J. J. Goldberg Should Seek Another „Occupation”

The New York Times Op-Ed page has always been a comfortable place for liberal Zionists, those who genuinely bemoan the 1967 Occupation, the settlements, and its effect on both Palestinians and Israel.  When op-ed writers stray too far from the Zionist consensus, i.e., when they air too much of Israel’s dirty linen before the goyim (in New York?), the Times routinely publishes letters defending Israel, and bravo for them. Even this amount of courage on their part loses readers, although, frankly, are there any rightwing Zionists reading the New York Times anymore?

In short, opinion on Israel in the New York Times ranges from progressive Zionist  to liberal hawk Zionist, mostly of the Democratic persuasion. You won’t see any regular columnists on Israel who are not Zionist. You barely hear pro-Palestinian voices (unless they are close to the Palestinian Authority or the American Task Force on Palestine,)

Occasionally, though, the Times lets an op-ed through that is actually tough on Israel, and not just on the post-1967 Occupation. Two such cases recently raised the ire of liberal Zionists like the Forward‘s  J. J. Goldberg and AJC’s David Harris (the former is a progressive Zionist; the latter, a liberal hawk Zionist), who, like other liberal Zionists, monitor how much criticism Israel is allowed to get from the paper of record.

The first was an op-ed published by Sarah Schulman about what has been known for some time as „pinkwashing”, the trumpeting of Israel’s recent record on gay rights as a hasbara tool to deflect criticism on other human rights issues.  In that article, Prof. Schulman cited Prof. Ayal Gross of the Tel Aviv University to the effect that “gay rights have essentially become a public-relations tool,” even though “conservative and especially religious politicians remain fiercely homophobic.” Schulman did not deny that Israel was a better place for gays than elsewhere in the Middle East, only that the

gay soldiers and the relative openness of Tel Aviv are incomplete indicators of human rights — just as in America, the expansion of gay rights in some states does not offset human rights violations like mass incarceration.

I won’t spend much time on David Harris’s piece, which shows clearly that he hadn’t heard of „pinkwashing” before he read Schulman’s op-ed.   The academic who has written about it in the context of what he calls „homonationalism” is Prof. Aeyal Gross of Tel Aviv University. (Gross has a  representative  piece here that will provide some background for Harris, who seems strangely out of touch with the Israeli human rights scene, unless he only reads the New York Times. By the way, Gross himself finds the term „pinkwashing” inaccurate, because, unlike „whitewashing,” which implies concealing the truth, there has been relative progress in LGBT rights.)

Harris is thus  unaware of how the Israel recent record on gay rights has been appropriated in recent years by Israel advocacy groups like Stand-With-Us to shore up support for Israel in the  LGBT community, and the Israeli government’s encouragement of this. Israel’s position here is consistent with its natural desire to garner support with other groups of all persuasions, whether homophiliac or  homophobic, such as evangelical Christians. When it comes to alliances, Israel has always found itself with incompatible bedfellows.

Israel advocacy in  LGBT circles  is a good way of weakening criticism in groups that tend to be leftwing. In a sense, the strategy is reminiscent of Israel’s „divine-and-conquer” approch to Israeli Arabs.  By fostering Druze identity, and playing Druze off against their erstwhile Muslim persecutors, Israel attempted with some success to slow the progress of a Palestinian national identity. Why can’t the same approach be tried in a leftwing community like the LGBT community, where if Israel can pick up support among mainstream gays who really don’t give a hoot for anything outside their parochial interest, why not? And why should David Harris be opposed to this?

Actually, my main gripe is with J. J. Goldberg, who attacks – get this – the headline of a piece he likes, Gershom Gorenberg’s op-ed against the increasing delegitimization of Palestinian Israelis. The headline, „Israel’s Other Occupation,” is a bone-headed mistake, according to Goldberg,  because it implies that Israel is occupying territory „within its own internationally recognized borders.” Apparently the editor of the Op-Ed page,  put down by Goldberg as „a former fashion and culture maven,” simply doesn’t understand the Middle East.

The only problem for Goldberg is that Israel has no internationally recognized border. Nor did it ever have. In fact, it never wanted them, and  David Ben Gurion saw  its lack of recognized borders as an advantage, since it gave him negotiating power in future peace talks.  Liberal Zionists like to mislead themselves into thinking that the 1949 armistice lines are recognized borders, but I will be happy to donate money to the Forward if Goldberg can show me serious, diplomatic support of his claim.  In fact, even the UN Partition Plan borders are not recognized borders for the Jewish State, since they never existed except on paper. When the State of Israel was recognized by many countries, and later when it was accepted into the United Nations, there was no claim that these were Israel’s borders, and that it was inappropriate for the Palestinians and bordering Arab countries to contest these borders. Can a state without borders be recognized?

Ask Mahmoud Abbas that one.

Ah, you will say, this is pilpul, Talmudic hair-splitting. Even if there are no recognized borders, everybody recognizes that the lands on which the Palestinians sit belong to the State of Israel. However, that is not so simple. Let’s not forget that the Palestinian citizens of Israel had their much of their land systematically taken away from them after 1948, often in expropriation, or in land purchases against their will – and Jews were settled on those lands, or forests were planted after razing villages. While that may  not be „occupation,” it is not far from the situation of the Palestinians on the West Bank, with all the differences in status between the two Palestinian populations. And there is something else that they share, and is missed in Goldberg’s reference to „ethnic discrimination” – the feeling of official and foundational exclusion from the state that governs their lives without their having any control over those lives in key areas. Israeli Arabs have the vote, but their vote has no political weight. Palestinians in the territories do not have any vote over policies that directly control their daily lives.

The truth is that the term „occupation” is problematic  both in the case of the Palestinian Israelis and in the case of the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza. „Occupation” is, as Goldberg points out, used with reference to territory, but the terms that are  relevant here are „domination” and „control. In fact, Israel provides three models of control, or, perhaps four models, corresponding with the four types of Palestinian populations: exile and dispossession (Palestinian diaspora); remote military control (Gaza); direct and indirect rule (West Bank); and curtailment of civil rights based on exclusion from the nation (49 armistice lines).    All this control is necessary, argues Israel, for the sake of its security and in order to guarantee the ethnic character of the state. And, quite frankly, most liberal Zionists don’t dispute this. They have no desire for direct control over the lives of Palestinians, but they insist that Israel’s security requires some persistent measure of control over a potentially hostile population.

Potentially hostile or enemy populations are often occupied. As long as poll after poll show that the majority of Israelis view Palestinian Israelis as potentially or actually hostile, or an enemy fifth column, they can certainly be considered occupied. The answer for Palestinians, both inside and outside of the 49 armistice lines, is to grant them equal rights, equal authority, and equal dignity.

The political framework is not the issue. Let it be two states, one state, no state, many states. The real issue is ending the control of  the Palestinians’s life, liberty, and property – on both sides of the Green Line.

http://www.jeremiahhaber.com/2011/11/j-j-goldberg-should-seek-another.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+jeremiahhaber%2FPcEx+%28The+Magnes+Zionist%29

 

Rabbi Manis Friedman on Treatment of Arabs

The article below is from 2009, but it goes well with Danios’ series on how “Jewish Law” can be interpreted by some in a bellicose and genocidal manner. Can one imagine if the below were said by a mainstream Muslim scholar? All hell would break loose. (hat tip: DE)

Popular Rabbi’s Comments on Treatment of Arabs Show a Different Side of Chabad

By Nathaniel Popper (Forward.com)

Like the best Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis, Manis Friedman has won the hearts of many unaffiliated Jews with his charismatic talks about love and God; it was Friedman who helped lead Bob Dylan into a relationship with Chabad.

But Friedman, who today travels the country as a Chabad speaker, showed a less warm and cuddly side when he was asked how he thinks Jews should treat their Arab neighbors.

“The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle),” Friedman wrote in response to the question posed by Moment Magazine for its “Ask the Rabbis” feature.

Friedman argued that if Israel followed this wisdom, there would be “no civilian casualties, no children in the line of fire, no false sense of righteousness, in fact, no war.”

“I don’t believe in Western morality,” he wrote. “Living by Torah values will make us a light unto the nations who suffer defeat because of a disastrous morality of human invention.”

Friedman’s use of phrasing that might seem more familiar coming from an Islamic extremist has generated a swift backlash. The editor of Moment, Nadine Epstein, said that since the piece was printed in the current issue they “have received many letters and e-mails in response to Rabbi Friedman’s comments — and almost none of them have been positive.”

Friedman quickly went into damage control. He released a statement to the Forward, through a Chabad spokesman, saying that his answer in Moment was “misleading” and that he does believe that “any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion.”

But Friedman’s words have generated a debate about whether there is a darker side to the cheery face that the Chabad-Lubavitch movement shows to the world in its friendly outreach to unaffiliated Jews. Mordecai Specktor, editor of the Jewish community newspaper in Friedman’s hometown, St. Paul. Minn., said: “The public face of Lubavitch is educational programs and promoting Yiddishkeit. But I do often hear this hard line that Friedman expresses here.”

“He sets things out in pretty stark terms, but I think this is what Lubavitchers believe, more or less,” said Specktor, who is also the publisher of the American Jewish World. “They are not about loving the Arabs or a two-state solution or any of that stuff. They are fundamentalists. They are our fundamentalists.” Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a regular critic of Arab extremists, said that in the Jewish community, “We are not immune to having these views. There are people in our community who have these bigoted, racist views.”

But, Foxman warned, Friedman’s views are not reflective of the Chabad rabbis he knows. “I am not shocked that there would be a rabbi who would have these views,” Foxman said, “but I am shocked that Moment would give up all editorial discretion and good sense to publish this as representative of Chabad.”

A few days after anger about the comment surfaced, Chabad headquarters released a statement saying that, “we vehemently disagree with any sentiment suggesting that Judaism allows for the wanton destruction of civilian life, even when at war.”

The statement added: “In keeping with Jewish law, it is the unequivocal position of Chabad-Lubavitch that all human life is G-d given, precious, and must be treated with respect, dignity and compassion.”

In Moment, Friedman’s comment is listed as the Chabad response to the question “How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?” after a number of answers from rabbis representing other Jewish streams, most of which state a conciliatory attitude toward Arabs.

Epstein said that Friedman was “brave” for stating his views so clearly.

“The American Jewish community doesn’t have the chance to hear opinions like this,” Epstein said, “not because they are rare, but because we don’t often ask Chabad and other similar groups what they think.”

The Chabad movement is generally known for its hawkish policies toward the Palestinians; the Chabad Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, rejected peace accords with the Palestinians. Rabbi Moshe Feller, the top Chabad rabbi in Minnesota, said that the rebbe taught that it is not a mitvah to kill, but that Jews do have an obligation to act in self-defense.

“Jews as a whole, they try to save the lives of others,” Feller told the Forward, “but if it’s to save our lives, then we have to do what we have to do. It’s a last resort.”

Friedman is not a fringe rabbi within the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He was the English translator for the Chabad Rebbe, and at the rebbe’s urging, he founded Beis Chana, a network of camps and schools for Jewish women. Friedman is also a popular speaker and writer on issues of love and relationships. His first book, “Doesn’t Anyone Blush Anymore?” was promoted with a quote from Bob Dylan, who Friedman brought to meet the rebbe.

On his blog and Facebook page, Friedman’s emphasis is on his sympathetic, caring side. It was this reputation that made the comment in Moment so surprising to Steve Hunegs, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council: Minnesota and the Dakotas.

“Rabbi Friedman is a best-selling author who addresses some of the most sensitive issues of the time,” Hunegs said. “I intend to call him and talk to him about this.”

But Shmarya Rosenberg, a blogger and critic of Chabad who lives a few blocks from Friedman in Minnesota, says that the comment in Moment is not an aberration from his experiences with Friedman and many other Chabad rabbis.

“What he’s saying is the standard normal view of a Chabadnik,” Rosenberg said. “They just don’t say it in public.”

For his part, Friedman was quick to modify the statement that he wrote in Moment. He told the Forward that the line about killing women and children should have been in quotes; he said it is a line from the Torah, though he declined to specify from which part. Friedman also said that he was not advocating for Israel to actually kill women and children. Instead, he said, he believed that Israel should publicly say that it is willing to do these things in order to scare Palestinians and prevent war.

“If we took this policy, no one would be killed — because there would be no war,” Friedman said. “The same is true of the United States.”

Friedman did acknowledge, however, that in self-defense, the behavior he talked about would be permissible.

“If your children are threatened, you do whatever it takes — and you don’t have to apologize,” he said.

Friedman argued that he is different from Arab terrorists who have used similar language about killing Jewish civilians.

“When they say it, it’s genocide, not self-defense,” Friedman said. “With them, it’s a religious belief — they need to rid the area of us. We’re not saying that.”

Feller, the Chabad leader in Minnesota, said that the way Friedman had chosen to express himself was “radical.”

“I love him,” Feller said. “I brought him out here — he’s magnificent. He’s brought thousands back to Torah mitzvah. But he shoots from the hip sometimes.”

Contact Nathaniel Popper at popper@forward.com.

 

Kol Nidre, Israel, and American Jews

Kol Nidre is the most haunting prayer in the Jewish liturgy. I would gauge that more Jews attend synagogue at this moment than at any other time in the year. (You’ve already missed it if you wanted to go.) For some it may be an act of desperation, a stance between belief and non-belief, hovering somewhere between trust and trembling. In any case, it is my or your—if you had decided to try—last chance to settle accounts with God, in the heavens or with the god of your imagination. Kol Nidre means not “all prayers” but “all vows.” The theology of this distinction goes back many centuries, at least to the sixth century C.E. There are several interpretations. But the dry legal formula which introduces the plea certifies at least one explanation for sure, and it is that Jews had for more than a millennium been legally coerced or socially dragooned into swearing fidelity to one or another Christian faith and Christian prince. It happened to Jews in Muslim jurisdictions, as well.

Could these converts be admitted to a congregation of Jews? Here’s what the rabbis answered:

In the tribunal of Heaven and in the tribunal of Earth, by the permission of God and by the permission of the holy congregation, we hold it lawful to pray with the transgressors.

Simple! But what sturm und drang attended these trials of the soul.

Kol Nidre has its place in the general culture. A part of the traditionalniggun (melody) found its way into Beethoven’s 6th String Quartet, Op. 131. Max Bruch—a Protestant, by the way—did his own gorgeous orchestration and you can listen to it with either Pierre Fournier,Jacqueline Du Pre, or Yo-Yo Ma as cello soloist. It was also put to song by Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, and Neil Diamond, aside from a close-to-authentic rendition earlier in the century by Al Jolson in the filmThe Jazz Singer.

Still, the most chilling of the cultural expressions of Kol Nidre is the one composed by Arnold Schoenberg, the innovator of twelve scale and inspiration to just about everyone from Alban Berg through John Cage to Glenn Gould. Born a Jew, he was converted in 1898 to Christianity under the influence of Gustav Mahler, a prior convert himself. Schoenberg returned to the faith and to the Jewish people, with Marc Chagall at his side, at a 1933 religious ceremony in the synagogue on the rue Copernic in Paris where in 1980 Palestinian “freedom fighters” pulled off a bombing which killed four people and injured dozens. It was October 3, the eve of Simhat Torah, what turned out to be only the beginning of a series of attacks at pregnant moments of the Jewish calendar in places of Jewish worship, at each of which several lives were taken from the innocent.

You might have noticed the year of Schoenberg’s return: 1933. It was not an accident. He was standing up as in a confessional to declare himself a Jew and a Zionist when mobs all over Europe were braying for the skin of his people. I always listen to some of Schoenberg’s music around the High Holidays—and, frankly, some of it is trying. But the environment was much more than trying, especially for Jews, and his compositions were part of his way of coming to terms with the hatred of the gentile world—at once oh, so polite and so bloody—for the people of the book who, in Palestine, were also making themselves the people of the plow. Now, they are a people among very few other peoples who can claim to have put their stamp on science. I confess to feeling fraternal pride whenever one of my tribe receives the Nobel Prize. So I’ve admitted it: I have tribal feelings and I pity those Jews who don’t. They are nothing Jews. You can see the discomfort on their faces when they try to explain to you that they are “cultural Jews” when all that means is that they like Woody Allen. A world of thought and spirit and body, and they proudly reduce it all to one little drip. Oops! This is another sin of mine, to insult a great comic and just before Kol Nidre.

Fifteen years ago, maybe 20, I was asked to do the narration to Schoenberg’s Kol Nidrewith the American Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Leon Botstein at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall. It was not a star performance. But after the concert I was accosted (politely) by a tall and elegant old man who told me he had survived Sobibor, theumshlagplatz from which very few escaped alive. My guess (he told me but I can’t remember now) from his accent is that he hailed from Germany or Austria or maybe Czechoslovakia, not Poland where my mother and father’s families were led or fed to the slaughter. The man told me that he’d been a communist in his youth, that there were communists as well as Jews in the camp. And then his eyes teared up. He asked me whether I knew the poem “Elegy for the Soviet Yiddish Writers” by the late great novelist Chaim Grade. I said yes. I even recalled some lines. He wandered off, muttering something like “the communists, too. For survival trust only ourselves.”

It’s a harsh judgment he made. And wrong in a way. FDR may not have much cared for the dying Jews under his war watch. Maybe, in the tangle of strategy and tactics, he didn’t much notice. But it is America and some of the commonwealth English-speaking countries who have bonded with Israel and in the crazy house of the United Nations sheltered it from what could be a Charlie Chaplin spoof of international diplomacy. The U.S. has made itself responsible for some of the margins in military hardware that insure the Jewish state. I want to be very candid about this: As some of you understand, I do not trust Barack Obama’s feelings for Israel. But he has not ever endangered Israel’s strategic edge. What his silly talk does is another matter. Still, his talk has become in recent weeks less silly. But only in recent weeks.

Some synagogues and congregations—this means mostly their rabbis—charge their faithful with transgressions of the whole house of Israel. Some charge them with bearing the sins, real and imagined, of the State of Israel. I do not deny that there are such sins. But—this is a weak defense—even they are lesser offenses than the offenses of other nations. Compare the targeted assassinations conducted by Israel and by our own country. Hands down. For Israel, this struggle is a fight for survival, no way out. For the U.S., it is an intricate calculation with many alternatives: After all, George Bush didn’t conduct the Iraq war relying on targeted assassinations (although I would have wished he had). I could go on and on.

There is a new type of Jew in the world: one whose only Jewish feelings and only Jewish thoughts are criticisms of Israel. Nothing else. If he cries gevald he’s so full of heart—for Israel’s declared enemies. If he’s of the cerebral type he’s a dreykop with clever burglaries from Jewish logic. It cannot be a gratifying life. Or certainly a gratifying Jewish life. His Jewishness—in name only, of course—is an instrument, a useful instrument to more effectively lambaste Israel. “I am one of them. And even I despise them.”

On the day before Kol Nidre, Nicholas Kristof took it upon himself tolecture the Jews about their responsibility to chastise Israel for the idea of a “whole” Jerusalem, for new housing in Jerusalem, even for Israel’s rough-going with Turkey, “its most important friend in the region.” Why do I say that he is lecturing the Jews? It’s simple, all too simple. He addressed his column to Israel’s friends: “Friends do not let friends drive drunk.” He is finished arguing with Netanyahu. It’s hopeless, although the Israeli prime minister has been willing to come to the table for eons but without having settled the issues that have divided the two parties for more than 60 years—and actually closer to a century.

Now, I have a grudge against Kristof. Last year about this time he wrote a column attacking me for what he deemed racist words about Muslims. I apologized for one stupid, really stupid and perhaps also prejudiced remark about them. I’ve woken up nights thinking about this fault—yes, even sin—against conscience. But I am not so sure that my main point that Muslim societies and Arab societies tolerate mass violence with greater equanimity is wrong. Just think of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, even Egypt. And Libya where the rebels are said to have triumphed over the tragic-comic personalist killer-fascism of Qaddafi. But in that liberated Libya there is an epidemic of revenge. Anyway, Kristof wrote and a mob of thugs, following him, so to speak, tried to chase me across Harvard Yard, shouting, “Peretz is a racist pig.” Big triumph for Kristof and his sensitive sensibility.

I suppose that I am among the friends of Israel who is called upon to intercede with Netanyahu. But, as Kristof points out himself, it is not Netanyahu alone or with his coalition. It is the people of Israel who no longer can be seduced into an agreement that is fundamentally implausible. I know, moreover, that it is difficult for an egotist like Bill Clinton to accept that the terms of peace which his underlings crafted are by now not even germane. After all, Israel accepted them before. The Times columnist may console himself that, if not for Bibi, even Oslo might be resuscitated. It can’t. And it is not especially because of the settlements. I happen to think that there will be a tacit understanding without a signed agreement, and that small Jewish villages and towns in central Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) will be left empty. Gaza is an ugly precedent. But it is a precedent, nonetheless. No Israeli really wants all of Jerusalem. Parts of it will be shucked off to whatever the Palestinians can make of Palestine. Maybe you think a lot. I think it’s a phantasm. Maybe many Arab flags will fly on Al Aqsa plaza and many Israeli police will be stationed there. In the meantime, we know that more and more Palestinians want to live in an Israeli Jerusalem. Some 20,000 have already moved there within the last 18 months.

Kristof also pins responsibility on Bibi for the conflict with Turkey, “burning bridges with Israel’s most important friend in the region.” Perhaps Kristof hasn’t noticed that Erdogan has shattered ties with many countries and entered upon a pan-Islamic campaign in the Ottoman style. Even the FT, which finds it hard to chastise any Muslim country, published an at once plaintive and angry editorial, “Talking Turkey,” which is an attempt to curb the country’s sudden aggressive spirit.

As it happens, Kristof’s strategem of calling on Israel’s friends—in the Yom Kippur context, the obvious ploy for America’s Jews—to change Netanyahu’s policy is actually based on false history. The Palestinians have not yet—and I sadly believe they won’t anytime soon—confronted the reality that is staring them in the face. It is the reality of a democratic, social democratic, increasingly social democratic country with the advantages of active enterprise that knows how to defend itself. It will not empty the West Bank as long as there is the probability, even the possibility of rockets and missiles and bombs aimed at the heart of the country which, given its size, is everywhere. History has not stood still over these last more than six decades. The Arabs cannot have what they turned down as temporary armistice in 1949. They also cannot have a peace with neither of their movements (Fatah and Hamas) having provably shorn themselves of the terrorist spirit and terrorist strategy.

Here is Kristof’s panacea:

The Palestinians’ best hope would be a major grass-roots movement of nonviolent peaceful resistance aimed at illegal West Bank settlements, led by women and inspired by the work of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A growing number of Palestinians are taking up variants of that model, although they sometimes ruin it by defining nonviolence to include stone-throwing and by giving the leading role to hotheaded young men.

From his mouth to God’s ear. And, no, I will not confess at Kol Nidre tonight and atNeilah tomorrow night and during the day of fasting in between to what Kristof sees as my sins and the sins of the people Israel in this blessed land.

Martin Peretz is editor-in-chief emeritus of The New Republic.

http://www.tnr.com/article/tel-aviv-journal/95940/peretz-yom-kippur

 

Netanyahu Heals Partisan Divide in Washington

Fiery Address Unites Democrats, Republicans, and Tea Party Idealists Behind „Jews For Genocide”

Moses parted the Red Sea. Jesus walked on water. And now Benjamin Netanyahu has healed the partisan divide in Washington D.C., the greatest miracle of all time, according to this morning’s editorial in the New York Times.In a forty-five minute address before a Joint Session of Congress the tough-talking Israeli Prime Minister convinced a heretofore bitterly divided U.S. political class to lay aside its budget battles and concentrate on America’s transcendent purpose: to resettle Palestinian Arabs in outer Mongolia so Israel need no longer face the Arab “demographic threat” to Jewish democracy.The nuance-laden speech, entitled “They Must Go!” was interrupted 637 times by standing ovations, which left many Congress members afflicted with repetitive motion disorders. “He makes it all so clear,” gushed California Senator Barbara Boxer, rubbing an elbow dislocated by continuous applause. “Why should we be at each others’ throats over budget matters when Israel faces extinction at the hands of HAMAS (Horrible Arab Mothers Affirming Sexuality)?” 

“If they are not stopped from having babies on Jewish land,” said California’s other Senator Diane Feinstein, “Jews will soon be a minority in their own country. In other words, it will be the Holocaust all over again.”

“And that would undermine the free market,” added Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, “because God gave the land to the Jews, and no one has the right to tell a landlord what to do with his land.”

“It would also be a defeat for immigrants’ rights,” said Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) a leading spokesman for comprehensive immigration reform, “because Israel is a nation of immigrants continually made subject to terrorist attacks by Arab nativists refusing to recognize that unlimited immigration is good for everyone. They’ll find that out once we relocate them to Mongolia.”

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) agreed that violent expulsion was the best solution, but added that Fidel Castro should be included in the forced march to Mongolia. “The Arabs are radical Communists like Fidel. I mean, what’s more Communist than one person, one vote? They’re birds of a feather that should flock together.”

Michele Bachmann (D-Minn.) offered to switch her party affiliation to Likud ” if that would help God win in 2012.” President Obama praised her spirit of conciliation and said he would consider her as a running mate if she didn’t get the GOP nomination.

“She’s on my short list,” said Obama. “It’s either her or Palin or Joe Lieberman,” he added.” “Bibi has promised to let me know soon.”

The president pooh-poohed talk of Bachmann lacking qualifications to serve as president. “She loves God and Israel, and what other qualifications are there?”

Michael K. Smith is the author of The Madness of King George from Common Courage Press. He co-blogs with Frank Scott at

www.legalienate.blogspot.com. Read other articles by Michael.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/10/netanyahu-heals-partisan-divide-in-washington/

 

Charles Krauthammer redivivus:Land for peace, yes: Why Abbas went to the U.N.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | While diplomatically inconvenient for the Western powers, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s attempt to get the United Nations to unilaterally declare aPalestinian state has elicited widespread sympathy. After all, what choice did he have? According to the accepted narrative, Middle East peace is made impossible by a hard-line Likud-led Israel that refuses to accept a Palestinian state and continues to build settlements.

It is remarkable how this gross inversion of the truth has become conventional wisdom. In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu brought his Likud-led coalition to open recognition of a Palestinian state, thereby creating Israel’s first national consensus for a two-state solution. He is also the only prime minister to agree to a settlement freeze — 10 months — something no Labor or Kadima government has ever done.

To which Abbas responded by boycotting the talks for nine months, showing up in the 10th, then walking out when the freeze expired. Last week he reiterated that he will continue to boycott peace talks unless Israel gives up — in advance — claim to any territory beyond the 1967 lines. Meaning, for example, that the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem is Palestinian territory. This is not just absurd. It violates every prior peace agreement. They all stipulate that such demands are to be thesubject of negotiations, not their precondition.

Abbas unwaveringly insists on the so-called “right of return,” which would demographically destroy Israel by swamping it with millions of Arabs, thereby turning the world’s only Jewish state into the world’s 23rd Arab state. And he has repeatedly declared, as recently as last week in New York: “We shall not recognize a Jewish state.”

Nor is this new.

It is perfectly consistent with the long history of Palestinian rejectionism. Consider:

• Camp David, 2000. At a U.S.-sponsored summit, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offers Yasser Arafat a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza — and, astonishingly, the previously inconceivable division of Jerusalem. Arafat refuses. And makes no counteroffer, thereby demonstrating his unseriousness about making any deal. Instead, within two months, he launches a savage terror war that kills a thousand Israelis.

• Taba, 2001. An even sweeter deal — the Clinton Parameters — is offered. Arafat walks away again.

• Israel, 2008. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes the ultimate capitulation to Palestinian demands — 100 percent of the West Bank (with land swaps), Palestinian statehood, the division of Jerusalem with the Muslim parts becoming the capital of the new Palestine. And incredibly, he offers to turn over the city’s holy places, including the Western Wall — Judaism’s most sacred site, its Kaaba — to an international body on which sit Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Did Abbas accept? Of course not. If he had, the conflict would be over and Palestine would already be a member of the United Nations.

This is not ancient history. All three peace talks occurred over the past decade. And every one completely contradicts the current mindless narrative of Israeli “intransigence” as the obstacle to peace.

Settlements? Every settlement remaining within the new Palestine would be destroyed and emptied, precisely as happened in Gaza.

So why did the Palestinians say no? Because saying yes would have required them to sign a final peace agreement that accepted a Jewish state on what they consider the Muslim patrimony.

The key word here is “final.” The Palestinians are quite prepared to sign interim agreements, like Oslo. Framework agreements, like Annapolis. Cease-fires, like the 1949 armistice. Anything but a final deal. Anything but a final peace. Anything but a treaty that ends the conflict once and for all — while leaving a Jewish state still standing.

After all, why did Abbas go to the United Nations last week? For nearly half a century, the United States has pursued a Middle East settlement on the basis of the formula of land for peace. Land for peace produced the Israel-Egypt peace of 1979 and the Israel-Jordan peace of 1994. Israel has offered the Palestinians land for peace three times since. And been refused every time.

Why? For exactly the same reason Abbas went to the United Nations last week: to get land without peace. Sovereignty with no reciprocal recognition of a Jewish state. Statehood without negotiations. An independent Palestine in a continued state of war with Israel.

Israel gave up land without peace in south Lebanon in 2000 and, in return, received war (the Lebanon war of 2006) and 50,000 Hezbollah missiles now targeted on the Israeli homeland. In 2005, Israel gave up land without peace in Gaza, and again was rewarded with war — and constant rocket attack from an openly genocidal Palestinian mini-state.

Israel is prepared to give up land, but never again without peace. A final peace. Which is exactly what every Palestinian leader from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas has refused to accept. Which is why, regardless of who is governing Israel, there has never been peace. Territorial disputes are solvable; existential conflicts are not.

Land for peace, yes. Land without peace is nothing but an invitation to national suicide.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer100311.php3

 

 

John Mearsheimer supports anti-Semitic author

„We have heard the comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany. I don’t like this comparison because I really think that Israel is far worse than Nazi Germany.”

Those are the words of Gilad Atzmon, a little known expatriate Israeli who divides his time between working as a jazz musician and campaigning against the Jewish community in all its manifestations. He has written that he not only opposes Israel and Zionism, but any Jewish collective enterprise, including even „Jewish ‘anti’ Zionist networks”. In fact, he describes himself as someone who is proud of being a „self-hating Jew”.

History teaches us that the most universally inspiring Jews, I mean, those who contributed something to humanity rather than merely to their own people or even just themselves, were motivated by some form of self hate. The first names that come to mind are Christ, Spinoza and Marx.

Of the Holocaust, Atzmon has written that he not only doubts it occurred as historians and survivors describe,he thinks that what did occur was justified.

It took me years to accept that the Holocaust narrative, in its current form, doesn’t make any historical sense. Here is just one little anecdote to elaborate on: If, for instance, the Nazis wanted the Jews out of their Reich (Judenrein – free of Jews), or even dead, as the Zionist narrative insists, how come they marched hundreds of thousands of them back into the Reich at the end of the war?

. . . (I)f the Nazis ran a death factory in Auschwitz-Birkenau, why would the Jewish prisoners join them at the end of the war? Why didn’t the Jews wait for their Red liberators?

I think that 65 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we must be entitled to start to ask the necessary questions. We should ask for some conclusive historical evidence and arguments rather than follow a religious narrative that is sustained by political pressure and laws. We should strip the holocaust of its Judeo-centric exceptional status and treat it as an historical chapter that belongs to a certain time and place

65 years after the liberation of Auschwitz we should reclaim our history and ask why? Why were the Jews hated? Why did European people stand up against their next door neighbours? Why are the Jews hated in the Middle East, surely they had a chance to open a new page in their troubled history? If they genuinely planned to do so, as the early Zionists claimed, why did they fail? Why did America tighten its immigration laws amid the growing danger to European Jews? We should also ask for what purpose do the holocaust denial laws serve? What is the holocaust religion there to conceal? As long as we fail to ask questions, we will be subjected to Zionists and their Neocons agents’ plots.

He not only doubts that the Holocaust actually occurred, and thinks that whatever did happen to the Jews of Europe was justified, he goes on to argue that opposition to those who think like him is the manifestation of an irrational intolerance of non-Jews which is at the core of the Jewish identity. (Read here.) Elsewhere, Atzmon has described the Nazi’s treatment of Jews as an understandable response to Jewish aggression against Germany.   (Read here.)

In spite of all this, Atzmon objects to describing his views as Holocaust denial, not because he believes what historians say about the subject, but because he dismisses the idea itself.

I … find the notion of ‘holocaust denial’ to be meaningless, and on the verge of idiotic.

When put on the spot in an interview, Atzmon has said that he cannot be sure the Holocaust occurred because he „is not a historian”.

Atzmon distinguishes himself from most anti-Zionists in that he admits that anti-Zionism is motivated by hatred of Jews, which he rationalizes in the following manner:

Unlike Uri Avnery and Norman Finkelstein who . . . argue that anti-Semitism is exaggerated, I actually believe that resentment towards Jewish politics is rising rapidly and constantly. However, I do differentiate between the Judeo-centric notion of anti-Semitism and political resentment towards Jewish ideology. I do not regard anti-Jewish activity as a form of anti-Semitism or racial hatred because Jews are neither Semites nor do they form a racial continuum whatsoever. The rise of hatred towards any form of Jewish politics and Jewish lobbies is a reaction towards a tribal, chauvinist and supremacist ideology.

Thus Atzmon argues that he and others like him cannot be bigoted against Jews because the belief in Jewish ethnicity itself is a manifestation of Jewish racism. By this twisted logic, Jews are inherently racist and those who hate them are inherently anti-racist.

Atzmon has also written at length that he believes anti-Semitic stereotypes to be accurate reflections of essential truths about the nature of Jews, even while disparaging the importance of real history.  He writes:

Fagin is the ultimate plunderer, a child exploiter and usurer. Shylock is the blood-thirsty merchant. With Fagin and Shylock in mind Israeli barbarism and organ trafficking seem to be just other events in an endless hellish continuum. However, it is also obvious why the HET [British Holocaust Education Trust] is so thrilled by Anne Frank. On the face of it, and for obvious reasons, Frank is there to convey an image of innocence. And indeed not a single moral system could ever justify the ordeal this young girl went through along with many others. Yet, Anne Frank wasn’t exactly a literary genius. Her diary is not a valuable piece of literature. She wasn’t an exceptionally clever either. [sic]

In that spirit of valuing bigoted myths over historical facts, Atzmon actually goes so far as to defend the „Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as revealing essential truths about the Jews. (Read here.)

You may be wondering why I am boring you with a detailed examination of the thoughts of an obvious crank who would only find support for his deranged and cynical bigotry among others of similarly fringe views. You may be interested to learn that among Atzmon’s supporters is Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago’s Program on International Security Policy. Mearsheimer provided the following blurb for the back cover of Atzmon’s most recent book, the contents of which are reportedly consistent with his previous hateful work:

‘Gilad Atzmon has written a fascinating and provocative book on Jewish identity in the modern world. He shows how assimilation and liberalism are making it incredibly difficult for Jews in the Diaspora to maintain a powerful sense of their ‘Jewishness.’ Panicked Jewish leaders, he argues, have turned to Zionism (blind loyalty to Israel) and scaremongering (the threat of another Holocaust) to keep the tribe united and distinct from the surrounding goyim. As Atzmon’s own case demonstrates, this strategy is not working and is causing many Jews great anguish. The Wandering Who? Should be widely read by Jews and non-Jews alike.’

When I read that quote on the website of Atzmon’s literary agent, I doubted it’s veracity.  I had trouble believing that a distinguished professor at one of the world’s greatest universities would link himself to a hatemonger like Atzmon.  So I sent Professor Mearsheimer an email quoting the blurb and asking him to verify it’s accuracy.  I also gave him an opportunity to amend it or add to it.  Here’s what he wrote back:

The blurb below is the one I wrote for „The Wandering Who” and I have no reason to amend it or embellish it, as it accurately reflects my view of the book.

Professor Mearsheimer has certainly reached the heights of achievement in his field and respect for this would be appropriate, regardless of whether one agrees with his opinions.  Moreover, this world is increasingly filled with gratuitous ad hominem attacks, arbitrarily flung at ideological adversaries to divert attention from substantive arguments.  In this instance, however, Mearsheimer is using his authority as an expert in his field to promote the work of a flagrant bigot and distorter of history.  If denunciation in the strongest terms is not appropriate in response to this grossly misguided act, when would it be?  Mearsheimer, in praising Atzmon, lends his name and that of his university to the promotion of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.  That is simply inexcusable.

http://www.youtube.com/get_playerhttp://adamholland.blogspot.com/2011/09/john-mearsheimer-supports-anti-semitic.html

 

John Mearsheimer Endorses a Hitler Apologist and Holocaust Revisionist

Gilad Atzmon is a jazz saxophonist who lives in London and who has a side gig disseminating the wildest sort of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He is an ex-Israeli and a self-proclaimed „self-hater” who traffics in Holocaust denial and all sorts of grotesque, medieval anti-Jewish calumnies. Here is a small sample of his lunatic thoughts (bold text is mine):

I think that 65 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we must be entitled to start to ask the necessary questions. We should ask for some conclusive historical evidence and arguments rather than follow a religious narrative that is sustained by political pressure and laws. We should strip the holocaust of its Judeo-centric exceptional status and treat it as an historical chapter that belongs to a certain time and place.

Sixty-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz we should reclaim our history and ask why?Why were the Jews hated? Why did European people  stand up against their next door neighbours? Why are the Jews hated in the Middle East, surely they had a chance to open a new page in their troubled history? If they genuinely planned to do so, as the early Zionists claimed, why did they fail? Why did America tighten its immigration laws amid the growing danger to European Jews? We should also ask for what purpose do the holocaust denial laws serve? What is the holocaust religion there to conceal? As long as we fail to ask questions, we will be subjected to Zionists and their Neocons agents’ plots. We will continue killing in the name of Jewish suffering. We will maintain our complicity in Western imperialist crimes against humanity…

…The Holocaust  became the new Western religion. Unfortunately, it is the most sinister religion known to man. It is a license to kill, to flatten, no nuke, to wipe, to rape, to loot and to ethnically cleanse. It made vengeance and revenge into a Western value.

Atzmon also believes that the Jews persecuted Hitler:

Not many people are aware that in March 1933, long before Hitler became the undisputed leader of Germany and began restricting the rights of German Jews, the American Jewish Congress announced a massive protest at Madison Square Gardens and called for an American boycott of German goods…

….Jewish texts tend to glaze over the fact that Hitler’s March 28 1933, ordering a boycott against Jewish stores and goods, was an escalation in direct response to the declaration of war on Germany by the worldwide Jewish leadership.

He has also suggested that Jews specialize in the trafficking of body parts:

Fagin is the ultimate plunderer, a child exploiter and usurer. Shylock is the blood-thirsty merchant. With Fagin and Shylock in mind Israeli barbarism and organ trafficking seem to be just other events in an endless hellish continuum.

Atzmon is quite obviously a twisted and toxic hater. His antisemitism is so blatant that activists of the so-called BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions), which seeks the elimination of Israel, refuse to have anything to do with him. But Atzmon still has at least one friend among anti-Israel activists: The R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and co-author of „The Israel Lobby,” John J. Mearsheimer.

Rather unbelievably (or believably, depending on where you sit) Mearsheimer has written an endorsement of Atzmon’s new book, „The Wandering Who?” Here is what Mearsheimer says about Atzmon:

Gilad Atzmon has written a fascinating and provocative book on Jewish identity in the modern world. He shows how assimilation and liberalism are making it incredibly difficult for Jews in the Diaspora to maintain a powerful sense of their ‘Jewishness.’ Panicked Jewish leaders, he argues, have turned to Zionism (blind loyalty to Israel) and scaremongering (the threat of another Holocaust) to keep the tribe united and distinct from the surrounding goyim. As Atzmon’s own case demonstrates, this strategy is not working and is causing many Jews great anguish. The Wandering Who? Should be widely read by Jews and non-Jews alike.’

In this new book, Atzmon suggests, among other things, that scholars should reopen the question of medieval blood libels leveled against Jews– accusations that Jews used the blood of Christian children to make matzo, and which provoked countless massacres of Jews in many different countries.

If you recall from the fight over „The Israel Lobby,” which Mearsheimer wrote with Stephen Walt, of Harvard, the authors claimed that they were simply writing a critique of American foreign policy, and of certain American citizens who, they said, „distorted” foreign policy. Many of us disagreed. Here is a bit of what David Rothkopf wrote about Mearsheimer and Walt: „W)hatever the pale intellectual merits of his hackneyed argument may be (the authors) know full well that their prominence on this issue has come not because they have had a single new insight but rather because they were willing and one can only believe inclined to play to a crowd whose ‘views’ were fueled by prejudice and worse. They may not be anti-Semites themselves but they made a cynical decision to cash in on anti-Semitism by offering to dress up old hatreds in the dowdy Brooks Brothers suits of the Kennedy School and the University of Chicago.”

Now, Mearsheimer is endorsing the writing of a man who espouses neo-Nazi views. In other words, he’s not even bothering to make believe anymore – he’s moved from a self-described critic of Israel to a corrosive critic of Jewry itself. The blogger Adam Holland, like yours truly, didn’t quite believe that Mearsheimer would endorse such a crude anti-Semite, so he asked him to confirm:

I had trouble believing that a distinguished professor at one of the world’s greatest universities would link himself to a hatemonger like Atzmon. So I sent Professor Mearsheimer an email quoting the blurb and asking him to verify it’s accuracy.  I also gave him an opportunity to amend it or add to it.  Here’s what he wrote back:

„The blurb below is the one I wrote for „The Wandering Who” and I have no reason to amend it or embellish it, as it accurately reflects my view of the book.”

Gliad Atzmon, by the way, is also on record saying this:

 „I believe that from certain ideological perspective, Israel is actually far worse than Nazi Germany.”

Perhaps Mearsheimer has found a new co-author.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/john-mearsheimer-endorses-a-hitler-apologist-and-holocaust-revisionist/245518/

 

From Cairo to New York, Obama’s Stances Alter!

After his 2009 Cairo speech in which he stressed the right of Palestine to exist, US President Barack Obama’s comments at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday underlined a serious change of position. Obama told the UNGA that he opposes the Palestinian bid for recognition of a state; a declaration that was met with joy and appreciation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The PM lauded Obama saying that he was wearing “a badge of honor” by insisting that negotiations are the only way to peace. Decades of negotiations between Israel and Palestinian leaderships have yielded no positive results for the Palestinians. PA leader Mahmoud Abbas himself said a year earlier that 18 years of negotiations have hit the wall. At the UN, Obama said that there could be “no shortcuts” to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and that negotiations between the two parties would be the only means to achieving a true and lasting peace. He assured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that a UN action would not achieve a Palestinian state and the United States would veto any Security Council move to recognize Palestinian statehood. The president of a country that had waged wars on Iraq and Afghanistan where it killed hundreds of thousands civilians, injured and displaced millions others, had all the nerve to talk about “peace” before the UNGA and recount Israel’s tragedy of being the victim of its Arab neighbors who have waged consecutive wars against it and sought to wipe it off the map. 29 years this month Israel oversaw the execution of 3500 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon during the 1982 invasion, waged more wars during the past two decades on Lebanon and occupied Palestinian territories, however, Obama’s dream of another „four year term” has blocked his memory. “Let’s be honest: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it,” he said. “Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them… Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile, persecution, and the fresh memory of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they were,” Obama said refuting his Cairo speech in which he noted that Israel’s creation had displaced the Palestinians, and that peace required redress for their six decades of suffering. Netanyahu was very satisfied with Obama’s comments. He praised the US president at a joint press conference prior to a meeting between them on the sidelines of the UNGA in New York. Obama said that it was a pleasure to welcome Netanyahu to the US, opining that Washington’s “pursuit of a just and lasting peace” is compatible with Israel’s needs and “puts Israel’s security at the forefront.” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also praised Obama: „I congratulate President Obama. I am ready to sign on this speech with both hands,” hailing the Obama’s omission of issues such as settlements and the 1967 borders. Obama’s excessive love to Israel had surfaced after two years in office marred by a series of failures in foreign and home policies. Without the Israel lobby in the US, Obama’s chances of another term at the White House are slim. In May this year, Netanyahu delivered a speech at the US Congress. The exaggerated reaction by congressmen to every couple of Netanyahu’s sentences, as in applauding and standing up every 2 two minutes, made the event more theatrical than political; just like everything that involves Israel’s interests and security at the expense of the American taxpayers, the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Syrians and all the anti-Israel camp in the region. Jewish Americans for Obama: „Israel has never had a better friend than President Obama.” „… The new website–Jewish Americans for Obama–was disclosed Tuesday in a call to Jewish community activists. It features a video testimonial from Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon saying Israel „has never had a better friend than President Obama.” Two key Obama campaign surrogates–Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida) and former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Florida)–joined the call to Jewish activists….” Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 4:12 PM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2011/09/from-cairo-to-new-york-obamas-stances.html

 

Morton Abramowitz:Former “US” ambassador wants to use US Navy against Turkey

No Turkey This Thanksgiving

 

by Philip Giraldi

 

 …Turkey is an ally. Israel is not. Turkey has served United States strategic interests. Israel has not. Turkey has hosted American bases and committed its soldiers to support their American counterparts in combat. Israel has not.

Israel has done little more vis-à-vis the United States’ real interests than take more than a hundred billion dollars in taxpayer provided largesse, use Washington as a veto machine to protect its own interests, and betray all of that by spying and stealing defense secrets which were later traded to the Russians and sold to the Chinese.

Abramowitz wants to use the US Navy to protect Israel against the consequences of its own actions and is willing to attack an alliance member which is insisting on freedom of the seas and some accountability for the killing of its own citizens.

TURKEY THE NEW REGIONAL HUB!

The United Nations’ annual opening of the General Assembly each September affords heads of state and heads of government the opportunity to meet both formally and informally. The upcoming meeting between President Barack Obama and Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan promises to be particularly contentious. How exactly it plays out will inevitably demonstrate the astonishing power of Israel and its Lobby. Obama is expected to rebuke Erdogan over the issue of Palestinian statehood, which Turkey supports, and over the willingness of Ankara to use its own warships to protect Turkish vessels in international waters that are seeking to sail to Gaza. They have good reason to do so. In June 2010, the Israelis boarded a Turkish ferry in international waters and killed nine Turks, one of whom was also an American citizen, most of whom were shot execution style.

Turkey: Ally since 1949

GEN. WALKER AND TURKISH TROOPS, KOREA

Turkey has been a NATO ally since 1949, hosting numerous American bases and the key intelligence listening post at Sinop, which had unique ability to monitor Soviet ballistic missile launches. Turkish soldiers in the Korean War were regarded as some of the finest engaged in that conflict. And they have fought and died to save American lives. The 5,000 men of the 1st Turkish Brigade were attached to 2nd then to the 25th US Infantry Divisions. In 1950, after the Chinese breakthrough, they fought a series of bloody rearguard actions covering the retreat of the American troops in which they suffered more than 3,500 casualties.

But American congressmen and pundits, particularly those who are particularly enamored of Israel, seem to have forgotten their history, if they ever knew it. In September 16^th Washington Post Morton Abramowitz, a former US Ambassador to Turkey, opined the following:

Erdogan “now directly challenges our major alliance in the Middle East, and how far he will go is unclear…By threatening to militarily contest Israel’s blockade of Gaza…the Turkish government has laid down a serious challenge to American policy…Obama’s meeting with Erdogan on Tuesday is crucial. He can take a few important steps. He should immediately deploy 6th Fleet ships from Norfolk to the Eastern Mediterranean to signal that the United States will not tolerate even inadvertent naval clashes. He needs to make clear to Erdogan that the United States will not side with Turkey against Israel and that Turkey’s current strategy risks undermining regional stability.”

And there’s more. Seven United States Senators have sent a letter to President Obama stating that “Turkey is shifting to a policy of confrontation, if not hostility, towards our allies in Israel and we urge you to mount a diplomatic offensive to reverse this course. We ask you to outline Turkey’s eroding support in Congress…and how its current ill-advised policy towards the State of Israel will also negatively reflect on U.S. Turkish relations and Turkey’s role in the future of NATO.” The Senators are Mark Kirk, Charles Schumer, Mark Warner, Scott Brown, Joe Manchin, Joe Lieberman, and Kirsten Gillibrand.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gives Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu a high five at the start of their bilateral meeting at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi on June 9. 2011 (Reuters)

Comparing Turkey to Israel

Abramowitz and the Senators reveal their own ignorance apart from anything else. Turkey is an ally. Israel is not. Turkey has served United States strategic interests. Israel has not. Turkey has hosted American bases and committed its soldiers to support their American counterparts in combat. Israel has not. Israel has done little more vis-à-vis the United States’ real interests than take more than a hundred billion dollars in taxpayer provided largesse, use Washington as a veto machine to protect its own interests, and betray all of that by spying and stealing defense secrets which were later traded to the Russians and sold to the Chinese.

Abramowitz wants to use the US Navy to protect Israel against the consequences of its own actions and is willing to attack an alliance member which is insisting on freedom of the seas and some accountability for the killing of its own citizens.

Americans were once proud of the US Navy when it acted in that fashion, but apparently no longer, at least not in the White House nor among some retired ambassadors. The Senators are threatening to use all means possible to punish Turkey not because it has done damage to the United States but because of its strained relationship with a third country, Israel. The Senators even threaten reducing Turkey’s role in NATO. Excuse me, but NATO is an alliance with equal partners, isn’t it, not an American fiefdom?

Sacrificing US interests for the Israel Lobby

So why all the defensiveness about Israel when Israel is a liability and Turkey a valuable asset strategically? Well, there’s an election coming up, which means that President Obama will do everything he can to appease Israel and its Lobby without any regard for the United States national interest or for old allies like Turkey. He will ignore world opinion by vetoing Palestinian statehood at the UN and he will make clear to the Turks that Israel always comes first, the single immutable factor in American foreign policy. Israel will always come first. And there will be plenty of congressmen and Morton Abramowitzes that will stand up and say that he is right to do so.

Source: Council for the National Interest

 

Ovadia Boehner

 

Ovadia Yosef 

Ce  este anti-sioniste? Este o minciună, el este un termen pe care le-au pus la cale. Am fost timp de zece ani ca un rabin – o poziţie-cheie publică în Statul Israel . În ce mod sunt nu suntem sionişti ?Ne rugăm pentru Sion, pentru Ierusalim şi locuitorii săi, pentru Israel şi de rabini şi de elevii lor. Ce este sionist? Prin înţelegerea noastră, un sionist este o persoană care iubeşte Sion şi practicile porunca de soluţionare a terenului. Ori de câte ori eu sunt de peste mări Doresc să încurajez  Aliyah. În ce mod sunt ele mai mult decât ne-sionist?

1. Ce un măgar. Ca majoritatea cititorilor de pe acest site sunt conştienţi, inclusiv partidul Shasmembri, ne-am făcut distractiv al Partidului Shas de ceva timp aici. Nimic nu face tuyuur aici la Mantiq Al-Tayr râde lor a evalua mai mult de comentariile complet nebun al Partidului Shas lui „spiritual” lider (şi prin „spiritual” ne referim la „nenorocit rasist”), care har aproape fiecare singură menţiune care le face. Cel puţin e consistent. Să aruncăm o privire la unele dintre operei sale recente. Nu puteţi face asta.

În primul rând,  comentând  pe criza actuală Israelului cu Turcia, membră NATO:

(Nota pentru Shas membrilor de partid, scoate în evidenţă roşu sunt ale mele.)

„Turcia, Burkey, Dumnezeu Atotputernicul nu ar putea grijă mai puţin despre ele.

„Este tot un nonsens. Dacă Dumnezeu îşi întinde mâinile asupra lor pentru un moment – acestea vor fi făcute nefericit intr-un minut. Noi credem în mântuirea lui Dumnezeu cel Atotputernic. Am Dumnezeu Atotputernic, iar noi suntem fiii săi. Cel care a învins Faraon, Egipt şi Aman – va învinge toţi inamicii lui Israel „.

Acelaşi articol cita acest clovn, de asemenea, ia act de modul în care acesta doreşte moartea pentru conducerea palestiniene şi consideră că poporul palestinian „rău”.

„Doi dintre situaţiile rabinului au stârnit o mulţime de furie, şi chiar tensiuni diplomatice. Anul trecut, înainte de Roş Haşana, Yosef Mahmoud Abbas şi oamenii lui, care el a numit „raul dusmanilor lui Israel.”

„Rabinul menţionat binecuvântarea spus la Anul Nou evreiesc sărbătoare care afirmă, „mai duşmanii noştri şi adversarii să fie distrus”, şi a aplicat-o cu situaţia actuală. „Abu Mazen (Abbas), precum şi toţi acei oameni răi – ar putea, ei vor pieri din această lume. Fie ca Dumnezeu cel Atotputernic le grevă şi aceste palestinieni. ”

Acum, acest extremist foarte acelaşi religios violent, de asemenea, recent, sa dus la Dan Shapiro, care ar putea fi şi un agent de informaţii israelian, vreau sa spun ce diferenta este posibil ar face dacă el ar fi fost înlocuite de către un funcţionar important Mossad?, Dar am face o digresiune.Oricum, acest loc de muncă de piuliţă flăcări întâlnit recent cu „american” (hahahahaha), ambasadorul statului evreu şi  a spus  că Partidul Shas susţine pace. Serios? Aceasta după care doresc moartea pe palestinieni? Apoi, după ce a spus Shapiro că susţine „pace”, mesajul reală a ieşit:

„Yosef, de asemenea, implorat Shapiro să facă totul în puterea sa pentru a aduce eliberarea de agent israelian Jonathan Pollard din închisoare în SUA.”

Pariez că Vice President israelian pentru afaceri american (IVPFAA) Baruch Obama a permite Pollard stele din închisoare în cazul în care arata ca el va pierde la una dintre părţi Shas nebuni republicanii sunt la punerea la alegerile de anul viitor. Dar am face o digresiune. Să ne întoarcem la Ovadia Yosef.

Eşti  de stânga ? Atunci eşti un un înger rău. Fara gluma. Bucuraţi-vă de acest lucru:

„HaGaon HaRav Ovadia Yosef Shlita pe Shabbos fixat împotriva israelian de stânga , oameni de asteptare asociat cu mişcarea „Malachei Chabala”, îngeri distructive. HaDor Gadol a făcut aceste remarci în timpul unei shiur săptămână în Har Nof. El a explicat că toţi avem dreptul nostru la îngeri şi de la stânga şi în timp ce cea din dreapta mereu lupte in numele nostru, una pe stânga fabrică împotriva noastră. Rav a explicat că, în Israel, ne-am prea-o la stânga, şi ele sunt Malachei Chabala. ”

Fundul Nutty Rabini de multe ori  dau vina  catastrofele naturale in SUA pe politica Statelor Unite faţă de Israel, care nu poate fi niciodată suficient de aservită, în măsura în care acestea sunt în cauză.Yosef deşi ia bagajul, ca să spunem aşa:

„Dupa ce uraganul Katrina care a decimat New Orleans, rabinul Ovadia Yosef a menţionat că „Este o pedeapsă pentru Statele Unite, pentru sprijinirea dezangajare. „

„Ei merita. Bush a fost de la cei responsabili pentru expulzarea evreilor din Gush Katif , a spus Sharon de a expulza pe evrei. Aici au existat 15 de mii, acolo [în New Orleans] au fost 150 de mii. Aceasta este pedeapsa pentru ceea ce a făcut la Gush Katif. Dacă au avut loc alegeri acum el ar fi pierdut.Toţi cei care au participat la această atrocitate va primi pedepsit. „

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Bine, asta e suficient pentru acum despre Yosef. Oh, stai. Permiteţi-mi să meniurile unul mai  citat din acest loc de muncă piuliţă.

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„Într-o predică octombrie 2010, Yosef a declarat că” singurul scop de non-evrei este de a servi evreilor „. El a spus că Neamurile a servit unui scop divin: „De ce sunt necesare pentru neamuri? Ei vor lucra, ei vor plug, ei vor culege. Vom sta ca un Effendi şi să mănânce. Acesta este motivul pentru neamurile au fost create. „

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Şi că, goys si fete, este de aproximativ la fel de bun, un rezumat al creştinismului american după cum veţi găsi oriunde.

2. Casa de boxe, John Boehner (pronuntat „Firster israelian”), duminică umilit tuturor americanilor adevărat în tipic israeliano-moda saruta cu fundul său discurs  înainte de Fondul Naţional Evreiesc din Cincinnati, Israel. A fost un fel de exprimare, pe care atât Ovadia Yosef şi Dan Shapiro ar fi fost mândru de. Am legat de discursul întreg  aici , dar aici e un tânăr de citate alegere astfel încât să puteţi obţine gustul a ceea ce e ca să pupe în fund lui Israel atât de bine.

Iată un citat despre cât de mare a fost să vorbesc cu Netanhayu Congre $ $ in primavara anului trecut.

„” Pentru mine, una dintre cele mai puternice au avut loc mai atunci când prim-ministrul Netanyahu a adresat o şedinţa comună a Congresului. „A fost onoarea mea de a invita him.It a fost cel ce-am putut face pentru liderul unuia dintre cei mai apropiaţi aliaţi noastre în lumea. „Bibi nu a dezamăgit. El a primit aproape 30 de ovaţii în picioare … ovaţii în picioare bipartizan. . Toate bine-meritata „Doamnelor şi domnilor, am invitat premierul Netanyahu să abordeze Congresului, deoarece poporul american meritat să aud de la el – şi Washington, destul de sincer, este nevoie să audă ce avea el de spus.”

Acum, nu ca să vă dau doar jeebies heebie?

Cum despre acest pere de înţelepciune?

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„Sprijinirea Israel şi poporului ei a fost politica a acestei naţiuni, deoarece Harry Truman stătea în Biroul Oval.” Angajamentul nostru în Israel ar trebui să fie astăzi nu mai puţin puternice. Dacă ceva, ar trebui să fie mai puternică decât cum a fost mereu. Şi, cu ajutorul tau, acesta va fi. Acesta trebuie să fie. „

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Boehner nu par să aibă un simţ al umorului:

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„Proclamarea israelian imaginat un stat bazat pe libertate, dreptate şi pace, una care garantează libertatea de religie, conştiinţă, limbă, educaţie, cultură şi.” Acesta a vorbit despre o ţară care ar promova dezvoltarea economică în beneficiul tuturor locuitorilor săi. „

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Acesta este, de asemenea 911 de interesant cu privire la:

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„Aniversarea recent de la 11 septembrie a fost o reamintire a durerii noastre comune.” Există doar un singur loc în lume din afara Statelor Unite care listează numele tuturor nevinovaţi care au murit în acea zi. „Acesta este situat pe un deal, la intrarea în Ierusalim. Şi a fost construit de către Fondul Naţional Evreiesc. Vă mulţumesc. ”

3. Deci, ce este Fondul Naţional Evreiesc? Ei bine, pentru inceput

„Fondul Naţional Evreiesc este listat de către IRS ca un 501 (c) (3) non-profit Toate donaţiile sunt deductibile fiscal în cea mai mare măsură de lege.”

Ceea ce urmează este de la site-ul lor pe pagina intitulată  „munca pe care o facem . „

„National Evreiesc Fondul a fost înfiinţat mai mult de 100 de ani în urmă de către un grup mic de lideri, inclusiv Theodor Herzl. Prin achiziţionarea de terenuri, sperau să stabilească bazele de naştere al naţiunii noastre de Israel. JNF continuă să facă un angajament de a terenurilor şi de oamenii din secolul 21. In timp ce noi încă plantarea de copaci şi de crearea de parcuri, organizaţia noastră are atât de mult mai mult. Citiţi pentru a vedea modul în care facem o diferenta pentru generaţiile viitoare. ”

Ce JNF este, desigur, este o organizaţie rasistă masquarading ca o organizaţie de caritate care urmăreşte să beneficieze de evrei în detrimentul palestinienilor în timp ce obţinerea simultan facilităţi fiscale pentru a face acest lucru atât de guvernele SUA şi Marea Britanie. Dacă doriţi să aflaţi mai multe despre activităţile lor nefaste pe care le subvenţionează, puteţi obţine o electronică gratuită despre JNF  aici . De fapt, de ce nu a descărca o copie şi de  e-mail  -l la John Boehner?

Iată un citat dintr-o  recenzie  a cărţii menţionate mai sus:

„Introducerea Ilan Pappe dezvăluie prin angajament deschis a fondatorilor JNF la expulzare, ceea ce este astăzi numit” purificare etnica „, a palestinienilor autohtone şi înlocuirea lor de către imigranţi evrei. Pappe discută succesul JNF în obţinerea o mare parte a terenurilor jefuite de la palestinieni de către miliţiile sionist prin crimă şi violenţă în 1948 şi controlul acestuia eficientă a mult mai mult prin rolul său în calitate de agent al Statului Israel în păstrarea aproape toate suprafaţa de teren de Israel pentru proprietate exclusiv evreieşti, pe cheltuiala lui Israel un milion de cetăţeni palestinieni. Autorul arată îndrăzneala JNF în prezentându-se ca un „verde”, mişcare ca aceasta copaci plante, cu scopul expres de distrugerea tuturor urmelor de comunităţilor etnic curăţate şi distruse palestinian. ”

Iată un citat despre un alt capitol din carte din aceeaşi revistă:

„Uri Davis analizează Parcul britanic, a proclamat într-un semn acolo ca” un dar al Fondului Naţional Evreiesc al Marii Britanii „Parcul britanică este construit pe sate etnic curăţate palestinian de Ajjur şi Zakariyya., Făcând UKJNF implicat în crime de război şi improprii pentru statutul de caritate pe motive de multiple încălcări ale dreptului umanitar internaţional. Surprinzător, Prof. Davis susţine că Parcul britanic este utilizat pentru a stoca o parte din armele nucleare ale Israelului de distrugere în masă. „

Se pare că mişcarea BDS, de asemenea,  clienţi  -un alt electronică gratuită cu privire la JNF pentru toate copac huggers acolo. Si da, imi place prea copaci şi au dat mai mult de un frumos o îmbrăţişare mare. Eu nu îmbrăţişez cele plantate de JNF, dar am face o digresiune. Oricum, cartea este intitulată: Apartheid greenwashing: Coverup Naţional Evreiesc Fondului de Mediu şi îl puteţi obţine gratuit  aici .

Iată un citat din recenzie foarte scurt, pe site-ul BDS:

„Este o dovadă că documentele JNF nu este o organizaţie de mediu, ci mai degrabă un instrument de purificare etnică şi implicat în crimes.Contributors război sunt din Statele Unite ale Americii, Marea Britanie, Canada şi Palestina, cu o apoi de către scriitor american şi de activist de mediu Kovel Joel. În carte, Akram Salhab descrie dezastru ecologic de a JNF drenare a lacului Hula şi Corey Balsamul analizează rolul ideologic de plantarea de copaci. David Schwartzman face legătura între JNF, asediul din Gaza şi de securitate climatice, în timp ce Coya White Hat-Artichoker, un membru al tribului Sioux Rosebud, contribuie un discurs pe primul Naţiunilor-palestinian solidaritate. ”

Deci, asta e grupul Boehner a fost să vorbesc cu. Te face mândru să fie un american, nu-i aşa?

4. Primul nostru film este un film video de formare pentru oricine care vrea să se implice în „American” sistem politic. Acest clip video foarte scurt, atât de scurt nu va contesta atentie chiar şi a membrilor cei mai avizi Partidului Shas, vă oferă tot ce aveţi nevoie să ştiţi pentru a fi un succes „american” politician.

Îmi place munca de Deek Jackson. Iata video de ultima sa dragoste, intitulat „Suck My veto”, sau ceva de genul asta.

http://mantiqaltayr.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/250px-ovadya_yosef.jpg?w=250&h=206