Re: op-ed Neocons, Mr. Rosenberg asks:

 What could any of them possibly tell us that is worth hearing?

I wouldn't mind hearing, "I'm resigning in order to spend more time with my family."

(I'm not holding my breath.)

aMike

It is the latter that most upsets the neocons. For them, it is an article of faith that the Israel-Palestine conflict, unlike any other international conflict, is insoluble. It is not part of a regional problem but is rather a freestanding problem that must be managed (not solved) by itself.

The neocons are even more delusional than that.

They believe Israel is winning the war (well, minus last summer's defeat, which even they recognize as such). Winning because their plan in on track to strangle Palestinian populations into (a) leaving (for Lebanon/Jordan), (b) surrendering (Carter's apartheid -- that's why they went ballistic when Carter used that word, because it's their secret agenda); or (c) creating a civil war between Hamas and Fatah.

(a) is still too early, but (b,c) look promising.

For this to happen there needs to be a "clean break" with US interference in Israeli affairs.

For them, George "last road to Jerusalem" Bush is a hero; Jim "first road to Jerusalem" Baker is a nightmare.

Rather... the Sunni vs. Shiite problems have NOTHING to do with Isreal. So, no, they wouldn't stop killing each other... even if Isreal had never been created.

The continual misreprestentation of evidence and "facts" by the neocons and their supporters never ceases to amaze me.

Why can they not deal with us with a degree of intellectual honesty instead of always playing fast and loose.

I would rather live on Discworld!

J. McCutchen

Bush to mull Iraq strategy over holidays

Like mulled wine? Does it have to breathe? I have never seen any decision making like this. He's been in Iraq how long? Planning since the day he took office if not before. Iraq is going to hell in a freaking handbasket and the Texican is mulling....

myself arrived at this view from a profound sense of disillusionment that followed the demise of the Oslo peace process.

Disillusionment?

Maybe the *doubling* of settlement population since Oslo had something to do with it?

Has that ever ocurred to you?

Maybe the *doubling* of settlement population since Oslo had something to do with it? Has that ever ocurred to you?

Nope.

The point is that Barak offered to uproot most of the settlements, just like the left wanted.  And the Palestinians still said no. 

When are you going to learn that the settlements are just an excuse?  They're not irrelevant, but they're a secondary issue, useful mainly because most elite opinion in the West agrees with the view that the settlements are "illegal".  Thus the Palestinians can whine about settlements and gain sympathy.  But the real dealbreaker during the Oslo process and in any future negotiation is the refugee issue.  The Palestinians would probably be willing to compromise on the land issue.  But to declare the conflict over, they'll have to tell all the refugees and their descendants that they are not going back to their former homes in Israel.  This is what they're afraid of.  But this is a much less sympathetic argument than the settlements issue because most Western elite opinion agrees with Israel that a full-scale repatriation of Palestinian refugees is a non-starter.

Say what you will about them, the Palestinians are master propagandists.  And people like you fall for it every time.

Re BradtheDad's comment : "Bill Clinton was nothing short of heroic in his attempt to find a common ground and put plenty of pressure on Israel as well as the Palestinians. And it all ended in tears"
--------
Actually, what I remember happening is that some lawyers asked Bill Clinton if he knew a nice Jewish girl named Monica Lewinsky. Heh heh heh At that point, Bill Clinton's focus on Israel was ..er.. diverted.

Anyone remember Yasser Arafat cooling his heels outside the Oval Office -- kept waiting while Monica played hide the cigar? Interesting method of diplomacy. Let's see the current Israeli ambassador follow that act.
----------

The Rest of the Story may be, when one considers the surroundings of the cigar, that Bill was rehearsing for a face-to-face summit with Fidel.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Palestine was represented by Arafat at the time, no? It was not "Palestinians" and "Israelis" at Oslo, but particular people.

Palestinians are probably no more monolithic than Israelis. We often refer to Israel's policies, but gloss over the fact that those policies are only those of the party in power, which may represent a majority of Israel but is not exhaustive.

So Palestine had Arafat, but does not now. That is a difference, if Arafat was an obstacle, as was maintained by may. Things are more complicated now, with internal divisions. These could be exploited to keep Palestine hobbled, but Olmert may feel better the devil he knows (Abbas) than strirring things up more.

In any case, yes, things are different, time has passed, people have died and others are in power. Unless you prefer the current situation?

"yet Bush has never visited Israel!"

Totally wrong. Bush was there in 1998 and flew over the country in a helicopter with Sharon, by which he was able to see for himself how vulnerable Israel is to rocket attacks from those who would destroy it.

You are quite justified in your defense of Israel's supporters. The dehumanizing names above your post deny that passions can be real. However, passions can be real on the bad guys' side, too. And if your passions run strong they likely dehumanize the other guy, leading the passionate to act inhumanely.

Many here that point this out are attacked as Jew-haters, so I don't accept that counterattack as justifed. You were doing OK until that second paragraph.

They are being honest.  Leo Strauss taught that it was ok to read between the line.  Do you know what's written betweern the lines?  Anything you want, that's what's written.

I think Leo also taught that lying to the riff-raff was noble. 

Neoboho

Lives can be taken and survivors' lives ruined by 20 kiliton rockets of the type Hamas uses. I assure you that if the apartments of Columbia professors on Riverside Drive in Manhattan were attacked with 20 kilo rockets from thugs shooting them from across the Hudson River--thugs whose political platform was to destroy humanistic places of learning like that University--they would have a completely different perspective on Israel's policies for protecting its citizens.

The abyss calls out to the abyss.

I have absolutely no argument with someone's right to speak in favor of any nation's policies, whether I agree or disagree with those policies. I distinguish between nation-states and cultures.

The Emerald Isle of Eire has no particular right to speak for those of Irish descent who are citizens of other countries. Israel is perfectly within its rights to address the concerns of Jews who are citizens of Israel.

When criticism of Israel is equated to hatred of Jews who owe no allegiance to the State of Israel, be they ultra-Orthodox in Mea Shearim or assimilated Americans in Los Angeles, the arguer loses all credibility with me.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Sage

This site is popular with those who will spend a lot of effort blaming Israel for everything and the Palestinians for nothing. You will see such rapid anti-Israeli attitudes as it to border on anti-Semitism and often crossing the border. When this is pointed out there is a "horror" at the mere suggestion that such continue bigotry is expressed here.

Fortunately most of these voices are irrelevant among most Democrats and the vast American public. I think the frustrations of failed voices are taken out here.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I can only laugh. The dishonesty of the anti-Israeli crowd would be a joke if taken seriously. The lack of balance and fairness, the holding Israel to a standard of perfection and the ignoring of acts of the Palestinians is anti-Semitic. It is also part of the juvenile post-Marxism or neo-Modernism that is popular among academics. The strong, aka the U.S. and Israel, are always in the wrong and the weak and failured are always in the wrong.

Libertine, very nice try but itis just a naive joke.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

1)It was not my intent to insult any poster here when i stated my judgement that the "Israel Lobby here in the USA is a pack of vicious lying shitheads who are bringing unnecessary death and destruction upon both the US and Israel "

2)When I refer to the "Israel Lobby" I refer to that group of people who have the power to dominate and control the US News media/public discourse so as to present a false and misleading picture to the American People. People like Charles Krauthammer.

3) I seriously doubt posters here have any power. I am sorry that I did not make myself clear and unwittedly gave some posters cause to think I was criticizing them personally.

4)As I've repeatedly noted here, the Israel Lobby has little to do with America's 6 million Jews -- I think that Sage's assumption that those Jews automatically support the Malign acts of the Lobby is itself anti-Semitic.

5)Let us look at some of the malign acts of that Lobby:

a) In September 2000, Ariel Sharon deliberately sabotaged Clinton's peace talks by going into the Al Aqsa compound with several hundred armed men --thereby provoking Palestinian rioting. In early 2001, Sharon used US-made F16s jets to bomb the Palestinians. Europe strongly criticized this attack on civilians.
b) The US State Department initially moved to protest strongly but was cut off at the knees and ordered to shut up by the newly elected President Bush.

b) In May 2001, President Bush already showed his plan to financially destroy the Democratic Party by strongly courting billionaire donors of the Democrats who are strong supporters of Israel. People like Israeli billionaire Haim Saban.

It took a Republican Supreme Court to install Bush as President -- he was not inclined to experience a similar close call in 2004.

c) This was the reason for Bush's extreme and bizarre pandering to Ariel Sharon. Not only did President Bush suppress the State Department, he turned around and sold Sharon 52 more F16s in June 2001. The Al Qaeda order to execute Sept 11 was issued in shortly thereafter, in July 2001.

In a Nov 2001 interview with Pakistan's DAWN , Bin Laden explicitly cited US sales of advanced weapons to Israel as justification for the Sept 11 attack. Bin Laden had cited US support for Israel as justification for Jihad in 1998 interviews he gave to US TV networks.

d) After the attack, President Bush engaged in a massive coverup re what provoked Sept 11. He deliberately lied to the American people --saying the attack occurred because Al Qaeda "hates our freedom". The Israel Lobby echoed his lies -- and started a massive deceitful propaganda campaign against the Muslim world -- against the "Islamofascists".

Note that Bush's lies and the lies of the Israel Lobby damaged US security --by destroying any hopes the CIA had that the Islamic world would help us by exposing the Al Qaeda members in hiding.

e) Not that the closely owned and controlled US news media conspired with Bush to deceive the American people. In Sept 22, the New York Times put out a deceitful article "Israel as Flashpoint not Cause" which argued that US support for Israel was not a factor in the Sept 11 attack. A deliberate lie, in my opinion, since I wrote to the Times and noted the above information -- to no avail.

f) Even the 911 Commission refused to explain to 911 Survivors WHY the Sept 11 attack occurred -- as Harvard historian and Commission staffer Ernest May admitted in an article in the New Republic about 6 months after the 911 Commission made its report.

6) The Democratic leaders that Sage cited are not shitheads -- they are whores to the Israel Lobby. Willing whores in the case of Joe Lieberman. Reluctant whores in the case of others -- subserviance to the Israel Lobby is --at the moment -- the price of political survival here in the US.

7) The Israel Lobby is now abandoning George Bush --because Bush's pandering has become an embarrassment and he has lost credibility/influence. And the ability to protect Israel from Iran.

Israeli billionaire Haim Saban explained it to Haaretz in a recent interview. A quote from Mr Saban:
------------
HAARETZ: Will she [Hillary Clinton] be good for Israel?

SABAN: "I think so. Look, President Bush is very one-sidedly pro-Israel. But look at the results of his policy. They were not beneficial for Israel. We are in a major mess. Look at the facts on the ground. Bush is a massive failure. Hillary will be more balanced than Bush. She will try to create credibility among the Arabs in order to mediate between them and us. We will get nowhere with them in direct negotiations. Only with billions, with pressure."

Ref: Page 2 of Haaretz article at
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=798292

At 14 million dollars, Haim Saban was the largest donor to the Democratic Party in 2000-2002 election cycle. Which may explain why Democratic leader become totally incoherent when they tried to criticize Bush's foreign policy in 2001-2005.

The Haaretz article I cited above gives some idea of billionarie Haim Saban's goals and objectives. A few extracts:
------------
History proved that Sharon was right and I was wrong. In matters relating to security, that moved me to the right. Very far to the right."

How far right?

"When there is a terrorist attack, I am [Yisrael Beiteinu party chair Avigdor] Lieberman. Sometimes to the right of Lieberman. For two days I really love Lieberman. But afterward I come back to reality. Look, I don't see a solution today.
---------
You said once that you are a one-note person, and that note is Israel. Why?

"You can't explain love."

It's really love?

"More than love. Passion. A love that is passion."

Please explain.

"When we approach Israel I always ask the pilots of my plane to let me sit in the chair between them. We don't play 'Heveinu Shalom Aleichem,' but when I see the coast coming up my heart starts to go boom, boom, boom."

---------
Do you still feel, as you once did, that America's attitude toward Israel is liable to deteriorate?

"At the moment there is no sign of a crisis. But we must not be complacent. The two pillars of the state are the Israel Defense Forces and the U.S., Dimona [the site of Israel's nuclear reactor] and Washington. We must do all we can to maintain the alliance with America. A major crisis at the wrong time could be a disaster, a disaster."

Do you feel that as an Israeli-American of influence your mission is to prevent that crisis?

"You said it."

Do the Jews have a future in America?

"Yes, certainly. It's a strong community, Hillel is active on college campuses. But there is also assimilation. Take me. Even though my wife is not Jewish, I did not assimilate. But my son will not have the same affinity for Israel that I have. I would like to see him in uniform. I think it is the duty of every Jew to serve in the IDF. He wanted to enlist in the past, but he's not talking about that anymore."

Are you sure your son will live as a Jew in the long term?

"Look, I don't believe in religious coercion. That's why I never told my wife to convert. But when we were married I told her there would be no children. What do you mean, no children? Exactly that: no children. You believe in Jesus Christ - he came once and will come again. I don't care if he has come or has already gone. That's not my problem. But one thing I do know. In my soul, my spirit, my blood and my mind I am a Jew. It is unacceptable to me for my children not to be Jews in every respect. She told me: So it will be. I told her that this is my line in the sand. Every night before eating we say the motzi, the blessing over bread. And kiddush over the wine on Shabbat. And Bar Mitzvah, the whole thing. When my mother-in-law tells my son that he is half-Christian and half-Jewish, he answers her, 'I am not only Jewish, I am Israeli.'"
---------
HAARETZ: Is there a sense of power?

SABAN: "I don't think of it that way. I'm not after power. But I do not belittle the fact that I can go to Angela Merkel in the Chancellory and say, 'Hi, Angela, how are you?' And she replies, 'Haim, nice to see you.' I don't minimize that. That's a great pleasure. And that I sit with Clinton in the White House and he goes to the refrigerator and asks me if I want regular water or fizzy? Sometimes I tell myself that there's something a bit nutty here. He's the president of the United States. I sell cartoons. So he is going to serve me and ask if I want regular or fizzy water?"

Howard your definition of what is anti-semitism is both a joke and anti-Semitic. You are a fancy hater but a hater nontheless. I am not even sure what it means to owe loyalty to Israel. Seems like a dodge and pretty ridiculous. What most Jews know is that when Israelis die Jews are dying. They also know that if all else fails for Jews Israels stands there.

Howard welcome back. It is nice to see that you are another of the anti-semitic jokes that masquerade as moral and intellectual Sdiscussion.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I might call you a joke as well, but I don't find you especially funny; merely a hater of anyone who does not totally agree with your position.

If you don't know what it means to owe loyalty to Israel, I suggest you might think about it, since you constantly harp on Israeli exceptionalism. If you don't know why, other than Israel being an ultimate guardian of Jews, that's pretty sad. It's too bad the Apache don't have the same preservation on the reservation.

What does it mean to owe loyalty to Israel, for a US citizen? It means that one has a greater loyalty to a religion than to a country. Fine, if that's what you want to do. If an American Jew wants to look to Israel as the ultimate guarantor of his safety, then I question that loyalty, just as I question the loyalty of a Jonathan Pollard.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

To be even more sanguine: Lebanon showed that a nation may be on receiving end of pretty intense bombardment without big detriment to political system and even economy.

Israel is at least as resilient as Lebanon.

I am not saying that we should oblivious to the shelling of Israel. But we do not have to be hysterical because some acquire a werewhital to shell Israel.

Piotr, I am not hysterical and neither are the other posters here who agree with me. I very calmly and rationally support the right of my fellow Jews to prevent people bent on destroying the Jewish national homeland from succeeding.

I and thousands of Democrats like me will cointinue to very calmly exercise all of our rights as Americans to ensure that our government remains allied with the only democracy in that region. May I urge you and those here who agree with you to exercise theirs, and let's see who has the most votes. By all means, please urge your favorite candidate to loudly and unequivocally espouse the position that Americae should end or limit its support for Israel, so that Democrats in the primaries, and all voters in the general election, can decide if they favor such a candidate. This year one candidate, a Mr. Jonathan Tasini running for the Senate in New York, espoused that view and called Israel a war criminal in the pages of the New York Times. He got 17% of the Democratic vote in one of the most liberal states in the nation.

Criticizing the policies of Israel's government per se is not Jew-hating; but, criticizing those policies in a way that denotes a desire to see that homeland--a homeland for which which Jews of every strand in Judaism have prayed fervently for two millenia (except the Naturei Karta wackos some of whom showed up in Tehran at the Holocaust-denial conference)-- replaced with a single Palestinian-majority state is, in my book. Though there will be only handful here who are on that page with me, I will continue to so believe.

I support your right to take any and all legal means in the American political process to encourage that the government take what you believe to be the appropriate policy toward Israel. That is indeed the democratic process, and opinions, in any democratic process, change over time.

Speaking for myself, I am puzzled about the conflation of a single Palestinian state solution with criticisms of Israel's military policies. I've never suggested a one-state policy.

At the same time, I am neither a Jew nor an Apache. I have both Apache and Jewish friends that want a homeland, and I have other friends that are quite content to live in the general American nature, keeping up their own traditions. Neither desire for a homeland is especially important to me. If they can create it and defend it, they have the same legitimacy as an other group that can create and defend a country.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

To HC Berkowitz,
The depressing part of tribalism is that it leads the tribalist to feel more affinity to a fellow tribe member half a world away than to their next door neighbor.

Re; AIPAC

****No one can doubt AIPAC's effectiveness. I worked on the Hill for 20 years and, from my experience, I can safely assert that you wouldn't find 50 people in the whole Congress, House and Senate, who share AIPAC's view of the world. As for staffers, they almost universally cannot stand being intimidated by the lobby.

But, like the NRA, Pharma, and the other huge lobbies with PACs attached to them, AIPAC prevails.

It's all legal. That is the way our system works and will work until we have full 100% public financing of elections ALTHOUGH the new Democratic House and Senate Members include some very openminded types.

But it's unfair to single out AIPAC for operating through intimidation, threatening loss of funding, etc. That's our system, as awful as it sounds.

J. McCutchen

That's it, in a literal nutshell. And this take is repeated again and again in neo-conservative circles. And it is a flat-out misrepresentation

And that is nothing new for these new Jacobins is it?

[tip of the hat to IraqSlogger & Truthout]

Concern for the Truth
By Tzvetan Todorov

Libération

The foundations of democracy are at risk as soon as a country accepts - as the United States did with the war in Iraq - lies and illusion.

One of the most interesting conclusions of the Baker-Hamilton report resides in the observations that, since the war in Iraq, the American government has often sought to rule out any information that runs counter to its policies, and that this refusal to take the truth into account has had calamitous effects. The report says so in measured, but firm, terms: "Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals." In other words, the American government has held truth to be a negligible value that could easily be sacrificed to the will to power.

He is Director of the research center for the arts and language at the French National Social Sciences Research Center.

To Sage:

Let me assume that you are quite correct, and no significant foreign assistance happens if AIPAC does not drive it. That has two implications: useful things get done in spite of political posturing, and an organization principally responsive to the needs of a second country is responsible for deciding the direction of US policy. The latter, I suggest, is a scandal and an enormous surrender of Congressional responsibility if so. Even if AIPAC never did anything but good, such actions go at the base of integrity of the legislative process.

I do find it interesting that you conflate aid to Lebanon, Darfur, and Israel, not paying attention to the differences among them. To me, it is indeed a difference when one is not a country, but little but posturing seems to be done to take definitive steps about the country and its factions causing the problems.

To demand the private thoughts of 50 legislators, incidentally, would require that those thoughts no longer be private. There's a lurking logical disconnect there.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Actually, I can do without both of them.

Tom

...a homeland for which which Jews of every strand in Judaism have prayed fervently for two millenia...

The whole conflict lies here: does religious faith legitimate the creation of a state at the expense of indigenous population? And what about those who don't share the same faith, do they have to resign their land to settlers?
On the issue of the elections, I just wish to remind you that Hitler was supported by an overwhelming majority of Germans. Yet , he lead Germany and the world to chaos.

Obviously, Irak and Middle East are linked. Most of Arab and Muslim activists(terrorists?) who are fighting U.S. troops in Irak or in Afghanistan are committed to "Jihad" not because of the invasion of Irak but because of their old hatred of America who is blamed for its unconditional support to Israel.

Mr. Rosenberg,as my last response to you, I simply ask youto put your proof where your mouth is. You ignore the unassailable fact that a mere handful of Republican Members disagree with AIPAC, and that a majority of Democrats agree with it too, based on their recorded votes and their statements. Until you name the more than four hundred and eighty-five Members who you assert don't believe the line AIPAC hands them, you have no credibility.

I presume you know Rep. Van Hollen and his staff personally. Show us where he told you or anyone else, after his visit to Israel, that people should ignore what he says publicly and his House votes and be assured that he privately disagrees with AIPAC.

I have no doubt you are a fellow Zionist, but I am much more sanguine that Israel will survive no matter what AIPAC does. If, G-d forbid, Israel doesn't, I will only blame the left if it prevented the U.S. from aiding an ally facing a common enemy. Inasmuch as decison-makers in Washington will ignore people like you and Berkowitz and bmastiff for the forseeable future, the possibility of such prevention is quite remote.

The reaon you and they will continue to be ignored is that those decison-makers understand it is very much in America's interest that Israel be sufficiently strong--with U.S. diplomatic backing, financial aid and military ccoperation-- that it can take prudent risks for peace. I have no doubt Israel would take those risks when a credible set of interlocutors emerges from among the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians who can enforce a negotiated settlement on the thugs who would subvert it.

Readers of this site who profess to care about Palestinians, Lebanese and others in that region had better pray hard Israel is never faced with imminent destruction. You and I both know that in that dire circumstance very few Arabs and Iranians will be alive to rejoice.

It's easy to kill some people; it's really hard to kill everybody, and the survivors would not likely be in a friendly mood.

Bush probably has a bit of background in how to launch an air-to-ground rocket from an F-102 interceptor, an aircraft never designed for ground attack. Sage, what criteria did he use for vulnerability to attacks from what sort of rocket, against what sort of targets? Precisely what kind of rockets, without nuclear warheads, can destroy what large area?

I'm afraid Sage's posts are characterized by a maximum of dire warnings and condemnation of those who might have different opinions -- or, saints preserve us, actual expertise -- and a minimum of actual military knowledge. Here, we have the idea of rockets, which are relatively light weapons in the grand scheme of things, destroying nations. Of course, Sage also has managed to confuse kilogram and kiloton yields.

Might I suggest I would find Sage's predictions of Armageddon a bit more plausible if plausible means were mentioned? As it is, armageddon rather tired of the apparently ill-informed predictions of doomsday.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I knew a White Mountain fellow - Bobo - and he told me his grandfather punched Barry Goldwater in the nose and decked hiim during a vist the Governor made to the res.  And you know what? Goldwater picked himself and took it like a man - no charges filed and all that.  That made it hard for me to hate Berry completely.  Politics are so complicated, dang!

Neoboho

After propping up Iran to indirectly inconvenience the Communists by raising money to prop up the Contras, and propping up Saddam to inconvenience Iran, and propping up the Afghan warlords to inconvenience the Taliban, I think the United States has ample experience propping up Badguy A to inconvenience Badguy B.

What's needed is something like Star Trek's "Prime Directive." No more interference with foreign cultures. We don't know whether A is any better than B at the moment of intervention, let alone 20 years hence. Maybe B would've been the only force capable of stopping as yet unforeseen threat C. Maybe with their old nemesis B out of the picture, A turns into a bigger menace than B ever was. It's impossible to predict.

It's not at all clear to me whether the United States should prop up the Sunnis to hassle the Iran-friendly Shiites, or do we prop up the Shiites to (hopefully) harass Al Qaida, who are Sunni? My strong inclination is: neither.

-- Jalmari

Good people can have honest differences of opinion. This fails when Republicans are neither.