Red Scare! Weekly Standard Goes After J Street Attendees ++ TIME's Tony Karon Reviews Israel's Terrible Week
All these years working in the pro-peace, pro-Israel camp and we could never dream of scaring the "Israel firsters" the way J Street has. The bad guys were able to just ignore us.
No more. They are terrified.
Here's the evidence.
160 Senate and House members signed up for J Street's host committee and now Michael Goldfarb is contacting each one to urge them to take their names off the host committee. A half dozen or so have agreed.
That is no surprise. Being on a host committee doesn't mean much, if anything. So when a loud neocon from an ideological journal with significant readership calls to complain, the staffer thinks, "uh oh, this may be controversial."
Of course, the host committee list already served its purpose, showing the kind of support J Street has.
I worked on the Hill for 20 years. I used to say that if legislators were asked privately what they think about the Middle East, about 535 would agree with the peace position (ok, subtract the Brooklyn delegation and the Christianist Republicans). But publicly, zero. But suddenly 160 or 150 or, whatever, is willing to go public.
The times are changing and the "my heart belongs to the lobby" activists are going crazy.
Between the disastrous Gaza war, Obama and the loss of the younger generation, the lobby is in its dotage. And J Street is going gangbusters.
Of course, the rightwingers always have McCarthyism. Smearing adversaries with lies and libels will work, but only for a short time and up to a point.
Goldfarb is good at this. But he's got a long way to go to reach the Marty Peretz/Charles Krauthammer level of sputtering rage coupled with lying smears. And I doubt Goldfarb will stick with his position for long. He's young and smart. Going with the status quo McCarthiytes will consign him to pariah status with his generation.
In the meantime, J Street is on a roll. And that is why the lovers of the Gaza war and bombing Iran crowd are crying. They are losing big time.
All that is left is the fury. And then, like the wicked witch, they will melt into a raging puddle of wax.
I wish I had time to write a book. I'd call it, "Finito. The End Of The Status Quo Lobby."
Here's Tony Karon on last week in Israel, a Lkud engineered disaster.
MJ Rosenberg is a senior fellow at the Media Matters Action Network.
Pro-Israel? Pro-peace? A self-serving and misleading label if ever I heard one.
In the few years I've been following the blog (masochism, I know), I can't recall a single pro Israel sentiment expressed by MJ, except perhaps some nostalgic paean to the halcyon days of the founders. If so, please direct me to it.
Instead, what I've seen is a torrent of attacks going far beyond criticism of particular Israeli policies - which are of course fair game - but to the legitimacy of the society itself. Repeatedly, MJ's positions conform identically to the most strident foes of Israel, depicting the country as deeply inhumane, an apartheid state that is founded on injustice that rules by brutal force and deliberately slaughters defenseless civilians to maintain its control. Taking MJ's opinions to their logical conclusion, we should all be working not just to change particular Israeli policies; we should re-think our support for such an immoral, inhumane society. After all, who would have argued that South Africa in the 1980s only needed to change its apartheid laws. It was the nature of the entire country that needed to be done away with altogether. At least MJ's cohorts like Weiss and Horowitz are honest about their opposition to Israel itself.
A true pro-Israel, pro-peace position recognizes that there are two sides to this conflict, that neither has a monopoly on truth or power, that both have some claim of right, that Israel's actions - even those we disagree with - are not taking place in a vacuum but in the context of a 60-year war for its legitimacy. Not only is the relentless and exclusive focus on Israeli sins decidedly not pro-Israel, it is also, by granting credence to the claims of Israel's most implacable foes, not pro peace.
October 17, 2009 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
He's pro-Israel, Armchair. He thinks the policies he's advocating will make Israel more secure. MJ thinks the policies Likud is advocating will make Israel less secure.
October 17, 2009 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please don't hide behind a word "Likud" He doesn't like Barak or Livni.
J street and MJ think that policy supported by 95% of Jews in US and Israel will make Israel less secure. They are as much pro-Israel as Julius Rosenberg was Pro-American. Julius Rosenberg also thought that what he was doing would make US more secure.
October 17, 2009 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget the Kahanist FM, Avigdor Lieberman.
October 17, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
What is your source for 95% pro-Likud (why is naming a party "hiding") foreign policy support?
October 17, 2009 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
In Israel, parties that supports J Street/MJ/Hamas talking points get around 5% of votes in Israeli elections.
October 17, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm talking about in the US.
October 17, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Still waiting for a source.
October 18, 2009 8:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
95% of Jews is in the US support Israeli policy MY ASS. You should hang your head in shame for feeling the need to fabricate comically inane stats in order to defend indefensible Israeli policy. To what end? It's not like you'll be able to fool anyone here that's even remotely familiar with the facts. It just makes you look like a self righteous shill.
When the truth is so horrific you have to lie so blatantly to make your point, it's high time you try a moment of self reflection to see how sorry a spectacle you've become.
October 18, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a load of mostly rational-sounding utter double-speak nonsense, Armchair.
"A true pro-Israel, pro-peace position recognizes that there are two sides to this conflict, that neither has a monopoly on truth or power, that both have some claim of right" is reasonable enough, but when was the last time a Schumer got up and said something like that? When Howard Dean tried to do it, the West Bank jackal-pack foamed all over him.
What percentage of the US Congress has a "relentless and exclusive focus on Israeli sins" and what percentage has effectively the 180 degree opposite? THAT is the problem. Not that there shouldn't be a balance in America's Mideast policies, but that our government has been pressed into the disgustingly anti-American view that "balance" means siding with the lunatic and terroristic fringes of Israeli society. One of many pieces of smoking gun evidence of that is the recent tremendous agitation by AIPAC and its tools of against the slightest criticism in America of the maniac West Bank settlers and their endless mayhem and land-grabbing. And all this idiocy has happened courtesy of the unscrupulous repetition of the filthy lie that such extremism serves the interests and desires of Israelis and more importantly, of Jewish voters in the U.S. This outrage is not going to be condoned any more by Americans who care about their nation. Go hang your head in shame for arguing endlessly here for foreign settlers instead for your own country.
October 17, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Go hang your head in shame for arguing endlessly here for Hamas instead for your own country.
October 17, 2009 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I argue here for my country - America. The entire Middle East is not worth a single dollar or a single drop of American blood.
October 17, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Grouch is a voice crying out in the wilderness.
October 17, 2009 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 17, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The West Bank land grabbers can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.
October 17, 2009 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have never argued for Hamas, that is a total lie and you know it. Stop lying or get out of here and go to the West Bank where you belong and where you would be if you were not such a coward.
October 17, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
AnnaA is a chronic liar - and racist warmonger to boot.
October 17, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 17, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Disagreeing with Likud foreign policy is pro_Hamas?
October 17, 2009 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreeing with Hamas is is pro_Hamas.
October 17, 2009 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Was disagreeing with Bush anti- American, in your opinion?
October 17, 2009 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
It depends.
Is agreeing with Al-Qaeda anti- American? Yes
Was agreeing with Nazi Germany anti- American? Yes
Was agreeing with USSR anti- American? Yes
Is agreeing with Hamas anti- American? Yes.
October 17, 2009 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't ask you any of that? I asked you if disagreeing with Bush was anti-American?
October 18, 2009 12:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
It depends. If you disagree with Bush and agree with Al-Qaeda, it's anti-American.
October 18, 2009 1:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
... but disagreeing with Bush's foreign policy decision to invade Iraq is not anti-American if you are doing it because you think that invasion was counter-productive to US interests (regardless of what any other country or group thinks). Now substitute Israel for Bush and I'm claiming that it is very possible to be pro-Israeli and oppose Netanyahu's foreign policy if you believe it is counter-productive to Israeli interests (regardless of what any other country or group thinks).
October 18, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Armchair.
What Israeli actions do you disagree with?
October 17, 2009 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh my god, I'm so upset. I just managed to accidentally lose a lengthy comment here. I'll try my best to re-post it in five minutes.
I think it should be obvious. Here goes.
I believe the entire settlement enterprise has been a gigantic mistake from the beginning. I certainly disagree with the Israeli government's refusal to halt settlement expansion now - and going all the way back to Oslo. I am disgusted by the brutality of the extremist settlers and profoundly disappointed by the Israeli government's refusal to rein them in and punish those responsible for incitement.
I believe Israel also deserves considerable blame for stifling, rather than encouraging, economic development and cooperation in the territories. On a tactical level, Sharon's refusal to coordinate the disengagement from Gaza with the PA was an enormous missed opportunity.
Obviously, I would like to see a real withdrawal from the territories. While Israel has made credible offers, they have often been undermined by its inconsistent actions, i.e., continuing to expand settlements. I believe settlements remain an enormous obstacle to peace, not the main obstacle, mind you, since Israel has on several occasions offered to withdraw from most, but considerable.
I believe the Gaza war, while "justified" at its inception as a means of deterrence/self-defense, was excessive and unnecessarily brutal. Seems to me the results were achieved in the first few days and the continued carnage is unjustifiable. I suppose I felt the same way about the second Lebanon war. I don't believe either of these situations can fairly be characterized as a massacre or that Israel's aim was to kill defenseless civilians, and I still ascribe most of the blame to Hamas and Hezbollah. Still, the ferocity of Israel's response resulted in unnecessary and tragic bloodshed.
I could go on - including Israel's treatment of its own Arab minority - but I hope you catch my drift. The difference is that I don't think any of these are easy calls; they have unfolded in the course of a 60-year war that, while it may seem strange for Americans to relate to, really is about Israel's survival in a region that has never accepted its legitimacy. I don't believe the demonization of one side or other is either fair or conductive to promoting peace and reconciliation.
October 17, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 17, 2009 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you an agent for Hamas? How do YOU know why they stopped their rocket attacks?
I would be inclined to speculate that the slaughter of hundreds of Palestinian children probably did indeed help persuade Hamas to curtail rocket attacks, after all disproportionality has worked effectively for others in the past (for example the killing of hundreds and arresting of thousands of Jews in Kristallnacht in response for the killing of one Nazi probably worked to intimidate Jews in Hitler's Germany) but it is speculation and not very credible to assert this as the sole cause of for a decline in attacks. Jews were already on the run from Germany well before 1938. Likewise, Hamas may very likely have curtailed its rockets anyway once Obama took office. Having waited for several months already, Israel could have waited a few more weeks until after the US inauguration. But that, of course, did not suit the domestic political strategy of Barak, Olmert, and Livni prior to the Israeli elections.
October 17, 2009 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 17, 2009 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 17, 2009 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 17, 2009 11:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your incessant childish lies are tiresome and disruptive, and it is past time for you to leave this website.
October 18, 2009 4:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your incessant Jew hating lies are tiresome and disruptive, and it is past time for you to leave this website.
October 18, 2009 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
YOU are lying about my hating Jews. I am not lying. Invert that, you pitiful permanent child.
October 18, 2009 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
All the potential alternatives would depend on soft techniques and the high cost of trust building, something you would never accept because the outcome leads to ambiguous results.
Instead you demand the fiction of certainty that is created by bombs and bullets. In the modern times of asymmetric warfare, even that is not certain, but you cling to that false certainty because you see nothing else.
The result is that Jerusalem and the surrounding area is a cancer on human society. It is not worth the killing and the dying. It sickens much of human society. If this is the result of the God of the desert religions, then there is every reason to believe that God is a horrible lie.
The killing has to stop, and you cannot stop killing by killing more and greater numbers of people. Just as is true for the American military in Afghanistan, the Israeli forces and government are creating more and more enemies who have to be killed because they have so often indiscriminately killed anyone in their gunsights. That it has been done in either fear or frustration because nothing else that is tried seems to work does not change the utter futility of the indiscriminate or even somewhat limited killing. When a child has a temper tantrum, he doesn't learn it is wrong because his parents have a temper tantrum back.
The ability to kill a lot of people at great distance is a severe weakness in the nature of the strongest and most deadly military forces. The deadly power they project on unknown targets is controlled by frightened humans who are ready to kill rather than to trust someone they don't know. Any method that effectively stops the mutual killing will have to start from the side of the most powerful force. The weaker side does not have sufficient control in the outcome to gamble on trusting the stronger side.
Peace will come when the two sides can somehow trust each other, and that will almost certainly require an outside honest broker trusted by both sides to reign in the other when their hardliners get out of line. Peace is NOT going to result from the IDF going into Gaza and killing every man, woman, child, dog, cat, goat or cockroach that moves in an area within 200 meters of a site suspected of being where a missile was once launched from. [There may be some small degree of hyperbole included in that statement for effect.]
The purpose of those actions by the IDF were mostly 'Pour encourager les autres' and it will - many of them will be encouraged to redouble the attacks on Israelis. The actions were carried out by soldiers who were afraid of dying and so they were ready to shoot first before knowing what they were shooting at. I recall a similar incident from the Watts riots. A National Guard Captain (recently back from Vietnam) told me how they drove through Watts afraid of snipers, so when they saw a movement in a window that overlooked them they performed what he called "Recon by Fire." They used a jeep-mounted .50 cal. machine gun to shoot the frame of the suspect window out of the wall, probably killing whoever was behind it. It's called winning the hearts and minds. That is how the military operates in an urban environment. It's also how any military loses an asymmetric war.
October 17, 2009 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 17, 2009 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
'The actions were carried out by soldiers who were afraid of dying and so they were ready to shoot first before knowing what they were shooting at.'
Finally, a post by somebody who understands the actions of the IDF soldiers and their commanders.
It highlights the paucity of comprehension amongst the 'armchair generals' here, whose 'experience' derives primarily from Zionist literature picked up at the local PTA and whose only uniform they have worn is at the Masonic Lodge.
Contrary to popular publicity, the IDF is not an well-trained or efficient fighting force. They are good at killing their opponents with 80mm tank shells and F16 delivered bombs from 2000m but then how good do you have to be when your enemy has but a stones? They grandly term this 'asymmetrical warfare' to indicate that it has a proper label and is a real deal, but in effect it's vicious bullying and death to man, woman or child - makes no difference because it's 'asymmetrical warfare'.
October 17, 2009 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 18, 2009 1:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know that I "must" make such a claim, or even that I should; either way, I can't and neither can you say otherwise with any certitude. Neither of us is really in a position to know, are we?
I do agree that the near total cessation of rocket attacks should be taken into account in judging the success of the operation.
There are other measures, however. Whether the enormous loss of life and property was an acceptable level, the significance of the blow to Israel's international standing (even recognizing that most of those shouting at Israel over this were probably inclined to do so no matter the result), and whether the same outcome could have been achieved at lesser cost. After all, there was relative calm on the border during the co-called "truce." From where I sit (Brooklyn), it seems the gains of the operation were mostly secured in the first few days of bombing while much of what many of us find distressing occurred afterward. Perhaps there was a military necessity for the continued operation - time will tell.
Israel's aggressive campaign appears to have re-established its "deterrence." That's been the pattern these past 60 years. It hasn't brought us any closer to a long-term solution and is not likely to now.
October 18, 2009 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree.
October 17, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
This "hater" appreciates your reply, Armchair. ;~{)
You have also expressed opposition to any strikes on Iran, correct?
I believe the Gaza war, while "justified" at its inception as a means of deterrence/self-defense, was excessive and unnecessarily brutal. Seems to me the results were achieved in the first few days and the continued carnage is unjustifiable. I suppose I felt the same way about the second Lebanon war. I don't believe either of these situations can fairly be characterized as a massacre or that Israel's aim was to kill defenseless civilians, and I still ascribe most of the blame to Hamas and Hezbollah. Still, the ferocity of Israel's response resulted in unnecessary and tragic bloodshed.
Interesting that your position re halting the Gaza assault after the first few days echoes that of Ehud Barak. Why he took that position is curious and lends support to the notion that those with the most direct experience of war are the most reluctant to pursue it. (Unless they come from the air force(s)) That was certainly true of Sharon in his later years as the mutual cross-border kidnappings and strikes (rockets from Hezbollah, IAF bombing runs) were an acceptable state of affairs from his POV.
The problem with the Israeli claim of Gaza rockets as THE casus belli is that, as with "Operation Just Reward", the assault was planned well in advance and proceeded despite the success of the hudna. In the later Lebanon case, Sharon was out of action and it was the hapless fool Olmert who was convinced by whomever that it would be a cakewalk.(Never forget that elements within the bushie administration also encouraged Israeli action and pushed for a war on Syria at the same time> The IAF did kill scores of agricultural workers in Syria, but Assad didn't take the bait)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121529.html
The outmoded pre-emptive "deterrence" military strategy of Israel is at the core of the continued hostility toward her, especially in the region. No one but those willing and/or eager to fear monsters under the bed believes that crap is valid at this point.
October 17, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
A very reasonable post - but wrong, Armchair.
First, Israel's opponents, whether Arab or American, are not reasonable (for the most part) and have never been. They want Israel destroyed. You know that. You can see it in most of the posts on this site. MJ himself may or may not support that position but he's blind to the real position of his supporters.
Second, I find Benny Morris' position to be the most reasonable. Given Arab intransigence the best policy would have been wholesale population transfer at an earlier stage (I don't know whether that was ever possible). That is still the right policy but it is immensely more difficult now.
Third, it is extremely unlikely that this conflict will have a happy ending - for anyone. Nuclear weapons are extremely unforgiving and Israel will certainly use them if forced into a corner with its very existence at stake (Golda Meir came close at the beginning of the '73 war).
Fourth, MJ seems to be right about one thing - younger American Jews do not identify as strongly with Israel as the previous generation. There's an article in today's Jerusalem Post about it. The author attributes it to America's culture of individualism, to the demise of tribal thinking. I am far less sanguine about that demise. I think it a complete illusion; American Jews will pay a terrible price for that and Israel's position will become increasingly difficult.
October 17, 2009 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Nuclear weapons are extremely unforgiving and Israel will certainly use them if forced into a corner with its very existence at stake (Golda Meir came close at the beginning of the '73 war)."
I highly doubt this assertion about Golda Meir almost using nukes, but would be interested to see any actual HISTORICAL evidence (not fictional Broadway plays) that might support it. Israel was of course nowhere near having its "existence at stake" in 1973; the Egyptians barely managed to retake a slice of Sinai which was never claimed as a permanent territory by Israel and was given back to Egypt six years later (except for the Gaza strip) as party of the peace deal by which Egypt recognized Israel.
October 18, 2009 5:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I highly doubt this assertion about Golda Meir almost using nukes, but would be interested to see any actual HISTORICAL evidence (not fictional Broadway plays) that might support it.
"On the afternoon of October 7, an alarmed Dayan told Meir that "this is the end of the third temple". He was warning of Israel's impending total defeat, but "Temple" was also the code word for nuclear weapons. Dayan again raised the nuclear topic in a cabinet meeting, warning that the country was approaching a point of "last resort." Meir on 8 October authorized the assembling of 13 20-kiloton atomic bombs. Nuclear-capable Jericho missiles at Hirbat Zachariah and F-4s at Tel Nof were prepared for action against Syrian and Egyptian targets; the preparation was done in an easily detectable way, likely as a signal to the United States. Kissinger learned of the nuclear alert on the morning of October 9. That day, President Nixon ordered the commencement of Operation Nickel Grass, an American airlift to replace all of Israel's material losses. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Kissinger told Sadat that the reason for the U.S. airlift was that the Israelis were close to "going nuclear."
from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Arab-Israeli_war
where the sources for the claims are listed
When you ask for such sources you should be polite instead of letting your self-righteous sarcasm insult those whose knowledge you're asking for. From what I've observed you know very little and are entirely unaware of your shortcomings.
October 18, 2009 7:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the sources, Spider. The particular version of the story you reference (in Wikipedia) came out in 2004 and I must have missed it. It does NOT prove that Meir "came close" to using nuclear weapons in 1973. It does suggest that Israel took steps to mobilize its nuclear capability in the early days of the Yom Kippur (before the tide was turned against Egypt) as a means of encouraging the US to step up its resupplying of Israel with conventional material. The "anecdotal" indication about Kissinger and Sadat comes from Hersh's "Sampson Option." It may or may not be entirely true, but even if it is completely true, it only tells us what Kissinger told Sadat, not how close the Israelis actually were to launching nuclear missiles in early October of '73.
The more significant and better documented use of a nuclear threat in the Yom Kippur war came two weeks later when the U.S. raised its level of overall military "readiness" to "DEFCON 3." As was intended by that action, the Soviets backed off from helping the Egyptians, and Israel won the war, though Sadat later did get the Sinai back (in 1979) in return for a peace treaty and recognition of Israel, which has held since.
On the larger particular issue you raised, I find it very plausible that Israel WOULD launch a first strike with nukes as a very last resort, e.g. if "its very existence" were jeopardized. That was nowhere near the case in 1973. It was not even on the Arab agenda, according the same Wikipedia page you cite:
"Egypt and Syria both desired a return of the land lost in the Six-Day War.
President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt died in September 1970. He was succeeded by Anwar Sadat, who resolved to win back the territory lost in the Six-Day War. In 1971, Sadat…declared that if Israel committed itself to "withdrawal of its armed forces from Sinai and the Gaza Strip" and to implementation of other provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 242 as requested by Jarring, Egypt would then "be ready to enter into a peace agreement with Israel." Israel responded that it would not withdraw to the pre-June 5, 1967 lines.
Sadat hoped that by inflicting even a limited defeat on the Israelis, the status quo could be altered. Hafiz al-Assad, the head of Syria, had a different view…With the aid of Egypt, Assad felt that his new army could win convincingly against the Israeli army and thus secure Syria's role in the region. Assad only saw negotiations beginning once the Golan Heights had been retaken by force, which would induce Israel to give up the West Bank and Gaza, and make other concessions."
As I suspected, your statements exaggerate by a considerable margin what your sources actually show. If you find that "insulting," you might bother to show a little respect and consistency and try harder to curb irrelevant and inaccurate personal criticisms yourself.
The apparent broader belief of yours, indicated in your comment to Armchair, that all "opponents" of Israel "want Israel destroyed" and always did is both dubious and irrelevant. Sadat did not want to destroy Israel in 1973. Ahmindejad today might LIKE to see Israel vanish, just as Joan Baez might like to see all weapons vanish from the world, but these are not scenarios founded in reality, nor are they even remotely probable in the forseeable future. Your view about no happy ending at all being possible in the Mideast goes towards an opposite extreme. Historical facts offer minimal support for either such extreme.
October 18, 2009 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
The sources are
110. A N.Y. Times article of 2003
111. A U.S. military paper of 1999
Both are listed at the bottom of the wikipedia article and can be accessed via link. Obviously, you haven't read them. I suggest you do so. If you still want to discuss the matter, I'll be happy to continue.
October 18, 2009 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your latest comment makes no sense. Did you read mine? Of course I DID read the Wikipedia article you cited, including the parts you did not quote, and looked at the sources listed there. If YOU practice what you preach for a change and look at the 1999 "military paper" you will see that the passage therein about Meir and nukes is based on Hersh.
October 18, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Correction to my comments two posts ago above:
You are right, Spider, the relevant NYT article ("The Last Nuclear Moment" by Avner Cohen) cited by Wikipedia is from 2003, not 2004.
October 18, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here are the quotes which seem most relevant to me
"On the afternoon of 6 October 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in a coordinated surprise attack, beginning the Yom Kippur War. Caught with only regular forces on duty, augmented by reservists with a low readiness level, Israeli front lines crumbled. By early afternoon on 7 October, no effective forces were in the southern Golan Heights and Syrian forces had reached the edge of the plateau, overlooking the Jordan River. This crisis brought Israel to its second nuclear alert.
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, obviously not at his best at a press briefing, was, according to Time magazine, rattled enough to later tell the prime minister that “this is the end of the third temple,” referring to an impending collapse of the state of Israel. “Temple” was also the code word for nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Golda Meir and her “kitchen cabinet” made the decision on the night of 8 October. The Israelis assembled 13 twenty-kiloton atomic bombs. The number and in fact the entire story was later leaked by the Israelis as a great psychological warfare tool. Although most probably plutonium devices, one source reports they were enriched uranium bombs. The Jericho missiles at Hirbat Zachariah and the nuclear strike F-4s at Tel Nof were armed and prepared for action against Syrian and Egyptian targets. They also targeted Damascus with nuclear capable long-range artillery although it is not certain they had nuclear artillery shells."
(Those statements come from Hersh, 1991, and Weissman et al, 1981)
It was in the early hours of Oct. 9 that senior Israeli military leaders brought up the idea of using Israel's doomsday weapons. By that time Israel had lost some 50 combat planes and more than 500 tanks -- 400 on the Egyptian battlefield alone. According to a new book by the Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, when the prime minister's top military aide heard those ideas, he begged the army's deputy chief of staff, tears in his eyes, ''You must save the people of Israel from these madmen.''
Later that morning, at the end of a somber briefing before the war cabinet, Mr. Dayan raised the nuclear option with the prime minister. No detailed record has surfaced as to what exactly Mr. Dayan proposed, but we know he gave an overall assessment that Israel was fast approaching the point of ''last resort.'' And certainly Mr. Dayan wanted the United States to take notice that things had reached such a point. That he meant using nuclear weapons (albeit in coded language, as at the time nobody dared call them by name) was confirmed in an interview last week by Naftali Lavie, who was Mr. Dayan's spokesman during the war."
(Avner Cohen, N.Y.Times article 2003)
At that point Dayan thought that - absent serious resupply from abroad - Israel had lost the war. It turns our he was wrong. However, no one at the time knew it, so the Americans commenced resupply. So did the Soviets
"A similar Soviet pipeline to the Arabs, equally robust, may or may not have included a ship with nuclear weapons on it, detected from nuclear trace emissions and shadowed by the Americans from the Dardanelles. The Israelis believe that the Soviets discovered Israeli nuclear preparations from COSMOS satellite photographs and decided to equalize the odds.67 The Soviet ship arrived in Alexandria on either 18 or 23 October (sources disagree), and remained, without unloading, until November 1973. The ship may have represented a Soviet guarantee to the Arab combatants to neutralize the Israeli nuclear option.68 While some others dismiss the story completely, the best-written review article concludes that the answer is “obscure.” Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev threatened, on 24 October, to airlift Soviet airborne troops to reinforce the Egyptians cut off on the eastern side of the Suez Canal and put seven Soviet airborne divisions on alert. Recent evidence indicates that the Soviets sent nuclear missile submarines also. Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine claimed that the two Soviet SCUD brigades deployed in Egypt each had a nuclear warhead. American satellite photos seemed to confirm this"
In history, it doesn't get any better than this. No one can say what would have happened if the Israeli counter attacks had failed. (No one thought the Arabs could have achieved such initial success). Would they have been able to rally later? Would the Arabs have understood the extent of their victory? Would they have adjusted their initial, cautious plans, to the new reality? Would Israel have really used those weapons if Syrian troops began poring down from the Golan Heights, if Egyptians began crossing the Sinai in force, if Jordan had entered the war in order to gain a share of the spoils?
Documenting the long history of Arab opposition to the existence of the state of Israel is not worth the trouble. It's been done too many times already. If you don't believe it nothing I could say would change your mind.
However, I am very far from overestimating the current threat to Israel. Au contraire, it is you who underestimate it.
Earlier in the thread you insisted that Israel withdraw behind the '67 lines and its wall where you claim its "overwhelming" military superiority give it virtually complete protection. But that superiority exists now...and it existed 5 years ago. It hasn't prevented the Arabs from launching rockets from Lebanon and Gaza, has it? Israel countered by launching wars of retaliation, wars that Israel probably lost. Nor has evacuation of Gaza improved the situation, giving the lie to the belief that evacuation of the West Bank would.
You also completely misrepresent the threat of the right of return, claiming no more than "a few hundred thousand" would ever use it, if it became available.
About a million Arab refugees were created by the 1948 and 1967 wars. Their descendants have swelled that number to more than 4 million today, most of whom live in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan and other nearby Arab countries. Given their dreadful living conditions its quite reasonable to believe that millions rather than hundreds of thousand would try to return to their former properties, as would many other Arabs (not refugees) simply seeking to better their situation at Israeli expense.
Even if that were not so, a few hundred thousand angry Arabs would not be a picnic for 5 million Jewish Israelis.
October 18, 2009 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
The quite hypothetical possibility of Egypt getting nukes from the USSR in 1973 is irrelevant to whether Israel was ever close to actually using them.
No sane person has ever expected Israel to accept millions of Arab refugees as residents; diplomatic discussions and negotiations have always revolved around a much smaller number of "returnees" along with some compensation payment, possibly offset by compensation TO Israel for Jews thrown out of Arab countries.
The one key quote in your long repeated reproduction is this:
"Dayan thought [for a few days in early October of 73] that - absent serious resupply from abroad - Israel had lost the war.
ABSENT serious resupply. But there WAS NO such absence. America heavily resupplied and within weeks the Israeli Army was on the verge on taking Cairo.
After the first war of 1948 by which Israel was created in the first place, it has never come close to being wiped out as a country. The danger of that today is on a scale comparable to that of an asteroid hitting earth and destroying human civilization. It is beyond stupid for any American to think his/her government must be a slave to such silly paranoia. This is not to say that there are no threats whatsoever to Israel, and that America need be completely indifferent to them, but dealing with them does not require throwing common sense, historical honesty, and basic morality onto a scrap heap.
October 18, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Again, you misunderstand and misstate.
The Russian resupply efforts were not hypothetical and not irrelevant. They were highly indicative of the atmosphere of the time. The Russians thought it likely that Israel might use nuclear weapons and countered accordingly.
Israeli counter attacks were successful BEFORE the resupply. Had they failed it's not at all certain resupply would have been sufficient to turn the tide.
When talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict, or almost any really brutal conflict, the opinions of "sane" people don't count for much.
Stalin, the ultimate realist, was convinced that Hitler would never attack the Soviet Union even though his own spies confirmed that the Nazis were massing 3 million troops on his border.
The Israelis will accept as few Arab returnees as possible, the Arabs will send as many as possible. What is possible will be ultimately determined on the battlefield. As should be clear by now, what happens on the battlefield is no sure thing. Ever.
October 18, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
No Arab country has ever remotely approached the military might of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. It is insane or a sign of colossal historical ignorance to think so.
October 18, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's irrelevant...and I've had enough.
October 18, 2009 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are they really terrified, or just ruthless? You have won the first skirmish (of a long conflict) in that they are no longer able to pretend you don't exist or are marginal. The counterattack is now underway, however, and will likely be relentless, long term, and feature interesting tactical twists including the customary assortment of low blows and dirty tricks from this notoriously amoral bunch. Hang in there, please, and stick to your guns. They are acting against America's interests, blatantly, have done so shamelessly for years, and enough is enough.
October 17, 2009 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
J street and MJ are the oart of the Pro-Hamas lobby , they are acting against America's interests, blatantly, have done so shamelessly for years, and enough is enough.
October 17, 2009 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
You have the maturity of a five year old, able to repeat like what others say like a monkey, but not able think for yourself (No wonder the USSR lasted so long). Not unlike your Gaza cry baby friends. But at least they were honest enough to put their bodies where their messed-up minds were.
October 17, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
You do not have the maturity of a five year old.
October 17, 2009 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Five year olds are unhappy unless they have the final word, so go ahead and take it.
October 17, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
AnnaA
You are a classic war-lover. Any war, any time, and genocide of your enemies when possible. After that you will search for new enemies.
You, and your kind on both sides of the problem are the core of the problem. All you want is bullets, bombs, death and scorched earth. That's victory to you. You don't offer solutions to problems. You create them.
October 17, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately for my American Jewish allies, none have a gerrymandered Congressional District, from which to attain both certitude and credibility. Thus, the tireless beahvior for 'co-option' will continue unabated.
Of course, this is my Chicano-pontificated observation. And at the end of the political day, votes have to be counted and adhered to.
And yet, the Chicano Community, is prepared to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our fellow Democrats, but they ain't talking to us. Unfortunately, they are talking among themselves.
Jaango
October 17, 2009 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Among the members who remain on that list there are a few who aren't likely to hang around much longer. Senator Mark Udall is too savvy to be caught up in this mess. Will Senator Mark Pryor really go to the mat for an anti-Israel, pro-Hamas organization? And what about Republican Reps. Charles Boustany, Brian Bilbray, and Howard Coble? Are there large anti-Israel constituencies in those districts of which I was previously unaware?
I doubt those three are even aware their names are on this list, but after watching J Street speaker Josh Healey's rousing performance of "Queer Intifada" in which he declares that "Guantanamo is Auschwitz" and "Anne Frank is Matthew Shepard," I'm pretty confident they will ask to have their names removed.
Healey also wrote a poem about how "We're the ones writing numbers on the wrists of babies born in the ghetto called Gaza." A few weeks ago in his speech to the UN, Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu drew some very obvious parallels between the Iranian regime and Nazi Germany. The anti-Israel left went nuts (see Andrew Sullivan here, Juan Cole here, and Philip Weiss here, for example), but here is a J Street confederate who compares Israel and the United States to Nazi Germany every time he picks up a pen. Even by the left's own standards this kind of thing is beyond the pale. What member of Congress can attach his name to an event where the speakers will accuse the United States of running a concentration camp at Guantanamo?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp
October 17, 2009 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is TPM not the Weekly Standard Dupes Club. Stop dumping your garbage here.
October 17, 2009 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
What do you mean? MJ is discussing this Weekly article. How can you discuss an article without reading it?
October 17, 2009 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe MJ couldn't hold his nose long enough to post the article himself. In this rare case your cut and paste excerpt is actually relevant, but being unwilling or unable to add any explanatory remark of your own to the cut and paste does not help those who have endured your last 500 or so comments realize that this infrequent exception to your normal practice is in fact that.
October 17, 2009 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michael Goldfarb is way behind the times. He needs to dress up as a Jewish pimp and infiltrate J Street.
October 17, 2009 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does this mean that democracy will be returning to the US? It's been 46 years since JFK - a long time` for 308 million Americans to have had their government's foreign and domestic policies heavily influenced by AIPAC and the gun-runners.
If it is happening, then mazeltov - not only from me but from all good people everywhere who pray for peace in our time.
Maybe sometime soon, non-political ordinary Joes, and Jews, can once again stand tall as they take back control. Please God!
October 17, 2009 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are wrong, It's been much longer than 46 years.
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion1.htm
October 17, 2009 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess my only question is "cui bono" from all this obsolete militarism?
Three absolutes come immediately to mnd; warlords, weapons manufacturers, and mortuaries.
Everything else is just window-dressing.
October 17, 2009 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ethnicity, religion and nationality are all way up top on that list of "window-dressing." Nothing more than excuses used by the aforementioned weapons manufacturers.
October 17, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ,
Can adults here agree perhaps on a few basic rules of serious conversation? For example, maximum one pure cut-and-paste from another website or one cut-and-paste of another poster's comment with 180 degree inversions, per commenter per page?
Otherwise, there appears to be a growing risk of Gresham's Law of the Blogosphere occuring, wherein immature comments drown out mature ones.
Thanks for the many excellent reports, by the way, regardless what nonsense occurs in the comments below them.
October 17, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
" cut-and-paste of another poster's comment with 180 degree inversions" is a very good bullshit detection tool.
October 17, 2009 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I heard a rumor yesterday that Frau Anna is the wife of the unctuous, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeperson, Mark Regev (aka Freiberg).
If true, that would, of course, explain the increased intensity of the propaganda message, here, since the adoption of the Goldstone report that has caused Netanyahu to be so very frightened.
October 17, 2009 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
bluecanary
I heard a rumor yesterday that bluecanary is A wife of the unctuous, Hamas' Gaza Strip spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.
October 17, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
You got me, Anna Regev! You're a smart cookie.
October 17, 2009 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
And so the latest blog begins with "I love it". What is it that the blogger loves? It is not the hope that a coalition of real pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian forces come together to push for a just peace. Nay, it is the fight with the screamers on the far right at the Weekly Standard that the man finds it in his heart to love. He craves it, it is what drives the man and his little band of cronies who continue, for whatever reason, to make excuses for him.
And with such fights--between haters like Rosenberg and haters at the Weekly Standard--will come the demise of J Street, for the organization and the goals of its commendable founders will be hijacked by the Limbaughian Weekly Standard folks on the right, and the mirror image haters on the left. MJ Rosenberg doesn't want to build J Street. He wants to use it in the battle of the idiotic that he finds himself so comfortable with. And the rest of us, those who see two sides--who loathe the unfettered subsidized encroachment by Israeli settlers in the West Bank but who are not afraid to defend Israel against the incessant and irrational and unique hatred spewed upon her by the rest of the world and at this Cafe--yes, those of us who see two sides, and who know that recognition of two sides begins the true path to peace, will suffer. And J Street will suffer too, for the screamers like MJ Rosenberg and his kindred souls at the Weekly Standard shall drown out the message of peace.
He loves it he writes. Mark my words; there lays the problem--loving this type of battle spells the end of J Street before it even has a chance. Over at J Street, they know they've been hijacked to their right, and they know that they've been hijacked by others at well. MJ Rosenberg and his ilk are the worst nightmare to the good people at J Street. They really don't need the kind of battle he wants, but there will be nothing that they can do about it. The screamers and the haters always win.
He loves it. How apt. How predictable. How destructive. How damaging--to have a voice, to have a forum. . .and to turn it into a toilet.
And brave posters like Armchair, who week in and week out, push for a modicum of balance, are attacked and challenged at the core by those who defend this purveyor of hate. And one has to wonder why. For challenging this messenger of hate he is asked to prove his balance. How ridiculous, and yet again, how predictable.
October 17, 2009 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Correction--In order for symmetry in making my point, I refer to those on the "right and on the left". I don't believe the mirror images of the Weekly Standard about which I write above have anything to do with the real left, the left that does things, the left that is committed to working people, and to clean air and water, and to due process and equal opportunity, and to peace among nations. There are many haters who hide behind the veneer of being "left", but they shouldn't be allowed to hijack those who have causes beyond hate.
October 17, 2009 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very nice posts, bslev, but utopian, I think.
If the combatants, both here and in the middle east, had your mentality the conflict would have ended long ago or never have begun. Certainly, there were many opportunities to settle it in the last hundred years - under the Ottomans, under the British, even in the early days of the State of Israel.
None of that is possible now. Too much hatred has accumulated among the combatants themselves, those who actually live in the Middle East and face real war.
As for the armchair warriors in America - ptui! I am obviously very pro-Israel so I have a strong bias against the opinions of "progressives" that I find on this site. Since the right is more supportive of Israel I side with them on that issue - but its a tough call since I despise so much else they stand for. Beggars can't be choosers, however. When you need allies you take them where you find them.
The German paper "International Spiegel" is running an interesting article on German immigration problems. It turns out that Arabs and Turks - Muslims in other words - are virtually unassimilable in comparison with groups from eastern Europe and the Far East. All of Europe has the same problem, as does the Indian sub-continent. The reason? Muslims refuse to assimilate.
Global assimilation is a relatively new phenomenon. It may be that Muslims are only a few decades behind...or it may be that there's some fundamental intolerance in Muslim culture that makes the modern world anathema to them. They've been falling increasingly behind for centuries.
Either way, its a very dangerous situation. Even a few decades may lead to disaster in the Middle East.
October 17, 2009 11:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bslev,
There are some astute observations in your long ad-hominen post, but they are at best tangential to the real issues. (On the "hate" tangent, however and just for the record, I think any fairminded reader of Mr. Rosenberg's last several hundred blog columns here could not help but conclude that the "hate" directed at MJ by commenters (most of whom lack the wit and erudition of your own "hate" filled comment) far exceeds the "hate" exuded by MJ, which is mostly directed at voices and viewpoints not present here.
Speaking as a non-Jewish American, I really don't care much whether Rosenberg relishes dreads or is indifferent to the coming fight. The point is, it is impossible for me to see how America's Mideast policy can be liberated from the West-Bank-Settler-Lobby without a fight. And that fight must inevitably include a struggle to expose and explode the great horror of Jewish-American votes being used as pawns by the amoral and deceit-based minority of Israelis dedicated to Warsaw Ghetto Forever through hard-line expansionism. Every half-knowledgable observer knows Schumer & Co are not speaking such endless crap on Capitol Hill, about how everything wrong in the Mideast from Adam and Eve's expulsion to the slaughter of Gazan babies this year is always and will for eternity remain the sole fault of Arab terrorists, in order to not lose the Namibian vote or the Zaroastrian vote. The key here is that Rosenberg realizes it will take a fight for Jews in America to regain the moral compass that on this single but quite salient issue has for many years been badly twisted by the wicked alliance of the Knesset fringe politics and neo-con mischief-makers in America, working to exploit several generations of Jews who have perhaps learned a little too well the lesson of never criticize a large number of other Jews. Whether he loves the fight or not is his personal affair, and has little to do with the necessity of ending the paranoiac denial that winning this fight is very much in the interest of America as a whole (and incidentally -as far as I am concerned- the vast majority of Israelis too).
October 17, 2009 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 17, 2009 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ignoring your rubbish about my fighting Jews, the discussion was about (pro-America) Jews (in J Street) fighting other (pro-settler) Jews, I'll merely point to your final piece of AIPAC bull:
"If tommorow, Palestinians accept a two state solution, Jewish and Arab, there is going to be peace."
Not the issue, of course.
How many Israelis would accept a "two state solution" featuring hundreds of Palestinian "settlements" inside Israel connected with roads along which a Palestinian army moved at will, bulldozing Israeli houses and killing Israelis whenever they felt like it? Get your greedy murderous fanatical settler buddies to go back to Israel where they legally should be anyway and, THEN if Palestinians still drag their feet on accepting a deal, you may legitimately ask AMERICANS to be biased in favor of Israel. Behind a wall and with overwhelming force including nukes, Israelis will not face immediate genocide just because they has one more Arab neighbor country. And please no more asinine 5 year old fibs about how letting even hundreds of THOUSANDS of Palestinians move to Israel –which I don’t think any one here has ever advocated anyway, by the way- is remotely characterizable as enabling “unlimited immigration” to Israel for hundreds of MILLIONS of Arabs.
October 17, 2009 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The discussion is about pro-Hamas lobby ( J Strret) fighting Jews.
All Israelis accept Palestinian "settlements inside Israel. Israeli have also agreed on the Palestinian only road connected the WB and Gaza
It exactly what Israel has done in Gaza. The immediate response was rocket attacks.
Thank you for your generosity. No immediate genocide. Sounds like a good plan.
However, Israel will face immediate rocket attacks into Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and the only international airport. Israel has no way to respond to such attack. Any such response will result in civilian casualties, that are not allowed according to special rules set for Israel.
The right of of immigration to Israel of 5-7 millions Arabs is the number one non negotiable Palestinian demand.
October 17, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The right of of immigration to Israel of 5-7 millions Arabs is the number one non negotiable Palestinian demand."
Where are the shreds of evidence for this gross exaggeration?
Is this what the 2003 Geneva plan called for?
Is that why the settler lobby screamed bloody murder at any American who dared say something nice about it?
October 17, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Fatah remains faithful to its martyrs and prisoners, and expresses its commitment to the abiding demands of the Palestinian people -- the liberation of its land, including Jerusalem, the dismantlement of settlements and the return of the refugees."
, November 23, 2004
Abu Mazen: Right of return, Fatah website: returning refugees to end Israel
Abu Mazen: Right of return, Fatah website: returning refugees to end Israel
"We promise you [Arafat] that our heart will not rest until we achieve the
right of return for our people and end the tragic refugee issue," PLO leader
Mahmoud Abbas(aka Abu Mazen) to the Palestinian parliament - 23 November
2004
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/505214.html
The following are excerpts from an article that appeared on the official
Website of Fatah on 12 August 1998
www.fateh.org/e_public/refugees.htm
Sakher Habash is a member of the Fatah Central Committee
==============
The Palestinian Refugee Issue From A FATEH Perspective
Following is the interposition Sakher Habash put forward in the seminar on
"the Palestinian Refugee from the Political Parties' Perspective" which was
held at Al-Najah University.
...To us, the refugees issue is the winning card which means the end of the
Israeli state. They have, therefore, refused to solve it this way.
Meanwhile, we should not seek negotiable solutions.
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3
October 17, 2009 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Note to cut-and-paste "Anna": Cutting and pasting is more effective if you use whatever brain you might have at the same time. None of your APAIC translations presented here makes the slightest mention of "5-7 million" Arabs. Did you leave Russia because you flunked math? Your neo-con con-artist url probably doesn't make any such mention either, but I cannot be sure because the link doesn't work. Since you are in America (we welcome kooks from around the world) you might try using an American source such as an encyclopedia or almanac rather than relying exclusively on paranoid Westbank settler websites that are washing your brain away.
October 18, 2009 5:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Some perspective for all of you fuming over MJ
True enough.October 17, 2009 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your post makes no sense. The quote you strangely cut and pasted and dumped here was taken badly out of context by a dubious website. The original article with the full proper context can be found here:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091102/horowitz_weiss
October 18, 2009 5:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dubious?
Why, because the author is an Arab? Because much of his fanbase speaks Arabic as their first language and reads his commentary in Al-Akhbar?
Abu'Khalil's describes the terminology of "bad PR" as framing the damage of the attacks in terms of the the perpetrators' cause. As I said: true enough.
Rosenberg writes for an audience of Jews, Abu'Khalil writes for an audience of the concerned.
And on Hamas vs the IDF, and who ends the ceasefire: again and again the answer is clear. Nancy Kanwisher of MIT ran the numbers months ago
Hamas is holding a ceasefire because the collaborationist Fatah is falling apart and Hamas is patient. Mashal has already stated Hamas acceptance the pre 67 borders.
Assumptions of Israeli moral superiority vis-a-vis the Arabs (rather than the Europeans) is absurd.
October 18, 2009 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Read here in only 724 words, from Haaretz, why Israel is sorry its image is damaged but pleased with the hundreds of civilians and combatants killed in Gaza, and you will understand better how the Israeli mind functions:
'Comment / Why Israel failed in Gaza
By Yehezkel Dror Haaretz Correspondent
"Operation Cast Lead was the most planned operation in the annals of Israel's wars," Aluf Benn wrote in these pages over the weekend ("The noose tightens," October 16). Heaven help us for such planning, which was technically sophisticated yet one-dimensional.
The responsibility for the failure does not rest on the Israel Defense Forces, whose job is not to analyze issues from a diplomatic perspective. The difference between military planning, no matter how brilliant, and diplomatic thinking is perfectly encapsulated in the classic work by German historian Gerhard Ritter, "The Sword and the Scepter."
The original German title of the book, "Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk," can be translated as "the art of statecraft and the craft of war." The IDF is responsible for the craft of war, and the quality of that craft is of utmost importance to Israel's future. It must focus on military planning.
The art of statecraft, however, bears fateful consequences, so those in charge of statecraft must exercise control over military planning, issue directives to the army and supervise it.
Diplomatic thinking needs to be multidimensional. It must balance the need to deal a decisive blow to the enemy and the need to avoid damage to Israel's image that greatly exceeds the benefit of unleashing the blows. Operation Cast Lead did not meet this minimum demand.
It has once again become clear that key recommendations by the Winograd Committee that investigated the Second Lebanon War were not implemented. An important lesson from that war was the necessity of a diplomatic-security perspective in which the Foreign Ministry was a full partner to defense-related decisions and military calculations.
On this issue, two questions are worth considering: Was the Foreign Ministry asked to examine the plans for Cast Lead through a diplomatic perspective that would also take into account Israel's image in the world? If so, did the Foreign Ministry foresee the reasonable possibility that a committee similar to the Goldstone Commission would be formed if the ratio between Palestinian and Israeli casualties appeared "unreasonable"? If the Foreign Ministry was not consulted on these issues, the prime minister was responsible. If the Foreign Ministry was consulted but did not emphasize concerns that Israel's image would be harmed by the Palestinians' mounting casualties, it must bear the blame.
From the diplomatic perspective, image considerations are not necessarily a decisive factor. Gains are possible where it is worthwhile for Israel to absorb major blows to its image, if there is no other way. This was certainly not the case in Cast Lead. If the defense minister's recommendation to halt the offensive after three days had been accepted, Israel would have achieved deterrence against rocket fire in the south without the many Palestinian deaths and horrific destruction.
Alternately, there was a chance to conquer most of Gaza while destroying Hamas' forces and transferring power to the Palestinian Authority. Such a viable, clear achievement would have been a worthy price for the damage done to Israel's image. Furthermore, it would have constituted a necessary, clear-cut victory from the perspective of the PA and moderate Arab states, because it would have greatly eased the damage to Israel's image. Indeed, the world is accustomed to forgiving "the sins" of those who achieve clear victory. Israel, however, did not demonstrably break "the resistance forces," nor did it change Hamas rule in Gaza.
There is no escaping the painful and infuriating conclusion that Cast Lead was a repetition of the most serious error committed during the Second Lebanon War and highlighted by the Winograd Committee: "Treading water." Israel did not halt the operation after a few days or move on to the next stage, which called for occupying the bulk of Gaza. The result was a limited achievement at a high cost. In other words, a net loss.
I don't know if this is the appropriate step from a public relations standpoint, which is the most important factor in determining whether to establish a commission of inquiry. But no doubt urgent action must be taken to subjugate the craft of war - given all its importance and the high esteem we award those responsible for its execution - to the art of statecraft. The responsibility rests with the prime minister and defense minister, who are aided by the National Security Council.'
October 18, 2009 12:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
October 18, 2009 1:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Israel won in Gaza. The goal of the war was to stop rocket attacks. There are no more rocket attacks. The mission was accomplished."
A rare comment among AnnaA's thousands that is neither a childish retort nor a mere regurgitation of something written by someone else.
This raises a question. Why (AA, or anyone else) hasn't this convenient "explanation" been trotted out more often? (Hint of possible answer: see George Orwell, "1984.")
October 18, 2009 5:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe you are correct - the intended mission was accomplished.
In addition, the Israeli government has unintentionally managed to gain the opprobrium of the international community. Turkey is probably only the first to take concrete steps, as a direct consequence, to divorce herself from co-operation with Israel. There will almost certainly be others.
I would imagine that any independent observer would calculate that the latter result has eclipsed the original intention by a factor of about 10.
We shall see, within the next months whether the IDF's military incontinence in Gaza has damaged Israel irreparably, or not.
My personal guess is that Netanyahu and his foreign minister do not have the ability, or it must be said, the integrity, to succeed in damage limitation that will prove effective.
It is extremely difficult to regain public confidence after such a debacle, but Israel is not an island and needs to keep her international trading agreements in order to survive. So she needs to tread carefully. The days are long gone when any state could ignore public opinion. This is a global village and you are either in or out.
Israel has to try to ensure she stays in, otherwise her economy will crumble away. Personally, I think she needs a statesman of stature - but I don't see one, as yet ...
October 18, 2009 7:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know that I "must" make such a claim, or even that I should; either way, I can't and neither can you say otherwise with any certitude. Neither of us is really in a position to know, are we?
I do agree that the near total cessation of rocket attacks should be taken into account in judging the success of the operation.
There are other measures, however. Whether the enormous loss of life and property was an acceptable level, the significance of the blow to Israel's international standing (even recognizing that most of those shouting at Israel over this were probably inclined to do so no matter the result), and whether the same outcome could have been achieved at lesser cost. After all, there was relative calm on the border during the co-called "truce." From where I sit (Brooklyn), it seems the gains of the operation were mostly secured in the first few days of bombing while much of what many of us find distressing occurred afterward. Perhaps there was a military necessity for the continued operation - time will tell.
Israel's aggressive campaign appears to have re-established its "deterrence." That's been the pattern these past 60 years. It hasn't brought us any closer to a long-term solution and is not likely to now.
October 18, 2009 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oops. That's a reply to the mysterious AnnaA above. I'll repost.
October 18, 2009 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Deterrence works better against countries than militants and terrorists (yet another reason why simply abandoning most of the West Bank and letting a Palestinian state develop there would be in Israel's real best interests), but I doubt that deterrence was a principal motive for the Gaza attacks anyway. The timing suggests otherwise. The Israelis waited until just after Christmas to attack, went on -as you observe, Armchair- well past the point of any halfway credible "targets" being left, and stopped just before US inauguration day.
If, as I suspect, the real purpose was to gain votes in the Israeli election for Kadima and Labor, while minimizing collateral damage to international opinion, then the war was an obvious failure.
I also would not make too much about the rocket attacks ceasing post the Gaza operation.
For one thing, they were and are plain stupid from the point of view of any legitimate Palestinian interest. Never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity does not mean never missing an opportunity to not act dumb.
For another, there is no guarantee whatever that rocket attacks could not start up again in the future, e.g. about the point where peace negotiations finally get going again (when the resulting disruption would serve the interests of hardline Palestinians and Israelis united by the desire for endless war and violence).
October 18, 2009 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Per your comment, P, about dealing with moronic posters. I think we don't have to do anything because (1) their paucity in the blogosphere speaks for itself (95% pro-peace vs. 5% pro-Gaza type wars) and they tend to be silly, offensive and not fluent in English so....what's the harm?
I think we should only ban the ones who spew blatant racism rather than the slightly more sophisticated hate the 2 or 3 here have learned to employ. And a few don't employ hate and all. They are just indoctrinated, wrong, and in a tiny minority.
Also, I do appreciate your comments. Thanks, although on my new job -- which takes up infinitely more time than my old -- I don't get back to the comments section as often as I used to. So I may have missed what's going on here.
October 18, 2009 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the attention, MJ. I would say the harm is that what might be a clear, easy-to-follow well-informed and on-topic discussion (e.g. on this page) becomes instead heavily polluted with childish shouting matches. It is of course your call, and the website's policy is to err on the side of liberality, but some of us will eventually tire of having a high preponderance of the intelligent comments used the way dogs use telephone poles. Glad you still have time to post here despite the demands of your new job. Thanks and keep up the good work.
October 18, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wars sicken me, even wars that I support. I support Israel’s offensive in Gaza, but watching it on TV — the images of bombed-out buildings, crying women and, inevitably, the bodies of innocent bystanders — is a painful experience.
I suspect that most American Jews feel the same discomfort that I feel. They support the military offensive too, but they are well aware of the risks that it entails, and they expect Israel to be both politically wise and morally sensitive in how it fights. It is especially important to us that Israel do everything humanly possible to avoid the death of innocents and to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. There is much evidence that Israel has worked hard to limit the carnage, and the credibility of Israel’s leaders in providing assurances on these points is an important factor in assuring the continued support of American Jews — and, indeed, of all Americans — for the Gaza campaign.
Of course, there are those in the Jewish community who champion the Gaza offensive with slogans of crude triumphalism. Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic, wrote on his blog that the message of this operation is “do not f–k with the Jews.” It is interesting to compare the somber statements of Israel’s leaders, who are fighting to protect their children, with the obscene, cowboy-like delight that Peretz seems to take in the damage Israel’s army is able to inflict.
At the same time, if some Jewish hawks are devoid of sympathy for Palestinian suffering, not a few Jewish doves have demonstrated an utter lack of empathy for Israel’s predicament. J Street, a new Washington lobbying group and a major voice of the dovish pro-Israel community, has spoken out sharply against Israel’s actions in Gaza. While it claims to represent the moderate American Jewish majority, in this case it has misread the issues and misjudged the views of American Jews.
It is not easy for me to write these words. I welcomed the founding of J Street and know many of those involved in its leadership. Furthermore, I am a dove myself. I support a two-state solution, believe that military action by Israel should be a last resort and welcome an active American role in promoting peace between Israel and her neighbors. But I know a mistake when I see one, and this time J Street got it very wrong.
J Street’s first statement expressed “understanding” for Israel’s motivations, and called — as I do — for a political rather than a military solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nonetheless, its conclusion was that Israel made a mistake in attacking Hamas and that the United States and others must press for an immediate cease-fire.
A second J Street statement was worse by far. It could find no moral difference between the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants, who have launched more than 5,000 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in the past three years, and the long-delayed response of Israel, which finally lost patience and responded to the pleas of its battered citizens in the south. “Neither Israelis nor Palestinians have a monopoly on right or wrong,” it said, and it suggested that there was no reason and no way to judge between them: “While there is nothing ‘right’ in raining rockets on Israeli families or dispatching suicide bombers, there is nothing ‘right’ in punishing a million and a half already-suffering Gazans for the actions of the extremists among them.”
These words are deeply distressing because they are morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment and also appallingly naïve. A cease-fire instituted by Hamas would be welcome, and Israel would be quick to respond. A cease-fire imposed on Israel would allow Hamas to escape the consequences of its actions yet again and would lead in short order to the renewal of its campaign of terror. Hamas, it should be noted, is not a government; it is a terrorist gang. And as long as the thugs of Hamas can act with impunity, no Israeli government of the right or the left will agree to a two-state solution or any other kind of peace. Doves take note: To be a dove of influence, you must be a realist, firm in your principles but shorn of all illusions.
As a reality check for my views, I did what I normally do in these circumstances: I checked with my closest Israeli friends, who are all left of center, haters of war and ferocious opponents of the West Bank settlement movement. In virtually every case, they saw the action in Gaza as tragic but necessary and were astounded by the opposition of American doves. “What did they think,” one of them asked me in bewilderment, “that we would just sit there forever while Hamas fired rockets into our cities?” And they pointed out that most politicians on the left support the offensive, as do more than 80% of all Israelis, according to polling data.
I have not seen any polls on the reactions of American Jews, but my own sense, supported by anecdotal evidence from the Reform movement, is that there is strong backing for Israel’s government. American Jews have a commonsense approach to these matters.
We are aware that American forces have gone halfway around the globe to engage in a war in Afghanistan against terrorists who once carried out an attack on American soil. We know that civilians have frequently died in that war because terrorists make a point of operating in civilian areas. We know too that this war has the support of our liberal president-elect.
So why, we ask, should Israel’s center-left government, after long periods of restraint and desperate efforts to renew the cease-fire, be expected to refrain from fighting terrorists that are regularly attacking from right across the border? And we are certain that if rockets were being launched from Canada into our own homes in Michigan or Maine, we would demand immediate action, and our government would quickly oblige.
American Jews see Israel’s Gaza offensive as a tragic necessity, unwelcome but inevitable, carried out by a reluctant Israeli government doing what it must to end rocket attacks against its citizenry. In short, American Jews are, as usual, sensible and centrist, and supporting Israel in her hour of need.
http://www.forward.com/articles/14847/
October 18, 2009 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Finally, something from your own brain. Congratulations. Now you can go back to your usual cutting and pasting. I suggest you try next "The Emperor's New Clothes." Age-maturity appropriate and very analogous to the peer-pressure denial amongst many Americans, especially but by no means only Jewish Americans, re what happened in Gaza.
October 18, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was a cut-n-paste, but in my opinion, a good one. Eric Yoffie is President of the Union for Reform Judaism. Not an apologist for the settlers by any means. Someone who I would consider pro-Israel, pro-peace (unlike MJ) and who struggles to make sense of issues that don't lend themselves to facile conclusions and sloganeering (unlike MJ). Proof that reasonable people can disagree.
October 18, 2009 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
"That was a cut-n-paste"
Very right you are, and very silly of me to leap without reading the whole post to the extremely dubious conclusion that Anna (sic) had an above grade school level of maturity, moral conscience, or command of English.
Thanks for the dose of reality.
October 19, 2009 4:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
As for Yoffie, I don't know him at all, and would normally extend benefit of doubt, but what he says smacks of opportunism, waffling, and moral compromise.
I could not personally give a flying leap at the moon if he thinks "J Street is profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment" whatever the H "Jewish sentiment" is supposed to mean. We are talking about a massive moral blind spot here that has shocked and dismayed almost the whole world, including a great many Jews (most of whom don't want to rock the boat and be blamed for "attacking other Jews" but can damn well tell right from wrong, and smell the bullsh-- of AIPAC from thousands of miles away). Israel in Gaza behaved like a kindler, gentler, more careful version of the Nazis on Kristallnacht. This comes from a reading of Haaretz, etc. not some Pat Buchanan or idiotic Holocaust Denial website, by the way, so Anna can spare "her" vile lies about my anti-Semitism. I cannot remember the Hebrew word, but the theory is to behave so fanatically and disproportionately that the victims will come to believe that you are mad and will do anything. A tactic very integral to Hitler's 3rd Reich. Only a temporary tactic, you might say (though what are the ends, justifying such dastardly means, "Israel's existential security"? Please, I don't need to clog my sewer with that lie again). As for the settler-maniacs to whom the Knesset, and the US Congress endlessly kowtow, I have not the slightest doubt that a high percentage of them would be wearing swastika armbands had they been born into "Arayan" families in the early 1900s Europe and become young adults in the 1930s.
October 19, 2009 5:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
The two are not mutually exclusive. With Obama coming in, the Israeli government saw a window of opportunity to make its point and acted, so I agree that the timing was significant.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time, but I have a hard time seeing this as anything other than incidental. Israel, unlike the US, is not a volunteer army. Nearly everyone in the country has close friends, relatives, children in the army. The decision to put them in harm's way is not taken lightly (true, there were very few casualties, but that does not lessen the fear of parents sending their children off to risk their lives for the country). Olmert, who made the decision to launch (and continue) the attack was a lame duck anyway.
Well, they were just as stupid before the war as they are now, and indeed have always been, but that never stopped them. But there was, I suppose, some point to the stupidity - by provoking a ferocious and arguably disproportionate response on the part of Israel, they have galvanized opinion in some quarters in their favor - witness the events before the UN "Human Rights" Commission. The overwhelming, fantastically, shockingly and tragically stupid thing is that the people of Gaza (as those in Lebanon) appear not to have made the connection between their so-called resistance and its tragic consequences, and have not turned their fury against the Hamas fanatics who provoked the onslaught in the first place.
October 18, 2009 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Armchair,
I have difficulty believing that you are really this dumb:
"The decision to put them in harm's way is not taken lightly"
Israel has been doing much more dangerous things in the West Bank, in Lebanon, etc. for many years than having soldiers sit in computer rooms well inside Israel launching missiles by computer at "Hamas" courtyards, schools, and houses in Gaza, in between juvenile computer games, laughing about it, and having a jolly good old time.
If you think the cessation of the Gaza attack two days before Obama's inauguration, thus continuing to show "toughness" for the Israeli voter at home for as long as possible while making sure that Obama would not HAVE to talk about it in his address, was a pure coincidence you are indeed very gullible, at least to AIPAC-type propaganda.
October 19, 2009 4:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do agree that the near total cessation of rocket attacks should be taken into account in judging the success of the operation.
Sigh. A near total cessation of rocket attacks was precisely the situation during the final stages of the extensive planning and build up to the Gaza operation.
Refusing to acknowledge that reality will not make it go away.
October 18, 2009 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Refusing to acknowledge that reality will not make it go away.
October 18, 2009 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reading an article, yesterday, on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, I came across the following:
'At the heart of the Seattle-based organization is the belief that every life has equal value.'
As I read, I thought of the one and a half million Palestinians imprisoned in the Gaza strip and the Israeli checkpoints designed by the military to humiliate and oppress them: the men, women and children who need to pass through, to work, to visit family or for medical treatment.
Because non-Israeli lives are cheap, the world sits, drinks coffee and looks away. Until last week, when the world had no option but to take action, because in January, the humiliation had turned to killing, and it could no longer be ignored.
I am Jewish and I have not forgotten what is right and what is wrong; what is good and what is evil. And the killing of children and civilians is an evil that strikes at the very core of Judaic law: THOU SHALT NOT KILL!
In my military service, civilians were never targeted. If one civilian, particularly a child or a woman was killed - it was a matter for regret.
Ehud Barak is certainly different from Bill & Melinda Gates.
October 18, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 18, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
You must ask either Ehud Barak, the defense minister at the time or Olmert, then then PM, now facing criminal charges on other matters.
The only assumption possible is that the killings were carried out in order to terrorize the civilian population. In that, they succeeded. But it is a war crime to kill civilians and you must not forget, nor seek to make excuses, for substantiated atrocities.
October 18, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 18, 2009 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Terrorizing the civilian population in Gaza is one likely motive for last January's rampage, but certainly not the only possible motive. See my comment above: October 18, 2009 10:41 AM. AnnA's objection here is trivial, but is even more readily disposed of if electoral propaganda were the more significant factor behind the invasion and slaughter.
In any case, though I haven't read this Goldstone Report, my clear impression last January was that civilians were NOT targeted, but that the IDF bombed heavily and widely, knowing full well that in many cases there was very little chance of actually hitting Hamas or its infrastructure and quite and a very considerable likelihood of significant civilian casualties. Many countries have been guilty of this sort of atrocity. But, for example, 85% of the US Congress does not stand at attention and repeat by rote convoluted BS excuses for Russian massacres in Chechya whenever AIPAC, the America Inter-Caucasus Public Affairs Committee, orders it to.
October 18, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 18, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The crude death rate for the whole world is currently about 8.23 per 1000 per
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_rate
In 2007 approximately 1.4 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip
If my calculations are correct, the monthly natural death toll is about 1000 people. According to Hamas 1200 people died during the war. So we don't even know how many of people people died of natural causes were counted as the victims of Israeli aggressions. My guess, all were counted.
October 18, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there are some openings for you at Holocaust Denial websites, Anna. You have the requisite intelligence, maturity, ability to think logically, and sense of ethics, and they need your help explaining how roughly a third of Europe's Jews suddenly died of natural causes in the early 1940s.
October 19, 2009 7:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Only a Jew hater would compare Holocaust of 6 million Jews with few hundred civilian casualties caused by Hamas tactic.
October 19, 2009 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe, but of course I did no such thing, you pathological childish liar. My point was a quite different one: that few, other than Holocaust denialists and other amoral mental and psychological basket cases, are as full of warped confusion and illogic as you.
October 19, 2009 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I did mention that fact, Lally. That is certainly a consideration and relevant fact when people say Israel had "no choice" to respond to the rockets as they did. On the other hand, the cease fire seemed to be breaking down on both sides, so...
You make much of the extensive planning of the war to undermine the claim that it was in response to the rockets. But again, I don't see these as mutually exclusive.
IMHO, the war was indeed extensively planned and intended in some way to re-establish the deterrence Israeli leaders felt they had "lost" in Lebanon (ironically, the Lebanese border has been quiet since 2006 leading one to conclude that the deterrence might have had some effect). Hezbollah's rockets were seen as establishing a level of deterrence against Israel and the reported difficulties of Israeli ground troops moving through Lebanon added to the perception. Israeli leaders was not going to let Hamas become emboldened like Hezbollah, which was apparently happening, with Hamas smuggling in longer range and more accurate weapons. Israel made a decision to go in with overwhelming firepower to demonstrate that it was prepared to act decisively and that it could operate against the Hamas fighters without significant restraints. The tactics sought to minimize Israeli casualties at all costs - which accounts for the vast discrepancy in the number dead.
As to whether the enormous and tragic loss of life was really necessary, time will tell. I have significant doubts.
But the notion that the IDF as a matter of policy targeted civilians or committed so-called crimes against humanity in my view is completely absurd (unless, of course, all war is a crime against humanity). Plainly, if the IDF was intent on hitting civilians, the death toll in the densely populated strip would and could have been catastrophic - many hundreds of times what it was.
October 18, 2009 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which is not to say that the deaths from the Gaza war were not catastrophic. Just that it could easily have been exponentially worse.
October 18, 2009 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course the civilian deaths from the Gaza war were not catastrophic.
October 19, 2009 12:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not catastrophic, but pointless. A few month's cessation of pea-shooter rocket attacks, that kill about many Israelis as do falling meteors, did not do jacksh-- for Israel's security. The rabid defense -using any and all lies, childish whining, 5 year old retorts, and vile trickery- of the useless slaughter of hundreds of children in Gaza shows the complete moral bankruptcy of the settlers, their cynical Knesset partners, and their US dupes and tools. THAT, to FINALLY get back to the actual issue of the page, is one of MANY reasons why J Street or something very much like it is imperative, for Jews, for Americans, for Israelis, for the rescue of civilization from dirty lying thuggish Mideast barbarians.
October 19, 2009 4:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
pea-shooter rocket attacks, that kill about many Israelis as do falling meteors
Someone should fire a few of those pea shooters at your fucking house, at your fucking family. You'd change your tune immediately.
October 19, 2009 6:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
pea-shooter rocket attacks, that kill about many Israelis as do falling meteors
The Jewish population of Israel is about 5 million, or 1 1/2% of our population. So 50 dead Israelis are equivalent to about 3000 dead Americans.
Rockets have probably killed, or seriously hurt 50 Israelis so what you're saying is that a few more 911s don't mean jack-shit and our response to it constituted horrible overkill.
You really are a complete asshole.
October 19, 2009 6:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh come on, now big brave Spiderman, it's really no big deal, as your gender-bent buddy Anna already told us: nothing like the battle of Grozny.
Fifty Israeli war criminals or even fifty innocent Israeli civilians are NOT the equivalent fifty Americans in MY book as an AMERICAN, however. If you value an American as equal to 1/200th of an Israel, be my departing guest and leave our country. Israel is a smaller country in a relatively dangerous neighborhood (nothing real dangerous like Grozny mind you, but not entirely safe either, and nothing you or your Great Warsaw Ghetto in the sky can do will change that, at least not for a long long time), so accept it as a fact of life and leave America alone. Kindly wash your mouth out with soap before you head off to the West Bank (it stinks a bit on this page) and tell your friends there to mind their own business and finally get their thieving paws off our U.S. Congress.
October 19, 2009 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
October 19, 2009 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure they were to the parents of those 300-400 murdered children.
October 19, 2009 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reading some of these comments, I can't help but think that Israel or something has driven some of these people nuts.
320 kids were killed by the IDF in Gaza. And, to these Israel firsters, it's a shame but nothing to get too worked up about.
Once you cannot view a child's death, any child, as a catastrophe, you have lost your humanity.
So-called Jews like that Anna guy would be unrecognizable as Jews in any period of history but this one.
For sure the Six Million dead of the Shoah, with their 1.2 million dead children, would puke at the idea of these people calling themselves Jews.
That is unless one assumes that the dead are also narrow, chauvinistic, haters.
The Israeli firsters are Jews like the Christianist evangelicals are Christians. They use the label.
My holocaust survivor mother-in-law would have deemed them "so called Jews."
October 19, 2009 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks. I am not Jewish, but whatever distant roots of my family tree were (and we are all cousins at some level) are certainly heartened in whatever after-life they might enjoy when what is decent and wise about old traditions stands up to defend itself against latter-day perversions and phonies. This of course applies in spades to Christianity and many other traditions as well, but it is the name of Judaism that is being misused here, so thanks for setting things straight.
October 19, 2009 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reading some of these comments, I can't help but think that US or something has driven some of these people nuts.
Tens of housands kids were killed by the US in Afganistan and Iraq. And, to these US firsters, it's a shame but nothing to get too worked up about.
Once you cannot view a child's death, any child, as a catastrophe, you have lost your humanity.
So-called Americans like that Obama guy would be unrecognizable as American in any period of history but this one.
That is unless one assumes that the dead are also narrow, chauvinistic, haters.
The America firsters like Obama are Americans like the Christianist evangelicals are Christians. They use the label.
My holocaust survivor mother-in-law would have deemed Obama "so called American."
October 19, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you even less convincing in the original?
October 20, 2009 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's amazing to read the comments.
Hamas supporters like MJ and PTroub are hoping and "love it" when Palestinian children are killed, and wish for more, supporters of Israel like me, do not want any Palestinian children to be hurt.
October 19, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was very pleased to find this site.I wanted to thank you for this great read!! Hulu Downloader | iPad Converter .
August 17, 2010 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
This article is very interesting. Thank you very much for sharing . m2ts files converter from m2ts converter
August 17, 2010 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Articles like this are meant to correct the information as to what is happening in the Middle East, America and Israel. The views shared here do nothing but to show that every man has his own thinking but still appear or may appear subjective views and propaganda imobiliare | dezmembrari auto
February 8, 2011 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
A very well documented article. I'm glad to read such articles about American life and what happens in the Middle East. There are many problems there but i belive that time will resolve them in favor of one or other. Thanks for the post ! anunturi gratuite
February 8, 2011 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
This article is very interesting. Thank you very much for sharing .
Best regards, Katya, CEO of facebook, freebsd zfs iscsi target
March 24, 2011 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Si vous etes interesses par le dossier, ou desirez en savoir plus, contactez-moi par mail, et je vous mettrai en contact.
Best regards,Jane, CEO of database high availability
April 27, 2011 5:06 AM | Reply | Permalink