"A Change Is Gonna Come"----Mideast Policy Under Obama
I spoke at a conference in New York yesterday that was pretty amazing. It was called "Jews United Against the War" and was sponsored by Workmen's Circle, the Shalom Center and Jewish Currents.
Anyway, take a look at this terrific piece by Phil Weiss and especially about Liz Holtzman's role. For you youngsters, Liz Holtzman came within 80,000 votes of becoming New York's most progressive Senator ever. She lost due to a third party effort designed to draw enough votes from Holtzman so that a real progressive never made it to the Senate from New York. She was defeated by Al D'Amato (Likud-NY).
Anyway, the piece praises me to the skies which I apologize for. Also, some of the quotes are skewed. Phil Weiss took notes by hand and he rushed this into print. But it's a great piece and reflects that, as the great Sam Cooke would say, "a change is gonna come."
It started on November 4.
MJ wrote:
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She was defeated by Al D'Amato (Likud-NY).
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Note the inane comparison of the Likud to the Republicans. This encapsulates beautifully how MJ is totally clueless about Israel and what is going on there.
MJ, I will repeat again what I have told you several times in the past but which you don't seem to be able to absorb:
(1) It was the Likud that gave up the Sinai and signed Israel's first peace agreement with an Arab country, Egypt. Begin's Likud gov't destroyed a number of settlements in the Yamit area in the process.
(2) It was the Likud that destroyed 29 flourishing Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and northern Shomron (Samaria) and expelled their residents, most of whom have not been resettled in permanent housing to this day, more than three years after the expulsion.
(3) NO GOVERNMENT HEADED BY THE LEFT (Labor or Kadima parties) HAS EVER DESTROYED A SINGLE JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN JUDEA/SAMARIA.
(4) Current Likud head Netanyahu was Prime Minister and head of a "narrow" Right-wing government 1996-1999. He pulled Israeli forces out of most of Hevron in spite of warnings that it would lead to large-scale violence (which it did). Netanyahu met and hugged Arafat. Netanyahu made a second agreement with Arafat called the Wye Agreement which brought about a further withdrawal of Israeli forces in Judea/Samaria.
(5) The Muslim Waqf illegally dug up Judaism's holiest place, the Har HaBayit (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem right under the Netanyahu government's nose over a period of several months. In the process were destroyed innumerable priceless archaeological artifacts dating back to the time of the First and Second Temples, more than 2000 years ago. Netanyhahu didn't lift a finger to stop it.
(6) During the current election campaign, Netanyahu has recruited to the Likud numerous Leftists, suppoters of the Oslo Agreement and the destruction of Gush Katif such as Uzi Dayan (who justified Olmert's Lebanon war saying it would give him the political muscle to expel another 80,000 Jews from settlements in Judea/Samaria, and Assaf Hefetz who used to be in the Labor Party and who said on joining the Likud "there is no difference between the parties".
(7) Netanyahu has promised that on winning the upcoming election, he will form a coalition with the Labor Party and Kadima.
MJ, what more do you want? I, as an Israeli "pro-Judea/Samaria right-winger" have no intention of voting for the Likud or any party allied with them. I know others who feel the same way. Like I said above, Olmert promised in the 2006 election campaign to expel another 80,000 Jews from Judea/Samaria. How many did he do in the end. ZERO! The Likud has given up far more concessions to the Arabs than the Labor Party has, but you, in your ignorance, (and other clueless "progressives") insist on throwing the word "Likudnik" around like your ideological precessors did the word "fascist" decades ago. I think the readers of your columns should take this ignorance/carelessness of yours into account when deciding if there is any merit at all in the stuff you write.
November 24, 2008 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I want the US to take back the 30 billion promised last summer to support our 20% of the Israeli military budget. We need it to bail out Detroit.
I'm tired (as a US taxpayer) of subsidizing the Israeli occupations and sieges. We've got our own hands full with Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan on the way.
Maybe if we stop subsidizing Israel's wingnut settlers through our tax dollars Israelis will find it in their best interest to work out a two state solution. Of course that will only work if there is enough land for a Palestinian state. Maybe its too late for that.
In that case, Israel will have to deal countinue trying to flourish as an apartheid state.
Call me quaint, but I believe in a separation of religion and state, equal rights for all people in a country (whether you call them citizens or some other made up name used for Palestinians in Israel & the occupied territories), and human rights (like freedom of movement, speech, education, etc).
If anything good comes out of this recession/depression, I hope it will be that the American people will realize that what is in Israel's best interest is not necessarily in America's best interest.
Go to the VA and visit our soldiers and try to remember what AIPAC (& the neocons) were saying in 2002-2003 about the big threat Iraq was. Now we hear the same drum roll about Iran. Guess what?? I don't believe it.
I also think we should go back to no dual citizenship for Americans. Too much conflict of interest.
I hope US middle east policies change. I'm very doubtful they will but hope springs eternal. Obama won't cross AIPAC unless its required for re-election.
Oh YBD, its interesting that you don't even use the word Palestinian (just Arab & Muslim) in your post. That kind of says it all.
November 24, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Before 1948, the Arabs of Palestine rejected the term "Palestinian", they said they were Syrians/Arabs. The term "Palestinian" meant Jew. The Palestinians (if you prefer) first used the term "naqba-catastrophe" in a political sense around 1919 when Palestine was separated from Syria. However, I have no problem using the term "Palestinian" if it makes you happy. But there is no "Palestinian-Israeli" conflict. There is an "Arab-Israeli" conflict. The Palestinians are part of the Arab world, they say so themselves in the PLO charter. It was 5 ARAB armies that invaded Israel in 1948.
November 24, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
so far, the "candidate of change" has selected a cabinet comprised mostly of former Clintonian insiders. I suspect that people like MJ, who expect huge changes on official US Israel policy, are going to be disappointed...thank God.
I've known several self-hating Jews, but I don't think I've ever encountered one who seems to hate Israel as much as Rosenberg.
to Mick, above, who coyly worries that we will "call him quaint" for wanting "separation of religion and state"--that's what we believe here in the US; it's not a physical law of nature that guides the universe. other countries do not have a separation of church and state. they're allowed to be different from us, 'k?
November 24, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ, at a convference at New York's Central Synagogue said:
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Then MJ laid it on the feet of the Jewish community. “The American Jewish community is not a progressive force in the country… we are a regressive force on any issue that touches on Israel/Palestine… Barack Obama would put through a peace deal tomorrow if it wasn’t for the American Jewish community.” That is what it’s all about for Obama, Rosenberg said. “This is close to his heart.”
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Yep, collective guilt. According to MJ it is American Jewry's fault that there isn't peace in the Middle East, no one else's. Certainly not the Arabs, no way. MJ, maybe you would like to go back to the pre-Civil Rights South to see how they dealt with people voting "the wrong way". They instituted poll taxes and literacy tests. Those have been outlawed in the US, so maybe you, MJ, can get the "wrong people" (i.e. THE JEWS) disenfranchised (for the good of America, of course) by passing a law saying the circumcized people can't vote...oops, that will disenfranchise Muslims and many other non-Jews in the US.
November 24, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a wonderful smorgasbord today: MJ is a "self-hating" Jew; Palestinians are really just Syrians, and Likud is insufficiently Zionist.
Tin-foil time!!!!
November 24, 2008 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mythbuster-
True, the things I pointed out go against MJ's "progressive" dogmas, but can you show me anything I said that is incorrect? MJ puts way to much weight on what politicians say, but what is important is not what they say, but what they do.
November 25, 2008 12:45 AM | Reply | Permalink