MJ you are one of the few people willing to consistently uphold what is right in regard to what's happening in Israel. AIPAC's influence is disgusting, but hopefully on the decline. Someday when a realist comes to power in Israel, who understands there will never be peace as long as millions of people are being held captive, we will see change.

What's your opinion of Carter engaging Hamas? I'm glad he is publicly defying Olmert and Bush. I think the return of Shalit via prisoner exchange setup by Carter would be a nice insult to Olmert as well.

Corrected format (I hope) - wahtever happened to the preview feature?

The Independent is about as mainstream a British paper as you'll find anywhere.

I am fed up with this guy Rosenberg. First he is sloppy: it may be a trivial point but you can only find mainstream British papers in Britain (i.e., you cannot find a mainstream British paper being published 'anywhere'; e.g., in say, Madrid). Or does Rosenberg mean that non mainstream British papers are being published in Timbuktu?

What Rosenberg presumably means is that the Independent is a mainstream paper in Britain and that in comparison to mainstream papers in other countries, the British press in general - and the Independent in particular - are much more willing to publish what he considers to be 'non mainstream stories' or storie sthat brook some sort of establishment agenda. If Rosenberg is a journalist at least he should take care to say what he means. If he doesn't then why should anyone care what he says?

But the Independent is not at all 'as mainstream as it gets' in the UK. In fact is considered to be a bit odd ball - mainstream papers are the Times, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail and possibly Guardian etc. The Independent is certainly well known but it is hardly 'as mainstream as you will find anywhere.' I happen to like the Independent - but that Rosenberg prefaces his piece with such arrant nonsense shows how sloppy he is. It is a blatant attempt to bias the reader in favor of whatever else he has to say. I didn't read the rest because his idiotic comments put me off. The guy is no more than a propagandist and it is beyond my why TPM lets him post this stuff on a regular basis.

I am not a Hillary supporter and am not in favor of what is going on in Israel re: the Palestinians. But I cannot bear reading pure bilge either.

MJ Rosenberg writes:

Also, God bless the web and Josh Marshall. A few years ago, nobody in this country would see the Independent piece. It's all changed. And this is why our policy will change too. The monopoly of information is over thanks to TPM, Kos, and a few thousand others.

I think Josh Marshall deserves a lot of credit for what he has achieved with the TPM sites. I feel I got excellent value for the small subscriptions I sent when Josh Marshall put out the donations bucket a few years back. He has shown what a moderate-liberal magazine can be when it is not addicted to a failed ideology.

I also believe the Mearsheimer and Walt article in The London Review of Books is also responsible for the increased ability everyone now has to discuss the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Much of the hostility to that article was caused by a realisation by the Likudniks that the game was finally up and that they were no longer the only game in town. Without the Mearsheimer-Walt article I very much doubt we would have seen, for example, the Jane Kramer article in The New Yorker that was so critical of the traditional "pro-Israel advocacy groups led by David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, and Charles Jacobs."

Without the web it would have been impossible for a new organization like J Street to get the coverage it has. We would certainly not have seen Martin Peretz being so disgraced for his recent attack on Ezra Klein. And we would certainly not have have seen Spencer Ackerman's powerful, and intensely personal, demonstration of the history J Street is pushing against.

You know, I read these posts often and just let them be, no matter how stupid or misguided they are, but this kind of shit has to stop.

tnathan:

"A notorious Hamas lobbyist M.J. Rosenberg is an influential part of the Hamas PR machine."

I mean, seriously, are you just trying to be inflammatory or are you truly that stupid. MJ, as we all know, has no connection to Hamas. He was, however, a an employee of AIPAC for some time. So, instead, if your post was concerned with any degree of rationality, you might have described him as a part of the Israeli PR Machine (some time ago). But a Hamas? Well, you are lying, blatantly.

To your suggestion that Hamas created the humanitarian disaster in Gaza: you are equally misguided as before. I fear your stupidity this time is based on the Israeli governments current proclamations that there is no humanitarian crises and its been manufactured by Hamas. Using the israeli government or it media organs (the JPost included) does not present a credible source. Instead, Israel imposed restrictions on the flow of people and goods and froze economic activity last June when Hamas seized control of Gaza.

A report sponsoreed by Amnesty CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Medecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save the Children UK and Trocaire documents the extent of the humanitarian crises and locates the responsibility for the crises on Israel.

You see, Israel has a legal duty to ensure that Gazans have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care if they are going to control its ability to control and access these supplies.

So, to recap, you are a libelous liar that is hurriedly attempting to defend the indefensible. And, is always the case when defending such enterprises, you are forced to lie

According to the Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said Israel must protect its citizens, "but as the occupying power in Gaza it also has a legal duty to ensure that Gazans have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care.

I'm too busy reading up on the Jenin "massacre"

When I try to read an article on a specific subject, and after 15 paragraphs of puff, it still has not gotten to the point, I assume that there is nothing there.

"15 paragraphs of puff.."

From the article:

"Palestinian vehicles are stopped for no good reason, the windows smashed and the occupants beaten up for talking back – for saying, for example, they are on the way to hospital; the theft of tobacco from a Palestinian shopkeeper who is then beaten "to a pulp" when he complains; the throwing of stun grenades through the windows of mosques as people prayed. And worse."

"anyone you see armed with stones or whatever, I don't care what – shoot.' Everyone would think it's the clan fight...Did you hit them? "Sure, not just them. Anyone who came close ... Particularly legs and arms. Some people also sustained abdominal hits ... I think at some point they realised it was soldiers, but they were not sure. Because they could not believe soldiers would do this, you know."

"He put his weapon literally inside the kid's mouth. 'Anyone gets close, I kill him. Don't bug me. I kill. I have no mercy."

"Choke them. One guy would come, make like he was checking them, and suddenly start yelling like they said something and choke them ... Block their airways; you have to press the adams apple. It's not pleasant. Look at the watch as you're doing it, until he passes out. The one who takes longest to faint wins."

Yes, what a puff piece. Israeli soldiers explaining the brutality they inflicted on citizens as a result of the occupation.

It is clear, the occupation is no longer becoming defensible, so instead of addressing the merits of the article or the occupation, they change the subject. Calling mj this or that or referring to the article as a puff piece, never pointing out substantive reasons for their claims. This, my friends, is called baseless ad hominem.

Im waiting for these arm chair warriors to call these soldiers self-loathing jews or anti-semites or part of the hamas pr machine for speaking up about their own actions.

K-town,

Your biases towards genocidal bombers and rocketeers of children and cows is showing. Gaza would have been left alone a long time ago if it wasn't for Hamas viciousness.

MJ would make a great Kapo for the Hamas thugs. As for you, K.

How's Adolf?

Let's see, I have yet to see someone disagree with the article. But of course the obligatory accusations of anti-semitism, insinuations of nazi sympathy, and the standard boilerplate.

As the accusations get more bizarre and the facts less and less, it becomes clear these folks have not a foundation to stand on.

From now on posters should have to address the merits of the article, which I have done previously, or join their intellectual counterparts: the flat earth society.

Truly astonishing.
My fellow commenters, I mean.
Ad-hominem attacks on MJ Rosenberg, ad-hominem attacks on other posters, diatribes on the political leanings and/or mainstream-ness of the newspaper Rosenberg cites.
Almost no poster willing to look at the very ugly elephant in the room -- which is the content of these IDF soldiers' testimonies.
There are more than 100 pages of them, and they are not the product of The Independent newspaper.
They were collected by an Israeli group called Breaking the Silence, which has been trying to get out the word for years that the occupation corrodes and corrupts the occupier as well -- only to be met (ironically, no?) with a wall of silence.
Rosenberg is right: no North American media outlet has had the balls to pick up on these latest revelations.
Before shooting the messenger, have the guts to try reading them yourselves:
http://www.shovrimshtika.org/testimonies_category_e.asp

While the Independent may have done us a favor by bringing this out, the story is poorly done.

It reads more like an attempt at titillation than an investigation. They forgot to ask important questions; What had happened to make you do this? Did the violence work? Where you ever trained in police work? Where you trained as an infantryman? What was your mission? Exactly how old were the soldiers who did this?

Rosenberg is probably not a Hamas supporter. CAMERA is not crazy. We all need to be smarter about all this.

I am also suspicious that the article came out on a Saturday before Passover, thus slowing down the Israeli response. It smacks of manipulation.

It also sounds like there are some real hooligans in the Israeli Army. And some officers who are simply not on the ball, watching their troops.

More deeply, it looks to me like soldiers were once again doing a police job, which requires an entirely different approach. This is a tough problem in a war zone.

There is no question, that reports like this, even if true, help Israel's enemies. What people forget though, is that they can help the Israeli command structure maintain discipline, which they need for their own reasons.

People who hate and distrust the "MSM" (Main Stream Media) seem to suddenly trust them totally when they report stuff that feeds their preconceptions. We need to look at the IDF in Hebron, but we also need to be wary of sensationalist reports like this. The MSM has been wrong before; Both in Britain and Israel. Neither the Independent nor the Israeli TV station did much investigation, they both relied on an NGO, "Breaking the Silence", who might be okay, but might have their own axe to grind.

The reason I say this is that they seem to have a tendency to go to the media before they go to the local military police.

TNathan,

Bravo. I see what you're trying to say about Rosenberg, but I do prefer the blunt end of the instrument, having dealt with his fellow fascists over at IPF (a tip, don't disagree with him over there or they might report you to the FBI).

There's no Jewish soul or sense in the boy.

As for your main point, yes, we made damn sure Japan was down on its knees - and to make the cheese more binding since the blockade seemed ineffective (now we know it was working, but it would have taken time for it to wear the Japanese down, time where a 100,000 Americans killed in a proposed invasion of Japan wouldn't have had left), we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What Israel is doing to Gaza, especially with children and cattle being killed and wounded in Sderot is playing patticake. If the Paly supporters here don't like that, tough. Let them go and demand Hamas stop using Palestinian children for their murderous terrorism. If they don't, all bets are off. But, yeah, we Jews are too humane to give Gazans a taste of what Hiroshima experienced on August 6, 1945, or what the residences of Dresden got on Feb. 12-13 1945.

Once that happened, the MJ's, the Wrights, and the Ahmedinejedads of the world would shut up and take notice - because they would know damn well they'd be next. While we still wring our hands and try to be nice to the haters, our time is running out.

I just did, fascist bozo.

Wow, the jew defenders are out in force today.

Too bad Hitler didn't have a few more months to finish the rest of you off.

will take some time till I'll read comments again on this blog. I feel sick.

What do you expect from a Fascist Pig in every sense of the word.

By the way, Jimmy, how is your Uncle 'Dolf these days? Care to join him? Better yet, put your sorry ass in Gaza the next time Hamas fires a rocket at Sderot.