I feel sorry for peaceful Jews everywhere, who will be associated with this.

I also think that Israel has been trending in this direction for some time, and many left leaning Jews chose to avoid conflict with the radicals among them out of tribal loyalty, instead of loyalty to peace and humanity.

Now it looks like the radicals would win any intra-Jewish conflict in a landslide, if only in Israel.

Is Israel lost?

MJ has this exasperating habit of taking a solid, well-grounded premise and then twisting it until it is completely unrecognizable to those of us who prefer to see the world as it is, in all its complexity, rather than fit it into neat pre-defined ideological boxes.

Thus the continued occupation of the West Bank is rightly identified as a long-term strategic problem for Israel. But that gets transformed into a sort of monomania that blames the entire conflict on this one issue, rather than as one element in a complex problem.

Here we see it again. MJ takes this lamentable development - that the religious nationalists are playing more of a role in the management of the IDF - and suddenly it's the death of the old, good, liberal Israel.

Needless to say, it's far more complex than that.

In the first place, the groups that MJ cites as opposed to the old values are not only frequently at war with each other (I'm looking forward to seeing how long a coalition with both Yisrael Beteinu and Shas will last) but it is simply ridiculous to make such broad generalizations about where they stand on the issues, especially the crucial issue of managing the conflict. MJ seems to think that everyone in the "old" Israel was a Peace Now sympathizer and all the new immigrants and groups with new power are rightwing freaks.

Get it through your head: the Peace Now faction in Israel never represented more than a small fraction of the population, even at the height of the Oslo process, and it is shrinking even from that base, done in by the hopelessness of preaching concessions in the face of relentless Arab rockets. Furthermore, the fanatic settler supporters known as religious nationalists only represent a small fraction of the population as well. The vast majority of the population, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Haredi remains in what I will call the "persuadable middle". That is, they want peace and co-existence with the Palestinians, but need some evidence that it is possible. They rightly blame the Arabs for the death of peace prospects but they are not ideologically opposed to Israeli concessions if it actually leads to peace.

But the biggest crock is MJ's notion that the settlements in the West Bank and the growth of what he would call Israeli intransigence are a direct result of Begin's election in 1977. Of course he knows that West Bank settlements began years earlier, inconveniently under that noted peace-loving Jewish saint, Yitzhak Rabin. Even more inconvenient is the fact that the high-water mark of land-for-peace was not Oslo but Camp David, made possible by the villainous Menachem Begin.

In short, the caricature MJ paints, of the good, liberal, secular Labor-and-Meretz-voting Israel versus the fanatic, religious, settlement-promoting Israel would be unrecognizable to real, honest analysts of Israel or indeed to Israelis themselves. Twenty years ago, you might have been able to make that case, although even then, it would have been a stretch. But to describe Israel that way today is to promote a sort of demography-is-destiny view of the world that does nothing to promote understanding. You simply have to acknowledge the complexity of the situation to have any hope of making it better.

It would be comforting for Jews in the Diaspora to believe that there is hope in and for Israel. But Israel is on a downward path to the self-destruction of the amazing dream of Theodor Herzl whose vision was for a Jewish state free from European anti_semitism and the pogroms of the nineteenth century where Jews could live in concert with the existing indigenous Arab populations. But in the last two decades that vision has been shattered by power-hungry, self-serving, corrupt politicians who have dehumanised the neighbouring peoples. Now we have the terrifying news that the Rabbinate has encouraged the wanton killings in Gaza of women and children and the civilian population in general - as if they were insects to be destroyed. That is what happened in Rwanda. There is an imperative for the world to ensure that this unbridled racism is stopped and stopped now. Those responsible for war crimes must be brought before the international court that was established to hear such charges of crimes against humanity. To do nothing now and to continue to support these extreme right wing elements in Israel is to collude with war crime.

Colindale, they started out dehumanising the indigenous people:

http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2009/01/a-land-without-a-people.html

This kind of thing always depresses me and reminds me of all the abused children who grow up to be abusers themselves. Can we never break these chains of harm and damage?

RE: "And Avigdor Lieberman is just offstage, waiting for his close-up."

MY CONTRIBUTION: "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." - Norma Desmond

Abu-Brad:

But ideological attachment to the settlements has always been a minority position. As I said before, most Israelis are able to be practical and are persuadable in one direction or the other. When there seems to be some hope that concessions will make a difference, as was the case in 1992, then Israelis are able to contemplate concessions. When the situation is as hopeless as it is now, attitudes harden. It's not that hard to figure out.

Ideological or not, the expansion of settlement was and is relentless, and it creates among Palestinian the exact situation "when the situation is hopeless, the attitudes harden". And why is that expansion so relentless when it is not "ideological"? I mean, the settlements expand faster under moderate governments than under right wing ones for some strange reason.

And why do Israeli feel that "the situation is hopeless"? Because they won two recent wars, but with "no points for style"? Why so little actual danger and so much of paranoia? Look at India day after terrible Mumbai attacks: the life goes on. Some shit is happening there every day, Naxalites, frontier tribes, Kashmir insurgency, and from time to time, some major shit, but India does not make such a big deal out of it. Even if terrorist seem to have a relatively safe heaven in a neighboring state with nukes.

Olmert never refrained from blockading Gaza and periodic assasinations, and now there is despondency that "concessions will never work". Because if Palestinians were equipped with "Western Logic" (according to Jerusalem Post), they would accept assassinations, checkpoints and blockade as inevitable acts of life and just try to be merry. Alas, they represent inscrutable mind of the East.

And, by the way, who was the clever guy who gave free reign to those lunatic military rabbis? Barak? Who managed to close one illegal outpost among 100-200?

The attutude toward settlements among Israeli Jews seems like that: for 20%, enthusiastic, for 75%, utterly unimportant, and for 5%, abhorent. Why unimportant? I do not have any nice explanations for that.

(although there should be no moral equivalence of settlement with suicide terror attacks and indiscriminate - also relentless - rocket fire)

Why? How much shit Israel should commit to achieve the ever-desired moral equivalence? For one thing, suicide bombing in Israel are thing of the past, while settlers and IDF keep doing something new. The last little dirty war was basically high-tech hunting expedition --- Gaza seems to have a status of a game reserve. So we got some lectures how IDF makes "utmost efforts" to avoid civilian casualties (something like shooting deer of proper age and sex during buck season; the opening salvo was a massacre of police cadets duly determined to be hostile combatants as they had graduation ceremony, still, sex, age, and even uniform was correct). American Reform Rabbis were talking about "unprecedented measures". Never in the history of wars white phosphorus was used to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties, you see.

All of that because of "relentless rockets" which are just cut above stone throwing, and which were provoked to boot. Six Hamasniks were killed out of season, but it does not count as a violation of ceasefire.

But Israel has unquestioned moral superiority. Why, they did not use nukes, although they could!!

In some places settlements are mere land grab (or water grab). But in many they are so much more. They are daily spectator sports. Hundreds little or not so little ways of humiliating Palestinians. Several thousands armed civilians engages in that sport, supervised by the military, so most of the young people can join the fun. Fun punctuated by moments of "hopelessness" that "concessions will make no difference".

Righteous sadism is deeply addictive. We know a recent American edition. We are somewhat less aware of our traditional American edition like surprising tolerance of rape in prisons in a society otherwise obsessed with sexual crimes. Once a group gets the tag "bad people" then doing bad things to them does not have negative moral value. While doing something good to them either borders with criminal, or is outright criminal.

Defenders of Israel (and "no moral equivalence") never replied to my challenges concerning the conduct of IDF in recent wars compared with the conduct of Russia in Georgia. What would we say if Russia, just before withdrawing from Georgia, blanketed part of the territory with cluster bombs? Or if they completely destroyed Georgian airports and ports (and pipelines!), rather than just demolishing some actual military installations? Mind you, Georgians even got supplies and troops via their main airport in Tbilisi, so by Israeli reasoning, it should be demolished -- but it was not. Why the fate of Beirut and Tbilisi was so different?

Russia viewed their reason to attack as just, like Israel did. Their military is much less "high tech", but they clearly could dismantle all air defenses of Georgia if they were so inclined. Destroying essentially civilian targets with a lot of expenditures was pointless in both cases. The key difference was that Russians, even if mean, authoritarian etc. do not regard Georgians as a lesser breed.

I guess that I can read some explanations that Russians are in actuality much (or slightly?) inferior to Georgians, while Israeli Jews are much superior to Arabs who are backward, homophobic, lack Western logic, lack regard for life, anti-feminist, breed to fast, sympatize with Hitler and what not. And it is not the case that all of that is groundless. But once you internalize all of that as a justification that no shit done to people so vile is morally bad, you are in a trap. Basically, you are incapable of making rational policy choices. This is a bit complicated idea, and the post is already long.

PIOTR - out of the literally thousands of words I have read over recent years regarding the fast deteriorating position in Israel, in actuality, and in the eyes of the world - the evocative points you have posted are extraordinarily perceptive - in an otherwise sea of invective and plain Hasbara propaganda. They are worth repeating.

"The last little dirty war was basically high-tech hunting expedition --- Gaza seems to have a status of a game reserve. So we got some lectures how IDF makes "utmost efforts" to avoid civilian casualties (something like shooting deer of proper age and sex during buck season; the opening salvo was a massacre of police cadets duly determined to be hostile combatants as they had graduation ceremony, still, sex, age, and even uniform was correct). American Reform Rabbis were talking about "unprecedented measures". Never in the history of wars white phosphorus was used to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties, you see."

"In some places settlements are mere land grab (or water grab). But in many they are so much more. They are daily spectator sports. Hundreds little or not so little ways of humiliating Palestinians. Several thousands armed civilians engages in that sport, supervised by the military, so most of the young people can join the fun. Fun punctuated by moments of "hopelessness" that "concessions will make no difference".

"Righteous sadism is deeply addictive. We know a recent American edition. We are somewhat less aware of our traditional American edition like surprising tolerance of rape in prisons in a society otherwise obsessed with sexual crimes. Once a group gets the tag "bad people" then doing bad things to them does not have negative moral value. While doing something good to them either borders with criminal, or is outright criminal."

"Israeli Jews are much superior to Arabs who are backward, homophobic, lack Western logic, lack regard for life, anti-feminist, breed to fast, sympatize with Hitler and what not. And it is not the case that all of that is groundless. But once you internalize all of that as a justification that no shit done to people so vile is morally bad, you are in a trap. Basically, you are incapable of making rational policy choices."

If it were possible, I would print the above and send it to every senator, every congressman and every politician around the world who thinks it is still a good, sound, moral, effective, practical strategy to destabilize the world to satisfy the aims of a tiny minority of religious and political zealots who live in a 20,000 sq m enclave on the eastern Mediterranean. To stand 'outside the box' and observe how all our everyday lives are circumscribed and influenced directly or indirectly by the Sharons, Olmerts and Netanyahus of this tiny enclave, is to stand in utter amazement at such a surreal situation - virtually the entire globe dependent on the whim of a few dozen local politicians belonging to something called Likud. As I write, I cannot actually believe it.

This is interesting. A pro-Israel writer admits that if you criticize Israel in the media, you risk your career.
You folks writing under fake names are no dummies: me, on the other hand.....

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/justin-elliott-has-a-fabulous-interview-here-with-michelle-goldberg-following-the-92d-street-y-event-the-other-night-goldber.html

"Israeli Jews are much superior to Arabs who are backward, homophobic, lack Western logic, lack regard for life, anti-feminist, breed to fast, sympatize with Hitler and what not."

I'm beginning to wonder if that attitude does not extend from the elite Israelis towards the Jewish Arab Israelis, too.