the draft was abolished, and never even registered. Had I been drafted, I hope I would have had the courage to object conscientiously, like the real heroes of that conflict did. It is true, though, that unlike the volunteers who served in Iraq, most of the troops who served in Vietnam were conscripts. However, being a conscript is no excuse for obediently committing war crimes, but may mitigate punishment.
Sorry, just because Hagel repudiates his obedience to kill Vietnamese as a defender of America does not exonerate him from the crimes he committed in Vietnam as service to the war pigs he has been nominated to lead. Hagel and Kristol are both venal and militant Chauvinists who accept the American mission to dominate the world with a capitalist dictatorship.
Only the oppressed can liberate the oppressors, according to Paulo Freire. Palestinians have stopped imitating militant Zionist tactics, revealing the terror based policies of Israel's regime, which are being realized even by Israeli nationalists. One, however, doubts any kind of dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis will ever be able to reconcile the immense suffering imposed on Palestinians. Perhaps Nuremberg-like trials will be needed to reveal how terrible Israel has become to Israelis and their supporters. It is difficult seeing how the one state solution can resolve the conflict, unless that state is called Palestine.
Danny Manning is an example of what is in store for all subjects of the capitalist dictatorship.
Thanks for publishing pictures of the real terrorists.
I will be dining at my step sister's McMansion in a gated community. Her and her mother are California Reaganites who have attended prestigious private universities and read books by the Rev. John Hagee to inform themselves about the justification for Palestinian oppression. There are no arguments that can penetrate the righteous myths that mold their inhumanity.
It turns out Sal Mineo's character provided the most salient foreshadowing of what the Exodus's message would become.
Anyone who opposes, or is presumed to oppose, the aggression of the US can become a candidate for the kill list. The mission of subjugation allows for any capability; our capitalist dictatorship provides the incredible capacity. Unconditional defeat has been the recent historical remedy for regimes with the global domination plans of the US and revolution appears impossible. Decay from within, caused by the dehumanization of being the oppressor and the imposition of austerity may eventually end American terror.
I lived in a house in the neighborhood, Arcadia, Spielberg talks about as a young adult that was previously occupied by a friend's family. The story is told her older brothers were playmates of the director. Their encounter with celebrity. Although I do not doubt children compared and ridiculed the religion of anyone whose religion was not their own, I do doubt any criticism of Spielberg's religion was specifically made to demean Jews, or that it was anti-Semitic.
As a child raised in a Lutheran family (not in AZ), I recall an older neighborhood girl claimed Lutheran's were backdoor Catholics in one of those contrast and comment conversations children have. I did not fear another St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, nor did I retaliate in any way for the insult. Maybe that is why I did not become a hugely successful mediocre Hollywood director.
If Obama loses, the purity patrol of the Democratic Party will hold progressives who could not vote for the continuation of the policies subsidizing Israeli aggression responsible, especially since Nader is not running.
Mr. Horowitz already wrote what I thought. President Obama's policy will be to continue to fund and support Israel's subjugation of the Middle East and seizure of Palestinian territory. The president might express his reasons differently and spin Israel's oppression in an alternate light, but US policy with Israel will not change from this election.
Everyone wants to solve the Palestinians suffering without allowing the Palestinians to take charge of finding the solution. It is a problem of the foreign liberator to be imbued with the characteristics and attitudes of the oppressor.
My skepticism of the Green Party is informed by a suspicion it accepts the dominance of American power to subjugate the rest of the world as expressed by the similar foreign policies of Republicans and Democrats. Although it is encouraging to read at least the GP has open discussions about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and what America's policy should be towards it, I disagree with the Green Party platform as related in the post. Using American power to impose a one state solution without allowing the oppressed to dominate the dialogue may seem like an alternative, but it is not a rejection of American hegemony over the lives of both Palestinians and Israelis, which is the only path to liberation for them and ourselves.
The interests of casino owning thugs are probably not the interests of the people they share religious beliefs with. Jews are not the only people who have been betrayed by elitists who share their religion, but when they have, the consequences have been catastrophic.
Confronting nationalist ideology within a community is unwelcome, unappreciated, and elicits hostility despite being based on humanist reasons, or even the ethics of that community. Opposing the invasion of Iraq and condemning the obedience of the troops resulted in similar retreats to the refuge of nativism. Compounding the issue are the economic and political forces manipulating this behavioral tendency to foment support for oppression that in no way can be deemed to be in the best interests of that community.
Despite a small faction of neo-conservatives, war with Iran is quite unpopular in the US. I think Ron Paul's popularity in Iowa was greatly influenced by his forthright position of nonaggression in regards to Iran, and popular opinion against war with Iran helps the president make such assurances, if true. A long term assurance of nonintervention is what Iran seeks from the US. Maybe this is a first step.
Gordis point has some historical relevance. Look at what happened to the Aryans after the fall of the Third Reich.
We need to hit Israel and its supporters hard. An example would be trying Mr. Ross for war crimes and then hanging him for them. That type of hard hitting should be used against all supporters of a sneak attack on Iran and any squatters with US citizenship.
Koestler's Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1917–1949 was a very informative book.
I went to some AZ Alliance for Peace and Justice meetings and participated in some street corner vigils with them before the invasion of Iraq. I met Ms Sinema at those meetings. It was obvious she had ambition, appearing to be one of the informal group leaders for AAPJ in early 2003. I was surprised and saddened to find her featured on Mondoweiss for having become a sell out.
No one who is interested in stopping the persecution of Palestinians cares about eliminating Jews. They want to eliminate Israeli totalitarian terror. If Jews think this desire threatens their existence, it is because they have aligned their religious identity to a terrible nationalism that is characterized with the worst of the Twentieth Century's crimes.
This post is excellent journalism.
The US could cripple the IDF by suspending all arms shipments and bank credits to Israel. The US would paralyze new settlement construction if it tried every American squatter with being an enemy combatant. Unfortunately, the American body politic is quadriplegic when it comes to admitting its role in the oppression of Palestinians.
Jesse Lieberfeld has revealed the emperor has no clothes. The oppressor has no moral or ethical justification for the nationalist crimes committed in the name of his religion, and only a child can exclaim before a congregation of the pious that it is wrong. Unlike the fable, though, the congregants still act as if they see robes beautifully tailored by a deity.
Mr. Goodman knows it is not a libel to describe Israelis as child killers, well poisoners, and olive crop destroyers.
It is unfortunate Iraqis have not brought justice to America's rulers who advocated for and then perpetrated the invasion of Iraq. It is even worse that Americans have not sought justice for president W. Bush and the war pigs in his cabinet. Perhaps if these criminals had been charged with the crimes they are associated with, one would not have to threaten bringing criminal charges against the next generation of war pigs wanting to bomb Iran. Sooner or later these criminals will be held to account for their crimes, and it will most likely be for the next round of unlawfulness they are planning, which should worry Mr. Kroenig.
Critics of Israel need no one's permission, especially those compromised by their tacit approval of inhumane behavior.
Do not give too much credit to the Democratic Party for wanting to debate Israeli policy. Some individuals within the Party may be allowed to debate an attack on Iran is foolish, but they are not allowed to propose ending subsidy of Israel's aggression, or even calling it aggression.
Storm the Bastille!
The pressure put upon Jews to renounce their Zionist heresies reminds me of the party discipline of Stalin.
Opponents of Israel's militant expansion with US arms and racial nationalism should be careful when expressing their hostility to direct it towards the state of Israel, Israel's citizens, Israel's apologists, and the nation that subsidizes Israel's crimes against humanity. Using Israel's crimes as an excuse to commit aggression against Jews just because Israel is a Jewish state is the same mistake Americans made when blaming Muslims for the 9-11 attacks. Jews who support Israel should be opposed nonviolently for their racially informed nationalism that encourages Israeli crimes, and if any action should be taken against them, it should be done through the rule of law.
Documenting the crimes of the racial supremacists is the best response to their mendacious accusations of bigotry.
My spouse dragged me to her big box Pentecostal church last night for a viewing of The Exodus Decoded. I was the only one in the audience who thought the whole thing was an exercise in rationalizing the expansion of Israeli hegemony. If fears of war could be augured by an aching liver, then the association by these religious nuts with the divine right of Israelis to rule over the Middle East is an epidemic of hepatitis C.
The implication was Ross quit because of the president's agreement with Sarkozy that Netanyahu was unbearable. Perhaps Ross resigned because of Zionist honor.
I just read a comment from the NY Times article that said Ross quit because of the microphone gaff at the G20 meetings. I wonder if that is true.
An unexpected consequence of starting WW III, with an attack on the benign Iran, will be the end of the Fourth Reich the US, EU, and the financiers are attempting to create.
If Israel's supporters could remember the joy of 1948, they might try to live within that which was so graciously given by those with nothing to lose. The amnesia of the joy of 1948 should be associated with the justification to use violence to acquire more territory from the people whose land was given as a debt to the European Jews; the farther away the wonderful news recedes in time, the greater the violence against a captive population, somehow chosen to compensate for the horrors of the Holocaust, occurs.
If there are any Americans in that group of armed vigilante squatters, then the president should execute them with rockets fired from drone aircraft. Any Americans involved with the militant expansion of Israeli territory should be declared enemy combatants and subject to immediate extrajudicial assassination.
Ms. Swinton may lose Hollywood work, but her great movie 'I Am Love' was a European production. She has attained enough artistic success to create her own projects.
I will be wearing my kaffiyeh when going to my city's occupation later today.
In Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence Palestine is mentioned, too, providing an early Twentieth Century validation of its geographical existence.
Americans do not need the input or approval of Jews to discuss and judge their own country's involvement with the crimes Israel commits. Although Mr. Weiss often includes American-Jewish self-examination about Israel into the fine work of this blog, the best part of the blog has to do with the reporting of news and developments about the opposition to Israeli oppression so that all people can use it to inform themselves and others.
Texas was founded by the equivalent of an American al Qaeda. A terrorist group made up of American rogue slave expansionists whose personality was best described by Harriet Beecher Stowe's character Simon Legree. Sam Austin and Sam Houston were the bin Laden and Zawahiri of their time.
This is why party politics stinks. Robert Michels described Kos' leadership, as he did for all such organizations. It makes involvement difficult when participants have to submit to this kind of undemocratic authority.
People who oppose Israel's militant expansion and Israel's interference with Palestinian and Lebanese internal politics have to disregard attacks of anti-Semitism from people who have adopted the rabid nationalism associated with that particular form bigotry. Sympathy for the victims of historical anti-Semitism informs the empathy for victims of Israeli nationalism. A virulent form of nationalism based on an ethnic/religious dogma and subsidized by American taxpayers, who have been manipulated into supporting a regime bordering on totalitarian terror as a means of righting historical anti-Semitism. Ironically, Americans have subsidized a recreation of the very worst inhumanity of the Twentieth Century as a solution to it in order to fulfill their own national expansionist ambitions, and those who oppose that subsidy through nonviolent means are treated like pariahs by those who advocate nationalist aggression.
I am not willing to involve Israel in this crime until credible evidence is revealed. Even though Israel does represent the exhibition of rabid militant nationalism and has powerful political factions that support, plan, and execute violence against similar innocents for the expansion and dominance of the nation, it is too soon to know who else was involved.
The suspect in this case resembles militant conservative nationalists everywhere. He lived out a conservative's fantasy of mass murdering people who believe in political and economic equality for everyone regardless of their ethnicity or creed.
Although starting a fire cannot be considered nonviolent, cutting a fence can be. Cutting a fence in no way threatens violence against people and is a very minor destruction of property. Of course, in Israel cutting a fence can and will be punished with immediate extrajudicial execution.
Nongovernmental paramilitary organizations funded and sanctioned by the state is a characteristic of European totalitarianism. Overlapping jurisdictions and authorities enforcing a continuous harassment and assault to force people off their land and into statelessness resembles what are often called atrocities in histories of the Twentieth Century. When one considers these events are not recorded as atrocities today by the mainstream reporters of current events, another characteristic of totalitarianism comes to mind.
Bad laws should be broken with contempt.
Israeli is not a race, but it is a violent nationalism. A nationalism based on a religious ideology that is able to rationalize the confiscation of other people's land with deadly force and totalitarian terror. A deadly force subsidized by American tax payers is what motivates people to oppose Israel with a nonviolent boycott movement. Since this opposition to Israeli aggression is nonviolent, the fear it generates must either be a propaganda ploy designed to appeal to the empathy many feel for the victims of historical racism or a self-righteous delusion. Oppressors use both tactics to rationalize their use of deadly force against a defenseless victim.
I would add that the president is also complicit in the continued subjugation of Shiite majorities by despotic allies.
A bit of optimism to be taken from the assassination of bin Laden is it might allow the president to use his new foreign policy legitimacy to reduce Israeli aggression. The death of this bogeyman will provide the president a lot of good will, and he should use it to advocate for the Palestinian cause.
The allure of America is that every ethnic group will eventually ascend to the highest levels of wealth and power. Jews have recently reached that level and now belong to the same group of bastards that used to be dominated by Puritans, then Episcopalians, then Presbyterians, then Catholics, then etc. The list can also be made by ethnic group. Joe Kennedy was a bastard, just like Samuel Adams and Ford were. There seem to be a couple of Italian bastards on the Supreme Court. Some think the president is a bastard. Cisneros was one. Perhaps no moral philosophy can overcome the bastardization the highest levels of power requires, which is why governance based on secular civil rights is so important.
There is an anecdote about Sirhan Sirhan finding a finger in his childhood home's yard after some Israeli violence against Palestinians. Everyone is traumatized by violence, and Palestinians will react to institutional violence against them just like the European survivors of the Holocaust have. The only difference is Palestinians have not been given the resources or license to act out like Israelis by the US.
This graduate of U of A thinks both the anti-immigrant and anti-Palestinian policies accepted by many Americans derive from the same racist/nationalist sources, so applaud the students for their daring mock wall.
Funny how the power elite confuse who and what people suffer about.
Jerusalem has never been a legal part of Israel.
After the shock and awe destroys the regime of Gadaffi, the shock doctrine will ruin the Libyan welfare state. It is doubtful that is what Libyans are fighting for.
Palestinians should be armed with white phosphorus to use against the vicious militant Zionist squatters.
Manning is being held in the equivalent of the New Bastille. Unless there is another Bastille Day, he will most likely expire there. It may be a very long time before a statue honoring Manning's courage and morality is erected.
The first part of the story is probably all lies to justify the killings in the second part.
Soon, Americans are going to stop their subsidy of Israeli terror.
Funny, President Obama's machinations to be reelected in 2012 has cost him my vote.
It is unfortunate those Palestinian leaders are unable to glorify their violence with US weapons systems.
In future, when Israelis are described in the most horrific of terms, it will not be a blood libel.
Actual people killed and incarcerated would be the best measure of persecution, and the most people killed, tortured, and incarcerated since 2001 have been Muslims. They were killed, tortured, and incarcerated by the US and Israel.
A list of the 50 worst nations that persecute Muslims is missing. Israel and the United States would top the list, and it is probably their religious cultures and nationalist expansion policies, as well as their racism, that informs their hostility.
Not enough Palestinian pudding.
Chinga tu madre.
The US should arm the Palestinians with white phosphorous bombs to destroy the militant Israeli squatters.
Thank you Seham. No one should doubt Israel would be bringing much worse violence on Palestinians demonstrating for self-determination than Qadhafi does on Libyans. What have been extraordinary assaults on Tunisians, Egyptians, and Libyans are everyday experiences for Palestinians. Americans should realize they are the power that allows its continuation.
The word settler should not be used to describe the vicious, armed vigilante squatters stealing Palestinian land using militant tactics backed up with the force of a US armed Israeli military. The word settler invests the squatters with a legitimacy they do not deserve and is used to endear them to Americans who have a past of using resistance to 'settlers' on indigenous peoples' land to eliminate the indigenous peoples. Americans think they are the cavalry saving civilized people from barbarians. The so-called settlers are the barbarians.
Was sobriety the reason Egyptians quietly suffered dictatorship for 30 years?
A democratic Egypt is what Washington and Israel's rulers fear the most. An Egypt that defends Palestinians and Lebanese will not be tolerated without severe economic and materiel consequences from the US and Israel, so it is difficult to believe, without a Soviet enabler, that Egypt will attempt to wage war with Israel. Nevertheless, Egypt may be able to foil increased Israeli territorial expansion and deliberate targeting of civilians with a belligerent voice. Egypt has been quiet for a long time, and Israel needs another nemesis.
Mainstream media's mandate is to promote US hegemony. That is why the national news casts are filled with the word friend to describe Mubarak and why the pundits openly worry about an Iranian repeat of a puppet nation restoring its self determination. Unfortunately, the talking heads do not use the word puppet.
One way to determine if the use of phosphorus weapons should be condemned or not is to consider there use against the armed vigilantes squatting on Palestinian territory. If using these types of weapons is acceptable to defend against missiles fired out of Gaza, then it should be acceptable to use them against the squatters who kill Palestinian civilians, tear down Palestinian homes, destroy Palestinian water resources, and ruin Palestinian agriculture. If the US arms Israel with white phosphorus weapons to defend themselves against armed Palestinians, the US should arm Palestinians with white phosphorus weapons to defend themselves from armed squatters. It should be obvious the use of these types of weapons is grossly inappropriate for the conflict caused by Israeli militant territorial expansion.
I would say Lindh was doing what people like Greenberg have done, except he fought against an insurgency instead of for the acquisition of territory to expand national boundaries. Lindh joined a national force and was fighting against an insurgency by the Northern Alliance. All the Americans serving in the IDF joined a national force to fight not for the defense of Israel, but for Israel's militant expansion. Really, the Americans fighting for the IDF deserve much longer sentences than Lindh received, yet they are included in the idolatry Americans show for their soldiers who obediently kill for for their corrupt leaders.
John Walker Lindh is serving a twenty year federal sentence for serving in the Afghan military. Every American who has served in the IDF should also be sentenced two twenty years hard time in a federal prison under the exact same sentencing guidelines. There is no difference between Mr. Lindh and Mr. Joel Greenberg, even if he is a 'good guy.'
These yellow stars of David with Palestinian written on them are a good idea. I will begin wearing one to show my support for them.
Intransigence is a characteristic of every fundamentalism, whether that fundamentalism is informed by religion or nationalism. Goldberg cannot be said to experience epiphany until he recognizes Israel's only legitimate borders came from the UN in 1948 and calls for the end of all US military assistance to the IDF. Until then, he should be considered an enemy combatant for his service as a prison guard in Israel.
Letting go of cries for justice can only be achieved after the Israeli and US leaders responsible for the war crimes allegedly perpetrated in Gaza have been tried.
Do not worry, Shin Bet has a copy.
Israel comes to New York.
What an inspiration these Palestinians are becoming. Too bad the anti-war movement in the US does not adopt their resistance tactics.
Authoritarians who claim to be leftists should be honest and refer to themselves as Stalinists. Real leftists should not tolerate their inhumanity.
Israel is the tragic flaw for many people. Ideological nationalism not only dehumanizes its victims, it debases its adherents who allow the inevitable dehumanizing by their rationalizations justifying such treatment of people who are inconveniently not members of that nation and interfere with its expansion and glorification.
Spandau Prison must be rebuilt for mass murderers like Netanyahu, George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama.
A Sirhan Sirhan is born every second because of US financed totalitarianism.
Mr. Yonah Fredman appears to have a lot in common with Mr. John Walker Lindh. Religious training in a foreign land informed them to join foreign armies to fight in wars of defense of those foreign lands. The differences are the Israel Yom Kippur war was a war to expand Israeli territory and financed by the US, the Afghan conflict was a war against an insurgency of the Northern Alliance, which was mostly ethnic Turkmen, who were only somewhat financed by the US. The other major difference is Fredman was allowed to have dual citizenship and Lindh was sentenced to twenty years in federal prison.
Unconditional defeat is the best thing that ever happened to the Germans and Japanese. Not only did they obtain a long lasting peace by renouncing war, they become liberal social democracies.
It is amazing, considering the history of the Twentieth Century, how an ideologically defined nationalism is able to so easily oppose international law and condemnation for crimes committed that everyone except the nationalists recognize as horrific. The power of an ideologically themed nationalism backed by immense wealth and practically unlimited military might continues to define the very worst of human nature despite the historical lessons of the recent past. Israel represents the failure of of the US and UN to impose a new world order of peace after the victories of WW II. The victors against the forces of ideologically defined nationalism have not only failed to prevent a recurrence of the very worst crimes of the Twentieth Century, they actively participate in them, providing aid, comfort and arms to the new totalitarians. That has to change before Israel's militant expansionism can be defeated.
Gandhi spent a lot of time in jail.
The Palestinian Authority should say they are prepared to recognize Israel any way Israel wants to be recognized. The Palestinian Authority should only recognize the borders established by the UN 1948 Mandate, though.
Palestinians and everyone else concerned with the oppression of Palestinians by Israel should acknowledge president Obama and the American people are not only incapable of preventing the crimes Israel commits but active participants in them. Opposition to the oppression of Palestinians must include opposition to the United States, if the opposition is ever going to succeed relieving Palestinians from the terror US arms and Israeli aggression. A break with the US, a repudiation of America's hegemony, by Western European leaders over America's relations with Israel would be a great building block towards ending Israeli terror. UN sanctions against the US for its military subsidies to Israel is something that should have been done long ago, and the Europeans and all other nations should continuously press the General Assembly to that end. Until opposition to Israel's crimes becomes opposition to US crimes, the Palestinians can expect no defense.
Someone had to rise up against the Germans and the Japanese and stop their attempt at institutionalizing terrorist societies. The same thing needs to be done against the Israelis. It should be noted that the unconditional defeat of Germany and Japan did not result in the destruction of their nations or the annihilation of their peoples, and created the most peaceful and prosperous times in their history. Rising up against Israel would mean imposing the boundaries of the 1948 UN Mandate and returning all other territory militantly expropriated to Palestinians. One hopes such an imposition would also create the most prosperous and peaceful time in Israel's history, as well as for Palestine.
Empathy for the suffering of oppressed people is what makes those people mine. Realizing the rapes of African slave children by American slave owners and all of their other crimes against African slaves makes me Black. The Holocaust makes me a Jew, and informs me of what 'never again' really means. The treatment of Palestinians and the expropriation of their land through militant aggression with US arms makes me Palestinian. The passive resistance of Rachel Corie and the the crushing of her body makes me desire to become like her, and have the courage, strength and virtue to stand against the powerful's assualt on the weak, no matter who they are, because they are just like me.
It is acceptable to have pride in one's ethnic and/or religious heritage. All people do. When that pride becomes nationalistic triumphalism backed up by the force of arms and defines everyone else not a member of that group as alien, then it becomes a dangerous movement for those outside it. Militant Zionism backed with American arms is not just dangerous to Palestinians, Arabs and Iranians, it is dangerous to all people identified as gentiles.
Seventeen year old Israelis carrying guns is a phylogenetic instinct of Israeli triumphalism.
Israelis who carry guns do so for much different reasons than Americans who carry them. Insecurity describes why Americans carry guns in public. The Israelis carry guns to display triumphalism.
Jewish blockade busters are treated much differently, in other words humanely, than non-Jewish blockade busters. Had the Jews of the Irene been attacked as viciously as the Turks and Europeans of earlier this summer, perhaps more Americans would see Israel as the terrorist state that it is. Israelis are not that stupid, though, they have too many American advisers.
If the sniper had been a Zionist killing Palestinians, he would still be in the hills killing Palestinians with American arms.
Most likely, the tear gas was a gift from America to Israel intended for this purpose.
Rioting is the proper response to Israeli state violence.
Who supplied the Israeli state with weapons to kill civilians? Did the Israeli police state purchase them, or were they gifts from Americans? Who gave the order to kill Palestinian civilians? Was it a local gauleiter or was it a charter member of Likud? Do American Zionists consider the killing of Palestinian civilians to be too lenient of a response?
Americans love the idea of being chosen by their deity. The residents of the house on the hill cannot have this hubris positively reinforced enough, which creates opportunities for exploiting them. Americans have been exploited by their clergy, American Zionists and Israel with the idea of being divinely elected. This type of proselytizing is not only lucrative but has the power to entice generally regular people into supporting crimes that would otherwise outrage them. Of course, regular people everywhere are susceptible to righteousness, but the enormous wealth of the US combined with the militant voracity for expanding national power and territories of the Israelis has made these two special friends, which is how their supporters like to consider themselves, enter into a compact of militant oppression. A covenant for war. One huge lesson from the Twentieth Century, seemingly forgotten in the first decade of the Twenty-first, is that what special peoples do is wage war to eliminate whole peoples and nations.
The loyalty oath naturalized citizens take does not require them to pledge loyalty to a Christian US. American Zionists, however, probably would like to include a section to the oath requiring naturalized citizens pledge loyalty to arming Israel in order to expand its oppression of Palestinians, as Congress does.
American Zionists would probably object to taking loyalty oaths to a Christian United States, yet they have no compunction against requiring Palestinians pledging loyalty to a Jewish state.
Perhaps the settlers in Palestinian territory ought to be required to pledge loyalty to Islam and democracy in the state of Palestine.
Israeli politicians always lie. Everything they say is intended to elicit hostility towards their victims so they can commit crimes and escape condemnation.
State backed vigilantes who use US arms to terrorize Palestinians off their land so they can live on it and annex it to Israel might be one way to describe the people unfortunately killed recently. Usually such armed vigilantes are terrorists or insurgents, but when they claim backing by a state that exports its state police apparatus to the acquired territory and nationalizes it, they are somehow given civilian protections. Certainly the victims should not have been killed, but certainly they should not have been allowed to settle outside of Israeli borders because of the force used by the state of Israel to claim their settlement.That is where the real crime occurs. These people would be alive if they were not encouraged by the Israeli nationalists to become aggressive vigilantes and have their settlements subsidized by US aid.
'Settlers' should be regarded as armed combatants. They are illegally acquiring Palestinian territory and building on it with the use of arms. Arms supplied as aid by the American people. These invaders should be designated combatants and they should be tried and imprisoned using the same laws that were used to sentence John Walker Lindh to federal prison for twenty years or using the same laws that have kept combatants imprisoned since the invasion of Afghanistan.
The use of a nationalist, racial religion provides ideological rationalization for continuing crimes against a targeted population in order to expand the offensive nation, and the world allows it to happen without defending the victims. Whether or not the Zionist ideology's potency comes exclusively from its arguments or US arms is difficult to determine. Zionism resonates with American hegemons, though, so the goal for those who oppose Israel's militant expansion is to break the legitimacy of this dark ideology to its most generous American benefactors. Americans who support Israel's militant policies need to be exposed as terrorists. American settlers need to be prosecuted with the same crimes that sent John Walker Lindh to prison for twenty years. American evangelical leaders who foment aggression in favor of Israel need to be tarred as American mullahs. The BDS movement needs to be expanded to American businesses. America's support for Israel must become morally painful before it will end.
The people killed were not Israelis. Israelis live in Israel. The people killed were foreign invaders who used militant power, supplied by the US, to seize land and colonize it while excluding the indigenous people from living their with violence. Killing these foreign invaders is wrong, but much less wrong than the killing these invaders used to obtain the territory and then to colonize it. If the settlers were subject to the enforcement of lawfulness for their crimes, they would not have been victims of vigilantism.
Any person or entity that is pro-Israeli aggression cannot be considered a legitimate progressive, liberal or leftist. At its best, Firedoglake is a site for establishment centrists, which describes most movie producers and former pharmaceutical company executives.
I have been developing a business plan to sell Levite memberships to evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. Genuine imitation sheepskin would officially declare anyone a Levite, for a small donation, so that they can make biblical offerings to their deity. Every deacon should have one.
Israel will not be willing to concede anything, not even continued land expropriation and new settlements, and the US will not use the threat of decreasing its economic and military aid to Israel in order to encourage Israel to concede something. There is no reason for the Palestinians to bother going, except to continue broadcasting the heinous crimes Israel commits against them.
Israel may agree to remove all of its citizens to within its 1947 borders after the US suspends all economic and military aid until they do. Israel certainly will not recognize its only legal borders until the US stops funding their militant expansion.
The lack of human and political rights for Palestinians is a policy of the state of Israel and the United States. A one state solution is being offered by Zionists to deprive Palestinians of their legitimate political representatives. If one state is truly a solution, it should be Palestine, not Israel. Would any Israeli or American Zionist accept such a proposal?
Everything Goldberg writes is a fabrication. Liar is the proper term to describe him.
National Propaganda Radio's mandate is to prepare Americans for war.
Ms. Abergil is like many White supremacists. She would kill for her race.
The Americans, British and BP executives involved with overthrowing Mossadegh should have been executed.
No one objects to Presbyterian churches in OKC.
"It's not the donor's agenda"
In the 8/16/10 issue of the New Yorker's Now Playing mini movie review section Richard Brody's first impression of the Palestinian movie 'Salt of the Sea' is "propaganda." He concludes the paragraph about the film with "the politics are one-sided." Although Brody liked the film for its portrayal of authentic emotions, he still has to preface and end his mini review with the correct Zionist viewpoint. The review is a minicosm of how the oppression of Palestinians and militant acquisition of Palestinian territory is reported in the US.
Ambassador Oren is a liar.
Hedges is a great man.
Italofascism is not a commonly used term, nor is Germanofascism or Aryanfascism. Italian fascism was different than German fascism, which is sometimes referred to as Nazism, and the leaders of Israel use a form of fascism that is particular to their Zionist ideology. Describing the worst Zionists as expansionary nationalist racists who dehumanize Palestinians in order to steal their land and make them aliens does have parallels with the German type of fascism. Call it Israeli fascism.
Israelis are no less immune to the entreaties of fascism than any other people. Unfortunately for Israelis, US arms, strategic planning and US elites have interfered and enabled Israel to be an aggressive nation, employing nationalist ideology as a rationale to justify its militant acquisition of Palestinian territory. American subsidies and actors are key factors behind why Israel has become the only state in the world using hard power to expand its borders. Zionism has become a powerful ideology though, and without it Israel would be a nation of peace. The way this ideology is exploited defies international law and prevents a majority of people, people who would otherwise be considered moral, from objecting to obvious war crimes and demanding an end to the overwhelming use of force against a poor and defenseless people. Ideology backed by the best high tech military weaponry is a very dangerous combination. Why the US provides and helps utilize the use of so much force for the expansion of Israel cannot just be explained by Zionism, however. Americanism has also become fascist.
Israeli nationalism is more important than American citizenship and human rights for a few Americans.
I saw Shapiro on C-SPAN. Dual nationalists should not be allowed to hold government jobs.
All ethnic groups in America have experienced what Weiss portrays about Jews in America and their prosperity. The difference is American Jews have an alternative nationality with which to project this new found elitism earned from accomplishment. The most recent comparison is with the American Irish and the IRA, which had wealthy backing by Irish Americans. Without Israel, many American Jews who have achieved elite status would not be concerned about how best to exploit American resources to expand the domination of that other country. This availability of an alternate nationalism is not just for Jews, though, and without the support of non-Jews in support of this other nation's domain the exploitation of American resources to subsidize Israel's aggression would not be possible. Clearly, if Jews are so super fantastically superiour, then they must be the exploiters, but if they are accomplished, perhaps considered first rate, some exploit and some are exploited, and the why for the rationale of the aggression might extend past one ethnic group and encompass a much greater nationalism that becomes imperialism, and practiced by a reason unconcerned with the long term consequences for the people living in the geographical location involved in its strategies, regardless of whatever religion they practice.
Actually, it was the president who applied Guckert pressure on Netanyahu's hidden jewels.
Likud leaders from 1982 should be tried for war crimes.
The president should deport Israel's ambassador as a response to the arrest of the Palestinian legislator.
During the American slavery era many slaves had to endure and observe untold amounts of abuse against themselves and their children. It is easy to understand their lack of education, overwork and malnutrition contributed to their tolerance of victimization. It is difficult to understand non-slaves tolerating abuse against their people for a strategic good, and it is impossible to understand such tolerance of abuse for only selfish reasons that will not never produce a public good.