1. The best blog on this is Philip Weiss’s Mondoweiss – http://www.philipweiss.org

2. The de-gatekeeper-ing of media access through the blogosphere shows how important the previous gatekeeper-ing was, particularly on the Israel issue. It’s the establishment ‘liberal’ media where you can’t publish severe criticism of Israel, but Matt Yglesias, Glenn Greenwald etc, don’t need or want a job at the New Republic. Ten years ago, they’d have begged for one.

Pretty good article, I’m waiting for part 2.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050421.html

But when you start talking about Israeli exceptionalism etc. (”oh my god 10:1 kill ratio”) don’t forget that each civilian that died in 9/11 has more than 100 (200?, 300?) brown civilians killed in his name in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now the US is not intentionally genocidal, but when it decides to target the “bad guys”, and they happen to live on the planet Earth, then a lot of others get caught up in the mess.

The problem today is not Hamas or Israel but the U.S. which has monopolized peace making while being a co-belligerent to the conflict. The basic problem today is American power which seems incapable of exerting any political will over Israel, even though what it does is in our name.

Yes, Israel has a right to defend itself, but so do the Palestinians. What is right for one is right for the other. What is no longer tenable is the continual double standard of the Western powers who created this conflict (Britain after WWI) and maintain it (the U.S. after 1967). All this does is protect the Israeli public from recognizing that there are limited options FOR ISRAEL here. Israel can go home to Israel proper, remove its colonies and go back to its 1967 borders, share Jerusalem, come to an agreement regarding justice for the Palestinian refugees who were dispossessed of their homeland in 1948, OR Israel will have to absorb the Palestinians over which it rules today into the state of Israel. What will not work is the status quo.

For those who ask what should Israel do, when rockets are fired onto its civilian areas, I would say, Israel does have the right to defend itself, but it bombing universities and civilian infrastructure is not self-defense. What is going on today is an effort by the Israeli army to regain its “self esteem” that it lost during the invasion of Lebanon in 2006.

To point this out is not anti-Semitic. Outgoing Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, himself said this in an interview published in the NY Review of Books. He noted that for years he denied to himself that Israel had to withdraw from the Occupied Territories. He said, “Anyone who wants to control Arab East Jerusalem will have to absorb 800,000 Palestinians into the state of Israel.” This is the kind of pragmatic voice of reason in Israel that is continually drowned out by the generals who have way too much power in the state.

If you read Leviticus, you find that you’re supposed to let your slaves become free members of your society after 49 years. Start the clock in 1948, and that would be 1997, and they’re already overdue for many Palestinians. Start it at the latest date possible, in 1967, and you get 2016. So they have until Obama leaves office to get a one-state solution. After that, they’re in violation of even the Law, much less international law.

We haven’t gotten to the 2nd or 3rd Why when we have discussions about Israel/Palestine, as Jane pointed out in her blog post here, due to derailment stemming from hostility. Perhaps you are asking the first or second Why, but it’s not the end of the exercise, only a beginning, and perhaps it’s a first or second question only because it’s the one you’ve chosen to ask from your perspective. But let’s assume it’s the first Why for the time being.

More or less you’ve asked:

Why should Israel not respond (militarily) to cross-border rocket attacks?

What is the answer to this first Why? Perhaps Palestinians have responded to the embargo of food and supplies to their people, as well as other economic suppression by Israel.

If we agreed that was the answer to the first Why in the series, we might take that answer and turn it into the next Why:

Why should Palestine not respond to the embargo of food and supplies and economic suppression with cross-border missile attacks?

Help me here with an answer. It’s not quite as obvious for me. And what’s the next Why in the series; will we be able to get to it rationally and reasonably?

Is there a country in the world which would tolerate cross-border rocket attacks?

Robert Fisk:

Ever since 1948, we’ve been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis – just as Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own lies: that the Zionist “death wagon” will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem will be “liberated”. And always Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise “restraint” – as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks and field artillery. Hamas’s home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course.

The blood-splattering has its own routine. Yes, Hamas provoked Israel’s anger, just as Israel provoked Hamas’s anger, which was provoked by Israel, which was provoked by Hamas, which … See what I mean? Hamas fires rockets at Israel, Israel bombs Hamas, Hamas fires more rockets and Israel bombs again and … Got it? And we demand security for Israel – rightly – but overlook this massive and utterly disproportionate slaughter by Israel. It was Madeleine Albright who once said that Israel was “under siege” – as if Palestinian tanks were in the streets of Tel Aviv.

By last night, the exchange rate stood at 296 Palestinians dead for one dead Israeli. Back in 2006, it was 10 Lebanese dead for one Israeli dead. This weekend was the most inflationary exchange rate in a single day since – the 1973 Middle East War? The 1967 Six Day War? The 1956 Suez War? The 1948 Independence/Nakba War? It’s obscene, a gruesome game..

(italics mine – kjm)

I really think the left wing foul mouthed vituperative yadda yadda, which you’ve help to build and grow stronger and larger, has greatly aided in the marginalization of all things right wing rhetorical that have dominated the public awareness for 40 years or more.

And yes, I think among the masses there are people who have been swayed by that right wing rhetoric avalance that was given free rein to dominate the dialogue.

And I think the advent of the internet, and the blogosphere, has really hit many of them hard to reshape their awareness of reality as it really is.

Along with the realities of two failed wars, the corruption of the people they believed in and elected, the failed policies and practices of those who preached to them all things right and rightous from the right wing narrow view I believe there HAS been a huge shift in public awareness and a heightened, call it what you will, consciousness or REEDUCATION PROCESS.

And all that shifting and new awareness across the spectrum of belief systems has helped to marginalize many extremist right wing people and their talking points.

There’s lots to worry about, including our system of existence which is dominated by a few over the many, that needs changing.

But damn, I’m not sure I’ve ever in my life seen this broad and wide of a sweep of ‘thought change’ as we’ve experienced since the blogosphere took hold and grew.

While the 60’s and early 70’s were formidable times of dissent and change, they seemed oriented to a more liberal and well educated elite.

This ‘new enlightment’ seems to be of a more broad and sweeping one. And your post harkens to that.

Given the crap we are under, I’ll take the sunshine any time I can find it.

Thank you, Mz. Hamsher, thank you Pups. Let’s dialogue the HELL outta this one, and every other one.

Cuz it’s LONG past time for the change that we took hope in long ago from JFK, MLK, RFK, Rosa Parks and every other american who ever stood and risked themselves for a basic right.

Huzzah! Slainthe Mtah! Kaplah!