As Israel ordered a slight easing of its blockade of the Gaza Strip Wednesday, McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as “economic warfare” against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory.
Israel imposed severe restrictions on Gaza in June 2007, after Hamas won elections and took control of the coastal enclave after winning elections there the previous year, and the government has long said that the aim of the blockade is to stem the flow of weapons to militants in Gaza.
***Sari Bashi, the director of Gisha, said the documents prove that Israel isn’t imposing its blockade for its stated reasons, but rather as collective punishment for the Palestinian population of Gaza. Gisha focuses on Palestinian rights.
(A State Department spokesman, who wasn’t authorized to speak for the record, said he hadn’t seen the documents in question.)
The Israeli government took an additional step Wednesday and said the economic warfare is intended to achieve a political goal. A government spokesman, who couldn’t be named as a matter of policy, told McClatchy that authorities will continue to ease the blockade but “could not lift the embargo altogether as long as Hamas remains in control” of Gaza.
Does this mean we get to stop pretending this is about blocking weapons?
Kryptik
Of course not. I’m sure Hamas is secretly developing a lethal Cinnamon Chocolate Cannon as we speak.
Brien Jackson
What’s weird (not really) is that, since Hamas controls the smuggling tunnels, the blockade is rather good for them, financially.
Cat Lady
No, it means that Sheera Frenkel is a self-hating Jew.
Mudge
What do you mean “we”. Neocons and Republicans have never built their positions based on fact. The document will be dismissed with a wave of the hand, the findings ignored, and they’ll discuss the security of Israel and rockets, not wheat or water treatment.
Redshirt
I suppose this is always been the case, but there seems a strong pressure to pretend no one knows the truth of a matter, and instead simply repeat the talking points.
Everyone knows exactly what the blockade is for. To pretend otherwise is to engage in cynical politics – cynical, because people are dying because of this blockade.
Punchy
Best. Title. EVAH.
Captain Haddock
Can we all stop pretending right or wrong enter into our relationship with Israel? Just accept the fact that we are a colony and move on.
Dork
Translation: A State Department spokesman has seen the records, understands just how worthless it makes the Israeli side look, but has no idea how to spin it in favor of Israel.
peach flavored shampoo
MMonides is 5 seconds from telling you just how anti-Semitic this statement is.
ChrisNBama
I’m sure Commentary or some other neocon outlet will publish a story revealing how McClatchy Newspapers is secretly in hoc to Al Jazeera.
I’m not sure what it will take to finally unmask the Israeli spin and call this shit what it is: retributive punishment.
Zach
In terms of justifying it in international law, Israel hasn’t claimed its a military blockade. Doing so would admit that they are occupying Gaza and require Israel to afford Gaza all of the protections guaranteed to an occupied territory under Geneva (for example, Israel would have to directly provide aid rather than deign to allow the UN et al to provide aid through its borders). Israel says it’s a military blockade in PR, but doesn’t really mean it. This leads to Israel’s supporters Googling and citing international maritime law that’s irrelevant. If you see their legal folks talk, they speak of sanctions and say they’re trying to be as humane as possible while pressuring Hamas by making economic growth in Gaza impossible.
Even if it were a legitimate military blockade, Israel would be mandated by international law to allow ships through that provide medical equipment and transport the wounded (even if this was solely intended to benefit Hamas militants).
gocart mozart
Is this not the most worthless sentence ever written.
BREAKING NEWS!: My anonymous sources tell me “no comment”. Developing
Zach
Here’s an article from when the blockade/sanctions began: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7069203.stm
“The plan is to use these steps to increase pressure. They are unpleasant but better that than a military operation. We hope in this way they will get the message.”
Nick
So they killed 9 people during a raid in furtherance of a policy of ECONOMIC sanctions?
Nick
Zach:
What law governs economic sanctions? Any idea or link? Thanks. Very good point.
Zach
@gocart mozart: In the absence of that parenthetical, people reading the article would wonder why State wasn’t asked for comment. It’d be better to get someone on the record about not wanting to comment, though.
burnspbesq
@peach flavored shampoo:
Actually I think you’ve mistaken MMonides for Phil – which will make both of them hate you.
There was a post at TNR.com yesterday titled something like “Israel faces an existential threat, and Netanyahu is making it worse.” Which is half right, but the part that is right is not that part that Phil thinks is right. Maybe I’m not seeing the whole picture, and perhaps Phil will enlighten me, but it’s hard for me to see how the side to this dispute that has an effective monopoly on the use of force can be said in any meaningful way to be facing an existential threat.
PurpleGirl
@Captain Haddock: I see what you did there… very good turn of phrase.
Zach
@Nick: No clue about unilateral sanctions. I think the law is if the United States does it, if the United States approves of it, or if the United States does not object, it’s legal. Also, Egypt is participating in the blockade as well, complicating things.
tommybones
Of course, the U.S. can never publicly condemn this criminal embargo, since we’ve been doing something similar to Cuba for the past half century.
ChrisNBama
@Nick: Excellent point!
Roger Moore
No. SATSQ. Reflexive supporters of Israel will continue to claim that it’s about weapons until they can come up with a better excuse, some time around the twelfth of never. Slightly smarter reflexive supporters of Israel will claim that the document is a hoax put out by Hamas, and anyone who repeats it is at best a tool of Hamas and at worst an al Qaeda sleeper agent.
Allison W.
Did anyone hear of this or read this article?
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_MIDEAST?SITE=PAYOK&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
jayjaybear
Largely for two reasons: a) the US is pressuring them to do so (in proxy for Israel) and b) Egypt doesn’t want the Palestinians, and allowing free passage would basically make them responsible for those Palestinians, de facto if not de jure.
Svensker
But, hey, the Israelis are really softening up — they’ve agreed to let in potato chips, soda, candy and cookies! (Probably not Diet Coke (or is it Pepsi?) and Mentos, tho, since you can make bottle rockets with those.) Now that the Pal kids can have cookies, what have they got to complain about?
EconWatcher
peach flavored shampoo:
Can you maybe let that go? I was and am on the other side in the great Helen Thomas debate (with Mmonides). But it was obvious that no one was convicing anyone else. So it seems best to move on.
And yes, this documentation is just further evidence that the blockade is indefensible and not about weapons. Are we really ready to start losing allies as important as Turkey to defend the indefensible? Israel is starting to feel like Goldman Sachs–formerly untouchable, but now vulnerable because of its recklessness.
chopper
well, it is at least partly about weapons. but israel is in full buffoon mode when it says that that’s the real reason for the blockade when 90% of the crap on the ‘list’ is stuff that makes no sense at all with respect to any conceivable military objective.
i mean, the fact that israel never has, and continues to refuse to publish any list of what is actually considered contraband (the lists you see on the internet are compiled from interviews with people who have had their shipments seized) makes the blockade plainly illegal anyways. specifying the extent of a blockade is a clear requirement to make it legal. the duration too, and all israel has ever said about that is ‘until further notice’.
the most subjective requirement is that a blockade not have such a punitive effect on the civilian population that it overshadows the military objective. the fact that israel’s government is basically saying it’s about choking gaza out instead of stopping weapons really just adds one more strike against them.
PeakVT
We should be more grateful to Israel. Without Israel, what would the US do with all of that military aid?
Nick
At Zach’s link:
“The plan is to use these steps to increase pressure. They are unpleasant but better that than a military operation. We hope in this way they will get the message.”
So an American was killed, in a predawn raid, along with 8 other people, nearly 70 miles off the coast of Israel, so that Israel could enforce a blockade for economic sanctions?
And the U.S. government says….
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Israel faces an existential threat alright. From acting so brutally and stupidly that it murders it’s own soul. Hamas will not stand in the way of that.
tkogrumpy
@gocart mozart: My reaction when I saw that sentence too,also.It should be in every newspaper stylebook that that specific sentence is forbidden.
Nick
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/06/10/all-about-the-binyamins/#comment-1822072
“Zionism is a suicide attempt on the part of Judaism.” — Dr. Moritz Güdemann, chief rabbi of Vienna, 1897.
John PM
Along these same lines, I saw the Israeli ambassador to the US on “The Colbert Report” last night, and the guy is a flaming asshole. At one point he asserted that the Turkish ship contained hired goons who were put there specifically to cause trouble. Does anyone know anything about this claim? This is the first I had heard of it. His entire behavior and posture was very unambassador-like. And I hate to say this, but Colbert conducted the interview with the posture of a whipped puppy.
scav
iffin we goes ’bout spreadin’ that there democracy and all that round there, damn straight we better get it through everyone’s head that you vote the way ‘merca wants ya to.
(ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch . . . )
@John PM: Yeah, but that last bit about the Palestinians having to go back to where they came from was rather ok and I think the audience tapped the clue into his brain-pan a little harder.
chopper
the us and un will never challenge the basic ‘blockade’ (limited to within gaza’s waters) because outside of the us’s pro-israel stance and the UNSC’s fecklessness with respect to israeli issues both the us and un consider israel to be occupying gaza.
so it can’t be an actual blockade. if israel is occupying gaza then its basically running the show. gaza’s civilian population is the responsibility of israel, so it can’t be an actual blockade. israel can’t blockade itself. a blockade is between a state and another state or at least an independent non-state entity. not between an occupying force and the population it’s occupying.
until the flotilla mess it didn’t matter as an occupying force has the right to inspect vessels in the territorial waters of the territory it’s occupying. they can call it whatever they want. but when israel went out into international waters the only legal support they would have is to say ‘no, it really is a real blockade. we’re not occupiers’.
which should (but won’t) raise the hackles of the us and un, for at least the reason above, if not israel’s cutting corners in declaring anything even close to a legal blockade.
legally, any excuse israel comes up with leads to a dead end. the only way this will be fixed is if the turks etc take this issue to court. the us and un won’t do shit about it.
LD50
@Nick:
Not exactly. They killed 9 people for political reasons.
Svensker
@John PM:
Yes. It is complete bullshit, designed to deflect criticism from Israel and put it on the flotilla.
(To be clear, it’s the first I’ve heard that specific “claim” but it’s on a par with the “claim” that Mickey Kaus fucks goats. Oops, bad example. )
DavidTC
Israel actually does face an ‘existential threat’, as a ‘Jewish state’, sadly, it’s something they’re headed fully tilt into, instead of stopping.
The fact is Palestinians+Israeli non-Jews will actually soon outnumber Israeli Jews, and at that point, it’s entirely possible people will stop calling for a two-state solution and start calling for a single-state solution. It might take a few years before anyone in Palestine catches on, but they will eventually, and demand to be let into Israel instead. A single state that is nominally ‘Israel’, but would not have a Jewish majority. An Israel that, in fact, elects Hamas as government.
It gets even harder to justify what’s going on if the people in Gaza and West Bank say ‘Okay, either give us our own independent country or let us join yours and pay taxes and vote’. At that point, when Israel refuses, it’s very clearly apartheid.
Of course, Israel and American will, somehow, defend the not-letting-them-have-a-country and not-letting-them-become-citizens, but the rest of the world, even the world with some sympathy for Israel, will notice what’s happening there.
wilfred
The thing speaks for itself
Sheila
After seeing the Israeli ambassador on Stephen Colbert last night, I was ready to embrace the comments of Helen Thomas. Of course, after reason intervened, I still believe they were over the top, but watching such propaganda only increases my negative view of Israel.
tkogrumpy
@EconWatcher: Ah, clarity. I just loves me some clarity. thanks.
tkogrumpy
@PeakVT: Oh, I don’t know. Melt it down and make wind turbines out of it?
4jkb4ia
Tony Judt deserves two and a half cheers today, and a hug. Most of the cheers are for laying out the elements of the rivalling scripts.
El Cid
@LD50:
Also, just because they can, because no real consequences are ever paid by Israeli policymakers for such acts.
I’m sure the IDF will conduct a thorough investigation and conclude that although the operation wasn’t perfect, it was a smashing success in protecting Israel from the terrorism of bringing cement and wheelchairs to those crafty Gazans.
fucen tarmal
but, but, but, they sent the flotilla on purpose, to make israel look bad! which means the fact that israel exceeded their wildest expectations, is on them!
i don’t see how you can call for further restrictions on israel for doing what was expected of them./sarcasm
Ryan
It’s really intended to achieve the same goal as the reservation policy did for the American west: make one ethno-racial group completely dependent upon aid, keep that aid at a mere subsistence level so that population growth is impossible and replace that population gradually with the preferred group.
ellaesther
A really interesting/horrifying side-note to all of this is that, according to folks who count these things, Hamas is actually better armed now than they were before Operation Cast Lead (the Gaza War in 08/09)
People who are locked up and living in hunger will find a way to get their bare-bones needs met, and the smuggling tunnels are it — a little bit of food, a little bit of medicine, not much in the way of building supplies because that’s not a terribly easy way to move concrete around. OH, and arms and cash! Yeah. Those fit through tunnels nicely.
(Frankly, what slays me, and has for a good long time now, is how utterly gobsmacked official Israel and many Israeli citizens are that their Palestinian enemies continue to arm themselves. Israel is arming itself, isn’t it? Why on earth would the Palestinians choose not to? Why do we want to force them to be Zionists before we’ll be willing discuss peace terms with them? People in a war tend to act like they’re in war, no?)
Annie
@gocart mozart:
LOL. Well said.
El Cid
@ChrisNBama:
Yup. The establishmentarian pro-militarist wurlitzer is about to start playing a harmonized tune that McClatchy and/or Sheera Frankel have completely been fooled by anti-Israel forces and have interpreted the document incorrectly and/or were sourcing a document prepared by unofficial sources; and that though the document isn’t real and isn’t interpreted correctly, the Israelis would be totally right to conduct economic warfare against the Gazans, because Hamas is there, and ‘we support Israel’s right to defend itself’.
Paris
Does this mean we get to stop pretending this is about blocking weapons?
No. And continue pretending Israel desires peace with a Palestinian state rather than expanding settlements until the Palestinians give up, move, and cede the all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean to Israel.
ellaesther
@John PM: I haven’t seen it yet, so what I’m saying may be completely wrong. Ahem.
But: I heard from multiple sources that Colbert told Oren something along the lines of “Thomas was really wrong to say that the Israelis should go back to where they came from. Israelis should stay where they are, and the Palestinians should go back wherever they came from!”
If he said that, and said that with that shit-eating, faux-arrogant Colbert grin while looking Oren right in the eye — and I can fully imagine he did — that is the equivalent in my biz of game, set, match.
No one says that to the Israelis, and surely not the Israeli ambassador. If Israel doesn’t want people talking about “so-and-so should go back,” then they had better start compromising with the Palestinians.
Mnemosyne
@ellaesther:
Don’t forget, these are the exact same people who just can’t understand why Iran would want a nuclear weapon after the US invaded two neighboring countries that lacked nukes but didn’t invade nuke-armed North Korea.
You know … morons.
ellaesther
@PeakVT: Well, actually, that really is a part of the issue — a shit-ton of the money America give Israel comes back to the American military industry. So, yeah. That’s one of the reasons we give them so much.
james low
This article was clearly written by an anti-semitic terrorist lover as evidenced by the deviation from the accepted “Hamaz seized control of Gaza” with “after Hamas won elections and took control of the coastal enclave after winning elections there the previous year”. The author really needs get in line with NPR, NYT, CNN, Fox, etc. if interested in “legitimate” journalism.
DavidTC
They still wouldn’t have any legal support. Blockades in international waters must be declared. You have to announce (Usually now done at the UN.) that you, Country A, are blockading Country B, and what international waters you are exercising control over. Which is also a declaration of war from Country A to Country B, which, as you pointed out, would be really really nonsensical for Israel to do to, um, itself.
Perhaps, just as importantly, blockades cannot harass ships that aren’t moving towards the blockaded port. The proper thing, assuming this was an actual blockade, would have been for Israel to wait there until they moved towards the blockaded port, and then board them if they refused to stop for inspection or change course. This is why the flotilla deliberately stopped moving at night and aimed their boats away…that does have actual legal meaning. An actual legal blockade, run in a legal manner, couldn’t have messed with them until they turned back around.
It sounds like a small point, but would have resulted in this confrontation happening in the day, at least, and thus probably less deaths. But Israel treated this as a military invasion, and scheduled it at night, instead of the ‘blockading of civilian vessels’ it’s now pretending it was.
scav
@fucen tarmal: well, Israel better stop hitting itself in its own face real soon now. The government press office circulating spoof youtubes mocking the flotilla to international journalists and then apologizing within hours? Same office recommending a gourmet restaurant and spa in Gaza? I mean, not only do the IDF look inept at the military stuff (and apparently
liedinexactly claimed that there were al-Qaida “mercenaries” on the boats), they now look like petty and ineffectual pre-school aides, holding back the treats and cookies. What with this and BP, it’s like there’s been a systematic collapse of portions of the the critical PR infrastructure. Oh, Guardian link for some of the above.chopper
@DavidTC:
not to steer the discussion elsewhere, but recognition of the coming demographic bomb is one of the prongs of israel’s settlement policy. outside of slowly expanding israel’s land and creating so-called ‘facts on the ground’ for claims to west bank land, the people who end up in the settlements often include (they aren’t a majority but are rising i think) orthodox jews who want to live somewhere cheap and subsidized, people who also happen to have litters of children.
it’s not enough to meet the birth rate of arabs. it’s just trying to kick the can further down the road a bit, which is the reasoning for half of israel’s policies towards palestinians.
John Cole
@Punchy: I’m glad someone appreciated it.
Laertes
No, because shut up. And you’re an anti-semite. Hamas are worse. Pancake Rachel. Also.
Maude
@ellaesther:
Obama’s statement was good, I thought. The State Department can’t speak unless Obama says so. I really like that. It could be a nightmare otherwise.
I hope food etc. gets through now. I also hope that the people living in Israel don’t become less safe with all of this going on.
chopper
@DavidTC:
yes, as i said. the declaration also has to be specific.
until foraying into int’l waters this was never really tested because israel never really asserted this as a real blockade under int’l law. now they’re saying it really is one because that’s the only justification they have for going into int’l waters as int’l law does say you can board ships in int’l waters if there’s a clear intent on the ship to break said blockade.
of course, blockades are also used in naval conflicts between two states. gaza is neither a state, nor one with a navy, nor is there a naval conflict between the two. even assuming int’l law allows blockades between a state and a non-state actor (a so-called non-international armed conflict), there’s still no naval conflict here.
ellaesther
@james low: I hate to say this, because I’ve been one of the few people screaming “BUT THE BLOCKADE ACTUALLY STARTED IN 2006 AFTER THE FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS OF HAMAS!” (which it totally did, but the way. It just got worse in 2007), but Hamas did actually seize control of Gaza in the wake of a brief civil war (a civil dust-up) in June 2007. Until that point, they dominated the legislature, but Fatah was there, too, as was President Abbas, who is also Fatah. At the end of hostilities, Fatah was literally running for the West Bank for their lives, and Hamas took over everything.
Which then gave Israel and the West the excuse to turn the screws on Gaza even harder, while finally giving some funds to Fatah in the West Bank.
ellaesther
@John Cole: Shit, I did too and now I’m just going to look like a band-wagon-jumper-onner!
Damn. Good title, Cole.
DavidTC
Yeah. If Israel is at war with Palestine (And to operate a wartime blockade is to be, de facto, at war.), it’s not really even smuggling to brings guns in, is it? It’s only smuggling if you accept the premise that Israel has the right to define the rules under which Palestinians can bring things into the country, which is true for a military occupation, but can’t possibly be true for an actual opposing force.
I mean, if we went to war with Canada, could Canada complain about us ‘smuggling’ in weapons via tunnels from Mexico? Surely, how we get weapons to fight a war isn’t the decision of the people we’re fighting?!
It’s really amazing how flexible a lot of people’s minds are, that they can believe whatever they want about Israel and Palestine’s relationship from moment to moment, whatever makes Israel look justified.
So one second they’re two countries in all-out war and Israel can do anything, including operate international blockades, the next second they’re outraged because two Israeli soldiers got killed walking down the street in Palestine (Which shows utter confusion about what ‘war’ consists of.), the next minute they’re arguing that Israel can build more settlements inside this country they’re at war with! (Which would be illegal according to the rules of war in multiple ways! In fact, those people being citizens of a country Palestine is at war with, and moving into Palestine, defended by their military, is probably enough to legally shoot them as spies…if those two countries were actually at war.)
Seriously, people. Pick a ‘relationship’ between Palestine and Israel and stick with it. Perhaps you could choose the actual relationship, where Israel is occupying Palestine, with a Palestine government halfway set up and working, and ‘disagreement’ about how to move forward. That is their actual legal state. Sadly, under that state, the ‘blockade’ is illegal and nonsensical.
FormerSwingVoter
How can anyone actually argue that this has anything to do with weapons? The blockade was keeping out junk food. This is not because Hamas has developed super-deadly potato chip bombs.
fucen tarmal
@scav:
i admire their willingness to continue to joke, on general principles, however, they fail PR on two fronts.
one, the obvious lack of concern for the incident itself.
two, given an obvious lack of concern, at least be concerned enough that you have your jokes distributed through anon, or detached sources. the anon chain e-mail is something they should have learned from their american cousins.
ellaesther
@Maude: I phrase I heard recently really resonates with me: “I’d rather chance the risks of peace than the risks of war.”
I don’t live there anymore, so that’s a tough call for me to make, but as an Israeli, I do wish my country would choose the risks of peace over the risks of war.
John PM
@ellaesther:
OK, I missed that part because I turned off the interview in disgust after the “goons” comment. I will have to view the entire interview later today.
chopper
@ellaesther:
really this blockade was in effect as soon as the ink was dry on the oslo accords. it just wasn’t as heavily enforced until 2009.
Cat Lady
@John Cole:
Yeah, it was pretty awesome. You’re still no DougJ. :-D
GregB
Brown people are not allowed to arm themselves. Only white Americans can do that to protect themselves from predations of the oppressive government.
Laertes
@FormerSwingVoter:
Israel’s apologists mostly insisted that it was only about weapons. I expect they mostly believed it, too. Israel didn’t post a list of banned foodstuffs on their website, and their apologists have been pretty well-trained to believe absolutely nothing in the media. For them, nothing is a fact until it’s been stated on the record by an Israeli official.
Also, all those reports of stuff being confiscated? Those aid groups like, totally have Arabs in them and stuff. They’re all liars.
Now the apologists have a problem, because the facts they were asserting last week are no longer operative. This irritant will be flushed away by either pretending it never happened, or resolutely avoiding the subject. Expect much talk about how awful Hamas is.
It’s depressing, when you really pay attention to how most people think most of the time. We’re about as complicated as plants that turn toward the sun. Almost every argument can be boiled down to:
“I raise a subject that’s pleasing to me and irritating to you because it shows people I admire in a positive light or people you admire in a negative light.”
“I am irritated by this! I shall instead talk about a subject that’s more pleasing to me. If it’s easy to do so, I’ll choose a subject that’s superficially related to yours so that I can more easily persuade myself that I have refuted your irritating point.”
scav
@fucen tarmal: It was the official imprimatur that got me too. I had foolishly assumed the use of anonymous sources was now hard-wired into our very DNA. Foolish child.
liberal
@DavidTC:
Agreed. But also, Gaza is not a sovereign state, and I thought the relevant international law referred to blockades of other states. Could be wrong though.
liberal
@ellaesther:
I thought that Fatah instigated that dust-up, after Bush (and maybe Israel) encouraged them to do so.
danimal
It sure looks like the existential crisis for Israel is that the political support for giving them billions in aid every year is drying up. Netanyahu can stick his middle finger up at the international community and the POTUS, but that has a cost. At the end of the day, we’re the most loyal friend that Israel has.
The American public already thinks too much money goes to foreign aid; Obama could easily make political hay with an effort to “reduce the deficit” by cutting aid to Israel. I wouldn’t cry if the Israeli war machine was threatened a bit.
Don
Of course, the U.S. can never publicly condemn this criminal embargo, since we’ve been doing something similar to Cuba for the past half century.
This is really apples and oranges. We ran a blockade on Cuba for less than a month during the missile crisis and even then would allow boats w/o weapons to continue on.
The embargo against having financial dealings with Cuba is a moronic one IMNSHO, but we have never really prevented other countries from doing business with Cuba or bringing things in and out of Cuba. Once in a while there’s some grumbling and attempts at pressure on allies but comparing that with enforcing a perimeter via military might is just…. no comparison at all
chopper
@DavidTC:
this. it seems that gaza’s nebulous status has benefitted israel for some time in terms of justifying everything that happens over there.
methinks it’s long overdue that international law takes a keen look at the situation and defines it more than the UN has. methinks that possibly this flotilla situation may be the catalyst that it wanted to be. time will tell.
liberal
@4jkb4ia:
What did Tony Judt say, and where? I usually follow what he writes in the New York Review of Books.
liberal
@danimal:
Something posted or linked to at antiwar.com (which isn’t too friendly to Israel) claimed that support for Israel in the US is a mile wide and an inch deep. I think that view is probably correct: AIPAC et al. have a strong lock on the elites who run our country (especially Congress), but not really so much on the populace.
Laertes
@Don: You’re being kind. Apples and oranges are both round, sweet, brightly-colored fruit that grows on trees. Practically the same damn thing.
Comparing Israel’s blockade of Gaza to the US sanctions against Cuba is like comparing apples and the French Revolution.
Michael
You know who else talked about Jews and greed? Hitler and the Nazis.
Cole just wants to fire up ovens.
Dave
A fantastic article by Sara Elsen entitled We’re not going anywhere”
“Here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking about poor Helen Thomas, who I believe was probably just saying what everyone thinks and has therefore been made a scapegoat. Not that I really care, because we ought to share the scapegoat status once in a while. It’s the least we can do to dispel the stereotype that we are stingy, us irritating Jews.
Helen, you know why we were in Germany and much of Eastern Europe in the first place? (And by the way, if I follow your advice, do you think the nice old ladies who got my grandmothers’ large houses and farms from the Nazis in what was once Czechoslovakia will kick the property back two generations? That would be cool because I’d love a vineyard and an agricultural estate.)
We were in Germany and Hungary and Czechoslovakia and Russia (where we were regularly just plain killed by Cossacks), and also, for many centuries, Poland (ditto), because we were told to get the hell out of England, France, and Spain. (Or, you know, just plain killed by handsome and heroic fairytale knights.)
And you know why we were in Western Europe to begin with? Because we were told by the Greeks and the Romans – wait for it – to get the hell out of “Palestine,” where we had been living since the beginning of recorded history.
We also ended up in Babylonia (Iraq) and other Middle Eastern and North African countries, where we stayed as second class citizens for hundreds and hundreds of years, till the Arab world finally caught up with the pagans and the Christians in their hatred of the Jews. Amazing how the student has now far surpassed the teacher. But I digress.
In any event, there is no way around it: Jews being asked (usually not by old ladies on the White House lawn) to get the hell out of anywhere and everywhere is just the way it goes.
So it came to pass that about 200 years BCE the Macabees got sick of it and established a Jewish state in Palestine, within the Roman Empire, which lasted till about the time of Jesus (another Pesky Jew) and the destruction of the Second Temple.
And it also came to pass that Jewish settlers began arriving in Ottoman Palestine in the late 1800s, after the Russians and the Poles made it clear that Jews were persona non grata in Eastern Europe. Palestine was as good a place as any to escape to, since it was the last place, about 2000 years before, that the Jews had a sovereign state (see above). Never mind Jewish liturgy and texts pining for Jerusalem, since I know these are inadmissible in the international courts of the mind.
Anyway, nowhere else wanted European Jews any more than Russia did, not even America really, where there were very strict quotas, although the Americans, again politely, refrained from all the messy European killing, which was apparently in vogue until after Hitler. Besides, those Ottoman Turks, as now, were known around the world for their amazing human rights activism and the Jews were excited to see it firsthand. (No, not really. But…they were better than the Polish peasants. Unless you were Armenian.)
But when the Jews came back to Land of Israel, it was suddenly necessary, once again, to tell them to get the hell out. There was no living side by side, even though that was an express Jewish desire right up until 1947/8, when the Partition Plan was summarily rejected by the Arab League, who started the war that Israel won. If keeping land you win in a war others provoke (when you wanted to make peace) is called occupation, Helen, the world’s axis of furious justice has a lot bigger fish to fry than Israel.
The Arab desire to kick the Jews the hell out of Palestine did not begin in 1967, and not in 1948. It began the moment the initial groups of Jews arrived and started to make the land flower and produce crops. The Hebron Massacre of 1929, where marauding Arabs killed nearly 70 Jews and wounded countless others, took place long before a single house was built over the Green Line.
At any rate, it seems that every time a Jewish minority starts to make a society too successful – so annoying!!!! – the indigenous people start to feel very uncomfortable, and tell them one way or another to get the hell out.
But now, alas, there is nowhere left for us to go, except the eternal place Ahmadinejad wants us to go, and Haniyeh and Nasrallah, and Hitler before them, and Khmelnitsky before him, and Haman before him, and so on. And, I suspect, in her heart of hearts, perhaps Thomas and the likes of her, who, the pesky Jew Freud may have observed, seriously let her slip show.
Let me make it clear: I know that Israel has made mistakes over its 62 years, some clumsy and inept (was there no intelligence regarding the terrorists aboard the Mavi Marmara?!?), and some borderline immoral. But none worse than every other democracy on earth has also done, and most much better than the large majority of the UN rogue nations which condemn Israel daily have done…daily.
But let’s be honest: the international community’s human rights crusades on behalf of the Palestinians are just the latest Crusades, and the ones who really suffer are not the Jews or the Israelis but the poor occupants of the Third World who are ignored while the enlightened First World castigates the Jews… and yes, of course, the Palestinians, who are kept in misery by their own leadership in order to provide the polite Jew haters with a media club to beat them with.
So here’s the thing: We are not going anywhere this time, Helen. We totally get it: Ya’ll pretty much hate us. It’s just the way it is, like a natural law.
Nothing we can do – not giving away pieces of Palestine/Israel (witness our evacuation of Gaza in 2005, and handing over the keys to army bases and greenhouses- a new economy! Food for the children! – which were summarily torched as property of the infidels); not donating billions annually to global charity, nor discovering a cure for Polio or the Theory of Relativity, or writing revered legal and religious texts, or co-founding Google, or manufacturing the microprocessor in the majority of laptops that spew Jew hatred to the Internet, or founding Christianity itself, or championing women’s rights and gay rights in the US and helping to bring about a human rights revolution in America in the 60’s. None of those things will absolve us of our real sin: Existing and overcoming.
I’m really sorry they told you to get the hell out of the White House, Helen. It really wasn’t your fault that you thought you could say what you said. It’s not like it’s a secret: That’s what people think.
But this time, seriously. Getting the hell out is not in the cards. We’re just sick of moving all the time.
I know. Irritating.”
chopper
also, if israel really intended for this ‘blockade’ to be treated as a real, legal one under international law, then based on customary law they just changed the status of gaza to a full-on belligerency. meaning hamas fighters now have the status of privileged combatants, and all sorts of international humanitarian law now kicks in (note that israel has repeatedly asserted that they are not occupying gaza to avoid just this).
i’m trying to count the number of ways israel stepped in it by going after these ships in international waters but i’m running out of fingers and toes.
wilfred
Yon only need to look at the changes in comments over the past couple of years. The more people actually looked at and thought about what’s happening in Gaza and the Occupied Territories the less convincing the Israeli narrative.
Americans don’t like to see people stepped on and humiliated. The more they search for the truth about Palestine the more repulsed they are by Israeli behavior.
A lot of people are only beginning to look. A little lower layer.
danimal
Liberal-
I think that’s true. The crying of “anti-Semite” every time someone disagrees with Israel is also starting to lose effectiveness. Soon, politicians will build enough immunity to evaluate our relationship more objectively. We’re probably not there yet, but the tide is changing.
FWIW–I deeply desire a stable, prosperous and peaceful Israel.
EconWatcher
Laertes:
Well, I think you can compare the blockade of Gaza with our embargo on Cuba in two ways: Both are apparently intended to weaken the ruling regime in the targeted entity, and both will have exactly the opposite effect.
Castro used the embargo to excuse his own failures, invoke a common enemy, and help keep his hold on power for half a century. I’m sure Hamas is doing the same in Gaza.
dadanarchist
It began several years ago.
It also appears that the Palestinian leadership has shifted to this position as well, with Abbas’ spokesperson hinting towards a one-state solution today.
At this point, there seems no other solution.
wilfred
@Dave:
You’re entitled to your creation myths and self-congratulation. What matters is the opinion of American people regarding our country’s policy towards yours. That’s all.
Let the truth come out. And let Americans decide for themselves.
chopper
@Dave:
shrug. it is an interesting post, but as a defense of israel’s foreign policy it boils down to the jews are eternal victims + we’re not as bad as some other dudes, go complain about them instead.
neither of which really adds up to much of a defense. its like americans defending abu ghraib saying ‘hey, we’re not nearly as bad as saddam’. yeah, go with that.
the whole “yeah, israel has made some mistakes, but…” bit is pretty tiresome. throwing in ‘the jews ended polio and gave the world relativity’ is also a bit of a laff, i haven’t heard that one before. i thought einstein and salk did their work on their own.
Laertes
Another big problem Israel has is that they’re becoming a partisan issue. Their “conservative” defenders here in the states are making moves that are fun and satisfying in the near term for themselves, but bad in the long term for Israel.
Israel is popular. Calling someone anti-Israel is fun for precisely that reason–mostly, nobody wants to be anti-Israel, even liberals.
But when enough right-wing douchebags keep upping the ante, competing to see who can be more resolutely pro-Israel, however shocking the provocation, they’re effectively telling everyone left of Pat Buchanan that they shouldn’t be pro-Israel.
Israel doesn’t want to be another Mexico City Policy. Things will get rough over there if their money gets cut off every time there’s a Democrat in the white house.
If I were a Republican and I really had Israel’s interests at heart, I’d be more interested in persuading Israel to behave in a way that’d get them broader American support, rather than merely taunting people to my left for not supporting them as blindly as I do.
Then again, if I wasn’t a short-sighted douchebag who cares about nobody and nothing except myself, I probably wouldn’t be a Republican in the first place.
dadanarchist
The question is, the original or the far superior rock remix?
PeakVT
@dadanarchist: I think a one-state solution is inevitable at this point. But what exactly the one state will look like I have no idea. It could be a multi-ethnic state, or it could be something a lot nastier.
Laertes
@Dave:
Dave, that’s a pretty cool piece. Can I suggest that you post less using your own voice, and more often quote writers of that quality? You’d make a far better impression.
Not to put too fine a point on it, reading that piece made me like Israel more. Reading you usually makes me like Israel less.
Make of that what you will.
Michael
@Nick:
Why are you denying that the Shoah happened, you Hitler?
Dave
Wilfred, I’m neither Israeli, Jewish nor American. Its not my “creation myths” (nor are they myths incidentally – its the truth, no matter how much many of the foamers here think differently)
Incidentally, dadanarchist, you’re incorrect re. Abbas. He said specifically yesterday that he supported a two-state solution.
“The leader of the Palestinian people telling the American Jewish community that the only solution to the conflict is two states living side by side in peace and security. ’67 borders with adjustments.”
Mnemosyne
@Dave:
Ah, the usual colonialist’s excuse: “The
IndiansPalestinians weren’t using that land as productively as we could, so why are they so upset that we drove them out and forced them to live on tiny, barren reservations? You’d think they’d be grateful that we took that land off their hands since they weren’t using it anyway.”The more this goes on, the more I think that people in the other threads are right and a huge part of our perception problem is that we’ve never really confronted our colonialist past, so we’re completely misinterpreting how Israel’s actions are viewed.
Dave
Laertes, its all very well for you or I to advise Israel on how to behave, but neither you or I are confronted with the likes of this:
“Abdallah Jarbu, Hamas’s deputy minister of religion, recently asserted that Jews “want to present themselves to the world as if they have rights, but, in fact, they are foreign bacteria — a microbe unparalleled in the world.” Jarbu thien offered this prayer: “May He annihilate this filthy people who have neither religion nor conscience.””
You did see the Swastikas and Hitler fetishism at the Turkish rallies last week didn’t you? When confronted with that amount of genocidal hatred, what would you do?
dadanarchist
Sorry, I was unclear. Abbas still supports the two-state solution but suggests time and again that the window for it is closing rapidly. His spokesperson seemed to be outlining the possibility of Palestinians shifting strategy.
What I meant is, that the Palestinian leadership is preparing itself for the possibility (not a far-fetched one) that Israel will refuse to leave the settlements in the West Bank, making a two-state solution impossible. Following that failure (which will of course, as always, be blamed on Palestinian intransigence), the Palestinians will then abandon the two-state solution and demand democratic rights as citizens of Israel.
Dave
Tell you what Mnemosyne, when you lot get entirely out of North America, all of you, and hand it all back to the Native Americans, then, and only then we can talk about Israel, ok?
Deal?
wilfred
@Dave:
Well, I am American, and one thing I would like very much to see is Americans taking a long, considered look at the effects to the United States and American citizens resulting from blind, unconditional support of Israel’s actions towards Palestinians.
That’s it. The rest is conversation.
Church Lady
@danimal: Does that apply to the term “racist” as well, everytime someone disagrees with the agenda of the Democratic Party? Just wondering.
chopper
@Dave:
this is stupid. the fact that hamas are a bunch of assholes doesn’t change israel’s responsibility to act within the rule of law any more than the us has carte blanche to do whatever the hell we want to because al qaeda want us dead.
“but we’re up against monsters” is the oldest excuse in the book for blatant lawbreaking.
Mnemosyne
@Dave:
Which, funnily enough, is exactly what I’m saying: the US has the completely wrong view of what’s going on in Israel because we haven’t confronted our colonialist past. We don’t understand what’s really going on because we refuse to look at what we did in our own country. Hopefully we’ll manage to do it before the Israelis do to the Palestinians what we did to the Native Americans.
You do realize that you’re defending Europeans driving people off their land because of the natural superiority of Europeans, right? Sounds a bit familiar, don’t you think?
chopper
@Dave:
how about this, you quit talking about israel until that happens. the rest of us will argue like adults. deal?
Michael
Dave:
Still pretending to be in the UK, eh, Pancake Dave?
GregB
That writer is internalizing the Netanyahu mantra well.
She states that Helen Thomas stated what “everybody thinks”.
History is full of cases of the oppressed becoming the oppressor.
Israel is not special. It’s just another verse same as the first.
As to what is often referred to as the Hamas coup in Gaza. It was actually Fatah elements that were reportedly armed by the CIA that initiated the coup and lost bad.
Around the same time there was a similar attempt in Lebanon where factions friendly to the US were armed and went up against Hezbollah. That didn’t work out so well for the CIA either.
Observer
An adult conversation would include Hamas.
Here, it never does.
Incidentally, Gaza was part of Egypt until Egypt’s disasterous attempt at a land grab.
Why doesn’t Egypt want Gaza back?
Another question you adults never seem to get around to asking. Let alone answering.
chopper
@Observer:
lol, yeah, we think hamas is just the palestinian boy scouts.
El Cid
Former Israeli Defense Minister and Foreign Minister Moshe Arens is recommending a 1-state solution for at least Israel and the West Bank, with full citizenship rights for Palestinians, so clearly he hates Israel.
El Cid
Since 1967 both the Palestinian aim and the overwhelming international consensus has been for an independent and viable Palestinian state with both Gaza and the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Sure, there are some weirdos who have long wanted Palestinians to either leave for Jordan & Syria (or be driven across the river and Golan Heights there) and for Gaza to be forced back into Egyptian hands, but who gives a shit what such ethno-nationalist weirdos think?
El Cid
The best way to undermine Palestinian militarist extremists is to push toward the viable independent Palestinian state or viable full citizenship integration of Palestinians into Israel which would give Palestinians something else to support.
Also, Israel could stop violating Hamas’ ceasefires so as not to support the militarists in both camps.
Brachiator
@Punchy:
Ditto that.
@Mnemosyne:
RE: Tell you what Mnemosyne, when you lot get entirely out of North America, all of you, and hand it all back to the Native Americans, then, and only then we can talk about Israel, ok?
Didn’t we do that when we allowed Indian casinos?
More seriously, exactly how are “we” supposed to confront our colonialist past? Aside from pulling of hair and rending of shirts in mock sorrow over past wrongs, I’m not sure of any meaningful redress that can be done.
I can also see how some of this colonialist guilt sentiment influences some of the posts here about Israel, some of which seem to be moving beyond suggestions of mutual compromise or a two state solution to tilt more toward a “Helen Thomas” solution of “get the Hell out.”
Dave
Still pretending to be in the UK, eh, Pancake Dave?
As John Cole or any other admin can tell you, I am indeed in the UK.
danimal
Church lady-
I’ll actually agree with you a bit. Democrats should be careful not to throw around the racist charge so freely.
However, I was reminded last weekend that many Republicans, when they’re relaxed and think no one’s looking, say a whole lot of racist crap. So, there’s that.
I save the “racist” charge for clear cut occasions, just as “anti-Semite should only be used for actual anti-Semitism.
Mnemosyne
@Observer:
Because it doesn’t want to be like Turkey with the Kurds, constantly fighting to keep a breakaway ethnic group inside their country.
But that would be part of an adult conversation and not “neener neener Hamas sucks!”
LittlePig
@Dave: Maybe stop being so self-righteous? Just a thought.
Also, Jews =/= Zionists. That conflation hurts your argument considerably.
Dave
El Cid, Israel never violated any of Hamas’s so-called ceasefires. Hamas repeatedly fired rockets into Israel whilst it was on a supposed “ceasefire”, and indeed tried repeatedly to kill and kidnap Israeli soldiers *inside Israel*.
El Cid
@Mnemosyne: Egypt’s government has a priority in minimizing the power of Egypt’s own Islamic fundamentalists (e.g., the Muslim Brotherhood) while blaming them for most problems, so the Mubarak regime constantly walks a fine line between isolating their own Islamic militarists from Hamas, while demonstrating enough rhetorical concern for Palestinians (including Gazans) to appeal better to the Egyptian population’s outrage at the Israeli treatment of Palestinians.
Quicksand
To be fair, some people really don’t like cilantro.
Mnemosyne
@Dave:
Funny how the British government can differentiate between the IRA and breakaway elements of the IRA that are deliberately trying to wreck the ceasefire but Israel thinks that Hamas has control over every single Palestinian extremist. Double standard much?
Of course, you also think that killing 1500 Palestinians in revenge for those two (2) Israeli deaths during the ceasefire was letting the Palestinians off lightly, so I have a feeling you’re not exactly rational when it comes to this stuff. If 2000 Palestinians had died in revenge for those two (2) Israeli deaths, would that have been enough for you? 5000? Would 10,000 dead Palestinians in exchange for those two (2) Israelis killed by rocket attacks during the ceasefire have been enough to satisfy your desire for revenge?
Observer
@Mnemosyne: Really? All this talk of how Israel does not deserve to exist because it is so brutal, that Jews should go home, that Israeli Palestinians should stop bulldozing houses, and despite “being there” since 1948 hasn’t yet met the “Long Enough” standard to stop questioning its legitimacy?
But Hamas is so brutal, Gazans could “go home” by becoming part of Egypt again, Hamas bulldozes the homes of their own citizens, and has been there half the time of Israel.
What you call “neener neener Hamas sucks” questions I call your profound hypocrisy, that you really don’t give a shit about Palestinians and instead wave “neener neener Israel sucks”.
Hypocrite.
LittlePig
@Observer: Like hell.
When we give parity in military aid to both parties, then you’d have an argument. Alternatively, cut off all American military aid to Israel, then you’d have an argument.
Joseph Nobles
One more reason for Egyptian cooperation: Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the PTB in Egypt don’t want the Muslim Brotherhood gaining any more ground.
ETA: Sheesh, you people with your getting there before I do.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
The State Dept. and large media will not stop pretending. Me personally, as a member of the reality-based community, I’ve been aware of the real reasons for the blockade from the start.
El Cid
@Dave: Yes, yes they did. On November 4, 2008, Israel violated the ceasefire which had been maintained for 26 weeks by a tank invasion, claimed to be intended to close a cross-border tunnel, and in the fighting killed a number of members of Hamas and destroyed a house.
Rocket fire was returned, and in December Israel invaded and laid waste to much of Gaza, slaughtering over 1,000 Palestinians in the process. You can play around how you want, but that’s the reality, and at the time Israel was dismissive of the ceasefire, claiming that the captivity of Gilad Shalit was itself a violation.
Before that invasion, both sides had reported vastly fewer incidents of firing back and forth between Israeli and Palestinian militant forces. What rockets were fires and mortar shells launched were paired with Israeli shootings of Palestinians, and not even Israel had claimed that these incidents had been carried out by Hamas. (Hamas is by far not the only armed group in Gaza, as much as it would like to crush its rivals.)
These are also the official findings of the UN Fact Finding Commission on the Gaza War, led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, which Israeli militarists and militarist cheerleaders (including the U.S. government) dismissed as one-sided and false, no matter than both Israel and Hamas (as well as non-Hamas Palestinian groups) were cited for violations of the laws of war.
Nobody else but propagandists for Israeli militarism deny this. And, again, no one gives a damn if you don’t believe it.
Stillwater
@Dave: Hamas repeatedly fired rockets into Israel whilst it was on a supposed “ceasefire”
Not true. Linky. Israel admitted that the rockets fired during the 2008 ceasefire weren’t fired by Hamas, and that the rockets didn’t kill any Israelis.
FlipYrWhig
@Dave: So that whole piece amounts to “The real reason nobody likes Israel because it’s full of Jews.” By the same token, is the real reason nobody likes North Korea that it’s full of Koreans? Or might it be the case that people don’t much care for a rogue state run by warmongering zealots?
LD50
Ah yes, the other shoe drops, Dave wanders in with his Nazi-baiting. Now how long til he switches his name to Phil?
LD50
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, and according to Dave, the Israelis who criticize Israeli policy hate Israel because it’s full of Jews.
Derek
@John PM:
That’s Colbert’s character. If the ambassador douche had been on the Daily Show, he would have gotten epically reamed–which is why he didn’t go on that show.
burnspbesq
@Dave:
Nice recitation of history, but it still fails as a justification for Israeli crimes against the Palesinian people, to exactly the same extent and in exactly the same way that what England did to my ancestors in 1847-49 fails as a justification for the crimes of the IRA.
Mnemosyne
@Observer:
Please point out where anyone has questioned Israel’s legitimacy as a country.
We have questioned the legitimacy of its excuses for keeping the occupied territories under an arbitrary “blockade” that doesn’t meet any of the internationally-agreed on requirements for a blockade. We have questioned the legitimacy of its response to the rocket attacks. We have questioned the legitimacy of its claim to always be the victim.
No one, anywhere on these threads, has questioned the legitimacy of Israel as a country. In fact, what we’re demanding is that Israel act like the responsible and independent country that they claim to be (until, that is, it’s convenient for them to claim to be a helpless, beleaguered outpost of Western Civilization that just has to kill people in international waters so they aren’t driven into the sea themselves).
As usual, you’re deliberately conflating the legitimacy of Israel’s actions with the legitimacy of it existing as an independent country. You can pretend all you want that any questioning of Israel’s actions is tantamount to demanding that the country disband, but you look like more and more of a fool the longer you try to keep it up.
ETA: Israel =/= the occupied territories. Even Israel claims that they’re independent, especially when claiming that they’re independent is a convenient way to skirt international law.
Joseph Nobles
@Dave: First reaction on reading that article: it sounds like me complaining about my miserable life. How awfully people have treated me. Whaa, whaa, whaa. The response should be the same as to me going on and on: tough titty.
Second reaction: would there were a God, that she might damn all tribalism to hell, wherever it is found. Yes, Judaism may have brought humankind many a boon, but it appears to have brought us that self-righteous pule of an article, which makes me despair of humanity. Which, admittedly, doesn’t take much.
Bottom line: Helen said something crappy, and she’s gone as is only proper. Now get over it.
burnspbesq
@dadanarchist:
“It also appears that the Palestinian leadership has shifted to this position as well, with Abbas’ spokesperson hinting towards a one-state solution today.”
If that’s true, then the post-1994 experiences of white South Africans become highly relevant to any discussion of the future of Jews in Israel.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@John PM: The ambassador’s arrogance was truly off-putting and I was disappointed in Colbert but not surprised.
LD50
@Stillwater:
Whoever said that is clearly another Heydrich.
FlipYrWhig
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): I thought Colbert quietly stuck it to him. I was much more aggravated at Jon Stewart’s riff on how Obama describes complicated challenges as “complicated,” which I guess is funny because it’s supposed to sound like excuse-making… but if shit really _is_ complicated, what else are you supposed to say?
Mark S.
@liberal:
I think that’s right. Aside from the Hagee crowd, I don’t think the average Bubba has really strong opinions on the matter. Why the hell should he?
@wilfred:
Moby Dick reference FTMFW!
Mark S.
Also, can we not feed the trolls so much? Yes, Dave supports everything the Israeli government does and thinks the Palestinians are all evil. You’re not going to convince him otherwise. Just ignore him.
El Cid
@Mnemosyne: For myself, I don’t hold the ‘legitimacy’ of any nation, save the rights of people to come together and within standards of democracy and, practically, somehow dealing with their own existing laws, and ideally international accord, and form, change, unite, or separate nations. (Like if the U.S. and Canada were to vote to choose to become 1 nation with a new name, neither nation-state has some ‘right’ or ‘legitimacy’ outside its people to reject this change in its existence.)
That said, no one here or in any other sane discourse I’ve seen has been discussing as a desired or serious option that Israeli Jews be driven from the area, or the involuntary dissolution of Israel as a nation.
Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, Palestinians Arabs, other ethnic groups, all within the same area have exactly the same legitimacy and exactly the same rights.
The copy-paster brigades of Israeli militarist cheerleaders always make up the same crap each time, as though the most heavily armed, nuclear-weapon possessed state crushing a population in its conquered territories international recognized as an illegal occupation and through illegal blockade, is some poor, tiny, helpless state wavering on the edge of being cast into the Mediterranean, you know, that sea upon which the Israeli state has given itself to board ships and assassinate civilians on the high seas.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@FlipYrWhig: I guess what bothered me was the fact that the statement that the activists on the Mavi Marmara were hired thugs armed with clubs, knives, and guns wasn’t rebutted. But then again Colbert did ask if the women and children were thugs too which is as far as he could go. Yeah maybe I’m being too hard on him.
Jon Stewart’s Obama riff surprised me too but it helps Obama to see how even his supporters can get frustrated when he acts like an adult, as he should, because some of us are a little immature and would prefer that he kick ass first and sort out the facts later on key issues. Not proud of it but I would cheer if he punched Tony Hayward in the face live on national TV. And of course I know that wouldn’t solve anything.
El Cid
@burnspbesq:
Does anyone have sourcing for this?
Because Abbas was quoted in the Israeli press as having said this to U.S. Jewish and Israeli lobbyist organizations, including AIPAC.
Doesn’t sound like any change in Abbas’ outlook on a 2-state settlement.
Emma
Don: Not only that, but the United States routinely approve for foreign branches of American companies to trade with Cuba. Or to conduct “exploratory missions.” And they turn a blind eye when Cuban-Americans ship millions of dollars in food and medicine to relatives. In fact, you can send a certain amount of supplies to Cuba through the US Post Office for about $7.00. I send medications to my diabetic aunt on a regular basis.
The “Cuba blockade” is a joke.
matoko_chan
@El Cid: here’s the muslim college student perspective, me an my cohort.
The creation of Israel was just for jews and unjust for muslims.
MENA could actually accept that.
But Israel is acting in an unjust fashion towards the gazans.
The blockade started when Bush and Israel tried to force Hamas to acknowledge Israels “right-to-exist”.
But the blockade at this point is just a PR coup for Hamas.
It is arbitrary and cruel to the point of ridikkulousness.
Like snack food can be made into weapons.
for MMoides, a Colbert zinger on Helen Thomas.
Thomas is of Lebabese descent……Michael Savage once called her “a dirty old Arab” on his talk radio show.
She’s been an icon of hatred by the right for many years. Great clip of her taking GWB to task at a presser once – basically asks him why he “wanted war” if all the rationales were false.
MattR
@FlipYrWhig: Agreed. Frankly, I thought Colbert’s interview asked the toughest questions of an Israeli official that I have seen. Maybe not as tough as I would have liked, but much better than anywhere else.
And Another Thing...
@Observer: “…All this talk of how Israel does not deserve to exist because it is so brutal…”
Who’s doing all this talking about no right to exist? If someone on these threads has said that, give us a link. If you’re referring to Hamas, or Iranians, or some other crackpot thugs, so have that argument with them.
Man, I wouldn’t want to have to deal with Hamas either, or have them for a neighbor. Most of us are trying to discuss the real world where Israel has to deal with Hamas, and just wish that they would do it in a manner where a) they don’t damage Israel’s reputation for both competence and humanity and b) minimize the suffering of ordinary people.
It’s also about time for the Israelis to stop bull-shitting the American people, and treat us with respect. For example, the Israeli Ambassador Oren on Colbert last night was an officious a@@hole. “Lettuce leads to guns” was HIS justification for the blockade and said that the people on the seized boat were “hired thugs.” Well that’s quite an accusation, and I’d like to see some evidence of that.
I’m increasingly feeling like we Americans are being played for suckers. Does the Israeli gov’t think we’re supposed to believe this stuff. It’s insulting to our judgment, intelligence and moral compass.
The good work of Jonas Salk and Albert Einstein are wondrous gifts to mankind. They also have absolutely nothing to do with giving anybody moral cover to bulldoze other peoples’ houses or deny fishing poles to people.
The Israeli gov’t is rapidly making a bad situation worse.
And Another Thing...
@And Another Thing…: And another thing… WHEN is the Israeli govt going to understand that when they say “Hamas is sworn to destroy us”, to justify doing whatever the hell they want, it dilutes the effectiveness of that argument when it is meaningful. Hamas is not an existential threat. Iran might become an existential threat. It’s becoming a possibly tragic case of the boy who cried wolf.
LanceThruster
@MattR:
I agree as well. I’ll have to watch it again but he seemed to trip Oren up by equating one of his positions with the Palestinian right of return.
Since part of Colbert’s schtick is that of the hyper-patriot, I’d love to see another appearance by Oren so he could repeat some of the many lies he used to trash of the crew of the USS Liberty. And in the same way Oren made his “surprise” appearance, crewmember James Ennes and author of “Assault on the Liberty” could make a “surprise” appearance to confront Oren.
I do not need to know why Oren “hates America”, just why we keep giving tons of money to those that do.
dadanarchist
That was my fault, I was unclear in my writing. Abbas still supports the Two-State solution. He is trying to impress on the Israelis, however, that the window for it to be a viable project is fast closing.
Xenos
@Dave:
False analogy. Nobody is suggested the Jews leave Israel. Most critics of Isreal just want the settlements stopped, and rolled back enough that a Palestinian state can survive.
I am not about to quit Massachusetts and give my house to the Stockbridge Indians. But neither am I going to Wisconsin to start seizing pieces of their reservation, either.
Dave
Nobody is suggested the Jews leave Israel
Wrong. Helen Thomas did. And people here spent an inordinate amount of effort defending her.
and that the rockets didn’t kill any Israelis.
Stillwater, do you mind if I fire rockets at your house, but not kill anyone? After all, you’ve said that Israel has to sit back and take it if the rockets don’t kill anyone (out of sheer blind luck – they are unguided, don’t ya know)
El Cid, re. the 4th November 2008 incident, what is it with you and this constant whitewasing of Hamas. They were in the process of building a tunnel under the border to kidnap Israelis. What should Israel do, wait for Hamas to kidnap Israelis?
As far as you’re concerned, its one rule for Jews (i.e. “don’t fight back, ever”) and one rule for everyone else.
And that stinks.
Dave
Hamas is not an existential threat.
Only because of the sodding blockade, numpty!
Dave
Additionally, anyone who denies or seeks to minimise the true nature of Hamas is a typical ethnocentric resident of a Western advanced industrial democracy, who can not even imagine living under a regime like Hamas that arrests, tortures, banishes and kills its political opponents, raids NGO’s and shuts them down, arrests boys and girls for holding hands, cancels local elections and regularly commandeers and then awards its elites and apparatchiks with the pilfered booty (like cooking gas, vehicles, etc.), furnished by the international community.
wengler
@ Dave
I think Hamas is awesome as does most Americans. I support Gazans eating food, but only because I think Hamas is awesome. If I had to choose between Gazans eating food or Hamas, I would choose Hamas all day long.
I can’t wait until Hamas rule Israel…and then world!
ellaesther
@liberal: Very late to come back to this, but hopefully you’ll see it:
That’s more or less what happened, with the understanding that both Fatah and Hamas had been kind of poking at each other for months, spoiling for a fight. But Hamas just wiped the floor with Fatah, which had to particularly sting given that Fatah was pushed to into it by the Americans (much like the 06 elections, come to that!), not to mention armed.
And Another Thing...
@Dave:1) Get an effing dictionary and look up that word that’s thrown around so carelessly.
2) The blockade’s been going on for years with almost no one except the fringe complaining about it with any effect. The shit has hit the fan because activists got the Israelis to do something really stupid by attacking in the middle of the night from helicopters and killing a bunch of people. So a whole bunch of people like me have figured out that the blockade is about a whole lot more than weapons. It’s effectively an economic assault on Gazan residents.
Official representatives of the Israeli government are out lying overtly and by omission about what is going on. They are destroying their credibility and their reputation for competence and humanity.
Helen Thomas is a shiny object being used to misdirect attention from what Netanyahu is up to.
LD50
@Dave:
Does that include Israelis who disagree with Israel’s policy,
PhilDave?LD50
The Likud thinks if they pound and starve the Gazans enough, they’ll suddenly learn to love the Israelis and happily give them all their remaining land. And “Pancake Rachel” Dave thinks we’re ‘ethnocentric’ if we’re disgusted by this. Yeah, Dave, you’re really holding the moral high ground there.
And Another Thing...
@Dave: Hamas is evil. But they are not an existential threat except to the extent that they might provoke Israel into a suicide. I guess that makes it an assisted suicide. And you are a useful idiot because it’s “supporters” like you who enable Israel to rationalize what’s going on rather than understand that there have been about 5 years of episodes of incompetence and brutality that are destroying its relationships and reputation.
Picking a fight with the Turks is monumentally stupid.
Do these fools think at all about what it means to try and manouver the US into losing our bases in Turkey?
It’s gawddamn frustrating watching a member of your family destroying themselves.
El Cid
@LD50: It’s not just the Likud. Ehud Barak, who as Defense Minister launched the war against Gaza in 2008, and was Prime Minister before that, was the leader of Labor. Tzipi Livni of Kadima was Foreign Minister and fully supported the Gaza war and opposes any negotiating whatsoever with Hamas, the current Palestinian government in Gaza (the Palestinian Authority has admitted it has no control there).
This approach to Gaza is unified across all major Israeli political parties. Even Meretz supported the Gaza war. Settlements in the West Bank continued apace under Labor and Likud and Kadima alike.
El Cid
@matoko_chan: I’m not unaware that great injustice took place in the Zionist movement to displace Arabs and Arab villages and cities in Palestine in their formation of a nation-state.
I’m just focusing, perhaps unfortunately, in the reality now, in the same way that I think any sane person can look upon the horrors visited upon the first sets of inhabitants of North, Central, and South America by the colonial settlers, exploiters, and slavers.
There’s a reality of people sharing an area right now, one being massively impressed by a powerful, well-armed other, and that powerful, well-armed nation-state has representatives who like to pretend that they’re a tiny, weak nation about to be pushed into the sea.
El Cid
@wengler: I can certainly see that there could be advantages in having Gazans eat Hamas, but I’m not sure it would be a good thing nutritionally.
El Cid
@Dave:
You’re welcome to ignore reality as you like, and to try to suggest that every reasonable person loves Hamas and wants to have its babies.
So, Hamas maintained its ceasefire as agreed, Israel didn’t contradict this, it just decided it could invade Gaza and shoot Hamas members and that this shouldn’t be violating a ceasefire.
And then when they invade and shoot members of Hamas at the end of a 26 week ceasefire, they get exactly what they wanted — a return rocket attack, and this gives them permission to launch their full scale war and blow the shit out of Gazan men, women and children and lay waste to much of the infrastructure, because that’s what Israeli policymakers wanted to do anyway.
Kyle
@Dave:
13 Israelis have been killed by Gaza rockets in the past decade. Israel’s military response killed over 1000 Gazan civilians and levelled significant portions of the territory and their embargo causes extended misery for over a million people.
So Dave Logic = if your kid breaks the next door neighbor’s window, your neighbor is justified in burning down your house.
Israel left behind “scrappy underdog” years ago; now they’re the neighborhood bully.
Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos
@Dave:
Go for it! Obviously, once you do so, I’ll be perfectly justified in carpet-bombing everything within ten miles of where I think the rockets came from, and then strafing the area with gunships, slaughtering everyone who’s still moving. Right?
Oh, and then I’ll be within my rights to blockade that area, allowing in barely enough food for the survivors to avoid starvation, but not enough to prevent wasting. My doing this should earn me nothing but effusive praise. Right?
chopper
@Dave:
i thought she said jews should get the hell out of palestine.
oh wait, what am i saying, i forgot – you’re an idiot.
matoko_chan
@El Cid: well…the injustice of the creation of Israel to muslims is that europeans and americans carved out an Israeli state from muslim lands.
And that was to assauge euro/american holocaust guilt basically.
But muslims don’t feel holocaust guilt.
So that is how ‘Nejad the other Assholes of the East whip up the muslim base, is the unjustice of the creation of Israel to muslims.
Young, college educated muslims are permeable to the unjust Isreal meme.
I think we could accept the right of Isreal to exist now, if the World acknowledged that the creation of Israel was unjust to muslims, and of course, if Israel began behaving as a just nation.
Muslims would have to accept Israel’s right to exist, if Israel acts as a just nation. The Prophet said so.
matoko_chan
@El Cid: It’s not just the Likud.
Actually, the jewish analog of american rightwingers has control now…..its like…Israel is in a constant state of 911-style PTSD.
Heres part of a dialog we are having at talkislam.
the Israeli Southern Strategy.
matoko_chan
wallah, im in moderation AGAIN.
/sadface
matoko_chan
Here is a really good post from Israeli journalist Lisa Goldman.
There are many more than two sides to this debate, but I get frustrated with the Israelis letting Hizb’ and Hamas basically run them.
Most Israelis aren’t evil, they are frightened and stupid….like teabaggers i guess.
Corner Stone
@El Cid: Not going to tell you your business or anything, but umm…”pearls before swine” and all that.
El Cid
@Corner Stone: I just get the sense that a point which I haven’t made or attempted to make is being debated, but, okay.
tkogrumpy
@4jkb4ia: Saw that also. was excellent.
matoko_chan
@El Cid:
no its not.
the “Peace Camp” parties oppose it.
/sigh
the creation of Israel is what spawned all this trouble.
the unjust actions of Israel are what is keeping it going.
To muslims, the creation of Israel and the existence of Israel are nonseparable. Ditto the Israelis, for different reasons….
So when Israel tried to force the democratically elected Hamas party to admit Israel’s right to exist, they refused because that right is convolved in the minds of muslims with the unjust (to muslims) CREATION of Israel.
El Cid
@matoko_chan:
How are they major? What are their Cabinet numbers? You mean like Meretz, who backed the Gaza war?
You’re getting to the point where you’re acting like a lecturing snot, and you’re not saying anything.
Like your point above. “Sigh.” I didn’t fucking disagree that the creation of the state of Israel caused this problem, you thick-headed dolt.
Repeatedly, that means again and again, I have completely dismissed the ridiculous requirement that Hamas or anyone else recognize the “right to exist” or “legitimacy” of Israel.
You keep thinking you’re on a high horse, but all you’re doing is repeating points with which no one is debating you. You also keep saying “Muslims see this,” as though only you talk to or know what Muslims think about the founding of the State of Israel.
Wise up — I talk to and read and discuss the subject and works and analyses and journalism from Muslims and Arabs! Really! It’s not some magical ability you have that others don’t! I promise! It’s not just you and some friends who have ever talked to Muslims! Muslims even write books and have newspapers and TV stations and stuff now — they don’t just communicate through discussions with you! I promise!
(Of course, a huge part of the Palestinian population was, and is, Arab Christians, and of course, their point of view, along that with any Arab secularists, are exactly equal to in moral importance as that of any Palestinian Muslim.)
The reason I’m not going over and over and over, right now, the problems created by forging of the State of Israel, is that I’m talking about other things. If what you’re trying to say is that “Muslims” can’t in any way focus on the situation now without always insisting on a shared viewpoint on the formation of the State of Israel, well, you’re wrong, absolutely and completely and utterly wrong.
Take your ‘what Muslims think’ schtick somewhere else where no one has ever had Muslim friends or coworkers or even academics. Stop claiming ‘what Muslims feel’ and actually go quote their contemporary discourse. They’re out there. Really.
matoko_chan
But I am a muslim. Im quoting discussion from TalkIslam.
My perpective is not valid?
I object to your definition of “major”. The Knesset is split into many parties, “major” parties is kind of meaningless….Likud, Kadima, Yisrael Beinenu and Labour are likely the only ones that would qualify as major in american taxonomy. Labour and Kadima are tarred by being in power when the blockade started started, even if they might oppose it now. Kinda like the Iraq War for Americans, except we only have two parties. Dissenters exist.
It is not so monolithic as you describe.
El Cid
@matoko_chan: They’re not “minor” in some sort of moral sense. If there was only one Knesset member, or even none but someone who ran and lost, who truly backed justice for both Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, it would be morally significant. Such members simply don’t have a governing impact. That’s what I mean by “major” — they are unable to exert policy changes. Also, much of the former “peace camp” has gone along with the recent years’ heightened repression and settlement, so it’s pretty hard to discuss any “peace camp” with regard to the actual Israeli government.
Likewise, I don’t have any effect on policies, but an argument which I see as rational and empirically based will still convince me, and I will be glad to advocate it or enunciate it even if I were the only person on the planet willing to state it.
matoko_chan
Im a frontpager at TI, and I have my own sufi blog on the sidebar.
guess that doesn’t count cuz ima white grrl?
lawl.
matoko_chan
so much of what ballon-juicers have to tell me lately just sounds like…..
“snotnosed”?
relly?
Corner Stone
@matoko_chan: Actually, I believe you were said to be “acting like a lecturing snot”, which is nothing at all like being called “snotnosed”.
But your fundamental approach is to misunderstand every point someone else is making so it doesn’t surprise me you mangled this one as well.