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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
This is why I keep insisting that what the Palestinians need most is a good Jewish PR firm to coach them in saying the right things, wearing the right clothes and having able spokespeople with perfect teeth that speak English coherently like Abunimah, as an example, to bring their point across instead of the mumbling stuttering Erekat or some guy that CNN picks off the street that hasn't shaved for a week, has a couple of front teeth missing and can't put 2 English words together to give an opinion on an Israeli massacre that had just happened.
Jewish lobby or no Jewish lobby, it's also absurd to continue thinking that little Israel can wag the US. Nobody can do anything to the US that the US doesn't let them and this includes Israel. When the US will decide that its Congress has been greased enough with Jewish money, it will bring it to a halt to it but for now it fits its plans. In another 15 or 20 years when the oil runs out of the Mideast or the need for it wouldn't be as important, the US will drop Israel like a hot potato.
Shingo, the Dahlan coup had more to do with an American inspiration than an Israeli one. It was American arms stockpiled in Gaza by Dahlan that Hamas grabbed and it was America and not Israel that had the Arabs and Europeans cut off the funding to Gaza to jump-start the starvation and infrastructures dismantling cycle. The US is more obsessed than Israel in wanting to put ot Hamas' and Hizbullah's lights is because they are serving as beacons to resistance groups in US-friendly countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. Of course Israel doesn't mind at all. The good cop-bad cop act between Israel and the US is obvious and the Petraeus stunt is one of them.
It was absurd of Petraeus to blame Israel's policies for endangering American lives since some of these are made in the USA. What is endangering lives all over the map are the F-16s, Apaches, bunker busters, white phosphorus and cluster bombs that the US supplies to Israel. The failed Dahlan coup to overthrow Hamas in Gaza was an American policy decision as was the one to prolong the 2006 war on Lebanon. This is not to say that Israel is lily-white in all of this. It was Congress that passed the resolution that said there was no returning to the 67 lines and that there would not be any return for the Palestinians. American lives are being endangered by American policies.
Israel can be proud of its children such as those seen in a 2006 photo:
link to truthdig.com
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. " (Abe Lincoln)
The question raised by PG has been on my mind for many years and there is nothing sinister about him asking it here; what was it that the Jews had done to provoke so much unnatural hate in the Germans. At least PG is not denying it happened and he is asking why. The Center for Jewish History in its timeline on Jews in America wrote that in 1933, the year that Hitler made it to the top, "the American Jewish Congress declared its attention to organize a boycott on German goods to protest the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi regime. Other organizations, such as the Jewish War Veterans and a new organization called the American League for the Defense of Jewish Rights, also initiate boycott activities. Some mainstream Jewish organizations were reluctant to follow suit, fearing a backlash against German Jews and anti-Semitic responses in America, but the boycott was endorsed by the American Federation of Labor."
Maybe this early version of Zionist boycotting of German goods played a part in the cause of the hate and vile actions of Nazis. I once asked a former WW II German officer what was it that the Jews had done to them to have deserved such a cruel punishment and he said that it had been nothing personal against the Jews but they were in Hitler's way to do whatever he wanted to do because they controlled the banks, the press, radio and so on. I'm sure it wasn't as simple as he made it sound but this too must have been another contributing factor. 1933 was 77 years ago and that control is still evident today.
The 1938 Evian Conference at which the US and 40 other countries turned their backs on the German Jews and gave Hitler the green light to do with them whatever he wanted surely didn't help. The Palestinians were made to pay for this.
Looks like Chaos finally rattled eee's bones with the thing about real Jews, pseudo-Jews and nipped tips.
Bystander, in your vision of a better Palestine that should strive to imitate Israel's successes, you didn't say if the Palestinians could count on about 100 billions in American aid. Before getting carried away, there is no successful economic anything happening on the WB and any such claim is a joint Netanyahu-Fayad propaganda unless you are comparing the WB to Gaza.
I'm here because of people like eee, Rachel & Company. What's to discuss without them?
Sorry for the screwed-up link above. If anyone is interested in the Haaretz story, please Google-it.
Mostly everything about Israel is phony from its founding based on a mythical nation to the legislated laws specifically intended to dispossess the Palestinians. There are no limits to Israeli horror stories; Haaretz reported on children of refugees put in jail with hardened criminals instead of being placed in shelters but MKs, thanks to the Haaretz story are to look into this but only NEXT WEEK. Not very nice people those Israelis:
Haaretz: About 30 African children who infiltrated into Israel and are being held at the Givon prison in Ramle, are being detained under inappropriate conditions, says the Justice Ministry's legal aid division. The refugee children were taken to Ramle after another detention facility where they were held was closed.
The conditions at Givon are harsher than those at Michal detention facility, where they had been held. There is no air-conditioning, and many of the children have complained of hunger. There is apparently a lack of age-appropriate activity, which they had been given at the previous facility.
Many of the children reportedly have not had a physical examination to determine their ages, as required by international convention. Such an examination could result in the release of some of the children; legally a child under the age of 12 may not be detained.
link to haaretz.co.il
Maybe this is South Africa's payback to Israel for having collaborated with their apartheid government back in the days of Vorster. Israel was just about the only country that wasn't abiding by the boycott of SA.
Israelis never deny these actions, they can't; it's the use of the word "apartheid" they object to.
sherbrsi, it was as absurd as Bush calling Sharon "a man of peace".
This Jerusalem ad thing is about hustling money for his "humanitarian" foundation. The last report he filed showed annual revenues from contributions of about 5 million on expenses of a million. I don't feel sorry for him for his 13 million Madoff hit.
Mooser, are you saying he's one of those fence-sitters Ahmed wrote about? I thought you guys were saying that he was a paid agent hired to come on blogs such as this one to spread the good word.
Maybe some day Israelis will understand that 5 million Palestinians are a hell of a lot of people to kill and they'll never finish killing them all or chasing them away. They will stay in their faces for ever. For now, they don't think so.
eee, normally I shouldn't be telling you what your nation is or isn't about but you busted our ears telling us what a Palestinian isn't to justify having stolen his land and water and for that, you deserve to be told time and gain that the Jewish nation as defined by the Zionist enterprise to steal Palestine is bogus. There was a Jewish nation and it lived in Palestine until the Zionists cooked the numbers. I won't insult you by referring to your European origins, this is really not my business but you don't sound very oriental and therefore not really part of the authentic nation. Being an atheist puts you even further away.
eee, there was a Jewish nation and a very small one and it lived in Palestine and in other neighbouring countries. This where the thing about a nation stops and everything else is make believe to make the illegitimate legitimate. This becomes more obvious when a Jew claims to be an atheist while still insisting on a free pass to Israel, as someone here already noted.
Colin, not so fast, your way is letting the US off the hook too easily. It has been complicit to Israel's crimes all these years and now you are saying you'd like to see it walk away from it and leave it holding the bag. America helped bring this ugly baby into the world, has nurtured it and covered up for it all these years and now it has to help in picking up the 5 million pieces that are scattered all over the place.
Israel shouldn't be left alone to continue its crimes.
Chu, Iraq and Afghanistan are just as unholy and just as unecessary. Nothing to be proud of.
eee, I'm glad to see you comparing Israel's evils with those of the Americans. There's hope since you're at least recognizing the Israeli ones. One has to almost feel sorry for the IDF, they get their asses kicked in the field by Hizbullah and they end up taking out their frustrations on unarmed Palestinian women and children.
"In asymmetric warfare, the kind which Hamas employs, it is difficult to know who is a civilian and who is a soldier. The suicide bombers do not come in uniform. " (eee)
Wasn't that the argument used by terrorist bombers when they were hitting civilians on a bus? Their argument was that since all Israelis are reservists of some kind, this makes them soldiers and fair targets to be assassinated by suicide bombers. What about all those gun-toting settlers that are terrorizing Palestinians, aren't they fair game too?
Aref, I didn't say anything about a change in policy but simply that these guys are fed up of Netanyahu's goon tactics. They still remain foirst and foremost lovers of Israel and this is why they are beong critical of it today. Maybe you write them off as Jew-haters; it's always an easy out:
From Haaretz talking more about it from a little while back:
"WASHINGTON - When I ask a liberal American Jew involved in politics what he thinks of the claim that Rahm Emanuel is an anti-Israeli fifth column in the Obama administration, he laughs. "So, do they really think in Israel that Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Dan Shapiro, Mara Rudman, Dennis Ross and the other good American Jews who work with Obama are a fifth column?" And then he says slowly, like someone explaining something to a person who has difficulty understanding: "How many times do you have to be told ... "
"... that you love us?" I try to complete the sentence.
"No. That your policy is screwed up."
link to haaretz.com
Avi, the follow-up to Indyk's outburst, from JPost:
"In a recent opinion piece in the International Herald Tribune, former ambassador Martin Indyk takes Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to task for supposedly resisting President Barack Obama’s attempts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Resolving the conflict, argues Indyk, is an American strategic priority, vital to American interests. By refusing to accede to Obama’s demands, Netanyahu jeopardizes those interests and thus Israel’s standing as an American ally. Netanyahu has to make a choice between alienating “those ministers in his cabinet who oppose peacemaking” and alienating the United States.
Indyk’s argument is flawed..."
link to jpost.com
Avi, I forgot what were his actual words but they were to the effect that if Israel felt strong enough to continue on Iran or something without American aid, it was welcome to try. Anyway, more along those lines, his feelings were shown in what he wrote in the IHT:
"Today, nothing could better help Obama to isolate Iran than for Netanyahu to offer to cede the Golan, as four other Israeli prime ministers have, in exchange for peace with Syria, which serves as the conduit for Tehran’s troublemaking in the Arab-Israeli arena.
The shift in America’s Middle East interests means that Netanyahu must make a choice: take on the president of the United States, or take on his right wing. If he continues to defer to those ministers in his cabinet who oppose peacemaking, the consequences for U.S.-Israel relations could be dire."
link to nytimes.com
In spite of the Zionist media puppeteers, the taboo of criticizing Israel has now been broken and the ones questioning Israel's actions are mostly American Jews. Israel-lovers like Indyk, Emanuel, Axeldod, Ross and others haven't developed a sudden love for Palestinians but they have had enough of Israel's antics and they want to see a real movement towards peace. Netanyahu is trying to intimidate Obama into submission like he did with Bill Clinton but he's running into a wall. American Jews are waking up.
Citizen, I disagree with your part about the no strings attached. The US isn't doing all of this out of love for Israel and the holocaust-guilt thing wore off years ago. Israel is America's eyes and ears as well as its bouncer in the area and is being paid for it. When it will no longer need it, America will dump it. America does what it thinks is good for America and these days, it's having second thoughts about the usefulness of the monster it has created.
I meant none deserve a medal. of course.
No, Richard, none of these Jewish guys don't deserve a medal for it; the whole community was shamed into letting him attend.
Potsherd, they ran out of Brooklynites interested in relocating there and the current construction is on the very expensive units that are attracting wealthier investors from the US and Canada. This will drive prices even higher.
Of course, those good Jewish people that care for their Jerusalem will be simply branded "Jew-haters". It's sad what outsiders have done to that city. The remaining Arabs are being evicted and next will come the turn the "other" Jews to be made to leave. Those that published the letter see it coming.
The letter format reminded me of what Gibran Khalil Gibran wrote in the early 1920s, "You Have Your Lebanon and I Have My Lebanon" in sending a similar distressed message:
You have your Lebanon and its dilemma. I have my Lebanon and its beauty. Your Lebanon is an arena for men from the West and men from the East.
My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow and rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards.
You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people.
Yours are those whose souls were born in the hospitals of the West; they are as ship without rudder or sail upon a raging sea.... They are strong and eloquent among themselves but weak and dumb among Europeans.
They are brave, the liberators and the reformers, but only in their own area. But they are cowards, always led backwards by the Europeans. They are those who croak like frogs boasting that they have rid themselves of their ancient, tyrannical enemy, but the truth of the matter is that this tyrannical enemy still hides within their own souls. They are the slaves for whom time had exchanged rusty chains for shiny ones so that they thought themselves free. These are the children of your Lebanon. Is there anyone among them who represents the strength of the towering rocks of Lebanon, the purity of its water or the fragrance of its air? Who among them vouchsafes to say, “When I die I leave my country little better than when I was born”?
***********
For the rest of it: link to 4umi.com
Julian, from the way Israelis and their supporters react to the word, they don't seem to be aware that Israel is on its way of becoming a powerhouse. I see BDS coming down the tracks and picking up speed and support day by day.
Avi, those other ones are in most part like the Russians, are pretending at being Jews or as the Africans, are being convinced that they are Jews. For padding the numbers and keeping the cheques flowing, these groups were useful but in time they will become expendable to the religious Jews. Zionism carried Israel for a while but the time is approaching that religion would be replacing it. Israel will be taken over by people like the Kahane Chai group that are now distributing hundreds of effigies of Obama to be burned by the children in the Lag BaOmer bonfires on May 2nd. These crazies should be stripped of their American citizenship.
Richard, why is it that I get the feeling that Jews are ashamed to be simply Jews? The way you equate Zionism with the ability or desire of the Jews to govern themselves is almost saying there is something of an impotency of being simply Jews without the Zionist tag. I once asked a Zionist if she would follow the directives of her Judaic faith or of Zionism if they were to be contradictory and she answered back that she would opt to folow the Zionist way. I seem to have more admiration and affection for ordinary Jews and affinitiy to them than you do. How is that?
Ahmed, the last time you wrote about liberal Zionists, I said that there was no such animal. Today, you're saying yes, they do exists and religion has to be simply brought to them to turn them into humans and no, they don't really exist but don't know it and they are fence sitters that need to be exorcised of their Zionism. Those that are trying to absolve themselves of the guilt that you mentioned are those that think of themselves as liberal Zionsists. One is or isn't a Zionist in the same way one is o0r isn't pregnant. I see that those that are honestly with BDS don't have a drop of Zionism in their blood. You're with BDS or you're against it; there's no picking and choosing because to do so would put one back to the absolving stuff you talked about.
Chaos, you missed Richard's point. He was saying in so many words that the world should be grateful to Israel for forcing the Gazans to become innovative and conservation/recycling-conscious like the Cubans became with the US blockade. Don't forget that thanks to Israel, Gazans returned to sleeping in tents and learned to convert their gas-guzzlers into electric powered cars, discovered new cooking fuels, gas-fueled lighting bulbs and mixing vegetable oil that had been used for frying with gas to fuel cars. He is looking at the positive side of what Israel is doing to the Gazans.
Sabah said: "they (the Israelis) bargained me either to stay in jail for an open-ended period of time or to go to the Gaza Strip,"
Looks like the hunt has started, Xinhua (from the Juan Cole link)reported: "Official Palestinian sources in the West Bank said that the Israeli army had erected dozens of roadblocks in the West Bank to hunt Palestinians who live in the territory and hold other kinds of IDs, to evict them to the Gaza Strip."
Hi, TGIA, a redundant "The" creeped-in at the end of your link that screwed it up. Should be :
link to juancole.com
Great documentary, Danaa. It describes how before the 1948 war was declared and the first Arab soldier had set foot in Palestine, the Zionists had occupied 200 villages and expelled 250,000 Palestinians from their homes and villages. While this was happening, the Zionists started telling the world that the second holocaust was about to happen. It was after the expulsion of these 250,000 that the Arab armies entered the war with only 22,000 soldiers compared to the Zionists' 40,000. The Arab forces would have equalled those of the Zionists had the Jordanians entered the war but theses had a non-aggression deal with the Zionists to let them take the West Bank unopposed. The Jordanians staying out of the war gave the Zionists the edge to win against the disorganized Arab forces.
TGIA, you wondered why the Christians in the story are largely ignored by the Weasels. They're not. Just look at how much they are choking the life out of Bethlehem with their restrictions and causing the Christians to move out. The only time you hear Israel talking about them is to say that Muslim terrorism is chasing the Christians off the land.
From IPS a couple of weeks back about what they did to WB Christians on their holiest of day of the year:
Palestinian Christians Barred From Jerusalem for Easter
By Mel Frykberg
Credit:Mel Frykberg/IPS
RAMALLAH, Apr 8, 2010 (IPS) - Israeli authorities prevented thousands of Palestinian Christians from entering Jerusalem and accessing Christianity’s most holy sites over Easter in an unprecedented clampdown on religious freedom.
"Easter is one of the most significant holy periods for Christians and we as Palestinian Christians were not allowed to worship freely," Ramzi Zaniniri from The Near East Council of Churches in Jerusalem told IPS.
During the Easter period thousands of Christian pilgrims from all around the world descended on Jerusalem’s old city where many of the religious sites are situated.
They retraced the Via Delarosa, the route Christ is alleged to have taken on his way to his crucifixion, and paid homage at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the spot where they believe Christ was buried.
However, few seemed aware that their fellow Christians from East Jerusalem and the West Bank were denied the same freedom.
Easter this year coincided with the Jewish Passover. For over a week a closure was imposed on the West Bank by Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak on alleged security grounds. With the exception of humanitarian emergencies all Palestinians were barred from Jerusalem.
Hundreds of Israeli riot and civilian police and soldiers enforced the closure on the Palestinian territory and sealed off the entrances to the old city.
Traditionally during Easter Palestinian Christians from the occupied Palestinian Territories are given special permits by the Israeli authorities to access Jerusalem. This year most were denied.
"The soldiers and police demanded two permits: one to enter the old city and another to enter the area of the Patriarchate where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is. However, even those with permits were denied access," said Zananiri.
"Clashes broke out between some youths, who were beaten after they managed to get past the cordons, and the security forces.
"This is meant to be a time of hope, peace and joy but it resembled a mini war zone," Zananiri told IPS.
The previous week on Palm Sunday Palestinians, their international and Israeli supporters, and top ranking officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA) decided to protest Israel’s closure of the West Bank
During a non-violent march from Bethlehem’s Nativity Church, built on the spot where Christians believe Christ was born, towards Jerusalem the protestors managed to force their way through a checkpoint before they were attacked by Israeli security forces.
A number of arrests were made, including that of senior PA official Abbas Zaki who was imprisoned for a number of days before being released on bail.
These incidents are just the latest in a history of discrimination and economic hardship that Palestinian Christians in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories have faced.
****************************************
For more horror stories Christians are suffering at the hands of Israelis:
link to ipsnews.net
Shmuel, the 816 referrences to Jerusalem in the Christian Bible is a new one for me. Why I am thinking that this will go way over the heads of Richard, Rachel, eee and the others here and that they'll just pretend they never heard it?
TGIA, I'm not very religious but I'm not an atheist either. I didn't swallow whole what I read in the Bible and the Koran. When you weed out the politics in them, there isn't much left but inaccurately related history.
TGIA, sorry I missed the past discussion here, I'm still feeling my way on this site and will surely repeat getting into something you guys had already discused.
I'm concerned that discussing the Bible and the Koran like it's being done by the Wiesel ads is shifting attention from the ongoing settlements expansion and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. I'll concede that point about the mosque to get back to the more important discussion on the ongoing events in Jerusalem. If others want to hang on to it and the 600 times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible, it's their problem, Jerusalem could have been mentioned 1200 times and it wouldn't have justified expelling the Palestinians.
TGIA, although I'm a big fan of As'ad Abu Khalil and I reject the 600 Bible-mentions idiotic argument to expel the Palestinians by the holocaust-milking Weasel, I disagree with this:
"Wiesel discounts Muslim claim to Jerusalem entirely because he said that there was no mention of Jerusalem in the Qur’an at all (a lie because it is here:
"سُبْحَانَ الَّذِي أَسْرَىٰ بِعَبْدِهِ لَيْلًا مِّنَ الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ إِلَى الْمَسْجِدِ الْأَقْصَى
The word "Jerusalem" is not part of the above Arabic sentence taken from the Koran. The actual translated words are:
"Glory to (Allah) Who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque..."
The farthest mosque was later "interpreted" or believed to be in a hadith as being the one in Jerusalem. The chapter from which this was taken was handed down 16 years before the conquest of Jerusalem and the start of mosques being built there. In spite of the historical mixup, there is nothing to justify the expelling of Palestinians whose ancestors had been living in Jerusalem for hundreds of years. Anyway, using the Koran and the Bible is the wrong approach.
Jews and Muslims using religion to justify their claim to the city or to expel anyone from it is smoke and mirrors stuff.
Chaos, you're talking about 18th century rules, other than colonialism disguised as nationalism, what is there to Zionism that I don't see?
eee, contrary to hasbara, Hizbullah is not out to defeat Israel because there are brains behind the organization that know this is impossible. It's there to keep Israel's long and sticky fingers away from Lebanon's land and waters. Israel relies on the Hizbullah bugaboo to keep Israelis spooked and united and to keep the cheques from overseas flowing in.
eee, of course the Hizbullah model is the successful one and you can tell by the way it freaks out the Israelis and Americans because it's inspiring nationalistic movements in other Arab countries like Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others that all have pro-US leaders. No, my way is not the violent way and it's not the peaceful resistance way either. I already said that it was the smart way by having professional PR people coaching the Palestinians towards getting their due.
There is nothing confusing about what I'm saying about Israel. There's no doubt it's very strong militarily and some say it's the 4th or 5th strongest military power in the world but at the same time, Israel is very weak and practically bankrupt in its morality because of what it has done and continues doing to the Palestinians. Strong and morally right countries don't act the way Israel has been acting with the dispossessed Palestinians. So as you can see, the others telling you about Israel's strength and paranoia and what I say are both correct but being looked at with different lens.
eee, had the Palestinians followed my ways, it would not have taken 62 years and still counting. They weren't gambling on anything but they were pinning their hopes on wrong leaders and on other Arabs to fix their problem. They have since realized that only Palestinians can solve Palestinian problems although it will take some time and this is what is starting to worry Israel. Israelis aren't that strong, eee, what you are seeing is the weakness of the Arabs and proof of that is in the confrontations between the Israeli army and Hizbullah. It's a different ball game for the IDF to be beating up on screaming women and stone-throwing kids or tear-gassing peace activists at Friday demos and having to face Hizbullah men on the battlefield.
eee, are you saying that because the Palestinians can't afford a cup of coffee, they should accept whatever Israel dictates? It's as absurd as Israel complaining last week how Hizbullah's alleged scuds would "upset" the balance of power in the region; Hizbullah with mostly lots of unguidable katyushas and a small fleet of old Nissan open pickups were supposed to be at a balance of power with Israel that has hundreds of fighter-bombers, Apaches, subs, Merkavas, spy-sattelites, phosphorus bombs, bunker-busters and cluster bombs, nuclear bombs and the full weight of the US to airlift supplies the minute the shooting starts? Those most duped by Israeli propaganda are Jews.
The PR I was talking about wasn't about having Palestinians shave and dress better but about coaching them to start marketing the nakba like the Jews have been doing with the holocaust for decades and in having spokespeople that can speak English coherently to explain to the world what the Israelis have been doing. There's a world of difference hearing the Palestinian point of view explained by an eloquent Abunimah type and a stuttering mumbler like Erekat.
Southernobserver, I was about to quit after the first 10 pages of the CNAS manifesto on how to secure the new Palestinian state for Israel's benefit but still went on to read the last chapter as you asked. You'd think it was put out by Netanyahu's office from the praise that is heaved on him. It discussed how the Palestinians will need some serious policing work and surveillance to prevent them from upsetting (my words but based on what is written) the fragility of whatever arrangement Israel will have agreed to because the element of terrorism will always be present among them. CNAS, that sounds a lot like PNAC, was preaching for a NATO policing force that Israelis think is a good idea and its success would hinge on having a unified Hamas-PA government with the IF stationed only on the WB.
On the subject of the US funding for something, there is a note in there somewhere about the US having dished out about 100 million on a couple of occasions to train the WB police force. Over half these amounts went to the dogs when Israel destroyed the police force on the WB in 2002 and in the failed US coup to oust Hamas in Gaza in 2006. It brings to mind the 100 million also donated by the Saudis to train the Palestinian police at protecting Israel's borders. In short, these funds were really to help Israel, just like the international force (NATO) that is being sold.
As with everything else, the onus of changing this or that is always on the Palestinians that are practically asked to change their mentality while nothing is ever asked of the Israelis.
TGIA, the Palestinians don't need a think tank and they surely don't need any new master plan, they simply need to hire a good Jewish PR firm. For the past 60 years, they have been kept busy dodging balls hurled at them to keep them in a constant state of off-balance by Israeli masterful PR. A good PR firm working on behalf of the Palestinians would reverse the roles and have the Israelis off-balance and dodging the balls for a change. It's a shame that Arabs don't have a clue about the concept and value of PR; had they invested a minute fraction of the money they threw at the Palestinian problem into hiring PR pros, there would have been a Palestinian state long ago. A good example of of its success is Israel; the majority of those following the conflict would tell you that the Jews were and are still the victims in this tragedy. The BDS movement with its limited successes is an example of low-level PR but the Palestinians must have some big guns coaching it in this fight.
Sorry, the post should have been "Dershowitz at Herzliya 2003 continues:"
The man left so may droppings all over the place that it gets confusing.
It gets better, Dershowitz at Herzliya 73 continues:
"...Democracy should not have to justify its actions and show how the rule of human rights has become a weapon in promoting human wrongs... You are the lab for that process. You are contributing greatly. Do not allow the world to bully you into believing that you are the human rights violators..."
Azmi Bishara commented about this in Al Ahram:
"Israelis listened to this in rapture. They knew all these things already and they put them into practice. But they were ecstatic to hear it for the first time from a distinguished university professor, for now they can act on the conviction that their ideas and practices graduated from the University of Harvard. Israelis are fond of opening their self-justifying arguments with such assertions as "even in the US they have administrative detention", or "even in a great democracy like the US they use torture". It is as though all Israel needed to encourage it in its flouting of international law and the international will was a Harvard professor, courtroom king and champion verbal gladiator to tell it to become the laboratory for new international laws which will free the democracies' hands in the war against terrorism. Now Israel's codes of behaviour can become international law. Have you ever seen anyone more modest? It is as though his pride and ardour are fired by the thought that US and Israeli forces are waiting for his go ahead before committing their crimes, as though army and security officers carry his collected lectures around with them like an instruction pamphlet they open in order to put their finger on the necessary provision of international law to trample underfoot. The tragedy is that they are already committing the crimes and all our distinguished professor is doing is lending them moral justification and appeasing consciences with the liberal logic of an ex-civil libertarian. "
Sounds a lot like "Jerusalem is NOT a settlement", doesn't it?
If this is a Dershowitz stoning, here's one of his best quotes taken from his lecture at the 2003 Herzliya Conference in which he advises Israelis to disregard international law, as if they hadn't been already doing it or had been waiting for Dershowitz to come along with his precious advice :
"...Israelis are obliged to follow the rule of law that exists in the democracy called Israel the way I am obliged to follow the rule of law in the democracy called the United States. International law is not democratic. You are not participants of international law, you are excluded from the United Nations Security Council, you are excluded from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which included Libya and Syria and other wonderful compliers with human rights. Your moral obligation to comply with the letter of the rule of international law is voluntary; it is a matter of choice and a matter of tactic, not a matter of moral obligation or democratic theory. You were not represented in the making of those laws; you are not represented in the implementing of those laws. International law stands on a different footing--it lives or dies by its credibility, it doesn't live or die by the process of democracy, by which it has been constructed. Moreover, I am not suggesting that anybody or any country violate the rule of law, what I am suggesting is a dynamic view of the rule of law--change it!"
It's as Judy mentioned about Palestinians looking for an admission of a wrong done by Israelis much more than about looking for a fast buck on the backs of the Jews after having sat on their asses for all these years as Israel keeps implying. I read the same studies that concluded that while all Palestinians want to hear the Jews' mea culpa, there aren't that many that would actually want to live in Israel. Israel has been playing a stalling game for 60 years waiting for the '48 Palestinians to die off. The youngest of those '48 Palestinians would be about 62 today.
Richard, that was all about paying off the Palestinians but not a word about the right of return. You read here what Judy said about its importance to the Palestinian people. Your plan doesn't seem to allow for any return but you mentioned something about the green line. Would you elaborate?
Richard, what do you feel should be the right of return for Palestinians?
Richard, your post confused me. Did you say that you agreed that the Palestinians were evicted and kept out but that you don't agree for them to have a general right of return? Are you saying you are a liberal Zionist?
Ahmed, sorry, I may have misdirected your discussion and ask that my post be deleted. The subject is about BDS and I went in a completely opposite direction.
Ahmed, what's a liberal Zionist? I'm having a problem associating the 2 words together, I always thought that you were a Zionist or you weren't a Zionist and now you're saying Zionists come in different flavors. From what I know, the only difference between the different forms is that one of them uses vaseline.
Brookings of course, eee, who else? It was disappointing there was no mention of all the Nobel prizes. I'm glad the US isn't at all like Israel and it has nothing to learn from it. Tell me, eee, how is it that a country with so much genius, technology and every good about it has to resort to stealing land and water from its neighbours?
TGIA, watch your step with the French words if you don't want to hear a mouthful from Ruth.
The US has segregated communities but Israel is a diverse place. Great skating.
Richard, the first is part of the Lebanese government and has 80% of the population behind it in its struggle to block Israel's never-ending invasions and the second is the legally elected government of the Palestinians that the US and Israel refused to recognize.
Sundown is more like it because it surely isn't the house of the rising sun, the name Bet Shemesh can throw you off. It was also reported from there that stone-throwing riots erupted when the owner of a pizza parlor, who had received threats warning against allowing boys and girls to congregate together, took down a sign calling for “modesty.”
You guys are unjustly picking on Klein that simply got homesick. He's probably from a neighbourhood in Bet Shemesh where they have a Saudi-styled morality squad prowling the streets to punish immodestly-dressed lassies and where a young lady was beaten a couple of years back because she wouldn't go to the back of the bus. That fun place where Klein now lives is where some families were threatened for watching TV and where a shopping mall had to have separate shopping hours for men and women. It's no wonder the US felt alien to this guy. Ruth would tell you that Klein is misunderstood.
Coming from the other side of the fence, I'd say there is a very good chance that eee's grandfather was telling the truth. Picking on the dead is the easiest thing for the frustrated during times of war and none of these stories of Arabs or Jews desecrating graves is improbable; ugly stuff was committed by both sides. Most of the tombstone markings at Saida's Jewish cemetery were removed in the early 80s by IDF soldiers during the invasion of Lebanon. It seems that some of the soldiers recognized the names of their ancestors from the Hebrew markings on the graves and had decided to take back home something that was somewhat of a relic for their families. This doesn't mean that Lebanese vandals didn't have a hand at damaging any of the graves. We shouldn't lose sight of the event back in 1945 when some Muslims clerics were thinking of leveling the Jerusalem cemetery to make room for a business complex but for some reason, this project didn't materialize. I liked what eee said about that the living having to take precedence over the dead. If I had to pick between losing either the Muslim cemetery or the Palestinian population of Jerusalem at the hand of the Israelis, I'd rather lose the cemetery. Regrettably Israel wants to get rid of both.
TGIA, the Arab Peace Plan is intended to make the Arabs' 62-year old migraine go away and not necessarily to help the Palestinians, so it's not a wow proposal. It has been watered down already by conceding that Israel would not return fully to the 67 line and that there would be some swap or other for those large cross-border settlements that aren't going anywhere. The 2002 initial proposal was already a fire-sale deal for Israel because it recognized that not all Palestinians would return, that those who would are to do so over a period of several years and that the actual number of returnees will have to be mutually agreed to by the parties; in other words, Israel could go on refusing to consider the numbers until the last of the '48 Palestinians has died away which is about 10 years away at most based on current life expectancy. Israel has been playing a stalling game all these years with that objective in mind and the Arabs compounded the problem by dampening the Palestinians' nationalistic drive.
Richard Witty, yes the cemetery story is being blown out of proportion and it's diverting attention away from the more pressing problem of the systematic wiping out of the Palestinian presence from Jerusalem. It would be futile to save the cemetery while failing to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Jerusalem. Destroying cemeteries is not new for Israel, the first being at Deir Yassin in 48. There had to be cemeteries in almost every one of the over 400 villages dynamited or bulldozed for the building of Jewish towns on several of them such as Qiryat Yam on the ruins of Arab Ghawarina, Ben-Ami on those of Umm al-Farraj or the shameful Canada Village built with tax-exempt Jewish money from Montreal and Toronto on the ruins of Nuba, Yalu and Imwas. So I agree with you on this but not for the same reason that you are using. I can imagine how you would react to someone proposing to bulldoze the main Jewish cemetary in Beirut to put up a museum. But fear not, plans are almost ready to restore that cemetary to coincide with the Magen Avraham Synagogue renovations that are currently underway. If you look carefully, you'd see bridges being built to reach out to Jews in various Arab countries while Jews in Israel are busy destroying whatever little is left of Palestinian-Arab vestiges there. It should tell you something.
Shingo, I was being sarcastic in calling them handouts. Actual number is around the 6 billion mark, minimum, plus all the other billions buried in various accounting and appropriations acrobatics. One such item among the dozens I'm talking about is the millions of barrels of oil that the US has agreed to keep in reserve for Israel in case there is ever an embargo that would affect its supply of oil. The US has to pay for the oil, for its shipping, handling and whatever else and if Israel gets stuck, it would pay to have it shipped from the US but under US risk and guarantee to deliver. This is a typical hidden cost. Another is the free jet fuel that the US supplies to the Israeli Air Force. It's no wonder that it spends hours every day flying all over Lebanon; it isn't paying for the gas.
VR, the financial package is a little more complex than that.
Check out the numbers and explanations in the link:
link to wrmea.com
As to the US calling all the shots in the area, I agree with you; Israel takes its marching orders from the US and not the other way around and for this to happen, the US has to pay plenty. In return, the congressmen are well taken care of via the lobbies. Everybody is happy and treated well except for the Palestinians that are always the losers in any arrangement.
Mooser, with the kind of money Israel is earning, you should worry about the US starving before Israel does, under any circumstance. The handout it gets from the US just makes life a bit easier but it's not a matter of life or death for it. There is something obscene in accepting these billions in American handouts while making so much money and especially in light of the US having so many homeless people and those scrounging garbage for food. Israel isn't alone in this category but it's the biggest offender in terms of accepting unecessary US aid.
Christian Bible talking about Jerusalem has to do with the story of Jesus; this is not found in the Jewish Bible.
Unix, as religious alibis for Jerusalem go, from a historical perspective, perhaps the Muslim one is somewhat more bogus than the Jewish one but this doesn't take away from the reality of Arabs having lived in the city for centuries and any claim to the city based on religion, for Jews as for Muslims, is pure hocus-pocus. That the word Jerusalem is mentioned a couple of times in the Christian Bible, does it make a Christian claim on Jerusalen valid?
Nah, Taxi, I don't think that Ruth is a Taliban but she confounds what Sand describes in so many other words as the blurred lines between the religion of the Jews and the nation of the Jews and when that happens, it gets very hard for me to get through.
Ruth, I don't have a problem with your 6 points and a Jew can be whatever his heart tells him to be and it's none of my business. But, when such a defining leads towards dispossessing the Palestinians from the land on which they lived for hundreds of years and maybe thousands of years but under a different appelation, it opens the door to question some of those assertions but to debate them on a point by point basis would be futile since I will not convince you to change your position because they are structured to legitimitize what the Jews did to the Palestinians.
You're preoccupied with what you think is my obsession with Sand but I'm not really a fan of this very pro-Israel guy although I was happy that he came along and said in clearer words what I had been saying incoherently for a while about the non-exitence of the Jewish nation as it has been defined by the Zionist enterprise to suit its colonizing of Palestine. I prefer Yehouda Shenhav's take on the Zionist picture and what was done to the Arab Jews to make them drop the Arabic habits.
You mentioned the million or so Israelis born of mixed marriages; I somehow don't have a problem with their presence on the land or to even consider them as part of a new Jewish nation inasmuch as these aren't working at also disposessing whatever Palestinians are still around. Some of those Messianic Jews that you are talking about are offended of being considered refugees from Arab countries because they had arrived voluntarily in Israel on an aliyah calling but the Zionists would like to keep that fact under the rug. From which did your parents or gradparents originate?
I'll make it easy for you, Ruth, I'm not rooting to have Jews out of Israel but I am rooting for justice for the Palestinians that were dispossed by the arrival of the Jews. That could come in various forms, I really don't know what is needed or what would be acceptable to them. The Jews in Israel committed a grave injustice and they should be working at fixing it instead of adding to it and you seem to be rooting for this to go on. Am I wrong?
Unix, there is a probability that some Palestinians are actually Jews. I hope this concept doesn't trigger any nightmares. Anyway, Palestinians have deeper roots in Palestine than pseudo-Jews that converted to get a free ticket to Israel or even the pretenders of being Solomon's heirs that today are wondering why they ever came to Israel because of the way they are being treated because of their colour.
This isn't about religion.
Unix, I don't know enough about the Khazars to say if it's correct about the majority thing but I think you are both making an issue out of something of little consequence today. In my book and as far as Palestine and the Middle East is concerned, oriental Jews or Arab Jews as I prefer calling them, had a valid claim to be in Palestine as well as in any of the neighbouring Arab countries. It was with the arrival of the European colonizing Jews or whatever you and Taxi wish to call them that turned everything upside down.
Unix, what's untrue about some Jews having Khazar roots? If this is false, then you would have a right to complain.
Ruth, Taxi shouldn't be defining what's a Jew but when Jews capitalize on the definition of one to dispossess the Palestinians, it gives him and anyone else the right to question the legitimacy of certain Jews as he's doing with the Khazars and into what they evolved today. The real Jews with rights to Palestine and all other Midlle East countries are the oriental Jews that were always part of the area; the others that got parachuted into or onto Palestine were aliens.
You referred to Muslim Tunisians and Muslim Lebanese unable to communicate unless in Modern Standard Arabic but unless there is a racist undertone here, what does the Muslim religion have to do with your assertion? The people of the 17 official religions of Lebanon, including the Jews, all speak the same colloquial Arabic between each other and the same Modern Standard Arabic with other Arabic-speaking countries and religion has nothing to do with how Arabic is spoken . No need to colour your answer with French for me.
Apart from the 1973 war in which America saved Israel from destruction with the massive military airlift, the only one not ordered or approved by the US was the 1956 Suez War and this was obvious by the way the US stepped all over Israel, the UK and France for it. It has been clear sailing for Israel with American blessings and military aid in 67, 82, 2006 on Gaza and on Lebanon, 2008 on Gaza and what is being discussed here, the Israeli fiction about the war on Lebanon of 1982 that all indications point to a war called up or at least approved by Alexander Haig. Israel does nothing without American approval, whether waging wars or building settlements on occupied lands. Extracts from Andrew Killgor about this in the Middle East Reprt in 1985:
Hirsh Goodman, brilliant military analyst of the Jerusalem Post, confesses to bewilderment over Israel's 1982 Lebanon war? So unwise was that war, Goodman writes in a recent edition, that even 50 years from now scholarly researchers will be astounded by its stupidity. A Jerusalem Post editorial expresses similar bafflement over how Israel could have blundered into such a war, while nevertheless opposing a judicial commission of inquiry into its causes.
...Americans of course are also wondering how it was that upon withdrawing from Lebanon Israel carried back 700 Shi'a and other Lebanese as hostages for quiet borders without considering possible consequences of such a flagrant violation of international law.
...Israelis mourn the loss of more than 650 of their own youth in Lebanon, but the death there of 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians receives little notice.
...for nearly a year the PLO had made no trouble on the Lebanese border; that Israel was already in a secure position; and that U.S. interests in the Arab World, even the lives of its officials, would be endangered if we supported Israeli aggression against a friendly Arab country.
…Look back at Ariel Sharon's discussion with Alexander Haig in Washington two weeks before Israel attacked Lebanon on June 6, 1982. Despite Haig's denials, many are convinced the Secretary of State approved at that time the Israeli Defense Minister's plans to attack.
link to washington-report.org
Rehmat, the Palestinians’ lawsuit in Montreal was thrown out of court on the grounds that the case should be tried in Israel and not in Canada. The win would have been futile since the claim against Green Mountain Industries Inc and Green Park Inc, was really against 2 shell companies with nothing but a Montreal business address, no assets and no employees.
Green Mountain and Green Park are owned by billionaire American businessman Shaya Boymelgreen and controlled by Lexinter Management, whose majority shareholder is F.T.S. Worldwide Corp, a Panama-based company historically involved in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s diamond trade that refuses to name its principals.
Green Mountain and Green Park subcontracted the Mattityahu East project in 2004 to Danya Cebus, with the Israeli government’s approval. Danya Cebus doing the actual building is a subsidiary of diamond billionaire Lev Leviev’s Africa Investments Ltd.
As you can see from the above acrobatics, winning in Montreal against the 2 shell companies wouldn't have yielded anything.
Light a candle for Rachel's parents to win in Israel.
Israel gets free US fuel for its jets and the munitions are either free or part of the military aid package. If it had to pay for any of this, it would surely cut down on all this excess flying over Lebanon.
Shingo, since this has turned into a full discussion on Hizbullah, I 'll jump in with a couple of pointers that no one here appears to have covered. Yes, the abduction took place in Israel, not in Lebanon. Yes, we had all been told that it had happened in Lebanon but this was not true.
There were reasons behind the abductions:
Israel had a proven track record of not releasing Lebanese prisoners unless in a swap for Israeli ones. The art of abductions and subsequent swapping was mastered by Israel during the occupation of Lebanon from 1982 until 2000. Everytime Lebanon wanted its people held in Israel, it had to first abduct Israelis for a swap. The same with the ghoulish practice of swapping body parts that was started and perfected by Israel. Every time there was a swap, it was intended to be the final one with all remaining prisoners exchanged but every time Israel held some prisoners back which continued the cycle.
In the swap that had taken place prior to the 2006 abductions, Israel had negotiated to get back its spy Tannenbaum and the corpses of 3 prisoners for the release of of its star-prisoner Kuntar as well as a few others, the3 cleric Cheikh Obeid that had been abducted from his home in Lebanon 10 years before to be used as a pawn for information on Arad and for the corpses and body parts of 40 Hizbullah fighters including Nasrallah's son. The swap went on as planned except that Israel changed its mind about Kuntar and a few others and wanted to hold them in exchange for some fresh information on Arad. Hizbullah agreed to investigate about Arad and provide the results to the Israelis for the final trade of all remaining Lebanese prisoners including Kuntar.
Nasrallah was so confident that he was about to get Kuntar and the others back that he publicly gave his word that they would be home shortly. Hizbullah's investigation into the Arad mystery did not yield any major result and it was concluded that he must have died in captivity. This information was passed on to the Israelis and a demand for Israel to give up Kuntar. By that time, Nasrallah had promised that Kuntar and the others would be home before the end of the year (2006). Israel replied that it was not satisfied with the Arad investigation and that the prior Kuntar agreement was off. Nasrallah up to that point had a reputation of having always kept his word and since Israel reneged on the Kuntar swap, there remained only the old optionof getting new prisoners for the Kuntar swap and this is what happened when the 2 Israeli soldiers were abducted.
The disaster appears to have been more to Khalidi-Cohen than to the bad guys.
Richard, your comments on Weiss are interesting; do you have any on Walt's vindication?
A line is drawn by Walt when he reasserted that it was not Israel behind the Iraq war but the neocons and their Jewish cheerleaders in the US. The Israelis, initially cold to an attack on Iraq got on the bandwagon to help with the preparatory PR groundwork after Bush comforted them about the Iranians and Syrians being next on the hit list. It reasserts my thinking about all strategic decisions being taken by the US and Israel having to tag along willingly like a lap dog and not the other way around as we are led to believe.
Taxi, it is as you said, a stupid way of doing things. The Israelis played their cards right as usual and also as usual, the Arabs didn't have a clue on how to play the game and have been left out in the cold all these years.
Citizen, I already spelled out why the US needs Israel; it has to do with either Israel's reliability, the Arabs' lack of it or a combination of both. It dates back to the days of the cold war and although this war ended, America's PNAC or the redrawing of the Middle-East and other areas makes it still dependent on having a local bouncer armed to the teeth. A case in point, all the talk about an impending strike on Iran by either the US or Israel that are really working together on this in spite of the blame being put only on Israel and it's evident that any such strike would have to be authorized by the US. You are probably aware that in the 1956 attack on Egypt by the British, French and Israelis. the bombers used were of the French Air Force that had their markings changed to Israeli ones for the attack. I wouldn't be surprised if America attacked Iran with planes having Israeli markings this time. Do you still think that the brave Israel air force attacked Saddam's Osirak without American authorization or help?
What you are probably not aware of is that during the 22-year occupation of Lebanon by Israel that ended in 2000, southern Lebanon and parts of the Palestinian occupied territories were used as testing grounds for most of the US' and Israel's new arms that came out during that period. There are reports of phosphorus, DIME, Bunker Busters and unmanned drone attacks by Israel in Lebanon's population years before anyone heard of them. It's for things like that that the US needs Israel.
Wasn't it an American Senator that likened Israel to a US carrier permanently parked in the the Middle East?
Taxi, I saw the lobbies $$$ report on Huffington. I'd venture a guess to your question and say that perhaps the US is more comfortable having Israel as its agent, watchman, bouncer, enforcer or whatever else keeping an eye on the Middle East for it than any of the unreliable, unstable and un-anything else Arab regimes doing it for them. It's wrong to think that America plays favourites for any reason because America has only its own interests that concerns it. For many years, America's interests and those of Israel have piggy-backed and we get the impression that America is favouring Israel over the Arabs. In another 20 years or so when the oil or the US dependency on it fizzes out, America will drop Israel like a hot potato but until then, it needs Israel and will continue sticking by it, rain or shine.
Southernobserver, it gives us all a good feeling to talk about Israel with the 16th or 15th highest per capita income being unashamedly on the receiving end of American aid while homeless Americans are scrounging garbage and it also gives us a good feeling to repeat how little Israel is the tail wagging the dog. This is the bogus picture we are led to see.
America does only what America wants to do or to use Eleanor's words, America lets others do it it only what it allows them to. It's Israel that is being led by the nose by America since America is keeping it alive economically and militarily because it's good for America and this has nothing to do with any unatural American love for Israel. America needs to have Israel acting as its Mideast bouncer for as long as America needs to have it do so and the 3 or 5 billlion annual price tag is dirt cheap in comparison to what it's costing it to maintain its own troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. And nobody is holding up a gun to the US legislators' heads to force them to accept the Israeli-strings attached billions in bribes to stuff their election funds or bank accounts. Israelis are convenient fall-guys but this isn't to say that their hands are clean but that the Americans aren't as spic'n'span as they appear either. The siege of Gaza was drummed up by the US after its failed Fateh-led coup; Israel, the Europeans and the Arabs are following orders.
Cliff, no argument on that from me; Palestinians are prisoners in their own land. I was only stressing that we are discussing the unfairness of not having Palestinian-Israeli dancers in an Israeli national ballet companywithout having considered whether or not there are any Palestinian ballet dancers around and if they are interested in dancing for the company but are being barred from joining. We could just as well be discussing why there aren't any Palestinians in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. I just checked the names of the current 100+ members in it and none had a Palestinian-sounding name.
Jimby, Richard Parker is maybe on to something that you missed in your admiration of Barenboim. It seems that there is more to the apparent glitter and humanism of this great musician. Barenboim has been been making some creepy declarations in the past few months that are exposing him as less of a friend to the Palestinians. Here are some extracts from a Jews Sans Frontières Blog article by Raymond Deane, a composer and political activist that show Barenboim and the venerated Edward Said in a different light:
... Unfortunately, while Barenboim professes faith in the axiom that “everything is connected”, the score written by Zionism is premised on “estrangement and alienation”, in the words of the anti-Zionist eco-socialist Joel Kovel.[7] Barenboim buys into the Zionist narrative all along the line. “The Arab population of Palestine had been unsympathetic toward Jewish immigration from the very beginning”, he tells us, as if the indigenous Jewish population hadn’t been equally suspicious of Zionist colonisation - to call it by its proper name. The totalitarian “military rule” imposed by Israel on its Palestinian minority during the early years of statehood was “abominable”, admittedly, but “necessary for its self-preservation”. The renaming of Arab streets after Israeli generals represents “at best thoughtlessness and insensitivity… and at worst an utter lack of strategy in dealing with the question of Arabs in Israel”, rather than a symbolic linchpin of Zionist conquest and dispossession...
...In the midst of Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead”, the onslaught on Gaza beginning in December 2008 that led to the killing of some 1400 Palestinians, Barenboim wrote a newspaper article that, while critical of the carnage, similarly repeated a number of Zionist propaganda tropes.[8] Hamas is “a terrorist organisation”, rather than a legitimate resistance movement, and must “realise that its interests are not best served by violence”, although this offensive followed the Israeli breach of a ceasefire long maintained by Hamas. The war in Palestine is “a conflict between two peoples who are both deeply convinced of their right to live on the same very small piece of land”, not a brutal colonial assault by a powerful state on a virtually imprisoned civilian population. Of course “it is self-evident that Israel has the right to defend itself”, a truism that, except possibly for the 1973 “Yom Kippur” war, has never had any bearing on Israel’s relentlessly belligerent actions against its neighbours...This article almost certainly played a role in causing the cancellation of Barenboim’s projected attendance at an opera performance in Ramallah in July 2009, lest it be disrupted by demonstrations. Once again Amira Hass had her finger on the pulse: “The bulk of dissent across Ramallah was not just over the performance, but over the very existence of the Barenboim-Said Foundation”.[9]
...Already in 2004 Barenboim stated that “[a]n hour of violin lessons in Berlin is an hour where you get people interested in music. But an hour of violin lessons in Palestine is an hour away from violence and fundamentalism…”[10] This insulting formulation led the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM) to decline any further funding from the Foundation.
Full article:
link to jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com
We are making an issue out of nothing. Until a qualified Palestinian ballet dancer gets rejected by the Israeli ballet company, there is nothing to discuss here. The only Google trace of any Palestinian remotely interested in ballet is of a talented teenager in the Galilee, Ayman Safieh that got to dance with the Russians. CNN did a piece on him and his Jewish coach a few months back: link to youtube.com
Regrettably in the report, he is not referred to as a Palestinian-Israeli but as an Arab; clearly a political statement endorsed by CNN.
Jews own Congress – Phil, you’d be hard put to find anyone at all in the Middle East or most of Europe who wouldn’t agree with that statement. (R. Parker)
Richard, I just disagreed with that concept on the "How to Run for President" thread. In fact, I said it in a roundeabout way that Congress owns the Jews with all the "Israeli-strings tied money its members are gleefully accepting. Congressmen are playing the Jewish bag men like violins while most are thinking it's the other way around. I appear to be giving more credit to the Americans than Americans are giving to themselves. They are not the twits being led by Israelis and Jews as we are being made to believe. Israelis and Jews in general are being given more credit in steering America than they deserve. They are good, but not THAT good.
Don't be misguided by what Saudis say but rely mostly on what they do. After today's Israel-solidarity show that was put on by Prince Turki in Munich and the condescending patting on the back he received from Ayalon, this should be a clear indication on where the Saudis stand on the Palestinian issue. They have been full participants in the US-ordered economic boycott of Gaza since 2006. Their last major contribution to the Palestinians (it was really a gift to Israel) was the $100 million they pumped into the propping-up , equipping and training of the West Bank's constabullary force whose prime objective is the protection of Israel against home-grown Palestinian terrorists. Any talk of 67 borders is folklore. The Saudi's biggest concern is the growing regional influence of the "heritical" Shia of Iran and its influence on its own restless 2 million Shia living in the oil-rich eastern province. To counter it, it would put put its hand into that of the devil if it can help it eliminate the Iranian specter. Today, it did.
Taxi, I know how Palestinians are treated in Israel and in the occupied territories, about the "N"word there as well as the "A" word. It would be futile to look for solutions until Israel's lust for land has been satiated but I doubt that Israel as we know it today would still be around by then. About 40 years back, Arabs concluded that they would never be able to lick Israel militarily and that the only thing that could end it, would be its desintegration from within. I think we are begining to see the start of this but this is not for tomorrow and there is more suffering ahead for the Palestinians. Solutions are possible when both parties have a sincere desire to achieve it and so far, the Israeli partner is not interested. I'm not as even-handed as I appear but I do have respect and admiration for good Jews and those have to be set apart those from the piranhas that have turned the Palestinians' lives into a hell.
Taxi, I agree with you on what was done to the Gazans and the Lebanese make the Nazis look like amateurs. In comparison, the Israeli concentration-torture camps maintained during the occupation at Ansar, where even UN employees were held and at Khiam in Lebanon were mini-Auschwitzes.
As to Madoff, being Jewish had nothing to do with it. You surely know about the Lebanese Madoff knock-off, Izzedine that ponzied the Lebanese Shia out of $400 million and he wasn't Jewish. Neither was Arafat. I wasn't tooting the Jews' horn since they do it themselves all the time but simply saying that while all Zionists are Jews, not all Jews are Zionists and this must be kept in mind when we see the suffering of the Palestinians. Prince Turki isn't Jewish and neither is Mubarak.
Taxi, as you have ignorants misusing the words "Islamists, "jihadists" and the rest, you also have ignorant Arabs misusing the word "Yehudi" for all kinds of evil sauces concocted by the Zionists since they can't distinguish the difference between the two. Listening to the Hizbulah TV station on a given day, you'd probably hear the word "Zionists" mentioned about 50 times but you'd never hear the word "Yehudi" mentioned in an irreverrent way. What you heard was probably the Arab version of the "XXX- Jew" you hear all the time in the States by people that don't really mean it.
To get back to the Blair discussion, for non-pro-US thinking Arabs, the inspiration for the Iraq invasion has always been attributed to Israeli Zionists and the PNAC neocons composed in good part of American ones. The part about Bush. Blair, Sharon or whatever other Israeli joining the pow-wow is detail. At the end of the day, Arabs still want to think of Americans as the good guys that have been led down the road to hell by the Zionists; Rehmat wasn't that far off the mark but he could have made the distinction between regular good-guy Jews and Zionists. Nothing wrong with Jews controlling lots of things, they're doing a great job at it and all more power to them but when this control has a Zionist flavoring, it takes on a different meaning.
Richard Parker's view of Arabs tripping on the use of "yehudi" and "Israeli" is incorrect. He is probably thinking of the terms "Israeli" and "Zionist" that are erroneously often put in the same bag by Arabs. It's the Israeli-Zionist cocktail that Arabs find poisonous. Richard would be happy to learn that Beirut's largest synagogue is currently being renovated with the blessing of all Lebanese and although the number of Yehudis living there is very minimal, the Yehudi is still one of the official religions recognized by the Lebanese Constititution. For information and pictures about work underway at Beirut's Maghen Avraham Synagogue:
link to shalom-salaam.net;