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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Black Jimmy Carter / If Only Our Hands Weren’t Tied

If Only Our Hands Weren’t Tied

by @heymistermix.com|  June 1, 20107:14 am| 372 Comments

This post is in: Black Jimmy Carter

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Being the last friend on earth of a country the size of Houston puts us in an impossible position, all because Obama wasn’t nice enough to Bibi Netanyahu:

If there were no cracks in the relationship with Jerusalem, Obama could join in the criticism, while quietly working to restrain the UN Security Council from a lynch-mob-style response, and without casting doubt on the willingness of the U.S. to defend the Jewish state from a growing multitude of enemies.

But Obama has not handled Netanyahu well. So the White House’s cautious initial response to the incident — even as Israel was being beaten up by its closest friends in Europe — reflected a deeper dilemma about how much more tension an already strained alliance can bear.

That’s Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post. We may see some sane commentary in other papers after our hardworking journalists come back from vacation, but until then, Haaretz is doing a pretty good job of taking its own government to task, with headlines like Seven idiots in the cabinet.

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Reader Interactions

372Comments

  1. 1.

    Adam Collyer

    June 1, 2010 at 7:19 am

    Wait, the President of the United States hasn’t sufficiently genuflected to another country’s leader, so he can’t possibly criticize said country’s actions?

    Not only does that make zero sense, but this is a President who last year was castigated by the far right for showing too much respect to the Chinese and Japanese. What’s it going to be?

  2. 2.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 7:24 am

    Clearly the problem here is that other countries and the UN are in a cruel anti-Semitic conspiracy against Israel, one which will threaten said nation with many sternly worded letters and calls for more meaningless investigations to have no results and no effects and which will be denounced as anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist anyway.

    If Israel doesn’t have the right to blow the shit out of civilians (including Holocaust survivors) in international waters daring to bring aid to people being starved to death by Israel — in a territory which doesn’t belong to Israel — then how can tiny Israel possibly survive these large map things surrounding them?

    If Obama truly wanted to help us all by being Netanyahu’s bestest buddy, he could have send predator drones to blow up the aid flotilla and maybe if they could find a few buildings still standing in Gaza and blow them up to.

  3. 3.

    Caren

    June 1, 2010 at 7:28 am

    Let me get this straight: Obama hasn’t treated Israel like they could do no wrong, so now that they’ve done wrong, he can’t tell them they did wrong?

    Because then Israel won’t be our friend anymore?

    Because if Obama tells them they did wrong, they won’t believe it’s just a “nudge wink” statement for public view, they might believe he means it?

    Seriously?

  4. 4.

    cleek

    June 1, 2010 at 7:29 am

    broken wheels within broken wheels

  5. 5.

    Sly

    June 1, 2010 at 7:35 am

    a lynch-mob-style response

    Fuck him.

  6. 6.

    kay

    June 1, 2010 at 7:36 am

    It is amazing how much the defenders of this action by the Israeli commandos sound like the people in the US who defend police excesses.
    “If he had just dropped to the floor and submitted completely when the police broke down the door, he wouldn’t be dead!”
    The burden has shifted. Slowly but surely.
    It has somehow become the civilian’s responsibility to control the behavior of the professional aggressor.
    That this is now completely accepted as exoneration for any state action is scary. There’s no recognition, at all, of who holds most of the power. The two “sides” are portrayed as equals. A “fair” fight.

  7. 7.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    June 1, 2010 at 7:38 am

    We are periodically told that Israel has never had a forum of leading ministers so businesslike and thorough…

    Weren’t George W. Bush and Dick Cheney the “CEO administration”?

  8. 8.

    aimai

    June 1, 2010 at 7:39 am

    Fucking hell will they stop with the “lynching” language. Its beyond offensive applied outside of its historical context and when used here, to describe political fall out from Israel’s killing of unarmed civilian peace activists its absolutely vomit inducing.

    aimai

  9. 9.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 7:43 am

    For what little it’s worth:

    The UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, urged Monday the international community to bring to justice those responsible for the killing of some 16 unarmed peace activist, when Israeli armed commandos stormed a convoy of ships carrying aid to Gaza.
    __
    “Israel is guilty of shocking behavior by using deadly weapons against unarmed civilians on ships that were situated in the high seas where freedom of navigation exists, according to the law of the seas,” Mr. Falk said. “It is essential that those Israelis responsible for this lawless and murderous behavior, including political leaders who issued the orders, be held criminally accountable for their wrongful acts.”
    __
    There are confirmed reports of lethal interference by Israeli military units on the high seas with the Freedom Flotilla of six ships carrying some 10,000 tons of medicine, food, and building materials to the civilian population of Gaza. Preliminary reports suggest as many as 16 unarmed activists were killed, and dozens more wounded.
    __
    “This peaceful humanitarian initiative by citizens from 50 countries is an urgent response to the continuation of an unlawful blockade that has been maintained for almost three years causing great physical and mental harm to the whole of the 1.5 million people entrapped within Gaza,” the UN independent expert said. “Such a massive form of collective punishment is a crime against humanity, as well as a gross violation of the prohibition on collective punishment in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
    __
    “As Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, familiar with the suffering of the people of Gaza, I find this latest instance of Israeli military lawlessness to create a situation of regional and global emergency. Unless prompt and decisive action is taken to challenge the Israeli approach to Gaza all of us will be complicit in criminal policies that are challenging the survival of an entire beleaguered community.”

    And a useful summary treatment in Middle East Report Online:

    Spin doctors in Israel have been working fast and furious to mold the metanarrative of what happened aboard the Mavi Marmara. The American mainstream media has mostly concentrated on Israeli allegations that some of the activists were carrying weapons and thus posed a threat to the lives of the highly trained Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commandos. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told European diplomats that the ship’s passengers were “terrorist supporters who fired at IDF soldiers as soon as the latter boarded the ships.” An IDF-distributed video, shot from a helicopter, shows what appears to be a melee on deck and says the activists tried to “kidnap” a soldier. The goal is to spread the story that the commandos acted in self-defense. To this tale, Adam Shapiro replies, “Our understanding is that Israeli soldiers fired first.” In Ashdod, the Associated Press briefly glimpsed one American passenger, who blurted out, “I’m not violent. What I can tell you is that there are bruises all over my body. They won’t let me show them to you,” before being hustled away.

  10. 10.

    Uloborus

    June 1, 2010 at 7:47 am

    I really just… don’t understand it. Even Jews are far from unified in support of Israel’s binge of bloodthirstiness the last few years. Even really orthodox Jews are far from unified about it. And only the most fringe loonies of fundamentalism want the Rapture so bad they have any stake in Israel, because so many of the rest of the fringe loonies of fundamentalism are concerned about the way Jews keep murdering Jesus in movies and that whole baby eating thing.

    WHY is The Village so absurdly gung-ho about Israel? They could NUKE Israel and most of the country would hardly blink.

  11. 11.

    ksmiami

    June 1, 2010 at 7:49 am

    You know, I supported Israel for a long time, justified a lot of their actions, but at this point, if that country is intent on committing suicide, I don’t know why we have to go down with that ship. I like living, I think most Americans do too, well except for a bunch of crazed end-timers who should not play any role in shaping our ME policy…

    Netanyahoo does not deserve our sympathy, nor the chance to waste Obama’s time

  12. 12.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    June 1, 2010 at 7:51 am

    Yes. “I criticized Barack Obama for dealing with Israel sternly when he did, and I shall now criticize him for doing the opposite this time. Of course, had he dealt with them sternly this time, I would be criticizing that.”

    Yeah I think we get it, Jackson. It’s type-by-numbers journamalism, just fill in the numbered squares where Rush has indicated what to say.

  13. 13.

    Nick

    June 1, 2010 at 7:52 am

    @Uloborus:

    Even really orthodox Jews are far from unified about it.

    Not in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn (and pretty much most of the New York area) there are two types of Jews on this issue; those who are rabidly pro-Israel and those who just shutup.

  14. 14.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    June 1, 2010 at 7:53 am

    @Uloborus:

    That may be the stupidest statement I’ve ever seen on Balloon Juice.

    Edit: in fact, not going to give it voice by quoting it.

  15. 15.

    kay

    June 1, 2010 at 7:56 am

    I don’t know about other Americans, but “Obama’s failure” here isn’t really a crushing blow to me. I didn’t have a whole lot of hope riding on it.
    No US President in my lifetime has had the slightest success with Israel, that I can see, anyway.
    I watched George W Bush give them everything they asked for, and more. No change. The situation seemed to get worse, actually, so we know complete obedience is not helpful.
    Personally, I’d rather Obama work on a problem that has a snowball’s chance in hell of resolution. Maybe some miraculous US President will come along in the next 1,000 years and solve this problem for them. I doubt it, but it’s their country.

  16. 16.

    debbie

    June 1, 2010 at 7:57 am

    I knew it had to be Obama’s fault, and I await Glenn Becks’ explanation for it.

  17. 17.

    Nick

    June 1, 2010 at 7:58 am

    @kay: The fact that we’re supposed to play Israel’s strongest ally and unbiased nonpartial negotiator at the same time might have something to do with the failure to acheive anything.

  18. 18.

    PeakVT

    June 1, 2010 at 7:59 am

    However, in raw video captured by an Al Jazeera producer and published to YouTube late Monday, two journalists provide a play-by-play of the harrowing event as pops and cracks echo in the background. Even before the Israeli forces were aboard, one says, they were pelting the boat with tear gas and stun grenades, injuring numerous people.

    In raw video, reporters claim Israelis fired on activists before boarding ship

    Apologies if this is a repost.

  19. 19.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 8:01 am

    I realize that it’s not proper to listen to anyone other than Israeli government, IDF, U.S. government, and liberal hawk spokespersons on these matters, but here’s the perspective of one of those worthless dirty Arabs, and a woman, no less, who got herself elected to Israel’s Knesset (parliament) spreading her crazy conspiracy theories based on her own participation in the very flotilla that Israel shot up.

    Knesset Member Hanin Zoabi, who was on board the Marmara ship when it was raided by Navy fighters, held a press conference in Nazareth on Tuesday, in which she accused Israel of committing crimes during its takeover of the Gaza-bound aid ship. She called for an international inquiry into the incident.
    __
    Zoabi added, “It was clear from the size of the force that boarded the ship that the purpose was not only to stop this sail, but to cause the largest possible number of fatalities in order to stop such initiatives in the future.”
    __
    She said the flotilla’s participants did not have any violent intentions: “Our goal was to break the siege. We had no plans for a confrontation. Israel carried out a provocative military operation. Israel is used to doing as it pleases with the Palestinians. The main problem is not the ship, but the siege.”
    __
    She also demanded the activists held in Beersheba be allowed visitation. “We also demand a UN inquiry commission probe the Israeli claims. This is an international issue, because the passengers were from different nations.”
    __
    Of the raid itself, she said, “I entered the captain’s room. He was asked to stop by the Israeli soldiers. He said, ‘We are a Turkish ship.’ We were 130 miles off. It was 11:30 pm. We saw four Israel vessels, they were at a distance because we were in international waters. At 4:15 am we saw the ships approaching.
    __
    “They were dinghies and choppers. At 4:30 am the forces landed quickly. I did not hear any warning from the ships, because noise was coming from the ships and the choppers. Within 10 minutes there were already three bodies. The entire operation took about an hour.”
    __
    She denied any resistance from the ship’s passengers. “There was not a single passenger who raised a club. We put on our life vests. There were no clubs or anything of the sort. There were gunshots, I don’t know if they were live bullets or not. There were gunshots fired from the ships in our direction.
    __
    “A clear message was being sent to us, for us to know that our lives were in danger. We convened that we were not interested in a confrontation. What we saw was five bodies. There were only civilians and there were no weapons. There was a sense that I many not come out of it alive. Israel spoke of a provocation, but there was no provocation.”
    __
    Zoabi was released to her home Tuesday morning after being questioned. Three other Israeli Arabs who were on the sail faced a remand hearing at the Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court.

    I just don’t get the calls for an international investigation, other than that no one has any idea what else to call for.

    What would an international inquiry accomplish, no matter what conclusions it came to? Who would do the slightest of anything based upon its conclusions if they were contrary to whatever the most militarist Israeli officials wanted?

    And, again, the result in Israel and the West is that no matter who led the investigation panel / commission, if it didn’t say what right wing militarists & Palestinian haters wanted, it would be denounced as pro-terrorist and anti-Semitic and an Iranian conspiracy, etc., just like Goldstone’s work on the destruction of Gaza was, and case closed, and nothing happens.

  20. 20.

    stuckinred

    June 1, 2010 at 8:10 am

    but to cause the largest possible number of fatalities in order to stop such initiatives in the future.

    Come on now, if they wanted to kill everyone on all the ships they could have in the blink of any eye. I don’t excuse any of it but cut the bullshit.

  21. 21.

    kay

    June 1, 2010 at 8:11 am

    @Nick:

    I don’t understand the situation, with any depth. I read what everyone else reads, so whatever’s on the front page this year, this decade. I have enough trouble keeping up with domestic battles and politics.
    It just occurs to me that I have been listening to this lament, with minor variations, my entire adult life.
    If X would just do Y, it would be all better. Might be past time to move on to something positive and productive. How many US Secretaries of State have met massive failure here? All of them, in my lifetime. Taken together, that’s a pretty impressive group of people. I guess they weren’t trying hard enough. That magic perfect mix of necessary conditions and people was never in place, at the same time. Why would I think we’re going to stumble on the combination to unlock the safe? I don’t.

  22. 22.

    AxelFoley

    June 1, 2010 at 8:11 am

    “This blog is Obama’s Katrina.”

    Well played, sir.

  23. 23.

    cleek

    June 1, 2010 at 8:14 am

    $1000 / yr

    that’s what the average American will send to Israel in 2010 alone, via tax dollars.

  24. 24.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 1, 2010 at 8:16 am

    i will only ask again, why the commandos? why not just board boat-to-boat like the coast guard does? and why the paint-ball stuff? that’s just whacked.

    And it’s a good thing that Obama doesn’t have anything else to deal with here at home.

  25. 25.

    Mr Furious

    June 1, 2010 at 8:18 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: Yeah, certainly over the top rhetoric, but essentially true—the fact is that most Americans really don’t have a vested interest in Israel, and if shown the true costs of our support, would happily walk away.

  26. 26.

    Morbo

    June 1, 2010 at 8:18 am

    I’m also partial to “Mossad Chief: Israel is gradually becoming a burden on the U.S.”

  27. 27.

    Linda Featheringill

    June 1, 2010 at 8:19 am

    This whole thing was completely nuts.

    I sometimes wonder if the current leadership in Israel is stark, raving mad.

    Whom the gods would destroy, they first drive insane.

  28. 28.

    PeakVT

    June 1, 2010 at 8:21 am

    OT: Another possible repost is this incredible segment on Maddow’s show. If ever there was a must-see clip, this is it.

  29. 29.

    PeakVT

    June 1, 2010 at 8:23 am

    @cleek: Uh, you’re off by two decimal places. $3B (direct) divided by 300M = $10/per.

  30. 30.

    kay

    June 1, 2010 at 8:27 am

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    I don’t get that either. I don’t know why they didn’t board a boat for an “inspection” or whatever we’re calling it, from a boat.
    I guess rappelling in from a helicopter is the new normal. It has frightening ramifications for the Coast Guard, don’t you think?

  31. 31.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    June 1, 2010 at 8:32 am

    @Mr Furious: It was the over-the-top sentence that I was referring to. I quoted it but then thought better of it, in case Cole wanted to delete the first one.

    Just what this blog needs, some whack jobs quoting that one.

    Politicians and pundits have more of a vested interest than the general public- to some degree that’s true. That has to do with lobbying and etc, for one thing. That doesn’t mean that people would shrug off destruction, which is exactly what the right wing apologists like the trolls the other day scream as accusation, constantly.

  32. 32.

    DBrown

    June 1, 2010 at 8:34 am

    A lot of people forget that the IDF some years ago blew an American warship out of the water murdering many of our US service members in a cold blood – this intentional attack was launched to prove a point. WE – the US – then bent over and asked politely if we could have another. Israel’s satisfied that we kissed their ass for murdering a great many of our brave soldiers (So much for support the troops bullshit) decided that we learned our lesion as long as we groveled at their feet.

    So, now it is Turkey’s turn to learn – Not sure the Turk’s are the same cowards we are and will not react like ass kissing losers like we did.

    Just repeat – Israel is always right – US troops should be murdered if the IDF decides that it is in their interest. That Mantra is perfect for the right wing loons.

    As a supporter of Israel and its right to protect itself, once more, they have crossed the line. This is getting old and we need to vote in the UN to condemn such stupidity – in the long run, this helps Israel.

  33. 33.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 8:37 am

    Fuck Israel. Seriously, just fuck Israel.

    And this comes from a woman who, as a young girl, considered Golda Meir a personal hero.

    Fuck Israel. I wish they’d get crushed at this point. I have lost all sympathy and empathy for that rogue state.

    Just wish our politicians would see it the same way.

  34. 34.

    A Guest

    June 1, 2010 at 8:47 am

    @cleek: You’re going to have to work that one out for me, cleek. 300,000,000 x 1,000 = $300B, which… no.

    Or was there another calculation you had in mind?

  35. 35.

    kay

    June 1, 2010 at 8:47 am

    How long are they going to hold those 600 people without an appearance, anyway?
    Are they charged with anything? I understand 13 were charged for not giving their names. I’d like to hear what the rest have to say.
    This “debate” is a tad one-sided.

  36. 36.

    Phil

    June 1, 2010 at 8:55 am

    I’ve got a new header for the blog….John Cole and The BalloonJuice blog: Increasingly similar to Stormfront since 2003!

    So, what do you think?

  37. 37.

    Chris

    June 1, 2010 at 8:56 am

    I usually lurk but this thing is terrible. I agree that Israel acts more and more like a rogue state. The problem, I think, for the US in that this means that we can’t further isolate them. It’s the same as China and NK. States who are in a position, like Israel is, to cause tremendous problems for other countries (i.e., Turkey/NATO issue in this case) can’t be totally isolated because then they got nothing to lose. It’s unpalatable but I’m coming to think it’s America’s job to keep our foot in the door.

    The curious thing to me with the rapid pro-Israel people on this one is that they don’t seem to have any qualms about assuming the hapless victim narrative. They are all over the place yelling that Israel, who knew for days that these ships were coming and had taken the position that the whole thing was a publicity ploy, GOT COMPLETELY OUTPLAYED. It doesn’t seem like a position of strength to go to other countries and say, “We are totally incompetent and will blunder into all sorts of fiascos. Now, please say that you will stick by us.”

  38. 38.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 1, 2010 at 8:57 am

    @Phil:
    my snarkometer doesn’t have enough coffee atm to detect whether that is sarcasm or not.

  39. 39.

    Phil

    June 1, 2010 at 8:58 am

    geg6

    Fuck Israel. Seriously, just fuck Israel.
    And this comes from a woman who, as a young girl, considered Golda Meir a personal hero.
    Fuck Israel. I wish they’d get crushed at this point. I have lost all sympathy and empathy for that rogue state.
    Just wish our politicians would see it the same way.

    John Cole, you have such lovely commentators! Even that German dude from WW2 wasn’t this blunt! But that’s what I love about your blog John. The honesty!

  40. 40.

    Glen Tomkins

    June 1, 2010 at 8:58 am

    Easy enough for them

    “Haaretz is doing a pretty good job of taking its own government to task”

    It’s hardly fair to compare Israeli journalism to American journalism. They still have a functioning democracy, even if it isn’t functioning too well lately, so there’s an opinion market out there for something beyond lock-step agreement with any measure that the farthest right thinks might possibly help “national security”.

    In Israel, you can still criticize the gummint for over-reacting to people trying to end the Gaza blockade. In the US, the opinion that maybe even someone we all agree to call The Underpants Bomber was a thoroughly harmless nut, is just invisible.

    Right or wrong, effective or ineffective, at least the blockade of Gaza makes enough sense to agree or disagree with. But the War on Terror, if such a thing means making war on the Underpants Bomber, makes every concept it touches — war, terrorism, you name it — turn to dust and blow away in the wind.

  41. 41.

    Punchy

    June 1, 2010 at 9:02 am

    Commando raids on a boat would make a good movie

  42. 42.

    Chyron HR

    June 1, 2010 at 9:04 am

    @Phil:

    Well, at least one person is willing to stand up for the innocent Israeli bullets that were savagely attacked by the bodies of anti-semites.

  43. 43.

    Menzies

    June 1, 2010 at 9:05 am

    CNN just went with the “they killed them in self-defense” meme. That liberal media never stops working.

  44. 44.

    cleek

    June 1, 2010 at 9:10 am

    @PeakVT:
    that’s why it’s dangerous to blog before 8am

  45. 45.

    gnomedad

    June 1, 2010 at 9:10 am

    Clearly an apology tour to Israel is called for.

  46. 46.

    sashal

    June 1, 2010 at 9:12 am

    @Phil:
    Fuck you, Phil.
    Do you have any defence of the idiotic actions of Israeli government, or you just resort to knee-jerking attacks on any poster with any level of mild or not criticism of Israeli government actions.
    Boy, you are total retard…

  47. 47.

    Zifnab

    June 1, 2010 at 9:15 am

    My god, it’s like they make a country out of Dick Cheneys. What the hell do you do with this mess, at this point? I would absolutely love to see the US finally yanked the $3 billion / year we dump on Israel’s military. If they’re so dead set on this murder-suicide pact with the rest of the Middle East, I’m not clear why we’re required to fund it.

    But then we’d just be shooting our own military contractors in the foot, now wouldn’t we?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_%E2%80%93_United_States_military_relations#Foreign_military_sales

    Let’s not forget why Israel exists. It’s a nation state dedicated entirely to laundering US tax dollars for the domestic war industry.

  48. 48.

    Rathskeller

    June 1, 2010 at 9:15 am

    guys, it’s long past time to ignore the troll Phil. He/she/it is doing nothing but tossing molotov cocktails.

  49. 49.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 9:15 am

    Nice try Phil, but opposing this apartheid state in the Middle East makes no one any more anti-Semitic than opposing South Africa made one anti-White.

  50. 50.

    stuckinred

    June 1, 2010 at 9:18 am

    @DBrown: They were sailors not soldiers.

  51. 51.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 9:18 am

    Haaretz is doing a pretty good job of taking its own government to task, with headlines like Seven idiots in the cabinet.

    So sad — even Haaretz are all anti-Semites!

  52. 52.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 9:19 am

    Well, apparently Phil doesn’t know any American Jews. Because none of the ones with whom I am acquainted are at all appalled by anything I have to say about Israel. In fact, almost all of them agree with me.

    Guess that makes them self-hating Jews in Philworld.

  53. 53.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 9:19 am

    @Phil: Be sure and wipe off when you’re done, Phil.

  54. 54.

    Lisa K.

    June 1, 2010 at 9:19 am

    @Mr Furious:

    the fact is that most Americans really don’t have a vested interest in Israel, and if shown the true costs of our support, would happily walk away.

    Not to mention the chance that Mark Levin might drop dead with indignation as a result.

  55. 55.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    June 1, 2010 at 9:19 am

    Picked up from twitter Reuters is reporting that Egypt has opened its border crossing in response to the flotilla incident.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6502H820100601

  56. 56.

    Lisa K.

    June 1, 2010 at 9:21 am

    Haaretz is doing a pretty good job of taking its own government to task, with headlines like Seven idiots in the cabinet.

    What surprised me is not only are they criticizing the government-always fair game in any democracy-but they took on the competence of their military as well. Here in the US, criticizing “the troops” AT ALL is still enough to get you courtmartialed.

  57. 57.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 9:22 am

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    Good for them. Gaza is a stain that will never be washed out of Israel’s dirty laundry and Egypt’s enabling of it has been simply appalling.

  58. 58.

    Phil

    June 1, 2010 at 9:23 am

    Do you have any defence of the idiotic actions of Israeli government, or you just resort to knee-jerking attacks on any poster with any level of mild or not criticism of Israeli government actions.
    Boy, you are total retard…

    I’m glad you hate me. Nothing delights me more than being hated by stormfront apologists. Keep it coming.

    Look I know John and his commeters/fluffers are a little upset. Things haven’t worked out so great since John decided to stop supporting that Jew lover Bush and become a “progressive”. Then it turned out his boyfriend Barack continued all of Bush’s wars and is double if not triple as incompetent. Now poor John Cole is forced to hang out with anti Semitic conspiracy theorists.

    It’s been a long way downhill John but it looks like you’re almost there. I’ll see you in november when we bend you over and ram a hot poker up your ass. Enjoy losing the House and several Senate seats you anti Semitic pieces of shit.

  59. 59.

    thomas Levenson

    June 1, 2010 at 9:29 am

    What I want to know (speaking rhetorically), is when Israel’s leaders decided to sign up for a murder-suicide pact? And it only gets worse if the Palestinians finally figure out that the suicide role is a mug’s game and back off such self-defeating nonsense as random rocket attacks and pizza bombings.

    Then Israel will be all by itself, slamming sledgehammers down on un- or barely-armed opponents to the point that they find themselves in the position that the Brits were in 1947, or Botha’s boys were in 90-92.

    My family has been in the Zionism game since before there was Zionism — (see this, per a distant ancestor). I remain a strong supporter of an Israel that captures, say, Albert Einstein’s aspirations and expectations for it.

    But Bibi’s Israel (and Avigdor’s, and too many others) is not that place. It possesses, at least at the governmental level that utterly unforgivable combination of attributes: it is at once immoral and dumb.

  60. 60.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 9:30 am

    Let us know when you’re done beating off, DavePhil.

  61. 61.

    Phil

    June 1, 2010 at 9:30 am

    Well, apparently Phil doesn’t know any American Jews. Because none of the ones with whom I am acquainted are at all appalled by anything I have to say about Israel. In fact, almost all of them agree with me.
    Guess that makes them self-hating Jews in Philworld.

    “But all of my best friends are Jews! So what if I want the Jews to go away!”

    Wow? What a great defense. Original too. Did I mention it was original?

    Spare me your bullshit StormFronter.

  62. 62.

    Citizen_X

    June 1, 2010 at 9:30 am

    @Chris:

    It doesn’t seem like a position of strength to go to other countries and say, “We are totally incompetent and will blunder into all sorts of fiascos. Now, please say that you will stick by us.”

    I don’t like to say “this” too much but, well, this.

  63. 63.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 9:33 am

    @Phil: Your routine is getting stale, DavePhil.

  64. 64.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 9:33 am

    Shorter Phil: Nazi nazi nazi nazi NNNNAAAZZZZIIIIIII…

    Here’s your cum rag Phil. Need a smoke?

  65. 65.

    matoko_chan

    June 1, 2010 at 9:34 am

    The US is just an enabler in a dysfunctional relationship with Israel.
    What would Dr. Laura do?
    Say, cut them loose i think.

  66. 66.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 9:35 am

    I must say, I am getting a lotta laughs out the troll today. I mean, how funny do I find it to be compared to anyone or anything on Stormfront?

    Damn, that’s some mighty fine comedy. Maybe even better than BOB in my book.

    Hey Phil! I know I am but what are you?

    /PeeWee Herman voice

  67. 67.

    Asshole

    June 1, 2010 at 9:36 am

    I asked this in the last thread, I’ll ask it again.

    Is any criticism of any Israeli action permissible- even if that criticism is based upon even the most pro-Israeli of motives? Or does any criticism whatsoever of the Israeli government’s decisions constitute Nazism?

  68. 68.

    malraux

    June 1, 2010 at 9:39 am

    @Phil:

    I’ll see you in november when we bend you over and ram a hot poker up your ass.

    You’re bigotry is showing.

  69. 69.

    cleek

    June 1, 2010 at 9:39 am

    the accusation of anti-Semitism is the last refuge of a douchebag.

  70. 70.

    DBrown

    June 1, 2010 at 9:40 am

    stuckinred: Uh, what is the difference? Do you mean that since they do not fight on land they are not soldiers? Not trying to be sarcastic but all uniformed service members (even the coffee pushers in the five sided loser building) are soldiers or so I understand the concept. If others think not, then I am confused. Also, their blood was just as red as all other soldiers who die when blown up or cut to pieces by very heavy caliber aircraft machine guns.

    @Rathskeller: After venting about the IDF attack I need some comic relief so I am going to ask:

    Are they throwing Molotov cocktails or gasoline bombs? The reason I say this is because whenever you see someone on TV throwing a gasoline bomb, the media in their complete and required stupidity call it a Molotov cocktail.

    Molotov cocktails NEVER burn until they break – a burning bottle of any fuel is a gasoline bomb. No doubt that since common usage will completely change the meaning of a word due to people’s stupidity, I’m sure that this too has been changed BUT it is a proper name of a very specific weapon that was designed NOT to burn while being carried and thrown – that way, no one would see it coming and kill you before you could throw it. Rather clever (and deadly.)

    It is based on gasoline but the exact mix I’ll leave up to googling since it is a ‘chemical’ weapon and might be considered a WMD in todays innsane age.

  71. 71.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 9:40 am

    @Litlebritdifrnt: And now Egypt is saying that they’re going to open their border with Gaza permanently.

    Okay, along with Turkey, that’s two of Israel’s critical allies they’ve seriously pissed off. Brilliant.

    All this so that Bibi can get his trip to DC cancelled.

  72. 72.

    Citizen_X

    June 1, 2010 at 9:41 am

    Hey Phil! You know who else hated gay people…

  73. 73.

    Stroszek

    June 1, 2010 at 9:42 am

    Don’t feed the Phil.

  74. 74.

    Ed Marshall

    June 1, 2010 at 9:43 am

    @Phil:

    Well, Phil, what’s the world come to when people aren’t horribly sympathetic to helicopter full of commandos taking on a humanitarian aid ship full of drywall. We are *this* close to the brownshirts marching down Main St. God has truly shat upon us all.

  75. 75.

    stuckinred

    June 1, 2010 at 9:43 am

    @DBrown: You are confused, sailors are in the Navy even Seals who do operate on land are Sailors. Soldiers are in the Army and Marines are Marines. Has nothing to do with being in the line of fire, it has to do with we what they are. Firefighters are not police officers but they risk their asses just the same.

  76. 76.

    Tattoosydney

    June 1, 2010 at 9:45 am

    @PeakVT:

    However, in raw video captured by an Al Jazeera producer and published to YouTube late Monday, two journalists provide a play-by-play of the harrowing event as pops and cracks echo in the background. Even before the Israeli forces were aboard, one says, they were pelting the boat with tear gas and stun grenades, injuring numerous people.

    Dave and Tengy will be here soon to tell us how reality has an anti-semitic bias.

  77. 77.

    some other guy

    June 1, 2010 at 9:46 am

    Then it turned out his boyfriend Barack continued all of Bush’s wars and is double if not triple as incompetent.

    You know who else hates our black president and foreign interventionist policy, and trades in homophobic imagery? The Ku Klux Klan. Just sayin’. Why do you want to lynch our president, Phil.

  78. 78.

    Suicidal Zebra

    June 1, 2010 at 9:46 am

    I wonder if the raid was staged as a potentially positive photo-op showing the ‘well drilled and equipped Israeli commando’s swinging in to seize the flotilla quickly and bloodlessly’. If munitions were found when moored for inspection they could then say ‘gosh, what a naughty humanitarian mission’ further strengthing their case for a blockade’, and if none were found moving the ships on to Gaza in an attempt to show their ‘compassionate humanitarian side’.

    Now, with the (unexpected) deaths the Israeli PR machine is spinning for all it’s worth, without even tacitly acknowledging just how dumb an idea it was to assault Turkish ships in international waters. If things deteriorate expect the raiding party to be thrown under the bus (the usual, operating outside of their orders or similar) whilst the Cabinet reiterates the stance that they’re a small nation surrounded by hostile nations and merely protecting themselves. Oh, and we’ll probably see yet more footage of rocket fire from the West Bank into Israel.

    I doubt whether anything will change apart from the effective dropping of the blockade, taking on Turkish warships would be an escalation too far at this stage. If a hawk was in the Whitehouse, or Teapartiers controlled the House/Senate, they might consider it as the US would be neutralised.

  79. 79.

    Phil

    June 1, 2010 at 9:47 am

    For those offended by comparisons to stormfront, ask your “would stormfront write something akin to fuck Israel. I hope they get ‘crushed’ !”

    And the answer is yes, of course they would. There has been no repudiation or defense of that or similar comments on this blog. Mostly it seems to be “why won’t you just let us hate on Jews in peace and without comment?!”

  80. 80.

    trevorb

    June 1, 2010 at 9:47 am

    Phil, guess what, I am a jew. I have family living in Israel. No one in my family has supported Israel’s policies for a very long time. Does that make me a self-hating jew? Or just like most jewish people in the world, it makes us reasonable normal people.

    p.s the term “Jew lover”, is one only the KKK and neonazi’s use

  81. 81.

    Phil

    June 1, 2010 at 9:48 am

    Regardless of what you guys say, I am rubber and so is Israel. So what if we are acting like Nazis, you can’t do anything about it because criticizing us is completely off limits. If you do say anything bad, I will just change the subject to Anti-Semites.

    Neener, neener.

    fap fap fap.

  82. 82.

    Ed Marshall

    June 1, 2010 at 9:51 am

    @Phil:

    I dunno. You are the only person who said “Fuck Israel, I hope they get crushed”. Even if someone *did* say it, do conservatives really want to play “How many things does David Duke agree with my political enemies”?

  83. 83.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 9:52 am

    Jews and Israel aren’t the same thing, Phil. No matter how much you want to blur the distinction, it’s crystal clear for most of us.

  84. 84.

    DBrown

    June 1, 2010 at 9:55 am

    @DBrown: Oh well – wrong again.

  85. 85.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 1, 2010 at 9:56 am

    @Phil:

    I’ll see you in november when we bend you over and ram a hot poker up your ass. Enjoy losing the House and several Senate seats you anti Semitic pieces of shit.

    I guess we libs should bookmark that.

  86. 86.

    some other guy

    June 1, 2010 at 9:57 am

    @Phil:

    For those offended by comparisons to stormfront, ask your “would stormfront write something akin to fuck Israel. I hope they get ‘crushed’ !” And the answer is yes, of course they would. There has been no repudiation or defense of that or similar comments on this blog. Mostly it seems to be “why won’t you just let us hate on Jews in peace and without comment?!”

    I’m not offended! I think you’re right on, Phil. That’s why whenever I see criticism of Obama, I ask myself: is this something the KKK would write? Of course they would! And I don’t see you repudiating the KKK in every one of your posts, therefore it’s perfectly fair to assume you and your racist fellow travelers want to string the president up from the nearest tree and have a family picnic next to his naked, mutilated body.

    And if you deny this, well, it is only further proof that you only want to be left alone with your n*gg*r-hating fantasies.

  87. 87.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 9:58 am

    No one has the moral right to comment on anything, anything, the Israeli government does, except Israeli Jews themselves, unless of course, those Israeli Jews happen to oppose Israeli militarism and starvation and slaughter of Palestinians, in which case they are self-hating anti-Semite fifth columnists.

    Anyone who disagrees loves the Holocaust, wants to kill all the Jews, wipe poor, tiny, defenseless, plucky, perfect democracy Israel off of the map as it’s surrounded by all these nations which are large, huge on maps (and if you count unpopulated areas, they still can kill Israel by launching square kilometers of earth at them), and you want to love and kiss Hitler and have his and Ahmedinajad’s babies.

  88. 88.

    stuckinred

    June 1, 2010 at 9:58 am

    @DBrown: It’s no biggie but it’s good to call things as they are. I was in a coffee shop and a Navy officer in in whites came in and the girl at the counter said “oh I love a soldier in uniform”. He and I made the big rolling eyes!

  89. 89.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 10:02 am

    @Phil: I think Phil and “Pancake Rachel” Dave are sockpuppets for the same person. The obsession with Stormfront is suspicious.

  90. 90.

    me

    June 1, 2010 at 10:02 am

    Guilt by association is fun! Phil is a supporter of Israel’s policies. John Hagee is a supporter of Israel’s policies. John Hagee hates Catholics. Therefore, Phil hates Catholics.

  91. 91.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 10:03 am

    @some other guy: Your anti-KKK chauvinism only shows what a radical, fringe, extremist partisan you are. I thought Obama said he was going to bring us all together and bridge all gaps?

  92. 92.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 10:03 am

    @Ed Marshall:

    Actually, I said that. And I mean it. They are playing a suicide game. I say let them do it. I’m done with supporting them, morally and financially.

  93. 93.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 10:04 am

    The funny thing is, despite his fixation on Stormfront, Phil/Dave would fit right in on Freerepublic.com. That website is full of virulently racist people who think Israel’s only fault is that they don’t kill enough Ay-rabs.

  94. 94.

    John S.

    June 1, 2010 at 10:04 am

    Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Freeper Phil. Glad to see the sky is still batshit crazy in his world.

  95. 95.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 10:05 am

    @geg6:

    Actually, I said that. And I mean it. They are playing a suicide game. I say let them do it. I’m done with supporting them, morally and financially.

    Unfortunately the only way to quit supporting them financially is to quit paying taxes.

  96. 96.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 10:09 am

    By the way, Israel’s press is often gutsy, but only when Israeli military censors and their injunctions against reporters and their blockades of media access permit.

    The U.S. billion dollar media chooses to be lazy and in support of establishmentarian militarist policies, including fetishizing any military sources, but they don’t generally face actual government censorship.

  97. 97.

    tkogrumpy

    June 1, 2010 at 10:11 am

    @stuckinred: Hear, hear.

  98. 98.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 10:17 am

    Well, I think Dan Drezner nails it here:

    http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/31/israels_increasingly_untenable_situation

  99. 99.

    Shade Tail

    June 1, 2010 at 10:19 am

    The Israeli government can all die in a fire, for all I care. Fortunately, there is a thriving anti-bigoted-asshole faction in Israel, as the opinion article Mr. Cole linked to demonstrates.

    Who knows? Maybe Israel’s native anti-bigoted-asshole faction will actually be able to affect real change. Provided, of course, that the US government stops giving unconditional support to the bigoted asshole side. Of course, that would require the US government to grow a spine and stop listening to the tiny minority of Americans who love having Israel shaft them up the ass.

  100. 100.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 10:26 am

    @Shade Tail:

    Who knows? Maybe Israel’s native anti-bigoted-asshole faction will actually be able to affect real change.

    Yeah, cuz they did so well at keeping Bibi and his minions from the levers of government.

    I’m convinced that the anti-bigoted-asshole faction in Israel is a miniscule portion of the electorate there.

  101. 101.

    Larkspur

    June 1, 2010 at 10:43 am

    @Shade Tail: I tend to agree. Y’all really need to read the linked Ha’aretz article, and check out the ones features in the sidebar as well. This one is from a piece by Ari Shavit called Fiasco On The High Seas.

    Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Moshe Ya’alon are supposed to know history. They are supposed to know there was no greater mistake than that of the British with regard to the illegal immigrant ship Exodus in the summer of 1947. The brutality employed by the British Mandate against a ferry loaded with Jewish refugees turned the regime into an object of revile. It lost what is now called international legitimacy. British rule over the country ended just 10 months after the Exodus fiasco,

    The Turkish ship Mavi Marmara was no Exodus. It carried not Holocaust survivors but provocateurs, many of them extremists. But a series of baseless decisions on the part of the prime minister and the ministers of defense and of strategic affairs turned the Marmara into a Palestinian Exodus. With a single foolish move, the Israeli cabinet cast the Muslim Brotherhood in the role of the victim and the Israel Navy as the villain and simultaneously opened European, Turkish, Arab, Palestinian and internal Israeli fronts. In so doing, Israel is serving Hamas’ interests better than Hamas itself has ever done….

    And later:

    …During the 2006 war in Lebanon I concluded that my 15-year-old daughter could have conducted it more wisely than the Olmert-Peretz government. We’ve progressed. Today it’s clear to me that my 6-year-old son could do much better than our current government. Even a child would have seen the imbalance in the risk-threat assessment in overpowering the flotilla ships. Any smart kid would understand that you don’t sacrifice what is important for what is not. But the cabinet did not understand. Under the leadership of Netanyahu, Barak and Ya’alon it came to a patently unreasonable decision. It was a decision of complete fools….

    This whole thing is awful. It’s clearly Bush-and-Cheneyesque, and that is some bad shit indeed.

  102. 102.

    ellaesther

    June 1, 2010 at 10:46 am

    @El Cid: It’s refreshing to see someone boiling it all down to the essential truths, knowwhutimean?

    Speaking of the press, the speed and fury with which some of Israel’s own columnists came out of the gate in condemnation of their government was a small comfort.

    Some examples: Operation Mini-Cast Lead

    The Price of Flawed Policy

    The Second Gaza War: Israel Lost at Sea

    These are all in HaAretz – at Yediot they appear more concerned with the PR fallout of the events than the morality of the events themselves. There’s a great piece by Hagai Elad in Ma’ariv about how the real problem is “a value system that leads Israel to impose a siege on civilians and send soldiers onto the high seas to do battle with other civilians” – but it’s in Hebrew.

  103. 103.

    moe

    June 1, 2010 at 10:48 am

    @phil

    I don’t get it, what’s the defensible part here? The fact that they surrounded the ships in international waters? The part where they sent helicopters to storm the ships? The part where they’re stopping these ships because they have humanitarian aid for people in Gaza? The part where “Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister [said when it was first imposed]: ‘The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger'”?

    The part where… know what, I could go on but I’ll wait patiently for you to just answer those questions for me first…

    Moe

  104. 104.

    ellaesther

    June 1, 2010 at 10:53 am

    @geg6: It’s not miniscule, but it’s definitely a minority, and coalition politics makes it worse.

    Here are some links to the non-asshole contingent:

    The Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families Forum

    Combatants for Peace (Israeli and Palestinian former combatants working together)

    Just Jerusalem (the Israeli activists who have been protesting settlement expansion in Jerusalem)

    ETA: Shoot! Too many links! I’ve removed one, so this should work, but it may wind up showing up twice. Sorry!

  105. 105.

    me

    June 1, 2010 at 10:55 am

    This guy thinks that the Turks are really, really pissed off. Did the Israelis just completely blow up their close relationship with their only close regional ally?

  106. 106.

    slightly_peeved

    June 1, 2010 at 10:58 am

    and why the paint-ball stuff? that’s just whacked.

    Yeah, I didn’t get that either. The people on the ship will – reasonably – assume IDF commandos rapelling in are going to have real guns, not fake ones. So it doesn’t make the situation any less threatening.

  107. 107.

    slippy

    June 1, 2010 at 11:00 am

    You know what? Fuck israel. I’m sick of them.

  108. 108.

    ellaesther

    June 1, 2010 at 11:00 am

    @me: I think they very well may have.

  109. 109.

    Kryptik

    June 1, 2010 at 11:03 am

    Sadly, you guys all realize that the sturmunddrang from us will all be pointless, because there’s likely no way that any US pol will risk upsetting the political orthodoxy and actually try and condemn Israel for this. We’re the only country giving them the ‘benefit of the doubt’, as the Politico article on this quotes, because our pols are assured that ‘what [Israel] is saying is true’.

    It’s incomprehensible, but our political discourse has long been hijacked by the irrational and the stupid.

  110. 110.

    aimai

    June 1, 2010 at 11:05 am

    Maybe this will strike people as all too sensible and reasonable but here’s what Obama should do:

    He should take all the *internal Israel* critiques of this massive fuck up and go on prime time and hold up each and every one of the headlines, list all the (various, few) members of the peace block in Israel and what they have been saying. And say:

    “Its time we start listening to the Israel that really wants a way forward. ”

    The difficulty Obama has in extricating himself from this very special “relationship” with Israel simply has to be tackled. I don’t want to see his administration, and the dems, take the fall for being the ones to finally cut the gordian knot and I know that the AIPAC lobby is very strong–partially because its intertwined with our military industrial complex for reasons that are too complicated to go into–but this act by Israel’s military is just too far. We cant *not* respond agressively, diplomatically, to this Israeli crime.

    I think the way to do it is to try to align ourselves publicly with the internal dissent in Israel. That way Obama can (rhetorically speaking) say what he needs to say without being the one to say it in propria persona, as it were.

    aimai

  111. 111.

    Ed Marshall

    June 1, 2010 at 11:08 am

    @Kryptik:

    Drezner pointed out that the U.S. diplomatic language on the incident is exactly the same as China used about the sinking of the S. Korean ship by N. Korea. Great power embarrassed by stupid client state.

  112. 112.

    Cacti

    June 1, 2010 at 11:12 am

    Ahh yes, our “Strained relationship with Israel”.

    Does that mean they’re only grudgingly accepting our financial subsidies?

  113. 113.

    Ed Marshall

    June 1, 2010 at 11:17 am

    Well, the Kremlinology coming from SecState doesn’t look real hot.

    As I stated in the Chamber in December 2008, when we were confronted by a similar situation, mechanisms exist for the transfer of humanitarian assistance to Gaza by member states and groups that want to do so. These non-provocative and non-confrontational mechanisms should be the ones used for the benefit of all those in Gaza. Direct delivery by sea is neither appropriate nor responsible, and certainly not effective, under the circumstances.

    The United States remains deeply concerned by the suffering of civilians in Gaza, and the deterioration of the situation there, including the humanitarian and human rights situation. We continue to believe the situation is unsustainable and is not in the interests of any of those concerned. We will continue to engage the Israelis on a daily basis to expand the scope and type of goods allowed into Gaza to address the full range of the population’s humanitarian and recovery needs. Hamas’ interference with international assistance shipments and the work of nongovernmental organizations complicates efforts in Gaza. Its continued arms smuggling and commitment to terrorism undermines security and prosperity for Palestinians and Israelis alike.

  114. 114.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 11:18 am

    @Cacti: Yes, it means Bibi gets to flip off Obama as he accepts his $3 billion check.

  115. 115.

    Shade Tail

    June 1, 2010 at 11:18 am

    @aimai #111:

    Going over the head of a (like it or not) legally established government and appealing directly to a segment of their citizenry has all kinds of legal and political problems attached to it. For example, that’s the main reason why Obama didn’t explicitly side with the Iranian dissidents after their presidential election last year. Even just giving the appearance of undermining a government’s authority over their own country is not a smart thing to do.

    I’d definitely agree that the US government should stop propping up the Israeli government the way we do, but we still need to deal with them directly.

  116. 116.

    Asshole

    June 1, 2010 at 11:20 am

    @Phil:

    I don’t think Israel should be “crushed.” I would disagree with anyone who said that.

    I also don’t think Israel has the right to do whatever the Hell it wants to do. I can think of many mistakes that Israel has made- I think that this operation was a huge mistake, for example, not only because it was immoral but because it isolated Israel and lost it its only regional ally, Turkey.

    When a friend comes across another friend who’s busy committing suicide, he should stop his friend from committing suicide. It’s not the action of a friend if you help your friend blow his brains out.

    I think it’s fair to criticize a country and still call yourself a friend of that country. I think it’s fair to offer criticism of Israel from a pro-Israeli standpoint. I criticize America from a pro-American standpoint all the time. If I say the US shouldn’t do x because it’s bad for America, that doesn’t make me an Al Qaeda supporter; so why should saying that Israel shouldn’t drop commandoes on ships full of (whatever you want to call them, but for argument’s sake let’s say) provocateurs automatically mean that someone’s a Nazi? Doesn’t a very large percentage of the Israeli population feel that way about this raid? Don’t you think that even the Cabinet members who organized the raid would probably undo it now if they could go back in time and undo it? Why is it Nazism to say that some Israeli government officials made a stupid decision?

  117. 117.

    dutchmarbel

    June 1, 2010 at 11:20 am

    NY Times about the UN statement of today:

    But the Obama administration refused to endorse a statement that singled out Israel, and it proposed a broader condemnation of the violence that would include the assault by passengers of the Israeli commandos as they landed on the deck of the ship.

  118. 118.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 11:23 am

    @Kryptik: I agree that absolutely nothing about US policy towards Israel will change — Obama might even be spineless enough to refuse to condemn this at the UN — but Israel appears to have truly fucked their relationship with Turkey, AND Egypt is no longer closing their Gaza border to keep Israel happy. If any kind of change happens (a huge if) it’ll be because of Israel’s neighbors refusing to go along with the status quo.

    But even then, Israel might well suffer no real consequences for this stunt. (And it did accomplish Bibi’s purpose of ratfucking Obama’s Mideast plans.) If it would cost Turkey a lot of money to change things, they might well just blow this off.

  119. 119.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 11:26 am

    @dutchmarbel: The U.S. foreign policy establishment does not give a shit who the Israeli government shoots or bombs or starves. They do occasionally worry about some diplomatic difficulty it presents, but outside the grassroots populations in many countries, no government much gives a shit how many Palestinians die.

    UN demands for an inquiry, occasional tepid rebukes in the U.S. media, stern letters from European governments, some minor cooperative exercises or whatever with Israel canceled or postponed, impotent howls of rage from Arab, Muslim, and some leftist-oriented states throughout the 3rd world. Militarist screams in Israel and the U.S. that only a bunch of anti-Semites and pro-terrorists are complaining about latest Israeli assault X leaving however many dead, Israel could have killed many many more but are living saints upon Earth for not slaughtering more, why don’t you care about Israeli civilians, the librul medja are all anti-Israel, lather rinse repeat ad infinitum.

    And, nothing. Nothing. No change. Nothing done. Not until the Israeli government feels like it.

  120. 120.

    Stultiloquence

    June 1, 2010 at 11:27 am

    Instead of a pointless investigation, the United States should join Turkey and the rest of the international community in organizing another relief flotilla to Gaza – under the escort of NATO naval forces. If the goal is to bring in humanitarian aid, a flotilla organized and overseen by NATO should be free of any weapons or “agitators” that might concern the Israeli government. And, of course, even the current Israeli government might think twice before provoking a military confrontation with a fleet sanctioned by its allies, especially if it was made clear in advance that the escort vessels were authorized to defend the flotilla against any hostile action.

  121. 121.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 11:28 am

    @LD50: Egypt has on quite a number of occasions had temporary openings or lightenings of their side of the Gaza blockade.

    The Egyptian government, however, is most paranoid about either encouraging or enraging too much their own fundamentalist Islamic movements, so, the Gazan Palestinians come way, way down on the list, except when the Egyptian government feels it just can’t avoid doing something.

  122. 122.

    Ash Can

    June 1, 2010 at 11:32 am

    @Ed Marshall: What’s said in public doesn’t necessarily reflect what’s said in private. Granted, we’ll probably never know what’s being said to Bibi and his goons behind closed doors, but I’d take official statements with a grain of salt.

  123. 123.

    John Cole

    June 1, 2010 at 11:35 am

    @geg6:

    Fuck Israel. I wish they’d get crushed at this point. I have lost all sympathy and empathy for that rogue state.

    That’s just stupid and offensive. I don’t think the good people of Israel should be hurt because of the actions of the idiots that run their government any more than I think the people of Gaza should be forced to suffer because of the actions of Hamas.

    I know you have a habit of flying off the handle when you get passionate, but that is a profoundly stupid sentiment.

  124. 124.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 11:40 am

    If Reagan can give diplomatic recognition to the PLO back in the 1980’s, over objections by Israeli, Congressional, and AIPAC quarters, why can’t Obama support Turkey in delivering cement to Gaza?

  125. 125.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 11:42 am

    Now that Egypt has lifted their side I suspect we’ll see the blockade completely lifted by Israel as well. There’s little reason for them not to now.

    What will come a few months after that will be very bloody and at the wholesale level.

    It will be very interesting to see how Hamas reacts since they no longer have to say “Beetlejuice” five times in a row.

  126. 126.

    Kryptik

    June 1, 2010 at 11:43 am

    @KXB:

    Because Obama’s a Democrat. And he’s Black. And he may very well be a secret Muslim Manchurian Candidate. So how many people do you think would give him any benefit of the doubt if he did?

  127. 127.

    John Cole

    June 1, 2010 at 11:43 am

    Look I know John and his commeters/fluffers are a little upset. Things haven’t worked out so great since John decided to stop supporting that Jew lover Bush and become a “progressive”. Then it turned out his boyfriend Barack continued all of Bush’s wars and is double if not triple as incompetent. Now poor John Cole is forced to hang out with anti Semitic conspiracy theorists.

    There is so much fail there to unpack that I don’t even know where to begin.

    What never ceases to amaze me is how the loudest supporters of Israel fail to realize that the country doing the most damage to Israel… is Israel. The folks at Haaretz understand that, at least. Yossi Sarid:

    Had we simply let the flotilla reach Gaza – an option that was proposed – a cry of victory would indeed have erupted from the other side, but it would have died out in a day or two. But the Israel of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Barak, of ministers Moshe Ya’alon and Benny Begin, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Eli Yishai and even Dan Meridor, is vying with Hamas and Hezbollah over who can produce the most resounding demonstrations of strength – which amount to nothing but humiliating evidence of weakness.

    How did we so become so devoid of confidence in our ends that we instead put our trust in ways and means that dead-end on every passing ship? Had only we at least not dropped the soldiers one by one straight into the angry mob.

    What ought to come next is a demand for a probe, but it seems pointless. Stupidity knows no bounds, and it is a ministerial prerogative. And what is boundless is also unfathomable.

    So the septet will persist in its evil ways, endangering us more than any ship could, for madness will rule us. That gang in Jerusalem will insist on drowning us again and again, for there is no courage to change even after all the disasters.

    The entire editorial board of Haaretz:

    The grave political damage caused by the confrontation is all too clear. Relations with Turkey will probably deteriorate further, and there may even be serious damage on the official level. The proximity talks with the Palestinians, which started lamely and with low expectations, will have trouble proceeding, now that Israel has attacked a ship intended to aid Gazans languishing under a four-year siege. Hamas claimed an outstanding victory without firing a single rocket, Egypt is under redoubled pressure to undermine the siege by opening the Rafah crossing, and it’s reasonable to assume Europe and the United States will not be able to let Israel get away with a mere reprimand.

    All these developments are little surprise to anyone, and shouldn’t have surprised the policy makers in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, it seemed no one could resist the temptation to show the Israel Defense Forces’ strength in a place the IDF should not have been in the first place. Because the question was not who would win the confrontation, but who would win more public opinion points. In this test, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government failed completely. Israel let its policy of maintaining the siege on Gaza become an existential matter. This policy boomeranged and cost Israel its international legitimacy.

    Ari Shavit:

    During the 2006 war in Lebanon I concluded that my 15-year-old daughter could have conducted it more wisely than the Olmert-Peretz government. We’ve progressed. Today it’s clear to me that my 6-year-old son could do much better than our current government. Even a child would have seen the imbalance in the risk-threat assessment in overpowering the flotilla ships. Any smart kid would understand that you don’t sacrifice what is important for what is not. But the cabinet did not understand. Under the leadership of Netanyahu, Barak and Ya’alon it came to a patently unreasonable decision. It was a decision of complete fools.

    Endless questions are being asked. What happened to Israel’s vaunted creativity? Why was the worst of all possible options chosen? Where was the army chief of staff? Where were the intelligence services? Why did we walk into this trap, which we managed to avoid in all the years of the second intifada, with our eyes open? Why didn’t we see that instead of tightening the siege on Gaza, we were about to tighten the siege on ourselves?

    But I suppose they are all anti-Semites, too. Right, Phil?

    The people who did the most damage to Israel are the complete idiots who decided to send commandos onto a Turkish ship in international waters, into a situation they could not control, to be surprised that people attacking a ship at high seas might be met with resistance, and then losing control of the situation and gunning down a bunch of Turkish civilians. But yet Phil and the other Israel can do no wrong crowd are in here screaming at mythical anti-Semites.

  128. 128.

    Asshole

    June 1, 2010 at 11:47 am

    @Pococurante:

    I know. Sort of like how Bloody Sunday in Derry was the nicest thing the British ever did for the IRA.

    This whole fiasco was a great victory for Hamas, and a lot of innocent Israeli civilians are going to suffer because of their government’s utter incompetence.

  129. 129.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 11:51 am

    @John Cole:

    Neocons can dismiss Haaretz as the Israeli outpost of the “liberal, left-wing media”. I don’t expect Obama to publicly criticize Israel, but I was hoping that he could at least work up the nerve that predecessors have shown to tell Israel to back off. Even Dubya turned down Israel in 2007 when they wanted bunker-busting bombs, shared flight codes, and fly-over right over Iraq to go after Iran. Their lame performance against Hezbollah in 2006 convinced the Pentagon that Israel is not a competent military power against anything other than Hamas, which is armed with pretty crappy weaponry. The performance of Israeli commandos yesterday will just reinforce that perception.

  130. 130.

    FlipYrWhig

    June 1, 2010 at 11:52 am

    But we have to salvage our relationship with Israel! Think of all they do for us, like…. um…

  131. 131.

    Asshole

    June 1, 2010 at 11:53 am

    @John Cole:

    It’s reminiscent of the attitude that any criticism of any aspect of America’s War on Terror constitutes hatred of America. It understands “love” of country only in blindest, most infantile possible interpretation of “love”- the love of a four-year-old, who views any criticism of mommy or daddy as sheer enmity.

    I think it’s possible to criticize a decision by a national government and still love that nation. If it’s not, then anyone who criticizes Obama’s healthcare reform is an enemy of America. If it’s not possible to love a nation while still criticizing its government, then anyone who criticizes Obama hates America- and probably Mom, apple pie, and freedom itself, too.

  132. 132.

    Michael Scott

    June 1, 2010 at 11:58 am

    I don’t get it. Can’t we just import some fire-breathing Ha’aretz editorial writers over here, who have no problem harshly and openly criticizing their ostensible elected leaders in their ostensible democracy?

    I’d sure like to see the rightwads make the case that they’re all “self-hating Jews” and “anti-Zionists” . . .

  133. 133.

    Ed Marshall

    June 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm

    I think you are giving Phil too much credit. He doesn’t seem like an Israeli zealot, he doesn’t sit around and hand out the Israeli version of history or even go into the normal fits of rage about the evils of Islam that you get from hardcore warfappers.

    I don’t think he knows anything about it other than Jews=Israel, If you say bad things about Jews=Israel you are a Nazi. It’s a actually a sort of nasty anti-semitic formulation of it’s own

  134. 134.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 12:03 pm

    It wasn’t just Turkish civilians. I know there were Canadian, Australian and New Zealand civilians aboard because their family members were interviewed by the CBC and Radio New Zealand.

  135. 135.

    Kryptik

    June 1, 2010 at 12:07 pm

    @Michael Scott:

    I wouldn’t take that bet. They managed to turn Kerry into a deserter and Max Cleland into an ally of Al-Qaida successfully, remember. They do cognitive dissonance very well, to the detriment of our political discourse.

  136. 136.

    ericblair

    June 1, 2010 at 12:10 pm

    @Shade Tail:

    Going over the head of a (like it or not) legally established government and appealing directly to a segment of their citizenry has all kinds of legal and political problems attached to it.

    I tend to agree with this, but the irony when applied to Israel tends to knock your socks off.

  137. 137.

    Dave

    June 1, 2010 at 12:14 pm

    Once more for the challenged – listen very carefully and I will try to use easy words about the so-called “peace activists” aboard the ships:

    1) These thugs say that they are peace activists and that their main concern is for their “poor Palestinian brethren” and there is film of them, before they set off, threatening to visit the same massacre upon Jews as their prophet did at Khaybar;

    2) They also say that they want to deliver “humanitarian aid” to the Palestinians;

    3) They are told, time after time, that they cannot and yet they still persist and, worse, their countries of origin don’t seem at all interested in persuading them not to do so;

    4) when they get near Gaza they are calmly invited to surrender their cargoes to the Israeli navy and all but one of them do so. The cargoes will be taken to Ashdod, searched, and sent to Gaza through the crossings provided they do not contain things which can make armaments. With me so far? Good. Hang on in, not long now;

    5) all but one ship does so. Their people are escorted to Ashdod and processed by the IDF in case among them are terrorists. If they are not, they will be home soon.

    6) the remaining ship, the biggest and chock full of the crazed Islamist lunatics (who belong to an organisation that the UN has afirmed, funds Al-Queda, for FSM’s sake) who had been filmed threatening to massacre Jews, refuses point blank the Israeli Navy’s invitation to be escorted into Ashdod. Israel has reason to believe that it presents a threat to security so it takes the action it does, but not strongly enough.

    Now:

    7) Remember these Islamists say that they are peace activists in spite of getting themselves all hot and cranked up to visit the same massacre on the Jews as happened at the Khaybar oasis.

    8) Now, the IDF commandos are forbidden from using their small side arms (note, not machine guns) and are sent in, against chains and metal poles and slingshots firing marbles, and knife wielding Islamist maniacs, with paint ball guns initially at least, to avoid loss of life.

    9) Only when these crazed and far from peaceful activists are about to overwhelm the IDF commandos are they given permission to draw arms and defend themselves. (Before that eye witness testimony describes how some of the soldiers were overpowered and disarmed and their guns used to shoot members of the crew). Eye witness testimony also says that the IDF commandos are told to shoot at the legs of their attackers.

    Now, do you get it? Using this incident as yet another excuse to pour out your collective Judenhass won’t wash any more.

    Call the response disproportionate? Of course IDF response was disproportionate. Had it been proportionate then many more of the Islamists would have been killed.

  138. 138.

    Citizen_X

    June 1, 2010 at 12:16 pm

    @KXB:

    I don’t expect Obama to publicly criticize Israel, but I was hoping that he could at least work up the nerve that predecessors have shown to tell Israel to back off.

    I don’t have any hope that he will work up the nerve. He has told Israel to back off in the past and, oh my, the fainting spell that afflicted the Beltway set! Remember, the political “spectrum” in DC runs from “Israel can do no wrong” to “Israel should double its number of nuclear warheads and use half of them.” So Obama gives Bibi’s strings a slight pull, and all of a sudden, President Secret Musselman is sabotaging our special relationship with Israel and he’s, he’s abandoning them! (The not-so-subtle subtext from some was that he cannot be trusted because he’s, you know, one of them.) So the Village has allowed him very little leeway in dealing with Israel-Palestine. I don’t see him challenging that strongly.

  139. 139.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 12:26 pm

    @Dave:

    Yeah, the Israelis are as likely to let the goods get to Gaza as they were to halt settlement activity after signing the Oslo Accords in the nineties.

    You can choose to look at the events of the past 24 hours in a selective vacuum. For those of us who operate in the real world, these recent events confirm what many of us who once admired Israel have come to conclude – that they are a spoiled teenager, using Uncle Sam’s credit card and gun collection to pick fights with its neighbors. To top it off, they are not very good.

  140. 140.

    Asshole

    June 1, 2010 at 12:28 pm

    @Dave:

    It would be a lot easier to have a respectful discussion with you if you didn’t use inflammatory language to describe each and every individual person’s opposition to this commando operation.

    It’s very possible for reasonable PRO-ISRAELI minds to think that this operation was a clusterfuck. You know why? Because it was. Because at this point, I don’t care if they find out that Osama Bin Laden was on that ship so that he could personally hand off a suitcase nuke to Hamas. The IDF will still come off looking like a bunch of murdering assholes in the global PR battle they just utterly lost. I, for one, happen to think that’s a bad thing for Israel. You may disagree with me, but that doesn’t mean I’m a Nazi.

  141. 141.

    Chyron HR

    June 1, 2010 at 12:28 pm

    @KXB:

    But Dave said “Islamists” fifty times and put “peace activists” in sarcastic quotation marks. How can you argue with logic like that?

  142. 142.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 12:31 pm

    All these ships were packed with magic neutra-bombs and they was gonna blowed up Israel for Al Qa’ida and all you who don’t believe it are a buncha reality-ignoring anti-Semites and Israel got the right to blow up anybody anywhur it wants because if it don’t they gon’ come in and killemall ’cause Israel looks kinda small onna maps.

  143. 143.

    Kryptik

    June 1, 2010 at 12:32 pm

    @KXB:

    I still like to characterize it best like a flock of sheep who go out of their way to provoke the wolves with sharp sticks, because they know they have the farmer waiting behind them with a shotgun.

  144. 144.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 12:33 pm

    @“Pancake Rachel” Dave:

    Hey Dave, tell us again how you know better than Jews and Israelis do who an ‘antisemite’ is. Always good for some giggles.

  145. 145.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 12:33 pm

    It seems Dave’s argument is, “Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?” What do the other people in the flotilla say? Oh, Israel won’t let them speak, you say?

  146. 146.

    someguy

    June 1, 2010 at 12:37 pm

    @Phil:

    Look I know John and his commeters/fluffers are a little upset. Things haven’t worked out so great since John decided to stop supporting that Jew lover Bush and become a “progressive”. Then it turned out his boyfriend Barack continued all of Bush’s wars and is double if not triple as incompetent. Now poor John Cole is forced to hang out with anti Semitic conspiracy theorists.

    You stay classy, Phil. And keep on taking them AIPAC dollars.

  147. 147.

    Citizen_X

    June 1, 2010 at 12:37 pm

    @Dave:

    With me so far?

    Um, no. Correction needed:

    provided they do not contain things which can make armaments or buildings.

    There, fixed.

    The cargoes will be taken to Ashdod, searched, and sent to Gaza through the crossings
    …
    Their people are escorted to Ashdod and processed by the IDF in case among them are terrorists. If they are not, they will be home soon.

    Here’s a hint: don’t hold your breath waiting for these things to happen.

    your collective Judenhass

    Oh, I thought you wanted argument. Fine. Fuck you too.

  148. 148.

    scav

    June 1, 2010 at 12:38 pm

    I’m getting confused. Are we still at the Top Kill part of the Isrighti charm offensive (“Throw random junk into the discourse and hope something sticks.”) or the Top Hat phase (“Attempt to shut down and isolate all discourse”) phase? I’m seeing similar levels of success in both operations, frankly.

    ETA Isrighti is my own term for the can do no wrong school of Israeli support. There’s more dissent in Israel than in certain insulated environments here.

  149. 149.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 12:39 pm

    I’m not embarrassed about Israeli clusterfucks and how their government makes them look bad. I’d hate it even more if their repression was much more smoothly carried out, led to much better PR, and made it easier for their militarist leaders to keep carrying out harmful policies.

    I’m more worried that these successive Israeli governments of any political party continually and massively and laughingly and unstoppably slaughter and starve Palestinians and violate international law, though that concern counts for zero, because no outside power whatsoever can or even cares to restrain these policies.

    It’s certainly awful that this horrendous and cruel ‘leadership’ leads to violence for both Palestinian and Lebanese and Israeli citizens, though the latter feel far, far, far less of the brunt, and unlike the Palestinians the Israelis face no likelihood of their state being destroyed nor of starvation and sewers running in their streets.

    By the time some final agreement, if one is still possible, is made for a ‘two state’ solution, the Palestinians, as has been Israeli policy for decades, will have a laughable, tiny excuse of a state, riddled with settlements and impassable barriers and limits to any control of their own borders, and the plus side will be that none of their neighboring or more distant Arab or Muslim state leadership will have to pretend to give a shit about the Palestinians any more.

    It would likely be better than the status quo, particularly for Israelis, but may be about the best to be expected.

  150. 150.

    Michael

    June 1, 2010 at 12:39 pm

    @Dave:

    Call the response disproportionate? Of course IDF response was disproportionate. Had it been proportionate then many more of the Islamists would have been killed.

    Y’know, for a guy ostensibly in the UK, I find your grammar to be oddly and colloquially American. You also seem to have an in depth understanding of the sorts of hysterically tremblemaking events, songs and history that causes wails of poutrage from cringing, whining piece of shit Likudniks in Israel and their pathetic AIPAC tools in Washington.

    My bet is that you’re posting from some bit of lovely office space somewhere in the Beltway.

  151. 151.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 12:39 pm

    @KXB:

    You can choose to look at the events of the past 24 hours in a selective vacuum.

    Yeah, like how yesterday someone (either TengePhule or Dave) said that the people on the ship shouldn’t have responded with hostility because they had no way of knowing that the commandos intentions were aggressive. You never know, the IDF could have been boarding with the intent of sitting down over coffee for an earnest discussion of the complexities of the situation in the Occupied Territories.

  152. 152.

    blahblahblah

    June 1, 2010 at 12:39 pm

    Israel accepts significant funding, in both military and domestic aid, from the United States. Thus, they are a client-state to the United States. In this instance, they conducted a military exercise by boarding a ship flying the Turkish flag, a NATO ally to the United States, in international waters. That is an act of WAR. Which is why Turkey is particularly pissed and has announced that they will send military escorts the next time these humanitarian idiots want to stick their thumbs in Israel’s eye.

    Think about it from this perspective: What if Turkey invokes Article V of the NATO charter, requesting common defense from its allies? What the hell does the United States do? We would be allies to BOTH nations. Do we abrogate our responsibilities to NATO? These Israeli motherf*ckers are driving a wedge between the United States and NATO at this point. When will United States policy-makers finally realize that Israel is not acting like a client-state, but instead is f*cking with our international agreements world-wide for their own domestic political purposes?

    F*ck them. Let’s cut their military aid and let them twist alone for a little while. Perhaps they’ll realize without that without the US in their shadow they are very much out in the open and surrounded by enemies. And then, perhaps, they’ll learn a bit more of a deferential tone to those giving tremendous sums of aid to further their cause.

  153. 153.

    me

    June 1, 2010 at 12:39 pm

    @Dave:
    1) Link to the video or it didn’t happen.
    2) Link to evidence of it not being aid.
    3) So? The point was that the “blockade” is criminal.
    4) Invited with a gun in their back. Given the absurdity of the rules about what can go into Gaza, there was reasonable expectation the supplies would never get there.
    5) and are held incommunicado.
    6) I guess pirates should be given tea parties when they board ships.

  154. 154.

    Ash Can

    June 1, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    LOL! This Dave guy blathers on for paragraphs and paragraphs, then asks if we “get it.” Cripes, Dave, we got that you’re a bigoted asshole after the first line or two. I’m sure it makes him feel better to vent, or amuses him to spoof/troll if that’s what he’s doing, but geez, what a waste of space.

  155. 155.

    someguy

    June 1, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    The people who did the most damage to Israel are the complete idiots who decided to send commandos onto a Turkish ship in international waters its blind supporters who encourage it to shit all over itself and squander its moral capital.

    Fixed.

  156. 156.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 12:41 pm

    @“Pancake Rachel” Dave:

    Using this incident as yet another excuse to pour out your collective Judenhass won’t wash any more.

    Thank goodness you aren’t using the Holocaust today, Dave.

  157. 157.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 12:44 pm

    @Michael:

    My bet is that you’re posting from some bit of lovely office space somewhere in the Beltway.

    Yesterday he made up some horseshit story about ‘losing relatives to IRA terrorists’ to forestall people figuring this out. Also note how he keeps mentioning the ‘FSM’ to make himself look like some hip internet-savvy liberal. “Even the liberal democrat Dave thinks…”

  158. 158.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 12:44 pm

    I really can’t think of a case in which humanitarian or solidarity activists were slaughtered by a nation to which the U.S. foreign policy establishment was closely allied which didn’t result in the victims being slandered as dangerous and subversive and evil or fellow traveling dupe unworthy targets who pretty much brought on whatever was coming to them.

    It could have been a boat full of clones of the baby Jesus and it wouldn’t have mattered, suddenly people would be claiming that videos showed the infant, um, Jesii to have been doing baby dances to bin Laden tapes.

  159. 159.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 12:48 pm

    You can see the terrorists WERE armed and attacked the Israeli soldiers:

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137798

    Several of the extremists shouted the common Islamic chant, “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Mohammed will return!” according to video footage on Al Jazeera television and translated by PMW.

    Khaibar is the name of the last Jewish village defeated by Mohammed’s army in 628, PMW explained. Many Jews were killed in the battle, which marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia, and there are Muslims who see that as a precursor to future wars against Jews.

    “The chant is often heard as a threat to Jews to expect to be defeated and killed again by Muslims,” PMW added.

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137799

    If a picture is worth 1000 words, then these video clips are worth millions.

    IDF Soldier Shot, Critically Wounded on Flotilla Boat

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137780

    The terror-supporters got what they deserved. The IDF was way too easy on them.

  160. 160.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    @Phil:

    Ah, Phil …. you sound like 2005 in here, all over again.

    I am pleased to see that the this blog has almost completely turned the corner on Israel. There was a time when a mere suggestion that Israel might be being run by fools would invoke a chorus of charges of anti-semitism. Now, such an absurd charge is roundly booed by the blog.

    That’s a positive sign, in my opinion.

    I agree with geg6. Fuck Israel, very much. After spending almost exactly my entire lifetime watching Israel act as if it had a not just a God-given right but a God-given imperative to crush every perceived, real or imagined threat to its absolute rightness with deadly force and extreme prejudice, and then shedding crocodile tears about how it really wanted “peace,” I am pretty sure that Israel is more dangerous to world peace than even that crazy fuck in North Korea at this point. Okay, they don’t have a loony leader who always goes around wearing what looks like a sanitation worker’s jumpsuit, but still. They are in the most volatile region on earth, and they have the most bellicose attitude on earth.

    What really worries me is the extent to which the establishment political leadership in this country is willing to bend over for that little crazy country and its band of ruling assholes.

  161. 161.

    someguy

    June 1, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    @LD50:

    Everybody who posts here who disagrees with me is nothing but a fucking troll. Me too, on the days one of my comments disagrees with one of my past comments.

  162. 162.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 12:50 pm

    @John Cole:

    I really don’t agree, John, but feel free to offended. If it’s fine to threaten other countries with destruction in the name of “freeing” them, like the Iraqis and the Iranians and the Pakistanis and the Afghans, then not being very concerned or feeling glad about the self-destruction of Israel is certainly not in any way outrageous or offensive. They chose this path; they can live with it. I really don’t care what happens to them. If Egypt and Turkey decide enough is enough, good for them. I feel the same way about the US sometimes because I consider us a rogue state and I’m one of those good Americans who would surely die in any such scenario.

  163. 163.

    me

    June 1, 2010 at 12:50 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: How that bigot thing working out for you?

  164. 164.

    blahblahblah

    June 1, 2010 at 12:54 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    I have a great idea for you. Israel stops taking US military and domestic aid, the United States ends any promise, explicit or otherwise, to aid in the defense of Israel in any future wars, then you guys can go off and do and do whatever the hell you want in Gaza and with your neighbors.

    Oh, yeah: We’d like Israel to join the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty too.

  165. 165.

    Chyron HR

    June 1, 2010 at 12:54 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    The IDF was way too easy on them.

    Remember, the only good Jew Muslim is a dead Jew Muslim.

  166. 166.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 12:58 pm

    @El Cid:

    Here is a lesson from 1971:

    Pakistan, a U.S. ally which was vital for re-establishing links between the U.S. and China, carried out a genocide in its eastern wing, sending 10 million refugees into India. After warning the Nixon White House for months that if they did not get Pakistan to stop, they would take their own course of action, in December India proceeding to invade East Pakistan, and helped give birth to the independent nation of Bangladesh. The valuable ally asked for U.S. help, and because the U.S. was tied down in its own military mess (Vietnam) and economic problems, the U.S. did nothing more then send a small show of force by sending an aircraft carrier into the Bay of Bengal, warning India not to invade West Pakistan, which it was not planning to do anyway.

    Flash forward to 2010, another American “ally”, Israel, engages in behavior that outrages its neighbors. Israel having access to the U.S., believes it has nothing to worry about. It’s neighbors are chaotic and disorganized (much as India appears to outside observers). But like the Pakistanis in the 1970s’s, the Israelis seem to be blind to events around them. Like that period, America is consumed with economic problems at home, and two wars. The people have no desire to get caught up in another foreign mess, even if it is to benefit a country that is considered an ally.

    Rather than look around their neighborhood, and see the changes taking place, Israel is copying Pakistani behavior, thinking it is tougher than it actually is. To lose Turkey as its most important regional ally is a disaster that we will not know the full cost of for some time.

    Would Turkey attack Israel? No, but its standing in the world as a moderate Muslim state gives it the diplomatic heft that the Arab states lack. AIPAC can exercise its fund-raising levers to keep the U.S. out of the West Bank and Gaza. They have no such leverage over Turkey. If Turkey decides to become directly involved in the dispute, what can Israel do to keep them out?

  167. 167.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 12:59 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    I guess you never saw The Mouse That Roared. In that movie, the powerful country judged that the hapless invaders were men from Mars.

    And of course, in our present day situation, the invaders weren’t even really invaders at all.

    Several of the extremists shouted

    Yelling epithets doesn’t make people a deadly threat, you moron.

    If people yelling slogans were an existential threat then New York City would have been destroyed by Yankees haters a long time ago.

  168. 168.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 12:59 pm

    @me:

    We don’t tolerate bigots here in OUR land.

  169. 169.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:00 pm

    @Chyron HR: The Jerusalem Post was wondering why the IDF didn’t take these terrorists seriously enough, because clearly it wasn’t humanitarian aid when the boats refused to honor an internationally illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza on the basis of promises that Israelis would allow them to transport the aid over land after inspections presumably in vehicles they didn’t have and which couldn’t be allowed to enter Gaza because they might have been ferrying weapons, etc., etc., etc.

  170. 170.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:02 pm

    @blahblahblah:

    I have a great idea. Read about the lend-lease. The US supports its allies; not its enemies.

    PS “Support for Israel in U.S. at 63%, Near Record High” (February 24, 2010)

    For the first time since 1991, more than 6 in 10 Americans — 63% — say their sympathies in the Middle East situation lie more with the Israelis than with the Palestinians. Fifteen percent side more with the Palestinians, down slightly from recent years, while a combined 23% favor both sides, favor neither side, or have no opinion.

    The 63% sympathizing with Israel today is statistically unchanged from the 58% to 59% seen from 2006 to 2009; however, it is considerably higher than most of the previous readings on this Gallup measure since 1993. The trend includes two 38% readings in 1996 and 1997.

    Only in January 1991 — shortly after Israel was hit by Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf War — did U.S. support for Israel register as high as it does today.

  171. 171.

    Xenos

    June 1, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    Israel has managed to put Greece and Turkey on the same side of an issue, which is pretty damn impressive.

  172. 172.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    ‘Yishai’ sounds an awful lot like “Pancake Rachel” Dave.

  173. 173.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    @Chyron HR:

    You said that- not me.

    And what the Muslims on the boat said was:

    “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Mohammed will return!” according to video footage on Al Jazeera television and translated by PMW.

    Khaibar is the name of the last Jewish village defeated by Mohammed’s army in 628, PMW explained. Many Jews were killed in the battle, which marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia, and there are Muslims who see that as a precursor to future wars against Jews.

    “The chant is often heard as a threat to Jews to expect to be defeated and killed again by Muslims,” PMW added.

  174. 174.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:05 pm

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay:

    The yelling was the precursor to their attempted murder and lynching.

  175. 175.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:05 pm

    @KXB: I really don’t see the situations as having parallels. I can’t foresee Turkey or any other government whatsoever playing anything vaguely similar to India’s role in the events recited. I’m not magic, I’m not saying what is completely and utterly impossible, but I don’t see any serious and influential Turkish response as likely.

    The U.S. was violently opposed to Vietnam’s overthrow of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge dictatorship which Washington claimed it was horrified by (and which it had brought about by carpet-bombing Cambodian villages and destroying agricultural production), but by this time it could do very little about it. (And moved to begin indirectly encouraging aid to the remaining Khmer Rouge rebels, but that’s a different matter.)

  176. 176.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    @LD50:

    Terror-supporters get what they deserve- and that includes the pancake.

  177. 177.

    me

    June 1, 2010 at 1:07 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Avigdor Lieberman, or better yet look in the mirror.

  178. 178.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Another transplanted Russian/Ukranian/Betyelorussian masquerading as an Israeli? Hey, if I had the choice between freezing my butt in Kiev or sunning on a Tel Aviv beach, I’d do it too.

  179. 179.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    Several of the extremists shouted the common Islamic chant, “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Mohammed will return!” according to video footage on Al Jazeera television and translated by PMW.

    Even if this is true (and I have my doubts. Your source is hardly credible), there is freedom of speech on the high seas.

    Chanting offensive things doesn’t in justify an attack by the military and the killing of unarmed civilians, at least in liberal democracies.

    I thought Israel was a democracy. That’s what they keep insisting. Only Islamic countries kill people for saying offensive things. Right? Israel is supposed to be different. Right?

  180. 180.

    Xenos

    June 1, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    The yelling was the precursor to their attempted murder and lynching.

    Ha! And I thought you were a fascist troll. Well played, sir.

  181. 181.

    blahblahblah

    June 1, 2010 at 1:09 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    I have a great idea. Read about the lend-lease. The US supports its allies; not its enemies. PS “Support for Israel in U.S. at 63%, Near Record High” (February 24, 2010)

    Not any longer, motherf*cker. You’re talking to one of the former 63%. Support for continuing Israel as an ally and client-state to the United States is declining furiously. And I’m one of the citizens who represent that decline. You’re now threatening the entire world security apparatus by engaging in warmongering with a NATO ally. From my perspective, if the US had to choose between Israel and NATO, then f*ck Israel. Go twist.

    Learn your position, motherf*cker. That is: Client-State to the United States – because you take our money – not dictator of the terms. You are not acting like any ally to the United States. You are acting like a bully to your friend. Your very BIG friend. The last one who might conceivably help you in the event that a real existential threat to Israel’s existence came forth. At this point, I’m ready to cut Israel off.

    Let’s stop wasting money on the middle east and build out one thousand nuclear power plants and transition to electric cars with the savings instead. F*ck the middle east. Fuck Israel. They can all go to hell.

  182. 182.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 1:10 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Based on your statement I’m guessing you live in Israel, so I’m guessing the Jerusalem Post isn’t any longer published in Israel? Because that is one hellava bigoted rag, or it was until David Horovitz bought it. Don’t know if it changed tone since I refuse to read it and haven’t since about 1996.

  183. 183.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:10 pm

    The yelling was the precursor to their attempted murder and lynching.

    Oh sure, even imagined attempted murder is far worse when it is preceeded by yelling.

    In my country, idiots can say that The President is Hitler(tm), and storm troopers won’t descent on them and kill them to prove how self righteous and godly we are.

  184. 184.

    Josh

    June 1, 2010 at 1:11 pm

    @Michael:

    You know, I’ve worked with a lot of British/English people and Dave’s diction, grammar, and phraseology just doesn’t match what I’ve come to define as English.

    I think the reason I’ve only been largely standing by in the rafters on this one is because I find the trolls like Phil and Dave to be far too disingenuous to waste time on.

    Their basic MO is to make unfounded claims, skew facts, bait a legitimate poster, and then attack them once they try to refute the arguments. Like I said before, this isn’t an argument; it’s an emotional attack meant to elicit a specific response.

    The only way to shut these people up is to stop engaging with them.

  185. 185.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:11 pm

    @me:

    Avigdor Lieberman appointed a Bedouin Arab, Ismail Al-Khalidi, as his Middle East Advisor.

  186. 186.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 1:12 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Dude, who cares? Israeli paranoia is no more an excuse than American paranoia.

    Allahu akbar!

    There. Does that make me an al Qaeda sympathizer?

    Jeebus. What a buncha pussies.

  187. 187.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay: If the TeaTards carry their Obama = Hitler signs while on a boat in international waters carrying aid to BP executives on the Deepwater Horizon, the U.S. Navy has full right to board and shoot them.

  188. 188.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    @KXB:

    Israel is the Jewish homeland, and Lieberman is a Jew.

    It’s really quite simple.

    PS Last names as al-Masri (the Egyptian,), al-Djazair (the Algerian), el-Mughrabi (the Moroccan), al-Yamani (the Yemenite) and even al-Afghani are common among those claiming to be “Palestinians.”

    I wonder why…

  189. 189.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:15 pm

    @toujoursdan:

    There’s nothing to doubt or not doubt. I provided a link so you can watch it yourself.

    And again, it was the precursor to their extreme violence.

    We won’t tolerate that.

  190. 190.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:16 pm

    @blahblahblah:

    Go cry in your burqa, loser:

    Israel as a Security Asset for the United States

    We, the undersigned, have traveled to Israel over the years with The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). We brought with us our decades of military experience and, following unrestricted access to Israel’s civilian and military leaders, came away with the unswerving belief that the security of the State of Israel is a matter of great importance to the United States and its policy in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. A strong, secure Israel is an asset upon which American military planners and political leaders can rely. Israel is a democracy – a rare and precious commodity in the region – and Israel shares our commitment to freedom, personal liberty and rule of law.

    Throughout our travels and our talks, the determination of Israelis to protect their country and to pursue a fair and workable peace with their neighbors was clearly articulated. Thus we view the current tension between the United States and Israel with dismay and grave concern that political differences may be allowed to outweigh our larger mutual interests.

    As American defense professionals, we view events in the Middle East through the prism of American security interests.

    The United States and Israel established security cooperation during the Cold War, and today the two countries face the common threat of terrorism by those who fear freedom and liberty. Historically close cooperation between the United States. and Israel at all levels including the IDF, military research and development, shared intelligence and bilateral military training exercises enhances the security of both countries. American police and law enforcement officials have reaped the benefit of close cooperation with Israeli professionals in the areas of domestic counter-terrorism practices and first response to terrorist attacks.

    Israel and the United States are drawn together by shared values and shared threats to our well-being.

    The proliferation of weapons and nuclear technology across the Middle East and Asia, and the ballistic missile technology to deliver systems across wide areas require cooperation in intelligence, technology and security policy. Terrorism, as well as the origins of financing, training and executing terrorist acts, need to be addressed multilaterally when possible. The dissemination of hatred and support of terrorism by violent extremists in the name of Islam, whether state or non-state actors, must be addressed as a threat to global peace.

    In the Middle East, a volatile region so vital to U.S. interests, it would be foolish to disengage – or denigrate – an ally such as Israel.

    Rear Admiral Charles Beers, USN (ret.)
    General William Begert, USAF (ret.)
    Rear Admiral Stanley W. Bryant, USN (ret.)
    Lieutenant General Anthony Burshnick, USAF (ret.)
    Lieutenant General Paul Cerjan, USA (ret.)
    Admiral Leon Edney, USN (ret.)
    Brigadier General William F. Engel, USA (ret.)
    Major General Bobby Floyd, USAF (ret.)
    Major General Paul Fratarangelo, USMC (ret.)
    Major General David Grange, USA (ret.)
    Lieutenant General Tom Griffin, USA (ret.)
    Lieutenant General Earl Hailston, USMC (ret.)
    Lieutenant General John Hall, USAF (ret.)
    General Alfred Hansen, USAF (ret.)
    Rear Admiral James Hinkle, USN (ret.)
    General Hal Hornburg, USAF (ret.)
    Major General James T. Jackson, USA (ret.)
    Admiral Jerome Johnson, USN (ret.)
    Rear Admiral Herb Kaler, USN (ret.)
    Vice Admiral Bernard Kauderer, USN (ret.)
    General William F. Kernan, USA (ret.)
    Major General Homer Long, USA (ret.)
    Major General Jarvis Lynch, USMC (ret.)
    General Robert Magnus, USMC (ret.)
    Lieutenant General Charles May, Jr., USAF (ret.)
    Vice Admiral Martin Mayer, USN (ret.)
    Major General Fred McCorkle, USMC (ret.)
    Rear Admiral Mark Milliken, USN (ret.)
    Major General William Moore, USA (ret.)
    Lieutenant General Carol Mutter, USMC (ret.)
    Major General Larry T. Northington, USAF (ret.)
    Lieutenant General Tad Oelstrom, USAF (ret.)
    Major General James D. Parker, USA (ret.)
    Vice Admiral J. T. Parker, USN (ret.)
    Major General Robert Patterson, USAF (ret.)
    Vice Admiral James Perkins, USN (ret.)
    Rear Admiral Brian Peterman, USCG (ret.)
    Lieutenant General Alan V. Rogers, USAF (ret.)
    Rear Admiral Richard Rybacki, USCG (ret.)
    General Crosbie Saint, USA (ret.)
    Rear Admiral Norm Saunders, USCG (ret.)
    Major General Sid Shachnow, USA (ret.)
    Rear Admiral Jeremy Taylor, USN (ret.)
    Major General Larry Taylor, USMCR (ret.)
    Lieutenant General Lanny Trapp, USAF (ret.)
    Vice Admiral Jerry O. Tuttle, USN (ret.)
    General Louis Wagner, USA (ret.)
    Rear Admiral Thomas Wilson, USN (ret.)
    Lieutenant General Robert Winglass, USMC (ret.)
    Rear Admiral Guy Zeller, USN (ret.)

    — signatures as of April 1, 2010

  191. 191.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Phil = “Pancake Rachel” Dave = Yishai Kohen.

    Guess he’s trying to prop up his charges of antisemitism by posing as an Israeli Jew.

    I can’t wait to see what his next persona is.

  192. 192.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    Hey, if you read it on FrontPageMag — David Horowitz’ continuing effort to apologize for his ego-tripping, guilt-ridden, nightmare-causing involvement as a self-appointed Revolutionary Marxist in a Black Panthers office when a friend of his got killed — it must be true.

  193. 193.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Shame on you, and shame on Israel.

    That will be the legacy of this debacle, all of your breathless posts notwithstanding.

  194. 194.

    Michael

    June 1, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    The terror-supporters got what they deserved. The IDF was way too easy on them.

    Dave 2.0, izzat you?

    LOL

  195. 195.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:18 pm

    @geg6:

    I do live in Israel, where we have the gamut of newspapers to match our opinions; left, right, and center.

    That’s the great thing about freedom.

  196. 196.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:19 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: OMG! A letter signed by a bunch of military dudes! Which happens to say the exact same thing that U.S. foreign policy officials have said for over 4 decades! EAT THAT LUZRS!

  197. 197.

    blahblahblah

    June 1, 2010 at 1:19 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    And again, it was the precursor to their extreme violence. We won’t tolerate that.

    Then do it on your own dime. Walk away from your client-state position with the United States and go to war yourself. On your own. Alone.

    Also: Do it with a NATO ally and expect a confrontation with the United States, as a NATO member. Oh yeah, also: Your nation is a non-declared nuclear state, just like North Korea. We’d like to remedy that problem too.

  198. 198.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:20 pm

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay:

    I also posted video from al-Jazeera and Turkish TV of the terror-supporters initiating violence against the Israeli soldiers.

    Extreme violence.

    Pity so many violent terror-supporters survived.

  199. 199.

    Michael

    June 1, 2010 at 1:21 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    We brought with us our decades of military experience and, following unrestricted access to Israel’s civilian and military leaders, came away with the unswerving belief that the security of the State of Israel is a matter of great importance to the United States and its policy in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean.

    Why? If our policy in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean is all about supporting Israel, than what does the US gain through its support of Israel?

    In other words, what does Israel do for us that isn’t about directly supporting Israel?

  200. 200.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:21 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: I know. I only wish there was as much a range of discussion of Israeli policy here as in Israel, where the mainstream here are all a bunch of immoral cowards who think only the most militarist and right wing and chauvinist policies by Israeli officials count as ‘pro-Israel’ and not-anti-Semitic.

    Of course, debate should include Palestinian and Arab nation sources as well, because otherwise it would be racist and chauvinist and declaring that no voices are legitimate unless they happen to live under a government you approve of.

  201. 201.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    @LD50:

    Nope. I’m none of those others. Now is the first time I even heard of this blog, so I came to check it out.

    Besides, who cares what the name of the poster is? I don’t.

  202. 202.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    ‘Yishai’, you’re overdue to compare us to Stormfront. Get right on that.

  203. 203.

    Josh

    June 1, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    Here, let me demonstrate troll-ology with the language that has been used by this Yishai Kohen fellow.

    “attempted murder and lynching”

    This language is intentional. Note that many people on this blog take historical exception to the use of the word “lynching” in this context. Though it has been repeated ad nauseum, its use it deliberate here. Also note the use of the word “murder.”

    This is done to gloss over the situation by putting the onus entirely on the people that were on the floatilla. You know, because, pipes and chairs beat guns and helicopters every time.

    “There’s nothing to doubt or not doubt.”

    This is a highly specious sentence that cannot be disproved. It’s almost like a tautology because of the form, but it isn’t because it isn’t true. There is something, and you can doubt it. You may chose to not doubt it, but, essentially, you aren’t unable to doubt it.

    I can only assume that the best way to go about conversing with a person like this is to just ignore the blather. You literally cannot talk to a person like this because they won’t allow you to.

  204. 204.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:24 pm

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay:

    Shame on the terror-supporters.

    I find it very odd that they support the most tyranical fascist terrorist groups- that oppress all of the peoples that these purported “progressives” claim to support; women, gays, etc.

    Just goes to show that they’re not liberals any more than Stalin was.

  205. 205.

    sparky

    June 1, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    the presence of some of the posters on these threads makes me wonder how to define the difference between a troll and a flack. if both have the same goals–disruption/distortion/obfuscation–then is the fact of payment a sufficient distinction? are flacks trolls? or are trolls acting as if they are flacks?

    in other words, which is more important in this context–purpose or process? does it matter? should it?

    yeah i know, rather meta, but the inability of the flacks/trolls to get much traction on these threads is, at least to me, more interesting than watching their efforts, as the never ever concede anything argument style is rather uninteresting as well as unconvincing.

  206. 206.

    blahblahblah

    June 1, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Go cry in your burqa, loser: [then, official US statement of support for Israel]

    Hey, motherf*ucker: I’m blueblood WASP. I couldn’t care less about Gaza, the Muslims, your old wars, or any of that. We just wanted the f*cking Middle Eastern oil, and – for a time – you guys helped with that. But now you’re in our way, creating existential threats FOR US. Go f*ck yourselves.

    Watch how quickly that official support declines as you keep pissing in our sandbox.

    I was a real Israeli supporter. For a long time. But no longer. You can go f*ck yourselves. I now see that you and your nation needs some alone-time.

    Now, go stand in that corner. Bad little boy. Bad!

  207. 207.

    Citizen_X

    June 1, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    in 628

    Oh, you mean nearly FOURTEEN FUCKING CENTURIES AGO?

    If you, and they, care so much about what happened way back then, then you people deserve each other.

    Have fun. Don’t be surprised when we start to question our billions of $$$ of support.

  208. 208.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    @El Cid:

    Guess what? The “military dudes support Israel just like the rest of Americans do; right, left, and center.

    A Gallup poll in June 1948 showed that almost three times as many Americans “sympathized with the Jews” as “sympathized with the Arabs.” That support was no flash in the pan. Widespread gentile support for Israel is one of the most potent political forces in U.S. foreign policy, and in the last 60 years, there has never been a Gallup poll showing more Americans sympathizing with the Arabs or the Palestinians than with the Israelis.

    Over time, moreover, the pro-Israel sentiment in the United States has increased, especially among non-Jews…

    http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080701faessay87402/walter-russell-mead/the-new-israel-and-the-old.html

  209. 209.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    @Josh: I think the flotilla genocidalists should also be charged with theft, and their relatives like good old classic Chinese policy be charged with repaying the bullets their bodies robbed from Israeli guns. Dirty terrorist thieves. And an international commission should be convened to investigate this international bullet-theft conspiracy. Anyone who disagrees wants to destroy tiny, itty bitty, helpless Israel and is also an anti-Semite.

  210. 210.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    @Michael:

    Why? If our policy in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean is all about supporting Israel, than what does the US gain through its support of Israel? In other words, what does Israel do for us that isn’t about directly supporting Israel?

    From what I can tell, Israel performs the invaluable service of standing up for us when middle-eastern countries hate our guts for letting Israel do anything it wants. And the reason we let Israel do anything they want is because they stand up for us when middle-eastern countries hate our guts for letting Israel do anything it wants.

    That’s a bargain at a mere $3 billion a year.

  211. 211.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    Where is Hamas’ counterpart? Imagine if Gaza was run like the West Bank…

  212. 212.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 1:29 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    I have watched it. The interpretation of it I doubt.

    And the only precursor to extreme violence was the boarding of the IDF onto a civilian ship in international waters. The IDF were the instigators of the violence.

    Again, free speech. That means freedom to say and chant despicable things. Freedom of speech means that no one can militarily intervene UNTIL a violent act IS committed.

  213. 213.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:29 pm

    @Michael:

    Why don’t you ask those dozens of senior officers?

  214. 214.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Shame on the terror-supporters.

    And therefore, kill them. So since I consider you a terrorist supporter, I am justified in killing you.

    And there you have it. The contribution of Israel to the peace of the world. We will all end up killing each other.

    You and Ahmadinejad truly deserve each other.

  215. 215.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    @LD50:

    I don’t play those childish games. I’m not like you guys.

  216. 216.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    OMG, a bunch of retired generals and admirals love them some Israel! Well, color me impressed and I will immediately change my mind about the entire Middle Eastern situation.

    And feel free to have your retired general/admiral friends explain exactly what it is Israel brings to the table in its client state relationship with us. Because they don’t do it in your little love letter there and your statements here have caused me to lose what teeny tiny little bit of nostalgic feeling I had remaining for your country.

    The US relationship with Israel has brought no benefit to this country. NONE. Israel has nothing we need or want and has done nothing that we need or want. So the bleating of a bunch of retired war hawks about their love for Israel means less than nothing to me.

  217. 217.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Let me be clear — if I think I’m right on a policy argument, I literally don’t give a shit — not the slightest shit — whether there’s a letter from every single one of the other 6 billion people on the planet telling me they disagree. I don’t know what your nonsensical point is trying to prove — mainstream media cowardice is okay if it jibes with popular opinion? Surveys determine truth?

    For a while, the U.S. war in Vietnam was popular. So was the U.S. invasion & occupation of Iraq. You could get a lot of shit-heads to sign letters in favor of that. And also raving about how awesome it was for Reagan to hire terrorists and death squads to slaughter civilians in Central America and Southern Africa, the former forces receiving training directly and indirectly from Israeli intelligence, the latter benefiting from Israel’s close alliance with the South African apartheid fascist regime in nuclear weapon collaboration.

    Likewise, there are plenty of people in Israel who don’t give the slightest shit if they represent in their policy and moral beliefs 30, 20, 10, 5, 1, or .001% of Israeli opinion — they support the policy arguments that convince them.

    Anything else is, of course, idiocy and cowardice.

  218. 218.

    Michael

    June 1, 2010 at 1:32 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Pity so many violent terror-supporters survived.

    Actually it was a pity that more mothers of IDF thugs didn’t get to wail piteously at their thug funerals.

    In any event, I keep thinking that at some point, I’ll be amused to see Bibi wail like the bitch he is as they’re dragging his ass off in cuffs at the Hague. Avigdor Lieberman, too.

  219. 219.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 1:32 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Sure, Dave.

  220. 220.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:32 pm

    @Josh:

    Watch the videos that I posted. It’s plain to anyone and everyone that the terror-supporters used extreme violence.

    They paid for that.

  221. 221.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 1:33 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    They did not. The IDF attacked them, not vice versa.

  222. 222.

    Chyron HR

    June 1, 2010 at 1:34 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    The “military dudes support Israel just like the rest of Americans do; right, left, and center.

    What nationality do you think the people you’re ranting at are?

    I’m genuinely curious.

  223. 223.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:34 pm

    @blahblahblah:

    Support for Israel has remained steady and will continue that way in the US.

    And any soldier returning from Iraq or Afghanistan will only boost it. They know what the jihadis are.

    I just spoke to a former Marine about that.

  224. 224.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:34 pm

    How dare so many terrorist sympathizers violently react when Somali pirates board their ships in international waters? I demand FrontPageMag investigate!

  225. 225.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:35 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    They’re living with a mindset 14 centuries old. Of couse that’s their frame of reference.

    I posted the video from al-Jazeera of them.

  226. 226.

    AxelFoley

    June 1, 2010 at 1:35 pm

    @Linda Featheringill:

    Whom the gods would destroy, they first drive insane.

    What fools these mortals be.

  227. 227.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 1:35 pm

    @Chyron HR:

    Yup. Not even Jewish Americans all feel that way.

    New York Times: On Israel, Jews and Leaders Often Disagree

  228. 228.

    Michael

    June 1, 2010 at 1:36 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Why don’t you ask those dozens of senior officers?

    I’m asking you. I’m disinterested in asking a bunch of Israel-bought whores.

  229. 229.

    Josh

    June 1, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    It’s clear if you look at them from the perspective you have. For someone who isn’t prejudiced to look at the situation in the way you are, the situation is not that clear.

    I think that’s what you’re failing to understand, here.

    It’s why, when you come to a blog like this, you get labeled a whack-job. We don’t see this through your perspective, so we don’t subscribe to your point of view. This also means that we don’t automatically agree with the inflammatory language you use, so it doesn’t really help your case when you come in and say things like “attempted murder and lynching” when we’re trying to discuss this in a way that, largely, is cogent to the majority of the posters on this blog.

    So, when I see those videos I don’t reach the same conclusions you do.

    What is so hard to understand about that?

    Want to have a real discussion or do you want to be labeled an idiot?

  230. 230.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    @toujoursdan:

    You didn’t watch with an open mind. That was before they violently attacked with knives and other weapons.

    They paid for that.

  231. 231.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Support for Israel has remained steady and will continue that way in the US.

    No doubt. Israel could nuke every single one of its neighbors and at most there would be a sternly worded letter from the U.S., an appeal for there to be calm on all sides, and a UN panel demanding an international commission to investigate, pleas to please have Israel lift the blockades on allowing irradiated refugees to flee, and outraged FOXNOOZ and FrontPageMags loudmouths demanding the U.S. President be impeached for insufficiently cheering on the nuke attack.

  232. 232.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    A Gallup poll in June 1948 showed that almost three times as many Americans “sympathized with the Jews”

    I don’t think it is rocket science to figure out that this was a reaction to the Holocaust, and probably not tied to the terrorist mentality of the terrorist Irgun, an organization which Israel itself classified as “terrorist” only a few years later.

    The Israeli government, in September 1948, acting in response to the assassination of Lord Moyne, dissolved the Irgun and Lehi groups as part of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance.[3]

    And of course …

    The Irgun was a political predecessor to Israel’s right-wing Herut (or “Freedom”) party, which led to today’s Likud party. Likud has led or been part of most Israeli governments since 1977.

  233. 233.

    Fred Mertz

    June 1, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    Geez, this place is so full of GIYUS trolls I’d be better off at 4chan.
    (giyus.org for explanation)

  234. 234.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    @Michael: For any foreign policy discussion you intend to take place in, permissible answers must first be approved by your local VFW hall.

  235. 235.

    Asshole

    June 1, 2010 at 1:39 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Terror-supporters get what they deserve- and that includes the pancake.

    Does it include Lehi? They were the ones who assassinated Folke Bernadotte, a UN official who saved hundreds of Holocaust victims during WWII. They were also fond of truck bombs and train minings.

    Were they terrorists too, or not? If it’s okay to cheer when unarmed women are crushed, what should we say about people who gun down unarmed UN diplomats and blow up police stations with truck bombs?

  236. 236.

    scav

    June 1, 2010 at 1:39 pm

    poor dears, I suppose it’s therapeutic, all the yelling loudly. Shrieking to the mirror “Damn it, I am popular and perfect and everybody wants to take me to prom!” serves to fill the evening.

  237. 237.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 1:39 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    For the FUCKING 16th time, the IDF attacked them FIRST.

    In free countries where the rule of law prevails, you can chant whatever you want. The police/military can’t do ANYTHING until YOU commit the FIRST violent act. The police cannot kill unarmed civilians with GUNS because of what people chant. That’s what freedom of speech is all about.

  238. 238.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:39 pm

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay:

    The fact is that we DIDN’T kill all of the terror-supporters. Only the ones who were violent to the extreme.

    Nobody forced them to choose violence.

    There are ramifications to actions.

  239. 239.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:40 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    I’m not like you guys.

    Noted, and appreciated.

  240. 240.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:41 pm

    @toujoursdan:

    The videos from al-Jazeera and Turkish TV show otherwise.

    But never let reality get in the wayof your opinions, sunshine.

  241. 241.

    malraux

    June 1, 2010 at 1:43 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: You do realize that much of the American support for Israel is based on the idea of keeping jews around to die horribly right?

  242. 242.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:43 pm

    The fact is that we DIDN’T kill all of the terror-supporters.

    It’s hard for me to believe that anyone could believe the crap you post, but, I’ve been around the Internet long enough to know that you just might.

    Only a crazy and sociopathic bunch like the people running Israel right now would try to gain an edge in this discussion by pointing to the fact that all of the people on that boat weren’t executed. Yet, anyway.

    At this point I would say that Israel is a boil on the ass of humanity, until it cleans up its act.

  243. 243.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:44 pm

    Israel is practically a sainted state because even though they could have slaughtered every single person on every boat, they showed a magical degree of restraint in only shooting 19 aid bringers in international waters.

    Has any nation ever conducted itself with such blind devotion to cautious actions, while being subject to so much vicious, mean, totally not good criticisms by poopyheads?

  244. 244.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 1:44 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    So the videos from Al-Jazeera, etc show this unarmed boat full of civilians seeking out an IDF helicopter which was minding their own business and committing the first act of violence.

    What drugs are you on?

  245. 245.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:44 pm

    @Josh:

    You label anyone who doesn’t subscribe to your extreme views.

    The fact is that as the soldiers boarded the ship, they were set upon by masses of violent criminals with knives and other weapons.

    Anyone can see that.

    And the criminals paid for that.

  246. 246.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:44 pm

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay: Nobody ever points out how many people Stalin didn’t kill.

  247. 247.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 1:45 pm

    Let’s see if I understand the logic:

    1. Israel has the best trained and powerful military in the Middle East, and that makes them a valuable ally.

    2. These hyper-warriors were under murderous threat from unarmed thugs, wielding pipes and knives.

    Here’s a little tip to Israel – just because your mother says you’re the best, doesn’t mean you really are.

  248. 248.

    LD50

    June 1, 2010 at 1:46 pm

    Yishai/Dave is just doing what all Israel apologists are told to do on the internet: derail threads so people can’t discuss Israel’s actual actions, and suppress discussion by calling your opponents ‘Nazis’ or anti-Semites. It doesn’t matter if your argument makes no sense: the point is to just shut down dialog by any means available. Notice how most of this thread is now about chasing Yishai/Dave’s tail?

  249. 249.

    blahblahblah

    June 1, 2010 at 1:46 pm

    @Yishai Cohen:

    Support for Israel has remained steady and will continue that way in the US.

    Your entire livelihood as a nation is dependent upon that. Don’t think it will last forever. I’ve already called both of my senators and my congressman to inform them of my views. If you honestly think your nation can fuck with the United States’ treaties and defense positions throughout the world, then you’re hubris has exceeded the level of stupidity and moved onward to outright suicide.

    I’m ready to cut Israel off. And I’m not alone.

    Just remember: your entire argument is that US citizens who complain about the abusive Israeli policies toward the United States have no recourse because our government will support Israel no matter what. Your argument already implies the need for US military aid and assistance, by stating that it could never end. You assh*les keep this up and you will be alone. You will discover that your nation’s ill conceived and unitary actions are the cause for turning your best friend, protector and ally into a neutral party.

    Keep it up, motherf*cker. You’re only making more enemies among the US citizens who pay your military and domestic aid through our tax dollars. Learn your f*cking position.

  250. 250.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:46 pm

    @El Cid:

    I’m working on it :)

  251. 251.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:46 pm

    @malraux:

    I realize that Americans, right, left, and center, Christians and non-Christian alike, support Israel.

    You don’t like that.

    Oh well.

  252. 252.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:48 pm

    @El Cid:

    We wouldn’t do that.

    We’re not like the Arabs.

    Lucky for them.

  253. 253.

    scav

    June 1, 2010 at 1:48 pm

    @LD50: yup, the Junk Kill.

  254. 254.

    Mnemosyne

    June 1, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    @John Cole:

    But the Israel of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Barak, of ministers Moshe Ya’alon and Benny Begin, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Eli Yishai and even Dan Meridor, is vying with Hamas and Hezbollah over who can produce the most resounding demonstrations of strength – which amount to nothing but humiliating evidence of weakness.

    I’m glad I’m not the only one who realizes that this was just another dick-waving contest on the part of the Israeli government.

    You’d think they’d start to reconsider that strategy after the 13th or 14th time it failed miserably and made them look like assholes in front of the whole world, but apparently not.

  255. 255.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    @LD50:

    So, is Dave a spoof, or does he really believe this crap?

    Inquiring minds want to settle their bets …..

  256. 256.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 1:50 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    You really don’t know any Americans do you?

    Jeebus but you’re stupid to come here to this particular blog.

    Support for Israel has remained steady and will continue that way in the US.
    __
    And any soldier returning from Iraq or Afghanistan will only boost it. They know what the jihadis are.
    __
    I just spoke to a former Marine about that.

    Because that former Marine speaks for all Americans! Was it Olly North, by any chance?

    I happen to actually interact with real-life American military personnel and returning veterans every single day. All the ones who choose to discuss the matter feel that Israel is one of the major reasons they have had to put their lives on the line since most Middle Eastern people and majority Muslim countries know that Israel only exists because we prop them up despite their criminal actions and all the dead Americans that result from those actions.

  257. 257.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:50 pm

    @toujoursdan:

    YOU are on drugs.

    HERE you can see it.

    And there are many more like that.

  258. 258.

    scav

    June 1, 2010 at 1:51 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: hey look, we’ve finally been told were not Americans again! Whew!

  259. 259.

    Josh

    June 1, 2010 at 1:51 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Wait, wait. You label my views as “extreme” without me having explicitly expressed any views?

    I’m labeling you as a troll and using your language and rhetoric as an example because it meets certain criteria.

    For instance, your insistence that my views are extreme without me having expressed any views on the matter.

    You go on to give a fact that can be INTERPRETED multiple ways and then claim that your view is self-evident. Where I come from that’s called 1) a logical fallacy 2) troll-bait.

    You may be arguing in good faith from your point of view, but, like I said, the way in which you argue is highly disingenuous.

    You use words like “criminals” and you say that they “payed for it.” You state these things with a certitude that completely flies in the face of how we interpret it, and you back up your own opinions with Gallup polls from 1948 as if that matters anymore.

    To top it off, you’re trying to argue against a group of Americans that Americans support Israel. I don’t know exactly what your goal is, because if I were to take a poll of the people I know (Jews included) they would think you’re an idiot.

  260. 260.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 1:51 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    You’re exactly like the Arabs, actually. The repression is no different. Democratic rights, freedom of expression, trial before punishment don’t exist.

    You’re starving a civilian population for exercising their democratic rights to elect whom they choose.

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Ummmm… like what?

  261. 261.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:52 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Hey, we live in a country where people put up “Miss me yet?” billboards for George Bush.

    So …. there ya go.

  262. 262.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:52 pm

    @blahblahblah:

    BTW- US aid is 1.5% of our GDP.

    Write your Senator allyou want. He/she supports Israel anyway.

  263. 263.

    scav

    June 1, 2010 at 1:52 pm

    This is dull, I’m going to go stare at the ROVs, they’re cuter and the toxic sewage over there is ultimately less harmful.

  264. 264.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:53 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Right — if you’re only slaughtering 20,000 Lebanese in 1982, at least it’s not Hama Rules!

    And anyway, if you count numbers, not that many Israelis were killed by rockets, so Palestinian terrorists show the same remarkable and judicious restraint that the Qassam launchers do!

    I get it now!

  265. 265.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:54 pm

    @geg6:

    I know Americans and I know that EVERY SINGLE POLL EVER shows widespread popular support for Israel.

  266. 266.

    Citizen_X

    June 1, 2010 at 1:54 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    we DIDN’T kill all of the terror-supporters. Only the ones who were violent to the extreme.

    Hey Yishai: they attacked the IDF guys with chairs, like pro wrestlers. So it’s cool if you’re gonna gun ’em down for that and all, but you really should refer it as Xtreem! violence. To keep the proper comic-book frame of reference.

  267. 267.

    blahblahblah

    June 1, 2010 at 1:55 pm

    @“Yishai Kohen:

    BTW- US aid is 1.5% of our GDP.

    Then you don’t need the United States’ assistance and support, do you?

  268. 268.

    malraux

    June 1, 2010 at 1:55 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Yeah, but those on the right are hoping for every Israeli, minus 300,000 IIRC, to be tortured constantly for 7 years. Moreover, they are are constantly praying for that torture to start soon and watch the news for hopeful signs that the jews will finally get slaughtered. That’s not support in a meaningful sense. That’s getting Hannibal Lector to give you home cooking lessons.

  269. 269.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:57 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    All I see is a melee.

    I don’t see the part where the commandos are being told that they will be welcomed as liberators.

  270. 270.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:57 pm

    @toujoursdan:

    Nobody is starving.

    And if they are, they can eat their qassams, because clearly that’s what’s important to them- not other things.

  271. 271.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    Democracy Now! had a great interview with Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur, who denounced Israel’s illegal and murderous criminal actions by raiding a civilian vessel on the high seas in support of an internationally illegal blockade, and also with Ali Abunimah. Abunimah points out that the dead have not yet been identified, so no relatives of those on that ship know whether their loved ones are live or dead. But then, the relatives are basically terrorists any way for being related to these aid-terrorists with their threatening food and building supplies.

  272. 272.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Well, keep this shit up and kiss that support goodbye.

  273. 273.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    @El Cid:

    Nobody forced them to launch continuous terror attacks on us.

  274. 274.

    Josh

    June 1, 2010 at 1:59 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    I just took a poll of 26 of my friends, with a +/- 3 Jewish error points (snark for 3 were teh JOOS).

    24 thought that, based on your posts here and a quick google search of your posts on other forums, you are an idiot.

    2 thought that, based on your posts here and a quick google search of your posts on other forums, you were a “fucktard.”

    The people have spoken.

    —-

    I rest my case.

  275. 275.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:00 pm

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay:

    The criminals didn’t need to employ violence.

    If you hit a police officer that is coming to arrest you- or question you, you’ll also end up second best.

    That’s how it works.

  276. 276.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:01 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Gotcha. So fuck them. They deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth for fighting against starvation.

  277. 277.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:02 pm

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay:

    Actually, you are wrong.

    Through every conflict,througheveryterror attack, through every war that was forced upon us by the barbaric jihadis, American popular support has remained high.

    :-)

  278. 278.

    Peter J

    June 1, 2010 at 2:03 pm

    Avigdor Lieberman appointed a Bedouin Arab, Ismail Al-Khalidi, as his Middle East Advisor.

    Is that a local version of the ‘I have a black friend’ statement?

  279. 279.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:03 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    The embargo forced them to do it.

    BBC News: Inside Gaza: Malnutrition and shortages

  280. 280.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 2:04 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Yeah, but they show remarkable restraint. Only a comparative few Israelis were killed. They learned their judicious approach from the IDF. They’re not killing 20,000 Lebanese or shelling refugee camps or blowing up 1,200 Gazans like some unknown force in the Middle East. And plus the Palestinians never volunteered to be under a flatly illegal, colonialist occupation, so their restraint is all the more remarkable and impressive, no?

  281. 281.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    June 1, 2010 at 2:05 pm

    The situation in Israel is a civil war, and it makes absolutely no sense for the US to be financing any part of it. It just prolongs the agony. In a time of record budget deficits, we should not be giving billions of dollars to a country that is wealthy enough to finance its own defense. That said, it will still be an improvement over the Bush administration if the Obama administration just remains neutral.

  282. 282.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 2:05 pm

    @toujoursdan: The BBC is a totally unreliable anti-Israel source. You should turn to something more independent and reliable like Fox News, or the Jerusalem Post, or Israel Insider, or FrontPageMag. Only then can you get the plain, unvarnished truth.

  283. 283.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:06 pm

    @toujoursdan:

    Actually, they choose qassams over other things, so that’s their choice.

    Again, Lucky for them, we aren’t like they are.

    “Government: Hundreds of Truckloads of Aid into Gaza” (May/28/10)

    The Israel Defense Forces and the coordinator of government activity in Judea, Samaria and Gaza released figures on Thursday showing that between May 16th and May 22nd, a total of 523 truckloads, consisting of 13,517 tons of humanitarian aid were transferred into the Gaza Strip from Israel via the various crossings. While most of the shipments consisted of food staples, cooking gas and fuel for Gaza’s electric station, as well as clothing, more than a quarter of the shipments included medicine and medical equipment, hygiene products, animal feed and cement.

    According to the announcement, 281 medical patients and accompanying individuals from Gaza crossed into Israel and the Judea and Samaria region for medical treatment. 158 staff members of international organizations crossed into the Gaza Strip, and 150 crossed from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

    AND

    No Palestinian Authority Arab has been denied medical care in Israel, according to government officials, who point out that the real issue has to do with the issue of permits from the PA government.

    “If the Hamas regime does not grant permits for medical care, the Israeli government can do nothing to help the patient,” the Foreign Ministry pointed out in a report this week. “Israel will facilitate all cases of medical treatments from Gaza, unless the patient is a known perpetrator of terrorism.”

    It is important to note that PA terrorists have exploited medical care arrangements to carry out terrorist attacks more than 20 times since 2005.

    Last year, 10,544 patients and their companions left Gaza to access medical care in Israel, and there were 382 emergency evacuations from Gaza for medical purposes.

    During the same 12-month period, some 4,883 tons of medical equipment and medicine were delivered to the region, as well as medical supplies for the disabled such as wheelchairs, crutches and first aid kits. Also shipped to the region’s hospitals and clinics last year were heart monitors, baby feeding tubes, dental equipment, medical books, ambulance emergency equipment, artificial limbs and infant sleeping bags.

    In the first quarter of 2010, 152 trucks of medical supplies and equipment made their way into Gaza. In an average week this month, some 37 truckloads of hygiene products were shipped to the region through the crossings. A new CT scan machine was recently delivered to Gaza as well.

    Israel maintains a regular corridor for the transfer of medical patients out of Gaza, and about 200 medical staff members pass through the Erez Crossing terminal every month. “Israel also helps coordinate the transfer of Jordanian doctors into Gaza,” noted the Foreign Ministry spokesman.

    Moreover, the Hadassah medical organization in Jerusalem donates $3 million in aid each year to treat Palestinian Authority Arabs in Israel. Following the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu, three Israeli hospitals were assigned to treat cases in Gaza, the Foreign Ministry said, and 44,500 immunization doses were delivered to the region.

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx /137709

  284. 284.

    Michael

    June 1, 2010 at 2:06 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    BTW- US aid is 1.5% of our GDP.

    Then pay your own fucking freight, chiselers.

  285. 285.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:07 pm

    @Peter J:

    It’s a simple fact. You don’t like facts.

    Oh well.

  286. 286.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 2:08 pm

    “American popular support has remained high.:”

    Yeah, it was high when Reagan told Israel to fuck itself, and allowed Arafat safe passage out of Beirut. American support was high when Bush I made Shamir his bitch and had him show up for the Madrid Peace talks. It was also there when Hezbollah forced you out of their country in 2000, and cleaned your clocks in 2006. I mean really, 30 days of fighting, and the Israeli army cannot go more than 2 km past the border?

  287. 287.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:09 pm

    @El Cid:

    You’re right.

    IndependentUK: Chronic malnutrition in Gaza blamed on Israel

    Christian Aid: Malnutrition in Gaza “as bad as Zimbabwe”

    National Institute of Health: Cases of child malnutrition double in Gaza because of blockade

    UN New Centre: UN officials warn of malnutrition threat as Gaza border crossings continue

  288. 288.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:09 pm

    @Michael:

    Why don’t you write a sad letter to your Congresspeople that you would prefer that the money go to your jihadi friends.

    They need to send more people for flight training.

  289. 289.

    Chyron HR

    June 1, 2010 at 2:11 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Write your Senator allyou want. He/she supports Israel anyway.

    And if they don’t, you’ll just sink some more US Navy ships until your “allies” get in line.

  290. 290.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 2:11 pm

    Sorry, but I have to let McMegan get the last word here:

    This morning a bunch of people are trying to defend Israel by saying that the protesters attacked first. No, they didn’t. Boarding someone’s ship in international waters is an attack. To put it another way, how many of the people mounting this defense would criticize Israeli sailors if they attacked a bunch of armed Palestinians who were airdropping, one by one, onto their ship, after firing tear gas grenades in to soften them up?

    When even the most stupid person in America can figure this out, you know just how badly Israel has just fucked itself. When McMegan says you are completely full of shit, you should just go and shoot yourself in the head now and end the agony.

  291. 291.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 2:11 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Is that their version of Fox News?

  292. 292.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:12 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    MORE “Arutz Sheva”???

    Let’s see. It is describes as:

    “Arutz Sheva sees itself as “the only independent national radio station in Israel” and a counterbalance to “the ‘negative thinking’ and ‘post-Zionist’ attitudes so prevalent in Israel’s liberal-left media.”Based in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Arutz Sheva is seen as the voice of the Israeli settlement movement.”

    Arutz Sheva

    It’s Israel’s Fox News.

    Take your propaganda somewhere else.

  293. 293.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:12 pm

    @KXB:

    It was high then too.

    What’s interesting is that the US was very upset when we bombed the Iraqi nuclear plant at Osirak in 1981.

    Less than a decade later that act saved countless American lives.

    Americans know that.

  294. 294.

    GregB

    June 1, 2010 at 2:12 pm

    The Israeli repetition about how they allow one hundred truck loads of food into Gaza a day is the same perverted logic that had Duncan Hunter boasting that torturing detainees in Guantanimo was OK because they have rice pilaf and glazed chicken on their menues.

    The world is gone mad.

  295. 295.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    @El Cid: That article was two years old.

  296. 296.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    @Chyron HR:

    I didn’t sink any US navy ships.

    You must be thinking of the USS Cole. That was the jihadis.

  297. 297.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:14 pm

    @Pococurante:

    And the situation has changed how?

    Has the blockade ended?

  298. 298.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:15 pm

    @toujoursdan:

    Facts are facts.

    Fact: Not one Gazan has died of hunger.

    Must be a “coincidence”.

  299. 299.

    scav

    June 1, 2010 at 2:17 pm

    Bother. L’esprit de l’escalier

    It is a truth universally acknowledged, that having expressed support for any entity at any time and in any context, must imply unstinting support for any and all actions of that same entity in the future.

  300. 300.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 1, 2010 at 2:20 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: No, not the Cole, the Liberty.

    and, OMFG, McMeghan gets something right? the world is upside down!

  301. 301.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 2:20 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Um, no. That would be the USS Liberty:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

    About which, many questions remain as to whether it was intentional or not. Personally, I tend toward the intentional because that really seems to be how you guys roll.

  302. 302.

    Cacti

    June 1, 2010 at 2:22 pm

    I guess it comes down to who you’re going to believe…

    The IDF or the prisoners they’re holding incommunicado.

  303. 303.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 2:23 pm

    @Pococurante: Okay — here’s one from yesterday.

    The blockade, preventing all exports from Gaza and confining imports to a limited supply of humanitarian goods, has failed to bring down Hamas but has heaped misery on Gaza’s 1.5 million residents.
    __
    The UN humanitarian co-ordinator said last week that the formal economy in Gaza has “collapsed” and 60% of households were short of food. According to UN statistics, around 70% of Gazans live on less than $1 a day, 75% rely on food aid and 60% have no daily access to water.
    __
    Luxury foods are banned and a UN report last year said that on average it took 85 days to get shelter kits into Gaza, 68 days to deliver health and paediatric hygiene kits, and 39 days for household items such as bedding and kitchen utensils. It said that school textbooks and stationery had been delayed.
    __
    The effect of the blockade was felt even more acutely in the aftermath of the invasion of the strip by Israeli forces in the winter of 2008-9, as materials needed for reconstruction were delayed or banned from entering Gaza. A UN factfinding mission described the blockade as “collective punishment”.
    __
    In the absence of imports, goods have been smuggled in through tunnels built under the Gaza-Egypt border. The World Bank estimates that 80% of Gaza’s imports arrive by tunnel. The goods, which are taxed by Hamas, attract inflated prices that are out of the reach of most ordinary residents.

    Or just listen to the UN’s rep in the Gaza strip itself.

    22 April 2010 – The recent easing of some Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods into Gaza is welcome but infinitesimal when compared to the needs of the 1.5 million Palestinians living there, the top United Nations official in the Strip said today.
    __
    “[It is] a drop in the bucket,” said John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), at a news conference in New York, repeating the categorization used by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on his visit to the Strip last month.
    __
    “A drop in the bucket, of course, is not a half-full glass,” he said of Israel’s agreement to allow in some supplies of clothing, wood and aluminium, the latter needed for a prime UN objective – rebuilding UNRWA schools devastated by Israel’s military offensive against Gaza’s Hamas authorities 18 months ago. “The context is so great, the scale of the need is so large.”
    __
    Mr. Ging noted that a conference in Sharm el-Sheikh last year put a price tag of $4.5 billion on the reconstruction and recovery of Gaza. “That’s $4.5 billion, at the moment, of despair and misery until such time that recovery and reconstruction gets under way,” he said.
    __
    UNRWA cannot cater to the thousands of children with the right to education under UN resolutions as refugees. Gazans are “demanding of us to accommodate their children in our schools. They have not been allowed to build a school in Gaza for three years,” he added. Israel imposed its blockade for what it called security reasons after Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, ousted the Fatah movement in the Strip in 2007.
    __
    Mr. Ging said the recent easing, including a monthly allowance of 25 truckloads of aluminium, is “very welcome, welcome not just for the physical impact that they [the goods] have, even though it is quite insignificant in the larger scale, [but] for the psychological impact that it has because it is the first positive step, and secondly for the practical proof that it provides that it can be done.
    __
    “So if we can have 25 truckloads of aluminium a month, then why not 50, and if we can have 50, then why not 100 and so on?” he asked, noting that at the monthly rate of 25 it would take five and a half months to bring in all the aluminium needed for the schools.
    __
    The arguments put forward to justify the blockade are now being undermined by these positive developments “because it is now demonstrated that there are ways of overcoming the security challenges and that’s what we want to build on now, capitalize on what is now the possible and expand it to the maximum extent,” he added.
    __
    He gave the same overall grim picture of the impact of the blockade as in previous accounts. “It’s bewilderingly difficult for them on a daily basis. It’s a struggle to survive [with] the infrastructure and water and sanitation in a state of collapse and all that goes with that,” he said, stressing that there is no prospect for restoring a legitimate economy because there is no commercial trade into or out of Gaza.
    __
    “That leads to the impoverishment of the people, and the physical suffering of so many continues on a daily basis, not just physical suffering, but psychological suffering because people are at their wits’ end to understand when all of this will come to an end.”

    I mean, the mere testimony of the highest ranking UN official in the Gaza strip doesn’t count for much when compared to the loony ravings of militarist nutpapers, but, there you go.

  304. 304.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    @geg6:

    Ah, the Liberty accident, which happened long before you were even born.

    Half a dozen congressional hearings and publicly available NSA transcripts of the incident all concluded that it was a case of mistaken identity.

    An accident.

    “The ‘USS Liberty’: Case Closed”

  305. 305.

    Calouste

    June 1, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    even as Israel was being beaten up by its closest friends in Europe

    The close friends in Europe (and Australia) that expelled Israeli diplomats in the last few months because they were rather pissed off with Israel forging their passports to commit an assassination?

    Let’s just quote what the Australian foreign minister had to say on this last week:

    Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Parliament on Monday that the operation to kill Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room was not the first time Israel had forged Australian travel documents. He did not elaborate on previous incidents, but said the latest transgression breached “confidential undertakings” between the two countries that have stood for several years.

    “These are not the actions of a friend,” he said. “This is not what we expect from a nation with whom we have had such a close, friendly and supportive relationship.”

    It’s not like those goverments (UK and France among them) would like to be seen as bending over to Israel after that rather flagrant violation of national sovereignity, so the best Israel could expect from them is some rather undercooled neutrality on the subject.

  306. 306.

    Barry

    June 1, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    @stuckinred: No, but some deniable killings could be considered useful.

  307. 307.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 2:26 pm

    @toujoursdan: I don’t know. Never been there. I bet you could have found something much more recent from Amnesty International. Even in that picture from two years ago the entire family is apple cheeked. Pictures of my mom’s family in 1940s Appalachia were much worse.

    Last week the news was Hamas spokespeople being amused that they were getting frozen salmon (food staple) but not capers (luxury item). How much do you recommend I read into that? Farm-raised salmon is pretty tasteless and capers do help.

    As bad as the blockade is folks may be “food insecure” but they are not starving.

    Personally I am now in favor of Israel fully lifting the blockade. But I feel very certain that will end extremely badly for the common Gazan in just a matter of months since Hamas will find some new way to distract the world from the way they treat their own people.

  308. 308.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:26 pm

    @Cacti:

    Whoever cooperated has been released.

    Whoever hasn’t yet hasn’t been released yet.

    Criminals don’t get a free pass.

  309. 309.

    Peter J

    June 1, 2010 at 2:27 pm

    Yishai Kohen, I have this cooking class on Fridays and I was hoping that you could help me.

    I would like to impress the rest of the class, so I would like to be able to say these three sentences in hebrew:

    1. “I like pie.”
    2. “That all may be so, but I notice that you didn’t say anything about pie.”
    and
    3. “Pie is the cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast.”

    It would really help, and I think it would also go a long way to disprove the belief of some other commenters that you’re not Jewish.

  310. 310.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    @El Cid:

    How many Gazans have died of hunger?

  311. 311.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    June 1, 2010 at 2:29 pm

    @GregB:

    The Israeli repetition about how they allow one hundred truck loads of food into Gaza a day

    It must have been pointed out already somewhere in this thread, but the UN says that the supplies Israel lets in are less than 25% of what’s needed. Israel’s policy is specifically designed so that they can say, “see, we are letting relief in,” while at the same time continuing the collective punishment of the population. It’s a hideous charade, in other words, but one the apologists are apparently falling for.

  312. 312.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 2:29 pm

    “Whoever cooperated has been released.

    Whoever hasn’t yet hasn’t been released yet.”

    A line from “Full Metal Jacket”

    “Anyone who runs, is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC.:

  313. 313.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:30 pm

    From yesterday

    Fact: Malnutrition because of the blockade is still widespread.

    According to the World Health Organization, one third of children under five and women of childbearing age are anaemic.

    Fact: The water supply is dangerous

    The WHO says Operation Cast Lead worsened an already bad situation. Before the operation, it says Gazans had only half the water they needed according to international standards, and 80% of water supplied did not meet WHO drinking standards. Gaza’s sewage treatment body estimates that at least 50m litres of raw or poorly-treated sewage is released into the sea daily. Some of Gaza’s sewage is stored in huge lagoons, one of which burst in 2007 causing at least five deaths.

    You can read the rest of the article itself. Not enough fuel for electricity. No building supplies for reconstruction. Not enough let through to restart agriculture. Not enough cooking oil, etc.

    Gaza is in the desert. Now if you can’t get enough supplies to keep your family healthy you start to get desperate.

  314. 314.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 2:30 pm

    Right. And if no one has been recorded as starving to death in Gaza, it’s hip and cool, right?

    The World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned by rising malnutrition indicators – increased cases of stunting, wasting and underweight children – and continuing high rates of anaemia among children and pregnant women.
    __
    A poverty survey conducted by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) shows that the number of Palestine refugees unable to access food and lacking the means to purchase even the most basic items, such as soap, school stationery and safe drinking water, has tripled since the imposition of the blockade in June 2007.

    See?

    If Israeli militarists weren’t the incredibly noble, restrained policymakers they are, you’d have a lot worse than children growing up stunted and wasted and women risking their lives by becoming pregnant.

    Sometimes you just have to send some messages by deforming children by lack of nutrition. It’s a tough and typically thankless job, but somebody’s got to do it.

  315. 315.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    How many Turkish civilian ships attacked the IDF in international waters?

  316. 316.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    @El Cid: Fair enough. Much better.

    Like I say, let them lift the blockade.

    But it’s going to end very badly. This is Hamas, and they don’t have an equivalent to Salam Fayyad. Heck it was too much trouble for Hamas to stand on the stage of the UN and chant “Beetlejuice” five times.

    Hamas is a kleptocracy, a mafia. They have no end game beyond criminal enterprise.

  317. 317.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    @Peter J:

    Try Google translate.

    אבל אל תדאג.

    אני ישראלי.

    אני אוהב פאי.

  318. 318.

    Ed Marshall

    June 1, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    @Pococurante:

    This is what you read into it: Israel controls what they get. Do you understand the problem here. At one time Gaza had a power plant, and now they get power from Israel. That’s not because Israel is generous, it’s because Israel flattened the power plant so they could turn the power off and on as they liked. That dipshit infesting the thread is going to read you stats about how generous Israel is distributing X goods (which were donated and not actually Israel’s to parcel out) but the entire situation is a people held hostage by a hostile power unable to control their destiny.

  319. 319.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    @El Cid:

    Gee, all those “starving kids” and they STILL import weapons and not food.

    How heartless.

  320. 320.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:34 pm

    @Pococurante:

    Even if that characterization of Hamas true, lifting the embargo would reduce their power not enhance it.

    Good grief, the US has had an embargo against Castro for how long? How effective has it been in toppling him?

  321. 321.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:35 pm

    @toujoursdan:

    What would Turkey do if someone tried to violently smuggle things to the Kurdish rebels?

  322. 322.

    Uriel

    June 1, 2010 at 2:35 pm

    @Dave:

    (Before that eye witness testimony describes how some of the soldiers were overpowered and disarmed and their guns used to shoot members of the crew)

    Ah- the crew was shot by the activists. With the soldier’s guns. Eyewitness and such.

    Convenient, that.

    And very believable.

  323. 323.

    Peter J

    June 1, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    Yishai Kohen, thanks, I did, but I really can’t pronounce that. And google isn’t always right either. Is there a way to write hebrew with the English alphabet? Both if there’s a proper way, and one more akin to how it sounds?

    BTW, why do you need to use Google Translate, aren’t you fluent in hebrew?

  324. 324.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    So Israel is no better than the Muslims now. Glad you admitted that.

  325. 325.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    Using Kohen’s logic – since no Gazans have died from hunger, then the blockade is not a problem. But, none of the “rockets” fired from Gaza has killed an Israeli in the same period, so the rocket fire is not a problem either.

    But who am I to demand consistency?

  326. 326.

    Michael

    June 1, 2010 at 2:38 pm

    @Peter J:

    I predicted silence, but got google translator instead..

  327. 327.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 2:38 pm

    @Ed Marshall: Again, fair enough.

    but let me turn it around: Israel fully lifts the blockade. They continue to have no presence in Gaza. Turkey comes in and can finally fully build up their port and economic presence. Gaza goes on to have an infrastructure?

    What really do we expect to happen next?

  328. 328.

    Ed Marshall

    June 1, 2010 at 2:38 pm

    Oh, my fucking God, I’m laughing so hard. Does Dave believe this shit?

  329. 329.

    micah616

    June 1, 2010 at 2:39 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    They’re living with a mindset 14 centuries old. Of couse that’s their frame of reference.

    And you say this to defend people who believe that they have a divine right to a land they left 1400 years ago. You apologists are fucking priceless.

  330. 330.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 2:39 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Questions should be changed in whatever way suits your next topic.

    By the way, since it’s an illegal occupation, Israel has no right to keep weapons out of Gaza or the West Bank anyway. I mean, it’s not Israel.

    Just sayin’.

  331. 331.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:39 pm

    @Peter J:

    I’m suggesting that YOU use Google translate. I don’t need it.

    Of course I’m fluent in Hebrew. I use Google translate for other languages.

  332. 332.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:40 pm

    Hamas is hardly a mafia:

    Hamas is particularly popular among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, though it also has a following in the West Bank, and to a lesser extent in other Middle Eastern countries. Its popularity stems in part from its welfare and social services to Palestinians in the occupied territories, including school and hospital construction. Hamas devotes up to 90% of its estimated $70 million annual budget to an extensive social services network, running many relief and education programs, and funds schools, orphanages, mosques, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues. Such services arent’t generally provided by The Palestinian Authority. According to the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz “approximately 90 percent of the organization’s work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities”. In 1973, the Islamic center ‘Mujamma’ was established in Gaza and started to offer clinics, blood banks, day care, medical treatment, meals and youth clubs. The centre plays an important role for providing social care to the people, particularly those living in refugee camps. It also extended financial aid and scholarships to young people who wanted to study in Saudi Arabia and the West. In particular, Hamas funded health services where people could receive free or inexpensive medical treatment. Hamas greatly contributed to the health sector, and facilitated hospital and physician services in the Palestinian territory. On the other hand, Hamas’s use of hospitals is sometimes criticised as purportedly serving the promotion of violence against Israel. The party is also known to support families of those who have been killed (including suicide bombers), wounded or imprisoned by Israel, including providing a monthly allowance of $100. Families of militants not affiliated with Hamas receive slightly less. Hamas has funded education as well as the health service, and built Islamic charities, libraries, mosques, education centers for women. They also built nurseries, kindergartens and supervised religious schools that provide free meals to children. When children attend their schools and mosques, parents are required to sign oaths of allegiance. Refugees, as well as those left without homes, are able to claim financial and technical assistance from Hamas. The work of Hamas in these fields supplements that provided by the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA). Hamas is also well regarded by Palestinians for its efficiency and perceived lack of corruption compared to Fatah. Since the 2008–2009 Israeli military operation in Gaza, “[c]redible Palestinian public opinion polls show Hamas steadily losing ground, to the point that barely a quarter of the public supports it any longer.”

    Hamas

    They were elected in the first place because they were perceived to be less corrupt than Fatah.

  333. 333.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 2:41 pm

    @toujoursdan: I agree – the Cuban blockade became wholly irrelevant by the mid-1980s. But before, from the missile crisis through the Brezhnev years? Very necessary.

  334. 334.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:41 pm

    @toujoursdan:

    Of course we’re not like they are. Lucky for them.

    We let lots of aid in.

    They use whatever money theyhave for weapons and not food, medicine,etc.

  335. 335.

    jrosen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:42 pm

    Jews have been fighting other Jews since the beginning…after all, the first crime story in Genesis is a fraticide, and most of the Book of Judges and the Books of Kings relate various stages of continuing war between the Southern and Northern kingdoms. And during the Roman siege of Jerusalem the sicarii (the knifemen) were assassinating fellow Jews inside the walls — for not being pious enough!

    I sense something of the same happening now. My feelings are a crazy mixture of shame, exasperation, and hopelessness. I am an American Jew (non-observant, to be sure, but quite proud of the culture I came out of and its contributions to American life) yet I feel every day less sympathy and less fellowship with the fanatics who “lead” the only Jewish state in the last 1900 years, and who I fear will lead it into the same fate as the earlier one.

    Back in 1967 I remember very well the sense of dread as the war-clouds gathered over Sinai, the threats and the dire possibilities. And I also remember the sense of relief and pride (Jews can kick ass with the best of them!) after the Six Days.

    Now the all I can think is that this latest incident, on top of several others, just shows that Jews are as human as everyone else, capable of courage and compassion and brutality and stupidity and as susceptible to racism as anyone else The “chosen people” were chosen to lead the way by example, not to lord the way by force…at least that is what was taught for centuries, although there has never been a creed or canon forcing uniformity which is why the Talmud — an accretion of case law over many centuries — is so thick.

    On the side…American Jews who think that the End-timers’ support is a good thing should sit down and actually read the Revelation of John at the end of the N. T. It lays out their plan for us, and the end is not a blessing. If you think that you can manipulate these crazies for your ultimate benefit then you are at least as crazy as they are.

    As yet, the best home the Jews have had since the time of Herod is right here in America. We should be bending our energies to keeping it that way…there are people and forces who would just as soon end that condition, and they are not that far from being able to start doing it. We should not let the “Seven Idiots” and their brainless supporters here or there help them.

  336. 336.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:42 pm

    @micah616:

    The simple fact is that the Philistines could have had a state in peace, but chose war on MANY occasions- INSTEAD:

    The Philistines would have had a state IN PEACE in 1937 with the Peel Plan, but they violently rejected it.

    They would have had a state IN PEACE in 1939 with the MacDonald White Paper, but they violently rejected it (and Jews would have even been restricted from BUYING land from Arabs).

    They would have had a state IN PEACE in 1948 with UN 181, but they violently rejected it (and actually claimed that the UN had no such mandate!).

    They could have had a state IN PEACE in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza from 1948-1967 without any Jews- because the Arabs had ethnically cleansed every last one; but they violently rejected it. In fact, that’s exactly when they established Fatah (1959) and the PLO (1964).

    They could have had a state IN PEACE after 1967, but instead, the entire Arab world issued the Khartoum Resolutions:

    A. No peace with Israel
    B. No recognition of Israel
    C. No negotiations with Israel

    They would have had a state IN PEACE in 2000 with the Oslo Accords, but they violently rejected it- as always.

    The Arabs will just have to learn to “make do” with their own 99.9% of the Middle East- including all of the oil, and stop trying to steal OUR tiny 1/10th of 1% without oil. The Philistines won’t have a state here in Israel, and if they don’t stop their violence, they won’t even exist here anymore. They will be gone- sent back to their own lands elsewhere.

    And THEN there will be peace.

  337. 337.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 2:43 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Hey, dipshit, you don’t know who you are talking to here. I’m probably older than you are.

    I most certainly remember the Liberty incident, as I remember the Six Day War and as I remember the Bay of Pigs.

    In fact, I’m old enough to be properly skeptical of any reports issued by both the US and Israeli governments. And just because nobody talked about an attack in the General Staff meetings doesn’t mean a fucking thing.

    And you need to look up the word “criminal.” Because it does not mean what you think it means. Especially in international waters.

  338. 338.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 2:43 pm

    @Pococurante: This is why for over 40 years, the entire international consensus has been on an internationally-supervised negotiated solution to Israel’s illegal occupation of territories not its own, and the formation of a viable Palestinian state including a declaration of Israel’s own legal borders (which are not yet declared), and not a game of seeing what Israeli governments do or don’t feel like doing unilaterally. However, it has been the policy aim of every single Israeli government to do everything it can to avoid such a negotiated solution — after all, what advantage would it serve Israeli governments? What do they care if Israeli citizens continue to die in attacks and instability? The goal is to secure as much territory and control of major resources (i.e., water and arable land) as plausible and crush the viability of Palestinian society. There’s no downside to this for Israeli authorities. Sure, a few more people get killed, but, you know, omelets and eggs and all.

  339. 339.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:44 pm

    @Pococurante:

    You gotta be kidding. It wasn’t effective during the Breshnev years at all. The Soviets were the Cuban’s chief supplier of industrial, manufactured and military goods as well as fuel. Top Cuban students went to the Soviet Union to attend university.

    The embargo made the Soviets and Cubans CLOSER, not farther.

  340. 340.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:44 pm

    @El Cid:

    So sorry, but incorrect. We’re not “occupying” Gaza.

    They ARE illegal terrorists and they WON’T be permitted to smuggle.

  341. 341.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 2:45 pm

    @toujoursdan: Yes they were. And it didn’t take them long to blow it. The second half of your post is closer to the betrayal Gazans suffered from Hamas.

    You’re going to get far as defending Hamas as Yishai is defending Bibi et al.

    I recommend Diaa Hadid. For years she was a very vocal supporter of Fatah and Hamas. The last few years drove her the other way.

  342. 342.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:46 pm

    @geg6:

    If you have such a good memory, thenyou should remember that there were MANY congressional hearings that ALL concluded that the unfortunate incident was an accident.

    And NSA transcripts available online NOW back that up.

    Case closed. Move on.

  343. 343.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 2:46 pm

    @Peter J:

    Tee hee.

  344. 344.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    @Pococurante:

    And Israel’s policies had nothing to do with it. You do live in a dream world.

  345. 345.

    Peter J

    June 1, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    Yishai Kohen, thank you, you’ve been very helpful. And I hope you’ll enjoy your pie!

  346. 346.

    KXB

    June 1, 2010 at 2:49 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    “They ARE illegal terrorists and they WON’T be permitted to smuggle. ”

    Say, isn’t that what the British said about Irgun?

  347. 347.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 1, 2010 at 2:49 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:
    Oh, fucking grow up. they were flying an American flag! those hearings were whitewashing what actually happened. move on, my ass.

  348. 348.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 2:50 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Israeli authorities were directly occupying Gaza, they are still exerting complete and utter control over it, they have just destroyed the territory they assured was released from Israeli occupation, including the nobly restrained slaughter of 1,200 Gazans, and now they are still imposing an internationally-condemned, economy-destroying, children-warping illegal blockade.

    You’re free to characterize anything in the universe as what you want, but just because I want to say the Moon is a mile away doesn’t make it so.

    By the way, you still haven’t congratulated the Palestinian Qassam launchers as having shown as much restraint in only murdering a comparatively few Israeli civilians as the IDF soldiers attacking a flotilla of civilian boats in international waters.

  349. 349.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    @El Cid: I agree but it wasn’t all one sided. And while Yishai may be an unapologetic wingnut his timeline here is in fact the accepted history.

    I’m not defending settlements – I consider them war crimes even if world law does not.

    What I am predicting is the lift of the blockade and Israel continuing to stay out of Gaza is not going to make things better for either Gazans or Israelis.

    In the meantime the West Bank is working constructively through their very real differences and obstacles. At this rate Jordan will be falling all over itself to take it from Israel.

    I can’t ever see Egypt ever willing to take back Gaza.

  350. 350.

    Xenos

    June 1, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    I do live in Israel, where we have the gamut of newspapers to match our opinions; left, right, and center.
    That’s the great thing about freedom.

    Then I wish we had some of the freedom here in the US. Our newspapers are dying and all we get on the TV machine is Likudnik propaganda.

  351. 351.

    Yishai Kohen

    June 1, 2010 at 2:52 pm

    היה נחמד, אבל הגיע זמן לעשות דברים יותר חשובים.

    לילה טוב מארץ ישראל.

    עם ישראל חי!

  352. 352.

    me

    June 1, 2010 at 2:54 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Bullshit, the case is definitely not closed except for those who have an interest in hiding the truth.

  353. 353.

    YAFB

    June 1, 2010 at 2:55 pm

    Hands up all those who are now more supportive of Israel as a result of Yishai Kohen’s outbursts.

    That’s what I figured.

    I’m beginning to suspect he’s a jihadi sockpuppet.

  354. 354.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 2:55 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: I thought Hebrew was read right to left, not left to right…

  355. 355.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 2:55 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    Dude. I’ve read almost all of it, most of it in real time. I don’t need any lectures from you about it. And no, the case still isn’t closed, much as you and your neocon friends in the Village wish it would be. Because the NSA in the Bush the Younger years was not exactly a bastion of truth that people should or can trust.

    You’re really fighting a losing fight here. I tried to tell you that you were stupid to come here and argue with people here. BJ is pretty much a blog with no particular consensus on anything other than Tunch is our overlord and Lily is our one true love, that wingnuts and teabaggers are comically scary assholes who should be mocked at every opportunity, and that trolls should eat more and tastier pie.

  356. 356.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 2:56 pm

    @me: Agreed. There’s little doubt in my mind it was intentional.

  357. 357.

    Josh

    June 1, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    @geg6:

    Oh My Zoroaster I had this great piece of Key-Lime the other day that would send our friendly trolls into fits of ecstasy.

    Yum.

  358. 358.

    o kanis

    June 1, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    The depths of moral degeneracy Israel, it’s citizens and supporters have descended.

    The whole world, minus the bought and paid for political lickspittles, understands.

    Nothing you can do about it.

    Boycott is coming, hard.

  359. 359.

    arguingwithsignposts

    June 1, 2010 at 3:07 pm

    The survivors interviewed by the Tribune uniformly agree that the Liberty was flying the Stars and Stripes before, during and after the attack, except for a brief period in which one flag that had been shot down was replaced with another, larger flag — the ship’s “holiday colors” — that measured 13 feet long.

    fucking bastards! So you can STFU Yishai!

  360. 360.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 3:07 pm

    @Pococurante: There are some truthfully important points in that timeline — yet leaves off pretty much everything else of consequence. No doubt, with the benefit of hindsight, many deals might have been preferable to what has gone on to this day. But to always describe a purported ‘offer’ as worthy of signing, such as the horrible Oslo ‘accords’, is like saying that if only the Palestinians had agreed to have been ‘given’ the back closet of a Baskin-Robbins to all live in, we’d all be moving past this awful conflict.

    By the way, good investigations have quite plausibly indicated an Israeli intelligence role in supporting the emergence of Hamas, something contemporaneously absolutely sensible given that Israeli policy was to undermine the notion of any worthwhile negotiating partner. Nor is this a particularly new or outrageous charge, given how often U.S. aid to a supposedly useful but dangerous and immoral non-state force often leads to blowback later on, not that they ever, ever care.

  361. 361.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 3:08 pm

    Embargoes are always counterproductive. All they do is make a population more dependent on their leadership which becomes more despotic because they can get away with it because the population has nowhere else to turn. Every modern example shows that if you really want to turn a state into a corrupt, dictatorial and dysfunctional place, put it under an embargo.

    I somewhat understand why Egypt had kept their border closed at Israel’s request. They were scared to death that if they opened it, Israel would permanently close their border and dump Gaza and all its problems onto the Egyptians’ laps, who don’t have the resources to handle it.

  362. 362.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 3:18 pm

    Ok. The past being past and looking ahead I ask the question again:

    Given Israel fully lifts the blockade. That they continue to have no presence in Gaza. Turkey comes in and can finally fully build up their port and economic presence. Gaza goes on to have an infrastructure. The US and other countries don’t meddle in Gazan elections.

    What really do we expect to happen next?

  363. 363.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 3:32 pm

    What do you think will happen?

    Are countries with developed infrastructure and self-determination more likely to be good or bad neighbours?

  364. 364.

    o kanis

    June 1, 2010 at 3:37 pm

    Boycott EVERYTHING with the barcode number

    729

    it comes from the morally degenerate state of Israel.

    Please pass it on.

  365. 365.

    Pococurante

    June 1, 2010 at 3:38 pm

    I think Hamas will blow it again. They have no end game.

  366. 366.

    toujoursdan

    June 1, 2010 at 3:39 pm

    @Pococurante:

    Why? If a people have a stake in keeping their infrastructure intact because it leads to more prosperity, and have a stake in their future they are less likely to support a group like Hamas than than if there is nothing left to preserve or look forward to.

    (And what a bizarre justification for keeping people poor and oppressed.)

  367. 367.

    geg6

    June 1, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    @toujoursdan:

    Not to mention that people seem to forget that Israel itself was founded by what was considered at the time a “terrorist” organization just like Hamas. People said that Ben Gurion and his “thugs” had no end game either. Of course, sixty-two years later it looks like those people were right. Israel today certainly has no end game.

    I don’t endorse Hamas’ use of violence any more than I do the force used by the Israeli government or the Taliban. But Hamas is also a force for good among the Palestinian people and the only thing keeping them alive today. Given the chance, I have no doubt that Bibi would be thrilled to have his own personal final solution.

    When I was young and naive, I used to think Israelis were smart and admirable. I know better now.

  368. 368.

    Larkspur

    June 1, 2010 at 4:19 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: Let’s pretend to be pragmatic. How has this event advanced Israel’s self-interests? How, specifically? The blowback is bad and getting worse, and it outweighs whatever tactical goal the operation may have been intended to achieve. It wasn’t a credible, defensible operation that went badly. It was an ill-thought out, bizarre, unnecessary operation that got completely fucked up. Paintball guns? Lowering Israeli soldiers one by one into a mob? How does this make sense?

    Benyamin Netanyahu has never gotten over the memory of Entebbe, the deadly but effective raid on the airport to free hostages, the operation in which one IDF soldier was killed: the commander of the unit, Yonatan Netanyahu. That would be Bibi’s older brother, the one who’s regarded as a hero. Bibi’s the other one.

  369. 369.

    micah616

    June 1, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    @Yishai Kohen: And not one word of that has fuck all to do with the fact that you’re accusing Arabs of having a “14 centuries old mindset” while simultaneously defending a 60 centuries old mindset binding the Jews to the “God” given land of Israel.

    Moron.

  370. 370.

    micah616

    June 1, 2010 at 4:29 pm

    @geg6:

    Not to mention that people seem to forget that Israel itself was founded by what was considered at the time a “terrorist” organization just like Hamas. People said that Ben Gurion and his “thugs” had no end game either. Of course, sixty-two years later it looks like those people were right. Israel today certainly has no end game.

    They have the exact same endgame, namely domination of territory using religious conflict as an excuse for “righteous” violence. The problem is that one has bigger weapons provided by our tax dollars.

  371. 371.

    LikeableInMyOwnWay

    June 1, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    @Yishai Kohen:

    By weapons, you mean chaise lounges?

  372. 372.

    El Cid

    June 1, 2010 at 5:05 pm

    @LikeableInMyOwnWay: They were semi-automatic chaise loungers with hollow-point drink-holders.

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