Gideon Levy in Haaretz: “It’s just a matter of time before US tires of Israel”:
A new chapter is being written in the history of nations. Never before has a small country dictated to a superpower; never before has the chirp of the cricket sounded like a roar; never has the elephant resembled the ant – and vice versa. No Roman province dared tell Julius Caesar what to do, no tribe ever dreamed of forcing Genghis Khan to act in accordance with its own tribal interests. Only Israel does this. On Monday, when Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House, it will be hard to tell which one is the real leader of the world.
Meantime, Baroness Tonge, a peer and Liberal Party whip in U.K. had to resign her post because of outspoken comments on the Israel lobby:
The peer told a meeting at Middlesex University last week: “Beware Israel. Israel is not going to be there for ever in its present form. One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving £70bn a year to Israel to support what I call America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East – that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough.”
She added: “Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown.”
[Later, on resigning Whip position] “The comments I made were in protest at the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and the treatment of Israeli Arabs.
“I am disappointed the leadership of my party did not consult me before issuing a press release and seems always to abet the request of the pro-Israel lobby. Israel is acting against international law, the Geneva conventions and human rights. They do this with impunity and if our political parties will not take action then individuals must.
“I have been asked to apologise but refuse to do so and resign the whip of my party.”
And Jeffrey Blankfort, speaking at Occupy AIPAC Saturday:
To call the Israel lobby a lobby is like calling a cat a mouse. What it is in fact is an alternative or competitive government. And the head of that government, the prime minister and the president, will be coming here to Washington tomorrow to visit those who support his government. That will also include unfortunately, 2/3 of the people in Israel’s most occupied territory, Congress. And the role of AIPAC is to control that occupied territory, because without that occupied territory there would be no occupied West Bank, there would be no siege of Gaza.
Winston Churchill’s testimony to the 1937 Peel Commission on Palestine
“I do not admit that the dog in the manger [ Palestinian Arabs in Palestine] has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. . .
“I do not admit that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race. . . has come in and taken their place.”
Israel was founded on this thinking. It’s run on this thinking.
And now it is 2012. And the world has changed utterly
That Levy article basically says the same thing as Tonge — eventually, the US is going to tell the israeli’s “go get your shinebox” – she gets the boot, hes a respected journalist—hmm.
good to see blankfort back in the mix, even if i still have to chuckle at him some times…..
“To call the Israel lobby a lobby is like calling a mouse a cat. What it is in fact is an alternative or competitive government”
Accurate way to describe it.
Or maybe as our “Shadow Government.”
Tonight at 9:30 on c-span 2 you can listen to our US representatives pledge allegiance to Israel at the AIPAC conference.
“To call the Israel lobby a lobby is like calling a mouse a cat. What it is in fact is an alternative or competitive government. ”
If it were only THIS LOBBY!
But what about BIG-BANKS, BIG-OIL, BIG-COAL, BIG-AGRI, and BIGGGGG-WAR-ARMS, and all the others?
We must hang them together or we will be unable to hang them separately.
And it is not enough to cut off some (or even ALL) corporate political action and political spending.
Because the CEOs and STOCKHOLDERs are also very, very rich. so it is necessary to LIMIT individual political spending. (Not easy to define “political spending”, not easy to know what to do about corporate-owned PRESSes, a lot is not easy, but it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY if the 99% are to take back America from the 1%.)
Jenny Tonge and the reaction of the establishment probably the most interesting.
She’s just extending current trends a few decades out.
the other day I found a load of internet comments about Israel I filed back in 2007
Some of them are very funny
“If the bike/car had been in my family for several generations and some jerk who had never set foot anywhere near the bike/car and tried to claim that his ancestors once had it thousands of years ago, well, I’d laugh in his face.
Or worse, if he tried to claim it was his bike/car because he or his mother converted to a particular religion that he claimed used to have ownership of the car/bike, well, he’d be considered looneytunes by any thinking person. ”
Some things haven’t changed
Saamidun – 01:53pm Feb 6, 2007 GMT (#57 of 85)
Well they got to call them every name in the book. Its to keep up the myth- at least in their minds- that criticism of Israel is either
1- not new
2- not done by Jews
or
3- self hating Jews
“It is the deepest thing in the zionist psyche – that it needs enemies.”
“The only time the average American gets news about Israel is when there is a terrorist attack. Otherwise the average American doesn`t get any news about Israel or Palestine at all. In-depth knowledge about Israel/Palestine is limited to those who are politically active on either the left or the right. That is the minority of US citizens. Typical US response to the Israel/Palestine conflict is to throw up your hands and declair that both sides are bound and determined to kill each other forever, so there is nothing the US can do to bring peace. And as long as casualties on both sides are limited to a politically acceptable level, there is no reason to even pay attention. Average US opinion doesn`t go any deeper into the issues than this: “Jesus was a Jew, so those Israeli`s must be OK guys, Arabs/Muslims are terrorists so they get what they deserve”. All without knowing the slightest bit who Sharon is, or who Hamas is. Much less Olmert or Abbas.
Most americans are woefully ignorant of the complexity of the conflict. If more americans saw the iDF using Palestinian boys as human shields (as reported only days ago by haaretz), saw the summary executions of accused terrorists without trial, saw the cluster bombing of Lebanon, and knew the real story of the occupied trerritories, they would not be so blindly supportive of Israel. they would recognise that both parties to this confluctyy are equally intransigent, and frankly, insane. the narrative we hear is that “palestinians are terrorists” and Israelis are good, democratic people who just want to be left alone. Jakoba, you have swallowed a massive lump of dung about the behavior of the state of Israel, as has the American public. Your narrayive is laughably simplistic. We have two large holes in the concrete of central Manhattan, partly thanks to our uncritical support for morally repugnant Israeli policies. Most Americans would be ashamed, if only they would read a newspaper…
If Americans really knew what`s going on in Israel they`d change their view. For me and every other American I`ve ever know who`s gone to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza there has been an amazing realization that Jimmy Carter is more right than wrong.
In time, most American`s will NOT support Israel. So you can flap all you want but in stock market terms Israel is a good short.”
Meir Shalev – Yediot Aharonot – [Translation of speech at May 3 rally] “Forty years of occupation are forty years of no education, no health, no personal security, no welfare, and also no proper military training – and the result is all too visible. But the urgent need for a vision to guide us to a better future is something which your successors will have to address, not you. From you we expect and demand just this: go home. Goodbye.”
The truth of every word that Gideon Samet has written is deeply shocking, not only because of its total accuracy (indeed it was in Hebron 1968 that our national catastrophe began), but mainly because of the hopelessness of the present regime vis-a-vis the rampaging settlers and their cohorts. And at the same time we see admirable capable honest people in Labor, shorn of any official ability to do anything. Is there no way to stem this disasterous tide?
‘Tossers such as efjay are cheapening the charge of anti-semitism to the point that it is becoming almost meaningless.’
the Israeli people also have to ask themselves
what their governement made out of the past
6 months with (relative) quiet:
To be honest, pretty much nothing.
Neither a counter offer to the Arab league,
nor any own diplomatic initiative, I am afraid
that`s simply not good enough.
Exactly what would another Israeli invasionof Gaza accomplish? It might make Israelis feel good for a day or two, but it will NOT, repeat NOT, bring any sort of peace. For those that advocate this path, I have a simple question … How many Palestinians (or non-Jews to those that object to that name) will Israel have to kill to achieve peace? Hundreds? Thousands? millions? all? When people are forced to answer that question, the path Israel is on becomes very problematic. It is impossible for Israel to achieve any semblance of peace by force any more. During biblical times that may have been possible (my massacring the enemy) but that is no longer possible. So if force will not work and is counterproductive, what path should Israel follow? I know what I think, but it is time for Israelis to address that very difficult but obvious question. “If not force, WHAT?”
“Today, Israel and its Western defenders insist, genocidal anti-Semitism consists mainly of any attempt to take away and to refuse to uphold the absolute right of Israel to be a racist Jewish state. ”
In the meantime everything has deteriorated.