Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 23 (since 2009-08-27 18:43:28)

Uri

Website: http://kinoy.worldsmith.com

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  • Israel will hear your confession now
    • Uri August 28, 2011 at 6:45 pm

      According to Grant Smith, the JTA used to be, and might still be, part of the network of supposedly American institutions that is in fact directed by the Israeli government.

  • UK government Facebook page shows solidarity with Gilad Shalit
    • Uri June 27, 2011 at 1:32 pm

      it's easy to leave comments on the embassy's wall letting them know what you think. just like the page first.

  • Anti-Muslim bigot Walid Shoebat, brought to you by U.S. taxpayers
    • Uri May 16, 2011 at 7:30 pm with 1 replies

      more disturbing than the fact that it was on DHS's dime (since DHS doesn't seem to do any quality control with its grants) is the fact that the apostate freak, whose stupidity is evident to any straight-thinking person, was well-received by the South Dakota homeland community community. It means that they are not straight-thinking. The PRA report quotes senior federal intelligence officials, who seem to be in agreement that the garbage purveyed by Shoebat and his ilk is really unhelpful for homeland security purposes.

  • CUNY board member Wiesenfeld linked to settler organization with 'no Arabs' policy
    • Uri May 10, 2011 at 10:24 pm

      Organizing security? I refer you to Juan Cole's take on these paramilitaries, which he wrote in the context of discussing Jack Abramoff's "charity":

      "[T]he colonists are often aggressive, and anyway would not need to defend themselves if they weren’t squatting on other people’s land. And, Israel does have an army. Private militias are always an ugly thing, and have been used by Israeli colonists ethnically to cleanse nearby Palestinian villages."

  • Why Zionists promote anti-Muslim law enforcement trainings
    • Uri April 25, 2011 at 8:19 pm

      here's one result of these trainings: the north texas fusion center - one of 70 such centers in the country in which law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, and private corporations centralize massive amounts of data on american citizens with no accountability and no national standards - put out paranoid lunacy about
      muslims in their prevention awareness bulletin:

      link to privacylives.com

      (scroll down for full text)

  • The BDS movement, like boycott movements past, is rooted in moral conviction
    • Uri April 14, 2011 at 5:25 am

      Nonsense. The BDS movement was initiated by a large number of Palestinian civil society organizations that is broadly representative of the people of Palestine. It is for them to determine who their oppressors are. It is in no way hypocritical for Palestinians to view Israel as an appropriate object for BDS-type sanction while not so viewing Hamas, Syria or Jordan.

    • Uri April 13, 2011 at 9:40 am

      actually, the boycott of germany was motivated by age-old anti-german hatred. the people calling for boycott singled out germany at a time when many other countries had worse human rights violations, and it unfairly hurt germans who had nothing to do with the government's policy, including many jews, who by the way enjoyed a higher standard of living in germany than anywhere else. and the boycott undermined efforts to resolve the situation at the ballot box.

  • Inside the Lawfare Project: Netanyahu's attack on human rights NGO's comes to the US
    • Uri March 14, 2010 at 12:57 pm

      1. The Lawfare Project defines lawfare as "the abuse of the law and legal systems for strategic or military ends." Translated into honest, this means "the purposeful use of law or legal systems for ends that I don't approve of." There is no intellectual merit to such an approach. One can only assume that a generous donation was made to Columbia Law School to leverage this conference.

      2. I noticed Dean Schizer praised Columbia as the source of much jurisprudence on public international law, and listed off a bunch of names. He seems to have missed one pretty prominent Columbia Law School grad: William Kunstler, who went on to found the Center for Constitutional Rights, which according to Max was attacked at the conference.

  • Red herring in Mamilla case
  • Canadian liberal leader says calling Israel 'apartheid' state is anti-Semitic
    • Uri March 1, 2010 at 6:02 pm

      "They will be made to feel ostracized and even physically threatened in the very place where freedom should be paramount — on a university campus."

      This is terrible news. Ignatieff must have some inside information that the PC police will not prevent people this time around from asserting the documented and never-challenged fact that Israel is an apartheid state. Those poor Jewish children on college campuses - that is, the ones who are still Zionists - need to be protected from hateful ideas such as "Palestinians have equal rights, eh"?," "Israel's pretexts for going to war against defenseless Palestinians are pretty darn lame, eh?," and " Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice, eh?"

  • there I go, counting Jewish names again
    • Uri February 8, 2010 at 9:26 am

      "Meritocracy" means an economic system that rewards people with merit, doesn't it? Or is it a political system where those with merit rule? Either way, we live in an anti-meritocracy,

  • No oil for blood!
    • Uri December 14, 2009 at 6:37 pm with 1 replies

      So if P didn't happen, then A couldn't have been done for the purpose of trying to bring about P? That's not rational.

      I had a big problem with Walt and Mearshimer when I heard them speak. They never actually constructed a valid argument for their thesis that the Israel lobby caused the Iraq war. The closest they came was arguing that the Israel lobby was really supportive of the war, IIRC.

  • Rededicating the Temple: A Hanukah Homily
    • Uri December 13, 2009 at 8:09 am

      are you a settler supporter? if not, then i'm not browbeating you and there's no need to take umbrage. i'm not trying to convince any settlers that that 501c)(3) project is worthwhile - i'm trying to persuade those who are against the settlements. what's the problem with being a little polemical?

      i wouldn't be frustrated if the settlement support organizations lost 501(c)(3) status and then got more non-exempt donations. that's what i was trying to get across earlier.

    • Uri December 12, 2009 at 6:17 pm with 5 replies

      there's a world of difference between the klan and the nazis. i don't like the nazi analogy but think klan or neo-nazi comparisons are appropriate.

      the IRS, like it or not, has to make judgments about whether organizations are organized and operated for exempt purposes, using the guidelines established by congress, the courts, and the agency rule-making system. in making that judgment, it is required to consider whether the organization's activities are against public policy, and must consider some specific guidelines regarding racial discrimination.

      as for education, i don't know what the original intent of the legislation was. i think you may be right that the original intent was more strictly in line with the popular understanding of the term "education" which excludes propaganda, but the courts had a problem with the government drawing the line between education and advocacy on free speech grounds. that's why the standard now is the manner of argumentation and whether there's a full and fair exposition, not on whether it's pure education or advocacy.

    • Uri December 12, 2009 at 11:51 am with 8 replies

      I think scholarship programs that aim to remedy past discrimination are a specific exception to the general rule, because the Department of Education has declared them to be consistent with public policy. I don't think it has anything to do with intentions or with whether the discrimination is positive or exclusive. The Hebron Fund might get away with providing strictly religious facilities for the settlers, since they are Jewish and the Palestinians aren't, and there's no prohibition against religious discrimination. But it's more than reasonable to suspect that they're involved in a lot more than that.

      If you're suggesting that I'm angry at you, you are mistaken.

      I don't know that it's tough to separate charity work from political. Political restrictions, to my understanding, restrict (1) lobbying and (2) political propaganda so imbalanced that it can't be considered educational, in the case of organizations whose exempt status depends on them being educational. There's no prohibition, AFAIK, on doing other charitable work that has political implications. The challenges to the settlements are not based on the fact that they're political, but on the fact that they're illegal, racist and against US policy. I don't think organizations like Amnesty have to worry about losing exempt status until they're involved in some disqualifying activity.

      As for the possibility of "blowback" in the form of increased donations from Klan supporters - sure, it could happen. But that would be their money, not mine, and so would impoverish the Klan, not me. And the settlements would lose the imprimatur of the IRS. So it seems worth it to me.

    • Uri December 12, 2009 at 10:12 am with 2 replies

      More generally, the grounds for not recognizing an organization as tax exempt are that it is not organized and operated for charitable purposes. There are many ways besides unlawful conduct and racial discrimination in which an organization can fail to meet this requirement. Another one that is relevant to the settlements is activity contrary to public policy. The settlements are illegal, but they are also contrary to American foreign policy, as every president since Johnson has recognized.

    • Uri December 12, 2009 at 10:06 am with 5 replies

      I've posted this at Realistic Dove. It seems relevant here:

      Even if the settlements are not illegal, they are not eligible for 501(c)(3) status because they are racially restricted. This has been disqualifying since the early 60s. See Rev. Rul. 67-325, 1967-2 C.B. 113. Available here:

      link to irs.ustreas.gov

      Moreover, the Internal Revenue Manual, which is the operating manual used by IRS agents, says: “Organizations that foster prejudice or discrimination will be disqualified from recognition of exemption under IRC 501(c)(3).”

  • Oren: 'Settlement issue between US and Israel is largely behind us'
  • Falk: Goldstone is historic blow in the war Israel is losing-- the 'Legitimacy War'
    • Uri September 21, 2009 at 7:14 am

      on the question of whether israel committed aggression, which may be more important than whether it violated international humanitarian law, the following article by victor kattan, written back in january, appears to me to hit the nail on the head.

      link to jurist.law.pitt.edu

  • i yearn for the faroff rumble of the tumbrils fetching the neocons from georgetown
  • Roger Ebert amends his review of the Toronto protest
    • Uri September 17, 2009 at 10:18 am with 2 replies

      that's good news. i've always thought roger ebert was a good man, so the fact that he amended his position upon reflection and consideration of further facts is heartening. it looks to me as though he essentially endorses the protest letter.

  • Toronto

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