Cruel but Necessary: Israeli Opinions about the Settlements and Obama
Antony Loewenstein and Joseph Dana write:
With all the current rhetoric out of Washington regarding an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, we wanted to gauge public opinion on the streets of Jerusalem on a sunny, Sunday afternoon last weekend. What we found was shocking but unsurprising. The ease with which most Americans and Israelis, young and old, spouted racist and uncompromising comments about Arabs, settlements and Israeli conduct was a raw manifestation of the barriers to the peace process.
We chose the most central and trafficked area of West Jerusalem to conduct random interviews with passers-by on the street. Most people were willing to express their views, unafraid to display Zionist chauvinism in its most blatant form. Palestinians aren't real human beings in this world. Engagement with Arabs is treasonous. Barack Obama should butt out of Israeli affairs. Illegal, West Bank settlements are necessary to secure the Jewish state.
The aim of this video isn't to mindlessly demonise Israel but to reveal the side of a country, and its frequent visitors, that is too rarely discussed in the West. It's a place that is all-too-often, conveniently ignored in the Jewish Diaspora. These bigoted attitudes are only growing in Israel, as American Jews increasingly support Obama to pressure Israel to change its self-destructive course.
The American-Israeli relationship is in serious need of re-assessment.
**
Read Mondoweiss here.
Negative statements about Arabs are not necessarily racist, just as negative comments about Israel are not necessarily anti-Semitic. It depends on the content of the statement.
The world is not all black and white. How about some nuance, which might help bring people together instead of driving wedges between them?
July 23, 2009 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whoa, great line!!
Negative comments about the Arab *RACE* are not necessarily racist
"just as"
negative comments about the Israeli *COUNTRY* are not necessarily racist.
"Just as!" Bet you'd like got get that one back! Whew!
See, the truth is always trying to come out of our mouthes, and when we prevaricate, it takes a heavy, sustained and uninterrupted effort to maintain our deceit. We give ourselves away sooner or later usually, because it's too hard to maintain the subterfuge indefinitely. Your logical meaning, of course, is that if it's okay to criticize Israel's actions as a country (or its current government), then it's okay to criticize Arabs for their *race.* The Regressive Id!
*Great* line! "Just as". Yessiree! Don't ever change, dude! LOL!
July 23, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I didn't say "The Arab Race", nitwit.
July 23, 2009 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right, just "Arabs" if you consider that a correction. (You'd like to get that one back, though, wouldn't you?)
No name-calling,
O.T.
July 23, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why shouldn't we read "Arabs" to denote "Arab COUNTRIES"? You know, "just as" in the multi-national League of Arab States. Now TPC is on equal footing between the Arab League and the Jewish state. [Just trying to find "some nuance, which might help bring people together instead of driving wedges between them."]
July 24, 2009 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
OT is a bit harsh, but Israel and Arabs are not parallel. Negative comments about Arabs are more likely to be in the racist direction. Which Arabs? Where? With Israel, you can more easily argue that it isn't about Jews but about the actions of a specific nation.
July 23, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
A perspective that appears to be a rhetorical circumstance largely driven by an unfortunate narrow-mindedness in which Jewish identity begins and ends with its religious component. Arab identity includes a legitimate national component that Jews are frequently denied. Few would question the legitimacy of any of the 22 member nations of the Arab League, while it remains somehow dubious for ("religious") Jews to assert their national self-determination.
July 24, 2009 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
' Palestinians aren't real human beings in this world.'
Tragically, the classic initial step to dehumanize an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group prior to engineering its deliberate destruction - as in Germany, Poland, Rwanda, Darfur and the Balkans.
Makes me ashamed.
The seven stages identified in the Rwandan genocide were:
i) definition of the target group on the basis of some criteria;
(ii) registration of the victims;
(iii) designation or outward identification of the victims;
(iv) restriction and confiscation of goods;
(v) exclusion from professions, working activities and means of transportation, among other things; (vi) systematic isolation;
(vii) mass extermination.
Let us hope that America will finally act to stop this illegal occupation and assault on the freedom of the individual on the specious grounds of ethnicity. It has continued now for long enough and the UNSC needs to act before the situation deteriorates further.
July 23, 2009 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
A U.S. delegation is packing up to head over there now to give them the good word. Problem is that Bibi's gonna tell that delegation, Overreach THIS!" And then what do we do? I hope our guys have a detailed plan several steps ahead, because Bibi and all his rapscallion cohorts damn sure do.
July 23, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
GDRiver: You're a fake and you know it. If you were really focused on the risk of genocide, there are many countries you could point to and inveigh against, including Arab countries that are engaged in genocide as we speak.
It's obvious that you point to Israel because you hate Israel, for reasons that I will not speculate. You should get a conscience.
July 23, 2009 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am Jewish, that is the reason for my natural concern at the brutality of the Likud government. Not being Arab, I do not have the same knowledge or empathetic interest in their countries or governments. That is not to say that I would not, or do not, speak out against genocide in whichever area of the world.
Gratuitous killing is evil, pure and simple. The killing of unarmed civilians, women and children, is an atrocity and a war crime. Those responsible must be brought before an international criminal court to answer charges. Those who collude or are complicit in such killings, are equally guilty.
July 23, 2009 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The killing of unarmed civilians, women and children in Afghanistan is an atrocity and a war crime. Those responsible including Obama must be brought before an international criminal court to answer charges. Those who collude or are complicit in such killings such as GD river are equally guilty.
July 23, 2009 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. The Anna A's and the Armchairs were simply born to their political views. If they were born Serb, they would hate Croats. If they were born Turkish, they would hate Greeks.
They do not have a political view but nothing more serious than loyalty to their tribe.
There is no point arguing with them. If either was born Palestinian, they would simply hate Jews.
Thank God most Jews are beyond that, as are most westerners. The 19th century is over.
But I like reading these guys because the rest of us do need to try to comprehend the mentality of the primitive.
July 23, 2009 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Leave me out of this!
July 24, 2009 12:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, MJ, that was totally uncalled for.
Armchair Guerrilla and I have disagreed on numerous occasions, but he does not spew hate.
You really are an agent provocateur, aren't you?
July 24, 2009 3:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you.
Actually, I didn't think he was talking about me specifically, but looking back, he probably was since the "A" in armchair is capitalized. Given MJ's scattershot approach to dissing, however, one can never be too sure.
Funny thing is, my politics on this issue are around the same place as MJ professes to be - or at least the same place as the organization that employs him. Where I frequently take offense is what I consider the reflexive and constant casting of blame on Israel that, IMHO, is intended to show that Israel is, for lack of a better word, a bad place, and that often reflect an agenda that is not simply critical of Israeli policies, but aimed at delegitimizing its very existence.
July 24, 2009 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are a racist, Mr. M.J. Rosenberg, You don't care that innocent Afghani and Pakistani children are brutally murdered every day by the Obama government. You do not have a political view but nothing more serious than loyalty to your tribe.
July 24, 2009 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama Boosts U.S. Image Throughout World, Except In Israel - Pew
Good
July 23, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some of those ex-New Yorkers were particularly disgusting.
July 23, 2009 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm probably repeating myself, but what-the-hell. Hitler killed 6 million Jews because when he was getting his political start in the '30's the European intelligensia and the very rich ridiculed him - "A little, no-nothing paper hanger..." - so, since many of the intelligensia and very rich were Jews, all Jews were his enemies and therefore had to be exterminated.
If that makes sense to you, you probably agree with the man-on-the-West-Jerusalem-street.
July 23, 2009 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hadn't heard about that first part.
Fidel Castro live in NYC, rented some furniture, when the furniture renters wanted their money and he didn't pay, they re-po'd it, and he hated USA for the rest of his life, seemingly over that. This sounds nutty, but in Castro's case it's the truth.
July 23, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Nutty" it may be, and is, but read Barbara Tuchman's "March of Folly" and learn that "nutty" reasons for what turn out to be so many of history's catastrophic events are more common than not.
July 23, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very interesting. I'd heard of the book but didn't know what it was about.
July 23, 2009 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very interesting. I'd heard of the book but didn't know what it was about. Thanks for that.
July 23, 2009 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Source on the Castro thing?
July 23, 2009 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's just way too weird, amigo:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/castro/filmmore/pt.html
July 24, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, way. Thanks!
July 24, 2009 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
And of course, when Hitler explained to all the Germans involved with the Holocaust exactly how he was treated by the Jewish intelligentsia, they were all sympathetic and said, "Adolf, baby, what can we do, how can we help?" and Hitler said, "I've got a final solution for those bastards, and I want you all to help me."
I'm sure that's just how it was. And that is why Israel should get to do whatever they want to the Palestinians. Anybody can see that, if they're not too anti-Semitic.
July 23, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
July 23, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does your quote by the Hamas group make the other comments acceptable?
July 23, 2009 10:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
It put other comments in perspective
July 24, 2009 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink