As I’ve noted before, in the eyes of its defenders the blockade of the Gaza Strip is a security measure aimed at denying rockets to Hamas, while in fact it’s a comprehensive effort to collectively punish Gaza residents—a majority of whom are children—in hopes that this will somehow lead to Hamas being replaced by a more moderate regime. Yousef Munayyer’s rundown of the consequences of the blockade makes the point clearly. For example, “In 2006, Israel carried out an attack on Gaza’s only power plant and never permitted the rebuilding to its pre-attack capacity (down to producing 80 megawatts maximum from 140 megawatts).”
How long do you have to starve and mistreat someone before they decide you were right all along?
In other news, I think Helen Thomas will probably get fired for this. Those kinds of views might be acceptable for Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and conservatives like Pat Buchanan, , but probably not the press.
Alan
This can’t be true. I’ve read over at Little Green Footballs that Israel does everything it can to make life pleasant for the Palestinians in Gaza. Everything we hear otherwise is a lie.
Mr Furious
Another case of IOKIYAR.
Any right-wing media asshat or GOP pol who uttered a comparable statement in reverse (anti-Muslim…get the hell out of Israel, etc) would vault to a prime time slot, or the front-runner status of whatever office they seek.
If the were ever to lose their job for such comments (doubtful) they’d be snapped up by the Wingnut Welfare Circuit and paid handsomely by some bullshit think tank, or get a fat book deal from Regenery.
srv
This is the policy they have been pursuing for 50 years. Why screw with what works? If a non-“radical” group appeared to be negotiated with, they’d bomb it or help Hamas destroy it, just like they’ve done countless times before.
And then they’ll whine about how they have no partner.
There will be peace in Israel when Israeli’s love their children more than they love other people’s land.
Mr Furious
I actually DON’T think she’ll be fired for this. She might not get called on in the WH Briefing Room for a while, however.
Kyle
How long do you have to starve and mistreat someone before they decide you were right all along?
How much machine-gun fire and tear gas do you unleash upon a civilian ship in international waters and how many passengers do you kill or injure before they welcome aboard your commandos in the middle of the night? The government of Israel seems to be pursuing the same Bush-stupid intimidate-them-and-they’ll-love-us bully mindset in many areas.
New Yorker
I can’t speak for others, but if I were a secular, liberal Jew living under an increasingly unhinged government in Israel, I might find it tempting to head for a relatively normal country like Germany (I know, irony of ironies). Munich is a damn fine place to live.
neil
It’s just like World War II. The Germans had V-2 rockets and Hamas has Qassam rockets. Nobody objected to collateral damage among the German population, did they?
New Yorker
Hell, what am I saying. I’m a secular, liberal non-Jew living under an increasingly unhinged US government, and I find the idea of moving to Germany appealing sometimes.
Mike G
Shorter Israeli government:
Don’t interrupt my ideological dick-swinging with something that might actually work.
You Don't Say
She may finally “retire,” but she won’t get fired.
salacious crumb
now that Israel “peacefully” boarded the Rachel Corrie ship, we can all forget what happened a week earlier and get back to blaming the Palestinians and the Mooslems and the towelheads for all the world’s problems.
As far as Helen Thomas goes, i still think what she said was despicable. branding any group of people of any ethnicity robs them of their humanity and reflects badly on her and throws water on all the good journalistic work she did during her career.
Cat Lady
I’m in the TL;DR department when it comes to Glenn Greenwald, but this post goes where only a liberal Jew can go, and lays bare the conundrum of loyalties they’re facing. Glenn is a lot of things, most of which can be annoying, but he’s being pretty brave. It can’t be easy to invite vitriol from your own tribe.
John Cole
@salacious crumb: I think her remarks were rather offensive, too. But the reason everyone in the region is crazed is because she is going to be routinely condemned and probably retired for her remarks, while the soldier who shot six civilians is up for a medal.
AhabTRuler
@New Yorker: There was an op-ed piece in Ha’Aretz a few years ago where the commentator recommended that the Israeli elite obtain passports from obliging European and NorAm nations, for precisely the reason you speculated upon. This was somewhat scandalous, as one is supposed to obtain dual citizenship to be able to flee to Israel, not from it.
Cat
@neil:
I’m not sure if you are being serious or not. I seem to recall we invaded the country lobbing rockets at us and promptly took over governing it, rebuilt it, and then handed it back.
I think Israel is missing a few key parts of the process of dealing with acts of war from a foreign nation.
licensed to kill time
Can someone please summarize what Helen Thomas said? I don’t go HuffPo, it practically makes my laptop explode, it’s so busy…
Corpsicle
@salacious crumb: ” branding any group of people of any ethnicity robs them of their humanity”
You realize that does not make any sense at all, right?
licensed to kill time
Never mind, I googled it.
El Cid
Is there anyone who thinks that if the Palestinians rejected Hamas and no more rockets were launched, ever, yet they still insisted on a settlement giving them something other than rotting Bantustans that Israeli policymakers would do anything other than coming up with a new excuse to punish them further?
wilfred
The purpose of the flotilla, the same as the overland convoy that set out from London some months ago, was to a) call attention to the blockade, and b) call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by that blockade.
The ship was like Gaza. Isolated and defenseless, raided by a powerful military machine. Just like Gaza itself, where Israeli helicopters routinely attack and kill whomever they wish.
As more and more people learn what’s going on the Israeli narrative crumbles further, exposing preposterous positions like the soldiers acted in self-defense, after attacking the ship.
Accept that and you accept anything. Challenge that and you challenge everything.
Matthew Reid Krell
@El Cid: Only one way to find out, I suppose. Although I still like The MoU’s solution in his first book (the only decent one he’s written), which boils down to:
Israel says, “We hereby give the Palestinians everything they want. If we’re attacked again, it’s an act of war. Ready, set, go!”
Laertes
I used to think this. My eyes have been opened, though. Until recently, I didn’t realize just how spiteful the Israeli population was. And I should have, because they’re people, and people are spiteful as hell, as I well know having lived in America for the last many years.
I see now that there’s a broad section of the Israeli population that really just hates the shit out of Palestinians, and wants their government to pursue policies that make them suffer, and doesn’t want to do anything that might reduce their misery because it’ll be seen as a “victory” for the other side.
As Rumsfeld once said, “weakness is provocative.” It’s a regrettable bit of human nature that weakness invites abuse. The genius of nonviolence is that it allows shame to overcome spite by removing every trace of a threat. Strong enemies are treated with respect because they’re strong. Enemies who absolutely will not hit back may eventually be treated kindly because one eventually feels shame. Enemies who are weak enough to be mistreated, but just strong enough to fear, will be treated savagely. Forever.
El Cid
@Matthew Reid Krell: Well, we pretty much know the response to this. During the PLO’s time — again, the internationally recognized leadership of the Palestinian illegally occupied territories — there was no offer other than impossibly split, walled off rotting Bantustans. After Arafat’s death, the next authority wasn’t good enough for Israeli support of a viable Palestinian state. Since Hamas’ election and pushing out of Fatah, of course, now their presence is the reason for Israeli rejectionism. And so on and so forth.
Kyle
One of the major reasons for the rise of the Nazis was economic arrangements imposed by neighboring countries that destroyed the German economy and caused massive social dislocation, less severe than what Israel has imposed on Gaza.
But I’m sure if the Gazans are just punished more severely they will stop hating their punishers.
Observer
Hamas, worried about the starving women and children.
Two weeks ago it was Hamas bulldozing the houses of their citizens. Because cement and wood is so hard to get.
maya
@wilfred: Yeah, but how much of that is getting through the AIPAC blockade on the librul media in this country? We have to go to the UK, the blogsphere and Al Jazeera-English on You Tube to get info.
I don’t watch MSM. Are any of them covering anything other then the “weapons blockade” meme? Cite and referrence, please. Anyone.
wilfred
@maya:
FWIW, I’ve been defending the rights of Palestinians on this blog for a long time. There was a time when in a thread of, say, 150 comments, the anti-Palestinian, Israel fellating comments would simply overrun ANYTHING said on behalf of the Palestinian people, were routinely smeared with some form of the pre-packaged, Israeli script: “they;re all terrorists, blah, blah, blah”
Things changed here. They’re changing everywhere.
PeakVT
@Laertes: Here’s some of the spite you’re talking about (be sure to enlarge).
someguy
Yeah, a lot of people talk shit about speaking truth to power, but it takes an 80-something year-old biddy to actually do so. She’ll be made to pay.
Svensker
Ygelisas gets it a bit wrong. The Israelis DO want to punish the Gazans for breathing while Palestinian. However, they have no interest in Hamas being replaced by a more moderate regime. Everything they are doing is radicalizing the Pals even further and entrenching Hamas…and this has been the Israeli pattern for years and years. Isolate, demonize, neutralize, then throw up their hands and say, “We can’t POSSIBLY negotiate with THESE animals!” All the while creating “facts on the ground”, driving out the moderate Pals, and making life so miserable for the rest that they either fight back and are neutralized, or they up and leave. It’s a slow process, but it is working quite well. Ethnic cleansing by degrees.
Matthew Reid Krell
@El Cid: Well, let’s pause. The conditions you requested weren’t the conditions that inhered. I’m not saying that the conditions that existed weren’t reasonable, and that the Israeli response hasn’t been wildly inappropriate; just that what you asked for, to wit:
has yet to happen. In fairness, the way you phrased it, we’ll never find out (“no more rockets, ever” is a recipe for never reaching the condition of Israel actually having to respond in kind, because there could always be rockets tomorrow). So let’s call it something more reasonable – say, “The Palestinians reject Hamas and prove themselves via a reasonable length of time without violence, which time is undefined to prevent the ‘wait-out’ strategy, etc.” Then would Israel actually do something different? Like I said, there’s only one way to find out. And I’m not sure that it will ever happen (why should the Palestinians be the ones to unilaterally disarm? Why should they HAVE to be the ones to do so?).
Which is why I think that for all the wrongity wrongness of almost everything that ever comes out of Tom Friedman’s mouth, that his solution (see above at #21) is going to be the only way to prove, one way or another, whether both sides are committed to peace and whether the international community is motivated by human rights concerns or something more sinister.
Svensker
@Matthew Reid Krell:
Such as?
demo woman
Helen Thomas was wrong. Excuses cannot change what she said.
gene108
@salacious crumb:
I have the opposite view. I think what Helen Thomas said needs to be mentioned: The majority of Jews in Israel are not native to Palestine. They are immigrants, primarily from Europe, who have moved to the region over the last 150 years and carved out a country for themselves.
If the Irish disembarked from New York City and declared up-state New York to be the Irish Homeland, I’m not sure how happy Americans would be, especially if the Americans (native, of German ancestry, Dutch, etc. who had been there before) were driven from their homes in Buffalo and not allowed to return three generations later or worse yet, if Canada had the authority to partition New York state to create the Irish homeland, without any input from New Yorkers.
Europe (and I guess the U.S.) didn’t want to deal with what to do with millions of displaced Jews, after World War II, so they off-loaded them to Palestine, where Jews had been colonizing for 50 years prior to the end of World War II.
shortstop
Oh, you know, there’s speaking truth to power (and when can we retire this hoary cliche? It’s so cheesily self-congratulatory) and then there’s gratuitous offensiveness. I’m appalled at Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, I’m sick and tired of Israel’s arrogant exceptionalism (reading so many Israeli Likudnik posts on U.S. lefty blogs this week has been a real eye opener regarding how far the U.S.-Israeli right-wing joint madness has gone) and I’m double sick and tired of the pretense that the blockade is merely self-defense instead of gleefully vicious collective punishment. But there are ways to criticize Israel that don’t involve telling its citizens to go back to the two countries in which horrific concentration camps were sited during WWII. Especially when most of today’s Israelis do not trace their heritage back to Germany and Poland.
I know she’s been pushed far by Israel’s doubling down on its assholery and she just lost her shit when she said this, but can we refrain from actually glorifying her stupid remarks?
Matthew Reid Krell
@Svensker: …Really?
Okay.
So, if Israel unilaterally withdraws and recognizes a Palestinian state at or around the 1967 borders (setting aside the Golan for a moment, since it was never Palestinian), and at the same time says, “We will normalize diplomatic relations with Palestine as soon as they announce they want to do the same, but we expect the government of Palestine to institute order and prevent attacks on us from its territory; failure to do so is an act of war,” then suppose that some fanatic in Palestine attacks Israel using whatever method they prefer; then now we’re at war, right? Legitimate, honest-to-G-d MF’in’ war in self-defense.
I’ll grant that there’s legitimate room for giving the Palestinian government time to resolve such an event internally, but if they don’t….
So, given all of the above (which is a lot to give, I’ll grant), then we can evaluate whether the response of the international community is built around their legitimate concerns for Palestinian oppression or whether they’ve just decided that Israel can do no right. And at that point, I would not regard it as a great leap to wonder whether the latter impulse was motivated by anti-Semitism.
Addendum: Requiring a government to act and declaring “failure to act” an act of war is probably unfair. I would instead say that Israel should demand that Palestine institute order and “act to prevent attacks on us; refusal to do so, or refusal to prosecute or extradite those who do so without government sanction, will be an act of war.”
EarBucket
I’m a big fan of Helen Thomas, and I think the actions of the Israeli state are horrendous, but what she said was repulsive.
LiberalTarian
@salacious crumb:
Bullshit.
Nick
Ari Fleischer: “”She is advocating religious cleansing. How can Hearst stand by her?”
See, it’s okay to enact policies which result in ethnic cleansing (see, e.g., the Palestinians generally), but not okay to talk about it (see, e.g., Helen Thomas and Jimmy Carter).
Svensker
@Matthew Reid Krell:
You do not disappoint.
shortstop
And that’s a legitimate point that should be discussed. The way to do so is not to single out the two countries in which the worst crimes of the Holocaust took place as examples of places that Israelis should “go back to.”
Fleas correct the era
Ari the fuck FLEISCHER is the go-to for what’s appropriate for Helen Thomas to say? My God, what a world.
Matthew Reid Krell
@Svensker: I live to serve.
Nick
It would be worth our while to resettle the Israelis here in the U.S.
Since they like the desert so much, we can rename Yuma “New Jerusalem” and make the surrounding area a tribal reservation.
Pity the Mexicans, though; poor fuckers’ll be reduced to living in walled off areas within a few decades.
wilfred
Helen’s just sick of it all. She’s been one voice against a multitude for too long.
Otoh, Ethan Bronner, Jerusalem bureau chief of the New York Times, has a son in the Israeli army. I’m sure everybody knows all about that but this asks some interesting questions:
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjen…..ronner.htm
stickler
Israel isn’t going back to the 1967 borders, not now, not ever. Why? Settlements, and the several hundred thousand Jewish settlers that live in them.
Oh, and the Wall. Just look at the course that damned thing takes and tell me that it’s all about stopping terrorism. Good God.
Mark S.
@PeakVT:
Everyone should take a look at that picture (here’s the link for people to lazy to scroll). You can’t treat people like that and then be surprised when they suicide bomb you.
Fuck every single one of those settlers and fuck their government that aids and abets them. And fuck our very own co-dependent enabling bitch government of the United States that in the end makes all of this possible.
LiberalTarian
@gene108: Well, what if you took a particularly poor segment of New York, a weak client if you will (as surely the Palestinians were after WWII) and just pretended they don’t exist? Say, an area where the projects are predominant?
I hate to say it, but I suspect the other immigrants wouldn’t really give a flying crap.
I agree with Laertes–this is a vicious, an common, expression of human nature. It is a scaled up version of domestic violence–which is still not only tolerated in most societies, but the victim is blamed for the abuse. We only take action to punish the abuser when we are not only confronted repeatedly with our complicity but someone refuses to stop confronting us with our moral obligation to make the abuse stop.
Israel has done a good job of making sure those voices are marginalized and disregarded. I didn’t see our government calling for punishing Israel for war crimes three years ago, did you? And our government’s latest response? Obama’s? I’ll paraphrase, “It isn’t nice to make me watch you beat up your wife. Get a room, ok, please? Oh, and uh, if you, uh, beat her death, have a good excuse, like she made you mad.”
Bruce Webb
Yeah Helen screwed up.
On the other hand if you scooped up a bunch of Settlers are returned them to Brooklyn and Russia, which is where the people that are fueling Likudnik fascism are actually coming from, we would be a lot better off. But even voicing that opinion openly would be counterproductive.
Targetting the children and grandchildren of the Holocaust, who for the most parts seem content to live more or less secular lives in Tel Aviv rather than pick murderous fights in the West Bank, was an unforced error on the part of Helen Thomas. Wrong target combined with wrong method. But after sixty years of watching unbalanced treatment, and for much of that time literally from the front row, would be frustrating to anyone.
Elizabelle
Here’s Helen’s statement, from helenthomas.org
“I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”
demo woman
@gene108: Helen could have opened up a discussion about the Europeans who settled in Israel. Most Americans do not know the history of Israel, unfortunately her words shut that discussion down.
Jared
@Alan–
“This can’t be true. I’ve read over at Little Green Footballs that Israel does everything it can to make life pleasant for the Palestinians in Gaza. Everything we hear otherwise is a lie.”
In fairness to Charles Johnson, he’s ratcheted down a lot of his old rhetoric and admitted he was wrong about the McCain/Palin ticket, which has made him readable. Along these lines, Johnson seems willing to go along with the WaPo’s description of life in Gaza as “complex” and “dysfunctional.”
wilfred
@demo woman:
That story has been silenced for 60 years, at least in America. She’s tried as much as anyone to get it out in the open.
Resident Firebagger
What continues to slowly kill me — and this thinking goes back to the genesis of the Iraq war and probably as far back as the start of Castro’s regime — is this thinking:
If we bomb/blockade these infantile brown people, they’ll naturally rise up — not against us, the ones doing the bombing/blockading — but against their leaders/governments that we don’t approve of.
Just an amazing display of hubris, coldness and flat-out idiocy there, and yet Israeli and American leaders for generations now continue to believe this shit.
Going back to bed now…
Svensker
@wilfred:
Link not work.
gene108
I can believe the argument back in 1945-1947, which is one reason displaced European Jews had tried to go Palestine. I think the British finally decided to declare a Jewish state because they didn’t know what to do with the millions of Jews who lost everything because of the Nazi’s and needed to be accommodated somehow. I don’t see it happening again and I do not think it is a valid argument now.
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=321
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany%E2%80%93Israel_relations
Link
wilfred
@Svensker:
Don’t know why, try this:
http://www.counterpunch.org/weir02052010.html
Just Some Fuckhead
What Helen Thomas said makes perfect sense if you aren’t a deluded Zionist.
gene108
@demo woman:
A large part of our country think we never mistreated the Native population in our own country and saying the Trail of Tears was bad gets you branded as an America hating left-wing Stalinist. I feel many of these people, who think America was created perfectly on July 4, 1776 and only gets better, are very pro-Israel and if they don’t care about what this country did, I don’t see them caring about what other countries do.
I think the issue of Israel-Palestine gets drawn pretty much along the lines of an us versus them mindset, which many people in this country seem to have adopted during the Cold War and now the “War on Terror”.
Israel is “us” and Palestine is “them” and that’s the end of the debate.
I think the biggest thing, which needs to be brought out is the fact Israel’s Arab neighbors created a resolution to recognize Israel, if Israel gave back land it acquired in 1967, and re-affirmed this resolution in 2007.
Unfortunately the majority of the arguments about defending the actions Israel are still framed with the arguments of “Holocaust must never happen again” and “everyone of Israel’s neighbors wants to destroy it”, which I think are no longer relevant.
Martin
If we look at the history of how these things play out, strongarming Gaza over their election of Hamas will only lead to palestinians backing a group that is more capable or willing to strongarm Israel. Whenever the party of power sets the course, the party out of power works along that same course.
Of course, conservatives can never see that because they insist that all other groups will adopt the conservative notion of what ought to happen. They have no concept that minority groups or other cultures might be able to think for themselves and draw different and especially better conclusions.
And they’re the ones that complain about elitism…
handy
@demo woman:
fixed.
me
@Just Some Fuckhead: That would have made sense 50 years ago but now there are a lot of Jews living there and it’s unrealistic and would be awful to try and remove them just like it’s awful that the Israelis are trying to ethically cleanse the West Bank and turn Gaza into a large prison.
PeakVT
Here’s something I just ran across: a very detailed map of West Bank closures from the UN. (Warning: large PDF.)
El Cid
@Matthew Reid Krell: This was a hypothetical. Hence the “if” idea. It is clearly my idea. If it were up to me to establish the actual starting positions, the world would be very different.
There is no more reason to assume that a Hamas-free Gaza would be punished any less than now than to assume the opposite, because the default position should be to assume things based on reality, rather than a request to see things as the stronger party prefers.
me
@me: Although, to be fair, nobody is actually attempting to do what Helen suggests, despite the absurd Israeli self-victimization (a few small half-assed unguided rockets aren’t going to destroy Israel), while the crimes against the Palestinians are very real.
Just Some Fuckhead
@me: Helen never suggested Jews be forcibly removed from Palestinians. She told the interviewer to tell Israelis to get the hell outta there, go home. Me telling you to go home, for instance, isn’t the same as me having you kidnapped and extradited to a place I’ve decided is your home.
toujoursdan
@maya:
The CBC in Canada has done a good job, and BBC World isn’t bad. It’s too bad that foreign news channels aren’t generally carried on the U.S. cable packages. That’s par for the course in other nations.
demo woman
@gene108: There’s little that I can add to what you said. The leadership of Israel is on a path of destruction that includes not only the Palestinians but Iran also, I fear.
El Cid
A good view from a scholar writing in Salon.
It was a very, very decisive turn of events when Hezbollah finally drove Israel out of South Lebanon after decades of Israeli military domination. This was after the major new Israeli offensive in 2006. This was viewed very much as a military defeat in both Israel and the illegally occupied territories. It’s probably one of the reasons Israeli policymakers decided to lay waste to Gaza and slaughter civilians on a massive scale, to remind everyone that they could slaughter Arab civilians whenever they felt.
It’s pretty inevitable that when you destroy, starve, and lay waste to a people, the leadership which emerges is not quite as likely to be noble and peaceful types. It certainly does happen, but it’s a real gamble.
The CIA kept telling Washington policy makers that bombing and then carpet bombing the peasants in Cambodia was not only slaughtering them and destroying their agriculture, but driving peasants to support the formerly marginal lunatic Khmer Rouge. Then Washington pretended to care when both bombing-caused starvation and Khmer Rouge slaughter caused the deaths of millions of Cambodians, though of course the turn to horror was not only predictable, but predicted by our very own CIA.
I would take issue with this:
How did this not work? Okay, so some Israeli civilians were killed in Hamas- or Hamas-encouraged attacks. How is this ‘not working’ from the point of view of Israeli policymakers?
The deaths of Israeli civilians are a potent justification for expansionist and militarist policies alike, i.e., the continuation with ever-accelerated settlements on Palestinian territories under both Labor, Kadima, and Likud administrations and the encouragement of a lunatic right wing fundamentalist armed and murderous settler movement that Israelis themselves denounces as ‘fascist’.
It’s only ‘not working’ if you make the illogical assumption that what’s most important for Israeli policymakers is the protection of Israeli Jewish civilian lives. That seems to me to be quite a ridiculous assumption to make.
Svensker
@El Cid:
Yes.
Svensker
@wilfred:
Ugh. Chilling article. I knew that about Bronner but the rest of it made me sick. The problem is, the only ones who cover stuff like this are Nation, Counterpunch, Antiwar.com, sometimes Salon — all liberal “or worse”. They don’t get read, seen or heard by anyone outside our own echo chamber, unfortunately.
Peace to you.
Martin
I know this won’t go well, but here goes…
I cannot reconcile the effort to expand Jewish settlements with the assertion that Israels goal is the safety of its population or a lasting peace with its neighbors. The settlements run completely contrary to both goals.
From the outside looking in, it appears that Israels goal – the one they are publicly putting action behind – is the expansion of Israel by force, and the suppression and punishment of opposition to that goal. I hear the arguments that defend the policy, but they’re bullshit along the same lines that the assertion that Saddam was an existential threat to the US which required going to war there.
So yes, Israel has the right to defend themselves, but I don’t see how they have the right to provoke their neighbors and then claim self defense when their neighbors rise to the provocation.
TenguPhule
How long do you attack a civilian populace before it finally decides it doesn’t give a shit about what happens your people as long as the attacks stop against them?
TenguPhule
It’s actually quite simple. Israel is not a single united entity that decides everything with a hivemind.
One faction is a kin to our GOP under the Bush era. They’ve got a quarter million fanatical supporters who literally believe they are the thin white line between Israel and the brown hordes. And they’re dug in with guns.
Martin
@TenguPhule: You realize nobody can tell which side you’re defending taking thise statement in isolation. But obviously you seem to feel that one society/ethnic group/religious group has a greater right and gives greater value to self-preservation. That’s, uh, pretty fucked up.
Martin
@TenguPhule: And the government is supportive of, and assists with their actions. You left that part out. That’s actually the most important part. It’s the difference beween having your own radical group you’re having trouble containing (like the Minutemen) and a statement of policy (as Arizona is inching toward).
MRK
@Martin: This.
The most infuriating thing about watching the whole thing unfold as a Zionist is what you just said.
TenguPhule
That would be the point.
TenguPhule
Republicans. Bush Era. Do I need to draw you a picure?
They’ve tried breaking down settlements. It’s a nightmare for the Israeli forces. And the Likud has enough pull to hamstring even that.
Laertes
You know what? To Hell with Helen Thomas. She’s had a great run, but she’s clearly lost it. I don’t think she’s evil, which means that that weird rant is simply a product of senility.
Nothing shameful about that. Should I be lucky enough to live as long as she has, I expect my mind will start to go too. One can excuse her batshit remarks on account of her age. But cutting her some slack doesn’t mean she needs to be in one of those seats in the white house press room.
Jesus.
On the other hand, every OTHER seat in that room is filled by some moron who’s gone senile at 30.
So, I don’t know.
fucen tarmal
helen thomas was over the top, and i don’t think that should be reflected at all in our policy or attitude towards israel…
but in a moment of pissed off, she shows everything that is missing in our discussion of israel.palestinians, lebanon, et al, the region….we are discussing millions of permutations from as far right as “israel can do no wrong” towards a should be center of “israel is treating the palestineans horribly, i still support their right to exist, but they need to stop with the might makes right, oppresed becomes oppressor bullshit.”
all the way to the left on the issue, which is in this case, not an ideology in and of itself, but an opposite reaction to the israel is always right no matter what…..
she is saying demonstrating how shifted the discussion on israel is, by saying the shocking thing, i would take her remarks as a measure of frustration unless she demonstrates a pattern of similar….
it is amusing seeing ari fleisher be appalled for a change, i did enjoy that part, even if it wasn’t sincere.
jayjaybear
@TenguPhule:
So you say to the settlers, “Fine. You want to live here, you can defend yourselves. We’re pulling out, right now. This is Palestinian land now, and we’re not going to let you pull us back into this mutually suicidal crapfest we’ve been dealing with for the last 70 years.”
But, of course, they can’t do that, because the Israeli government has signed a pact with the devil in the form of the haredi parties. Nothing can get done without buy-in from the ultra-orthodox (who don’t really contribute anything to the welfare of the nation of Israel, since they don’t either work or serve in the IDF, and actually could be said (with their belligerence and the settlements) to continually weaken the ability of the state of Israel to hold the moral high ground (or any sane domestic policy, for that matter)).
someguy
@Martin:
That was really brave to say something like that around here Martin. You deserve a medal or something for having the guts to criticize Israeli settlements or militarism. I stand in awe. [golf clap]
maya
@toujoursdan: Thank you. Unfortunately, American news media is too interested in selling us something and they haven’t found a way to sell McDonalds and Burger King on the same program at the same time.
Martin
@someguy: Well, my point was more that I didn’t want to blow up into yet another shitstorm, not that it was a particularly unique viewpoint.
In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not usually one to fan the flames.
Yutsano
@Martin: If I or my cousin were to emigrate to Israel tomorrow (we are both eligible) we would both be highly encouraged to settle in one of the West Bank settlements, to the point where we could obtain a house and property for little to no money. All of this would be sponsored by the Israeli government. Anywhere within Israel proper would be much more expensive and with much less government assistance. They are actively encouraging this expansion with government policies that have been in place for years. So you’re right: the Israeli government is bringing this on themselves, and they don’t see fit to change that any time soon.
TenguPhule
Right, the Israeli government will tell 250,000 VOTERS they can fuck themselves. Great, why haven’t we done this here at home with the Asshat insane GOP? Oh, because in a fucking democracy it doesn’t work that way!
Personally, I’d love to see the Israeli settlers made Palestinian citizens. Of course, then we get to watch a Palestinian government brutally oppress the people in their power…..
celticdragonchick
@wilfred:
Maybe, although I almost did get my self banned from LGF earlier today on this subject. (I told another commenter he was a “traitorous fuck” for siding with a foreign government over the US Navy regarding the USS Liberty affair, after he insinuated I was anti-Semetic.)
Not at all classy on my part, and I apologized to Charles Johnson and the commenter in question, and he apologized to me as well.
Emotion gets really wrapped up in this, and many Americans regard Isreal as the 51st state. Critical thinking and nuance go right out the window.
I will no longer chime in in any thread where there is a preponderanc of “Israel: luv her or stfu!” believers posting. Some of them are my friends, and I am not willing to break that over a subject that I cannot do anything about.
celticdragonchick
@gene108:
As an American History minor, I find an appallingly large percentage of the population cannot differentiate between the 18th and 19th centuries at all.
They may (or may not) have a vague idea that some white guys who dressed funny did something on July 4th, but they are apt to confuse it with the Civil War and then further confuse the dates by asserting it happened in 1856…or 1872.
sneezy
@gene108:
“The majority of Jews in Israel are not native to Palestine.”
About 70% of Israeli citizens are Jews who were born there. What is your understanding of the word “native”?
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@sneezy:
People who lived there before 1947 and their descendants. The fact that an occupying army has been breeding for 63 years doesn’t make them any less of an occupying army.
TenguPhule
Ahem. Fuck the “Right of Return”. Not unless you’re willing to deal with *all* of the countries in that time who evicted people. Palestinians are not fucking special compared to all of the others who got shafted (and still are).
TenguPhule
Right then, get the fuck off the Sioux lawn.
Ejoiner
I think I’m going to start my history classes next fall with a look at this situation: and then, as we sail through thousands of years of conflict, see just how many times something very similiar comes up over and over and over and over again.
“They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.”
CalD
Dem belly full but me hungry.
A hungry mob is an angry mob.
— Bob Marley
(Some problems in the Middle East defy solution. Others aren’t even that hard.)
Dr. Morpheus
Shorter TenguPhule, “Since everybody in the world doesn’t have a perfect record on human rights Israel can do whatever the fuck it wants to the Palestinians.”
Oh, and TenguPhule, if you claim that’s not what you mean you’re a lying piece of shit.
Gretchen
Just wondered if Hamas puts down their arms would there be peace?
If the Israelis put down their guns, there would be no Israel?
I have never seen so many self hating Jews trying to suck up to the other groups and come off like we are different,we are fair. Then there are the phony Palestinian loving folks who pretend they care about the tortured innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle of this awful political mess and do not want to be used by either side. You are not anti zionist you the just hate JEWS and use the sad and tragic Palestinian situation as a legitimate platform to display your real hatred.
I love it!
I look forward to Shariah law to take hold in the USA.Phony Christians and Phony Jews like those who have expressed their opinions here will get what they are do. I love Karma
TenguPhule
Ahem, Fuck the so called “Right of Return”. The Palestinians are not special anymore then the Israelis are. And fuck you again for missing the whole point, lying fucker.
eemom
@TenguPhule:
God, the level of self-righteous bullshit here on this subject is un-fucking-believable. I don’t know why you even bother, but kudos to you for speaking truth to a bunch of simple-minded knee jerk sheep.
Get the fuck off the Sioux lawn indeed. J.H. Christ.