Great piece. Does the fact that the extremists made peace in Ireland mean we should look forward to Netanyahu making peace with Hamas?

Israelis and Palestinians will live in peace in less than 400 years it took the Irish.

It's about time get of the jackass of "peace in a day." Two peoples living in a very small land with very long histories with a wide context of religious fanaticism and intolerance do not get to peace just because an American wants them too.

Tying up this conflict with Iraq, e.g. James Baker (f..k them they don't vote for us) and Blair (let's be nice to the Arabs) doesn't help much.

Not only did the economic success of the Republic of Ireland act as a lure for the north but Great Britain could threaten to take back direct control of Northern Ireland. Perhaps the British should offer to take back their Mandated territory.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Xopher, Norway and its problems (such as they are) does not affect the national security of Americans.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict does. So does the entire Middle East. That's the difference and that is why the American media will give more space to the Middle East than to any other region outside of this country.

Norway and its problems (such as they are) does not affect the national security of Americans. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict does.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not effect US national security at all. The Palestinians could stop fighting and it wouldn't help the US in the least. Israel could fall to the Arab states and the US would not be hurt even slightly. In fact, the US would probably be better off since the Arab nations would have less reason to hate us.

But, that's neither here nor there. The fact is, this focus on reporting the minutiae of this religion and this nation above all others is completely unwarranted.

So does the entire Middle East.

The reason the middle east effects the US so much has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with oil. Your reason is not sufficient enough to focus on Israel above everything else, especially since we don't get oil from them.

That's the difference and that is why the American media will give more space to the Middle East than to any other region outside of this country.

Other than oil, the real reason that the American media focuses on the middle east is because of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the media, Israel is a boring side note to more important national and world affairs since nothing ever actually changes there. There's no need for the constant updates. That is just another religion of many in this country. That is just another country of many in this world.

Wow, I was wondering when that was going to come out. Pray tell, what exactly was it I said or implied that was bigoted? That Judaism is the same as any other religion? Or that Israel is the same as any other country? That we shouldn't treat one religion or one country better than another? Sorry, I don't see it.

big·ot (b?g'?t) n. One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

When someone goes around saying that everyone is the same, that does not qualify for the term "bigot".

However, by being "intolerant of those who differ", I could correctly level the term of bigot at you.

Rosenberg states that "In the case of Northern Ireland, once the decision to pursue peace was made, the constituency for continued conflict started disappearing not only in Ireland but in the diaspora as well."

then goes on to show that jewish groups were "ambivalent" to Oslo and that groups were established to "monitor" and point out flaws in the Oslo agreements.

Rosenberg doesn't claim jewish opposition to Oslo. (He also doesn't mention little things like unilateral withdrawl from Lebanon and intensive negotiations being pushed by President Clinton, but without any push at all from arab allies of the palestinians.

But OK! THat was israeli reaction. Palestinian reaction? Rosenberg doesn't even bother to say. Guess that in Rosenberg's mind, the reactions of the palestinians was irrelevant. Why am I not surprised. In Rosenberg's mind it is somehow always israel's fault.

But Rosenberg is correct that the Irish and everyone who contributed to the settlement are to be congratulated and the rest of us can only hope and pray that israelis and the palestinians are able to accomplish something similar.

Shabbat Shalom, mj. for the paletinians, for the israelis, for all of us.

Maybe it is time that it is to go back to square one and reinforced to ALL parties in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute that;

A) A Palestinian state will be established.

and

B) That Israel has a right to exist.

Start over from there...and let nothing stop, or even interrupt, the process.  That will take outside leadership to make it work. And the time has long since past when the US should have stepped up and showed that leadership...time for America to do so and finally make a full commitment to lead until the dispute is resolved, regardless of which party is in power.

I do not understand the fascination this author and this website has with Jews and Israel.

Are you serious? The ME is a horribly destabilized region and that has resulted in global destabilization. And the root cause of that of the trouble is the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian dispute. As horrific as the conflict between the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland was its global impact pales in comparison to the conflict being talked about here. The whole world needs to refocus on trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute...not only (and, imo, most importantly) for the Israelis and Palestinians...but for the sake of the world. And it should be discussed more, not less!!!!

I'd just like to note that one American President chose diplomacy and one American President chose war.

Clinton helped in Ireland, and he called others to help.

Clinton was close to some accord with Israel too, but the Republicans wanted him to fail.

If they had wanted him to succeed, they would have sent him, GHW Bush, Jimmy Carter, Joe Lieberman -- whomever it took -- to keep the talks going, even after GW Bush was elected.

No, they had their own way THEY were going to govern. So they fired Richard Clarke and ended up with 9/11. And it's been downhill ever since.

Bush embraced being a war president. Unfortunately, I think there was a time when the nation embraced being a warrior nation as well.

Hpoefully we'll all learn to embrace peace after this miserable fiasco.

Mark, I know what you mean about Xopher, but in his/her defense, I'll simply quote Emily Post:

A bore is said to be “one who talks about himself when you want to talk about yourself!” which is superficially true enough, but a bore might more accurately be described as one who is interested in what does not interest you, and insists that you share his enthusiasm, in spite of your disinclination. To the bore life holds no dullness; every subject is of unending delight. A story told for the thousandth time has not lost its thrill; every tiresome detail is held up and turned about as a morsel of delectableness; to him each pea in a pod differs from another with the entrancing variety that artists find in tropical sunsets.

I have to admit that I sometimes find this endless turning over of Israeli and Palestinian peas a bit tiresome, too. 

That said, MJ's posts are often interesting (this one included) and the comments can be entertaining to read . . . .

It hardly rates an apology to forget the Adams visit to the White House. I am humbled by same.

I have made no secret of my animosity towards Bill Clinton but that one act was a magnificent contribution towards peace.

I am totally incapable even in old age of being able to correlate the hostility of my father and uncles to the cause of Irish unification with the North. As young men in the rural south of Ireland they were all members of the IRA as were any able-bodied males in the area according to them. The ancient anger at the English and tales of depredations by the Black and Tan were yet omnipresent. Irish rebel songs and tales were as much part of growing up as [ugh] oatmeal.

At the same time an aunt who would never have been called on was insistent that "the Crown" was the fault of "the Troubles."

There is always a crazy patchwork of emotions and illogic in any conflict that the outsider seldom sees.

Good to listen up occasionally and to let people talk.

Best, Terry

Terry, I'm Scots-Irish. Yeah, I understand every word.
In addition, we lived in Greece for a few years and we LOVE the Greek people. But if you begin to talk to them about a teeny-tiny little piece of land called Cypress? Whew.
I still don't REALLY understand, because I didn't live the history. But first trusting that "Greek People" are trustworthy, I at least developed compassion, instead of thinking any one side was completely right or wrong.

Cheers to peace!

It isn't about "keeping order".  It is about leading the way to find a solution so no one has to worry about keeping order in Gaza or anywhere else.  And just like in Northern Ireland there will be parties who do not want to see peace achieved but the process of resolving the dispute cannot be derailed by those parties.  It isn't going to be easy, just like Northern Ireland wasn't easy.  But just because there is no "silver bullet" available to end the impasse quickly it doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.

Dr. Blackton,
There is no reason people cannot feel free to say whatever they like about AIPAC, the neocons, whatever. AIPAC claims 100,000 members. There are a few hundred neocons (tops).
There are six million American Jews. They are overwhelmingly liberal, Democratic, anti (Iraq and Iran) war and despise everything the Feiths, Wurmsers and Perles believe in. Criticism of a particular organization or ideological bent of some Jews is by no means anti-semitic although Alan Dershowitz and those of that ilk will always use that charge to silence debate. No one should be intimidated. Say what you will about AIPAC, neocons or, I don't know, the synagogue down the block whose parking lot too big or whatever. It is only anti-semitism when the criticism is of "the Jews"
as if Richard Perle (God forbid) in anyway speaks for us.

terry,

"Irish rebel songs and tales were as much part of growing up as [ugh] oatmeal."

Hey, I'm an old man and I still like oatmeal.

and this:

"There was a wild colonial boy, Jack Duggan was his name.
He was born and raised in Ireland in a place called Castlemaine.
He was his father's only son, his mother's pride and joy,
And dearly did his parents love the wild colonial boy......."

I remember as a wee lad going to the butcher shop for Mrs.McKenna, our neighbor, to buy tripe for her pepper pot soup. And her Potato Soup was better than having an orgasm.

By the way, I'm German/Irish.

.> [1] You could just as easily say that nothing
> overseas effects US security and we can
> dismantle our army since we are at peace with
> Canada and Mexico.

.> [2] On the other hand, the US has vital
> interests around the world (stability for trade,
> oil, not allowing small situations to turn into
> big ones that are much harder to stop later,
> like WWII, ethical concerns). To protect these
> interests, it is vital that we have friends and
> allies around the world.

(To me this makes more sense if we read paragraph 2 first, then paragraph 1)

Your statement in paragraph 1 is interesting, and it may or may not be correct. However, it is also a self-perpetuating, self-feeding meme - and something that should be /openly and honestly discussed/, not just assumed.

Personally I think if the US just walked away from the oil regions of the Middle East that we might feel pain for 5-10 years, but after that would would be vastly better off for the next 300. However, since your meme [1] is self-perpetuating we can't even discuss that option in Presidental campaigns.

sPh

Quote:
# First, conflict and insurgency can be contained by military action; it cannot be defeated by it.

This is totally untrue. Many "conflicts and insurgencies" have been defeated totally. Examples (1) The Malay insurgency of the 1950's. The British supressed it.
(2) Peru : Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru groups led extremely bloody insurgencies that that country. The Sendero Luminoso was called the "Khmer Rouge of Latin America". They were defeated.
(3) The "Dirty War" in Argentina totally destroyed the quasi-Peronist Montonero and Trotskyite ERP Leftist terrorist groups. Unfortunately, the government and Right used bloody counter terror that involved massive violations of human rights and war crimes, but it worked.
(4) The British basically defeated the IRA in Northern Ireland leading the IRA to give up its armed struggle to reunite Ireland. It is true that they did get some political payoffs, but their main struggle completely failed.
(5) Nigeria defeated the Biafra uprising.

There are numerous other examples. Obviously there are also insurgencies that have succeeded. I am not saying that they can't succeed, but it is untrue that they can't be defeated, either.

" It is about leading the way to find a solution so no one has to worry about keeping order in Gaza or anywhere else. "
Good luck.

Why don't you start with anywhere else and show the way? Iraq for example, or Sudan or Haiti?

Northern Ireland is such a good example of how impossible taks is. There were no outside powers trying munipulate conflict. Both sides were Chistians . There was no lawlessness like in Gaza....

"There are six million American Jews. They are overwhelmingly liberal, Democratic, anti (Iraq and Iran) war and despise everything the Feiths, Wurmsers and Perles believe in." -- MJ Rosenberg

As usual you overstate the case, Mr. Rosenberg in your zeal to war on the neo-cons. Yes, a majority of American Jews are liberals and oppose Bush's policy in Iraq (though they don't support Kucinich's either.)

Four of the things that Feith and Perle believe in are (i) that it is in America's national interest that Israel be strong militarily and economically, (ii) that it is in America's national interest that American economic and military aid to Israel not be reduced from current levels; (iii) that it is in America's national interest that Israel not be pressured into making dangerous territorial concessions to Hamas, Hezbollah and Assad; and (iv) that it is in America's national interest that Iran be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons, by any means necessary.

Please show us ONE credible poll of the American Jewish community that indicates even one million, let alone six million, American Jews despise those four positions.

Does Russ Feingold despise those four positions? Does Barbara Boxer? Does Barney Frank? Does Jerry Nadler? Does Nita Lowey? Not only can't you show us a single credible poll of American Jews to that effect; you can't name one Jewish member of the House and Senate who despises those four things that Feith and Perle and Wolfowitz and Wurmser believe in.

MJ Writes: "No one should be intimidated. Say what you will about AIPAC, neocons or, I don't know, the synagogue down the block whose parking lot too big or whatever. It is only anti-semitism when the criticism is of "the Jews"as if Richard Perle (God forbid) in anyway speaks for us."

You are, indeed, a voice of civil discourse, Mr Rosenberg. I would wish just two things in this regard:

**** That most bloggers were are sensible, temperate, and judicious as you are on this matter; and

****That the unpleasant minority (both anti-semites, on the one hand, and angy protectors-of-Israel-at-all costs, on the other) who write un-civilly on this and other blogs, would be met by the steely, cold silence that they deserve.

So often ---even here at TPM, although less fequently in the posts following your essays ---- a single post from one of these ugly voices brings out a plethora of rants and raves from all quarters that destroys any semblance of discussion.

I must confess that, when I bump into Mr Perle in my neighborhood, some less-than-civil thoughts pass through my mind. But I leave them there and settle for mumbling a somewhat unenthusiastic "Good morning, Richard".

Professor John Stuart Blackton

The ME is a horribly destabilized region and that has resulted in global destabilization. And the root cause of that of the trouble is the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Bullshit. The middle east has been unstable since the dawn of history. Any sort of destabilizing effect on the world today has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with oil, which does not come from Israel. The Saudis, Iran, Iraq, etc are fine taking our money regardless of whether or not they are happy with what happens in Israel.

The Israeli-Palestinian dispute is not the cause of the problems in the region, but an effect. Other effects include Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait, Iran invading its neighbors, the Sunni/Shia violence, and the rest of the violence in the area throughout history.

At the core of the instability is a group of religious fanatics who have lived there since the dawn of history. They certainly didn't like another religion coming into their area. But, they would still be nutty and self-destructive regardless of whether or not the Jewish religion was re-introduced in the area to feed their fanaticism.

The media focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does more to flame the fires than douse them. Were all the religious fanatics in the region to calm down or stop their religious rhetoric, that would allow great strides to be made toward peace, similar to what happened in Europe. That certainly can not happen with constant media attention.

I doubt MJ or anyone else would disagree that Congresspeople are intimidated into silence on this issue by Aipac and its threats. Feingold is the one on your list who forcefully opposes the occupation. The others do privately but, NOT to their credit, are too scared of Aipac to speak up. I think that is the subtext in the writings here of MJ and Daniel Levy both. Probably 10 Democrats in Congress are neocon thugs like Perle and Feith. The rest are legally bribed into submission. And everybody knows it. And they all admit it in private. That's a fact, bub.
The whole Congress looks and votes like they hate gun control too. It's just that they fear the NRA. Although I have to admit there are probably a couple hundred real gun nuts in both parties who don't need the NRA to keep them in line. There arent enough Israel firsters to fill a closet in the Longworth House Office Building.

I think EVERYBODY here is missing the big picture when it comes to Israel's fate! As both a historian and a descendant of 4,500 years of Hebrew culture, I see the future of the Jewish people in Israel as something much more important than the "Irish troubles" of a mere four hundred years.

Historically, there have been many, many concerted efforts to anihalate the Jewish peoples from the face of the earth. These recorded events include plots by the Persians in the 4th Century B.C.E. The Romans in 70 A.C.E.--when they wiped out the City of David and scattered Jewish people out from Judea, re-naming the land Palestine after the Latin word for Philistines, Judea's greatest pagan enemies who lived aroung the city of Gaza. There were also attempted obliteration by the Roman Catholic Church many times, including the Grand Inquisitions, issued by the Pope himself, when tens of thousands of Jews died. And countless pograms in Russia and Eastern Europe where millions were killed, raped and plundered over centuries. And of course the Nazi Holocaust where 2/3 of all Jews on earth were gassed to death and creamated in Germany's "Final Solution" eugenics program. This occured only six years before I was born and I lost many relatives to this latest orgy of anti-Semitism and genocide.

Now today, I see newspaper articles where the leaders of the PA, Hamas, Hezbullah, and even legitimate heads of nations like Iran and Syria are publically denouncing Israel's right to exist as a nation and calling for her destruction and that all Jews be murdered and thrown into the sea! Is this somerthing new in the history of my people? Of course NOT. Why do people today ignore these calls for genocide against Isreal or try to minimalize them? After three millinea of attempts at destruction of a people, is anybody suprised that they are still trying to ethnically cleanse us from the earth today?

PLEASE WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE AMERICA I know you are a bright and well educated people. According to the pew Foundation, 85% of American Jews are registered Democrats and over 60% declare themselves as liberal or progressive (including myself). We have always been solid supporters of the party, and the Democratic party has almost always stood behind Israel. Why stop now?

Dan Tanna is way overwrought. The Democratic party is not abandoning Israel. If, God forbid, Israel is destroyed it will be thanks to the people who perpetuated what is now a 40 year occupation of the West Bank.
Just accept the Saudi plan, fer chrissake. It's the hardliners in Israel and the idiot Aipac guys bribing Congress who will destroy Israel.
Wake up. It's the occupation, stupid.

Well said. There is no question that Israel contributes much to the world, positively and negatively. Historically, the US and the UK, even more than the UK and Canada, have had a "special relationship", but a relationship with much reciprocity. I simply don't see the same sort of reciprocity with Israel.

The argument that Israel must be prepared for holocaust at any moment ignores a vast difference in military power between Jews under the Third Reich, and Israelis versus any plausible opponent, including Iran. I can recreate the numbers, but Israel will have, for any future I can project, an overwhelming second-strike deterrent against Iran. I don't see Iran as suicidal, although possibly interested in mutual assured destruction. Even then, Israel's nuclear advantage is sufficiently great that I don't see Iran gaining anything approaching parity.

It is not a criticism of Israel to call it the Zionist state. I reject, however, that it is the definitive Jewish state. Should there be a threat against Jewish citizens of the United States, that is a threat to all Americans.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

"At the core of the instability is a group of religious fanatics who have lived there since the dawn of history..."

Jews? Followers of Marduk and Ishtar appeared earlier, but they do not seem to cause any instability lately. Philistines? Egyptians? I am stumped.

I think EVERYBODY here is missing the big picture when it comes to Israel's fate!... Why do people today ignore these calls for genocide against Isreal or try to minimalize them? After three millinea of attempts at destruction of a people, is anybody suprised that they are still trying to ethnically cleanse us from the earth today?

No, we get it. And no, we don't need the history lesson. We already know everything you mentioned.

You too quickly dismiss the lessons of Europe. There you have a whole set of nations who used to hate each other just as bad as any individual nation hates Israel. After millennia of warfare, competition, and strife, Europe has come together in harmony. You could stand to learn something from them.

These calls to action only adds flame to the fire. Making people rabid for your cause actually hurts you and makes your plight that much worse. You should be pushing for less self-righteous religious propaganda from all sides.

The cure for religious fanaticism is less religious fanaticism, not more.

"Just accept the Saudi plan"
What does "accept" mean?
Is there document that Iarael should sign?

"a historian and a descendant of 4,500 years of Hebrew culture"

As a historian, can you tell what was this culture doing 4,500 years ago? Preparing for the flood?

"And countless pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe where millions were killed, raped and plundered over centuries"

Quite a contrast to what was happening to Jews in USA and North America. Please enlighten us when those millions were ravaged (Holocaust is listed separatedly). And why Jews lived "in Russia and Eastern Europe" for centuries to begin with.

And what is this 70 A.C.E. date? After common era? An era that did not start yet? And what plots of Persians in 4th century B.C.E.? Persian kings were actually friendly toward Jews.

With similar accuracy Dan Tanna quotes "leaders of the PA, Hamas, Hezbullah, and even legitimate heads of nations like Iran and Syria are publically denouncing Israel's right to exist as a nation and calling for her destruction and that all Jews be murdered and thrown into the sea".

A historian should strive better to stay close to the recorded facts.

On a lighter note, in 1945 Communist took power in Poland and history books started to use p.n.e. abbreviation -- before our era. A matematician, Hugo Steinhaus, quipped "those who say "our era" should say "your era". Several years later Israel introduced "common era" which perhaps should be "their era".

Back to the serious case: Dan Tanna managed to distort every single aspect of Jewish history (down to Holocaust, when 1/2 of Jews perished, not 2/3), as well as the present. This distortion leads to paranoia, and paranoia leads to irrational policies. Rational policies, however, would be much better for Israel (and USA and everybody else).

Let me understand what you are saying. Since 6 million out of 7 million Jews in Europe were murdered in the Holocaust, but it didn't affect North America, it WASN"T genocide?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Hear, hear, Dan K. It seems like there's increasingly little about Iraq and Afghanistan--and we're at war in those countries!

A related comment. It confirms Xopher's point somewhat that the only story on TPMCafe (that I've seen at least) that addressed the end of the Irish troubles (a fairly significant event, even if not rising to the level of Jewish history) was all about Israel.

Now I don't blame MJ for that--his interest is Israel and he shouldn't be expected to write about Ireland. But the editors of TPMCafe maybe should consider bringing in more diverse commentators on foreign affairs. If not, this site risks appealing to a rather narrow interest group. Dan K's post elsewhere in this thread mentions his increasing lack of interest in TPMCafe thanks to the dearth of foreign affairs discussions about things other than Israel. (Even the discussions about Israel are mostly by MJ--whatever happened to Daniel Levy, one of my favorites?) So, whatever one thinks about the motivation behind Xopher's comments, there is some merit to their substance--this site is (as far as foreign affairs goes) becoming very focused on Israel and much less focused on other important issues.

Mark, I think MJ is an interesting voice. I don't think we should hear less from him or less about Israel--just more about other issues in foreign policy and more from other (maybe more diverse) voices. Israel is an important and interesting topic. It's just that there are other interesting and important topics that aren't being covered to nearly the same extent. And there are other perspectives too. Wouldn't it be nice to have a Palestinian commentator looking at Israel from a non-Jewish perspective? And how about experts on other parts of the world? If there's a need for more balance at TPMCafe, I'd like to achieve that balance by raising new voices, not suppressing current ones.

I wonder how many people do think TPM is too Israel-centric.

Is it then so difficult to skip whatever does not interest you for some reason?

I wish there were someone who was blogging about the genocide being committed by Swedes against us Saamis, without people bringing up the bigoted L-word. Even my Swedish wife calls us Lapl*nders. Where will Sandy Claus get his reindeer when we are all gone?

But does anyone care? Noooooo.

More, MJ.

And sure hope Josh can find someone to speak up for us Saamis.

Best, Terry

Mark Weinberg,

Just accept the Saudi plan, fer chrissake.

Done,

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak agreed during a meeting Thursday in Cairo that a team of Arab League representatives will visit Israel in the coming weeks for talks on the details of the Arab peace initiative, first drafted by Saudi Arabia in 2002, and reaffirmed by the Arab League in March.

Now what...?

An Arab League spokesman drew a distinction betwe e n contacts with the ministers and direct contact with the League.

"We have made clear that there are conditions for us sending a delegation to meet the Israelis," said spokesman Alaa Roushdy.

The Egyptian minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said: "We do not intend to negotiate with Israel on behalf of the parties. The parties concerned are the ones who will negotiate with Israel, whether Palestinians, or Syria or Lebanon."

Please provide ONE single piece of evidence that Feingold opposes the four propositions I specified or that any of the other Members of Congress I identified disdain the occupation but are too scared to say so publicly. Every one of them would be re-elected easliy even if AIPAC publicly opposed them. You do not know what the fuck you are talking about.

I PERSONALLY KNOW EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE MEMBERS I HAVE NAMED AND THEY ALL AGREE WITH THOSE FOUR PROPOSITONS EVEN IF THEY DISAGREE WITH A PARTICULAR SECURITY TACTIC OF THE GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL. PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ROSENBERG HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CREDIBILITY AT EITHER END OF PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE.

There are those who believe that humor is always inappropriate toward Serious Things. I maintain that being able to laugh in the face of the horrible is one of the nobler things that makes us human.

To respond to your concern, an American tourist was, against the advise of his hotel concierge, taking a night stroll through Belfast during some of the worst of the conflict. Suddenly, he felt a gun barrel in his back, and heard a hoarse whisper, "Be you Protestant or Catholic?"

Thinking quickly, the tourist responded "Ummm...Jewish."

"Sure and begorrah, am I not the luckiest Palestinian on the Emerald Isle tonight?"
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

I don't mean to mischaracterize your kind words as a backhanded compliment, Howard.  But I'm still the same old Zionista I have been since I registered the screenname.  Maybe as the overall conversation goes on, there developes a greater diversity of ideas that sustain it.

Actually the legal definition of genocide in the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide Convention is thus:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Note that clauses a, b and c pretty much covers Israeli treatment of Palestinians - thus, Israel is legally guilty of genocide. You don't have to actually track down and murder every last one - it is enough that you intend to destroy them as a people.

There's no such thing as Palestinians-
Israeli PM Golda Meir

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be a magnet for coverage on such outlets as al-Jazeera, I don't think you can say that is is a magnet for media coverage in the United States. Coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the US has traditionally been sifted through multiple layers of filters, and most of issues involved in the conflict are treated with enormous circumspection, or outright silence.

Anyway, I wasn't at all reponding to the general level of media coverage. I was only responding to the fact that here at TPM Cafe Israel is just about the only non-US topic that is covered, and that coverage is almost uniformly from the Israeli or Jewish-American perspective. Every intra-Jewish spat about Israeli affairs and US-Israeli relations is debated over and over and over, with positions rarely changing in any significant way. Meanwhile, the rest of the world rolls by.

I think this is a fair question.

I admit to being literally a fan of MJ. I expressed in a comment above “my admiration for your commitment and determination.” Perhaps it is because in the 1970’s I had a cousin who worked with Caesar Chavez. Although I was completely sympathetic to her cause, she persisted to the point that I sometimes dreaded her presence. There was one particularly funny encounter in front of a Safeway market when she harangued me so vigorously, in the way that only family and loved ones can do, that a crowd gathered and their was talk of calling the authorities. That would have led to the odd situation where I would probably have told the police to arrest me because, after all, my cousin was right. In the end Chavez met with success and I, from that time to this, hold my cousin in great respect and admiration as much as family affection.

As to the ubiquity of the subject of Israel/Palestine I offer this. The whole matter of the Third Reich is forever compelling for us because it was a failure of our way of life – democracy, capitalism and a literate Western society. Hitler would just be another despot, maybe not even the worst, if it weren’t for the fact that he was on our historical “family” tree. Thus we speak of a “holocaust.” Israel is almost paradigmatic of the period afterward, the Cold War. Born almost out of the ashes of WW II, it became a place for the two empires left standing to prove their relentless determination. It still rages in our discourse because we have not found a new paradigm to replace the binary model of the last sixty years. I meant what I said above. The Israel/Palestine conflict is not as deeply rooted as the Irish problem. It was born of late and it will be resolved when we, the West, resolve our angst, our empathy for past rationales and our sympathy for some new way of thinking. And so we wrestle in every way over this subject, not so much in the interest of the contestants as in our own interest in our own future. MJ does this very well and I for one always read him with as much hope as curiosity.

Truth being stranger than fiction, I have a colleague, with joint US-Israeli citizenship, who is an adjunct professor at a Swedish university. One of her projects, when she is not in Korea, is arranging Internet connectivity to the reindeer herders.

I don't remember if she ever used the L-word, but should I invite her to get the herders, and the reindeer if so inclined, to post on TPMcafe, to perhaps extend the discussion to the L-S-I-P controversy?

I confess that while in Oslo, I ate reindeer, but I do not know if they were Santa's. If I visit again, however, I really should bring back one of the "No Trolls" traffic signs found everywhere there and put it on the homepage here.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

You and I would, I think, be in agreement if the "national" group being discussed were Israelis. My objection is the drumbeat that the only bulwark against another Holocaust against Jews is the State of Israel. If anything, I regard that as a libel that the United States would fail to protect any group of its citizens from extermination. I also consider the suggestion of the unique role of Israel, in preventing a Holocaust, to make a less than viable comparison between the 1938-1945 ability of European Jews to protect themselves agaist the Third Reich, and the defensive abilities of the Israeli Defense Forces.

We are not just on totally different wavelengths but seemingly in a parallel universe.

With regard to the Jewish population of Israel alone, imagine being advised as we were that if one has to have kosher should we fly to Tel Aviv, the "City of Heretics," that it would be advisable to bring some from New York. (We are not Jewish and are most unlikely to ever visit Israel but our adviser didn't know that.) Then consider the parasites that do nothing but study the Torah and are paid by the theocracy for that "service."

I am told there is a color line and caste system that is far more rigid than in our country. That is only what I am told. I know none of that of my own experience.

And then there are the Arab day laborers that are treated with the contempt that the "guest workers" received in our country I saw picking fruit in California long ago. The only ones treated more shabbily were Americans.

What has any of that to do with the Holocaust and geopolitics and idiots that want to exterminate a "race" because of some foreign ideologies and historical revisionism that eat their own brains and see only Jews?

Genocide is a very bad business no matter who is victimized and what the conditions in my view. It might even be helpful to know something about the people being threatened.

Best, Terry

What has any of that to do with the Holocaust and geopolitics and idiots that want to exterminate a "race" because of some foreign ideologies and historical revisionism that eat their own brains and see only Jews?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

If you want me to be concerned about genocide, let's talk about Darfur.

Be delighted to do so if many really cared.

But they are hardly the only population threatened with extinction.

When Nobel Laureate Lech Walesa campaigned for president of Poland, he was said to announce in each village he visited that he wasn't a Jew as the ugly rumors maintained. When the economy soured, it was the Jews that were responsible though there were no more than a handful left after the slaughter.

During the Dirty War in Argentina, a visiting American was imprisoned. He dared ask why he was being tortured. "Because he was a Jew," was the answer. I suppose he was fortunate to escape with his life.

The only people that can match and maybe even exceed the Jews for the need to exercise extraordinary survival skills to remain in existence through the centuries are the Roma (Gypsies).

Quite a different bunch.

A woman reporter attending the Roma Holocaust Convention met a Roma car dealer from Los Angeles. The man told her he came seeking a wife. The Roma advised the woman to watch her purse. "The place is full of Gypsies, you know," advised her informant. [Bury Me Standing (because I have spent my life on my knees)]

"Are you sure the Gypsies aren't inclined to be violent?" my son asked. His Transylvanian girlfriend has a different take on matters. I hear some people even think ill of Transylvanians. Maybe they haven't met many.

Best, Terry

A historian should strive better to stay close to the recorded facts.

Here are two articles I downloaded from my library's database. they have accurate primary source evidence and are historically irrefutable.

*********************************************

2)The fall of Jerusalem
SULAIR Main article: Siege of Jerusalem (70)
The siege of Jerusalem, the capital city, had begun early in the war, but had turned into a nasty stalemate. Unable to breach the city's defenses, the Roman armies established a permanent camp just outside the city, digging a trench around the circumference of its walls and building a wall as high as the city walls themselves around Jerusalem. Anyone caught in the trench attempting to flee the city would be captured, crucified, and placed in lines on top of the dirt wall facing into Jerusalem . . . Tens of thousands of crucified bodies encircled Jerusalem by the end of the siege. [3] Titus Flavius, Vespasian's son, led the final assault and siege of Jerusalem. During the infighting inside the city walls, a stockpiled supply of dry food was intentionally burned to induce the defenders to fight against the siege instead of negotiating peace; as a result many city dwellers and soldiers died of starvation during the siege. Zealots under Eleazar ben Simon held the Temple, Sicarii led by Simon ben Giora held the upper city. Titus eventually wiped out the last remnants of Jewish resistance. He was so determined that nearly three years after the destruction of Jerusalem he was still hunting down Jews, including a determined band that held the mountain fortress Masada.

The Romans had breached the walls of Jerusalem, ransacking and burning nearly the entire city. The Romans began by attacking the weakest spot which was the third wall. It was built shortly before the siege so it did not have as much time invested in its protection. They succeeded towards the end of May and shortly afterwards broke through the more important second wall. The Second Temple was destroyed on Tisha B'Av (August 29 or August 30), 70. Tacitus, a historian of the time notes that those who were besieged in Jerusalem amounted to no fewer than six hundred thousand, that men and women alike and every age engaged in armed resistance, everyone who could pick up a weapon did, both sexes showed equal determination, preferring death to a life that involved expulsion from their country. All three walls were destroyed and in turn so was the Temple. The famous Arch of Titus still stands in Rome: it depicts Roman legionaries carrying off the Temple of Jerusalem's treasuries, including the menorah. [emphasis mine]

*************************************

3)Jewish Pograms
SULAIR Main article: Pograms against Jews (38 ACE - present)
. . . Massive violent attacks against Jews date back at least to the Crusades, as well as the massacres of Jews at London and York in 1189-1190.

In 1348, because of the hysteria surrounding the Black Plague, Jews were massacred in Chillon, Basle, Stuttgart, Ulm, Speyer, Dresden, Strasbourg, and Mainz -- 12,000 in Mainz alone. A large number of the surviving Jews fled to Poland, which was very welcoming to Jews at the time.[2]

In 1543, Martin Luther wrote On the Jews and Their Lies, a treatise in which he advocated harsh persecution of the Jewish people, including more than 36,000 Jews in Germany.[3]

Jews were also massacred during the Khmelnytsky Uprising of Ukrainian Cossacks in 1648-1654.

The term pogrom as a reference to large-scale, targeted, and repeated anti-Jewish ethnic cleansing throughout the 19th century. The first pogrom is often considered to be the 1821 anti-Jewish riots in Odessa (modern Ukraine) after the death of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Istanbul, in which 14,000 Jews were killed.[4]

During these pogroms, thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed, and many families reduced to poverty; women were sexually assaulted, and large numbers of men, women, and children killed or injured in 166 towns in the southwest provinces of the Empire (modern Ukraine). The new Tsar Alexander III initially blamed revolutionaries and the Jews themselves for the riots and issued a series of harsh restrictions on Jews. The pogroms continued for more than three years, and were thought to have benefited from at least the tacit support of the authorities, though there were also attempts on the part of the Russian government to end the rioting.[5]

Although the pogroms claimed the lives of unknown thousands of Jews[6], the damage, disruption and disturbance were also dramatic. The pogroms and the official reaction to them led many Russian Jews to reassess their perceptions of their status within the Russian Empire, and so to significant Jewish emigration, mostly to the United States. Changed perceptions among Russian Jews also indirectly gave a significant boost to the early Zionist movement. It was believed that if a remnant of Jews did not return to their ancient homeland of Judea and Sumeria, elimination as a race and religion could be iminent.

A much bloodier wave of pogroms broke out in Russia in 1903-1906, leaving more than 20,000 Jews dead, and many more wounded, as the Jews took to arms to defend their families and property from the attackers.[7] The New York Times described the First Kishinev pogrom of Easter, 1903: The victims, mostly Jewish children, of a 1905 pogrom in Yekaterinoslav (today's Dnipropetrovsk, "The anti-Jewish riots in Kishinev, Bessarabia (modern Moldova), are worse than the censor will permit to publish. There was a well laid-out plan for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Orthodox Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, "Kill the Jews," was taken up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and were slaughtered like sheep. The dead numbered 21,400 [Note: the actual number of dead was kept secret by the Ressian Secret Police[8]] and the injured rose to at least 25,000. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babies were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews."[9] One Russian writer wrote that the blood ran at least six inches high in the streets for over sixteen square blocks.[10]

Many pogroms accompanied the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War, an estimated 70,000 to 250,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities throughout the former Russian Empire;[1] the number of Jewish orphans exceeded 300,000.[2] In his book 200 Years Together, Alexander Solzhenitsyn provides the following numbers from Nahum Gergel's 1951 study of the pogroms in the Ukraine: out of estimated 887 mass pogroms, about 40% were perpetrated by the Ukrainian forces led by Symon Petliura, 25% by Ukrainian Green Army and various Ukrainian nationalist gangs, 17% by the White Army, especially forces of Anton Denikin, and 8.5% by the Red Army.[3]

*********************************

Of course, I could quote many, many more statistics but they are all the same: death, hate, genocide, intolerance, terrorism, etc. It always has been and it continues under the guise of "Palestinian repression" and it will continue as long as the world keeps demanding Israel trade land for peace--which has always resulted in trading land for more terror! What make it such a ghastly reality today is that this is not ancient Rome with its barbaric violence or Russia with its unparalled anti-Semitism. No this is the USA and so one must ask WHY HERE? Why are today's American people turning their backs on Jews in Israel and watching as they are once again threatened with genocide? Throughout history it has always been intolerance, hatred and venomous bigotry. How can one argue it is different here and now???

Though the divisions between Catholics and Protestants and between liberationists and royalists in the North go very deep, the cultural schism between northern Ireland and England was never so deep as the cultural schism between Palestine and Israel.

Don't be too sure.

My sister asked my father if it would be all right if she brought a black boyfriend to the small largely Irish town in Oregon where Dad lived.

Dad always tried to be open-minded about these things and understood things were different in the big cities even in Ireland. Dad told my sister that it would be fine with him but the neighbors would talk. The Irish worry a lot about the neighbors talking. Irish talk a lot.

Then my sister asked if it would be all right if she brought an English boyfriend.

"Bring the black guy," Dad ordered.

Best, Terry

Why are today's American people turning their backs on Jews in Israel and watching as they are once again threatened with genocide?

1. Because I see no significant threat of genocide against Jews in Israel. Much rhetoric, yes. A good deal of what militaries call harassing fires, yes. Serious military threat, especially given the strength of the IDF, no.
2. Because the US is not responsible for protecting every population in the world against genocide. If it were to take that responsibility, the rational course would be to begin with those most at risk. The US faced a significant risk during the Cold War, but, now that it is over, nuclear powers tend not to be unduly threatened.
3. Because each of the threatening historical forces you cite either does not exist or is not able to project power into Israel.
4. Because those who endorse the Zionist philosophy believe that all risks are acceptable to be in a particular area of land. As I have said, when the IDF starts agitating for the historical land of the Iroquois, I might start taking some of the complaints seriously, as opposed to exceptionalism.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

I repeat. If there is a threat to Jews in America, I will fight to my last breath to defend them. If there is a threat to Italian-Americans, I will fight to my last breath to defend them. If there is a threat to Jordanian-Americans, I will fight to my last breath to defend them.

Of those groups and their identity-states, I am bound by the NATO treaty to defend Italians in Italy. The others, unless there is a clear and present strategic interest of the United States, and the United States can make a serious difference in the situation -- as opposed to France and the US getting good troops uselessly killed in Beirut in 1983 -- can take care of themselves.

If I supported any altruistic support of others' identity, it would start with those least able to defend themselves, such as Fur against Sudanese Arabicizers. The nuclear states are at the bottom of my priority list.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Ummm...talked to any descendants of Dingaan and Chaka?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Poor Davai. His brains were cut off with his foreskin.

For the remaining nerve, I shall refer you to Dr. Frank N. Furter.

Seriously, if Zionists roved the world with the intention of returning lands to their historical occupants, regardless of diasporas, I might take their claims of exceptionalism a bit more seriously.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

While the United States did not have the technological efficiency of the Nazis, its record vis-a-vis American Indians is not exactly spotless.

It's not entirely accurate to compare the Jews of the Holocaust to the slaughter of American Indians.

The Jews in Germany were German citizens that posed no threat to the German government prior to the rise of Hitler. The Jews from countries around Germany were no threat either, not any more than the rest of their population. Their isolation and death had nothing to do with their potential for violence.

The early attacks on Indians were conducted by colonists and soldiers flying the flag of England, not the US. The majority of the Indian deaths were caused by the unintentional introduction of new diseases from Europe which the Indians had no immunity, during a time before germ theory was developed. Indian nations were violently hostile to colonists. Further, their people were never considered citizens of England nor the US until long after the killing stopped.

"For example, the goal of the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, France, and Japan was to neutralize the military threat. It was never to kill everyone. They worked hard to reduce civilian death, which they were quite successful at doing."

You must be kidding.
I guess you never heard about Hirosima or Dresden

Great post, and really, John Cullinane's insights should be inscribed in our DNA.

One factual point however on which I would like to press you further. You mentioned that John Major was infuriated by Clinton granting Gerry Adams that visa. That's certainly how it played out in public, with the accepted narrative being that the British government was angered at having an American president intrude on what was regarded as a sovereign British matter.

I know this runs counter to what's currently in the historical record, but I do occasionally question if John Major was quite as angry as is assumed. I just wonder if he wasn't, privately, reasonably okay with this decision by Clinton.

As I recall, the peace-process at the time was deadlocked. Major's government was crippled by internal divisions (over Europe mainly), and I believe he relied on Unionist votes to retain his parliamentary majority.

In short, Major had little option but to publically disagree with Clinton over the Adams visa. And it is no surprise - to me anyway, given past dealings with UK civil servants who are reliably (small 'c') conservative - that the UK Foreign Office was hostile to the idea. I mean, it is a really neat story that Clinton bucked the stuffy British mandarins and incurred the wrath of a famously staid Prime Minister, but is it accurate?

When you look at the events of the next three years, where Clinton was pretty much able to influence at will in Northern Ireland, you just wonder if Major's ire in 1994 has been overstated. I see it this way - if the ire was so profoundly felt, the Major government would have been considerably more obstructive in its last three years; and had it have been, I find it impossible to believe that less than a year into Blair's premiership, the parties would have been able to sign the Good Friday agreement.

So it's just a hunch that Major postured for the Unionists and privately supported the Clinton outreach (even if he could not offer practical support); the alternative is that Clinton's Northern Ireland team was simply that good, and able to work past Major's objections. The latter is plausible, but I could not rule out a covert Major assist.

Ok

Definitely add Japan to the list. And Britain. And Spain. Perhaps Belgium and a few other ex-colonial empires.

Really, the US is a relatively peaceful and humane country. Relatively, mind you - historically, the bar has been set extraordinarily low.

I think the USA is about as bloody a nation as any in world history. As individuals, we Americans have the right and obligation to point to the crimes of other nations. As a state, we haven't a leg to stand on.
Vietnam, Iraq, Iran (Mossadegh), Phillipines, CubaChile, all of Latin America.
And only one country has ever used nukes. Ofcourse, it's the USA.
Anyone who isn't ashamed of this country's history has never read it.

HC, you know your history but you are a patriot, which to me means chauvinist.
What is the difference between your view that America is something special and Davai's that the Jews are.
It's all bs. Ethnic chauvinism, racial chauvinism, nationalism.
You are an American because you happened, by accident, to be born here. BFD!

PS. Anyone who defends the slaughter of innocent civilians in any context can justify it in every context.

Or you could go with this from the 42nd President:

"There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."

Fall of Jerusalem to Titus Flavius: I objected to A.C.E. as a dating acronyms.

Pogroms: clearly, one cannot place York massacre in Easter Europe. Even adding up the maximal estimates (and they are debatable) the grand total approaches 0.5 million, which is misleading, however.

First, Khmelnytskyi Uprising was only tangentially related to Jews. It was a civil war between Kossacks and Ukrainian peasants and the nobles who at that time were mostly Polonized and converted to Catholicism and who widely used Jews as their agents. It was a bloody and cruel civil war with a huge number of victims on all sides.

The Russian Civil War is a bit similar.

Apart from two civil wars with millions of victims of all nationalities, the "high" estimates add to 50 thousands. It does not give any justification, but saying "millions" makes a totally misleading impression that Holocaust was an Eastern European habit (and that a chief diversion of folks of the region was killing Jews, rather than killing each other, which was done in larger numbers).

"which has always resulted in trading land for more terror"???!!! What example is there for this "always"? Rome? Rome? Were Romans anti-Semitic or they had a standard operating procedure to ask rebels to surrender, and if unheeded, crucify them? This is the civilization for you (you have to show a firm hand to the ingrates, lest you get rebellions all the time). Needless to say, massacres of assorted folks in assorted places do not provide any examples for (or against) that statement, and neither does an ill-fated rebellion. (Note also that Titus Flavius was not wiping out Jews, but the resistance.)

Well, thanks for the categorization, I think.

It is not naivete to thank the fates that I can choose not to listen to Rush, nor Glenn Beck in one of Ann's dominatrix dresses.

Nevertheless, I sense that you believe war is never necessary. I'd like to say the same about Ebola fever. Sometimes, however, they become a reality that has to be addressed.

Decisions need to be made in terms of the knowledge available at the time. On the one hand, that is even less of an excuse for GWB and the Iraq operation. On the other, there was essentially no human intelligence coming out of Japan in 1945. The best source of the war, and not one especially available to the US, was the Soviet agent, Richard Sorge, who had been executed in 1944. Communications intelligence would tell us little because the key discussions were in Japan, never on radio where they could be intercepted.

Thoughtless phrases cost much, then and now. FDR's "unconditional surrender" fairly clearly extended the Japanese war faction, and, as such, was even more damaging than "Mission accomplished" or "bring it on". As it was, Japan did not surrender unconditionally, but with the condition of the preservation of the monarchy, something that might have strengthened the peace faction weeks or months before.

Had the Japanese radio responses to the Zacharias broadcasts been better understood and escalated to a higher level, that opening might have been explored. Equally, if Japan had chosen a less ambiguous word than mokusatsu in response to the Potsdam Declaration, yet a different opening could have been considered.

It's luxurious to be able to be utterly sure you know best.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Warren 474 writes:

     "Professor Blackton, I think you're creating an opposition that doesn't exist in any sort of meaningful equivalence on MJ's threads when you equate "anti-semites" on one hand and "vicious protectors of Israel" on the other."

     What I actually said, Warren,  in reference to MJs posts was "So often ---even here at TPM, although less fequently in the posts following your essays ---- a single post from one of these ugly voices brings out a plethora of rants and raves from all quarters that destroys any semblance of discussion."   The "your" is a direct reference to MJ.

       I am more than willing to take the heat for my opionions, but less than ready to take the heat for opinions that are attributed to me by others. 

      I think that you are, at least in part, attributing to me something I did not say (write).

       Careful reading, Warren, is a step towards the civility of discourse that we should re-enforce at TPM. 

    Professor John Stuart Blackton

I think the USA is about as bloody a nation as any in world history.

I don't know where you learned your lessons in world history, but your logic confuses and worries me. I hear this kind of reasoning a lot these days and I ask myself who is teaching this kind of fallacious nonsence?

When did the U.S. become "as bloody a nation as any in world history?" Sure there were many killed in our own War of Revolution and our Civil War, not to mention both World Wars and the Korean War all of which we fought along with at least 20 or more Allied nations (that's why they were called World Wars and Korea was fought under the flag of the United Nations).

And yes, I will admit that the U.S. has made serious mistakes in Vietnam, Iraq, Cuba, etc. But to in any way imply that this put us even remotely close to the truly "bloody nations" of the world is rediculous at best, and blatantly anti-American propagandist at worst. I have never heard anyone in history speak of the "Empire of the United States" or seen reference to that name in any historical print--other than some Communist cartoon in a cold-war Socialist Newsrag.

Throughout history nations and Empires such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Macedonians, and Romans, slayed hundreds of thousands of people in gruesom and barbaric ways to build empires and subjugate those they saw as their inferior and took many millions more as slaves.

Later other Empires like the Arab, Frankish, Spanish, French, Holy Romans, British, Austria-Hungarian, and Ottoman raced to capture land from all parts of the earth and convert the natives of those lands to their own religious beliefs, killing any who would not confess. Tens of millions died in South America alone not to mentions millions throught the world!

After the fall of those Empires, the Nazis, Italian Fascists, Spanish Fascists, Stalinist Marxists, Maoist Marxists, Korean Marxists, Vietcong Marxists, Khmer Rouge, and Islamic radical fundamentalists from 16 different nations have ALL INTENTIONALLY slain hundreds of millions of people, each in an effort to spread their perfect way of life to the rest of the world they hope(d) to rule some day with an iron fist!

Now don't get me wrong, our history is blackened with the same darkness as every other nation--we also killed and relocated many American Indians. This is totally inexcusable and no matter how much money we continue to give them in reparations, it will never be enough. But when has America ever shown a will to subjugate nations and rule the world by blood force? To insinuate that the United States of America is today a bloody Empire building nation hellbent on power is an attrocious lie. This lie can only come from the heart of one who has had such vitriolic hatred for America infused into him by propaganda and hateful teaching that the U.S. is pure evil. I am saddened when I encounter people who have been programmed to think this way.

Yes, we are a government of many faults, but we are the very best government on earth and we can only become better if we work together to inprove ourselves, not berate our land and condemn her with smear tactics and accusations that are totally fallacious. And I can tell you this as a life long Democrat, if we don't stop serving up this steaming pile of anti-American crap to the voting public, we will keep losing the White House!!!

I see,
on one hand Howard thinks that killing around 500 civilians is:
"I see the party closest to actual, not verbal, genocide being the actions of Israel in Lebanon."

on anoher hand he doesn't see any problem with the Hiroshima or Nagasaki attack where
140,000 had died in Hiroshima by the bomb and its associated effects with the estimate for Nagasaki roughly 74,000
Go figure.
Are you losing your mind, Howard?

"Where did I say Americans are something special, in Davai's sense of Israeli exceptionalism?"

I don't have sense of Israeli exceptionalism.

You do.
I think that Israel should be judged by the same standards as the rest of the world, you and other folks on this list have exceptional standards applied only to Israel.

I guess you did lose your mind.
500 civilians in 30 day war where 1/3 of Israel was under bombs and Israel warned Lebanise in advance about bombing vs. 200000 in two day without any warning to civilians to leave the cities.

You can argue that standards changed since that time, but I guess you, I hope, temporary lost your mind.
Let us us know when you are back .

A-MEN!
For example,
for all those who claim that it is "intolerable" for Israel to exist as a "Jewish State" (i.e. an enthnic/religious- based state) and thus justify Arab terrorism, I am waiting to see them go to India, organize the Hindus who were ethnically cleansed out of the "Islamic" state carved out secular India called "Pakistan" and support Hindu terrorism against Pakistan. Virtually ALL Hindus were thrown out of Pakistan.
Yet I haven't seen any such criticism of Pakistan in these threads like I have of Israel.

People say that the "Arabs have the right to be violent because they have 'legitimate' grievances". Even though I don't view their grievances as 'legitimate', those using that standard to justify violence should be the FIRST to say Jews have the right to be violent since no one has been oppressed more than the Jews in all of human history and no other group has more "legitimate grievances".

Thanks, Warren474, for this nice reply. Each of us probably misread the other by 10% and now the variances are resolved.

I am not an expert in the blogging history of the various posters here. I post infrequently & I recall that Daniel G has sometimes agreed with me and sometimes disagreed, but never in ad hominem way. This is of course judging from a small statistical base, but that's all I've got in this instance.

My only personal experience of really vindictive posting was back when I was in the stable of TPM Book Reviewers. The very nice woman who ran the Book Review process in those days, Kate Cambor, was a French historian. I made it a practice to include some lines of French poetry in many of my reviews - just as a friendly "writer's conceit" in honor of my "editor", Kate.

Wow! What a firestorm of hostility this provoked! Elitism! Intellectual arrogance! Dissing the hoi polloi. Foppery! And God knows what else.

Well, Kate is gone from TPM. I've dropped off the list of TPM book reviewers, and the venom of the anti-poesie-francaise crowd has been directed elsewhere.

Professor John Stuart Blackton

There are already 23 sovereign Arab states. Before 1967 when Judea/Samaria/Gaza came under Israeli control they were under Jordanian or Egyptian rule. There never was any demand to create a "Palestinian" state. Before 1948, the term "Palestinian" referred to Jews only, Arabs rejected the term, calling themselves Syrians, or simply Arabs.

Purple State,

There are two states, India and Pakistan. Maybe when there are two states, Israel and Palestine, the criticism will stop?

Maybe not.  There is no controversy regarding either the national rights of Pakistan or India.  However, there is still a common wisdom that Jewish identity be limited strictly to its religious component, and that the Jewish people be disqualified from the right of national self-determination in Israel.

That's because a bunch of Russians and Brooklynites didn't arrive on the shores of Norway, declared the country their own as promised by their alleged God, and didn't proceed to massacre and ethnically cleanse the local inhabitants, as did the Zionists in Palestine.

I don't think reverting to Jordanian security control of the West Bank is a good idea, but it does strike me as the least bad of all possible options.  MJ loves to talk about the missed opportunity of 1970, but in my mind the aborted Peres-Hussein dialogue in 1986 was an even worse missed opportunity by Israel.  The mistakes of Oslo were well intentioned, but they have resulted in a dysfunctionality in Palestinian society that will take years to cure.

I favor Jordanian involvement, because it's going to take outside intervention in Palestine to subdue the radicals. Witness Hamas rocket attacks last night. Hamas cannot make peace -- it is tantamount to the dissolution of the organization. Only an outside power (like Jordan) is going to be able to confront and quell the extremists and allow the rest of the Palestinian nation to move forward.

Debka updated their report, saying it had caused an uproar among Jordanian Palestinians. They fear being forced out of Jordan. But here's the rub -- Abdullah can't offer them citizenship, because it will throw a monkey wrench into the whole right of return Hamas is screaming about. He's got to be on some industrial-strength pain-killers to deal with this issue.

There aren't an array of good choices to solve this problem. Jordan's involvemnent seems like a much lessor evil.

Again, Let me remaind you
1. Majority of Jews in Israel are Jews from Arab counties from which they were kicked off.

2. "massacre and ethnically cleanse"

In 1948 , Israel got a tiny peace of strip along the sea, very few Palestinians were hurt and all they had to do it to move a few miles from their homes to another part of Palestine.
It's not a big deal compare with what Germans, Armenians, Serbs, Indians, Pakistani Chechens,
Cremia Tatars and on and on and on.

"He's not as bad as Davai, but civil,"

I'm curious, is there anybody civil with whom you disagree.
If you can't name one, then civil = somebody who agree with me.

"Wow, davai, I must have really got under your skin"
Not at all, You so so mild compare to others. For example, I was called anti-semite by M.J.

" No, I don't equate civility and agreeing with me. Any other questions? "
Yes, Please give me example of people on this blog.

"Sometimes a little harsh truth-telling can be necessary, even if it comes across as un-civil"

I agree.

For example, this whole exchange, 150 comments is based on misleading statements by M.J.
"did, nevertheless, succeed in dramatically reducing the violence – which skyrocketed after Oslo collapsed in the fall of 2000"

Actually he got it wrong.

Oslo collapsed because skyrocketed violence, i.e second intifada and not other way around.

Therefore, "little harsh truth-telling " is in order. M.J mislead us again.

Hi Howard,
Compare with your previous comment about Hiroshima, this comment sounds reasonable.
See everything is relative (according to a notorious zionist) and has to be graded on the curve including you and Israel.

Anyway,
"by asking more and more questions."
I was directly invited to ask more questions, so I'm not sure what's your complain about.
Take it easy.
- Davai

Stop being in denial. Even Israeli historians admit that ethnic cleansing was always part of the Zionist plan:

Read Israeli historian Benny Morris:

According to your findings, how many acts of Israeli massacre were perpetrated in 1948?

"Twenty-four. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing. Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village of Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved.

"The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70). There is no unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated there. At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had been known until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts of massacre were part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in October 1948]: at Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion...

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.

The Arabs STARTED the war. They announced it would be a "massacre like that of the Mongols" (Azzam Pasha, chairman of the Arab League). They intended "ethnic cleansing" but failed. They are out, just like the Sudeten Germans and the Germans of Silesia and East Prussia are out. They started the aggression and they paid the price for it . Same with the Arabs.
The Arabs intended ethnic cleansing of the Jews, just like the Arabs are ethnically cleansing each other, along tribal and religious lines in Iraq. They started violence just like they did in Somalia, Lebanon, and Algeria, to their OWN people. Thus it is not hard to imagine what they had in mind for us Jews/Israelis, since they seem to enjoy slaughtering their own people.

Howard,
You brought a very good point.

Let me ask a more general question:

Has anyone found they have changed a position, based on somebody else's posts, to something that supported him/her?

Other then that, let me tell you, Howard, you can do better, than personal attacks.

I don't visit a self-described US website about US politics to read conversation about unimportant foreign politics regarding a conflict that hasn't changed substantially in 30 years.

If anything, I'll happily leave the site rather than deal with this nonsense. Until then, I'm not going to censor myself just to make people like you happy.

To your general question, yes. Certainly, I've seen people, including myself, who were neutral about a topic start supporting the position. There have been people that said they were wrong.

Personally, there are topics, such as the more complex aspects of economics, that I know I don't know well, and enjoy it when I learn something. There are any number of times when someone has clarified a legal issue.

In like manner, I try to contribute when I know something substantive about the topic. Offhand, I can think of people that made a comment about healthcare, and, when I discussed the disease and treatment, giving references, positions changed. There have been other cases, including military matters, where it may have been less my words and more the references I provided that changed a position.

Personal attack? Odd that you mention it, given you have made comments to me such as I take myself too seriously, particularly when I post specifics. It is my considered opinion that you attempt to defend Israel, in a manner sufficiently aggressive, that it is very difficult not to react with more hostility toward Israel after some of your arguments. If you consider that a personal attack, do enjoy the consideration. I'm glad that there are people here with whom I don't consistently agree on policy, and indeed disagree with more often than not, but that can give me another and useful way to look at that situation.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

"To your general question, yes. Certainly, I've seen people, including myself, who were neutral about a topic start supporting the position."

Any example om MJ blog ?

"So you're admitting that Israel ethnically cleansed 'the Arabs'"
Yes, I do, there were a lot of ethic cleansing
going on afer WW2 including Arabs/Palestinians as well as Jews from Arab countries and many other groups.

"Were the pregnant women who had their babies torn out of their bodies by Israeli occupiers"
Maybe, but I doubt.

However, there were pregnant Jewish women who had their babies torn out of their bodies by Arab/Palestinian fighters.

I dont not accept your point at all. Don't put words in my mouth. Jews and non-Jews were living in Palestine long before a bunch of Europeans arrived there and started a policy of creating a homeland in the "Land without a people" when in fact there were lots of people there in order to recreate a mythical country in the long-ago past that even Israeli historians admit probably never existed.

AS RABBIS FACE FACTS, BIBLE TALES ARE WILTING

By Michael Massing
New York Times, March 9, 2002

Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses.
The entire Exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never
occurred. The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho.
And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into
a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose
reputation was later magnified to provide a rallying point for a
fledgling nation.

Such startling propositions - the product of findings by
archaeologists digging in Israel and its environs over the last 25
years - have gained wide acceptance among non- Orthodox rabbis. But
there has been no attempt to disseminate these ideas or to discuss
them with the laity - until now.

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which represents the
1.5 million Conservative Jews in the United States, has just issued a
new Torah and commentary, the first for Conservatives in more than 60
years. Called "Etz Hayim" ("Tree of Life" in Hebrew), it offers an
interpretation that incorporates the latest findings from
archaeology, philology, anthropology and the study of ancient
cultures. To the editors who worked on the book, it represents one of
the boldest efforts ever to introduce into the religious mainstream a
view of the Bible as a human rather than divine document.

And the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues to this day.

I agree that for some quirky reason Israel is an important domestic issue in USA, but I fail to see why Israel is more strategically important to us than Mongolia.

I think your Mongolia analogy proved my point. Who cares about cashmere or pashminas? I'm sure Mongolia is a lovely country, but their GDP is smaller than the loan guarantees we give Israel. They don't produce weapons systems, and I doubt much manufacturing or much science achievement. We don't have significant trade with them. So while we are happy to have them as a friend, I'm sure, there's not much they can do for us or to harm us.

If you look at the countries in the world with the most military strength, which includes Israel - nobody is ignoring any of them. They are all either close "special relationship" allies of the U.S., or are in some competitive status with the U.S. (ie China). Its not like I think Israel is our biggest and best ally. If people were going around talking how we should drop Britain as an ally, I would be saying the same thing. However, trying to equate Israel with Mongolia is silly. A better analogy would be France or Canada or Japan or Taiwan. And, yes, if any of those countries stopped hanging out with us and started hanging out with the Chinese, we would be seriously worse off for it.

Also, as I said earlier, domestic politics in the US is international politics. By and large, the countries we have close ties to on a personal level - that we really trust, like Britain, Ireland, Continental Western Europe, Poland, India, Taiwan, Korea, are countries that have large immigrant populations here that pave the way for those special relationships.