כאשר את מהלך האירועים האדם הוא הופך להיות אחד האנשים הדרוש כדי לפזר את להקות פוליטית אשר יש להם קשר עם אחר להניח בין המעצמות של כדור הארץ, תחנת נפרד ושווה שבו חוקי הטבע ועל הטבע של אלוהים מזכה אותם, הגון כבוד לדעות של האנושות דורש כי הם צריכים להכריז על הגורמים אשר להמריץ אותם הפירוד.

אנחנו מחזיקים אמיתות אלה להיות מובן מאליו, שכל בני האדם נוצרו שווים, שהם ניחנו על ידי בורא עולם עם זכויות unalienable מסוימים, כי בקרב אלה לחיים, לחירות את המרדף אחרי האושר. – זה כדי להבטיח זכויות אלה, הממשלות הנהיגו בקרב גברים, הנובעים מן הסמכויות שלהם רק הסכמה של נשלטת, – בכל פעם זה כל צורה של הממשלה הופך להיות הרסני אלה מסתיים, היא זכותו של העם לשנות או לבטל את זה , ו להנהיג ממשלה חדשה, הנחת היסוד שלו על עקרונות כאלה וארגון סמכויותיה בצורה כזאת, כמו להם יהיה נראה סביר ביותר השפעה בטיחות האושר שלהם

Translated:

When the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have contact with another to assume among the powers of the earth, a separate and equal station where the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain rights, that among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. – That to secure these rights, governments instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is people’s right to change or cancel it, and to institute new government, His basic assumption on such principles and organizing its powers in such a way as they would seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness

The Two State solution is not only inevitable, it’s required if any sort of sanity is to reign.

Some day there is going to be a hell to pay for the way the Palestinian people have been treated. And if the Israeli nation – this is the regime and the people together, as the regime is elected, not imposed on the people of Israel – thinks as a body that it is on the right track to a better future, it is gravely wrong. If Israel reaches the one-state conclusion, they will be the 21st century Apartheid South Africa. They will have instituted an utterly racist and oppressive regime for the majority of the population of their country. And this regime will only maintain itself through the heavy-handed application of military force in the guise of “police action” against the majority component of the population of single-state Israel.

The US will not be able to politically stand closely to such a national entity, nor will Britain, nor will France, nor will Germany, nor will Russia. It will not be possible politically for the US to send billions of dollars in military “aid” to a country so nakedly oppressive of its own people. Israel will be alone, and on the moral low ground. History tells us what happens then.

The two-state solution is not inevitable and most informed observers at this point don’t see any premise even for the pathetic negotiations and “peace process” to continue as a status quo. The Israeli people have elected a proto-fascist regime, and stand broadly behind its worst acts against the Palestinians. In the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas is seen increasingly as a quisling facilitator of the Israeli occupation and territorial expansion. His Fat’h party struggles to retain control of the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority itself is dead, kept alive as a myth by the West for the purposes of future “negotiations”. Hamas is the real power in Palestine. Hamas was elected to the majority power in the Palestinian Authority and was promptly attacked by Israel for it. The people of Gaza were attacked for supporting Hamas. For its part, Hamas’ limited attempts at negotiation have been rebuked by the Israelis and the US.

Between Israel and Palestine, there is no coherent leadership body that together is striving for a two-state solution. The joke that Netanyahu just proposed (the West Bank is bantu-ized permanently as the Palestinian “country”, which has no right to defend itself and accepts permanent encirclement and incursions by the Israeli military as part of its founding charter) is an insult to the very idea of the two-state solution. The Palestinian Authority is effectively dead as the majority party after the last election has been effectively outlawed by Israel. There is no premise for a two-state solution moving forward. Israel continues to slowly expropriate (ie, steal) Palestinian land.

The future there is dubious.

If the Israelis ever get to the point of restricting access to Islamic holy sites to the extent that the Grand Mufti restricted access to the Wailing Wall, that might be news. Until then…

If Israel has reached the one-state conclusion, they will be are the 21st century Apartheid South Africa. They will have instituted an utterly racist and oppressive regime for the majority of the population of their country. And this regime will only maintains itself through the heavy-handed application of military force in the guise of “police action” against the majority component of the population of single-state Israel.

Fixed

No, it currently is a Two State situation; it”s just that one of them is oppressed.

And that will ultimately end, whether Israel likes it or not.

I hope this kid does grow up to be a heart surgeon. We saw Palestinian children in St Petersburg [Russia] with severe congenital heart conditions that the Israelis refused to treat. It’s hard to claim your moral superiority when you won’t help sick children.

When the US won’t even support the Goldstone report, any fussing now about “insults” is just posturing.

Two wrongs do not make a right. Argumentative as usual. Got anything positive to write?

So sad to hear of that Egregious. I’m always gobsmacked by the dreams of Palestinian kids who keep aiming high even with all the obstacles they face – and their parents who work so hard to get them schooling.

always argumentative when the post forcefully argues one-sidedly.

it needs to be said that the Israelis, nasty as they are in some ways, have been far more tolerant of Palestinian religious activity than was the case before they assumed control.

how much effort did Arafat put into denying that Israel or Jews had any historical claims to Jerusalem?

Incomprehensible demoralization.

They can’t truly be considered like Apartheid South Africa because most Palestinians are not citizens of Israel. They are still in an occupied and refugee status. The one-state conclusion will be reached when all the land to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt is nationally Israel and in order to maintain their identity as a “Jewish state” the therefore Jewish minority in the nation enacts laws and policies that deny many rights of citizenship formally to all the Palestinians in the land. THEN the transformation to a true apartheid regime will have been attained.

There is noting wrong with what I wrote, and I don’t need you to “fix” it. If you wish to comment back, feel free to do so, but don’t presume to “correct” me.

Mindless reflexive anti Israel rants do nothing for progressives or progressive ideals….if anything, they underline the historical ignorance of those spouting this antisemitism and fuel a right wing agenda, in addition to exposing the hypocrisy of the left. First, I find it hard to believe that Jews should be barred from building on land that they purchased legitimately…but Arabs should not be barred from building whereever they want. And where is the outrage at Arab countries that prohibit Jews. Saudi Arabia has an apartheid society where women are second class citizens. No other religion is permitted in these societies except for Islam. Where is the outrage on these pages? The Hamas faction of the Palestinians calls for Israel’s elimination. And the incitement against Jews throughout this society is outrageous. But no outrage. Hypocrisy unveiled. Further, the ideals propagated by Palestinians are completely antithetical to a progressive society. Has anyone here ever examined the culture that is promoted in Palestinian society? It is outrageous, extreme and anti semitic. Children are taught from a young age to hate Jews….but all of this is glossed over in these pages.

So before mouthing propaganda, familiarize yourself with actual history versus revisionist history. The Palestinians have received billions and billions of dollars from the E.U. and the U.S. Where has this money gone? To infrastructure? Or to weapons and corruption? The truth is there is a vested interest in keeping the Palestinian Israel conflict ongoing….Other autocratic societies in the middle east want to deflect attention from their own failures….so they focus on Israel as the bogey man. But Israel is a progressive society. It has medical care for all….gays can serve in the military openly…Meanwhile, many Arab (and Iran of course) countries execute gays. Are these the values you want to promote? 7th century Islam? When suicide bombers are considered heroic, there is a big problem. There are real crimes going on in the world that get no attention….like in Nigeria…where people are slaughtered for because of their beliefs…This absurd focus on Israel alone as the bad operator will only come back the morons who can’t analyze a problem

It’s not a two-state picture right now at all, I don’t believe. Most Palestinians are still, 60 years later, dispossessed refugees living under the control, operation, and incursions of a hostile foreign army. The West Bank is not a “state”. Gaza is not a “state”. These are populations of millions of refugees to whom Israel continues to deny many basic human rights. This is the core of the issue. The creation of Israel was the creation of a population of millions of permanent refugees. The ongoing expropriation (ie, theft) of the best remaining lands by the Israelis via the process of slow colonization while playing shell games with a “peace process” is the core of the issue.

If there were two states (and there were not) we would able to concretely identify the borders of Israel. This is still impossible. Nobody knows what are the borders of Israel.

Speaking of mindless rants …

ha ha and ha. That’s more truth than anything else, Seymour. Israel is degenerating but it still more progressively human than the filth that Hamas teaches and embodies.

Where is the outrage on these pages?

We’re all working as hard as we can. Be our guest and research and write your own diary on whatever topic stirs you to action:

seminal.firedoglake.com/diary

Right? I was going to say something about glass houses! Take a valium. Anti Israel doesn’t equal antisemitism, no matter how much you wish to equate them. You don’t want to get into a body count of Israeli civilians versus Palestinian civilians.

The US won’t even demand that Israel drop the blockade against Gaza such that the people there can begin to recover as a civilian population. Israel continues to collectively punish the people of Gaza for supporting a political faction that Israel disapproves of long after the murder of “Operation Cast Lead” is over. The people of Gaza still struggle to subsist. Economic blockades of the sort that Israel has imposed on Gaza are considered criminal by the UN and that body has referred to this blockade as “crimes against humanity” and referred the issue to the ICC.

The famed “Goldstone Report” is just a bureaucratic exercise in stating the obvious regarding the military crimes Israel committed against the people of Gaza. The US won’t support that and the US won’t demand that Israel cease its economic strangulation of the people of Gaza.

If you can find much in what that person wrote that isn’t mindless ranting, I applaud you. I was identifying that person’s post as a mindless rant that began accusing people here of a mindless rants, not making a comparison between Israeli society and any teachings of Hamas.

I agree. That seemed nothing except a long defense of Israel and condemnation of Palestinians. Nowhere in there did I see mention of Israeli seizure of deeded Palestinian lands or the use of white phosphorous on Palestinian civilians nor did I see any mention of trying to starve out the people in Gaza or denying them access to their jobs, schools and homes because some kids threw rocks at some tanks. Nope, Palestinians aren’t saints but the Israelis lost the moral high ground many decades ago and I’m sick of my money paying for the slaughter of populations that are inconvenient to Israel. It’s bad enough that I have to support my own government doing it.

Macaquerman called me “dude” and also said

Frank is on a trip to the Funhouse

He is very clever with words but he does not say much.

If you start out with a post that’s a rant, you may well get comments that are nearly as bad.

There’s more truth in that comment than there has been in the last year of Sunday night rants posted.

Gaza is being blockaded and the Gazans criminally oppressed by Israel, but it’s never mentioned that Hamas runs Gaza through oppression of the Gazans and that Hamas is dedicated to seeing that there is either no peace or no Israel.

The ignorance here is mind boggling. Do you have any idea of the actual history of the place? Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan were created …they did not exist….Read about the Ottoman Empire. There is nothing here that stands out except for the fact it is Israel. The U.S. slaughtered the Native Americans and took their lands. Should we give the U.S. back to the Native Americans? Should we give Mexico the land we conquered? How about the Turks? Should they keep disputed land? And what about the Armenian genocide? There are disputed lands throughout the world. But in this instance, Israel is always the bad actor. Unfortunately, many on the left are as dishonest as those on the right. The Palestinians are pawns in a game of power as to who controls the oil and the region. Wake up and stop being naive as to what is really going on. When Jordan controlled Jerusalem, access to the holy sites was barred to many. Is this where you want to return? You think Palestinian society is victimized? By whom? If I recall, Israel did return Gaza. What has it become? But if you extol the virtues of a violent Palestinian society where women and gays are second class citizens and there is no freedom whatsoever, then that says more about you. There clearly is no intelligent debate going on here.
And when has the U.S. media suddenly become so honest?

Actually, a lot of the ultra-Orthodox are trying to do just that. Women who show up at the Wailing Wall without shawls or in skirts deemed too short are liable to get spat on or have paint thrown at their legs. If they’re lucky.

Re: “progressively human”.

Let’s focus on the narrow issue of Israeli democracy for the moment. We can both doubtless agree that democratic government functioning is part of what would constitute “progressively human”.

We don’t need to go too far back in history in Israel, unless you really want. We can leave out Sharon. Let’s talk about Kadima and the Labor parties to begin with. These parties are supposedly the “centrist” response to the extremism of Israel’ Likud and Yisrael Beitanu parties. Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, the prime minister and foreign minister that together drove Operation Cast Lead, were from the Kadima party. They drove Operation Cast Lead as a way to drive up Livni’s polling numbers as an election approached. They made a big deal of a kidnapped Israeli corporal and built it up into a bloody war on a civilian population, all to pander to the Israeli voter. The Israelis approved of what Olmert and and Livni did, by broad margins, according to polls. Operation Cast Lead nearly made Livni the current prime minister of Israel. However, the Israeli population just didn’t think she militarist enough. So instead they voted for old war criminal Benyamin Netanyahu and … overtly fascist Avigdor Lieberman, of the Y.B. party.

Israel’s youth really got out the vote for Lieberman, apparently. He lives in an illegal settlement in the West Bank, unrepentant.

That’ right. The foreign minister of Israel chose as his residence an internationally illegal settlement. He has been an overt proponent of ethnic cleansing.

Netanyahu is best known currently for trying to drum up war limited or otherwise against Iran. Lieberman has of course stood with Netanyahu and under the two the West Bank settlements have only expanded. The two together enjoy a popular approval rating amongst the Israeli population that Barry Obama could only dream of.

I did you a favor and left General Sharon out of the discussion.

Tell me how it is that Israel is “progressively human” given that the voters there, even after Operation Cast Lead was done, couldn’t find the politicians who drove OCL sufficiently militaristic and harsh on the Palestinians, and voted into power a nakedly proto-fascist regime in the form of Netanyahu and Lieberman.

How. Is. That. Progressively. Human.

The Israeli regime is democratically elected by the Israeli population. And (yes, I am doing you a favor by leaving General Sharon out of the picture, and the assassination of Rabin) the Israeli population seems to choose bloody, militant, and oppressive regimes.

It wasn’t much of a defense of Israel, I don’t think. Certainly, Israel doesn’t need defenders like that, either.

I think if you bother to do anything other than vent hot air, such as, for example, read the posts here, you’ll see that people clearly know some of the history of the region. Incidentally, speaking of the history of the region, the Ottoman empire has very little to do with Operation Cast Lead and its consequences, which is actually what is being discussed here. I hope that you can understand that.

I saw a picture in the New York Times of an ultra-orthodox Israeli throwing a glass of wine at a Palestinian woman walking along a sidewalk, once.

you’re quite right about the ultras. they’re a damned plague and an ever-growing obstacle to any kind of rational life or hope for peace.

Actually, the ultra-Orthodox are among the strongest voices pushing for illegal settlements (the Likud faction cut a deal with them where in exchange for their votes the Likud (and now Kadima) would push for relaxed rules on Russian immigration and look the other way while they built the illegal settlements, settlements that the IDF (from which the ultra-Orthodox are exempt from service) must defend at great expense in blood and treasure.

And the ultra-Orthodox are not exactly women’s libbers.

Seymour, I haven’t liked a damned thing about the Israeli government since the last failed attempt at peace offered by Barak.
As I said to someone on FDL earlier this evening, there was a time when things such as Lieberman would have been banned from holding office in Israel.
And as the Israeli government and society grow worse, they’re still way better than ….

And they have Jihad Envy. They can’t wait until they totally control the state of Israel — which is ironic as their forebears wanted nothing to do with the original revival of Israel, as the Messiah hadn’t shown up yet. But once it was a done deal, they started moving to take it over.

Yitzak Rabin would vomit if he were alive today. But he saw it all coming before he was murdered.

“His basic assumption on such principles and organizing its powers in such a way as they would seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness” ; something is missed in this translation.

This is another time -there haven’t been many- when I agree with Mac about what klassicheart wrote. That person does have a valid point about the emphasis on the I/P issue and very little in terms of posts or diaries about what occurs in other countries of the middle east. What he seems to have missed is all the criticism that HAS appeared about U.S. foreign policy on the FDL world. And how that policy is supportive of the very ideas that he points out about other countries(in particular ,Saudi Arabia; there’s been a bunch of ‘negative’ stories about Iran at FDL world.)

When klassicheart says “The truth is there is a vested interest in keeping the Palestinian Israel conflict ongoing” that is a correct statement(with the concommitant idea that there are only half-truths and that it is trying to make them whole truths that plays the devil); too bad that person didn’t state what they think is the ‘vested interest’.

“gays can serve in the military openly” ; yeah but everyone who wants to claim ‘religious scholarship’ doesn’t have to serve.

So it wasn’t a complete raant. *G*

By the way, the Egyptians are blockading Gaza as well. They are building a wall. I wonder why? Might this have something to do with smuggling weapons? And how is Tibet doing? Or Myramar? Or Iran? And what are the North Koreans doing to their people? And we haven’t even gotten to many parts of Africa yet. There are horrible things happening in other parts of the world that are far more horrific. But why only the attention on Israel? Do you know of the executions of student protesters in Iran? But only Israel gets the attention. Are the Palestinians just a more protected class than Africans or Tibetans or the millions of others that receive no aid or support or who suffer because they get no media coverage? Concern yourself with why some things get coverage and others do not. You are being manipulated. Just as progressives were so adroitly manipulated on health care. Stop being suckers for the propaganda being fed to you. Read history. Wake up. There are far worse actors that are getting away with murder. Meanwhile, last I read, oil companies were raking in billions. As are health care corporations. How many die here as a result of our so called health care system? Didn’t Alan Grayson have a number? But many are distracted by Israel’s so called transgressions? What fools. You are being manipulated.

… they’re still way better than what has emerged from the near-anarchy in the occupied territories.

At least in the sense of the word “better” wherein “better” means “more easily recognizable to me as a developed world government”.

None of us would like to live under Hamas, to be sure!

But what made Hamas? and why does it exist?

You see, what I see when you say in essence “the Israeli government is still a developed-world regime that allows its Jewish population to a greater extent and its Palestinian population IN ISRAEL to a lesser extent basic freedoms, whereas Hamas is a militant fundamentalist religious organization” is that you are making a very invalid comparison.

The Palestinian people don’t have a functioning economy, let alone a state. I want you to really consider that, for 60 years, they have been a population of stateless refugees living under military occupation and incursion by the military of the people who drove them out of their original homes into the territories they now stay in.

Israel will not allow these people to return to their homes. Israel will not allow these people to form their own viable nation. They are stateless, poor, they have no constitutional government, they have few civic institutions at all, they live in a world where basic economic needs are met through a dangerous black market and where power through the barrel of a gun.

Nobody wants to live that way. The Palestinians themselves don’t want to live that way. And I can’t see a valid comparison or rational reason to want to compare between the developed-world Israeli civic institutions and civil society and the experience had by a population of refugees living in a near-anarchy kept contained by a foreign-to-them military.

It’s not that what you wrote is at all wrong, is just that the perception behind what you wrote just doesn’t seem to me at all clear.

Some buddies of mine protested at the border of Gaza while trying to bring in supplies for the Palestinians.

Finally, can you identify for me what time in Israel’s history it is that you believe that Avigdor Lieberman would have been banned from mainstream politics in Israel?

He’s pretty close to being a fellow traveler of General Sharon, and Sharon certainly was a dominant long-term figure in mainstream Israeli politics.

Siun’s posts on the middle east are an immense credit to FDL. one unassailably moral voice lends a lot of cred to a site that is dealing censorious tendencies and willful blind spots.

That person does have a valid point about the emphasis on the I/P issue and very little in terms of posts or diaries about what occurs in other countries of the middle east.

This comes up at my blog, and at posts I write here and at DK. My most comprehensive reply to this kind of query or criticism is this:

Question: I don’t understand your preoccupation with Palistine. How about giving some balanced blog space and advocacy for the oppressed people of countries such as North Korea, Tibet, China, Sudan, Somalia, Myanmar, etc?

My answer is: We don’t send hundreds of billions of American tax dollars to the North Koreans so that they can drop or shoot white phosphorus onto schools and hospitals, where kids like the one at the upper left have to end up dead or looking like him.

We don’t write tax policies that enable the Han Chinese to invest in housing projects that eject Tibetans from their homes in Lhasa.

We don’t have a White House with a chief of staff named after a Chinese terrorist who was killed smuggling arms to kill British Soldiers.

We don’t cater to lobbyists from Sudan who constantly encourage us to go to all-out war against a neighboring country that hasn’t attacked one of their neighbors in generations.

We don’t have a Pentagon whose offices are stuffed with people with dual Somali-American citizenship, who manufacture false premises to march us into a series of wars in the heart of Africa.

We aren’t experiencing a time when a small group of ruthless Burmese generals and politicians have hijacked Buddhism, turning it into a militant version of what had once been a great religion, and branding anyone who doesn’t believe in a Myanmar expansion version of Buddhism as anti-Burmese or anti-Buddhist.

Additionally, no North Korean, Chinese, Sudanese, Burmese or Somali general, politician, general or warlord is openly bragging that the United States is fighting two wars and threatening to start a third one, on their behalf.

Also, and importantly, there is no large body of American people who openly believe that we need to foster violence in North Korea, Tibet, China, Somalia, Venezuela, Cuba, Sudan or Burma, so that we may enable the second coming of Jesus Christ, and implement a new age. And there is no cynical tie-in between Columbian politicians who hope to bring money to their country because of some apocolyptic religious myth, and American fundamentalist sects who total in the tens of millions of misguided believers.

Here’s the annotated version of my answer.

Now even Gen. Petraeus is quietly warning the Obama administration of the nasty situation our continuing blind support of Israel expansion is becoming.

Anti Israel does equal anti semitism…especially if you look at what manages to escape the attention of the anti Israel bunch. Israel society is not perfect…but if you were surrounded by hostile nations building arsenals against you, I wonder how you would react. How about some Kumbaya? As to “refugee” issue…first of all, this image you have is not correct. Jordan expelled a million Palestinians from their country as did Kuwait. The Palestinians are denied citizenship in most of these countries? They are not allowed to become citizens. Why? Their status has deliberately been kept this way…and not by Israel. There is a reason for this madness. And it lies in the power politics of the region, with far bigger players than little Israel. Wake up. Do you remember the destruction, death, massacres, and suicide bombings in Iraq between Sunnis and Shias? People are dying all over the place…..and the issue is power. How about all the suicide bombings in Pakistan? Think on a macro scale and you will understand how people are brainwashed in their hatreds..Right here in the U.S., we have very vibrant brainwashing going on….just take a look at Texas and its school board…But power is the objective.

Thanks for shedding some light and common sense on this issue. There are some on this site who are well intentioned and simply misguided. Most, however, are blinded by prejudice. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself censored here. I was cut out of the Seminal a few days ago.

Very well-written response.

Outstanding ! Thank you.

Anti Israel does equal anti semitism

No, it does not and your Bush like obsession with making words mean what you think they should mean will never make it so. I can despise the government of Saudi Arabia, (and I do), without despising Muslims. I can deplore the jack booted thuggery of Israel’s government without hating Jewish people. I can abhor my own government’s interference in and slaughter of people around the world without hating my neighbor. The world isn’t black and white no matter how uncomfortable and complicated you find shades of gray. Grow up.

We do send aid to North Korea…so already you show your ignorance. And as for this trope about our aid to Israel, let me quickly say…first, much of this “aid” or loan guarantees are not fully used by Israel. Second, much of it goes to buy American arms..which keep jobs in this country for defense contractors (since we don’t seem to have many other non service jobs…having exported those to China and elsewhere). Additionally, Israel is an ally in a hostile area…and this serves American security interests. Much of what we do as a country has to do with our oil interests, which in fact affect our security. Remember the first war in Iraq? Weren’t we helping Kuwait and Saudi Arabia? And what did we get for that? And we support Saudi Arabia too…politically…and gee, they are such a great democracy with wonderful progressive values. But they buy alot from our defense industry. And they sure have a lot of oil.

1988, Seymour, sounds about right.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061172.html

Excellent, ET. Thank you.

morality that is always blind to half the sinners and their sins ain’t morality at all.
it’s a half of a horse of a different color.

And you show your need of a reading comprehension refresher. I didn’t say we do not “aid” NK, I wrote that we don’t aid them at a specific level.

If you cannot afford a reading comprehension course – your local library may be able to locate a free one in your community – we might be able to raise a small amount of money to pay for one for you.

klassicheart isn’t interested in comprehension as much as promoting a specific point of view which is if you don’t defend and justify everything that Israel does, you must be an antisemitic bigot. It’s tiresome and predictable.

Fix your figures

We don’t send hundreds of billions of American tax dollars

or someone may offer you a remedial math course or something.

as moderator

***gentle reminder to disagree with the message but do not attack the messenger***

The people who have conniptions about what you are writing are hardly unique on the American scene. They have their antecedents in the America First/Charles Lindbergh/Joe Kennedy movement that plagued the U.S. until December 7, 1941. These are the modern day version of the people who thought the Jews and British were agitating the U.S. to go to war with Nazi Germany.

I’m not quite sure what you mean, but if you’re inferring that I believe we send hundreds of billions of dollars per year as aid to any country, I am not.

And I want to make something very clear. I consider myself a progressive. Although I voted for Obama in the general, I was not conned by the great marketing campaign. I just thought that McCain and Palin were far more dangerous. But I remember all of the brainwashed “progressives” and their love of Obama and all of the wonderful things he was going to do. Of course, many of these progressives should see what this brainwashing bought them….this watered down health care bill…the continuation of wiretapping…the giveaway to the financial industry with no changes in the rules…But I digress…Obama didn’t really continue any Bush policies at all…you’re just imagining it…(the social security plan is next) But brainwashing does have its usefulness. And progressives have shown themselves to be as subject to it as others.

But name me one major Arab society where Jews have equal rights to Arabs? Where Jews are flourishing? This isn’t about hating Muslims. But it is clear that they have been brainwashed into hating Jews. And hating Jews and after 1948, hating Israel, has been around a long long time. And we know what that eventually led to. Germany was in a depression and Jews were a convenient scapegoat. The fact that no one seems to comment on Arab and Iranian complicity in the situation in Gaza and the west bank should say it all. But mostly it speaks to the ignorance of most good people…their ignorance of history…or their ignorance of facts on the ground…and their ignorance of the real politics of power. It is easier to speak in sound bites than to explain power politics in a very complex world.

what are they actual figures, then? give us a link, knowledgeable one. $5 billion a year for 20 years gets to the “hundreds of billions” threshold, but provide your numbers, with links and let the commenters have a look.

Claiming that folks are anti-semitic or nazi sympathizers is really quite pathetic.

what I’m saying as that I would like for you to name the country that has received hundreds of billions of American tax dollars for the purpose of dropping WP into schools or hospitals.

writing ranting garbage such as that and then belaboring someone else for a lack of reading comprehension says quite a bit.

Then get explicit instead of speaking in propaganda sound bites. You have an agenda and this little comment about North Korea reveals it. And you are being dishonest.

But name me one major Arab society where Jews have equal rights to Arabs? Where Jews are flourishing?

You mean like the Palestinians enjoy in Israel? Because Arab nations are despotic makes it okay for Israel to be? All I’m getting from you is “Arabs suck so Israel is justified”. It’s not that simple. I look upon Jewish people the same way I see Muslims and Christians: The ones in power use their superstition as a cudgel to beat the “other” among them down while keeping their “own kind” in fear of that other. Why is Israel any different from any number of corrupted and xenophobic regimes? Why does Israel get a pass?

Exactly…and on point.

Even more pathetic that it’s true. The gaping double standard leaves no doubt. Noted atheist author Christopher Hitchens recently said, “Our task is to call this filthy thing, this plague, this pest, by its right name, … to make unceasing resistance to it, knowing all the time that it’s probably ultimately ineradicable, and bearing in mind that its hatred toward us is a compliment and resolving some of the time, at any rate, to do a bit more to deserve it.”
There is no greater testament to the justice of Israel’s cause than the condemnation of the bigots on this blog.

i find you calling anyone who disagrees with a premise the equivalent of a nazi appeaser insulting.

as moderator, i caution you to not insult those who disagree with you. continuing to do so will result in comments being moderated.

hey, Margaret, you would have a pretty hard time finding an Arab nation where the Arab citizens have as much freedom as the Arab citizens of Israel possess, despite being treated as second or third-class Israelis.

We have either loaned with no repayment, under-valued equipment, granted or given money over the course of our aid programs to Israel over $100 billion. Easily. Of course not all of it went to white phosphorus lobbed onto schools. But some did.

Would you rather I catalog the list of munitions, equipment and other strategic items we’ve basically given to Israel or the IDF over the years, that have been used irresponsibly, or even criminally? The fusillade of cluster munitions dropped or lobbed into Southern Lebanon in September 2006 is a prime example.

gotta link for that mac?

they’re still way better than . . . Dick Cheney? Richard Perle? Paul Wolfowicz?

go through Human Rights Watch reports.

There you go again – equating objections to Israel’s foreign policies with the Nazis.

Somewhere in that bedraggled heart of yours, there must be a sense of historic proportion, and grievous shame.

So we wait for it. In the meantime, pups:

DO NOT FEED this cancerous bilge…

i’m not the one making the claim — you are.

Noted atheist author Christopher Hitchens…

Noted? Is that you Chris?

big time grin for that.

Our relationship with Israel never has, nor does it now enhance stability. Anywhere:

On January 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief JCS Chairman Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM’s mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) “too old, too slow…and too late.”

The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue; which is why the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus’s instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. “Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling,” a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. “America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding.” But Petraeus wasn’t finished: two days after the Mullen briefing, Petraeus sent a paper to the White House requesting that the West Bank and Gaza (which, with Israel, is a part of the European Command – or EUCOM), be made a part of his area of operations. Petraeus’s reason was straightforward: with U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military had to be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region’s most troublesome conflict.

This is true, to a certain extent. However, Human Rights Watch noted some time back – I’m looking for the link – that a young Jewish woman in Tehran, on the average, is far more highly educated, earns more, and has a much better chance for a satisfying adult professional life than does a young Ethiopian or Yemeni Jewish woman in Tel Aviv.

you’re the one asking for a link, yes? I’m telling you where the documentation is.

if I had one super=duper link, I would gladly furnish same, but the info isn’t handy in one spot or on a single HRW report that I know of.

I agree -

and Bibi is screwing up the process.

The housing permits are actually not the problem – they are in an area that will be in Israel after the agreement – but you don’t show your power by pissing on people and then expect to get them to agree with you. Indeed people will do things contrary to their own interests if they perceive they are getting an unfair deal when they do what is in their interests.

The US response – Trying to force a prisoner release and a change in the talks from tech details to “build confidence” to “final status on borders” is more than I expected – I hope Hillary can pull it off.

That’s something that may have some truth, ET. Women coming from Yemen or Ethiopia don’t have it real easy.

Young people in Iran are encouraged to continue their education.

No…the hostility to Israel is way out of proportion…considering the facts….and especially considering that Israel is a progressive democracy. And your statement about Arab rights in Israel is outright false. Israeli citizens have the same rights, whether Jewish or Arab. And there aren’t too many Arab citizens emigrating out of Israel. So unless you can supply actual facts, I must conclude your purpose is either to deceive or that you are truly ignorant of life in Israel. But my main point is that this hostility to Israel is the result of brainwashing….because the facts do not support your reality. There is no perfect society. And Israel is not perfect…nor is this country. But attempting to portray Palestinians as being the most noble of victims is ridiculous. They are victimized by their own corrupt governments and have been for years. They are pawns. How much do you think Arafat put in Swiss banks? And where do you think that money came from? There are many places in the world where people are living sub human lives. Haiti…There are plenty of victims in the world and the Palestinians aren’t more special. And Israel isn’t the cause of their problems…since they receive and have received incredible aid from the E.U. and the U.S.

If Sunnis and killing Shias and vice versa in many parts of the Arab world…and suicide bombings are commonplace, you need to ask and consider other issues…Israel is an easy scapegoat for the uninformed. No hard thinking required. And anti semitism has been around for a long long time.
And if I recall, it was the Arabs who started wars against Israel since its founding. People seem to resent the fact that Israel fought back. But then, we all know that progressives aren’t very good at fighting Republicans or truly regressive ideas (like being forced to subsidize insurance companies) so they train their guns on Israel as an easy target.
There are enough people actually dying in this country…while the middle class is being squeezed out of existence…to worry about…rather than focusing on Israel’s methods of protecting itself against sworn enemies whose stated purpose is to destroy her. But then, diverting progressives from real issues that should concern them is exactly the idea.

Peruse the comments above. You have allowed numerous personal and juvenile insults of individuals who post comments, and only occasionally do you gently chide them for doing so. I sincerely believe that the most strident opinions on this blog are parallel to a point of view that was expressed 70 years ago but ultimately discredited. You have the power to suppress a dissenting opinion if you wish, and it will provide further proof of the hypocrisy of the Israel-bashers.

i don’t see a denial that you were insulting in that ‘defense’.

I’m not sure that you and Margaret are talking about the same thing. I don’t understand Palestinians, the people Margaret nominates, as being Israeli citizens.
The people not holding Israeli citizens and living in Jerusalem or the West Bank, most surely do not have equal rights as Israelis, as I’m certain you understand.

And, most certainly, you’re correct in thinking that Arab states have denied any thing like equality or even decent treatment to Jewish citizens. The treatment of Jews in the Arab nations after the war of 1948 can not be defended by anybody.

And how much did we give away to the financial industry? How about American corporations getting tax breaks for sending jobs overseas? How about agribusiness and its corporate welfare…or the oil industry and its tax breaks? And on and on. Do the math. Again, progressives duped. Jews in this country are primarily liberal. All this Israel hatred will not aid progressives….it will hurt them. Alienating Jews with these totally unfair, false and destructive rants will not gain progressives more allies in the fight against corporatism. But then, progressives were never as good as right wingers in rallying their allies. Progressives haven’t been that good with their so called friends either. And they sure believed in Obama. Things are never what they seem. So don’t blindly follow. Spitting on Jews and Israel will not bring progressives what they want. Nor is Israel the real issue for progressives.

There are other insults directed against Jews and you have not been so careful with them.

the disagreement is with the country — not the people. you are the one asserting they are one and the same.

since you have such high regard for the right wingers, why are you hanging out here?

You have allowed numerous personal and juvenile insults of individuals who post comments

You should thank Suzanne for allowing a free wheeling discussion. As for personal and juvenile, that is not as bad as your insults, such as “Bigots”.

And Macquerman, no linkies yet?

that’s blatantly unfair of you. I urge that you reconsider that remark.

Had we, over the past ten years, spent the money we spent on arms, fighting our wars, on women’s education, we might have transformed that part of the world. The Bush people claimed that this was sort of what they wanted to do, but their base in the USA isn’t all that hot about women’s education here, let alone in Kabul or Basra.

The better educated a woman is, whether it is Shanghai, Mumbai, Casablanca, Oslo, Hebron or Rio, the more likely the society in which she lives can find a way out of religious fundamentalism and bigotry, which – to me – are the drivers behind all this hatred we are arguing about here at Siun’s thoughtful article/thread.

I’ve told you where you can go.

Human Rights Watch is a great site with much fine info.

Seek it out for yourself, dude.

Well jeez!

ET, had the damned Israelis and the PLO settled the thing in 2000, we, and the entire world, would be better off. Arafat didn’t think he could do a deal then, on terms that today seem pretty decent.

The women of Gaza aren’t likely to be now or anytime soon where they might have been.
And all the rest of us might have been spared what we did and helped to do to Iraq.

Alienating Jews with these totally unfair, false and destructive rants will not gain progressives more allies in the fight against corporatism.

I fail to see your point. I’ve overtly been criticizing expansionist aspects of militant Zionism in writings since early 2004. Because of these writings, I’ve made scores of new Jewish friends to add to the ones I already had. I’ve corresponded since 2004, debating about or discussing aspects of militant Zionist expansionism with some of my favorite scholars in the USA, Canada, Europe and Israel. That these people also happened to be Jewish, was not important to me, past acknowledging and possibly learning from their heritage.

Their ideas and the dialogue were, though. I work with a lot of Jewish progressives on important issues other than Israeli expansionism, and their knowledge that I have my views, and that my friends or colleagues are far more supportive of Israeli policies than am I, doesn’t keep us from fighting together on other issues, and celebrating together warmly when we win.

On this, you may be quite wrong.

Iran’s ancient Jewish community has dwindled by roughly 75 percent since the 1979 Islamic revolution to 25,000 from some 100,000 – and there is no Human Rights watch report comparing the discrimination on government aid and job finding efforts faced by the country’s 120,000 Ethiopians which comes from doubts on the part of the country’s religious establishment about their Jewishness, to the Human rights in Iran where the it is not government actions that dump on Jews but instead it is Government officials that push a social agenda to make the country more Muslim in appearance. Indeed given the recent killing of 1,000 folks that spoke against the government politics and social agenda, I would be surprised if any of the Jews in Iran voiced a compliant. There is a usage of contraceptive shots by Ethiopians that the PAL claim proves Israeli’s are prevent black births – indeed it sounds like something Phil at progressive Alaska – posting here as Teller – would say! :-)

Indicate where I have such a high regard for right wingers other than their ability to fight for their so called “values?” Seems like you’re doing the name calling. As for anti Israel not being anti semitic….those are terms of art…clearly, the tone of the hate and the lack of balance is what is important.

I agree. Empowering women is absolutely a successful strategy that has not been employed.

not employed successfully enough. But in general, I agree more money should be directly put to use for good projects and should not go through corrupt governments.

Are you serious? We should be thankful that a supposedly liberal blog believes in freewheeling discussion?

I’d love to stay and discuss this more – dinner calls – but:

government aid and job finding efforts faced by the country’s 120,000 Ethiopians which comes from doubts on the part of the country’s religious establishment about their Jewishness

Is a rather sketchy analysis of the racism involved in these decisions. And I certainly agree that Persian Jews – hopefully – are being prudent in the current political climate there.

And if we’re not thankful…then what? A more authoritarian blog?

Apparently the big news of the week has been

this….. from AQ Khan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/13/AR2010031302258.html

or so I thought.

Are you serious? We should be thankful that a supposedly liberal blog believes in freewheeling discussion?

I myself do not call this a “liberal blog”. As I said Suzanne is a great moderator for an incredibly divisive set of issues. So yes you should be thankful because this is an oasis of freewheelingness. You know what discussions about critical issues there are on the tee vee machine? Missing Attractive White Women.

try again – from the article you cited:

Khan is a controversial figure, and he has complained bitterly about long-standing restrictions on his movements by Pakistan’s government, which says it seeks to ensure he does not restart his nuclear dealings. Several U.S. experts have noted that as a result, Khan is eager to depict others as more culpable than he was in those dealings.

Most observers now think Khan’s work for Iran was directed by “senior elements of Pakistan’s military, if not by its political leaders,” said Leonard S. Spector, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “Khan is clearly out to vindicate his reputation, but the issues remain murky enough that you can’t be certain when he is telling the truth and when he is embellishing.”

Militant Zionism? Define your terms. Zionism is a belief in the Jewish homeland of Israel. How many countries call themselves Muslim states? How many actually are? Most. And Jews are not welcome.
You supply no definition of what you consider expansionist. In fact, Israel returned Gaza….what did that get them? And of course, no expansionist Arabs…or other countries. Your arguments are sound bites. Because they are intellectually dishonest.

zionism:

Zionism, the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, advocated, from its inception, tangible as well as spiritual aims. Jews of all persuasions, left and right, religious and secular, joined to form the Zionist movement and worked together toward these goals. Disagreements led to rifts, but ultimately, the common goal of a Jewish state in its ancient homeland was attained. The term “Zionism” was coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum.

you try again. the story isn’t which group in Pakistan was most responsible for dealing with the Iranians.
the story is that the Iranians were trying to buy nuclear weapons.
that they had to settle for parts, plans, and names of suppliers doesn’t change that they wanted bombs.

It seems you confuse de facto with de jure.

here’s a link to a mag summarizing the scores of democracy and freedom for the citizens of the Arab nations in 2000. The scoring comes from Amnesty International,HRW and the US State Department.

http://www.meforum.org/40/can-democracy-prevail

“Using this methodology, we see that Morocco scores the highest in the Arab world in terms of democracy, with 11 points out of 18 or 61 percent. The second highest rankings go to Jordan and Lebanon, with 10.5 points or 58 percent. The lowest rankings go to Iraq and Saudi Arabia with 2.5 points or 14 percent; and Sudan occupies the second lowest position, with 4.5 points or 25 percent. All in all, no Arab country falls within the 100th to 70th percentile, one falls within the 60th percentile, five fall within the 50th percentile, three within the 40th percentile, one within the 30th percentile, five within the 20th percentile, and two in the 10th percentile.

These measurements confirm what one would expect: that democracy is severely lacking in the Arab countries. The seventeen states have a common political characteristic – authoritarianism.

The seventeen Arab states have a common political characteristic – authoritarianism.”

thanks mac

The response is not to comment on how lucky you perceive yourself to be at this blog….Blogs who censor comments to prevent other points of view are intellectually dishonest. I was personally accused by Suzanne of being in sympathy with right wingers. It was a patently false statement in context. And if we’ve come to the point where blogs, both liberal, progressive, centrist, conservative, evangelical…etc. all censor opposing points of view…then we will begin to look like mainstream media. And divided, we will be conquered. Intellectual honesty is what matters…and free debate. Otherwise, we become propaganda organs…and no real discussion ensues…just preaching to the choir. It’s what happened during the primaries….a complete lack of intellectual honesty…It is ultimately very damaging .

always a pleasure, Suzanne.

Militant – overt and sometimes overwhelming use of arms and military or paramilitary might.

Zionist – based upon an interpretation of Judaism that seeks a homeland based upon biblical and historical interpretations of a Jewish homeland – Zion. The most commonly understood Biblical reference to Zion is from Exodus 23:31

Expansionism – taking land, water rights, fixed or moveable property, freedoms and (as Siun has illustrated so well in many articles here at FDL) dignity, from one population and delivering it to another, often with no compensation whatsoever.

Thank you. Exactly right.

And on a previous thread on Rachel Corrie discussing American citizens who had been killed in Palestine, the relative number of American citizens killed in Israel etc, I didn’t have time to comment. But I wanted to point out that many Palestinians are also American citizens — the discussion seemed not to consider that — and a number of them have been killed. In a brief search I counted at least five American citizens in the West Bank or Gaza killed by Israelis including Corrie since 1988. There are probably more. They may even have been killed by Israelis holding dual American-Israeli citizenship — such is the strange nature of our American involvement in the Israeli colonial enterprise. Along that line, Americans living in Israel have killed at least 54 Palestinians since 1994 — the majority of them murdered by Brooklyn native Rabbi Baruch Goldstein. Since 2000 alone a total of 41 Palestinians — teenage shepherds, olive farmers, taxi drivers — have been killed by Israeli settlers, and it is important to point out that a large number of the most radical, violent settlers are Americans. Of course, as Teller points out, we Americans overall bear a large responsibility for what happens to the Palestinians and so in a sense we Americans are all responsible for all their deaths. As for the number of American citizens killed by Palestinians in Israel — someone had claimed that figure would be higher than the number of Americans killed by Israelis: the total is approximately 53 since 1983, many of them settlers, some tourists. That total is indeed higher than the number of Americans murdered by Israelis in Palestine. But it is less, during a longer time span, than the number of Palestinians killed by Americans.

sept 1993- dec 2003

it’s 52 American citizens(including Israelis having American citizenship) killed by Palestinians.

according to this.

there’s a bunch more years between 83 and 93, if a count of such really matters.

http://hensarling.house.gov/RSC/doc/PalestinianTerrorismFacts.PDF

If that’s what you think, then it is sad. All countries are not alike. A democratic country cannot be compared with its opposite. One is better than the other. Some values are superior to other values. And when a country or people declare their intention to destroy another, as the Arabs and Iranians have done with Israel, there are consequences, especially when that talk, incitement, education are all about hate and anti semitism…and their actions indicate an ability to carry out said destruction. Germany demonstrated what can happen. Israelis are under constant threat. The Arabs have already initiated wars to destroy Israel…and Israel is surrounded by hostiles. How naive do you have to be to understand that? And the fact that Israel gave back Gaza and got more violence demonstrates that it is not about land or desire for peace…it is about power…It is not in the interests of Syria or Iran (the main funders of terrorism) to have peace in the middle east. So start focusing your energy on why. And on what they are doing to incite violence.
Focus on where all the money is coming from to fund these terrorists and incitement.

Interesting analysis. Thanks.

You accused me of dishonesty, which is serious. As you requested, I attempted to “define my term.”

Yet you haven’t responded to my reply to your accusation, even as you continue to graze on. Please do respond, if it isn’t too inconvenient.

the Arab nations gave up trying to destroy Israel after ’67 and became completely resigned to Israel’s permanence with the end of the USSR.

mac, since this seems to be one sided to you, perhaps you should argue the position of the soldiers that beat this child?

find the story in a reputable source.
I couldn’t find it anywhere else except for one place quoting back to this, and that story omitted anything about a beating.

You have defined your terms but have not explained why you use Zionism in a pejorative way yet neglect to compare the actions of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc in similar terms. I do not agree with your expansionist view of Israel. Nor have you articulatd it in this thread sufficiently to qualify as fact based history. Further, you relegate Israel to being militant yet fail to explain how the other actors are not militant. Or why it is uniquely an issue for you as regards Israel. Or how being not militant is a good strategy in that particular environment. Clearly, your terms would apply to a whole host of countries…but only Israel warrants your vitriol.

disagree completely…But cite your sources or generally explain your point of view with more specificity….although I realize this is not subject to an easy paragraph explanation.

Not a factual narrative. Jews were kicked out of their homes all over the Arab world. No evidence Palestinians were kicked out. Hey, didn’t Hamas kick out the PLO violently? And how about what happened in Iraq between the Shias and Sunnis? Pretty deadly over there, wasn’t it? They dispensed with the kicking out and just slaughtered people. Didn’t Jordan kick out the Palestinians? How about Kuwait? Do you know how many were kicked out? Where’s the outrage? It is the systemic rant against Israel that is highly questionable. You are providing a revisionist history and no context. That is intellectually dishonest or just uninformed.

And what about Jordan? Doesn’t it have a place in history vis a vis the Palestinians? And what is your understanding as to Jordan’s role?

That’s total bullshit, klassicheart.

You accused me of dishonesty for not defining a term. I then defined it. Now you’re changing the fucking subject. Do you object to my definition? If so, why? If not, why not?

Let me understand your premise. The Pentagon is infiltrated with non loyal Jews? How many in the Pentagon? Percentage? You support General Petraes’s views on Israel in this instance. Do you support him on Iraq and Afghanistan? Do you believe if only Israel would return to ’67 borders, there would be peace in the middle east? In other words, land for peace? Then explain Gaza and why the result in Gaza would give anyone confidence that this in fact would be the result?

And what about the Goldstone report suggests accuracy or fairness? The U.N.? Of course, the U.N. is made up primarily of non democratic regimes. It certainly is not a beacon of western democratic values. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to which countries were party to ordering the report and whether there was any bias or agenda?

Please answer my question about the definition you claimed was dishonest.

he doesn’t do links, he only does red herrings. they are worthless to pursue, purely diversionary from uncomfortable truths that cannot be refuted.

Wise!

Well, I see klassicheart and macaquerman succeeded in trashing the thread. Good job, trolls.

well, I guess someone is just all shit and no giggle this morning.