Open minded non-Jews who want to criticize Israel should read Israeli newspapers. Israel is as self-critical society as they come and honest criticism can only help. Non-Jews should be advised that honest criticism, as opposed to name calling or racial comparisons (Zionism is racism, Carter's apartheid, etc.), is encouraged. Surely, Israelis don't shy away from even the most nasty, but not racist, criticism.

I simply don't buy the buy the isolation story. As an Israeli in the US I have never encountered negative reaction be it at work, market, gym, parties, etc. I had extended discussions with Palestinian supporters, and as most Israelis, we actually agree way more than we disagree. I never blamed the Palestinian for everything and was never blind to the terrible suffering they go through (because of both parties).

As for the Carter issue. Carter is not a person I would listen to no matter what the topic is. And that was my view 10 years ago too. He is as stubborn and as ignorant as Bush is; it's not a big surprise that both are the worst presidents ever. Understanding and knowledge seem to depend on your openness to the world. Both Carter and Bush are close minded, although Bush is not a racist.

Jews have been connected to Palestine for thousands of years (long before there were Arabs), and even after the fall of the last pre-1948 Jewish state have had a continuous presence there. Long before any one thought of himself as a Palestinian, Jews lived in and indentified with that land.

Jews are not entitled to all of it. Nor are Palestinians. Today there are an equal number of Jews and Palestinians living in the land between the Jordan River and the sea. The answer is to split the land into two states, which a majority of both peoples favor.

There is no alternative to that except the permanent subjugation (or worse) of one group by the other.

Israel and Palestine, at peace, could be the "Asian Tigers" of the Middle East. These people have limitless potential, so long as they aren't wasting it on killing each other.

Is it way past time to talk just about the Israeli//Palestinian conflict?
I am reading such comments as this January 25 article on Belfast Telegraph (online)
************
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, dramatically raised the stakes in the international showdown with Iran last night, with a clear warning that his country was prepared to use military force to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
and
Israeli military officials warned this week that Israel – acting alone or in coordination with the US – could launch preemptive military strikes against Iran before the end of this year.
****************************
I do not have much experience providing a link, but i will give it a try:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2184251.ece

In addition, there are numerous articles in US publications suggesting that Bush/Cheney may lead us into war with Iran.

Is Israel dictating US foreign policy? Is that just an excuse because it is what Bush/Cheney want anyway for their own reasons and involving Israel is just an excuse?

I do not know the answers to these questions. But in my opinion, the fact that this talk about attacking Iran is around sounds very life-threateningly dangerous to the United States well being as a country (not to mention Israel) and as a planet.

Great Article MJ!

You truly have a great understanding of this issue! Im sure that some hear, as they have so persistently done in the past, will try to divert attention from some of the very strong arguments and observations you make. They are truly creative in the way they consistently convey their denial.

I live in NYC, and yesterday I was so shocked to read in the Metro Newspaper an op ed critical on Isreals policies. I had to quickly look up, as I fully expected an AIPAC agent to hit me with the anti-semite stick lol but seriously, this is a small indication,amongst many others, of the awakening in regards to this issue that MJ outlines. I am truly elated that the seeds of debate and are being laid in America as is the case elsewhere, including Isreal.

And to lump Prez Bush and Carter in same group is rather ridiculous, considering efforts made by Carter in regards to isreal/palestinian peace as compared to Bush inactivity. Even if true, still doesnt diminish the impact his book has had on this debate, whether you agree with some of his arguments or not!

At this time, it's pretty unlikely that free Palestine will be an "Asian tiger," after the damage that's been done to the Palestinian middle class (Christian emigration from Palestine is mainly economically driven, and Christians comprised a disproportionate share of the middle class) and the Palestinian educational system. It will take free Palestine a long, long time to recover from the damage done by Israel's occupation. And that's making the counterfactual assumption that Palestine would be liberated tomorrow.

Long before there were Arabs? Who were the Canaanites? I read that Abraham, or his descendants, came down from Ur and settled in the "Land of Canaan" somewhere around 5000 BC. If you're interchanging Arab and Muslim, "long before there were Arabs" would apply. Otherwise?

As an example of how unreasonable criticism of what often is not criticism of Israel can backfire, a number of years ago an article appeared in The Christian Science Monitor which detailed how many Palestinians were living in Israel. The paper was deluged with stop-my-subscription demands, angry letters and phone calls charging the paper with being anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.

I read the article and what followed its publication and was struck with how really unreasonable the anti-Semitic charge was. It didn't leave a good taste in my mouth.

Why would anyone give this person a "1" rating for simply asking a provocative question? Gee, maybe that's more evidence for Mr. Rosenberg's thesis!

Because Zionism is like any nationalist effort of self-determination. Israel is a country with people from all over the globe as citizens.

Given the much more homogeneous nature of the Arab countries they are much more subject to the charge of racism or bigotry.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Actually, it will take a long time for Palestine to ecover from their own self-destructiveness. It has nothing to do with the occupation. In fact, if you compare the conditions of the Palestinians in 1967 to their condition right before Arafat and his thugs took over you would see that the "occupation" has been incredibly beneficial for the Palestinians.

During the 70's, the Palestinian economy was the 4th fastest growing economy in the world - ahead of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea.

between 1968 and 1991 from $165 to $1,715 (compared with Jordan's $1,050, Egypt's $600, Turkey's $1,630, and Tunisia's $1,440). By 1999, Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria's, more than four times Yemen's, and 10 percent higher than Jordan's...mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 (compared with an average of 68 years for all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa). Israeli medical programs reduced the infant-mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000 (in Iraq the rate is 64, in Egypt 40, in Jordan 23, in Syria 22). And under a systematic program of inoculation, childhood diseases like polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and measles were eradicated....By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967; and so on for refrigerators, televisions, and cars...At the time of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, not a single university existed in these territories. By the early 1990's, there were seven such institutions, boasting some 16,500 students. Illiteracy rates dropped to 14 percent of adults over age 15, compared with 69 percent in Morocco, 61 percent in Egypt, 45 percent in Tunisia, and 44 percent in Syria.

This is what "the occupation" did for Palestinians. Unfortunately, in 1991 Arafat was brought back and instilled in the Palestinians the ideas of martyrdom and of killing Jews. That is what hurt them, not the "occupation".

As I understand it from one of my partners who plans his return to a beautiful home he and his wife purchased in Il Marchi (sp?), people of Italian heritage have a right of return to Italy. That's the only example I'm aware of in addition to Israel.

I guess the short answer to why you have a right of return is that Israel made a decision at its inception that it should be a safe haven for fellow persecuted Jews worldwide to return home.

Israel and Palestine, one and the same. Enough of this "end the occupation" nonsense, just end partition. Take it from this member of the Jewish-American community who gets nothing but grief for making this point. At least the settlers, whether Israeli or Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim or Christian, know which their homeland is. It's the one with Jerusalem as the capital.

"
22 And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phichoi the
chief captain of his host spake unto Abraham, saying, God is with
thee in all that thou doest.

23 Now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal
falsely with me , nor with my son, nor with my son's son: but
according to the kindness that I have done unto thee, thou shalt
do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned.

24 And Abraham said, I will swear.
...
31 Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they
sware both of them. "

Genesis 21

seth edenbaum,

Would someone tell me why Zionism is not racism?

Hannah Arendt put it this way, in The Origins of Totalitarianism:

Not only did loss of national rights in all instances entail the loss of human rights; the restoration of human rights, as the recent example of the State of Israel proves, has been achieved so far only through the restoration or the establishment of national rights.  The conception of human rights, based upon the assumed existence of a human being as such, broke down at the very moment when those who professed to believe in it were for the first time confronted with people who had indeed lost all other qualities and specific relationships - except that they were still human.  The world found nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of being human.

And I would still argue that the same applies to the Palestinians.

owenz,

I tell them I like Israel because it's a fairly liberal democracy....  Yet at the end of the day, I acknowledge that Israel's alliance with the US is military/strategic alliance, not some existential Judeo-Christian union.

For saying this, I have been called an anti-semite. Which is puzzling, since I hold all of the world's great religions in equal distain.

How this perspective inspires any accusation of antisemitism is baffling -- and "Judeo-Christian" rhetoric is wholly oxymoronic, besides.  Unless I am missing something, you would find full-throated agreement with this Jew on exactly your very point.  The US should pursue and enjoy deep and lasting multidisciplined alliances with any and all liberal democracies, not just military/strategic alliances. 

I would never accept the offer of "return" and I'm ashamed for those who do.
But we've been down this road before. You defend a state built on 19th century definitions of racial nationalism, and for a nation that hadn't existed for millennia. Israel was an ideology before it was a fact; and an ideology imposed on its victims to this day.
I won't defend the notion of racial nationhood for 21st century Germany, why should I do so for Israel? By your logic every Arab citizen of Israel is and should be living in a Jewish state. The moral logic is perverse.

Zionism is racism and a bi-national state is the only way forward.
Your Palestinian homeland is a Bantustan. "separate but equal"

I am confused. Why should the Palestinians derail their own state for a right of return?

Israel isn't the only country with such a return. Germany, prior to unification had a right of return. A number of countries have a right of return. Other countries effectively bar people from every being citizens because they do not share the blood or soil of their people.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Nonsense. This is just Zionist historiography.

The area was NEVER exclusively Jewish, or and Jewish political control extended there for comparatively short period of time. Most of the time, the area was under Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Assyrian etc. domination. "King" David probably never existed or was only a minor tribute-paying local lord. Heck, even Jewish rabbis have had to face up to this:

New Torah For Modern Minds [abstract] United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism issued new Torah and commentary called Etaz Hayim (Tree of Life), which offers interpretation of Bible as human rather than divine document; book, incorporating latest findings from archaeology, philology, anthropology and study of ancient cultures, proposes that Abraham never existed, that entire Exodus story as recounted in Bible probably never occurred, that Jericho was unwalled and uninhabitated, and that David was not fearless king who built Jerusalem into might capital but more likely a provincial leader whose reputation was later magnified to provide rallying point for fledgling nation.

And what happened 2000 years ago is hardly a justification for the modern Zionist to come over from Europe and ethnically-cleanse 900,000 non-Jews from their homes. And yes, ethnic cleansing is precisley the correct word, and there are people in the current Israeli gov't who espouse more ethnic cleansing of non-Jewish Israeli citizens.

"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity".
We should all remember this before accusing Carter of antisemitism .
Deniss Ross had a very good but respectfull article about Carter's book mistakes. Anything beyond that was mistake.
Why accuse somebody of antisemitism of you can explain his misconceptions as easily as Deniss Ross did?

The land is the subject of the conflict, but that does not explain why the conflict is violent. Why is a rational compromise so difficult?

If I may draw an analogy with the American Civil War, in my own inexpert way I have come to the conclusion that you cannot understand its causes without (A) following the money trail and (B) looking at a couple of hundred years of cultural history leading up to the war. It has been said that the best opportunity to prevent the American Civil War was right after the American Revolution, when the political climate was right, the number of slaves was relatively small and land in the Western territories could have been sold to compensate the owners (as was done in over a dozen other countries and empires in the Western hemisphere). Why was this not done? The kind answer is that there was a lack of will. The cynical answer is that slavery was good for business. Furthermore, the ancestors of the major cultural groups in American were all rather feisty characters, who bore some long-standing grudges against one another, going back at least to the English Civil Wars.

Both explanation of the American Civil War are tragic, for completely different reasons. The only thing the two reasons have in common is that they are both examples of inexorable forces that are seemingly beyond the control of the actors.

Perhaps someone could comment on the aptness or inaptness of this comparison to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

jhc

The better comparison might be the American/European wars with the Indian/Native Americans. Was compromise possible? Of course. But the differences between the Native Americans and European settlors were serious enough to make it damn near impossible.

Compromise is largely about shared interests. And that's where cultural/religious values come into play. The more different they are, the harder it is for either side to envision shared interests.

"Other countries effectively bar people from every being citizens because they do not share the blood or soil of their people."

and this you defend?

Not me. I'm a well-informed American -- so I myself read Leon Uris. Although someone mentioned something called Deir Yassim the other day and I haven't found where Leon discusses that yet.

I still haven't yet figured out how the State of Israel was established. I realize from the movies that Israelis are peace-loving higher beings (every time I see Olmert on TV, I keep waiting for him to give a Spock peace sign and say "Live Long and Prosper". )

Best I can figure it out, the crafty Jews waited until the existing inhabitants went on holiday in the cool hills of the West Bank and then snucked in and seized the country. Kinda like grabbing a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan.

The sample to which MJ refers is not representative of non-Jewish America. MJ's buddies were high income, highly educated, etc.

I don't know but most of the folks I spend time with during the workweek are not Jewish and are part of that ever-decreasing working middle class. I'm in the world of organized labor for the past twenty years or so. My experience is that these folks will tell me whatever the heck they want about Israel, Judaism, curtain rods, baseball, and how to do my job better--and it ain't always purty.

I'm not sure why the higher echelons are constrained to speak their minds about Israel, but assuming they are, I guess Jay C. you've got it all figured out. I just have strong reservations about explanations based on overwhelmingly, highly centralized Jewish control.

And my argument is not that your argument is anti-Jewish or anything of that nature. Indeed, I think MJ agrees with you and I don't think he's anti-Jewish. I just think that the Jewish control of the American thought process argument is overplayed and overstated.

Zionista,

I think what gets my Jewish (and Palestinian supporting) friends fired up is my refusal to acknowledge their side's moral superiority. My Jewish friends make moral/existential/religious arguments for holding the occupied territories, for example. I counter these arguments quite easily, since forcing people from their homes is a deeply immoral act that is never trumped by existential/historical/relgious abstractions. My refusal to acknowldge the moral superiority of their arguments mean I am anti-semetic, or have some other agenda. Pretty knee-jerk, but hey, I'm not always very polite either.

I get similar feedback from Palestinian supporting friends who seek to somehow justify the suicide-bombing of civilians. Oh, they never say, "suicide bombing is great!" But they certainly try to convince me that it's "understandable," based on the superiority of Israeli military technology, the number of Palestinian civilians killed, etc. My refusal to acknowledge that the suicide bombing of civilians is ever morally permissible - even when it is the only way for one side to wage war - means I have an anti-Palestinian agenda. Like my Jewish friends, they are trying to justify deeply immoral positions through word games. It's almost laughable.

What I repeat, over and over, is that the moral arguments of both sides are fatally flawed. Both sides are killing each other over land. This is a moral loser. It cannot be justified so long as compromise is possible. The value of land does not outweigh the value of human life. This is Philosophy 101, right?

(Que both sides: Compromise?!!?! The other side wants too much!)

This is fundamentally a war over land. Whichever side gives up more land in the inevitable compromise will be the real heroes. In other words, the only way to win the moral argument is to lose the land war.

If Israel gave up the occupied territories and all of Jerusalem - completely cedes all of it over to the Palestinians - they win the moral argument. Because they will have sacrificed material gain for human life - an undeniably moral act. If the Palestinians renounce all rights to the West Bank and Gaza and give all of Jerusalem to the Israelis, then they win the moral argument. The true compromise will fall somewhere in between, but that's how I'm keeping score. The more land you give up, the more morally justifiable your position becomes. (Morality is funny that way. You often "win" the moral argument by giving things up, sacrificing, etc. Which is why fighting a "moral war" is such a tricky business.)

In the meantime, it's just a land war. Both sides want land more than they want peace.

Yes, some guy from Brooklyn has a "right of return" but a Palestinian who was born in Jerusalem and whose ancestors have lived in Jerusalem has to carry an identity card which labels him as a foreigner subject to exclusion & ethnic cleansing, along with the 900,000 other Palestinians who have been ethnically-cleansed from Israel.

But the salient point is that people of Italian descent are given preference over all other humans with the capability of setting the lights down low and working on increasing the population.

They were massacred by the ancient Hebrews. God ordered them to kill everyone - and their pets and farm animals. Read the Old Testament sometimes. Its quite interesting.

If some guy froom Brooklyn or the Ukraine can claim to be related to the ancient Hebrews simply because he too is Jewish and as such as a surperior "right" to real estate there on the grounds that the "Jews were there first", then I can just as easily claim to be related to the Canaanites and claim that since the Canaanites where really there first, then I'm entitled to the land. So move over.

.> I still haven't yet figured out how
> the State of Israel was established.

The history of Zionism from 1880 (or so) to 1920 is quite interesting, and also quite different from the history after 1920. One key point is that the land was far less populated then, and its indigenous owners were often willing to sell/trade/bargain it (whether or not the sellers held, or even believed in, the concept of land title is another question).

After 1920 - a different story.

sPh

The Israel Lobby could have BOUGHT the entire State of Israel from the Palestinians for a fraction of what the Lobby has poured into Congress the last 40 years.

Buy land, you get a title. Buy a Congressman, you're paying rent. High Rent.

Don't make fun of the VIJs.

This is silly. Israel is not "simply a landmass." Like other countries, it's a human society.

No, MJ, Jay C just looked at your name and, shall we say, jumped to a conclusion.

Personally, I couldn't care less about Israel. Whether it thrives or ceases to exist makes no difference to me. The Israeli-Palestinian problem is a really sick joke. A people are deprived of their homes and property and subjected to genocide. They convince the world that genocide is a big deal and really bad. They flee to another land to establish their own country by depriving the natives of their homes and property. The problem is that the only way they can make the whole thing work involves genocide. A situation like this causes the typical American to want to take sides and help "solve" the problem. The problem is that there is no solution.

I am concerned about the American supporters of Israel. There are far too many Jewish neocons for it to be a coincidence. These people appear to be more than happy to sacrifice the interest of the US to pursue a course that they see as beneficial to Israel. The irony is that their actions may be causing Israel more harm than good. It may be a sharp practice to take advantage of a moron, but when you get the moron to unleash the dogs of war he is the one that has to manage them, not crafty you.

As always, there is a problem when the colonized people fail to recognize the benefits that they receive from being part of the empire. How dare they put rights and independence ahead of what they would gain from being obedient subjects!

I'm sorry. Will it make amends if I put up a " Shrine to Andrea Mitchell" on the Internet?

You know --ANDREA! Alan Greenspan's wife.

dwg,

The point is that it is well nigh impossible for American non-jews
to be critical of Israel no matter how open minded they are, and no matter what they read.

I can't buy this argument now, and I couldn't buy it when Pat Buchanan made it:

Indeed, it is the charge of “anti-Semitism” itself that is toxic. For this venerable slander is designed to nullify public discourse by smearing and intimidating foes and censoring and blacklisting them and any who would publish them. 

Pat Buchanan is never going to be president, or hold important political office. He's an extremist and proud of it.
take your finger off the god damn scale.

You are right, SR.

OK, mj, I am going to come down squarely in the middle of you and Seth. Talk about fence sitting!

Yes, I can understand the Law of Return as an insurance policy against another Holocaust. Yet I find its day-to-day application to be something very much different and less defensible.

I still remember the annoyance I felt at the wedding of my first cousin 25 or so years ago in New Jersey. Her side of the family is much more uncritically pro-Israel than mine. But okay, family is family.

What bothered me about this crowd was the conversations of the couple's friends, who were all talking about Israel, not as their shield against the Holocaust, and not as a place they even intended to emigrate to, but the way a bunch of young affluent twenty-somethings might talk about their college towns, their Ann Arbors, their Ithacas etc. Where to find the best pizza in Tel Aviv. The best clubs. Etc. Etc. On and on, at great length.

I found the Law of Return in this context deeply offensive to me. Why did these affluent narcissists have rights to this land that people who were born or whose parents were born there not have?

In contrast, I have much higher regard for this cousin's sister who actually did make Aliyah and has lived on a kibbutz for most of the last 25 years where she and her husband remain staunch opponents of the occupation. Not sure what she thinks of the Law of Return.

I think you would gain gain very much from seeing "Osama" as a symptom, not a cause.

Personally, I don't care whether he is now dead or not, although I deplore that he was never brought to justice. But what troubles me is that the likelyhood of new Osamas is rather increasing than decreasing, and the situation among Palestinian refugees is one important reason to this.

/Tuomas

Terrorizing civilians and making their life impossible would be a more appropriate description than the term than genocide.

/Tuomas

Of course, he is a symptom. I would still like to see America bring the bastard to justice, but I would also like to see a foreign policy that relied less on 19th century gun boat diplomacy. I am sick of sending our servicemembers to fight wars that aren't really necessary.

Ron Byers

I guess I assume that TPM folks who read my stuff know I am absolutely opposed to the occupation and work as hard as I can to end it.

I hate the occupation. But the Palestinians are not being subjected to genocide.

It is, however, bad enough.

What the Israelis are doing is similar to what Andy Jackson did to the Cherokees. Wrong as hell, but not genocide.

If it wasn't genocidal, you probably would have remembered that the Choctaws, Chicasaws, Seminole and Creek also had it "done" by Jackson too.  But at least Jackson broke the law in doing it, according to Chief Justice John Marshall. 

Neoboho

What makes you think that what "Indian Killer" Jackson did to the Cherokees wasn't genocide?

Genocide means systematically killing off on a mass scale an national, racial or ethnic group. You can kill them off with "Removals" (the Cheorkee) or "Transfers (The Palestinians) to "reservations" (the Cherokees) or "refugee camps" (Palestinians) and then subject them to daily terror and torture and malnourishment etc, or give them all a gas bath- but either way, its still genocide.

I have been to Fort Smith, Arkansas. I remember. I just didn't want to confuse people.

Yes, Jackson broke the law. He stole Native American lands. He killed a lot of Native Americans in the process. We don't see that on television. Just Indians raping white women, settlers with arrows in their backs, cowboys fighting off blood thirsty savages and soldiers riding to the rescue. Same sort of stuff we see when we watch the coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with Israelis in the roles of the white settlers and soldiers and the Palestinians in the role of blood thirsty savages.

A trip to Fort Smith ought to be required of every student in America. It ought to be required of every Israel apologist.

The only way it was genocidal is if you believe the kind of evil that accompanies every act of ethnic cleansing is per se genocidal. As an objective fact all those bad things you mentioned happened, but many or most members of the various tribes survived. It wasn't genocidal because there are an awful lot of the descendants of Native American victims of Andy Jackson still living in Oklahoma.

Ron Byers

I will give you daily terror, and some torture, but I don't believe there is that much malnourishment, etc. The Palestinians are not being killed in large numbers. What is happening to the Palestinians is bad but it isn't genocide. That is a word thrown around far too often. Hitler did genocide, Pol Pot did genocide. What is going on in Darfur is genocide. Palestine, not so much.

Ron Byers

aMike: "In cases where the original post doesn't involve the Mideast, the majority of posts respond to the original article. In cases where they original post does involve the Mideast, respondents are much more likely to address each other and address each other in terms which encourage escalation of the rhetoric."

That's a great insight I really had failed to put my finger on, and it relates to why I never post on these threads. I don't see why I have to deal predominantly with views that would be extreme in ordinary circles or political debates. I shouldn't have to excuse Israel's right to exist as a dear friend and democratic ally of the United States, to deal with the constant fear of suicide bombings, and to determine an immigration policy that welcomes Jews, and opponents always make it sound as if they're expelling Palestinians (who in reality are more like our immigrant population, exploited and needed). I shouldn't have to excuse Palestinians for anger at never having a state, at seeing their own promised land on the West Bank resettled, and at seeing their very homes bulldozed. No American with a touch of sanity would excuse our invasion of Iraq on grounds of terror on American soil, and that, too, remains a real threat. It's just counterproductive. But it seems that both sides go into Bush mode when it comes to the Middle East.

I sort of like MJR's friend's comments that they should be locked in a room together, but I only wish it were a room with a Democratic president, like Carter or Clinton. Otherwise, it's like the present, where they're already locked in a room together, only it's a land, a water supply, and some old grievances, and you see where that led!

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Israel HAS practiced genocide, and there's absolutely no doubt about it.

Acts of genocide include: "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part"
(See the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide)

Seeking to destroy the Palestinians as a people is genocide. You don't have to kill every single one nor do you have to kill them "in large numbers" - it is enough to seek to kill them off as a people. ANd that is PRECISELY what the Israelis are doing.

According to Dershowitz, no, not bad if the Jews do it. In fact, it is a form of affirmative action for Jews - according to Dershowitz - and the Palestinians deserved it since they were responsible for the Holocaust.
Its all in his book, "The Case for Israel."
I'm sure every Jew is happy that Dershowitz is out there, speaking on their behalf...sheesh.

I would have to say that genocide and homicide are equally bad if you are the victim. Regardless of how much convincing was require, a lot was and still is being done. Given that state of affairs, the Israeli government is not about to engage in genocide even though that is the only possible solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem.

The Palestinian-Israeli situation is a conflict. Participants on both sides have done horrible things to the other. Applying definitions to such a chaotic situation is somewhat pointless. Regardless of one's choice of terms, I don't think the founders of the State of Israel really wanted to engage in either ethnic cleansing or genocide. The situation is hopeless and taking sides is futile.

I would only add that there are more than two groups of people. There are a significant number of people that have no desire to have Israel destroyed, but also have no desire to have Argentina, Botswana, Singapore, Costa Rica, or Latvia destroyed.

Those people that do not want to see other countries destroyed, however, may not want to jeopardize their own countries, or their own countries' critical interests, to save some other country.

I am reminded of one of the saddest moments of the League of Nations' decline, when Haile Selassie, a proud man, asked for help such that Ethiopia would not be crushed by Italy. He didn't get it.

Again, I must emphasize that the Israel-Palestine situation, with threats of destruction, is not unique in world affairs.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Two Hundred Twenty Five posts on the first thread. One hundred ten plus here. It seems Jimmy Carter has a lot of people talking about an issue that had receded in the American mind.

Given all the talk in these threads that the Israelis might be engaged in genocide or that genocide is the only "solution," the use of the word "apartheid" doesn't seem to shock many on this site. Frankly, if I were reading all this in order to advise Washington or Israel, I would suggest the Israelis might want to firmly tell all their settlers to pack up and come back to Israel. I would tell the Lukidites to sit down and shut up. It would be really helpful if the US State Department started meaningful talks between the Israelis and Palestinians and stayed with them until they achieved peace.

It is 62 years after the Holocaust. That generation has pretty much fallen away. Modern Americans are not going to let the current generation of Israelis get away with explaining the conflict as a big game of cowboys and Indians. Because of Iraq we are just too darn jaded. The Arab world is growing stronger every day. It is time for Israel to find peace. If the Israelis wait much longer they won't be able to negotiate from a position of strength. I hope it isn't too late already.

Ron Byers

"Look who is pointing fingers" is such a mindless weak argument.

I believe we are all tainted by the actions of our government, even if we have opposed it.  That is why we have a MORAL obligation to evict the a**h*** as soon as possible.

Is this MJ Rosenberg actually standing up and defending Israel? I never thought I'd see the day.

Congratulations on your effective takedown of the scurrilous "genocide" charge, although I find it interesting that you feel the need to defend Israel by attacking America. But we'll let that go. And this is simply hilarious:

I can take this shit from EU citizens, but from Americans. Please.

Just which Europeans do you think have greater standing than Americans to throw around accusations of genocide against Israel? The Germans?

But I digress. When you think about it, defending Israel against the charge of genocide isn't that hard. Here are some other charges against Israel that routinely get tossed around on this blog and elsewhere:

• Israel is a "racist" state
• Israel is an "apartheid" state
• Israelis kill Palestinians kids for the fun of it
• Israelis turn down reasonable peace offers from the Palestinians

And so on.

Let's see a bit more spirited rebuttal of this sort of nonsense. C'mon, it's not that hard!

If hass wasn't so intent on denouncing Israel, he might have taken the trouble to actually read what was written. Daniel Greenbaum didn't say that Arabs are homogeneous. He said Arab COUNTRIES are more homogeneous than Israel is. Of this there can be no doubt. There are significant minorities in some Arab countries, but overall Israel is a much more diverse society.

Then he took us on an entertaining excursion into one of the more obscure realms of controversy related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the case of the Spanish genetics professor accused of anti-Semitism. Why did I just know that there was a tad more to the story?

A bit of research reveals that, contrary to hass's accusation, the charges were not that the professor was anti-Semitic because he innocently showed that Jews and Palestinians are closely related genetically. Rather, he was accused of anti-Semitism because he used his research to impugn Judaism. Here's the Guardian:

In common with earlier studies, the team found no data to support the idea that Jewish people were genetically distinct from other people in the region. In doing so, the team's research challenges claims that Jews are a special, chosen people and that Judaism can only be inherited.

Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East share a very similar gene pool and must be considered closely related and not genetically separate, the authors state. Rivalry between the two races is therefore based 'in cultural and religious, but not in genetic differences', they conclude.

In addition, the authors of this supposedly objective piece of science used extremely provocative language to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, comments that were grossly inappropriate in a scientific journal.

I can assure anyone that had the authors just said "Jews and Palestinians are nearly identical genetically" and then left it at that then no one would have thrown around accusations of anti-Semitism. It was the inappropriate foray into politics and, yes, theology, that was the issue.

Carter is entitled to his own views, he is not entitled to make up his own facts and revise history.

I don't think the founders of the State of Israel really wanted to engage in either ethnic cleansing or genocide.

I don't care what you think. See, facts are not dependent on whether you "think" they're true or not.

Here, read what ISRAELI HISTORIANS say about it then "think" again:

Q: Ben-Gurion was a "transferist"?

A: "Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist."

Q: I don't hear you condemning him.

A: "Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here...A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads..."

and and analysis of Benny Morris's apologia for Israeli genocide/ethnic cleansing:

Morris believes that it is possible to justify genocide. In the case of the Indians, it is the existence of the American nation. In the case of the Palestinians, it is the existence of the Jewish state. For Morris, genocide is a matter of circumstances, that can be justified under certain conditions

In my opinion, it is not unique. Not really to play games with your challenge to "guess", it is that the political philosophy of Zionism is based on its being unique, and the proponents and opponents of Zionism are very vocal.

Perhaps the amount of US financial aid to a tiny strip of land called Israel might have something to do with the emphasis it gets. Israel does get attention those other areas do not, because it has very major military power, not always wisely used.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

The "reading" is of the plain language of the convention and clear to anyone who can read English. Does no one here want to actually read that damned thing?

And are you seriously saying that genocide is OK depending on the politics of the world? Is ignoring the Soviet atrocities a reason to not call a genocide a genocide elswhere?

Did I just go to Bizarro World or what?!

Look, your "US Is committing genocide in Iraq" quip is pathetic meaningless strawman, and you know it. You obviously haven't bothered to actually brush up on the legal definition of genocide and want to evade the issue. Until you do so, don't make cute little quips that only sounds like pathetic apologia and a defender of genocide just because you can't bring yourself to admit the obvious. Because that is precisely what you're doing.

Here, let me give YOU a short course. See, under the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide Convention that I cited (did you read it?) there are two elements to the crime: a mental element (intent) and a physical element (the action).

To make things short, if you have the INTENT to destroy a people in whole or in part, and ACT by implementing policies that are meant to accomplish that goal, YOU ARE GUILTY OF GENOCIDE. PERIOD. End of story. GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY. EVEN IF YOU ONLY KILL ONE PERSON. EVEN IF YOU ONLY PLAN OR CONSPIRE TO DO IT.

Last I checked, the US isn't intentionally out to destroy Iraqis as a people. Or maybe they are - in which case, yes, legally the US would be committing genocide there too, not that it would be a justification for Israel.

Similarly, what the US did in the Philippines is irrelevant. Two wrongs don't make a right. You know that. I know that you know it too. Are you seriously claiming that one atrocity justifies another? in that case, why condemn Palestinian terrorism? Heck, I am sure much worse has been done so terrorism is OK ... right? Or is this "Others Have Done Worse" excuse only available to the Israealis? In fact, the Nazis justified the Holocaust by saying that no one cared about the Armenian Genocide, And now you're saying we should ignore the Palestinian GENOCIDE because, what, of the Philippines? That's a nonsense justification and you should be embarrassed and deeply ashamed for raising it.

And I DON'T CARE if there is a peace movement in Israel. It is very nice. It is the very least to be expected from the otherwise "Good Germans" who are living on stolen land and in stolen homes and sending their kids to shoot and terrorize dispossessed men, women and children in refugee camps. And it is completely irrelevant to the question of whether Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians by trying to eradicate them as a people. So don't bring up that nonsense because it only embarrasses you.

You know, apologists like Benny Morris who have openly admitted that Israel has committed ethnic cleansing are at least honest enough to take a nice long look into the black heart of ZIonism and openly embrace it instead of trying to evade it.

"A Land Without a People..." my foot.

Not to brag, but ...well, now reading international conventions is a thing I'm trained to do - and training others to do:
No, it's not just to read the plain English.

One must keep in mind that words as they are used in plain English and words as they are used diplomatically or legally do not always carry exactly the same content. Some would say they never do.

The convention says what can be prosecuted, and actually what the signatory parties have agreed to prosecute - although you can bet on them not agreeing very much.

The convention says nothing about how the usage of the word has developed in ordinary speech since 1948.

/Tuomas
(Who can not understand your second and third paragraphs.)

"What, did you miss the whole WWII thing or what? Nazism was certainly destroyed, in case you don't know, and Germany was rebuilt without it".

but as a German state with Germans as majority.

You want to rebuild Israel without Jews.

"The question is why isn't genocide important for you. Time for a moral self-audit."
Because the way you define down genocide can be applied to everybody, like we all are a little crazy.

In any case, you don't care about Palestinians and proving
that Israel commited genocide 40 years ago or even today,
doesn't prove that it has to be destroyed and rebuilt without Jews, so I don't understand why you are trying to prove something that doesn't help your cause anyway.

If Carter had done nothing more in his life but eradicate the Guinea worm -- a parasite that has caused far more suffering over the ages than even the Israelis and Palestinians combined -- he would be one of the greatest men of his generation. And as an Israeli, you owe him a huge debt of gratitude for ending your war with Egypt.

If you're the kind of Israeli who goes around defending Bush and attacking Carter, you're unlikely to find decent Americans who will associate with you, let alone engage you in honest discussion.

Not mistaken about what? I mean, has anybody read this book that is commenting on it???? I did not read the book, and I admitted it in an earlier post, and I can't comment on it.

"I'm sure, then, that you have a reason that Israel is unique,"
Sure, like Cuba for Cuban Anericans.

You can blab all you want about how genocidal, or just odious, Israeli policies are, but we are going to use every single lawful method we can to make sure that U.S. policy toward Israel does not change, and it won't.

If you feel differently, by all means you should support President Kucinich or President Sharpton or President Nader. NOBODY who has a realistic chance of being President agrees with Carter's assertion of apartheid, or with people who say Israel should be forced to make concessions to Hamas or Hezbollah.

See Matt, what you've just written is something I'm probably guilty of too, and that is that we all tend to see things based on our predispositions. You're correct that there are "rabid Israel-defenders" on here, such as Sage's post below. But can you really sit and type with a straight face, analyze this and other posts on Israel and Palestine, and say that the rabid defenders of their respective postions fall only on the Israel side of the coin?

And as to non-Jewish friends, I don't know what to say. I grew up in a town where I was one of only a handful of Jews. I never lived among a high concentration of Jews until I went to college. I don't know these non-Jews who are so afraid to speak out about Israel. I have partners who are non-Jewish who I've had screaming matches with with respect to Israel. And, as I noted above, my clients and friends who are not Jewish in the labor movement where I work have never hesitated to speak their minds to me about all things Jewish.

I'm not going to question that many non-Jews might be somewhat reluctant to offend a Jewish friend, but you know I am reluctant to offend my non-Jewish friends about things too. Ever try to talk to an Irish-Catholic back in the 70s and early 80s about Ireland?

I just don't buy that the reluctance you have seen and about which MJ writes is attributable to a centralized, highly-funded Jewish cabal.

Hass, you win. The haters always do. That is the story of our time.
Enjoy the hate. You have lots of company. Check the postings here. You hate the Jews (yeah, you do) and they hate the Palestinians (yeah, they do).
The rest of us have to somehow get beyond that and build peace.

Brad, I may have to go back and edit my post. Something is wrong when I get even a mild compliment from a true blue neocon. Thanks, but no thanks.

Those of us opposed to Israeli genocide and apartheid are not opposed to a state in that location.  Just eliminate the apartheid and end the racism and genocide.

How can anyone read that article and not be heartbroken.

I don't know about anybody else, but I don't favor the distruction of Israel. I don't know any American who does. I just wish the Israeli right would give up their dreams of expansion. That time is over. It is now time to find peace. It is time to end the occupation.

Ron Byers

Karen, that is racist language. American Jews no more have to publicly repudiate the neocon thugs than mainstream Protestants have to repudiate the Christian Right.

In that about 90% of Jews voted Democratic in the last election, our views are pretty clear. (Of course, about 90% also voted for Gore, Clinton and even 75% voted for McGovern).

You don't know anything about Jews.

I repeat, blaming an entire group for the despicable actions of some members of that group is racism, pure and simple.

Rosenberg,  Hass is not fairly called a hater.  His message is quite simple.  Israel is killing people due to their ethnic status.  "They" including their forebearers have been doing it since the 1920s.  For anyone who is not committed to the Jewish state, it is obvious.  People are herded into ethnic enclaves, their lives are supervised and harassed, the better parts of the ethnic enclaves are taken from them, they are dominated by a "different" people because they are ethnically wrong.

What part of apartheid and genocide offends you?

For a population that is always willing to say it is special because it suffered the Holocaust. the Jewish state is shockingly insensitive to the easy comparison between its behavior and the behavior of its historic oppressors.  You cannot have it both ways.

Hass is quite mild in simply pointing this out.  So long as there is an ethnic criterion to being an Israeli, Israel will be a racist state.  It cannot be any clearer. 

""Both sides want land more than they want peace."

No the Palestinians WANT THEIR LAND BACK OR THE RIGHT TO LIVE ON IT. ISRAEL IS THE AGGRESSOR AND INFLEXIBLE IN ITS DEMANDS FOR THE RIGHT OF CONTROL.

"If Israel gave up the occupied territories and all of Jerusalem - completely cedes all of it over to the Palestinians - they win the moral argument."

for what? the right to theft?
And attacks on civilians are a hallmark of modern war. look it up. You hold some more responsible than others for that crime.

Israel holds the upper hand in every way but one: morally. But the immigrants are there, and aren't leaving. You want to think of yourself as reasonable, as more reasonable than those on the ground, because you're "neutral." But you don't want to look at the details. Again: a bi-national state is the only moral choice, and the only practical one too at this point

Your story about the wedding is right on target. It is nauseating to hear Long Islanders or whatever talk about that land as if they have more right to it than Palestinians.

That comment tells me that the people at your dinner party were walking on eggs around you. They didn't want an explosion. You're wound so tight on Israel that you lash out on a message board with this "hate the Jews" crap.

seth edenbaum,

Again: a bi-national state is the only moral choice, and the only practical one too at this point

Sure.  Because the region, made up entirely (with the exception of Israel) of Arab League member nations, is so multinational to begin with.

MJ,

I guess I assume that TPM folks who read my stuff know I am absolutely opposed to the occupation and work as hard as I can to end it.

Keep a good thought.  But at the end of the day it simply doesn't matter.  You work for the The Israel Lobby, stabbing real Americans in the back every morning you show up for work.  At least you're not alone.  Heck, I was on a steering committee of a Peace Now chapter and the board of a (defunct) Middle East Peace Network.  But to the righteous avatars of human rights, I'm just another neocon.  Just like you and Elliott Abrams.

Howard said,

it is that the political philosophy of Zionism is based on its being unique....

Not unique, but particular.  A distinct part among the whole of human civilization.  To Zionists, Jews do not have extraordinary qualities otherwise missing from the other humans (ie, a theology of divine selection).  Within Zionism, the Jewish people lack none of the same types of qualities that distinguish peoples from among others within human civilization, which qualifies it for the same right of national self-determination awarded to other peoples who assert and have established such a right.

The real salient point is that Palestinians wanting to wipe out Israel don't just get the territory Jordan lost on their behalf.

Palestinian familys are being murdered when and where? The flattening of villages was a British tactic.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

It is not a matter of defending it. It is the way it is. It is why Muslims in Germany and France have such a hard time becoeming citizens and why Palestinians can't be citizens of Saudi Arabia. The only country that really eschews this is the United States. Israel has a broader base of citizenry than any Arab country and many Europeans.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

And this the usual anti-Semitic fiction. Whether David was a King as described in the Bible is irrelevant to the existence of the Jewish Kingdoms including the Herodian Kings of the Gospels. If the Romans had not evicted the Jews in 70AD, which Jews remained in the renamed Palestine, there would have been a far larger population of Jews when Jews started coming back to Palestine in the 1830s.

As for ethnic cleansing. It is the Arabs that have specialized in ethnic cleansing.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

In 1891 Ahad Ha'Am opened many Jewish eyes to the fact the Palestine was not empty, but populated with its indigenous people when he wrote:

"We abroad are used to believe the Eretz Yisrael is now almost totally desolate, a desert that is not sowed ..... But in truth that is not the case. Throughout the country it is difficult to find fields that are not sowed. Only sand dunes and stony mountains .... are not cultivated." (Righteous Victims, p. 42)

In 1891Ahad Ha'Am similarly wrote of the Palestinians:

"If a time comes when our people in Palestine develop so that, in small or great measure, they push out the native inhabitants, these will not give up their place easily." (Righteous Victims, p. 49)

Ahad Ha'Am published a series of articles in the Hebrew periodical Hameliz that were sharply critical of the ethnocentricity of political Zionism as well as the exploitation of the Palestinian peasantry by the Zionist colonists. Ahad Ha'Am sought to draw attention to the fact the Palestine was not empty territory and that the presence of another people posed problems:

" ....[the Zionist pioneers believed that] the only language the Arabs understand is that of force ..... [They] behave towards the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly upon their boundaries, beat them shamefully without reason and even brag about it, and nobody stands to check this contemptible and dangerous tendency." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 7)

MJ, you make some basically sound points, but, if I may, I'd like to expand on them. Your survey point, for example, is important with respect to the argument that all Jews must be Zionists, or, in other words, all Jews should regard Israel as their true home. While the survey could be evaluated (I'd like to see the exact questions) as showing Zionist sentiment by a majority of American Jews, it is signficant that a appreciable minority do not have such feelings.

Israel clearly has a robust Parliamentary system, and Likud is obviously not the only party. MJ, could you perhaps expand on the idea that some of the most skilled and best funded lobbies in the US, however, support Likud? That the messages of other Israeli parties and segments of the population are not widely made known to Congress?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Thank you. This is logical and reasonable, and reflects views of international politics that certainly were current at the time of the formation of Israel. Moving away from exceptionalism does make it easier to have a conversation.

Let me say something that may seem radical, but please assume that the movements of which I speak have nothing to do with Israel. It may be that the eventual consensus governmental model for the world may be something federated, as is present, in various ways, in Switzerland, Canada, and perhaps the EU. These are multicultural and multilingual, although they may not have a concept of right of return.

Since 1945, I believe that Clemenceau's exclamation "Must every little language have its own country?" rings more true. Look at the separatist movements in the fUSSR, the Basque lands, the Balkans, Sri Lanka (which might yet manage federation), etc. Is there a point at which national self-determination requires a certain significant size of the proposed nation, for such self-determination to be viable? Or, with the proliferation of cultural independence, is an unrestricted right of national self-determination a guarantee of continued ethnic or religious wars/insurgencies?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Your link to the Telegraph article doesn't work. Here is a link to a 1/27/07 UK Independent article by Anne Penketh, "Israel raises nuclear stakes with Iran", about Prime Minister Olmert's statement on Iran which should work.

From the Independent article:

"The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, dramatically raised the stakes in the international showdown with Iran last night, with a clear warning that his country was prepared to use military force to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

"The Jewish people, with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to allow itself to face threats of annihilation once again," Mr Olmert said in a speech to a high-level security conference in Herzliya. "No nation has the right even to consider its position. It is the obligation of every country to act against this will all its might." "We can stand up against nuclear threats and even prevent them," he said.

Israeli military officials warned this week that Israel – acting alone or in coordination with the US – could launch preemptive military strikes against Iran before the end of this year..."

Many mainstream Protestants did repudiate the Christian right and the Catholic Church repudidated the war before it started. 90% of Jews may have voted for Kerry but the more salient statistic might be what percentage are they of the National Guard?

Fact:
The Kingdom of Israel that you're all claiming your "Right to Return and Real Estate" on, came into existence in 1000BC and lasted as a unified entity until 920BC - about 80 years in total. As a non-unified entity, it lasted until 722 BC when whole are was conquered by Assyrians. Then came the Bablyonians, then the Persians, then the Selucids etc etc

How on earth does events of 2000+ years ago give a bunch of guys from Ukraine and Brooklyn the "Right" to kill palestinians and take their homes? Just because they suppposedly share the same religion/proclaimed ethnicity as the fellows from 2000 years ago? And you say that Zionism isn't racist? LOL!

The Arab League isn't an empire. Israel is about ethnic cleansing.

Yes well see, I went to law school too, and so did a lot of cabbies and waiters. You can't disregardt the plain meaning of the words and instead try to add some magical non-meaning.

AH, the typical retort of accusing others of being "haters"....that's just pathetic. See Rosenberg, you're no psychoanalyst, so deal with the content of my post instead of shooting the messenger, OK?

In another comment here, you noted that 90% of Jews voted Democratic. I honestly don't understand the difference between Hillary Clinton's views on Israel and George Bush's.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

I am a constituent of Senator Clinton. In a May 2005 speech to AIPAC, Clinton identified Iran as the biggest threat facing the US and Israel today. That position is a big deal to me because it sounds like Clinton would support an attack on Iran which I am not so sure I favor.

Senator Clinton never sent any mail to me in which she stated her concern about Iran nor am I aware of any other, more public, occasion in which Clinton reiterated her view on the threat posed by Iran.

Candidate Clinton is now opposed to an escalation of the number of troops in Iraq which is not an unpopular position to take publicly at the moment. But does she still consider Iran to this country's biggest threat and would she support an escalation of troops if it meant supporting an attack on Iran via bombing?

I am going to guess that AIPAC and the Israeli government knows Clinton's views on Iran but I don't. I don't think I should have to ferret out her speeches to AIPAC to figure them out, either.

Let me simply say that while I often disagree with your positions, I have every confidence that they are positions you thought through and are not reciting any party line. There are people who may well be using the Likud Cheer & Glee Club songbook, but you aren't.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

MJ,

American Jews no more have to publicly repudiate the neocon thugs than mainstream Protestants have to repudiate the Christian Right.

And yet you condemned Brad the Dad as a "true blue neocon" without a shred of supporting evidence that he is one.  But it hasn't made you anymore friends around here.  You're still one of us; just another Zionist thug.

Howard,

Is there a point at which national self-determination requires a certain significant size of the proposed nation, for such self-determination to be viable? Or, with the proliferation of cultural independence, is an unrestricted right of national self-determination a guarantee of continued ethnic or religious wars/insurgencies?

These questions demand suppositions beyond my capacities.  But I will reiterate that, regarding the immediate cocnern of Israel/Palestine, Jewish and Arab national rights are not mutually exclusive in the area in dispute.  Those who insist otherwise (from the freepers to electronicintifada) are gutless war mongers, because what both peoples want is the security that stateless peoples lack.

Re Daniel's comment:"And this the usual anti-Semitic fiction. Whether David was a King as described in the Bible is irrelevant to the existence of the Jewish Kingdoms including the Herodian Kings of the Gospels."
---------
How much objective data do modern day Zionists have to support their theocratic claims???

Let's see what a non-Jew --writing around 100 AD -- had to say about about the "Jewish Kingdoms":

From Cornelius Tacitus's "Histories";
Book V at http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/histories.5.v.html
*******
"...Some say that the Jews were fugitives from the island of Crete, who settled on the nearest coast of Africa about the time when Saturn was driven from his throne by the power of Jupiter. Evidence of this is sought in the name. There is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida; the neighbouring tribe, the Idaei, came to be called Judaei by a barbarous lengthening of the national name.

Others assert that in the reign of Isis the overflowing population of Egypt, led by Hierosolymus and Judas, discharged itself into the neighbouring countries.

Many, again, say that they were a race of Ethiopian origin, who in the time of king Cepheus were driven by fear and hatred of their neighbours to seek a new dwelling-place.

Others describe them as an Assyrian horde who, not having sufficient territory, took possession of part of Egypt, and founded cities of their own in what is called the Hebrew country, lying on the borders of Syria.

Others, again, assign a very distinguished origin to the Jews, alleging that they were the Solymi, a nation celebrated in the poems of Homer, who called the city which they founded Hierosolyma after their own name.

Most writers, however, agree in stating that once a disease, which horribly disfigured the body, broke out over Egypt; that king Bocchoris, seeking a remedy, consulted the oracle of Hammon, and was bidden to cleanse his realm, and to convey into some foreign land this race detested by the gods.

The people, who had been collected after diligent search, finding themselves left in a desert, sat for the most part in a stupor of grief, till one of the exiles, Moyses by name, warned them not to look for any relief from God or man, forsaken as they were of both, but to trust to themselves, taking for their heaven-sent leader that man who should first help them to be quit of their present misery. They agreed, and in utter ignorance began to advance at random. Nothing, however, distressed them so much as the scarcity of water, and they had sunk ready to perish in all directions over the plain, when a herd of wild asses was seen to retire from their pasture to a rock shaded by trees. Moyses followed them, and, guided by the appearance of a grassy spot, discovered an abundant spring of water. This furnished relief. After a continuous journey for six days, on the seventh they possessed themselves of a country, from which they expelled the inhabitants, and in which they founded a city and a temple.

Moyses, wishing to secure for the future his authority over the nation, gave them a novel form of worship, opposed to all that is practised by other men. Things sacred with us, with them have no sanctity, while they allow what with us is forbidden. In their holy place they have consecrated an image of the animal by whose guidance they found deliverance from their long and thirsty wanderings. They slay the ram, seemingly in derision of Hammon, and they sacrifice the ox, because the Egyptians worship it as Apis. They abstain from swine's flesh, in consideration of what they suffered when they were infected by the leprosy to which this animal is liable. By their frequent fasts they still bear witness to the long hunger of former days, and the Jewish bread, made without leaven, is retained as a memorial of their hurried seizure of corn...."
****
"....While the East was under the sway of the Assyrians, the Medes, and the Persians, Jews were the most contemptible of the subject tribes. When the Macedonians became supreme, King Antiochus strove to destroy the national superstition, and to introduce Greek civilization, but was prevented by his war with the Parthians from at all improving this vilest of nations; for at this time the revolt of Arsaces had taken place. The Macedonian power was now weak, while the Parthian had not yet reached its full strength, and, as the Romans were still far off, the Jews chose kings for themselves. Expelled by the fickle populace, and regaining their throne by force of arms, these princes, while they ventured on the wholesale banishment of their subjects, on the destruction of cities, on the murder of brothers, wives, and parents, and the other usual atrocities of despots, fostered the national superstition by appropriating the dignity of the priesthood as the support of their political power.

Cneius Pompeius was the first of our countrymen to subdue the Jews. Availing himself of the right of conquest, he entered the temple. Thus it became commonly known that the place stood empty with no similitude of gods within, and that the shrine had nothing to reveal. The walls of Jerusalem were destroyed, the temple was left standing. After these provinces had fallen, in the course of our civil wars, into the hands of Marcus Antonius, Pacorus, king of the Parthians, seized Judaea. He was slain by Publius Ventidius, and the Parthians were driven back over the Euphrates. Caius Sosius reduced the Jews to subjection. The royal power, which had been bestowed by Antony on Herod, was augmented by the victorious Augustus. On Herod's death, one Simon, without waiting for the approbation of the Emperor, usurped the title of king. He was punished by Quintilius Varus then governor of Syria, and the nation, with its liberties curtailed, was divided into three provinces under the sons of Herod. Under Tiberius all was quiet. But when the Jews were ordered by Caligula to set up his statue in the temple, they preferred the alternative of war. The death of the Emperor put an end to the disturbance. The kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius entrusted the province of Judaea to the Roman Knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave. He had married Drusilla, the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and so was the grandson-in-law, as Claudius was the grandson, of Antony.

Yet the endurance of the Jews lasted till Gessius Florus was procurator. In his time the war broke out."

You are dealing with realities. It's perfectly reasonable to discuss things in the way you just phrased it, "peoples [who] want...the security stateless peoples lack."

I am entirely willing to say that's a real and understandable want for a particular bilateral situation. Where I start to diverge is saying that this desire is predicated on an absolute right of national self-determination. Yes, such a right does appear in various international agreements, many fifty or more years old, from a different context of international order.

It's fair to say that there is a strong desire for national self-determination for a Greater Kurdistan. The realities is that Iraq, Turkey, and Iran don't want it, and the US probably won't push for it. I can cite separatist movements all over the world.

My suggestion here is to deal with the political factors in the desire for statehood as those desires exist in this specific situation, rather than going off into grand principles.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I think you should consider where elected Democrats, especially ones running for president, stand on the issue of Iran. Hillary Clinton considers Iran to be the biggest threat facing this country and Israel today and will take no option off the table. Are you claiming that Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is driven by a foreign government or a million or two Jewish Democratic votes?

As you may know, there is a continuing argument in medical journals if the custom of reporting race as a demographic makes any scientific sense. Certainly, the preference is to identify specific genetic coding, and perhaps observe that it tends to be associated with people from a particular ancestry. Even there, oddities abound, such as the genetic miscoding that causes Behcet's Syndrome occurs principally in Turkey (Dr. Behcet's home) and Japan.

Recently, a combination tablet of heart medication was FDA approved, with an indication for use in blacks. This was unprecedented. There is a theory, which still needs better testing, that it's not black skin, as much as slave ancestry.

The argument is that certain genetic coding, such as retaining salt, and thus water, accounted for survival in the hellhole holds of slave ships, where there was inadequate water. This leads to an assumption that the first thing to try for hypertension are drugs to shed salt and water.

Confounding the "race" aspect is that I have friends that are either recent immigrants, or first generation, from West Africa. They have no ancestors that were in the slave ships. The blood pressure drugs that work best for them are not the same ones that tend to work best for blacks who go back to the slave days in America.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

No, I think Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is driven by the whims of Israeli billionaire Haim Saban. That's because she's too busy fetching Saban bottled water to work things out on her own.

Or at least that's the impression I get from Saban's Interview with Haaretz. See
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtStEngPE.jhtml?itemNo=798292&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&title=''You+made+it+big,+you+jerk!''&dyn_server=172.20.5.5

You've offered some excellent observations there, owenz...

One small quibble about this:

They really don't like it when I say: "Look, Americans killed millions of Indians to get America. Land can be an ugly business." The whole Indian reservation analogy...never popular. But hey, isn't that what's going on here? The strong not giving land back to the weak, just because it would be the nice thing to do? It's really quite a messy moral conundrum.

There's an important difference between the injustices suffered upon the Native Americans by the US and the injustices suffered upon the Palestinians by the Israelis. The difference is that the US acts were committed in the 19th century, when there was no concept of human rights, nor much in the way of any moral philosophy that would condemn such acts. Non-whites were seen as sub-humans whose needs were simply of no concern. The Israelis on the other hand, suffered their injustices upon the Palestinians primarily after the middle of the 20th century, when the world was a very different place, and where we had developed institutions specifically to prevent these sorts of injustices from happening ever again. Ironically, it was the horrors of the Holocaust that led the world to develop these institutions (I'm thinking of course of the UN here), whose recommendations the Israelis now ignore for the most part.

(Having taken account of your last paragraph, let me hasten to say that I don't believe the Palestinians are blameless in the conflict. It's just that I hold the side with the overwhelming advantage in the situation to a higher standard.) 

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. --Paul Valery

Re "But what are the differences between the Republican and the Democratic views on Israel? "
---------
You are asking the wrong question. The real question is:

"What are the differences between the Republican and the Democratic views on taking $Millions of dollars from the Israel Lobby -- even when the price for those $Millions is the lives of 3000 of our sons?"

The answer is: There is no difference.

Just look at past votes. Just look at how John Kerry fell into utter incoherence whenever he tried to criticize George Bush's Iraq actions during the 2004 campaign.

The US Congress whores for the Israel Lobby.

You might make the metaphysical argument that the Republicans are whores by strong natural inclination whereas the Democrats whore reluctantly and as the price of political survival.

You might argue that the Republicans are newly-minted whores whereas the Democratic leadership are rather shopworn whores.

It doesn't matter. They're all whores.

The real question is: how does the Israel Lobby view the Republicans versus the Democrats.

The answer was given to Haaretz by Haim Saban:
--------
"When I see Ahmadinejad, I see Hitler. They speak the same language. His motivation is also clear: the return of the Mahdi is a supreme goal. And for a religious person of deep self-persuasion, that supreme goal is worth the liquidation of five and a half million Jews. We cannot allow ourselves that. Nuclear weapons in the hands of a religious leadership that is convinced that the annihilation of Israel will bring about the emergence of a new Muslim caliphate? Israel cannot allow that. This is no game. It's truly an existential danger."
-----------
""President Bush has no capital. He doesn't have the political capital to take a drastic step[against IRAN]. We know what the Chinese and the Russians think, and a move by the United States alone - I doubt it. And now, with the Democrats in control of both Houses? I don't believe it will happen."
---------
""Yes. And she's not all that liberal, either. When it comes to security, she [Hillary Clinton] has taken a very centrist position."

Will she be good for Israel?

"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."

Will President Hillary Clinton be capable of making tough decisions on Iran?

"Her policy will be different. She believes, and I agree, that it's a mistake to conduct negotiations through the European envoys. As I told you about Hamas, we have to talk with everyone, including Ahmadinejad. Hillary Clinton intends to engage with Iran in order to try to find a political solution that will ensure a non-nuclear Iran."

And if she can't reach a political solution?

"I don't think she knows, and I certainly don't know, and even if I knew I wouldn't tell you, with all due respect."

Ref: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798437.html

What evidence that Saddam was making real efforts to build capability is sparse and from what I can tell, there is now a consensus that he was indeed relying on the perception of a formidable arsenal. I believe that Iran was the main focus of the psyops, not Israel or US.

Ironically, it stands to reason that Iran had the best intel on the true state of affairs in Iraq. In retrospect, the shitty quality of the intel they provided to their liason Ahmed Chalabi probably indicates how little "there" was there after all.

And attacks on civilians are a hallmark of modern war. look it up. You hold some more responsible than others for that crime.

Are you making a moral case for suicide bombing civilians?  Again, it's a laughable argument.  Just because civilians are killed in modern warfare doesn't make it morally acceptable to intentionally target them.  If it were, one could effortlessly build a moral case for exterminating entire populations.  After all, if you can justify exterminating 1,000 civilians, why not 1,000,000?  Hiroshima saved a lot of American blood and treasure.  That doesn't mean it was morally justifiable.  In war, the practical is regularly elevated above the moral.  Your best bet is avoiding moral justifications for behavior that cannot be morally justified.

I would never make an argument justifying the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.  As for the original partition of land - well, that was a United Nations plan, not an act of warfare by Jews.  However unjust you might believe the original partition was, you can't get around the fact that it was performed by a third party organization.  So it's hard to accuse Jews of "theft" for the original partition (I'm sure there are plenty of conspiracy theories that say differently, of course). 

In terms of the Israeli position, I think they would achieve the moral high ground if they returned all the occupied territories as well as East Jerusalem.  In other words, returning to the original boundaries of the partition, to the extent they can be replicated (I understand that many Israelis would consider this unrealistic and thus would argue that the more they give up, the better their moral standing.  It's not a zero-sum equation in my eyes).  This is just my opinion, obviously, and would be hotly contested by partisans on both sides.

Again: a bi-national state is the only moral choice, and the only practical one too at this point

This is an interesting argument.  I have serious doubts about the practicality, of course - since combining two cultures/ethnicities that literally want to kill each other is unlikely to work on the ground (magnify the problems Germany has had with re-unification by, what, a thousand?  A million?).  More generally, I return to my original point: this is nothing more than a land war.  Land wars are as old as human civilization.  They are a dirty, brutal business.  As such, I find the notion of a bi-national Israeli-Palestinian state to be a utopian pipe dream.  I simply do not believe that the conflict is the existential battle of historic proportions that so many people seem to think it is.  It is a land war.  Both sides are morally compromised in the extreme. There will be no utopian bi-national states springing up.  Rather, there will be years of slaughter, followed by a compromise where the control of land is divided up to achieve peace.  Just like any land war.

You want to think of yourself as reasonable, as more reasonable than those on the ground, because you're "neutral." But you don't want to look at the details.

In some ways, this is true.  When I have examined the details, however, I've found them to be sufficiently murky to make determining who has the better right to the land impossible.  I believe Israel is wrong to have annexed East Jerusalem and to have laid down settlements in the West Bank.  I also believe the Palestinian support for the Hamas position of eliminating the Israeli state is wrong - it amounts to a desire for genocide insofar as it denies the Israelis' any right to the land.  And of course Israel has taken some steps that, compared to land wars in the past, are uniquely morally admirable.  Conversely, the Palestinians make some arguments about the injustice of their plight that simply cannot be denied, regardless of Israel's right to existence or acts of relative benevolence. Feel free to compare Palestinian suicide bombing with Israel's use of overwhelming force - both sides have blood on their hands.  My point is this: both sides make good arguments, yet in denying the other side's good arguments, they negate any claim to the moral highground.

What I see today is Israel performing a kind of slow motion, bureaucratic, unintentional-yet-undeniable ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians -- while Palestinians insist on the complete destruction of Israel.  Obviously there are liberal voices on both sides arguing against these positions, but that's where we stand.  How is a bi-national state going to grow from this?  It won't.

It is a dirty land war.  It will be solved by compromise.  Whoever retreats more from their current position - whoever gives up more land in exchange for peace based on the current stalemate - achieves the moral high ground in my eyes.  Just my opinion, of course.  True believers on both sides will consider me a moral relativist of the lowest order, I'm sure. 

Compensation for families of suicide bombers was SOP among all sorts of folks in the ME at the time. The Israeli habit of immediately destroying their homes was the impetus for the donations.

In an inadequate answer to your question, the only venue of destabilization I can think of offhand is Saddam's sheltering of the designated terrorist group/cult MEK; an entity that we also fiind useful.

I had tried to make the point that a semantic debate wasn't going to be useful. But it appears I wasn't clear. What I was attempting to say about the issue of genocide was this, more or less:

Are the Holocaust and the Occupation the same?  Not at all.

Are there some parallels to be drawn between the Holocaust and the Occupation. Yes. 

Because I believe that the morality of their behavior is something of concern to the Israelis, I think such a comparison is a useful one to consider. 

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. --Paul Valery

There are enough people here making clear arguments from the record, Hass is doing a great job of that, to make your evenhandedness seem little more than an exercise patting yourself on the back.

That was my only point, except to say that the Israelis, over the course of the last 40 years have killed more civilians in acts of terror than the Palestinians have. This is simple fact.

The Palestinians are far more willing to compromise than the Israelis.
Your sense of fairness [sic], is silly.
---

update- since I found this from you farther down on this thread:

"I don't think the Israelis ignore these recommendations. Rather, I think they have made a flawed, occasionally admirable, often misguided attempt to manage the slow-motion Palestinian crisis in a way that preserves Palestinian lives."

I don't understand your reply. I didn't lobby for a rating from Sage or from anyone. Let's just discuss our views Seth and we'll get along just fine.

Zionista, you may be interested to read this summary of the AEI's Dr Charles Murray at the recent Herzlia conference. He makes his case of Jewish superiority by using scientific data:

Jews have a mean of 112 I.Q., with the mean of the non-Jew in the West being 100. With a mean of 112, the average Jew is smarter than 80% of the general population The proportion of Jews with an I.Q. 145 or higher is 10 times than what it should be based on their relative numbers.>>

and goes on to speculate that:

>

Murray concludes:

>

http://www.herzliyaconference.org/Eng/_Articles/Article.asp?ArticleID=1754&CategoryID=223

Is this perception a part of the Zionist perspective? If so, it underlines the concerns of many Jewish thinkers who are so worried about the changing demographics (intermarriage and assimilation) and overall weakening of ties to Israel among American Jews, especially among the young.

Well Ron, you are certainly right about the significance of perception as compared with reality, and it works in many ways.

"Sage could be one of those Armageddon seeking Christian rightists"--Good 4 America

If I am "an Armageddon seeking Christian rightist", that will come as a surprise to my rabbi, my wife, my mother, the liberal Democratic Governor for whom I worked, the widow of the liberal Democratic Senator for whom I also worked, Senator Kerry to whom I contributed more than most people on this board, and Senator Bradley to whom I also contributed when he ran for President.

Sorry to disappoint you. I am one of millions of Democrats who think it is very much in the interest of this country that Israel have the military and economic aid and diplomatic support it needs to be in a position to negotiate a lasting peace when it finally has a counter-party that can make that peace last.

Why not Egypt?  My recollection is that they flirted with national identity as the working class of Egypt.  Why not some place in central Europe, where most of their ancestors lived when they decided to take Palestine?  If they want to move into someone else's country, why do they believe they are entitled to evict the rightful population that is already there?  Just sounds like more European colonialism, this time with religious dogmatism behind it.

Re Sage's comment "You can blab all you want about how genocidal, or just odious, Israeli policies are, but we are going to use every single lawful method we can to make sure that U.S. policy toward Israel does not change, and it won't. "
----------
Yes --and in defending Israel, do you not endanger the Jews of America?

I agree with MJ that America's Jews should not be blamed for the malign acts of the Israel Lobby. But that fairness did not survive in Weimar Germany and I'm not sure it will hold for the coming decade here in America.

I will repost here a reply I made to bslev yesterday in another discussion:
****************

***************************
bslev

Madison's point about US children being killed is valid. There are over 3000 US families who have lost sons in Iraq in an invasion to seize non-existent WMDs.

2) How did this happen?

After all, Bob Graham on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence told us in 2002 that he had seen no intelligence
indicating that Hussein was an imminent threat. Nancy Pelosi,on the House HPSCI, said the same. Does anyone remember Jewish neocon, Richard Perle, a strong advocate for Israel, going on Meet the Press in fall 2002 and telling Russert that Hussein was a threat and that we needed to go to war. Anyone remember Tim Russert pointing out Bob Graham/Pelosi's remarks and Perle responding that Graham/Pelosi didn't have "all of the intelligence". Well, does Perle have the WMDs?

3) How did Iraq happen? I think the evidence shows that it is because the Democratic Party is largely financed by billionaire supporters of Israel
and some of those supporters were exerting pressure for war in 2002.

Not because Saddam was a plausible threat to the US , but because he was a threat to Israel.

Because of the close 2000 election, Bush was desperate to court those donors over to his side and the Democratic leadership was desperate to not lose them. See Richard Clark's comments about Bush begging for justification to invade Iraq from day one of Bush's administration.

Plus, while Dick Cheney doesn't give a hairy rodent's posterior what happens to Israel, there is all that nice, lovely Iraqi oil.

4) Democratic leaders didn't want to lose people like Haim Saban, the Israeli billionaire who was the largest Democratic donor in 2000-2002 ($14 MILLION). Nor lose
donors like S Daniel Abraham ($2 MILLION). The S Daniel Abraham who destroyed Howard Dean's Presidential campaign in Iowa with a barrage of negetive TV ads, disguised by a 527. After Howard Dean told Joe Lieberman in debate that the US needed to be evenhanded in the Israel-Palestinian dispute.

5) You are coming in late, bslev, so let me refer you to my earlier
submittals of evidence. See
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jan/19/ brandeis_university_to_humiliate_carter_0#comment-197302 ,
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jan/19/ brandeis_university_to_humiliate_carter_0#comment-197306 ,
http://coffeehouse.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/nov/14/ intelligent_design#comment-180599 ,
http://coffeehouse.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/nov/14/ intelligent_design#comment-180609 . (I assume you know how to cut and paste links into your browser's address box.)

6) But, of course, it is not enough to buy off and/or intimidate the Congress.
You also have to scare the crap out of the country and beat the emotional
drums for WAR!

Much of that work was done by the right wing neocons of course, many
of whom are Jewish and with openly strong loyalties to Israel.
Just look at the archives of the Weekly Standard, the National Review ,
or the columns of the usual suspects: William Kristol. Richard Perle.
Charles Krauthammer. etc etc Then compare the massive pile of their bullshit claims in 2002 with the findings of the Kay report.

Those neocons, by the way, belong to a pro-Israeli propaganda front called
the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). (Orwell would have
chortled). See if you can find the billionaire who funds FDD and
what organization he belongs to.

7) The left, of course, knew the neocons were lying shitheads. So we had
to be fed a story from other sources. Source one was Haim Saban's
"Director of Research" at Haim Saban's "think tank" -- Kenneth Pollack.

For Kenneth's 2002 report to us on Saddam's development of nuclear bombs,
see http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jan/19/ brandeis_university_to_humiliate_carter_0#comment-197309

8) Source two was dear Judith Miller, reporter at the New York Times.
The paper of "Guardian of Zion" AM Rosenthal. See
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08182003.html

9) Re your comment "Let's leave the kids out of the debate. This is getting downright nasty"
I don't think you understand "nasty".

If a grieving parent who lost a son in Iraq picked up a deer rifle and blew Haim Saban's fucking head off, I would not convict that parent if I was on the Jury. I would let the parent off on the grounds of self-defense.

And if another bereaved parent slipped a bomb under Richard Perle's limo and blew it 50 fucking feet in the air, I would consider that a healthy development in US political dialogue.

10) I really don't understand all the concern about "Palestinian Terrorists" There are only a few million Palestinians and they are merely clumsily imitating lessons they learned from the Stern Gang and the Irgun.

By contrast , there are 300 Million Americans and we have over 200 Million guns.

Don't consider the above comments "nasty".

Consider them a gentle, well-intentioned hint.

lally,

Is this perception a part of the Zionist perspective?

Not this Zionist's perspective.  As far as I care, it can stay strictly a part of Dr. Charles Murray's perspective.

If you are offended, stop putting Israeli interests ahead of American interests.  It is easy enough.

By the way "Good 4 A Merica:

I'm on my way to a Teamster affair tonight as an honored guest, after having spent the afternoon looking for an American car (to the moderate frustration of my loving spouse)in deference to the good American autoworkers I have been so privileged to represent.

I am a lover of peace, so I will resist imagining what some of the more boisterous Teamsters might do to you if they were to learn that you chose to challenge my patriotism today.

P.S. I'm trying to be witty as I seethe right now, so I would ask any third-party reading this to cut me some slack. Not every day you get called UnAmerican after all.

I am an American. I don't work for a foreign power. I don't have daydreams about the holy land. I believe that Americans should make their foreign policy based on what is best for America. Israel has to sell us that supporting them is in our best interests. Lately they haven't been doing such a good job of that.

As to surveys, shut up and look around. Stop your arrogant bleating just long enough to realize that technology and the Iraq war are changing American attitudes. Just read this thread without trying to think of cute responses. Think. Use your brain. Just for a while. Then you can go back to your crowing.

The time for Israel to work toward peace is now. The American money tap isn't going to last forever. We have our own problems with China, India and Russia. Mostly we have our own problems with our own success and sustaining it.

Ron Byers

There are enough people here making clear arguments from the record, Hass is doing a great job of that, to make your evenhandedness seem little more than an exercise patting yourself on the back.

Anyone who spends time on this board offering their analysis is patting themselves on the back, no?  We wouldn't be here announcing our interpretation and analysis of current events unless we thought we were right or had something valuable to say.  In this particular debate, it seems, one is either a Zionist, an anti-Semite, or a self-congratulatory fence sitter.  If you think I'm self-rigteous, so be it.  I'm just a back-pat away from feeling better about myself!

Yes, the historical record.  A record that proves that 30 years ago, Israelis engaged in brutal tactics typical of nearly every land war in history.  Certainly, much of this record is shameful, including things that happened this year.  And yet it remains nothing more than a land war. 

I've heard all the arguments analogizing current or past Israeli conduct to genocide.  And certainly, the definition of genocide is flexible enough to encompass a great deal of conduct in warfare.  One school of thought is that motives don't matter in genocide.  If the effect is to kill or severely mistreat a particular ethnic group, genocide has occurred.  I don't happen to agree with this definition.  I believe genocide occurs when one ethnic group purposefully exterminates another in an effort to erase the other ethnic group's existence (i.e. a subjective test based on intent).  In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I don't see this occurring.  I see the opponents fighting over the control of land.  To the extent that Palestinians are killed or mistreated, the evidence suggests this is a result of the Israeli desire to control the land rather than an attempt to exterminate Palestinians out of existence.  Change the definition of genocide and you'll come to a different result, obviously.

[T]he Israelis, over the course of the last 40 years have killed more civilians in acts of terror than the Palestinians have. This is simple fact.

I wouldn't argue otherwise.  And yet the presence of Israeli atrocities does nothing to justify Palestinian suicide bombings of civilians, from a moral perspective.  Please understand, I'm not talking about the raw, brutal necessity of warfare.  In that context, suicide bombings make perfect sense.  In this peculiar little war, however, both sides seem to think they are morally correct.  I happen to disagree.  

The Palestinians are far more willing to compromise than the Israelis. Your sense of fairness [sic], is silly.

Not willing enough to compromise to achieve peace, obviously.  The side that breaks the stalemate wins the moral highground, to the extent it exists. 

Take the challenge Sir or Madam, or withdraw it. Use my words, not your presumptions, or display your cowardice to all. A grown-up should not be afraid to admit error.

I see. That certainly clarifies things.

Okay,

Let us begin here:

"I guess the short answer to why you have a right of return is that Israel made a decision at its inception that it should be a safe haven for fellow persecuted Jews worldwide to return home."

You learned the wrong lesson from WWII. You have decided to be special, rather than to be opposed to all wrong against all people. Your other plentiful posts make it clear that that special means that Israel can exhibit Apartheid while others cannot.

Therein lies the problem. Without the superpower of the US behind it, Israel would have to behave more reasonably. No preference for immigrants who are ethnically right over aboriginals who are ethnically wrong. It is NOT in the US's interest to support this Apartheid system, so exactly why do we do it? We do it because of people who, like you, seem to put Israel's "right of return" policy ahead of US interests.

If you do not put Israel ahead of the US, then confess that this practice is morally bankrupt.

Re " In retrospect, the shitty quality of the intel they [IRAN ] provided to their liason Ahmed Chalabi "
-------
Ahmed Chalabi? Was that the guy Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice welcomed into Washington as Iraq's Minister of Oil?
See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9994063/

The same Condoleeza Rice who had a Chevron oil tanker named after her? See
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/05/05/MN223743.DTL&type=printable

The ethnic composition of New York is rather different from that of the nation as a whole.

If Ted Kennedy made pro-IRA speeches in the 1970s, that wouldn't really surprise me either. Nor would I be shocked if a Senator from Florida issued a passionate diatribe urging the retention of the embargo against Cuba.

It is a fundamental problem with our political system that small, concentrated pressure groups with axes to grind can influence our foreign policy to the detriment of the national interest. It has nothing to do with Jews; in fact, many of the ultra-Zionists are not Jews at all, but fundamentalist Christians who want to cram Jews in Israel so they can be destroyed at Armageddon. It's a broader problem, and many ethnic groups have been able to create their own private niches in foreign policy. This has to stop.

Byers, are you implying I am not an American because I fervently support Israel? If you are, then the next time you commune with Joe McCarthy, let me know because I'd like to observe.

I don't intend to shut up, and I look around and I am delighted to see every single member of the leadership in the House and Senate and every candidate with a realistic chance of being elected President from both parties agrees with me and not you.

The Occupation and the Holocuast are the same in that they're both GENOCIDE. PERIOD.

I'm not the one who claims that the word G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E has some meaning other than what the convetion says: destruction of a people, whole in part. That's PRECISELY what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

I believe the US crew. They said it was intentional. I trust them, not the polticians.

Dear joshua g--

You must have been absent from poli sci 101 at whatever institution of higher learning, or maybe your h.s. AP Government class, on the day Federalist 10 was discussed. Madison and his friends would be amused at your diatribe against "small, concentrated pressure groups". They considered a multiplicity of "small, concentrated pressure groups" all trying to influence public policy the best bulwark against tyranny.

No law stops CAIR, ANSWER, or any anti-Israel group you'd like to join from trying to be as effective as AIPAC and the other pro-Israel organizations in influencing D.C. decison-makers. By all means, try to get thousands of your cohorts to spend millions of dollars to sway
policymakers to your side. I thank G-d I live in a nation where you and I can petition our government and freely associate with like-minded citizens for that purpose.

Sage

I think it's time for the troll, Sage, to be permanently banned.
I am convinced that he/she is a virulent Jew-hater who posts as a Jew to create anti-semitism.
If you read her screeds, you quickly see that they are designed to make the real Jews or pro-Israelis look bad.
Yes, there are stupid racist inarticulate Jews out there. Of course, there are.
But Sage is so obviously a fake that it is absurd to have him/her stinking up the place.
If he/she was real, well, then okay. But he/she is a troll.
Some of her/his colleagues are pretty rightwing too. But they are also obviously as real as Sage is counterfeit.

There is no question that Israeli air and naval units pressed an attack against the USS Liberty, and the ship's crew performed heroically in keeping it from sinking, and from more people dying. CPT McGonagle's leadership earned the Medal of Honor, and it was a travesty that he did not receive it in a White House ceremony.

That being said, there's been substantial declassification of NSA operational records surrounding the incident. Just as do the records of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident show a picture of confusion, these records show both confusion among Israeli tactical commanders and among US intelligence directors of the mission. The crew certainly was in a position to see that they were under deliberate attack, but the larger picture suggests to me that the attack was not ordered at the Israeli top command level, but by overzealous local commanders. There was contributory negligence by US NSA and Navy personnel in not providing protection to the ship, and for taking it unescorted that close to a battle area.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Sage

As I have acknowledged in past posts, DIck Cheney's friends in Big Oil wanted Iraq's oil deposits. After all, our Secretary of State had a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

But their greed would not have been successful if our political checks and balances had not been hamstrung by the Israel Lobby -- if the Lobby had not grasped
the testicles and/or ovaries of every Democratic office holder and squeezed gently.

Well, not so gently in the case of Howard Dean's Iowa primary , eh? Or Cynthia McKinney?

By the way, did you notice that Haim Saban's recent lobbying for Jane Harman to be made Chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee was to no avail? The Jane Harman on HPSCI who failed to challenge Richard Perle's bullshit?

And I seriously doubt Haim's planned coronation of Hillary will succeed. There's many a slip between
the cup and the lip as Vice-Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee --excuse me, FORMER-Congressman --
Curt Weldon can tell you. heh heh

Am I joking? See http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jan/20/hillary_impresses#comment-197509
and my response to mjshep at http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jan/20/hillary_impresses#comment-197699

Yes.

You'll know it when you see it.