Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 3300 (since 2009-07-30 20:36:23)

tree

Showing comments 2600 - 2501
Page: 33 32 31 ... 28 27 26 25 24 ... 3 2 1

• A regular commenter on this site seeks a more temperate comment board
  • tree January 18, 2012 at 6:33 pm

    But I don’t think the comment section here is quite so clean and virtuous on the pro-Palestinian side as people imagine.

    Thanks for the personal reply, Donald. And I certainly applaud the courage to both make the original post and to stick around to respond. Kudos for that.

    My point was not that the comment section is "clean and virtuous" on the pro-Palestinian side. It isn't, but my point is that I think trying to make it so is counterproductive to truth and justice. My point was that limiting discussion to just what is deemed reasonable to supposed "Jewish sensitivities" is a mistake and only results in continuation of an unjust status quo. Only by open discussion can true "reasonableness' be found. For example, I found the discussion that followed the long ago post you linked above from PG fascinating and a good example of openness leading to knowledge and a delineation of what is and is not reasonable, better made openly through discussion, whether heated or not, than simply assumed and self-censored.

  • tree January 18, 2012 at 4:30 pm

    And, anyway, you’re not actually *that* good at it.

    Ever consider the possibility that he wasn't trying to be good at "it"? Maybe it would make you more open to his point and less defensive. Try it out.

  • tree January 18, 2012 at 4:24 pm

    I forgot to mention that, despite whatever I think of the original post by Donald, I have to say that the discussion here in this thread has been first class. This place has always been heads above any other comment section anyplace else that I have seen, and I mean that sincerely, despite the vitriol, which is quite mild by internet standards.

  • tree January 18, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    Haytham,

    No matter what your reason, I, for one, am glad to see you back posting comments and hope you continue to do so. And, although eljay continues to be puzzled, I am not and totally understand and agree with your point. Sadly, eljay cannot see that he gave silent acceptance of GF's slur against you, without cause. It would a good thing if eljay could apologize for that but if he can't understand the point, and the undeserved hurt he caused, there will be no apology forthcoming, despite the fact that deserve to hear it from him. I hope you will continue to comment here on whatever topic you wish.
    Donald,

    On the broader issue, my two cents worth is that toning down the personal insults by all involved would no doubt be a good move, but I think that you have your examples all wrong, and your suggestions, although meant to be helpful, were more stifling and misleading than they were accurate. In a discussion specifically about "just war", it is highly appropriate and even handed to apply the same precepts to possible US action against Israel as to any other country. To not do so, or to imply that doing so is beyond the pale is simply to admit that "just war" theory is simply a crock of shit to justify prejudices and immoral actions. And to complain about posters spewing vitriol when Slater himself is incapable of arguing without personal and sometimes vicious attacks seems to show a similar hypocrisy or blindness.

    Although I appreciate their contributions and often agree with things said by both Donald and eljay here, my personal take is that they both are overly concerned with seeming reasonable (or being seen, as opposed to being, reasonable, which is most certainly not always the same thing. In a discourse such as I/P which has been skewed by lies for so long, in many cases what seems reasonable is in fact highly unreasonable, and what may at first seem unreasonable is simple justice, morality, or history.

    I am reminded that Donald, when he first started posting here, came to Richard's defense, no doubt because, on first glance, Richard seemed
    reasonable to him. I and others urged him to read Richard a bit more and predicted that he too would eventually recognize the glaring hypocrisy amid Richard's attempts at sounding "reasonable" and "liberal". I think eljay was caught in the same error with GF. The only way that I know to promote the morality that what IS reasonable is much more important to grasp than what simply SEEMS reasonable, is to allow an open discussion on these issues where "SEEMS" has been distorted by long term omission and lies.

  • tree January 18, 2012 at 3:09 pm

    Nazareth is a great city, no matter how hard you try to belittle it.

    Chiming in here, perhaps without enough facts, but talking about the ethnic cleansing and land expropriation is NOT belittling Nazareth. Its belittling the vaulted pseudo-democracy of Israel, and highly appropriate, IMHO.

    Mentioning the great knafeh in Nazareth in a discussion on land expropriation is equivalent to recommending the black-eyed peas during a discussion of pre-civil rights legislation Selma. That is belittling of the larger issue. Don't know why that's hard for you to understand, Newclench.

  • tree January 18, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    Neither the Western powers nor any other state intervened to save the German Jews or provide them refuge in any numbers.

    Talk about an ahistorical statement. Its estimated that around 500,000 German and Austrian Jews were able to find refuge from Germany in other countries prior to WWII. Only 40,000, less than one tenth of the number, received refuge in what was then Palestine.

    Your misstatement above illustrates perfectly why this topic is an important one and SHOULD be discussed. One of the Zionist myths that has not been sufficiently exposed is that only the Zionists tried to save European Jews and, by extension, only Israel provides the possibility of some possible future rescue. Not only did the Zionists not go out of their way to save Jews unless those Jews were considered "good human material" and useful to the pre-state, instituting a screening process for prospective Jewish "pioneers" to Palestine, but in fact, the majority of German Jews managed to leave Nazi Germany prior to WWII to go to other non-Jewish countries that took them in.

    If you are looking for a cite for the number of German Jews successfully fleeing Nazi Germany, I would refer you to Tom Segev's "The Seventh Million" or Yosef Grodzinsky's "In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Struggle Between Jews and Zionists in the Aftermath of WWII" . If you need a direct quote, I can provide it for you later when I have access to those two books.

• Just wars-- and civilian casualties
  • tree January 10, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    In a contest to determine the dumbest argument ever to appear on Mondoweiss–and the competition for the honor is fierce–this may be the winner.

    Since you are a contestant in the competition (and a strong contender I might add) you are ineligible (and probably unqualified as well) to make such a determination.

    I might suggest, though, that simply calling the majority of people who disagree with you "dumb" shows an extreme intellectual laziness on your part. Better to stick to rational argument instead of juvenile name calling if you want to be believed as a scholar.

  • tree January 10, 2012 at 12:27 am

    Phil,

    Begin opened his big mouth AFTER Deir Yassin, and other numerous massacres, had already occurred. (And then his "big mouth" was mainly for Western and Israeli consumption.) It wasn't the "big mouth" that was threatening, it was the murderous violence that was the threat to Palestinians, and that violence occurred nearly everywhere. And by the time of Deir Yassin, many Palestinians had already fled the Haganah, Palmach, and Irgun violence. To blame the flight of the Palestinians on one incident at Deir Yassin (and Begin's mouth), is, to use a recently overworked word here, simplistic. The ethnic cleansing was so much more than that one incident.

• Ron Paul's antiwar position is simpleminded
  • tree January 9, 2012 at 4:55 pm

    Slater just has to answer this question….Does he believe the US should have ‘militarily intervened’ to stop Israel in these cases of clear collective punishment and unproportional warfare?

    Good question and similar to one that another poster posed without a direct response from Slater. I doubt you will get an answer to that question from him.

    I do think that you are missing two important earlier examples. Should the US have militarily intervened in the 1948 War to prevent the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians, as well as scores of massacres of civilians? And should the US have militarily intervened in 1967 in response to Israel's attack on Egypt and Syria, their seizing of the West Bank and Gaza, and the ethnic cleansing of over 200.000 Palestinians? Both of those Israeli attacks equate to what was done in either Bosnia/Kosovo or Kuwait.

  • tree January 8, 2012 at 12:37 am

    Warning! You are about to enter another brain-free zone.

    I'll try this again, without the bad word. Slater, your comment I quoted above is "brain-free". You simply added support to the criticisms lodged about your argumentation style by resorting to insults about people's intelligence, which is exactly what American was pointing out. Nice way to conform the criticism, although I doubt that was your intent. You don't listen to those who disagree with you. You make assumptions and insult those who criticize your arguments. It's counterproductive, unless your point is merely to dodge criticism while stroking your own ego. It's certainly not the way to make an intelligent, persuasive argument.

• F. W. de Klerk on why apartheid will fail in Israel/Palestine
  • tree January 5, 2012 at 6:31 pm

    In fact, it SELLS its technology to flash manufacturers. It is not a flash manufacturer itself.

    According to the company site you linked to, Anobit is in the manufacturing business, not just technology solutions. According to a company news release;

    Anobit, a global leader in flash-based storage solutions, announced today that it has shipped more than 20 million of its MSP™-based high-performance embedded flash controllers for Smartphones, Tablet Computers and Personal Media Players in 2011.

    link to anobit.com

    I suppose I could reasonably call YOU a liar now, but I think it more likely that you just don't know how to read a company website.

• When will US State Dep't demand release of 70-year-old Palestinian intellectual in failing health?
  • tree December 28, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    Alan Gross, 62, diagnosed with cancer while he sits in Castro’s Cuban dungeon.

    You apparently can't read your own links. He hasn't been diagnosed with cancer. That's his mother and daughter that have been so diagnosed. He does have diabetes but the 100 lbs he lost in prison probably did more to improve his diabetic health than anything else. I can't tell enough about his case from the article to know whether he's deserves an amnesty or not, or what was different between his situation and someone else who got an amnesty. Simply being Jewish is not sufficient reason to get amnesty, nor is being American sufficient reason.

    And he isn't being held in a "dungeon". He's incarcerated a a military hospital according to the article.

    But, hey, "Look, over there!" is a tried and true hasbara strategy. Points for the attempt.

• Ron Paul and the left
  • tree January 1, 2012 at 4:40 am

    The burden of proof is not mine.....
    Actually, lt is since your original contention was that Blankfort's statements were "historically inaccurate ". Then you claimed you had already "explained why" they were inaccurate. Now you are admitting that you never intended to back up your inaccuracy claim. It would have been more honest to simply state that you disagreed with the analysis, rather than pretend to a knowledge of historical inaccuracy you cannot factually support.

  • tree December 31, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    Woody,

    I understand that is your position. I disagree with that position and explained why.

    Actually, you haven't explained why, yet. You have simply asserted that there was no causal relationship between the writings, speech and actions of the early Zionists and Nazi anti-semitism. I understand your position, but other than "because I said so", you haven't come up with any reasoning for your position.

    Blankfort, Hostage, Miller and I are not simply talking about Zionism in the late 1930's. Since the late 1800's Zionist thinkers and founders were insisting that Jews were parasitic in Europe, were a defective culture there and needed to apply eugenics to reform the "Jewish race" in their own country, away from Europe. To insist that these ideas had no purchase with the anti-semitism that grew in Germany with the rise of Naziism is counter intuitive. If the early Zionists had all been non-Jews and made these same statements, would you have likewise insisted that there was no causal relationship between their decades long history of disparaging European Jews and insisting Jews were foreigners to Europe who did not belong there, and the rise of anti-semitism in German? I think not, but I await your answer, as I respect your opinions here, though I sometimes disagree with them. So far, though, on this subject you haven't made any arguments, simply assertions, which is, from my perspective, not like you.

  • tree December 31, 2011 at 12:27 am

    WJ,

    Sounds like slander to me, but you must have a source. What is it, pray tell?

    If the sources that Hostage provided for you are not sufficient, or you question the accuracy of Etan Bloom's doctoral thesis at Tel Aviv University, there are additional sources from Haaretz articles published in 2004 and 2009 describing the historical studies done by Ben Gurion University doctoral student, Sachar Stoler-Liss and Israeli historian Rakefet Zalashik on Zionist eugenics in early Mandate period Palestine.

    (Note: I can not and will not vouch for the type or tenor of the linked sites, but merely link to them because they have reprinted the original Haaretz articles, and Haaretz these days seems bent on making it nearly impossible to locate their archived articles directly.)

    "Do Not have Children if They Won't Be Healthy" Tamara Taubman, Haaretz, 2004

    link to tbrnews.org

    "Eugenics in Israel: Did Jews Try to Improve the Human Race Too?" Yotam Feldman, 2009

    link to redicecreations.com

    From the first link:

    Judaism of muscle

    Dr. Meir was not the first Zionist leader who supported eugenics. According to studies by Dr. Rapahel Falk, a geneticist and historian of science and medicine at Hebrew University, other major Zionist thinkers - among them Dr. Max Nordau, Theodor Herzl's colleague, a doctor and a publicist, and Dr. Arthur Ruppin, the head of the World Zionist Organization office in the Land of Israel presented the ideas of eugenics as one of the aims of the Jewish movement for national renewal and the settlement of the land.

    Prof. Meira Weiss, an anthropologist of medicine at Hebrew University, describes in her book "The Chosen Body" how the settlement of the land and work on the land were perceived by these Zionist thinkers as the "cure" that would restore the health of the Jewish body that had degenerated in the Diaspora. In Nordau's terms, a "Judaism of muscle" would replace "the Jew of the coffee house: the pale, skinny, Diaspora Jew. "At a time when many Europeans are calling for a policy of eugenics, the Jews have never taken part in the `cleansing' of their race but rather allowed every child, be it the sickest, to grow up and marry and have children like himself. Even the mentally retarded, the blind and the deaf were allowed to marry," wrote Ruppin in his book "The Sociology of the Jews." "In order to preserve the purity of our race, such Jews must refrain from having children."

    Nordau coined the term "muscular Judaism" in 1898. Ruppin wrote "The Sociology of Jews" in 1930, after decades of teaching in Germany and Palestine, and after decades as the head of the Palestine Office of the WZO, where he implemented his sociological and eugenic ideas.

    And here is another link to an article by Dalia Karpel on Israeli Dr. Raphael Falk, professor emeritus of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who wrote
    "Zionism and the Biology of the Jews" in 2006.

    link to bechollashon.org

    "The Zionist movement also emphasized the need to preserve the essence of the Jewish people, and in that period, this took on a biological meaning," Falk explains. "The Jews were persecuted because of their religion, their appearance and their sociology. On the one hand, they won emancipation in the 19th century and were no longer supposed to be persecuted because of their religion or occupation, but it was still convenient to say that they were different even though they didn't look different. So it was said that they were different in their biology. Hatred of Jews thus became biological. The term 'anti-Semitic' was also coined at about the same time, around 1870, and was invented by German journalist Wilhelm Mahr, who claimed that the Jews were of a different and peculiar race, the Semitic race, and that this was imprinted on their biology.

    "The German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder spoke of the idea of the Volk, the 'folk-nation' that viewed a people as an organic unit. And not just in the cultural sense. In time, this also came to include race. From this movement of the concept of the Volk, you get Zionism developing on the one hand, and German nationalism, which later evolved into Nazism, on the other hand. This is an uncomfortable fact, but a fact nonetheless."

    Falk maintains in his book that many of the prominent Zionists of the 1920s and '30s saw their movement as having a eugenic aspect that was directed at saving the Jews' "biological reservoir," or gene pool, from the degeneration that resulted from life in exile, and he cites numerous examples. Moses Hess, who was one of the first to call for Jewish national renewal in Palestine, referred to the Jews as a race in his 1862 book "Rome and Jerusalem." Falk says that Zionism adopted the Volkist outlook of a racially defined nation shaped by blood and soil - a concept that included the idea of the establishment of a people's nationality in its own country. He quotes intellectuals and philosophers who considered their Judaism a race. Albert Einstein, for example, said in 1920: "It may be thanks to anti-Semitism that we are able to preserve our existence as a race." And Haim Nahman Bialik proclaimed at a 1934 press conference at the Hebrew University: "I, too, like Hitler, believe in the power of the blood idea."

    Blood and soil

    According to Falk, the question of the biological essence of Jewish existence was part and parcel of the realization of the Zionist idea from the beginning. Dr. Arthur Ruppin, head of the Palestine Office of the World Zionist Organization, which purchased lands and established various kinds of settlements, presented the eugenic idea as one of the goals of Zionism. He was convinced that the Jews possessed a biological uniqueness and that settling them in Palestine was vital in order to preserve this. Ruppin wrote in 1923: "Were it not for the Jews' racial affinity with the peoples of the Near East, it would not be possible to justify Zionism."

    Falk: "I don't think that these people thought in terms of biology the way we do today. They weren't biologists. When Herzl spoke openly about race he didn't quite understand what he was talking about. Max Nordau, who was a doctor, used the term race, as did figures like Jabotinsky, who was a journalist and a writer, and by the early 20th century was speaking openly about a biological race. Religious Jews saw themselves as a biological entity, as the descendants of the patriarch Abraham, but also accepted converts into their midst. But from the late 19th century on, the Zionists defined Jews in a biological sense with no connection necessarily to religion or culture. This was for the sake of uniting the Jews and saying: Look, we're a race that is also a nation, and like any other nation and race, we deserve our own piece of land. In his writings, Martin Buber, who was liberal and enlightened, defined a nation by means of what the Germans called Blut und Boden (blood and soil). The Zionists also had a concept of 'blood and soil.' Not in the way it developed with the Nazis, but Zionism was certainly a national movement that took people's biology into account."

    Dr. Max Nordau, Herzl's associate and a physician and publicist, also adopted the eugenic theories. Nordau contended that for the Jews, life in exile as a separate ethnic group had led them to a state of degeneration in body and soul. He recommended that Jews live in nature and pursue a more physical culture - that Judaism build up some muscles. "He thought that the biology of the Jews needed to be changed via eugenics. That is, to improve the Jewish race by means of selection as is done with plants and animals to ward off degeneration," says Falk.

    So that's 4 sources from published Israeli academics about the centrality of eugenics in the thoughts and plans of early Zionist founders and thinkers. I would hope that would be enough for you to retract your allegation of "slander".

  • tree December 30, 2011 at 2:17 pm

    . Frankly, I would not have said them due to their gross historical inaccuracies.

    And what to you consider historically inaccurate about what Blankfort said? From my readings of the early Zionists, Blankfort's statement seems spot on to me. The early Zionists disparaged European Jewry, issued numerous anti-semitic tropes, and urged a eugenic effort to cleanse the "race", as it was referred to in the late 1800's, early 1900's, all well in advance of Hitler.

    If a small Palestinian movement had insisted that Palestinians didn't belong in Palestine, were a defective culture in Palestine, and needed to move to their "native" Crete, say for example, to transform their culture and "race"into a positive one, it would be historically accurate to mention that such a movement would have been extremely counter=productive to the desires and hopes of Palestinians in their own lands, and would have given support and emotional sustenance to racist Jewish desires in Palestine. That's a hypothetical, but it exactly mirrors what the Zionists did in Europe, and the actions and words of the early Zionists should be acknowledged and condemned for their small part in promoting anti-semitism in Europe. It by no means excuses the much larger part played by others, but censoring any discussion of Zionist actions that don't fit the accepted stereotype that the Zionists were concerned about the welfare of all European Jews is simply wrong and leads to a total misunderstanding of what the early Zionists were all about.

    It isn't just a case of Zionist intentions versus execution, as Donald mentions, but of a toxic intention towards both Palestinians AND the majority of European Jews.

• Netanyahu gets to play Superman in case of 7-year-old harassed by orthodox Jews
  • tree December 28, 2011 at 2:34 am

    Did I step on your toes with something ,unintentionally, that you are getting so pissed off??

    I'm not pissed off, but I am negatively impressed by your pomposity and your bigotry. And you still seem to be unaware of it. How sad.

    I am writing about certain cultural phenomena that is happening whether you like/see it or not. The fact that you don’t see it or deny existence of it does not change anything about it.

    Despite your ignorant insistence otherwise, I get what you are clumsily pointing at, as I would venture to guess that others here understand also, and I've commented on the phenomenon myself in other threads. But I haven't been so blind and bigoted and full of myself enough to ascribe it to ALL Western men at ALL times because that is just ignorant stereotyping. This may come as a great shock to you, but the fact that you don't recognize the fallacies in your thinking does not make you somehow wiser than everyone else; it simply makes you more prone to engaging in negative stereotyping, which is what you did in your comments above.

    Being brainwashed be MSM is not an excuse of not seeing certain trends and manipulations. You obviously are blind to it by political correcteness that is part of the problem.

    And here again you are making assumptions about other people that you don't know on the flimsiest of evidence. You have assumed because I disagree with your broad and negative over-generalization about men, that you know exactly what I think and who has "brainwashed" me. You aren't any good at mind reading, so please, give it up. Sadly, you are a small thinker who for some reason thinks she needs to belittle others to prove her own assumed superiority. Try not assuming that you either know everything or know what others think just because they disagree with your bigoted statements.

  • tree December 27, 2011 at 6:49 pm

    Of course you aren't proving your progressivism. You're proving your own bigotry. That's my point. You are making overblown bigoted generalizations about all American/western men from your perfect little observation point overlooking the whole of the Western World and then have the audacity/stupidity to claim that other people are ignorant if they don't agree with your "wisdom". You really need to get over yourself. You haven't even begun to see the "reality" of EVERY American/Western male and you are delusional if you think you have. (And if you really think you have, then maybe you should start applying the terms of "slut" "whore" "bimbo" and "cow" -that you seem so fond of throwing about here - to yourself.)

    I've heard the same kind of overgeneralized shit said about Arab men , or black men. or third world men, etc. It's wrong in those cases, and its wrong here. It doesn't get any prettier just because you are tarring men in the so called first world. And it certainly ain't smart.

  • tree December 27, 2011 at 4:50 pm with 7 replies

    American/western men, for a change, are totally deprived of their masculinity by being exposed, all the time, to sex and sexual images that are bombarding them from all over. They became like little, male version of bimbos, who think that their lives should evolve around getting laid, and pumping their big muscles in the gym in hopes of attracting pretty, young females.

    There's nothing like making an overblown generalization about an entire gender to prove how progressive you are, right?

    And I should note that I am female, but the bigoted generalization about men caught my eye as well.

• Israeli army policy of calling West Bank 'Judea and Samaria' ups the likelihood of religious conflict
  • tree December 26, 2011 at 11:06 pm

    It should also be noted that the terms used denoted just a part of the proposed Arab State, not the totality of it, just as the Eastern Galilee denoted a part of the proposed Jewish State. Calling the totality of the West Bank Judea and Samaria makes as much sense as calling Israel Eastern Galilee, something I'm sure you would find objectionable, benedict. That's one of the problems with Zionists. Most of them seem to have little to no capacity to reverse the roles and understand that what they do or justify is in fact unjustifiable.

• Right-wing attack group caught fabricating quotes in effort to smear critics of Israel
  • tree December 25, 2011 at 2:51 am

    The group claimed that Lappen had attended the conference, but in an e-mail to me, she said that she obtained the quote from a "reliable source" who was there.

    So, in other words, Lappen wrote a critique of the 2005 conference a few days after it was held, implying that she was in attendance at the conference, but she now admits she was not there and simply scribbled down the dreck that some one else told her, without attribution I think you've caught Lappen just as much as you have caught Stand with Us.

    link to archive.frontpagemag.com

  • tree December 25, 2011 at 2:44 am

    According to Sabeel's website, our own Adam Horowitz, as well as Marc Ellis, Yigal Bronner, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, among others, were speakers at the 2005 Conference along with Abunimah.

    link to fosna.org

    link to fosna.org

  • tree December 24, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    More on Lappen from Paul de Rooij in 2005:

    And another dubious operator

    A book review is a critical assessment of a book and a means of highlighting its importance to a wider audience. However, there is another type of book "reviewer" who uses the medium to denigrate books they don’t agree with, or to praise books they agree with; book reviews become a means to propagate their ideological stance. The Amazon book review sections have given rise to a breed of reviewers who use this resource for ideological ends. Alyssa A. Lappen, another FrontPage and Campus-Watch "journalist", is a prolific Amazon book "reviewer". Her reviews tend to have the following defining characteristics: if the book is favorable to Israel it is generally issued glowing remarks, if the book is critical of Israeli policies it is denigrated, and books that present the Palestinian narrative are similarly savaged. Books like Joan Peter’s From Time Immemorial are issued such glowing praise as "This monumental and fascinating book." Note that Prof. Norman G. Finkelstein and Prof. Yehoshua Porath have demonstrated that this book is a "threadbare hoax", a product of the shoddiest "scholarship", and a book written for propaganda purposes [11]. Lappen issued glowing reviews of dubious texts published by Encounter Books, an enterprise run by Peter Collier, Horowitz’s longtime buddy [12]. Lappen’s activities undermine what could be a valuable resource of bona fide book reviews; instead her propaganda imperatives transforms the book review section to just another ideologically debased space. Amazon may well want to implement a more stringent policy to avoid dragging its website further into the mud.

    In her FrontPage articles, Lappen often demonstrates a similar lack of intellectual integrity to that found in her book "reviews". Some of her articles deal with the professors of Middle East Studies at Columbia Univ. (MEALAC), a current Zionist pet hate. Another favored target for smearing is the ISM, the non-violent volunteer group opposing the Israeli occupation. To smear the ISM she quotes Walid Shoebat, a dubious "Zionist Palestinian" who broadcasts from a settler radio station and wears a kippa [13]. To score cheap propaganda points, Zionist organizations have put Shoebat on tour around the US, and Lappen quotes him extensively. Her technique amounts to the journalistic equivalent of quoting the village idiot. Shoebat often talks about the hateful nature of "jihad theology", and Lappen uses this to smear the ISM and its founders:

    "Not surprisingly, Beit Sahour is also home to Ghasson [sic] Andoni and George Rishmawi, are the co-founders of the Rapprochement Center. They also co-founded the International Solidarity Movement with Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro. Both organizations appear to be driven by the malevolent jihad ideology that Walid Shoebat describes."

    Now, even a group advocating non-violent resistance and dialog with the Israelis is smeared with Lappen’s favorite term of abuse. Never mind that most of the leading Palestinian activists of the ISM are Christians and that roughly a third of the overall ISM membership is Jewish (including one of the co-founders, Adam Shapiro) — they still deserve Lappen’s "jihadist" scurrilous smear. It is too much for Zionists to acknowledge that there are sensible and courageous Palestinians seeking to defend their rights using non-violent means. Lappen and her FrontPage ilk smear Palestinians in the ISM and all other Palestinians with wide brushstrokes, and in the process demonize and dehumanize all Palestinians.

    link to counterpunch.org

  • tree December 24, 2011 at 6:41 pm with 2 replies

    The name Alyssa Lappen is familiar to me from several years ago reading Amazon reviews. Any book critical of Israel got a bad review from her, along with a polemic. In the same vein, anything promoting Islamophobia, Israel or Zionism got a top rating.

    She's a Fellow at the American Center for Democracy:

    The Manhattan-based American Center for Democracy (ACD) says on its website that it "monitors and exposes the enemies of freedom and their modus operandi, and explores pragmatic ways to counteract their methods." Its objective, says ACD, is to "supplement government efforts to defend democratic institutions from the global threat of radical Islam and terrorism." The ACD was founded in 2003 by Rachel Ehrenfeld and includes the Center for the Study of Corruption and the Rule of Law (CSC), which Ehrenfeld founded in 2001. Ehrenfeld is a controversial writer associated with a number of neoconservative outfits like the American Enterprise Institute. Her work, which often focuses on terrorism financing, has been criticized for having an overt bias toward U.S. and Israeli interests and for being sensationalist (see, for example, Michael Massing Replies to Rachel Ehrenfeld, "Evil Money," New York Review of Books, March 4, 1993).

    more at link

    link to rightweb.irc-online.org

• BDS victory: Veolia loses huge waste-treatment contract in London boroughs
  • tree December 27, 2011 at 5:17 pm with 1 replies

    So “a letter to the WLWA – signed by nearly 600 local residents” represents, like nearly 1/2 of 1/10th of one per cent! Amazing support.

    The importance of the petition was not the number of signatures, but the information contained in the petition "documenting Veolia's direct complicity in grave breaches of international and humanitarian law in Jerusalem and the West Bank." Harry Law's explanations above might help you out if you don't understand the laws involved, which caused the WLWA to exclude Veolia from the contract. Law and human rights don't require any set number of "signatures".

• Two critiques of Norman Finkelstein
  • tree December 24, 2011 at 6:19 pm

    Are you being intentionally thick? Yes. As I wrote above. This isn’t that hard buddy. I think you are suffering from rubbed off ignorance and ill-will from some of the small-tent yahoos here.

    Newclench, I did not insult you and I don't think it was necessary for you to engage in insults. For someone who espouses a "big tent" you can be incredibly nasty towards those who disagree with or question you. You might want to reconsider whether calling people "ignorant, ill-willed yahoos" is an effective strategy if you really want a big tent. Frankly I get the impression that you don't really believe in a "big tent" but merely a tent that accommodates your viewpoint and belittles those that disagree with you. That's not a big tent, it's merely another small tent centered around you. If you want to be perceived as a big tent advocate, you might try acting like one.

    Despite what you may think, your answers were anything but unequivocal in support of equality and justice. You used the term "self determination". Witty and others use the same "self-determination" term to mean that Jews get to rule and discriminate in Israel and Palestinians get limited rule and rights in whatever scrap of territory Israel may eventual allow them. It is not a synonym for equality. So your use of that term, rather than equality, did not make clear your stand as opposed to Witty's. And your stated support for a state with a Palestinian majority does not indicate whether you believe in equality either. They are clearly not the same thing, as I pointed out by mentioning Apartheid South Africa. Likewise with your reference to legal challenges to allow Israelis to be listed as such in identity documents. It does not specifically address whether you believe that Israel should change to become a state of all of its citizens, or change to give citizenship to all those indigenous people who are subject to its laws.

    Talk about not taking ‘yes’ for an answer…. is this how you treat all supporters of equality? It’s like a process designed to eliminate any but the most patient and forgiving, as opposed to one built for recruitment.

    I asked you to clarify your position so that I could understand whether you do in fact support equality or not. Your hostility is coming from somewhere else. Otherwise, why would someone who truly believes in equality be upset when someone asks for clarification? Are you trying to say that you might not believe in equality unless you are treated with kid gloves and unquestioning and gushing admiration? Because that's what your lashing out here seems to imply, and it only serves to obscure your position. You might want to rethink how you communicate here, because it is counterproductive to your espoused belief in a big tent.

    That said, thanks for the clarification.

    And, BTW, I'm not a "buddy". I'm female.

  • tree December 24, 2011 at 12:24 am

    Yes. I’m a huge fan of an Israeli state that allows citizens to be ‘Israeli’ as opposed to ‘Jew’. (There were some interesting court cases around this over the years.)

    I'm aware of them, but it seems like you are still skirting around the issue of equality, rather than addressing it. Perhaps I should simply ask you this question again, as I still don't know your answer to it, despite your two responses so far.

    "So, do you support Israel being a state that treats all its citizens or subjects as equal partners without favor for Jews over Christians, Muslims and others?"

    Yes, or no?

  • tree December 23, 2011 at 4:29 pm

    So, do you support Israel being a state that treats all its citizens as equal partners without favor for Jews over Christians, Muslims and others? In other words, as an Israeli state rather than a Jewish one? You haven't made that clear.

    Because your support for "self-determination" for all parties doesn't really mean anything unless you are willing to define "self-determination" inclusively, with the "self" meaning all people who live within the state, or the area controlled by the state, rather than as "you people (of the "wrong" ethnicity) get to have full rights OVER THERE, and not here" - the "liberal" Zionist view, as per Witty . It seems to me that you haven't really "accepted" the challenge, but rather have sought to elide it with "self-determination" which is not necessarily the same thing.

  • tree December 23, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    That makes me a champion of a state that has a Palestinian majority.

    Which morally has absolutely no meaning. Apartheid South Africa had a black majority and being its "champion" meant nothing towards ending its racism and discrimination.

    The moral position is to favor a state that treats all its citizens with equality and justice, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Israel is not that state, even within the green line, and most certainly it is not just or equal in its treatment of those under its control in the occupied territories.

• The Ron Paul moment-- bad and good
  • tree December 26, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    N49:

    I don't think you understood Mosler's point. He is not advocating the government simply "printing money" to solve the economic downturn. (The term itself is quite hopelessly out of date-"printing" is not necessary to increase the money supply, nor is it done for that purpose in this day and age.) He of course recognizes that under the wrong circumstances an increase in money relative to goods produced can lead to inflation, and if wildly unchecked, to hyperinflation, but it does not, and can not, lead to bankruptcy by a government that produces and controls its own currency. His point is that the federal government does not need to tax first in order to spend and that insisting on a "balanced budget" or even worse, a surplus, when in a period of recession is in fact grossly counterproductive to improving the economy.

    Many would argue that printing money was the prime cause of Hitler’s rise to power. Just sayin’…

    And they would be wrong. The hyperinflation in Weimar Germany, which lasted only from mid 1922 to the end of 1923, was caused in part by the heavy reparations required of Germany post WWI, and German resistance to paying them. The revaluation that resulted from the introduction of the rentenmark, which put an end to the hyperinflation, likewise caused considerable economic hardship in Germany and led to numerous corporate bankruptcies. The combination of those two elements- the loss of WWI, and the economic hardships throughout the hyperinflation period and the revaluation, and the global depression, along with the loss of its overseas colonies, were most likely the main forces behind Hitler's rise. Germany, by being denied its access to foreign colonies as the result of WWI, chose to expand markets by creating "colonies" within Europe instead. The treatment of other Europeans by Germans during WWII was totally in line with the then current European treatment of third world peoples (all highly deplorable). Of course, Europeans weren't accustomed to being treated the way they treated third world countries and peoples and thus WWII.

  • tree December 26, 2011 at 5:16 am

    Look at Greece now — they should not have to cut bedgets or increase taxes or clamp down on public sector pension plans? No, they should just print drachmas!

    Greece's money is no longer the drachma. It is the Euro, a currency that is not controlled by Greece but by by the larger international eurozone. Molser clearly differentiates between a government which has control of its own currency and one which does not. This lack of control is in fact part of Greece's problem, and it has been suggested that defaulting, leaving the Euro monetary system, and returning to a totally Greek controlled drachma would be a possible solution to the problem.
    See here:

    link to nytimes.com

    I've just started reading the Mosler piece, and I don't find anything that Mosler has said so far (in the link from MRW) "lunatic fringe" or "faulty
    thinking". I was an economics major in college decades ago, and I grant you its all a bit rusty, but so far he's making complete sense to me.

• Republicans want Jerusalem? Herzl promised pope, kaiser and sultan to leave it outside Jewish state
  • tree December 21, 2011 at 5:28 am

    Did they allow Jews to visit the Western Wall? No.

    I can't even recall how many times I've had to debunk this. My great aunt (Jewish) visited East Jerusalem and the Western Wall in the early 60's (prior to '67) Jordanian did not restrict Jews, it restricted Israelis, whether Jewish or Christian or Muslim. Israeli Muslims were not allowed to visit the Al Aqsa Mosque or the Haram al Sharif, Israeli Christians could not visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Israeli Jews could not visit the Western Wall. The restriction was not based on religion, it was based on Israeli nationality and had to do with the antagonisms beteen Israel and Jordan at that time. Israel put the same restrictions on Jordanians (many of them refugees denied a return to their homes in Israel) preventing them from entering Israel. But the hasbarist ignores the restrictions Israel created against the Palestinians it exiled and tries to imply that there was only a restriction on Jews when that is clearly not the case.

• Israeli university bids (w/ Cornell and $350 million) to set up on Roosevelt Island in NY
  • tree December 19, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    All three of those recipients were honored for contributions made while studying/working in US Universities and/or Research facilities.

• Liberal Zionists (at last) say non-Jews have a right to criticize Israel
  • tree December 19, 2011 at 12:23 am

    Oh, thank you, Massa!

    It's "mighty white" of them.

• Give it up to Hitchens!
  • tree December 16, 2011 at 5:00 pm with 2 replies

    This was pretty strong stuff for 1988.

    Which is sad in itself, since Erskine Childers, a former BBC correspondent, had clearly debunked that myth of the radio broadcasts back in 1961, 17 years before Hitchens' piece.

• Ron Paul's stunning antiwar performance: Iran threat recalls Iraq, 'a useless war that killed 1 million Iraqis' and 8000 Americans
  • tree December 16, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    where does Phil mention the environment in his post? I did and Woody does. Not Phil. Pay attention, please.

    From Phil's post:

    No I can't stand his position on global warming, that could be a dealbreaker for me.

    Just sayin'.

• Friedman line, 'Congress is bought and paid for by Israel lobby,' is shot heard round the world
  • tree December 17, 2011 at 5:37 am

    You obviously can't take your own advice, nor do you understand what others are saying to you, Richard. Not surprising, but it would behoove you to actually try to listen to and comprehend what other people are saying rather than simply using someone's comment as a springboard to more mangling of the English language made to make you feel like you have something profound to say, when its all merely platitudinous word salad.

  • tree December 16, 2011 at 2:06 am with 2 replies

    Then try this, Richard:

    "I appreciate that Weiss speaks his own mind, and should be consistently respected for that, even when I disagree with his assertions, implications or imagined assumptions."

    It might help you refrain from being so condemnatory towards Phil.

    Or not... We all have noticed how difficult it is for you to take your own advice.

• JNF board member resigns over eviction of Palestinian family in Silwan
  • tree December 14, 2011 at 4:39 am

    In my eyes, the expulsion of the Sumarin family is a violation of human rights. But it is also part of the systematic transfer of Palestinian property to ideological settlers who wish to put facts on the ground that hinder a lasting peace agreement.

    This statement of Morrison's seems like odd phrasing coming from someone truly concerned about violations of human rights. It's as if one said, "Stabbing a man would be murder. But it would also mess up the carpet." It sounds like he's more concerned with "the carpet"(Israeli right wingers getting an advantage from the expulsion) than he is with human rights violation of the expulsion itself.

• 'One of the most disturbing days I have ever experienced': An eyewitness account of the Israeli attack on Mustafa Tamimi's funeral
  • tree December 13, 2011 at 9:09 pm with 2 replies

    Alternate translation from pudzionist666:

    I'm too stupid to know that "Allah" is the same God that Jews and Christians worship.

• David Remnick erases Norman Finkelstein
  • tree December 14, 2011 at 4:07 am

    Does 'bombastic" have an alternate meaning these days, because I've always considered the term quite negative and can't imagine anyone using it in a positive way?

• What are they smoking? Wiesenthal Center lumps Abbas appearance at U.N. with 'neo-Nazis and crackpots'
  • tree December 13, 2011 at 2:31 pm

    “I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ..."

    "Divine messages" is a reference to G-d and Moses, and to Abraham. The Wiesenthal Center either doesn't know Moses and Abraham, or doesn't let the facts get in the way of their own slur. I'm betting the latter.

• What would happen to Palestinians who attacked an Israeli military base in occupied territory?
  • tree December 13, 2011 at 6:25 pm

    Of course the difference is citizenship.

    Nope. Not according to the IDF Spokesman, and he should know.

    When military reporter Carmela Menashe asked the IDF Spokesman, Brigadier Yoav Mordechai, this morning how would the brigade commander react of he was stoned by a Palestinian, Mordechai answered (Hebrew recording, circa 12:00) that “I assume, Carmela, that you wouldn’t expect the brigade commander to open fire at a Jew standing in front of him, I am certain you didn’t mean that.”

    Her didn't say Israeli (which would be citizenship). He said Jew, which is apartheid enforcement.

    link to 972mag.com

  • tree December 13, 2011 at 2:17 pm with 1 replies

    I think that its a good thing that Netanyahu declared that lawlessness will not be tolerated.

    But it was tolerated. Fifty people attacked a military base and NO ARRESTS were made. How does that happen except by turning a blind eye? We all know that the IDF is perfectly capable of arresting people, if they are Palestinian, or Israeli activists.

    And this:

    In the attack on the Efraim Regional Brigade's base near the West Bank city of Qalqilya, right-wing activists threw stones at region's brigade commander and his deputy after forcefully opening the door to their jeep. The brigade commander was lightly wounded after a stone hit his head.

    The right wing settlers were right there, up close and personal and able to pry open the Jeep door. And yet no arrests were made, no shots fired, even though the commanders life was in serious danger at that point, as opposed to the lack of danger to the armed soldier in the armored jeep that killed Tamimi. This was, in fact, a tolerated act on the settlers' part.

  • tree December 13, 2011 at 2:04 pm

    I accept the comparison. Israel regularly behaves the way the US did when it put Japanese-Americans in camps for the crime of their ethnicity.

    And the US apologized for the internment and offered compensation. Its time that Israel woke up and did the same thing.

  • tree December 13, 2011 at 1:53 pm

    American police just shot an American non violent OWS protestor in the head with a tear gas cannister.

    And he was white.

  • tree December 13, 2011 at 1:49 pm

    Are we at war with Jews?

    The right wing settlers that attacked and vandalized the military base and injured the soldier seemed to think so. And act so. Zimbabweans didn't attack a military base. Jews did. And didn't even get arrested for doing so. Is it acceptable to attack an Israeli military base just because you are Jewish? Do you honestly believe that Palestinian citizens of Israel could have done the same with no consequences?

• Israeli army excuses on death of Mustafa Tamimi don't hold up
  • tree December 13, 2011 at 4:50 am

    Meanwhile an attack on an army base in the West Bank by violent protesters, who threw stones, burned tires, vandalized military vehicles and wounded a soldier, and the IDF manages not only to keep from killing or wounding any of the protesters, it doesn't even bother to arrest any of them. How is this possible? (Hint: The protesters were Jews.)

    Dozens of Rightists Break in to IDF Base in West Bank, Wound Officer

• Gingrich has opened an important door
  • tree December 12, 2011 at 3:39 pm with 1 replies

    it is by no means a given that there was zero population growth of Jews in Palestine including through immigration from 1920-1922.

    I can't vouch for any particular figures one way or the other but it is entirely possible that there was zero Jewish population growth between 1920-1922, as Zionist historical sources point out that the community was in financial straits during that time, and there were considerable numbers of Jews LEAVING Palestine during that era, that MAY have offset births and/or immigration.

  • tree December 12, 2011 at 3:35 pm

    But, what are Metawallis?

    Shi'a Muslims living in Northern Palestine, near Lebanon.

    Metawali refers to the Shia Muslim community with a significant presence in North Lebanon (Kesrawan and Batroun) and in the south, in the Beqaa and the coastal towns south of Beirut.[3]

    The jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire was merely nominal in the Lebanon. Baalbek in the 18th century was really under the control of the Metawali.

    Seven Metawali villages that were included within the boundaries of the British Mandate of Palestine were depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and repopulated with Jews.[4] The seven villages are Qadas, Nabi Yusha, al-Malikiyya, Hunin, Tarbikha, Abil al-Qamh, and Saliha.[5]

    link to en.wikipedia.org

• The never-ending double standard
  • tree December 13, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    And of course, Zionists totally forgot the original Israeli attacks that led to Palestinian refugees being in Gaza in the first place. No Israeli attacks count. Just Palestinian responses, which they claim are unprovoked, having forgotten or failed to notice the violent Israeli attacks in the first place.

  • tree December 13, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    How do you explain then the attacks from Gaza to Israel between 1948 and 1967 when Israel did not control one square millimeter of Gaza?

    Selective amnesia on your part. It happens a lot with Zionists. They forget attacks made by Israel and remember only attacks against it. It allows them to cling to their fantasy of innocence and victimhood. You seem to have forgotten numerous attacks and invasions of Gaza by Israeli troops during the '50s, including this in 1956:

    Sacco’s images depicting the massacres are haunting. Males older than 15 were herded along a road, beaten, pushed against walls, terrorised with over-the-head gunfire, and then forced through a school entrance where soldiers with large wooden clubs beat them; those who passed had to jump over rolls of barbed wire. Thereafter they were singled out if they were wearing uniforms, if they were betrayed by collaborators, or merely stood out because of their appearance. In Rafah, some of the “wanted” men were taken to a side road and shot or beaten to death; others were loaded on buses and taken to prison in Israel. Sacco’s images are a slightly blurred rendition of history, like the survivors’ memories.

    Contemporary reportage usually describes what has happened and then automatically adds an Israeli justification provided by military public relations officers. These include “the men were killed because they were ‘wanted men’”; “the house was demolished because there were militants there”; “the wall is being built for security”; “Gaza was attacked in 2009 to stop the rocket attacks”. Much of the Israeli rationale simply suggests that there was a justification, and so the killing of civilians is deemed “understandable” and, the spokesman will add, the collateral damage – the civilians killed – is regrettable, and unintentional. This is seldom challenged.

    Sacco has included Moshe Dayan’s rationale for the 1956 assault on Gaza in his book; absurd when juxtaposed with the victims’ accounts. Sacco provides another Israeli rationale for the massacres: that Israelis purportedly rounded up the Palestinians to root out the fedayeen who were raiding Israel. Sacco quotes Mordechai Bar-On, Moshe Dayan’s right-hand man, to provide this justification. But in the events of 1948 there is a more plausible rationale. Yosef Nahmani, an Israeli witness to the massacre in Safat on 6 November 1948, described how it was conducted, and this is reminiscent of Rafah 1956 (2). In both cases, men were herded down the streets into a corridor where they were beaten with clubs and shot; the 1948 massacre did not require a pretext. Both episodes were to drive people off the land.

    link to mondediplo.com

    Israel seized both the Sinai and Gaza during the 1956 Suez War, which was plotted by Israel in conspiracy with Britain and France. Only the US insistence on forcing all three countries to return the land they illegally obtained by war caused Israel to eventually relinquish Gaza and the Sinai.

• Nabi Saleh not allowed to bury their beloved son in peace
  • tree December 13, 2011 at 4:37 am with 2 replies

    Compare and contrast what happened to Tamimi and what went down yesterday at an army post in the West Bank. Violent protesters broke into an IDF military base, threw stones, burned tires, vandalized military vehicles, and injured a soldier there. No arrests were made and none of the protesters/rock throwers were killed or injured by the IDF. What explains the different outcome? The violent protesters were right-wing Jews. This proves that the IDF knows perfectly well how to restrain its violent impulses when protests are held by Jews, including protests that are several orders of magnitude more violent than the Palestinian protest in they own village. Jews can even infiltrate an army base and still there there wasn't even a single arrest.

    Some 50 settlers and right-wing activists entered a key West Bank military base early Tuesday morning and threw rocks, burned tires, and vandalized military vehicles.

    The settlers were acting in response to a rumor that the IDF would act to evict a West Bank settlement in accordance with an August Supreme Court ruling.In the attack on the Efraim Regional Brigade's base near the West Bank city of Qalqilya, right-wing activists threw stones at region's brigade commander and his deputy after forcefully opening the door to their jeep. The brigade commander was lightly wounded after a stone hit his head.

    In addition to the attack on the IDF base, right-wing activists blocked a main West Bank road and threw stones at passing Palestinian vehicles and IDF soldiers in the area.

    Around 100 right-wing activists and settlers came to the area of the base before 50 of them enetered the base, according to the IDF spokesman.

    The youths were repelled by security forces. No arrests were made.

    link to haaretz.com

  • tree December 11, 2011 at 10:43 pm

    Let's get this typical bit of Zionist response crap out of the way immediately:

    "What were those protesters thinking? Don't they know that the IDF has a history of violently interfering with Palestinian funerals? This is just asking for trouble. What a stupid and unproductive move on the part of Palestinian resistance! And taking pictures? More provocation. (Of course, if there were no pictures, the Zios would insist this was all made up to make the most moral IDF look bad.) Better they should have all stayed home (assuming they still have homes that haven't been demolished yet).

    We now return you to your regular broadcast.

• 'Huffpo' gives Ginsberg platform to push for illegal covert war against Iran
  • tree December 12, 2011 at 12:15 am

    Yes there is. I don’t like it. That is sufficient reason.

    Only if you are the ultimate arbiter of acceptable English. I hate to break this to you, but....

    Personally, I think that English's adaptability to new words and phrases is one of the primary reasons its been such a successful language. Some new words and phrases I dislike. So what? I long ago learned my preferences don't rule the world, nor necessarily should they.

  • tree December 11, 2011 at 11:02 pm with 7 replies

    Can’t they read?

    99.999% of people hear with their ears and read with their eyes. If you have only heard the expression, "tow" makes just as much sense as, or even more than, "toe", in modern usage, and most people would not see the need to "look-up" a word ("tow") they already know how to spell.

    English being an adaptable language, tow the line may become just as acceptable as toe the line. If "eggcorn" can become a word after first being introduced on the internet in 2003, there's no reason why "tow the line" can't eventually be considered an acceptable phrase.

  • tree December 11, 2011 at 8:44 pm with 9 replies

    Where does this “tow” come from?

    According to Wiktionary, its an eggcorn:

    eggcorn (plural eggcorns)

    (linguistics) An idiosyncratic but semantically motivated substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound identical, or nearly so, at least in the dialect the speaker uses.
    deep-seeded instead of deep-seated
    deformation of character instead of defamation of character
    for all intensive purposes instead of for all intents and purposes
    free reign instead of free rein
    oldtimer's disease instead of Alzheimer's disease
    on tender hooks instead of on tenterhooks

    link to en.wiktionary.org

    In modern usage, this is sometimes carelessly written tow the line, which itself has taken on a new meaning as an eggcorn. This practice probably originated with people who heard the expression but were not familiar with the original spelling or meaning. With the spelling tow the expression naturally takes on a slightly more active meaning: not simply conforming to the rules, but helping to enforce or confirm them.
    The phrase itself is derived from sailing terminology, in which a 'line' refers to a rope or similar that is used to adjust the vessel's sails. Thus, 'toeing the line' means using the toe on one's foot to find the relevant line and thereby aligning oneself with what needs to be done.
    In common usage, 'towing the line' and 'toeing the line' essentially amount to the same thing, as both imply that a person brings themself into agreement with either those around them, the task at hand, or the prevailing thinking of the situation. It is similar in meaning to 'everyone pulling in the same direction' or 'everyone getting on board', which incidentally are also derived from sailing nomenclature.
    link to en.wiktionary.org

    Off topic, this reminded me of my favorite mondegreens on You-Tube:

    Joe Cocker singing A Little Help from My Friends, mondogreen version: link to youtube.com

• IDF kills Palestinian protester and tweets '#Fail'
  • tree December 11, 2011 at 9:44 pm

    Palmediawatch for years has documented the Palestinians hate campaign and glorification of terrorism against Israeli civilians and how Israel will be eliminated.

    The problem is the Pals know the left will turn a blind eye to this.

    No, the problem is that too many ill-informed and lazy readers will take Palmediawatch accusations at face value and not search out the subject themselves. Palmediawatch is run by Itamar Marcus, who is a settler in the Occuppied West Bank, and connected to some of the most extremist settler groups.

    link to mondoweiss.net

    Marcus was the director of CMIP, the Orwellian "Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace", which produced a widely published but highly biased indictment of Palestinian textbooks, which was severely criticized by knowledgeable scholars such as Dr. Nathan Brown (Jewish-American linquistics professor who studied Palestinian textbooks), Israeli professors Daniel Bar Tal, Nurit Peled-Elhanan, and Ruth Firer and the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information (as its name implies, it is a joint Israel Palestine public policy center).

    More information on the CMIP's bias and inaccuracies are here, in an article that links to numerous criticisms from multiple mainstream sources:

    link to miftah.org

    And Lawrence of Cyberia does her usual clear and concise analysis here:

    link to lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com

    And of course, as Cliff has pointed out, Israeli textbooks have been legitimately criticized ( by Israelis, not just Palestinians) for incitement to hatred and racism towards all Arabs.

    Nurit Peled-Elhanan, an Israeli academic, mother and political radical, summons up an image of rows of Jewish schoolchildren, bent over their books, learning about their neighbours, the Palestinians. But, she says, they are never referred to as Palestinians unless the context is terrorism.

    They are called Arabs. "The Arab with a camel, in an Ali Baba dress. They describe them as vile and deviant and criminal, people who don't pay taxes, people who live off the state, people who don't want to develop," she says. "The only representation is as refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists. You never see a Palestinian child or doctor or teacher or engineer or modern farmer."

    Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied the content of Israeli school books for the past five years, and her account, Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, is to be published in the UK this month. She describes what she found as racism– but, more than that, a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service.

    "People don't really know what their children are reading in textbooks," she said. "One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behaviour of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. People ask how can these nice Jewish boys and girls become monsters once they put on a uniform. I think the major reason for that is education. So I wanted to see how school books represent Palestinians."

    In "hundreds and hundreds" of books, she claims she did not find one photograph that depicted an Arab as a "normal person". The most important finding in the books she studied – all authorised by the ministry of education – concerned the historical narrative of events in 1948, the year in which Israel fought a war to establish itself as an independent state, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the ensuing conflict.

    The killing of Palestinians is depicted as something that was necessary for the survival of the nascent Jewish state, she claims. "It's not that the massacres are denied, they are represented in Israeli school books as something that in the long run was good for the Jewish state. For example, Deir Yassin [a pre-1948 Palestinian village close to Jerusalem] was a terrible slaughter by Israeli soldiers. In school books they tell you that this massacre initiated the massive flight of Arabs from Israel and enabled the establishment of a Jewish state with a Jewish majority. So it was for the best. Maybe it was unfortunate, but in the long run the consequences for us were good."

    Children, she says, grow up to serve in the army and internalise the message that Palestinians are "people whose life is dispensable with impunity. And not only that, but people whose number has to be diminished."

    link to miftah.org

    Too many are willing to turn a blind eye to this racism, and prevent others from hearing about this. You are among their ranks. This is the real problem that must be addressed. Do you have the moral courage to face this?

• Israeli soldier shoots protester in face at close range with teargas canister
  • tree December 12, 2011 at 6:10 pm

    Jonah

    The reports are "quite moderate" because most of the sources are not biased and inflamatory like the rest of your sources, and their criticisms do not equal the "indoctrination of hate" that you falsely claim. And please tell me what is essentially different about the paragraph you quoted on jihad versus any other country's textbooks. All attempt to instill a sense of patriotism which is what the Palestinian textbooks do. As illustrated before ( and you have not refuted this because you can't) Israeli textbooks do the same kind of thing. And Israeli textbooks do not show the green line on maps, they refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria as if they are a part of Israel proper, and refer to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as a good thing. If you are going to claim on the basis of your quote from IPCRI that Palestinian textbooks indoctrinate "to hate" then by all rights you must make the same claim about Israeli textbooks. And therefore, why the anger about one set of textbooks and a whitewash on your part about a similar set? Your double standard is clear.

    And while as your quoted link makes clear, "No references are made to a “Jihad” against the followers of the other monotheistic traditions or their symbols, beliefs and holy places,however within the current political context clear inference can be made by the pupils that the text is in fact referring to “Jihad” against the Jews and against the State of Israel. " In other words, like the textbooks in any other normal country would, the texts refer to a belligerent occupation of their country in a negative light. Only a person hallucinating on ziocaine would believe that any other people would choose to view the people who ethnically cleansed them, demolished their houses, killed their children and adults and subjected them to a violent belligerent occupation for over 44 years in anything other than a negative light. The negativity is not religious in nature. To paraphrase Carville, "Its the occupation, stupid..." And the ethnic cleansing, and the discrimination, and the killing, and the house demolitions, etc. Only a masochist would consider those things something to speak positively about. Why Zionists have such a problem with empathy, I still don't quite get. But you surely do.

    But more impact on the children than textbooks have PA and above all Hamas television and radio programms. We all know the lovely Teddy Bear Nassur Al-Aqsa TV. This is his debut in 2009.

    Another case of Zionism overcoming simple logic. the greatest impact on Palestinian attitudes towards Israelis is made by the Israelis they see everyday at checkpoints, etc-the IDF. Or those Israelis that they don't see, that drop one ton bombs on their houses, or the snipers that shoot children in their schoolrooms, or while they are playing soccer. Or the settlers who steal their olives, or their land, or set fire to their trees, or attack them in their fields. And yet you insist that a cartoon character introduced on TV in 2009 is somehow responsible for suicide bombing made 9 years prior. You have no logic to your argument, just emotion and an overwhelming desire to blame the victims to soothe your sense of Zionist self.

  • tree December 12, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    Jonah,

    Your "critical review" of Peled-Elhanan's work is really just an extensive ( and racist) ad-hominem. Katz does not refute any of the allegations made about Israeli textbooks, but instead engages in pseudo-psychological mumbo-jumbo and various aspersions against Peled-Elhanan's character because she has the audacity to criticize Israel and Israeli textbooks. Barring any actual refutations of her claims, Katz' diatribe is simply hot air, and not worthy of the space it took to link it. If you have any proof that her allegations about Israeli textbooks are wrong, come forward with them. Ad hominems are useless and cheap.

  • tree December 12, 2011 at 2:40 pm

    first of all I try again to post some links about Palestinian indoctrination to hate you asked me for

    Jonah, I strongly suggest that you actually READ the pdfs you linked to. All are pdfs concerning Palestinian textbooks. Three out of the four contradict your assertion that Palestinian textbooks exhibit "indoctrination to hate". The first is from the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information. It has several criticisms of the Palestinian textbooks but none of them constitute "indoctrination to hate", and all of the criticisms could be equally applied to Israeli textbooks. The second pdf is from the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, which is a right wing Israeli center with ties to extremist Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories. This is how Dr. Nathan Brown, an American professor who has lived in Israel and studied Palestinian textbooks has described the CMEP work on Palestinian textbooks: (note: This is from YOUR 4th link)

    Any treatment of Palestinian education must confront at the outset the oft-repeated claims that Palestinian textbooks instill hatred of Israel and Jews. In a sense, this issue is at most tangential to this paper, which focuses on internal Palestinian politics and portrays textbooks as outcomes of domestic struggle more than producers of international conflict. But virtually every discussion in English on Palestinian education repeats the charge that Palestinian textbooks incite students against Jews and Israel. It may therefore come as a surprise to readers that the books authored under the PNA are largely innocent of these charges. What is more remarkable than any statements they make on the subject is their silence—the PNA-authored books often stubbornly avoid treating anything controversial regarding current Palestinian national identity, forcing them into awkward omissions and gaps. The first generation of Palestinian textbooks written in 1994, the National Education series, make no mention of any location as Palestinian outside of the territories occupied by Israel in 1967; those books go to some lengths to avoid saying anything about Israel at all and the few exceptions are hardly pejorative. The second generation of books—issued beginning in 2000—breaks some of that silence but with neither the consistency nor the stridency that critics of the textbooks allege.

    Then where do persistent reports of incitement in Palestinian textbooks come from? Virtually all can be traced back to the work of a single organization, the “Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace.” The Center claims that its purpose is “to encourage the development and fostering of peaceful relations between peoples and nations, by establishing a climate of tolerance and mutual respect founded on the rejection of violence as a means to resolving conflicts.”2 Critics charge that the Center’s real purpose is to launch attacks on the Palestinian National Authority, and it would be difficult to contest such a conclusion. They point to the identity of the Center’s first director, Itamar Marcus, to support their suspicions.3

    The Center’s own reports suggest such suspicions are well-founded. The Center began operation by issuing its first report in 1998 on Palestinian textbooks that might best be described as tendentious and highly misleading. When the PNA issued a new series of books for grades one and six in 2000, the Center rushed out its second report that passed over significant changes quite quickly before presenting its allegations of “delegitimization of Israel’s existence,” implicit “seeking of Israel’s destruction,” “defamation of Israel,” and “encouraging militarism and violence.” However, in contrast to the alarm and alacrity with which it studied Palestinian textbooks, the Center’s work on Israeli textbooks showed a far more generous spirit and proceeded at a far more leisurely pace, taking years rather than months. The report on Israeli books followed a very different method: rather than quoting example after example of offending passages with little historical context or explanation (a method that would have produced a very damning report indeed), the report on Israeli textbooks is nuanced and far more careful. Incendiary quotations are explained, analyzed and contextualized in the report on Israeli books; they are listed with only brief and sensationalist explanations in the reports on Palestinian books. In short, the Center is fair, balanced, and understanding for Israeli textbooks but tendentious on Palestinian books.

    The Center’s work has been widely circulated: its reports are the source for virtually any quotation in English from the Palestinian curriculum. Indeed, its influence has begun to be felt in policy circles, and has informed congressional and presidential statements in the United States, numerous newspaper columns, and—more recently—a decision by some external donors to cut off funds for Palestinian education. Recently some European parliamentarians have begun to press their governments and the European Union as a whole, and an Israeli cabinet minister has spoken of taking the issue to the United Nations. Since the Center’s reports have dominated the public debate with considerable effect and little contestation, it makes some sense to examine them.

    While often highly misleading and always unreliable, most of the contents of the Center’s reports are not fabricated. Clearly false statements are rare, though when they do occur they are far from minor. For instance, the Center’s first report on Palestinian textbooks, issued in 1998, included the statement that: “PA TV is a division of the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education,” which allowed the report to saddle the Palestinian educational establishment with any statement broadcast on Palestinian television. The statement was false, however. In its second comprehensive report on Palestinian textbooks, issued in 2000 on the new books for the first and sixth grades, the Center claims that “the PA has rejected international calls” to modify books for the other grades. In fact, as will become clear, the plan to replace the textbooks in question was as old as the PNA itself and was proceeding according to a well-published schedule when the Center’s report was issued. Several lesser errors occur throughout the Center’s work.

    But the real problems with the Center’s reports lie elsewhere. In particular, three sets of flaws characterize its work (and much of the public debate about Palestinian textbooks more generally).First, the Center generally ignores any historical context in a way that renders some of its claims sharply misleading. In its 1998 report, the Center adduced numerous incendiary statements about Israel and Jews from books in use in Palestinian schools. The statements quoted were accurate. Some indeed were highly offensive to Jews and sharply anti-Israeli.4 Yet they came not from books authored by Palestinians but from Egyptian and Jordanian books used in Gaza and the West Bank, respectively.5 The books were distributed by the PNA, to be sure, but they antedated its establishment. (The Center’s report does hold the PNA responsible for distributing the Egyptian and Jordanian books and therefore holds Palestinians responsible for the content. Here it displays an odd double standard: it does not note that Israel has distributed the exact same books in East Jerusalem, removing only the cover. The only books that the Israelis refused to distribute after 1994 were those authored by the PNA—the National Education series—even though those books were free of the content that Israel objected to. The likely reason for this odd policy is that Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem—implied by using PNA-authored books—was far more problematic for Israel than anti-Semitism.)

    By sharp contrast to the Egyptian and Jordanian books, the 1994 National Education series, actually authored by the PNA, verged on blandness. The first generation of books made no mention of any Palestinian area within the 1967 borders (the second generation of books—written after the Center’s first report—reversed this policy). Indeed, the 1994 books went to some length to avoid any controversial matter whatsoever. An organization claiming to “monitor the impact of peace” might be expected to compare the older, non-Palestinian books with the newer, Palestinian ones. Indeed, such a task would seem basic to its mission. The Center goes beyond failing to live up to its name; its reports are written to obfuscate the distinction between the old and new books. It does not simply fail to note the change, but, in one of its rare falsehoods, the Center claims that in the 1994 series, Israel does not exist.6 (The treatment of Palestinian history in the 1994 books is extremely brief, but Israel is indeed referred to; remarkably, the 1994 texts resorts to awkward phrasing to avoid citing Israel in some negative contexts.) It is difficult escape the conclusion that the Center was far more interested in criticizing the PNA than in an honest assessment of the changes produced in Palestinian education by the Oslo Accords. The second problem with the Center’s work is its prosecutorial style. Its reports offer little more than brief themes and then list statement after statement purporting to prove the point. Any evidence that contradicts the Center’s harsh message is ignored, obscured, or dismissed, such as maps that clearly draw Palestinian governorates as covering only the West Bank and Gaza, an extended and laudatory treatment of Gandhi’s nonviolence, or a tour of Palestinian cities that includes only those under PNA rule. Other evidence is interpreted inaccurately. For instance, a topographical map of Palestine (inserted most likely to avoid drawing any sensitive political issues regarding borders) is presented as a denial of Israel’s existence. Many of the selections included are presented in a highly tendentious manner: a unit on tolerance is criticized for omitting Jews, while a reading of the entire unit makes perfectly clear that its topic is tolerance within Palestinian society.7 ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam is mentioned in texts as a Palestinian national hero; the Center’s 2000 report
    explains:

    The primary terrorist organization operating against Israel since the signing of the Oslo Accords is the Hamas, whose members terrorized Israeli citizens with suicide attacks, primarily on buses. The terror wing of the group is called the “Az Aldin Al Kassam” squad, named after the terrorist who fought the British and Jews before the establishment of the State of Israel. The new PA
    schoolbook glorifies Kassam…

    In essence, the Center provides a context for the mention of al-Qassam that, while accurate, is irrelevant to the text: it deliberately obscures how the text itself presents al-Qassam or how Palestinians would understand a reference to him. Al-Qassam was killed at the beginning of his attempt to organize a rebellion against the British mandate. Subsequent generations of Palestinians have been able to read various dimensions into his short career: for mainstream nationalists, he is a rebel against the British, for Islamists, a warrior for Islam, and for leftists, he is a mobilizer of the popular classes. To imply that mentioning al-Qassam is an implicit endorsement of suicide attacks and bus bombings is thus based on a hostile, inaccurate, and even dishonest reading—what matters is not whether the textbooks cite him but how they present him. Palestinian texts mention him onlyas a martyr in the struggle against British imperialism.8

    In short, the purpose is clearly to indict the textbooks and the PNA rather than analyze and understand the content of the books. Were the Center to take a similar approach in other countries, including Israel, it could easily find comparable material.9

    And your 3rd pdf linked is from a Congressional report that rather dispassionately lists the various sources, including CMIP, IPCRI, Nathan Brown and the George Eckert Institute and what they claim about Israeli textbooks. So, in other words, of your 4 links, only one makes the claim that you allege, and its objectively is severely questioned by other sources (including other Israeli sources) that disagree with it.

    And as others have pointed out, the deficiencies in the Palestinian textbooks are mirrored by similar deficiencies in Israeli textbooks, and the Israeli textbooks, in addition, are guilty of gross racism towards Arabs and a denial of Palestinians, despite the fact that Israelis of Palestinian descent make up 25% of the Israeli population.

    Again, jonah, honestly read the very links YOU provided. They give a very different picture that the one to which you are so far too emotionally attached to question.

  • tree December 11, 2011 at 10:34 pm

    You and others around here keep calling these soldiers a bunch of cowards and pussies.

    They aren’t. They’re deadly dangerous.

    I don't think you understand human psychology. Being a coward and being dangerous are not antithetical. "Cowards and pussies" who think they need to be macho are in fact much more dangerous in situations like this than are courageous people. Someone with true courage would know and understand that such a violent action was totally wrong and uncalled for. A coward who wishes not to seen as one is anxious to "prove" his manhood by lashing out at someone in a weaker position than he is in, because he knows he faces no real threat by doing so.

  • tree December 11, 2011 at 10:09 pm

    FreddyV,

    Shooting someone in the face at almost point blank range? Is this the act of a person who fully understands the consequences of his actions? Who understands that he could creating a widow or leaving a child fatherless? It’s not someone who is mature enough to understand humanity. Or perhaps I am wrong and this person understood completely. That would make them a monster.

    I just posted this on another thread, but it seems quite apropos here:

    Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied the content of Israeli school books for the past five years, and her account, Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, is to be published in the UK this month. She describes what she found as racism– but, more than that, a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service.

    "People don't really know what their children are reading in textbooks," she said. "One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behaviour of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. People ask how can these nice Jewish boys and girls become monsters once they put on a uniform. I think the major reason for that is education. So I wanted to see how school books represent Palestinians."

    In "hundreds and hundreds" of books, she claims she did not find one photograph that depicted an Arab as a "normal person". The most important finding in the books she studied – all authorised by the ministry of education – concerned the historical narrative of events in 1948, the year in which Israel fought a war to establish itself as an independent state, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the ensuing conflict.

    The killing of Palestinians is depicted as something that was necessary for the survival of the nascent Jewish state, she claims. "It's not that the massacres are denied, they are represented in Israeli school books as something that in the long run was good for the Jewish state. For example, Deir Yassin [a pre-1948 Palestinian village close to Jerusalem] was a terrible slaughter by Israeli soldiers. In school books they tell you that this massacre initiated the massive flight of Arabs from Israel and enabled the establishment of a Jewish state with a Jewish majority. So it was for the best. Maybe it was unfortunate, but in the long run the consequences for us were good."

    Children, she says, grow up to serve in the army and internalise the message that Palestinians are "people whose life is dispensable with impunity. And not only that, but people whose number has to be diminished."
    

    link to miftah.org

• Israel isn't good for the Jews anymore
  • tree December 7, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    i hereby offer to be your second if a elk or bear challenges you to a duel

    i thought Mooser's enemies were not elks and bears, but Boris and Natasha, and the infamous Fearless Leader, ably played here by our own eee.

• Pappe on why Palestinian Israelis are 'second-rate citizens'
  • tree December 6, 2011 at 2:45 pm

    “but Jews who do not serve in the army are not affected by this law. ”

    This is false, as the rights are conferred parallel to the US GI bill following WW2. They are veterans’ rights, not ethnic.

    You don't understand the basis of the discrimination. In Israel, rights are conferred on the basis of "eligibility for conscription", not strictly army service. All Jews are eligible for conscription and thus get benefits regardless of whether they serve or not. This is how those Jews who opt out of service for religious study still qualify for these benefits. It is not army service, per se, but eligibility for conscription that is the determining factor. Palestinian Israelis, with the exception of Israeli Druze, are NOT eligible for conscription. They may VOLUNTEER for service, and some may even be accepted into service, but because they, as Palestinian Israelis, are not subject to conscription, they do not get any of the benefits that even a non-serving Israeli Jew gets.

    Theoretically, the Druze, who are also eligible for conscription, would also gain these benefits, but the Israeli bureaucracy often fails to provide these promised benefits to the Druze.

    This is definitely NOT AT ALL parallel to the US GI Bill, which confers limited benefits on all Americans, regardless of religion or ethnicity, who actually serve in the armed forces. The Israeli laws are simply thinly disguised ethnic-religious institutional discrimination, which can be easily seen and understood by anyone who actually wants to see what Israel is doing, rather than clinging to a fantasy that this is merely an Israeli version of "veterans' benefits". You haven't been in Israel for 30 years; you don't read any thing that upsets your fantasy and you don't listen to anyone here, but yet you think you know more about Israel than Ilan Pappe. You are engaging in "self talk" again, Richard. Stop it. Listen. Learn. Use your eyes to see for a change.

    Every country has provisions for military law. In the US, it was used to put Japanese in concentration camps, 70 years ago, not that long ago. Phil’s father was alive when that occurred, and he “let it happen”.

    So, now you are blaming Phil's father for the internment of Japanese AMERICANS during WWII??? Do you think that Phil's father "held his nose" during this time? Did he think it was all for the greater good? If so, that makes him no worse than you, then. Why pick on Phil's father?

    You do know that the US has officially apologized for that travesty and granted compensation to the internees? It would be a step forward for Israel if it would simply STOP committing these types of travesties.

• 'This is how they drove us out'--Tiberias's exiles recall the Nakba
  • tree December 4, 2011 at 1:33 pm

    Cliff, notice that pz doesn't mind saying "THE Arabs" slaughtered "THE Jews" in 1938, but you said "Jews" likewise slaughtered "Arabs". Collective guilt and maligning all Arabs for the actions of a few is kosher to pz, doing the same with Jews is not.

  • tree December 4, 2011 at 1:27 pm

    You didn't even bother to read the links. The second is a book translating Jews writing from Tiberias. It includes the events in 1938 and confirms that in the minds of the Jewish writers the killings were a horrific aberration born of the Revolt, that relations were mostly good prior to then and returned to that more harmonious state until 1947-48 with the Zionist Revolt .

    The first link is only available in full through purchase and something tells me you didn't bother to cough up the $12 to read the full article.

  • tree December 4, 2011 at 12:18 pm

    The Special Night Squads were not ‘Zionist’.

    Of course they were Zionist.

    Wikipedia, for the short answer:

    The Special Night Squads (SNS) (Hebrew: Plugot Ha'Layla Ha'Meyukhadot, פלוגות הלילה המיוחדות) were a joint British-Jewish counter-insurgency unit, established by Captain Orde Wingate in Palestine in 1938, during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt. The SNS comprised British infantry soldiers and Jewish Supernumerary Police. Wingate hand-picked his men, among them Yigal Allon and Moshe Dayan, and trained them to form mobile ambushes. As practical support from the British was minimal Wingate collaborated illegally with the Haganah, reinforcing his unit with FOSH regulars.[1]

    link to en.wikipedia.org

    "FOSH regulars" refers to a Haganah unit.

    link to en.wikipedia.org

    The Special Night Squads were lead by a British officer enamored of Zionism, Orde Wingate, as counter-insurgency units, and as such they engaged in reprisals, collective punishment and torture. As my link stated:

    ...the Haganah trained and served with brititsh units and squads (the Special Night Squads) that were formed with a specific counter-insurgency brief. The lessons acquired under the stewardship of British officers such as Orde Wingate, whom the Haganah nicknamed hayedid(friend), were often brutal and would contravene accepted laws and norms regarding civil rights both at the time and today.

  • tree December 4, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    Not to mention that at the end of the same month, Arabs murdered the Jewish mayor of Tiberias.

    The link says it was a lone assailant. I guess that murder justifies ethnic cleansing of Palestine the same way that "Jews" killing Ernst Von Rath justified Kristallnacht? So, karma is a bitch, as you say? Because "cruelly overplaying their hand" is a perfect description of Zionist actions over the last 63 years.

  • tree December 4, 2011 at 11:45 am with 4 replies

    The 1938 Tiberias pogrom was an idyl.

    The attack on Tiberias was NOT a pogrom, and it was not committed by the Muslims or Christians of Tiberias. The attaackers were Palestinian insurgents from outside of Tiberias, who attacked the Jewsliving there as well as the British encamped in Tiberias. This was in the later part of the Arab Revolt, which began in 1936 with a Palestinian general strike, seeking independence. The British proceeed to violently quash the revolt, and the Zionists sided with the British against the Palestinians. For a bit of background on the Revolt, and the ensuing violence, this is useful:

    .
    

    ..One cause of [the Palestinians] growing ire and frustration in the early 1930s had been the fact that, despite the recommendations of the commission formed in the wake of the 1929 riots to limit lands sales and immigration to the Jews and take account of the rights of the Palestinians, the Labour Prime Minister of the day had written a letter to Zionist leaders, in the wake of the commisssion, promising to support the Zionist enterprise including discriminatory labour practices, land sales and immigration. This support is epitomized on the issue of the Histadrut policy of exclusive Jewish employment rights. In his letter the Prime Minister declares:

    in all the works or undertakings carried out or furthured by the [Jewish} Agency it shall be deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed... The priniciple of preferential, or indeed exclusive, employment of Jewish labour by Jewish organizations is a principle whith the Jewish Agency are entitled to affirm.

    (alquer and Rubin, 2001;41)

    The letter clearly endorsed racially discriminatory labour practices against the Arabs.

    ...
    The [1937] Peel report[recommending partition] only served to intensify the Arab revolt and this was further exaccerbated a year later in the wake of the British government's formal response to the proposals for partition. By this point the balance of influence had firmly tipped in favour of the Zionists and against the Palestinain leaders of the national movement in terms of the British Mandate and any form of realationship with the Palestinian parties in Palestine.

    During the period of the revolt, events in both Palestine and abroad served to alter the relationship between the Brititsh authorities and the Zionist movement. Within Palestine the dual threat posed by the revolt to British and Zionist interests and ambition forged an alliance that centred on security cooperation and intelligence sharing. This proved to be an important relationship in terms of undermining Palestinian unity. The Zionists seerved British interests in terms of 'provid[ing] the [Brititsh] army with intellidence reports and situation evaluations, and ...This cooperation dwarfs almost to insignificance any claims that the military administration acted in opposition to Zionist concerns; the mutual intelligence work was dirested against Arab national interests'(Segev, 2001;429-432). Moreover, the Haganah trained and served with brititsh units and squads 9the Special Night Squads) that were formed with a specific counter-insurgency brief. The lessons acquired under the stewardship of British officers such as Orde Wingate, whom the Haganah nicknamed hayedid(friend), were often brutal and would contravene accepted laws and norms regarding civila rights both at the time and today. It has been remarked that , "the Haganah's best officers were trained in the night squads, and Wingate's doctrines were taken over by the Israeli Defence Force', formed after Israel's independence in 1948(Segev, 2001:432) The spiral of viciousness and increasing lack of respect for basic human values that should have kept civilians out of the burgeoning conflict simply increased.
    By 1938 the Plestinians had turned their ire on Jewish civilian targets as well as the soldiers of the Mandate and the Jewish paramilitary forces. Every day more and more ordinary people, on both sides of the divide, were being caught up in the conflict. Unarmed Palestinian villagers were subjected to the brutal tactics of the Brititsh forces[ and Jewish paramilitary forces ] while at the same time Jewish civilains in towns like Tiberias were killed by the Palestinian armed elements. The political control and restrait tha thad been exercised over the Palestinians in the early months and years of the revolt by the notable leadership, political parties and committees had been forcefully exterminated by the British policy:
    [of] arrest and detention by adinistrative order of some two to three hundred notables... those... who could be found were arrested in their beds and deported to the Seychelles...those who were abroad were forbidden to return to Palestine...Disorder[is] reported throughout the country.
    Barbour,1946:190)
    A Rubicon had been crossed and, although there were acts of individual kindness, protection and friendships sustained through times of trouble, a true sense of enmity began to spring up between the Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Although the initial target of the revolt had been the British authorities and their policies in Palestine, the dynamic of the revolt and the way in which it drew in the Zionists and altered the face of leadership within the Palestinian Arab community meant that Zionist became direct targets of Palestinian resistance, violence and loathing. The Zionists were no longer buffered by the British authorities.

    link to books.google.com
    pages 47-51

    So, in other words, during this era, the British and the ZIonist paramilitary units committed atrocities and acts of collective punishment against Palestinian civilians, as did some Palestinian combatants against Jewish civilians. Both sides. But to hear the Zionists tell it, no Jew ever hurt a fly, they all just lived peacefully until "the Arabs", with no rhyme or reason, became homicidal maniacs. And its the fault of ALL ARABS when an Arab kills a Jew, but not the other way around. Always remember that. Collective responsibility or guilt always applies to Arabs but not to Jews.

• 'It’s time to stop the bully': Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn on Occupy Wall Street, the Israel lobby and the New York Times
  • tree November 28, 2011 at 8:18 pm

    “The moment you start braying the well known “Jews take care of only their own interests” you are delving into old time antisemitism.”

    You really like to swing hot and cold on this, don't you. You spent days and days here insisting that someone who called himself a Jew and DIDN'T put the interests of fellow Jews ahead of the interests of other human beings was not a "real" Jew. Now you are insisting that the very idea that you repeatedly clung to, despite the arguments here of other more rational voices, is actually an anti-semitic idea. So I take it you are admitting to being the biggest anti-semite in this neck of the woods for insisting that Jews can't really be Jews if they don't put the interests of other Jews first?

    Or are you just certifiable and think that you can say one thing and be correct, but if anyone else repeats the same thing, or says that some Jews actually think the same way you do, they are anti-semites. See, this is where the slur gets laughable. You can say it with pride about "all (eee-certified) Jews" but no one else can say it as a criticism about some Jews. You can't keep selling that as anti-semitism. People are only so gullible for so long, as someone said.

  • tree November 28, 2011 at 8:04 pm

    When has Podhertz or Kristol ever said they are speaking for the majority of the Jews?

    LMAO. I thought that was your province as chief ex-communicator of wayward Jews. Your whole line of what I will, for pity's sake, call "reasoning" is that Jews cease to be Jews if they don't follow, agree with and support the dominant Israeli thought process which you seem to think you exemplify, and perhaps you do. You have been "counting Jews" more than anyone else I've ever heard bloviate on the issue; the only difference is that you ex-communicate anyone who calls himself a Jew but doesn't support Israel. By that logic, then simply knowing that someone is a Jew (using the newly-minted eee quasi-halakhic standard) is a guarantee that one can know his or her political stance on Israel. It becomes in fact a tautology. You are simply hoisting yourself with your own petard.

• Israeli newspaper owner says Obama can't stop settlers' 'apartheid regime' because of 'Jewish lobby'
  • tree November 26, 2011 at 6:10 pm

    Jews cannot buy property in Jordan.

    Why do we keep having to debunk this stuff over and over again. As has already been made clear numerous times before, Jordan has no restrictions on anyone, regardless of his or her religion or ethnicity, becoming a citizen of Jordanas long as he/she is willing to follow the normal naturalization procedures, as the US State Department points out.

    As to foreigners buying land, Jordan has a reciprocal agreement law. Any citizen of a country that allows Jordanian citizens to purchase land in their country is allowed to buy land in Jordan. Israeli Jews can not buy land in Jordan because Israel does not allow Jordanians to buy land in Israel. American Jews or European Jews ARE allowed to purchase land in Jordan just as any other citizen of those countries can.

    The really galling thing about seeing this falsity of MN's repeated yet again, is that it isn't just ignorance, its purposeful deceit. Right-wing Israelis KNOW that American and European Jews can buy land in Jordan because they attempted to get European Jews to buy land in Jordan as fronts for the Israel Land Fund in 2009 :

    link to israelnationalnews.com

    This is around the same time that elder of ziyon posted his cant about Jews not being able to buy in Jordan. They know its false. They know they are conflating restrictions on Israelis with restrictions on Jews. They lie. They don't care. Maybe they can't help themselves.

  • tree November 26, 2011 at 5:45 am

    I think the appropriate word may be ‘self-hater’ or perhaps ‘anti-Semite’.

    No, those are exactly the wrong words. It would be as if you called a white anti-segregationist a "self-hater" or a "bigot". As if believing in equality between ethnicities and races made you somehow not "white" enough, or "ashamed" of your whiteness. Utterly stupid and demeaning to white people. And, frankly, using the terms "self-hater" or "Anti-Semite"to refer to Jews who disagree with Israel is demeaning to Jews, despite the fact that mostly the terms are used by Zionist Jews who apparently believe that all Jews must think alike in order to be Jews. (Which is of itself an anti-semitic belief. Go figure. Its all an elaborate case of projection, if you ask me.)

• Netanyahu takes another step to demolish the brand
  • tree November 25, 2011 at 5:29 am

    Arguing the opposite of Netanyahu's stance, from 2009:

    link to time.com

    and 2010:

    link to pewforum.org

  • tree November 25, 2011 at 5:07 am

    Tree, I agree it’s wrong to not include the Christian numbers in the poll but nonetheless, to have included them in this case would have simply diluted the overall results by a minute fraction and not substantially changed the end results.

    You totally missed my point, Walid. Try re-reading the except from Krauss that I cited and the point I made.

    Krauss was taking a Pew poll of Muslims in Egypt and assuming it was a poll of ALL Egyptians and not just of Muslims. He then thought he could subtract the percentage of Christians in Egypt from the poll numbers and come up with a substantially larger percentage of Egyptian Muslims who wanted more severe punishments for certain behaviors. Read his post again, he was making assumptions that were totally incorrect about the poll. That was what I was criticizing in Krauss' post, his misreading, or misunderstanding, of what the poll was saying and who it was polling.

    Tree, if this isn’t backward, I don’t know what is.

    Walid, it is not "moving backward", it just isn't moving forward on this particular practice. Moving backward would be an increase in the numbers. It obviously isn't an Islamic practice, its a much older one which the secular dictatorship of Egypt wasn't able to prevent either, so I don't think its a certainty that the practice is going to increase substantially.

    Netanyahu and Krauss are not lamenting the fact that the Muslim Middle East isn't moving forward fast enough, or even that it isn't moving forward at all. They are arguing that it is moving backwards. The poll numbers don't show that.

  • tree November 25, 2011 at 3:15 am with 10 replies

    You know, Pew did a global research survey in 2010 and found that a stunning 84 percent of Egyptians support the death penalty for apostates and 82 percent support stoning adulterers.

    Remember that 10 % of the population in Egypt is Christian. So remove that, and you get around 95 % of all muslims in Egypt think it’s okay to kill people who leave Islam out of their own choice.

    It always helps when citing a poll to link to the poll, and likewise helps if you just actually understand what the poll says and who was polled . Your above reference is wrong because the poll was not of all Egyptians, but of Muslim Egyptians and Muslims in numerous other countries. You can't extrapolate out the Christians in Egypt from the poll numbers because they were never included in the survey in the first place.

    Here's a link to the poll. Its not all as gloom and doom as you predict, and attitudes have not changed that much over the years, nor have they "gone backwards" as Netanyahu insists.

    link to pewglobal.org

• 'Segregated country': Israel envisions Orthodox-Jewish-only 'cities' in Palestinian area
  • tree November 23, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    Human and civil rights are not “internal matters”, to be decided exclusively by an artificial ethnic majority with the presumed support of a majority of non-citizen, non-residents of the same ethnicity. To assert otherwise is to have some very strange and self-serving ideas about democracy – and sovereignty.

    eee's position would have categorized the Holocaust as simply an internal German affair, with any one opposing it disrespecting Nazi Germany's right to conduct its affairs as it saw fit.

  • tree November 22, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    benedict, you might want to read Susan Nathan's book, The Other Side of Israel. She, an Israeli Jew, moved from Tel Aviv to Tamra, an Arab town in Israel. She was welcomed by her Palestinian neighbors in the town.

    Susan Nathan had wanted to move to Israel since she was 12-years-old.

    Decades later, after raising her two children and enduring a divorce, the London native followed the Jewish Law of Return and moved to Tel Aviv. Nathan, who was raised as an ardent Zionist, believed that Palestinians only existed in the West Bank and Gaza - and were to be feared.

    Shortly after her arrival, Nathan realized she had not been taught the whole story. She discovered Palestinians lived in Israel, but as second class citizens.

    "I not only came out of my society but I came out of my family...to find this discrimination against Palestinians in Israel. It was a huge shock," she said. "I realized that Jewish, Israeli life, was built on something fragile. It wasn't based on reality."

    Nathan decided to make a dramatic change in her own life. The former AIDS counselor packed her bags and left her comfortable, middle class Tel Aviv home to live in Tamra, a Palestinian Muslim town in Israel. What emerged from her journey was a 336 page book documenting her experiences called
    "The Other Side of Israel, My Journey Across the Arab/Jewish divide."

    "It's a very shocking shattering thing, to see everything you believe, your life, the way you've built your life collapse before you," she said.

    But, learning about Palestinians made Nathan's move to Tamra easier, despite the objections of her friends and family.

    "I didn't really find that I had a lot to get used to," she said. "This whole overemphasis in the west…- that their religion is different - is nonsense. It is something that is said to put us in fear. And I think by living here I am showing every day of my life that it's rubbish."

    Over the past four years Nathan has become a part of her new Palestian family and now calls Tamra home. But, living with the Palestinian citizens of Israel has given her an insider's perspective on the lack of equal rights with their Jewish counterparts.

    Tamra, like other non-Jewish towns in Israel, is neglected, says Nathan. The village is grossly overpopulated and there has been no government investment in infrastructure. There are 25,000 residents living on 4,000 dunums (one dunum is a quarter of a mile) of land.

    "This is (like) a refugee camp," she adds. "Refugee camps don't have proper sewage…in 58 years of the [Israeli] State there has not been one shekel spent on Arab improvement. Arab homes are self financed."

    By 2020 420,000 Palestinians are projected to be squeezed onto the same amount of land, while nearby Jewish towns expand into Tamra. Nathan describes the situation as "explosive," predicting that housing and land ownership discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel means the "next Intifada is only a hair's breath away."

    link to imeu.net

    The best thing that could happen to Israel would be allowing Jews, Muslims and Christians to live side by side, as they did for centuries before Zionism, rather than privileging Jews over the others. This privileging of Jews only creates a false sense of superiority among Israeli Jews, and understandable resentment among Christians and Muslims.

• A boycott of their own? Settlers compiling list of businesses that employ 'Arabs'
  • tree November 21, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    eee, you well know that boycotting of Arab labor has occurred since the 1920's in Zionism. It's one of the elements of Zionism that makes it an apartheid system. Its not a reaction to BDS, Its an important cornerstone of Istaeli racism that has existed for decades and decades long before BDS was ever an idea.

    I'm expecting you to blame global warming on BDS any day now. Your arguments have reached new depths of silliness, and who thought that could happen?

  • tree November 21, 2011 at 1:05 pm

    Quite a few Arab Israeli leaders and Knesset members are calling for BDS. So what you are saying is just not true.

    So your point is that its OK to prohibit the employment of any person who shares the ethnicity of anyone else calling for BDS? Since some Jews are calling for BDS, I sure you must support a boycott of businesses who employ Jews, right? Otherwise your argument would be bullshit...oh wait, it is.

  • tree November 21, 2011 at 12:26 pm

    The Palestinians will not be boycotted because of their race. They will be boycotted because they support boycott of Israelis.

    Nice try, but the boycott that is being called for is of the Israeli Arab citizens of Israel. They are not the ones calling for BDS. That is a call from Palestinian society under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. An equivalent "boycott" would be for Americans to boycott stores that employ American Jews, and that would certainly be racist in the broader sense of the word.

  • tree November 21, 2011 at 12:19 pm with 1 replies

    Yes, it does. I posted this on another thread but perhaps it better belongs here. This is old stuff recycled. It isn't a response to BDS. Its a "feature" of Zionism.

    The Zionist colonization proceeded under three basic slogans. The first of these is Kibush Hakarka (Conquest of the Land). This means that the holy soil of Palestine is to be made the patrimony of the Jewish people. Jews must work the land, and Jews alone are entitled to do so. During the mandate period, mis slogan justified the Zionist land purchases and the forcible removal of the Palestinian peasants; since the formation of the state, it continues to justify the violent expropriation of Palestinians without any pretense of contractual agreement

    The second slogan is Kibush Ha’avoda (Conquest of Labor). In practice, this means that, as far as possible, Jewish enterprises must hire only Jewish workers. It meant that the Histadrut, which virtually excluded Arabs from membership until the mid-igsos, had as its main function before the establishment of the state in 1948 the enforcement of an Arab labor boycott

    The third of these slogans is Tozteret Ha’aretz (Produce of the Land). In practice, this slogan meant the maintenance of a strict boycott of Arab-produced goods. Jews were to buy only from Jewish-run farms and stores.

    Today, either from tactical considerations or from stirrings of guilty consciences, Zionist spokesmen try to cover up this past – and present.

    To demonstrate that these slogans in fact represented day-to-day practice of the Zionist colonization, it suffices to quote David Hacohen, a leader of the Mapai Labor Party, which ruled and still rules in Israel Hacohen was a member of the Knesset for many years and chairman of its most important committee, Defense and Foreign Affairs. In a speech to the secretariat of the Mapai in November 1969, Hacohen stated:

    I remember being one of the first of our comrades to go to London after the First World War ... There I became a socialist ... When I joined the socialist students – English, Irish, Jewish, Chinese, Indian, African – we found that we were all under English domination or rule. And even here, in these intimate surroundings, I had to fight my friends on the issue of Jewish socialism, to defend the fact that I would not accept Arabs in my trade union, the Histadrut; to defend preaching to housewives that they not buy at Arab stores; to defend the fact that we stood guard at orchards to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there. ... To pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes; to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash the Arab eggs they had bought; to praise to the skies the Kereen Kayemet [Jewish Fund] that sent Hanlon to Beirut to buy land from absentee effendi [landlords] and to throw the fellahin [peasants] off the land – to buy dozens of dunams [12] from an Arab is permitted, but to sell, God forbid, one Jewish dunam to an Arab is prohibited; to take Rothschild, the incarnation of capitalism, as a socialist and to name him the “benefactor” – to do all that was not easy. And despite the fact that we did it – maybe we had no choice – I wasn’t happy about it, [13]

    Hacohen’s revelation of his feelings is surely sufficient evidence that these slogans constituted day-to-day practice and that Zionism was in fact a colonization of displacement.

    Written by Matzpen in 1972.

    link to matzpen.org

• Settlers and supporters descend on Hebron to assert Jewish sovereignty
  • tree November 23, 2011 at 4:22 am

    And how many Arabs did Israel invite to have Israeli citizenship when Israel annexed East Jerusalem? 250,000?

    Actually, Israel only invited them to APPLY for Israeli citizenship. There was no guarantee from Israel that it would accept all applications, and, in applying for Israeli citizenship, the East Jerusalemites had to relinquish their Jordanian citizenship and any rights they had as Jordanian citizens. Since the annexation itself was illegal under international law, the "invitation" really wasn't all that attractive when it was given and Israel was well aware of this. It was given more to appease international interests rather than any desire to deal equitably with the residents of East Jerusalem. Even if every East Jerusalemite had taken Israel up on the offer, the number would not have been considered a "demographic threat", and its certain that Israel did not seriously believe that it would have a large number of takers.

  • tree November 22, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    The iron logic of the anti-Zionists never ceases to amaze me.

    So are you trying to say that because there is a minority of Palestinians in Israel today, that means that the Zionist did not plan and execute a massive ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land?

    You should be wary of saying that, because that same idiotic convoluted logic could be applied to the Holocaust: Hitler must not have meant to exterminate the Jews because there are still millions of Jews today. Same stupid argument as yours, different circumstances.

    There were only 150,000 Palestinians left in what became Israel in 1948. Only around 50,000 of them had avoided being ethnically cleansed at all, out of a total of somewhere around a million Palestinians in the territory Israel claimed for its own. Another 40 or 50 thousand Palestinians lived on land annexed into Israel under the terms of an armistice with Jordan, with the agreement that the inhabitants could not be ethnically cleansed. And another 50,000 or so managed to sneak back into their homeland after being expelled and avoid subsequent deportation by Israel(many who snuck back were discovered and re-deported).

    Most of those who avoided ethnic cleansing in the first place were in the Galilee area and the importance of Nazareth to Western Christian interests was the primary reason that Israel felt constrained not to order a massive expulsion from Nazareth, where many Palestinians other nearby areas had sought refuge along with the city's inhabitants. Actually, Ben Gurion had originally ordered the expulsion but the Israeli commander, Ben Dunkelman refused the order, having previously promised the surrendered city's inhabitants that no harm would come to them. He was relieved of duty for his refusal, but BG re-thought the expulsion, fearing possible Western Christian opposition, and canceled the expulsion order.

    This is elemental Zionist history. That you have to be reminded of it constantly simply proves to me that you are speaking from ignorance and are perfectly contented to do so. Ignorance is acceptable and understandable: willful ignorance is reprehensible.

  • tree November 21, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    Further illustration of the age of this practice, from Matzpen, written in 1972:

    "The Zionist colonization proceeded under three basic slogans. The first of these is Kibush Hakarka (Conquest of the Land). This means that the holy soil of Palestine is to be made the patrimony of the Jewish people. Jews must work the land, and Jews alone are entitled to do so. During the mandate period, mis slogan justified the Zionist land purchases and the forcible removal of the Palestinian peasants; since the formation of the state, it continues to justify the violent expropriation of Palestinians without any pretense of contractual agreement

    The second slogan is Kibush Ha’avoda (Conquest of Labor). In practice, this means that, as far as possible, Jewish enterprises must hire only Jewish workers. It meant that the Histadrut, which virtually excluded Arabs from membership until the mid-igsos, had as its main function before the establishment of the state in 1948 the enforcement of an Arab labor boycott

    The third of these slogans is Tozteret Ha’aretz (Produce of the Land). In practice, this slogan meant the maintenance of a strict boycott of Arab-produced goods. Jews were to buy only from Jewish-run farms and stores.

    Today, either from tactical considerations or from stirrings of guilty consciences, Zionist spokesmen try to cover up this past – and present. To demonstrate that these slogans in fact represented day-to-day practice of the Zionist colonization, it suffices to quote David Hacohen, a leader of the Mapai Labor Party, which ruled and still rules in Israel Hacohen was a member of the Knesset for many years and chairman of its most important committee, Defense and Foreign Affairs. In a speech to the secretariat of the Mapai in November 1969, Hacohen stated:

    I remember being one of the first of our comrades to go to London after the First World War ... There I became a socialist ... When I joined the socialist students – English, Irish, Jewish, Chinese, Indian, African – we found that we were all under English domination or rule. And even here, in these intimate surroundings, I had to fight my friends on the issue of Jewish socialism, to defend the fact that I would not accept Arabs in my trade union, the Histadrut; to defend preaching to housewives that they not buy at Arab stores; to defend the fact that we stood guard at orchards to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there. ... To pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes; to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash the Arab eggs they had bought; to praise to the skies the Kereen Kayemet [Jewish Fund] that sent Hanlon to Beirut to buy land from absentee effendi [landlords] and to throw the fellahin [peasants] off the land – to buy dozens of dunams [12] from an Arab is permitted, but to sell, God forbid, one Jewish dunam to an Arab is prohibited; to take Rothschild, the incarnation of capitalism, as a socialist and to name him the “benefactor” – to do all that was not easy. And despite the fact that we did it – maybe we had no choice – I wasn’t happy about it, [13]

    Hacohen’s revelation of his feelings is surely sufficient evidence that these slogans constituted day-to-day practice and that Zionism was in fact a colonization of displacement."

    link to matzpen.org

  • tree November 21, 2011 at 11:52 am

    Take a look yourstruly, how things start to be similar :
    ... goal of Hebrew Labor project is ‘to warn the public’ against buying from businesses that employ Arabs.

    This is really nothing new. Zionists in the 20's were boycotting and threatening Jewish landowners who employed Arab labor and destroying produce and products from Arab markets and businesses in the 20's and 30's. There have been ads supporting "Jewish only" labor for decades in Israel.

    Kibush Ha'avoda(Conquest of Labor) is an old Zionist term, as is Kibush Hakarka (Conquest of Land).

    Zionist policies faced Arabs with discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin at every turn: Kibush Hakarka (Conquest of the Land) took the Arab tenant’s land, Kibush Ha’avoda (Conquest of Labor) prevented the hiring of Arabs as employees, and T’ozteret Ha’aretz (Produce of the Land) imposed a boycott of Arab produced commodities.18 The Constitution of the Jewish Agency (1929), Art. HI, declared: “Land is to be acquired as Jewish property... [and] held as the inalienable property of the Jewish people. The Agency shall promote agricultural colonisation based on Jewish labour, and in all works or undertakings carried out or furthered by the Agency, it shall be deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed....” The Keren Kayemeth lease contained the restrictive covenant based on race that the holding shall never be held by any but a Jew and that only Jewish labor could be employed in connection with cultivation of the holding. Jewish lessees who hired or attempted to sell rights to Arabs were to have their own leases terminated.19

    link to tmh.floonet.net

  • tree November 21, 2011 at 11:22 am

    Oh. Good. What a relief.
    America X had earlier posted that Betar looked liked Hitler Youth.

    Actually, American had quoted British officials who stated that the Betar uniforms were "Hebrew versions of the old Nazi Bund uniform" and that Betar's "character, structure and aims" were similar to Hitler Youth. I understand that reading comprehension may not be a strong point for you.

    Yes, as long as the didn't LOOK like Hitler Youth, its OK with you if they acted like German brownshirts, or Italian blackshirts. Its all about the look. (mostly about the hair color). Since most of the terrorist Irgun came from Betar, and Betar's "character, structure and aims" were in fact similar to Hitler Youth, the analogy is apt. The look is just slightly different and that's all that's important to you, pz. Got it.

  • tree November 21, 2011 at 1:23 am

    Is intentional mass murder of teenage boys EVER justified? That anyone would attempt to, is sickening.

    Unless, of course, its part of Cast Lead, or some of that "hold your nose" kind of ethnic cleansing stuff that the Israelis are so good at. Then, its the "greater good" and all.

  • tree November 20, 2011 at 11:59 pm

    Thanks, RoHa. I know the difference but that doesn't stop me from making that particular spelling/grammatical mistake often. Hopefully, your reminder will make it harder for me to make the same mistake in the future. But... no promises.

  • tree November 20, 2011 at 11:55 pm with 4 replies

    Do these young men and women really look like Hitler youth?

    Except for the lack of blond hair, yes. (But then they also look a bit like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. ) I believe Jabotinsky modeled the Betar youth after the Italian Fascists, not the German ones, as Jabotinsky was a big fan of Mussolini.

  • tree November 20, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    The Hebron massacre was one of the end results of Jewish/Arab tensions, created for the most part by Zionists, ove sovereignty of the Wailing Wall. The Zionists wanted to stake a Jewish claim over the area that had been for centuries a Mulsim waqf. Jews could pray there but no tables or screens or any other pieces that might construe the beginnings of a synagogue were allowed there, and the Zionists consistently attempted to flaunt those restrictions in 1929. The Zionists, the majority of whom were secular, wanted to stake the claim because they thought it would earn them a following among the old yishuv religious Jews of Palestine, who mostly had little use for the new Zionists, earn them monetary support among Diaspora Jews, who were mostly uninterested in what the Zionists were selling at the time, and also figured it would be a starting point for actuating their claim to all of Palestine.

    Vincent Sheean was an American reporter who was in Palestine in the summer of 1929, and witnessed first hand the riots in Jerusalem in August of that year, that then tumbled into Hebron as the Hebron massacre. He was originally a believer in Zionism and was hired by Zionist papers to write about life in the Jewish colonies ( as they were called in those days) in Palestine. He gradually became disabused of his belief in Zionism through his experiences in Palestine and gives this first hand account of Zionist demonstrations that occurred in the week leading up to the Jerusalem riot. This is his diary entry for August 15th, one week before the riots broke out:

    Thursday, August 15th. Yesterday was the eve of Thisha ba'Av (the Ninth of Av), which the Jews of Galut call Tishabov. Today is the actual fast itself: commemoration of the destruction of the Temple. The day is particularly associated with the Wailing Wall; and with the new Jewish Agency just formed, all the Wailing Wall propaganda going full tilt, the Arabs in a rare state of anxiety, the situation was ripe for anything. Trouble, trouble and more trouble. There will be plenty. I knew nothing about it at all- didn't even know Tishabov was so near-- when Miss X arrived at the Hospice at three in the afternoon... Said she had to go to the Wailing Wall and write a telegram about it for the Times... :would I go with her and help? I couldn't understand why, but she said there was going to be a "bust up". ...Anyhow, she said the word had been passed round and hundreds of Haluzim [Hebrew-Pioneers] were coming in during the afternoon and evening from the colonies and Tel-Aviv, ready to fight. I simply couldn't believe all this. She said the Haluzim would be armed-"three quarters of them"-and it would be a good thing if there was a row at the Wall, to "show that we are here." I didn't believe a damned word of it: too fantastic; but I told her I'd be ready to go along at five o'clock, if she would come back. She said there wouldn't be any trouble until sundown, and five o'clock would do. I went along with her when she came back. She was inconceivable cynical and flippant about the whole thing; said a row would be a very good thing for the Zionist cause, arouse world Jews and increase contributions to the new Agency. Before we reached the Wall it was evident that the police were well prepared. There were little clumps of policemen, Brititsh and Palestinian, at every turning in the road, and a force of about twenty of them on duty at the Wall itself, half in front of the Grand Mufti's house and half at the other end. There was no excitement whatever, only about a half a dozen religious Jew and Jewesses (Oriental) praying and weeping against the Wall. Towards six, we went away to the Hotel St. John... When we returned to the Wall, a little before seven, everything had changed. There was a dense crowd, made up chiefly of Haluzim, in the little area in front of the Wall. A Yemenite Jew was chanting the lamentations, from the Book, while four other Yemenites sat around him, weeping and rocking themselves back and forth. These seemed to me to be the most sincerely religious manifestants present-they paid no atteniton to ther surroundings, but only to their lament. The rest of that crowd was spoiling for a fight. ... All the people who choked the area seemed to be either people like myself, who had come out of curiosity or interest and Haluzim, who were -as Miss X said -"'rarin'to go." The Yemenites went on weeping and praying, throughout; they noticed nobody and nobody noticed them. Strange scene.

    ...What seems to have upset them so is the new door in the Wall. I actually saw one revolver, but don't know who the man was who had it (hip pocket). There were only two actual 'incidents'. In the first a Christian Arab whom I did not see was accused of mocking the services. I heard cries of "Notzri!" and saw the Haluzim shoving, but the police took the man out safely. Then there was an Arab in white clothes who walkied thorugh the place three times - did nothing, simply walked. I believe he was unmolested the first time, although there were angry murmurs. The second time he came through the Haluzim started to leap on him, but the police took him through without difficulty. The third time he appeared, the police wouldn't let him go on-- made him turn back. Very wise of them, for that crowd was in no mood to stand any kind of "incident" without serious trouble. But in this incident the shouts of the Haluzim must certainly have been far more disturbing to the prayers of the religious Jews than the Arab's progress through the street would have been.

    Both the Arabs and the police must have been warned of this invasion from the colonies, for there was evidence of preparation. For instance, the Arabs remained invisible, the Mufti's windows were closed and shuttered at about 7:30 so that he wouldn't have to look at the mob milling around; the police were in force and vigilant. The behavior of this crowd at the wall of the mosque was, I consider, damned insulting. If I were an Arab I should be angry, very angry, and I don't for a minute think the thing is over.

    X was incredibly cynical. I don't believe she's ever seen anybody wounded, or even seen a street fight; she can't understand the awfulness of the things she said last night....X was indescribable--apparently enjoyed the impression of horror she was making on me. Said there was bound to be trouble' if not tonight, tomorrow'; 'we have to show we are here';and 'it won't do a bit of harm if a couple of people get hurt." I tried to tell her... what this kind of thing meant, what it could lead to. God knows I've seen enough of it in my time. She only laughed. I think she thought I was crazy to take it so hard. According to her, it can't do any harm and will only bring in the shekels.I told her she had definitely killed any remnant of sympathy I had for the Zionist movement....All the time we sat there we could hear the tramp of the Haluzim coming in and marching round the walls. If they were religious at all, if anybody thought they did it for motives of religion, it wouldn't be so terrible. But doing it as they do it, it's bound to come to something pretty bad.

    I don't know yet what happened during the rest of the night and this morning. There were probably minor clashes, but nothing as sensational as these people hoped for. The Arabs shut up their houses and remained invisible, and that's the one thing that saved the situation. X says they had laid a supply of extra stretchers at the Hadassah Hospital to provide for the casualties expected last night. I must go out and see what has happened.

    ---Pages 354-357, Personal History, Vincent Sheean.

    After a week of such demonstrations by Haluzim at the Wailing Wall,including the raising of Zionist flags, and a counter demonstration by Arabs where chairs and tables (not allowed under the status quo ) were knocked down, and prayer slips were removed from the Wall, and after an altercation on a soccer field in which a Jewish boy was killed, the riots finally broke out on August 23rd, exactly as Sheean had predicted they would. According to the British Commission that investigated the riots, the first casualties were two Arabs killed by a grenade tossed by a Jew. Its uncertain whether the grenade was thrown in self-defense or not. In any case the casualties in Jerusalem were 87 Arabs and 120 Jews killed. The British blamed both sides for the riot.

    More on Sheean here:

    link to traces.org

    and here:

    link to maushard.com

  • tree November 20, 2011 at 9:36 pm with 5 replies

    So two sand filled bottles belonging to an Arab shopkeeper are broken by passing Jewish celebrants = Kristalnacht?

    Funny how you seemed to skip over the next statement, and imply the destruction was merely an act of exuberance. It was more that destroying his property:

    “They told us they would break our camera, they told the nearby Palestinian shop owner they would burn down his shop, they told me I would be dead on the floor…”

    Sounds like a threat of a Kristallnacht to me. And for what? Daring to open his shop. No one even killed an Israeli official the day before. I guess that's not necessary nowadays.

• Phoenix Jewish columnist says Obama's complaint about Netanyahu made American Jews feel unsafe
  • tree November 21, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    Phil,

    Shmuel's right. Although the Arab states rejected Partition prior to the 1948 war, after the war they were willing to recognize the fait accompli and made several overtures towards peace with Israel, including several overtures made by Nasser himself. Israel rejected them all, and proceeded to conspire with France and Britain to invade the Sinai in 1956, with Ben Gurion even proposing a more elaborate plan at that time to invade Lebanon (which was only implemented decades later). You really should read Shlaim on this. (The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World)

    And likewise, the PLO made several overtures to negotiate with Israel during the time when Israel made it illegal for any Israeli to speak with them.

    Sadly, Fogel is simply regurgitating Israeli myths that were first punctured by Simha Flapan 30 years ago, and refuted by the New Historians. I think it would be a fascinating psychological study to find out why some people who claim to believe that Israel is so important to them, refuse to bother to find out what it really is.

  • tree November 21, 2011 at 1:13 am

    It is absolutely necessary for the State of Israel to exist. I won’t go into all the reasons here, but suffice it to say that the majority of Diaspora Jews believe this vehemently. It is our safe place, our refuge, and our homeland should anything happen to our communities or us. There are absolutely no guarantees that we will remain protected in our nations. We hope and pray that we will, but based on our history, we can never take that risk.

    And here is more of the irrational thinking. First off, my sister lives in Israel. She is more unsafe, as a Jew, there than she is here or in Canada, or in most other places. So Israel is not your "safe place" except in your dreams and desires. Second, as you seem to be "worried" about Obama's "allegiance" to Israel over the smallest of things, its clear that you believe that Israel is only your "safe place" if the US continues to give undying, near obsequious, support to everything it does. The problem with that kind of belief is that it is contradictory. If the US ever becomes so anti-semitic that you would feel unsafe here, something I truly doubt would ever happen, then naturally the US support for Israel will cease to be, and instead become antagonism. Israel is a tiny nation that has continually antagonized all its neighbors. It can not survive without a super power to protect it, and certainly not with a super power that is antagonistic to it. If that day comes to pass that you so dread, Israel will be the LEAST SAFE place for you.

    And yet you are willing to see Palestinians suffer real pain and deprivation in order to keep your impossible dream alive. This is why you are not getting any sympathy here for your "fear". You exhibit no sympathy for those who are clearly suffering in the here and now, and have been for decades, but expect sympathy for your amorphous fear of possible future suffering.

    And Golda Meir perfectly embodies a certain bounded rigid Jewish thinking on this. Of course there is an alternative. Israel could treat everyone as equals before the law, regardless of ethnic or religious background. What a concept, eh? Why could Golda not imagine that? Why can't you?

  • tree November 21, 2011 at 12:53 am

    My column represents my personal opinion. I would never profess to represent any Jewish American community or even part of one.

    But in your column you did in fact claim to speak for quite a few American Jews. After all, what is

    For Republican Jews, this will serve as political fodder to discredit the president on U.S.-Israel relations. I can just hear the multiple echoes of "I told you so" emanating from the right.

    For Democratic Jews, who have been supportive of the president and his agenda, this faux pas will certainly cause some to rethink their allegiances.

    And, for independent Jewish voters, one can only guess, but for those with strong ties or commitment to Israel, the Obama gaffe may be a tipping point from which there is no return.

    but an attempt to speak for large groups of American Jews.

    I understand that you are speaking as an individual, not as a member of any organization, but you pretty clearly claimed to know how Republican, Democratic, and some indepenedent Jewish voters would react; in effect speaking for them.

    I never said anything about feeling “unsafe” in America. Those are Mr. Weiss’ words.

    No, your words were: " When the president speaks, even off the record, he speaks on behalf of all Americans. And that's what will worry many American Jews." (And you are speaking again for "many" American Jews here.)

    If I understand your comments, you are worried that, because Obama made a comment about "having to deal with" Netanyahu everyday that this somehow signals that the US does not have sufficient allegiance to Israel? I find that highly irrational. One Israeli individual can not be privately criticized, regardless of whether the criticsm has any merit or not, without you and other American Jews questioning the US commitment? The US President not only has to jump, but ask "how high" with a smile on his face everytime he deals with any Israeli, no matter how rightwing or personally reprehensible he is, or else American Jews will get "worried"? I'm sorry but that seems like borderline delusional thinking.

    That said, I commend you for posting here and replying to your critics here.

• Israeli gov't employs guilt to try and reverse reverse-aliyah
  • tree November 20, 2011 at 2:24 am with 1 replies

    From the article:

    It’s a tough sell, as former MIT economics professor and now governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer explained in an interview with Newsweek: “The conditions are enormously better in the United States. A graduating student in economics who gets his first job in the United States will earn three or four times what he earns in Israel. And the universities are better equipped and all that. It demands something of people to come back.’’

    But, but.... Our hasbarists here keep telling us how great the Israeli economy is doing. Apparently its not doing as well as they protest.

  • tree November 20, 2011 at 2:20 am

    I had a response to hophmi about this on an older thread, here:

    link to mondoweiss.net

    Here's one of the articles I linked to:

    link to mideast.foreignpolicy.com

    Current figures range from 450,000 to 600,000+ Israelis living in the US and Canada.

• Barak orders strike on Gaza during 'Charlie Rose'-- and checks what looks like a Rolex
  • tree November 18, 2011 at 9:09 pm with 2 replies

    I think you have the timeline incorrect. Charlie Rose interviews are taped, they are not live broadcasts. The Israeli attack would therefore have happened PRIOR to Tuesday night, on whatever day the program was taped(probably a day or two ahead of the broadcast).

    The only recent Israeli raid that matches Barak's description was on Sunday night/early Monday morning when an IDF airstrike flattened a Gaza police compound, which the IDF referred to as a "terror activity center", and killed a policeman. This was the VERY SAME attack in which the French consul and his family were injured, not a "similar one".

• France chides Israeli ambassador following consul injury in Gaza attack
  • tree November 18, 2011 at 9:18 pm with 2 replies

    I made a note of this on the Barak-Charlie Rose post of Phil and Scott. Charlie Rose tapes his interviews. They are not live. When Barak says in the interview "probably when we are talking, I ordered some attacks on some installations of Hamas", he is most likely referring to the Sunday night/Monday morning attack on a Gaza police compound, That is the same attack in which the French consul and his family were injured.

Showing comments 2600 - 2501
Page: 33 32 31 ... 28 27 26 25 24 ... 3 2 1