Taking the settler's "hate" seriously
First this from Haaretz:
Asked by Israel Channel Two Television reporter Shai Gal what would happen if Israeli forces tried to evacuate Havat Gilad, Arele replied, "At most, they'll demolish one measly shack, so they'll have something to show - that Kushon [a Hebrew slur equivalent to the "N" word] in the United States, in order to have an Etnan [the biblical term for a fee paid to a prostitute] to give him - if you [secular] guys know what an Etnan is."I ask myself the following question:
If an Israeli wingnut was able to kill the prime minister of Israel and has received a lot of support in Israel for doing so, why should anyone think that an attempt on "Kushon" Obama would be out of the question? One of the drunk kids in the video, "Feeling the Hate" even says he would like to kill the president. OK, so he is just a drunk kid, but there are a lot of settlers, who aren't drunk, but are very dangerous and are American citizens.
What I am really afraid of is that one of these settlers, who is an American citizen, who can enter the US without any restriction, who can blend into an American crowd without being noticed as "foreign looking", who has had military training, will try to kill Obama the same way they killed Yitzak Rabin... Then the shit will really hit the fan.
I think this is a real problem and perhaps the only way to keep it from happening is to talk about it. Normally this would be putting ideas into people's heads, but I think the ideas are already there.
After thought:
Reading some of the comments to this post I think that there is a slight confusion: I am not talking about the drunken American louts in the video and I am not talking about wingnuts and sons of the wild jackass in general. There are always lone crazies around in the USA like the guy who shot Reagan. I am talking about the Israeli settlers "movement".
We are talking here about a group of people which is not only messianic and fanatical like Al Qaeda, but which also is closely connected to the Israeli establishment. We are talking about people who practice racist violence on a daily basis, who have weapons and have been trained to use them and who have used them, not just had fantasies about using them.
It also happens that some of the most fanatical and violent settlers are Americans of dual-nationality, who have many connections and admirers in the USA; these are people who can enter and reside anywhere in the USA without restriction, speak the language without a "foreign" accent and blend into the landscape without calling attention to themselves. In short "ordinary" Americans.
So what I am saying is that we have a climate of hate and group of well-connected, armed fanatics that consider themselves "on a mission from God", who are also native Americans. This has all the ingredients for a history making disaster.
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It could even be an 'ordinary' person, perhaps from California.
June 10, 2009 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
i think the recent heightened visibility of settler militancy and violence has been a good thing in bringing some balance to the question of who is "violent" and who is not in israel/palestine.
not sure about the physical threat to obama from settlers, but wanted to give my two cents.
June 10, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's no way to guard against it, David. That's the short answer. As sad as it is, people want to kill other people for lots of reasons - and people want to kill the President for almost as many. There's nothing we can do, except be grateful that those harboring murderous intent are relatively few and far between, here and around the world. If they weren't, humans as a species would have smacked the windshield long ago.
I really don't believe the kids in Blumenthal video are dangerous. Dangerously drunk, yes, but potential assassins? No. Besides, how angry can they really be? For all the words - indicating dramatic reversal from the past, certainly - Obama hasn't actually implemented policy yet.
June 10, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dangerously drunk is pretty much all you need for some assassination plots; it's certainly all you need for "ethnic cleansing" and attempted genocide. (One reporter on the ground commented that much of the "fighting" in the former yugoslavia was essentially the wingnut assholes in one village getting drunk and deciding to shoot up everyone of the "wrong" ethnic group in the next village over and burn their houses. Whipped up and approved by the central government, but still decentralized and fueled by stupid murderous drunks.)
June 10, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes Israelis could assassinate Obama, but you really don't have to go that far to find someone to do the job. Perhaps you've lived outside the U.S. too long, David. The homegrown wingnuts are chompin' at the bit for what they would probably consider an honor.
June 10, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a slight confusion here: I am not talking about the drunken American louts in the video and I am not talking about wingnuts in general. There are always lone crazies around in the USA like the guy who shot Reagan. I am talking about the Israeli settlers "movement".
We are talking here about a group which is not only messianic and fanatical like Al Qaeda, but which also is closely connected to the Israeli establishment. We are talking about people who practice racist violence on a daily basis, who have weapons and have been trained to use them and who have used them, not just had fantasies about using them.
It also happens that some of the most fanatical and violent settlers are Americans, of dual-nationality who have many connections and admirers in the USA; these are people who can enter and reside anywhere in the USA without restriction, speak the language without a "foreign" accent and blend into the landscape without calling attention to themselves.
In short "ordinary" Americans.
So what I am saying is that we have a climate of hate and group of well-connected, armed fanatics that consider themselves "on a mission from God", who are also native Americans. This has all the ingredients for a history making disaster.
June 11, 2009 2:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I did misunderstand, or didn't read it carefully enough. Actually, I agree with you. The Israeli far right succeeded when Rabin was assassinated with few consequences. It would seem that they have had their way since then with little interference. I rather imagine they are being funded by all kinds of radical groups in the U.S., don't you? My neighbor belongs to a fundamentalis church and was handing out brochures for a Hagee meeting for Israel's benefit recently. (She said in passing that our making the Israelis pull out of Gaza was the cause of Hurricane Katrina, presumably by making God mad.)
In any case, I don't see any hope of peace in the ME until Israel and the Palestinians both get their own internal disputes settled. If Obama can pull a lasting peace off it will be nothing short of - dare I say it- a miracle.
June 11, 2009 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rabin was killed with the help of Mossad. But I reckon there are people in our intelligence agencies with these same feelings.
June 10, 2009 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I doubt and I also hope and pray that the President is in any danger from Israeli settlers.
I do believe and have believed since Obama announced for President that he is a constant target for the right wing. All the tea-baggers and other angry white people in the country are livid that this black man is President. Today's attack at the Holocaust Museum could just as easily have been at the White House or a public event, etc...
I just hope that the security around the President is such that no lone wolf or any group would ever be able to successfully attack him. The last thing our country needs is another JFK. Despite my serious criticism of the President, I do believe that in this new Great Depression, he is one of the few persons or things that is providing some hope to those who have little or none both at home and abroad. I pray for his safety knowing that there is an onslaught of hatred and violence hidden for the most part but clearly aimed at the President. I believe he is in harm's way every day. May his protectors in the secret service never fail him.
June 11, 2009 1:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Years ago I travelled to Israel on business a couple of times.
Every time I went through airline security, or immigration after that there were questions about those trips when they saw the Ben Gurion stamps in my passport. Not just in the US, but all over Europe and Asia as well. AND this was all prior to 09/11/00.
Enough so that I was very happy to have that passport expire, and start over with a "clean" one.
Point being that the folks who try to look out for our interests have long been aware of the extremism coming out of Israel.
June 11, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting comment
June 11, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink