"Trump has taken optimistic trend lines and pulled them down into Sheol with him. He has diminished our country, traumatized our children, and made us laughingstocks in the urbane capitals of the world. He leaves us a large bequest, tied up with a bow, of hatred and prejudice, smelling like the piece of dog shit that is Donald Trump."
Juan Cole, 6 November 2016.
If the dates of today's article and that of the 6th had been transposed I would have more respect for Professor Cole.
That's a Western MSM kind of spin. Others might be:
1. Areas controlled by the "rebels" are places where war is being prosecuted by both sides and so not pleasant areas to live in.
2. The population of those areas does not want to be ruled by the "rebels".
Which fairness doctrine is that? Is it the one that the NYT uses in reporting on Israel/Palestine. As an infrequent reader of NYT, it took me until about the year 2000 to realize its bias. I don't think that bias can be ascribed in Ailes.
You don't think this has anything to do with Iran having nuclear capability do you? Netanyahu and other Zionists have been saying that Iran is a couple of years away from nuclear weapons capability for more than 25 years. And his intelligence people have been telling them that Iran is not anywhere near achieving that capability. This is all the theatre of victimhood. Israel is militarily the most powerful country in the ME and wants to stay that way. It wants to destroy (or rather have the US destroy) any country that might just possibly threaten that hegemony. So it keeps going on about existential threats. The threats to Israel are not from other countries - they are internal - and I'm not talking about the Palestinians.
I take issue with one statement "because the US is the one place where all this is still controversial". If only! Unfortunately, it is also still highly controversial where I live - Australia - a country with more solar and wind energy than it knows what to do with. Our, thankfully recently departed, Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, a (man-made) climate change denier, was responsible for ditching Australia's carbon pricing scheme on entering office. Our current Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is still largely adopting Abbott's policies - though he has softened the government's negative stance on wind turbines. Australia is not far behind the US in carbon emissions per capita, and by some measures worse: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/un-climate-conference/paris-un-climate-conference-2015-australia-ranked-third-to-last-for-emissions-20151207-glhtxf.html
Moreover, many in the government would seek to minimize reduction commitments. Fortunately our population is not that large. But Australia, the world's second largest coal producing country, is still contemplating allowing development of what will be one of the world's largest coal mines - Adani's Carmichael Mine.
@HW: "i.e., the Messianic spread of democracy in benighted regions by force if necessary"
Such as in KSA, Qatar, I/P (a democratic facade according to the Economist), Libya? If you believe the "spread of democracy" story I have a some real estate to sell you.
Correction: The person who said "I think it has got to do with Iran" was the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth, not of Israel. And then the supine BBC apologized to him for allowing him to say it - apparently he thought he was off air. BBC's pro-Israeli coverage of the carnage in Gaza continues.
I quoted last time but this time I will paraphrase. The reason that post-war emigration of displaced persons (mainly Jews) to the US, UK and Canada was restricted was that the Zionist movement in the US lobbied against it. They argued that they could get money from rich American Jews for the Zionist project in Palestine if Jews migrated there but not if they migrated to the US.
There is enough evidence to suggest that the change of Director-General at IAEA has more to do with the change of tone of its Iran reporting than any new evidence.
Anyone who believes the US and Israel on Iran should read this:
Let me clarify what "compulsory voting" means in Australia. It means that you must do one of the following:
1. Attend a voting centre - once you get there and are recorded as having attended you may do what you like with the ballot papers - make a paper airplane, write obscenities on them, or just walk out. There is no record of your voting.
2. Send a postal vote - again you may write what you like - it will not be identified against your name, or
3. Have a good reason for not doing 1. or 2.
Those libertarians who object to this minimal measure towards the preservation of democracy will undoubtedly ultimately lose it.
Well the US and even Chomsky may believe that Israel is serving US interests but the Israelis believe its the other way round and I'm afraid the evidence is pretty clear.
"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do
that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American
pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." - Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.
Then let's discuss Israeli spies on the US who are let free, Congress's overwhelming support for the Israeli attack on Gaza at the end of 2008. I could go on at length.
What further concessions would you suggest the Palestinians make? They have already given up a very significant part of their land even if you start at the 1947 UN decision to cede part of their land to the Zionists or the 1967 borders. Should they just do what the Zionists want and go away completely so that the Zionists can have their Jewish State over the whole of Palestine? As to security guarantees, this is the old chestnut that the Zionists have used to grab more and more land.
"The guideline of our policy has always been the idea that a permanent
situation of no peace and a latent war is the best situation for us, and that
it must be maintained at all costs. ... we are becoming stronger year by year
in a situation of impending conflict where it is possible that actual fighting
may break out from time to time. Such wars will usually be short and the
results guaranteed in advance, since the gap between us and the Arabs is
increasing. In this way we shall move on from occupation to further
occupation. " (Yeshayahu Leibowitz, 30 November 1973)
"The separation fence is marketed to the Israeli public as a reasonable
security measure meant to separate Palestinians from Israelis; in reality, the
only separation it offers is between Palestinians and their land." (Oren
Medicks, 30 May 2003)
For the fifty-odd years since the establishment of the
state of Israel, successive Israeli governments whether Labour or Likud, and
whether by force as at Deir Yassin, or by chicanery as at Oslo and Camp David,
have followed the same policy of oppressing and dispossessing Palestinians to
make way for an exclusively Jewish state. Even now, when Israel could have
peace and security for the asking, Israeli governments persist in their
original intention of conquering the whole of Palestine for the use of the
Jewish people alone. And all this was done, and is still being done, by Jews,
for Jews and in the name of Jews." (Paul Eisen, January 2003)
"[In Gaza] there used to be 600,000 Arabs. Now there are 1.4 million people
there . in a few more years what happened to South Africa will happen to
us. The UN will decide that either we give the right to vote to everyone or we
will be outcasts from the family of nations. Absurdly, the greatest danger
that could befall us . is that the intifada would end - because then we would
fall asleep and wake up to a binational state." (Yonatan Bassi, 29 July 2004)
I agree unilateral concessions on one side alone will not work - let's see some from the Israelis. Period.
It is often that people who start their comments with "Nonsense" then produce an argument that is full of holes and this is no exception. Phud1 omits some significant differences between Israel and, say, the UK.
1. The UK has not sought to remove non-Christians from the state. The ones who were native there when the Romans came 2000 years ago were by and large converted to Christianity. The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings interbred with the locals as did the Normans. None sought to systematically drive out the locals. Though all of this was too long ago to be relevant today.
2. The UK allows immigration by non-Christians.
Not only does Israel prevent immigration of non-Jews and tries to reduce the number of non-Jews in the country, it severely restricts conversion to Judaism by non-Jews living in Palestine. I do not think any other state in the world imposes conditions like this. Even the more extreme Muslim states (not that I am a defender of their policies) will allow people to convert reasonably easily.
As to expulsion of the Jews - please read about the Lavon affair. Even Israelis accept that the majority of migrants from Arab countries either went to Israel because of encouragement by Israel or because of Mossad activities like the Lavon affair which either accidentally or deliberately created anti-Jewish sentiments.
The issue is not about recognizing Israel, but about recognizing it as a Jewish State. This effectively means that it could never be otherwise, if a majority of its citizens were non-Jews, for example. About 20% of Israelis are not Jews, so to recognize Israel as a Jewish State would be to abrogate their rights.
As to borders, I doubt if there are two other countries in the world where the difference between the versions of the borders proposed by the two sides differed so much as a proportion of the total land. I suspect if Israel were willing to cede that there should be a Palestinian state (recognized and with guarantees about non-aggression by Israel) whose borders gave it within, say 5% of its UN agreed borders as of 1947, they would be happy to accept and recognize Israel as a country. What about it?
Why talk about Hamas as though voting for it means that one is in league with the Devil. Hamas offered the people of the Occupied Territories an alternative to the corruption of Fatah.
Here are some articles to read - in the MSM would you believe - that give the lie to most of what is said by US politicians and the MSM about Hamas.
I do not see your argument. The analogy just does not apply. The North Africans in France did not go there with the aim of evicting the locals through violence - and then claim that the violence was all the fault of the locals. Had the Zionists gone to Palestine, where they were at first welcomed, with the idea of building a sharing community with the locals at a time when they were under the control of first the Ottomans and then the British it might well have been the case that Israel would indeed have been good for Jews worldwide.
Instead, the Zionists declared Israel to be "The Jewish State" - a home for ALL Jews - to the exclusion, as far as the rest of the world will let them get away with it, of all others. Of course they permit a 20% non-Jewish population just to prove that they are not really that bad - but they will not let it get to 30%. Read the statements of Weizman and ben Gurion. They have persecuted the local inhabitants in totally inhumane ways with the intention to persuade them to leave and when they resisted they have killed them. Thus far they might be seen to be little or no worse than any colonial power in, say, the Americas or Australia - I am not excusing either. However, what came next was a true act of Chutzpah - they blamed the locals for the problems that resulted and by and large persuaded Western Powers to suppor them in this. Certainly in the US and Australia, there is now a recognition of the need to make reparations to the locals. Israel, on the other hand, turns up the pressure.
The Zionists have done their best to identify "Jewishness" with being Israeli with being Zionist. In particular they attack those who criticize Zionism as anti-semitic. While none of these identifications is accurate, it is not surprising, given the way the Zionists and their apologists frame the debate, that many people make them. The fact that some Jewish groups worldwide are openly opposing the Zionist adventure is wonderful news. There are also many wonderful Israelis who oppose Zionism - let us celebrate their courage and humanity.
How they'll spin it? Isn't that obvious? They're "self-hating Jews". That's how they've spun every criticism from the Jewish community so far. I agree with you, however, that this is great news.
". it's utterly hypocritical for Israelis to wonder aloud why Palestinians
don't pursue a non-violent strategy. One obvious reason is that, whenever they
have, Israel brutally represses it." (Norman G. Finkelstein, 11 September
2003)
Why do Likudniks always ignore the facts? Hamas was willing to participate in 2008. It had a ceasefire with Israel which was holding - except that Israel was not upholding its part of the bargain: to allow the passage of goods into and out of Gaza. After around 5 months of this, Israel went a step too far and murdered several Hamas leaders with a rocket attack (how is it that Palestinians are the only ones described as "firing rockets"?) . This happened on US election day (I wonder why?) and the only mainstream newspaper to report it was the British "Guardian" as far as I am aware.
The US press I read (NYT and Wapo) seem to think that Israel has always been there and that Palestinians are stealing Israeli land.
While Israel had a government that could be described as "moderate", even though it had people who said:
"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.
they had the support of the people of the US who were suitably propagandized by the MSM. Israel has always been radical - but was able to present itself as moderate. With a "right wing" government in power it may be possible to see light between the US and Israeli administrations.
Phud1:in the light of your last two comments I am led to believe you might have an understanding of Hamas that comes from the MSM. Would you read these:
Is it not time to put the US media on trial? I looked at the NYT again today - once again it accepts the Israeli viewpoint without question - Israel's offer to take the cargo off the MV Rachel Corrie and transport it to Gaza. Consistently it mentions Hamas attacks on "unarmed civilians" while of course not mentioning ongoing and much more effective attacks by the Israelis on Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank. Though I have to admit they at least allow a spokesperson for Free Gaza to say that Hamas was "democratically elected"- usually the MSM say that Hamas gained power by overthrowing Fatah. On the other hand it allows the liar-in-chief Mark Regev to say that: "These are not human rights activists" and talk about Hamas' "appalling human rights record". Now that from an Israeli requires some Chutzpah!
I am writing this to thank you for showing that there is an ounce of sanity left in the US. I have just come away from the NYT truly sickened by the op-eds and the letters about the Israeli attack on the flotilla which appear to suggest that the peace activists were a bunch of terrorists. Their ignorance of the true roles of Hamas and the Israelis is so profound as to lead me to despair and this from apparently intelligent people. Until the people of US are given the truth, or more likely the American Empire disappears (how long can an empire persist on such lies). we can expect no improvement in the Middle East.
For your readers who are willing to open their minds, let me suggest the following websites, none of which are particularly anti-Israeli. Indeed the first is from that staunch supporter of Israel, the Murdoch Press.
"Trump has taken optimistic trend lines and pulled them down into Sheol with him. He has diminished our country, traumatized our children, and made us laughingstocks in the urbane capitals of the world. He leaves us a large bequest, tied up with a bow, of hatred and prejudice, smelling like the piece of dog shit that is Donald Trump."
Juan Cole, 6 November 2016.
If the dates of today's article and that of the 6th had been transposed I would have more respect for Professor Cole.
That's a Western MSM kind of spin. Others might be:
1. Areas controlled by the "rebels" are places where war is being prosecuted by both sides and so not pleasant areas to live in.
2. The population of those areas does not want to be ruled by the "rebels".
Which fairness doctrine is that? Is it the one that the NYT uses in reporting on Israel/Palestine. As an infrequent reader of NYT, it took me until about the year 2000 to realize its bias. I don't think that bias can be ascribed in Ailes.
Russia and Iran were asked to intervene by the internationally recognised government of Syria. The West most certainly was not.
You don't think this has anything to do with Iran having nuclear capability do you? Netanyahu and other Zionists have been saying that Iran is a couple of years away from nuclear weapons capability for more than 25 years. And his intelligence people have been telling them that Iran is not anywhere near achieving that capability. This is all the theatre of victimhood. Israel is militarily the most powerful country in the ME and wants to stay that way. It wants to destroy (or rather have the US destroy) any country that might just possibly threaten that hegemony. So it keeps going on about existential threats. The threats to Israel are not from other countries - they are internal - and I'm not talking about the Palestinians.
I take issue with one statement "because the US is the one place where all this is still controversial". If only! Unfortunately, it is also still highly controversial where I live - Australia - a country with more solar and wind energy than it knows what to do with. Our, thankfully recently departed, Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, a (man-made) climate change denier, was responsible for ditching Australia's carbon pricing scheme on entering office. Our current Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is still largely adopting Abbott's policies - though he has softened the government's negative stance on wind turbines. Australia is not far behind the US in carbon emissions per capita, and by some measures worse:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/un-climate-conference/paris-un-climate-conference-2015-australia-ranked-third-to-last-for-emissions-20151207-glhtxf.html
Moreover, many in the government would seek to minimize reduction commitments. Fortunately our population is not that large. But Australia, the world's second largest coal producing country, is still contemplating allowing development of what will be one of the world's largest coal mines - Adani's Carmichael Mine.
@HW: "i.e., the Messianic spread of democracy in benighted regions by force if necessary"
Such as in KSA, Qatar, I/P (a democratic facade according to the Economist), Libya? If you believe the "spread of democracy" story I have a some real estate to sell you.
I'm sure you know the other reason that has been put forward for FDRs reluctance to admit Jewish immigrants.
http://thedailyjournalist.com/the-historian/fdr-and-the-jews-gruber-et-al-vs-lilienthal/
Correction: The person who said "I think it has got to do with Iran" was the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth, not of Israel. And then the supine BBC apologized to him for allowing him to say it - apparently he thought he was off air. BBC's pro-Israeli coverage of the carnage in Gaza continues.
Second attempt to respond - last disappeared!
http://desip.igc.org/fromWhatPriceIsrael.html
I quoted last time but this time I will paraphrase. The reason that post-war emigration of displaced persons (mainly Jews) to the US, UK and Canada was restricted was that the Zionist movement in the US lobbied against it. They argued that they could get money from rich American Jews for the Zionist project in Palestine if Jews migrated there but not if they migrated to the US.
Sorry - first link failed - but you can google it with
"Tehran AFP Iran swap Ahmadinejad"
As to the original swap deal - it failed because the Western powers changed the rules.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/irans-ahmadinejad-revives-nuclear-fuel-swap-offer-212223572.html
It appears that moonrider is not above a little disinformation:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hgcXVoTiNqpEZNAJWJB3Zf_t95TgdocId=CNG.0d7475ce7de608317f0ef718cc8c43a2.c11
Also worth reading - a different moon:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2011/11/on-nuclear-iran-allegations-the-scary-r265-generator-is-just-old-stuff.html
And Gareth Porter:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/10/irans-soviet-nuclear-scientist-never-worked-on-weapons/
There is enough evidence to suggest that the change of Director-General at IAEA has more to do with the change of tone of its Iran reporting than any new evidence.
Anyone who believes the US and Israel on Iran should read this:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1108/Imminent-Iran-nuclear-threat-A-timeline-of-warnings-since-1979/Earliest-warnings-1979-84
Let me clarify what "compulsory voting" means in Australia. It means that you must do one of the following:
1. Attend a voting centre - once you get there and are recorded as having attended you may do what you like with the ballot papers - make a paper airplane, write obscenities on them, or just walk out. There is no record of your voting.
2. Send a postal vote - again you may write what you like - it will not be identified against your name, or
3. Have a good reason for not doing 1. or 2.
Those libertarians who object to this minimal measure towards the preservation of democracy will undoubtedly ultimately lose it.
Chomsky has far more clarity than this parroting of the party line.
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/
Well the US and even Chomsky may believe that Israel is serving US interests but the Israelis believe its the other way round and I'm afraid the evidence is pretty clear.
"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do
that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American
pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." - Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.
Then let's discuss Israeli spies on the US who are let free, Congress's overwhelming support for the Israeli attack on Gaza at the end of 2008. I could go on at length.
What further concessions would you suggest the Palestinians make? They have already given up a very significant part of their land even if you start at the 1947 UN decision to cede part of their land to the Zionists or the 1967 borders. Should they just do what the Zionists want and go away completely so that the Zionists can have their Jewish State over the whole of Palestine? As to security guarantees, this is the old chestnut that the Zionists have used to grab more and more land.
"The guideline of our policy has always been the idea that a permanent
situation of no peace and a latent war is the best situation for us, and that
it must be maintained at all costs. ... we are becoming stronger year by year
in a situation of impending conflict where it is possible that actual fighting
may break out from time to time. Such wars will usually be short and the
results guaranteed in advance, since the gap between us and the Arabs is
increasing. In this way we shall move on from occupation to further
occupation. " (Yeshayahu Leibowitz, 30 November 1973)
"The separation fence is marketed to the Israeli public as a reasonable
security measure meant to separate Palestinians from Israelis; in reality, the
only separation it offers is between Palestinians and their land." (Oren
Medicks, 30 May 2003)
For the fifty-odd years since the establishment of the
state of Israel, successive Israeli governments whether Labour or Likud, and
whether by force as at Deir Yassin, or by chicanery as at Oslo and Camp David,
have followed the same policy of oppressing and dispossessing Palestinians to
make way for an exclusively Jewish state. Even now, when Israel could have
peace and security for the asking, Israeli governments persist in their
original intention of conquering the whole of Palestine for the use of the
Jewish people alone. And all this was done, and is still being done, by Jews,
for Jews and in the name of Jews." (Paul Eisen, January 2003)
"[In Gaza] there used to be 600,000 Arabs. Now there are 1.4 million people
there . in a few more years what happened to South Africa will happen to
us. The UN will decide that either we give the right to vote to everyone or we
will be outcasts from the family of nations. Absurdly, the greatest danger
that could befall us . is that the intifada would end - because then we would
fall asleep and wake up to a binational state." (Yonatan Bassi, 29 July 2004)
I agree unilateral concessions on one side alone will not work - let's see some from the Israelis. Period.
It is often that people who start their comments with "Nonsense" then produce an argument that is full of holes and this is no exception. Phud1 omits some significant differences between Israel and, say, the UK.
1. The UK has not sought to remove non-Christians from the state. The ones who were native there when the Romans came 2000 years ago were by and large converted to Christianity. The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings interbred with the locals as did the Normans. None sought to systematically drive out the locals. Though all of this was too long ago to be relevant today.
2. The UK allows immigration by non-Christians.
Not only does Israel prevent immigration of non-Jews and tries to reduce the number of non-Jews in the country, it severely restricts conversion to Judaism by non-Jews living in Palestine. I do not think any other state in the world imposes conditions like this. Even the more extreme Muslim states (not that I am a defender of their policies) will allow people to convert reasonably easily.
As to expulsion of the Jews - please read about the Lavon affair. Even Israelis accept that the majority of migrants from Arab countries either went to Israel because of encouragement by Israel or because of Mossad activities like the Lavon affair which either accidentally or deliberately created anti-Jewish sentiments.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/magic-carpet.html
This is really a response to Phud1 but I don't seem to be able to reply to that comment.
Now let me guess which member of the Security Council would veto any attempt to give Palestinians a vote at the UN ...
The issue is not about recognizing Israel, but about recognizing it as a Jewish State. This effectively means that it could never be otherwise, if a majority of its citizens were non-Jews, for example. About 20% of Israelis are not Jews, so to recognize Israel as a Jewish State would be to abrogate their rights.
As to borders, I doubt if there are two other countries in the world where the difference between the versions of the borders proposed by the two sides differed so much as a proportion of the total land. I suspect if Israel were willing to cede that there should be a Palestinian state (recognized and with guarantees about non-aggression by Israel) whose borders gave it within, say 5% of its UN agreed borders as of 1947, they would be happy to accept and recognize Israel as a country. What about it?
Why talk about Hamas as though voting for it means that one is in league with the Devil. Hamas offered the people of the Occupied Territories an alternative to the corruption of Fatah.
Here are some articles to read - in the MSM would you believe - that give the lie to most of what is said by US politicians and the MSM about Hamas.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n02/henry-siegman/israels-lies
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5420584.ece
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/10/19/hamas-theyre-not-bad-theyre-just-drawn-that-way/
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804
So let's stop apologizing for Palestinians voting for Hamas - which they did in both the West Bank and Gaza.
I do not see your argument. The analogy just does not apply. The North Africans in France did not go there with the aim of evicting the locals through violence - and then claim that the violence was all the fault of the locals. Had the Zionists gone to Palestine, where they were at first welcomed, with the idea of building a sharing community with the locals at a time when they were under the control of first the Ottomans and then the British it might well have been the case that Israel would indeed have been good for Jews worldwide.
Instead, the Zionists declared Israel to be "The Jewish State" - a home for ALL Jews - to the exclusion, as far as the rest of the world will let them get away with it, of all others. Of course they permit a 20% non-Jewish population just to prove that they are not really that bad - but they will not let it get to 30%. Read the statements of Weizman and ben Gurion. They have persecuted the local inhabitants in totally inhumane ways with the intention to persuade them to leave and when they resisted they have killed them. Thus far they might be seen to be little or no worse than any colonial power in, say, the Americas or Australia - I am not excusing either. However, what came next was a true act of Chutzpah - they blamed the locals for the problems that resulted and by and large persuaded Western Powers to suppor them in this. Certainly in the US and Australia, there is now a recognition of the need to make reparations to the locals. Israel, on the other hand, turns up the pressure.
The Zionists have done their best to identify "Jewishness" with being Israeli with being Zionist. In particular they attack those who criticize Zionism as anti-semitic. While none of these identifications is accurate, it is not surprising, given the way the Zionists and their apologists frame the debate, that many people make them. The fact that some Jewish groups worldwide are openly opposing the Zionist adventure is wonderful news. There are also many wonderful Israelis who oppose Zionism - let us celebrate their courage and humanity.
How they'll spin it? Isn't that obvious? They're "self-hating Jews". That's how they've spun every criticism from the Jewish community so far. I agree with you, however, that this is great news.
Wave of Protests, Gov't Condemnation
". it's utterly hypocritical for Israelis to wonder aloud why Palestinians
don't pursue a non-violent strategy. One obvious reason is that, whenever they
have, Israel brutally represses it." (Norman G. Finkelstein, 11 September
2003)
Why do Likudniks always ignore the facts? Hamas was willing to participate in 2008. It had a ceasefire with Israel which was holding - except that Israel was not upholding its part of the bargain: to allow the passage of goods into and out of Gaza. After around 5 months of this, Israel went a step too far and murdered several Hamas leaders with a rocket attack (how is it that Palestinians are the only ones described as "firing rockets"?) . This happened on US election day (I wonder why?) and the only mainstream newspaper to report it was the British "Guardian" as far as I am aware.
The US press I read (NYT and Wapo) seem to think that Israel has always been there and that Palestinians are stealing Israeli land.
While Israel had a government that could be described as "moderate", even though it had people who said:
"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.
they had the support of the people of the US who were suitably propagandized by the MSM. Israel has always been radical - but was able to present itself as moderate. With a "right wing" government in power it may be possible to see light between the US and Israeli administrations.
"Completely unacceptable Use of Force"
Phud1:in the light of your last two comments I am led to believe you might have an understanding of Hamas that comes from the MSM. Would you read these:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5420584.ece
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/10/19/hamas-theyre-not-bad-theyre-just-drawn-that-way/
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804
None of these are from particularly radical sources. Indeed the first is from the Murdoch press.
Of course the other Arab regimes don't like Hamas - it is a democratically elected Islamic government. That would threaten pretty well all of them.
Likud Vows it will Not Arrive
Is it not time to put the US media on trial? I looked at the NYT again today - once again it accepts the Israeli viewpoint without question - Israel's offer to take the cargo off the MV Rachel Corrie and transport it to Gaza. Consistently it mentions Hamas attacks on "unarmed civilians" while of course not mentioning ongoing and much more effective attacks by the Israelis on Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank. Though I have to admit they at least allow a spokesperson for Free Gaza to say that Hamas was "democratically elected"- usually the MSM say that Hamas gained power by overthrowing Fatah. On the other hand it allows the liar-in-chief Mark Regev to say that: "These are not human rights activists" and talk about Hamas' "appalling human rights record". Now that from an Israeli requires some Chutzpah!
I am writing this to thank you for showing that there is an ounce of sanity left in the US. I have just come away from the NYT truly sickened by the op-eds and the letters about the Israeli attack on the flotilla which appear to suggest that the peace activists were a bunch of terrorists. Their ignorance of the true roles of Hamas and the Israelis is so profound as to lead me to despair and this from apparently intelligent people. Until the people of US are given the truth, or more likely the American Empire disappears (how long can an empire persist on such lies). we can expect no improvement in the Middle East.
For your readers who are willing to open their minds, let me suggest the following websites, none of which are particularly anti-Israeli. Indeed the first is from that staunch supporter of Israel, the Murdoch Press.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5420584.ece
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/10/19/hamas-theyre-not-bad-theyre-just-drawn-that-way/
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804