I believe you are mistaken. You are very generous to the Israelis in your deciding which missiles they can be attacked with and which are not acceptable to you. Gaza has a humitarian crisis because they elected murderers to office. The Arab world like the American Left seems to believe their are no consequence for their actions.

The two Israeli soldiers who were murdered and the one kidnapped by Hamas were in Isreal not occupied territory. It is your rhetoric that is meaningless. Olmert made it clear that Israel was open to negotiation and the Gazan elected terrorists.

You generousity with the lives of others is most impressive and its morality very questionable.

Shorter Rosenberg: Hezbollah must disarm.

Yep, good thinking. And the insurgency in Iraq has to stop.

140K US soldiers can't do the latter and the IDF lost its last war against Hezbo, but hey why let reality get in the way of a good plan.

Note to Rosenberg: Hezbollah is there to stay. Get used to it.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Hizbollah is not going to disarm and the freely elected government of Palestine is not going to become concentration camp capos for Daniel Greenbaum.

 Something much ominious is happening...

 Friday, July 14, 2006


Iraqis Condemn Israeli Attacks

Both Sunni and Shiite clerics and politicians condemned the Israeli attack on Lebanon on Friday. The Friday sermons were thunderous. Money and resources will likely flow to Hizbullah and the Palestinians. More later.

posted by Juan @ 7/14/2006 11:34:00 AM

Why would it be a problem for Iran to win the full scale Middle East war, that Israel appears to be precipitating?

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Open your eyes and it is so damned easy to see what Israel is up to.  Richard Haas to his great credit, knows what none of our America Abroad experts seem to. Last night on CNN he called for direct and unlimited talks with Iran on all regional issues and said it should have been done yesterday.

Now it may be too late. The Israelis are nobody's fools

The Israeli offensive against Iran – until now, purely polemical – morphed into military action the moment the IDF crossed the border into Lebanon and took on Hezbollah. As our regular readers know, this turn of events was predicted in this space three months ago:

"War with Iran will probably not begin with a frontal assault by the U.S. and/or Israel on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons facilities, or even a skirmish along the Iraq-Iran border. Look to Lebanon and Syria for the first battlegrounds of this developing regional war. The Israelis know perfectly well that Iran's nuclear ambitions, if they ever materialize, are not an immediate threat: their real concern is their volatile northern border, where their deadly enemies – Hezbollah – are an effective obstacle to Israeli influence. The Israelis are also looking to exploit growing opportunities to make trouble in Syria, where the restive Kurds are their reliable allies, and the brittleness of the Ba'athist dictatorship is an invitation to regime change."

This is insanity, defined as repeating the same act over and over, achieving the same failed result each time--how well did this strategy work for Israel the first time? Did their last power play in Lebanon not in fact create Hizbullah? How many more war crimes will be committed against the non-Shia majority in Lebanon in retaliation for Hizbullah's misdeeds?

The fact is that most Lebanese do not support Hizbullah, but as the article correctly points out, they don't have the means to do so--meanwhile, this matters not to the Israeli government, who resort to operating on a level of terror in their impotent rage. Thus, my family in Beirut, who have no love or support for Hizbullah, are being forced to evacuate as, once again, Israeli bombs blow up non-military targets, and take out innocent civilians in their continued policy of 'ten eyes for an eye.'

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Knowing Why Not To Bomb Iran Is Half the Battle  

By Martin van Creveld
April 21, 2006

Original URL: http://www.forward.com/articles/7683 
Republished with permission of The Forward

One of my teachers, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence, used to say that going to war is not like asking a girl out on a date. It is a very serious decision, to be made on the basis of carefully crafted answers to even more carefully crafted questions.

Some serious questions, then, about whether the United States should bomb Iran's nuclear installations.

The first and most obvious question is whether it is worth doing in the first place. Starting right after Hiroshima, each time a country was about to go nuclear Washington went out of its way to sound the alarm, warning of the dire consequences that would surely follow. From 1945 to 1949 it was the Soviet Union which, once it had succeeded in building nuclear weapons, was supposed to make an attempt at world conquest.

In the 1950s it was America's own clients, Britain and France, who were regarded as the offenders and put under pressure. Between 1960 and 1993, first China, then Israel (albeit to a limited extent) and finally India and Pakistan were presented as the black sheep, lectured, put under pressure and occasionally subjected to sanctions. Since then, the main victim of America's peculiar belief that it alone is sufficiently good and sufficiently responsible to possess nuclear weapons has been North Korea.

As the record shows, in none of these cases did the pessimists' visions come true. Neither Stalin, Mao nor any of the rest set out to conquer the world. It is true that, as one country after another joined the nuclear club, Washington's ability to threaten them or coerce them declined.

However, nuclear proliferation did not make the world into a noticeably worse place than it had always been — and if anything, to the contrary. As Europe, the Middle East and South Asia demonstrate quite well, in one region after another the introduction of nuclear weapons led, if not to brotherhood and peace, then at any rate to the demise of large-scale warfare between states.

Given the balance of forces, it cannot be argued that a nuclear Iran will threaten the United States. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fulminations to the contrary, the Islamic Republic will not even be a threat to Israel. The latter has long had what it needs to deter an Iranian attack.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

I want my Hizbollah TV!!! Listening to it via CNN....seems it is banned in the good Ole USA...Why does the USG hate our values so?

Are you suggesting that Israeli agents ARE NOT active in Iraq? LOL!! Israel is ALWAYS the INNOCENT VICTIM, right?

You raise some good points, but don't expect anything but a hostile reception here. In fact you can see it in the 2 earlier replies to your comments. The cryptic insult "Go fight yourself" and other ad-hominems is really indicative of this.

Its either agreement or the highway with these people. They prefer echo chambers.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Which is more appalling:

 1. The statement of the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament a key figure in the "unity" government.

or

2. Dianne Feinstein (CA-Likud)

Relations between the United States and Israel are crucial to stability in the Middle East, where the road to peace and prosperity continues to be fraught with many obstacles.  In this regard, Congress has placed considerable importance on the maintenance of a close and supportive relationship with Israel.  At the same time, Israel must take all measures to ensure the protection of innocent Palestinian lives in its fight  against terrorists.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

7For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads, it shall yield no meal; if it were to yield, foreigners would devour it.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

The Infernal Whine of the Eternal Vicitims

Finally, there seems to be a sense of guilt among some American Jews living in peace and prosperity in the United States that leads them to believe they owe unstinting support to their co-religionists living in greater peril and less opulence in the Middle East. Rather than make literal aliyah (ascent to the Holy Land), they content themselves with making political aliyah through uncompromising support for the Jewish state. “American (Jews) have this apocalyptic sense of danger in regard to Israel, more than Israeli Jews,” Columbia University professor Todd Giltin told the San Francisco Chronicle. They therefore “feel a certain guilt that they are American. ... They write the checks, but the Israelis have to fight.” One consequence of this, as George Washington University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg observed, is the “idea, which persists ... that it was better to keep quiet than to criticize Israel. Doing otherwise, the argument went (and still goes in some places) is no less than giving aid and comfort to Israel’s antagonists.”

Prophets in Their Own Land

By Michael C. Desch Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security Decision-making at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.

 He's no "leftist" Greenbaum. He's no Likudnik and that bothers you doesn't it?

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Fuad Seniora PM of Lebanon is tired of all that Israeli hogwash about "controlling Hizbollah"

Get rid of the problem and there is no problem with Hizbollah.  They become a political party only.

For those who believe that Israel's actions have anything to do with kidnapped soldiers other than pretext for their predatory actions

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

America's Ally

There are 25,000 Americans now at risk and unable to be fully evacuated thanks to our "ally".

The Holy See just condemned Israel's aggression against Lebanon - the very resolution that Bolton vetoed and where's W?

Eatin pig in Germany....a puppet on Israel's string

Zealous Israeli hardliners are always quick to play the 'anti-semite' card against anybody who would dare to question the Israeli government's tactics, thus, conveniently ignoring the large percentage of Israelis and Jews worldwide who disagree with the hardliners' stance.

The correct term is 'anti-Zionist.'

Is it too much to ask that if you disagree with some of the comments here or that you wish to accuse some of the commentators of anti-semitism that you do it by responding to their posts directly instead of tarring everyone with the generic some. That's what the reply function is for. If it is too much trouble to respond to them individually, then list them in a single response. Anything else is hardly fair to the posters here, nor is it fair to your own views as well, because it leaves the impression that you're tarring anyone who disagrees with you as guilty of anti-semitism.

Mike

Just floating a semi-idea:

For 50 years the Palestinians have been living like an animal in a cage. They are confined to a small space and people keep walking by and banging on the bars. The result: the entire society is in a permanent state of stress.

For 50 years the Israelis have been living like an animal in a cage. They are confined to a small space and people keep walking by and banging on the bars. The result: the entire society is in a permanent state of stress.

People and animals under stress lash out at those who approach them. The stress makes them behave irrationally. There is a need to "de-stress" the situation. The question is who is banging the cage? And, what do those who continue to promote the status quo get out of the situation?

Without understanding who gains from the current conditions there is little chance of meaningful change.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

The original poster does seem to be inserting a bit of drama about "missiles". Katyushas are light (82mm) or medium (132mm) unguided artillery rockets, designed to be fired in salvoes of up to 48 per launching vehicle. In guerilla warfare, they are often used singly. Since they were designed as an area weapon, the individual rockets can be aimed at kilometer-sized areas.

I certainly wouldn't want one to land in my yard, they are heavy weapons only in comparison with the homemade rockets. The Israelis do have the US AN/TPQ-36 radar, which can track back to the firing point, potentially while the rocket is in the air, and fire on the position in between 1-3 minutes. This rapid response means that the wise firer of such things takes one shot and drives away as fast as possible. Israel does not appear to have the restrictions practiced by the US; they will counterfire on a launch location regardless if it is in a residential area, etc.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

The person who gains most from the situation is the one who seeks the most violence. I have always been bothered by the futility of an arrangement where one (insert your favorite pejorative) person can bring down the peace.

Technically, it has been one small group of people. Sharon visited the Temple Mount when warned it could be construed as a provocation. Various terrorists have blown up Israelis knowing darn well it's a provocation. The least responsible actor always gets to set the terms.

I do not know how to escape this cycle. Once upon a time, I thought the United States Army could stand between the two sides for a while until they calmed down. The futility of that dawned on me well before we invaded Iraq.

Israel has a right to defend itself. No, Israel has an obligation to defend itself. On the other hand, responding to provocation always seems to worsen the security situation for them.

I have no solution in mind but only frustration.

Israel's generousity with the lives of US soldiers is most impressive and its morality very questionable.

That is why Israel is ramping up the rhetoric against Syria and Iran - to get the US do its dirty work for it yet again, as we did in Iraq.

"Gaza has a humitarian crisis because they elected murderers to office."

No - they have one because the ISRAELIS elected murderers to office.

And so did the fifty-five million morons in the US who support your notions.

The Israelis are very far away from any real kind of negotiations with the Palestinians. Frankly, the only thing the rulers of that state seem to understand is force. Before Hezbollah's 'intervention' the plan actually seemed to be to assassinate the entire Palestinian quasi-state's leadership. But just stepping back slightly from the assassination plan...

Uh well, there's a long way to go before there's any kind of common decency toward the Palestinians as if they are actual human beings. Can we all for awhile at least ditch bloated talk of the 'peace process' ... what really goes on, decade after decade, is a war and occupation 'process'.

"Without understanding who gains from the current conditions there is little chance of meaningful change."

There are several groups benefiting from the current conditions.

1) Zionist politicisns who use the threat of the Arabs to terrify the Israeli population into granting them power.

2) Arab politicians who use the threat of a nuclear-armed and oppressive Israel to terrify their populations into granting them power.

3) US neocons who see all this as a way to more money and power.

4) Oil and military-industrial complex companies who see all this as a way to more money and power.

At the very least, no progress can be made until Zionist fanatics, Muslim fanatics, neocons, and bribed US politicians are out of the mix.

Not going to happen, so fergeddaboudit.

This 'balanced' perspective is completely wrong about Israel/Palestine. It is the Palestinians who live in a cage, and the Israelis who are the 'zookeepers'. Israelis, of course, travel freely throughout Palestine/Israel. On the other hand, Palestinians wait for hours at various borders within the country, and are then always reminded by the Israeli 'guards' who is the keeper and the kept. And, it is the Palestinians who find their land crisscrossed with impassable security walls, whether for a new illegal settlement or the new apartheid wall.

Another way of looking at things is that for Israelis Israel/Palestine is a Western country with a European standard of living. For the Palestinians it is a deeply impoverished third world country. Look to http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/hdi_rank_map.cfm for some economic and social comparisons. For example, per capita GNP for Israelis was US$16,481 in 2005, for Palestinians $1026. For Jewish Israelis, the per capita GNP is even higher, I have read something like $24,000. Israel has a UN Human Development Index value of 0.915; for Palestine the value is 0.729. Again, the difference is between a European and impoverished third world country.

The fact we need to deal with, for an imperfect but far better quick understanding, is that the experience of the Israelis and Palestinians is like that of whites and blacks in pre-liberation South Africa.

How many nearby countries can Israelis travel to? I think the answer is one (Egypt). To my mind that means they live in a cage as well. And lets not forget the systematic explusion of Jews from adjacent countries that has taken place over the past 50 years. My town is filled with Jewish refugees from Iran, Syria, Yemen and other states in the region. Ask a Jew about travel to Saudi Arabia. Even American Jews are not allowed.

Many of these people had families that had lived in their regions for hundreds of years. Does this mean that the people in the disputed territories are being treated fairly? No. But my point is that this is a situation where both sides are at fault and are being manipulated by those with their own agenda.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

Israel goes around willy-nilly massacring people and shelling picnicers and you're complaining by how the "anti-semites" want the Jews dead? Funny how Israel is ALWAYS the victim - never the perpetrator.

Who is doing the dying here?
See this http://www.ifamericaknew.com/

-

-

Where do you get your information from? Palestinians can't travel? Lol! There are Palestinian students in the US, and elsewhere, in the UK and Europe. I have had several Palestinian professors and one adjunct professor.. none of them were emigres, they were all here on visas.

Incidently, Palestinians who have lived in Arab countries were treated like vermin, denied any rights. In one class I took taught by the adjunct professor I mentioned, who was as rabid and hatemongering as could be... there was a Palestinian student who took exception to the propaganda taught by the professor. What she had to say on the subject inferred that the Palestinian people aren't done any favors by either Hamas or Fatah, that Arafat, before his death was not revered by many of the people and that many Palestinians would be happpy to live in peace and co-exist with the Israeli state.

According to the Institute of International Education (see link below), there were 268 "Palestinian Authority" students studying in the U.S. in 2005. Not a huge number, considering there are over 4 million Palestinians just in Gaza and the West Bank (many others live in refugee camps in nearby countries). Still, as you write, it is possible although quite difficult for Palestinians to travel to other countries. Going back is another matter, however, especially to the Gaza.

http://www.iie.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Pressroom/PressReleases/

"Palestinians would be happpy to live in peace and co-exist with the Israeli state."

There was a very interesting poll done about a year ago that found that a growing percentage, about 40%, of Palestinians wanted a "one-state" solution, with full citizenship rights in the state of Israel.

I wouldn't call them liberals, they certainly aren't liberal, which means to be tolerant, and broad minded, to value the rights of people. It isn't liberal to hate, and rationalize the destruction of a people.

The survivors of the holocaust emphasized that the atrocities of WWII should NEVER happen again. They strived to inform people about what they experienced to help further the understanding that the monstrosities that occurred were at the hands of human beings on behalf of cold hard ideology.

I only wish that there were the same emphasis on the atrocities that have happened as a result of Marx and his dogmatic, despotic ideologues, because the neo-progressives and neo-leftists you're addressing here are by products of that.

They aren't working on behalf of liberal values or ideas, they are the equivalents of the Nazi's who were hell bent on murder, brutality, and unchecked cruelty.. they are as consumed by hate and drunk on a lust for power.

It's not about right or left, because both extremes, all extremes are based on corruption and wrong doing to achieve an end. They've lost sight of whatever might have originally motivated them. They are willing to speak/act monstrously, at least in the anonymous atmosphere of the 'net, and perhaps when amongst themselves.. how much worse would they be were they to gain any power..? I wouldn't care to give them the opportunity.

Lebanon?

As a jew and an anti-zionist I'd ask you to grow the fuck up, but you won't. Enjoy your racial nationalism if you want but don't start moralizing about it.

And as far as anti-semitism on this site goes, I'm much more worried about the philo-semitism of the "Left Behind" crowd.

"But some blacks ARE racist!"
Oh deary me, some people aren't that nice. But
I worry more about criminals, and idiots like you.

Or go back 60 odd years and some of you would be right at home in a spiffy Gestapo uniform goose stepping about.

No , don't say that. That diminishes the evil of the holocaust. In the day that's passed since you wrote that I think, or at least I  hope , you regret it as being over the top.

 I wonder if your unhappiness is not so much the result of any one post as of the uniformly critical of Isreal tone of the majority of them Even tho most of them included at least a pro forma statement of Isreal's right to defend itself.

The members of Amt 4, Geheime Staatspolizei, of the Reich Main Security Administration, hardly would goose-step. Goose-stepping is incompatible with maintaining one's identity as a secret policemen. "Men in black" might be a closer reference.

Holocaustic behavior remains possible; we see individuals every day who are as evil as anyone at the Wannsee Conference, or that carried outs its policy. The difference is that no modern state has mobilized an industrial approach to genocide. Mutual Assured Destruction might have had equivalent effects, but a different motivation.

Look around you, and there's an unfortunate chance that you might find people quite capable of genocide. Classic psychological demonstrations by Stanley Milgram and Phil Zimbardo tell us uncomfortable things. Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem spoke of the "banality of evil" in this colorless bureaucrat; an interestng analysis of her work is here.. Robert Jay Lifton's The Nazi Doctors documents how healers became killers. I take issue with his explanation of deterrence theory in The Genocidal Mentality, but it's worth reading.

It is my fond hope that if I had been one of Milgram's subjects, I would have had the integrity to render him unconscious and destroy the equipment. So I'd like to hope, anyway.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

It in no way diminishes the evil of the holocaust flavius.. what is truly evil now is to diminish the legitimate concerns regarding the attitudes and behaviors of those who are in fact adopting (whether they're aware of it nor not) the same slurs, and attacks against Jews the nazis used.. I've read stereotypes of Jews in leftist blogs that wouldn't surprise me as being lifted from a nazi propaganda sheet. And we aren't talking about uneducated kids who are mixed up with skinhead and neo-nazi gangs, we're talking about well educated, articulate people doing this.. they should and most likely do know better.

The fact is that holocaust survivors, even those still alive today speak out regarding the need to never again allow what happened, to happen again. Back then, too many people dismissed the threat of the growing nazi movement.. no one thought it would come to much, let alone the mass murder of more than 6 million Jews, Poles, homosexuals, gypsies and others.

There's a thin line between the talk we're seeing here now, and the acting out on such thoughts. That is truly frightening.

I've read stereotypes of Jews in leftist blogs that wouldn't surprise me as being lifted from a nazi propaganda sheet

No doubt . But you're commenting here.

And while I understand why my jewish friends would be saddened by the pretty nearly universal criticism of Isreal in the thread I don't recall reading any comment to which I'd apply your characterization.

I completely agree with the preceding post that the veneer of civilization can disappear: we saw that in the videos of Palestinians celebrating 9/ll, and , as I've written elsewhere, in the photos of Dachau's hausfrauen calmly buying bread while emaciated prisoners marched past. But also in the behavior of some of our troops in Iraq. And I can remember Ben Hecht's 1946 comment that his "heart leapt up" each time the Irgun killed a British soldier in Palestine- as can my British friends.

Yes I was taken aback by Milgram's experiments -particularly because the men and women subjects reacted exactly the same , but not surprised by "Eichmann in Jerusalem" in part because of some personal experience ..

I respect the feelings of my friends (most of them in fact )who are emotionally connected to Isreal and for that reason I couldn't myself have written in the tone of many of the posts above . But that doesn't cause me to label them as Nazi.

I save that word for describing Nazis.

waltc, The 'sheer hate', anger and despair being generated by the wanton slaughter Bush, Rove and Co., and now Olmert, have produced in the Middle East, and here at home, are what concerns those Americans with any shred of a conscience. Years of endless killing are ugly, orphans are ugly, lies are ugly, revenge is ugly. A fiasco of a war based on politics, war president mojo, greed, lies, and racism is very ugly. Americans who hate the continuing spectacle of war, death and suffering have a duty to speak out.