Israel relents to pressure:
In an effort to dampen international criticism and stave off calls for an international inquiry, Israel’s cabinet unanimously approved a government-appointed commission with foreign participation to investigate the circumstances surrounding its deadly commando raid on a flotilla bound for Gaza in late May.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the move to set up an inquiry would demonstrate clearly “to the entire world that the state of Israel acts according to law, transparently and with full responsibility.”
On Sunday, the secretary general of the Arab League toured Gaza for the first time since the Islamist group Hamas took control of the Palestinian territory, underlining an urge for more Arab involvement in the issues raised by the raid on the flotilla, which was trying to breach Israel’s naval blockade.
Amr Moussa, the highest-ranking Arab diplomat to visit in the past three years, entered Gaza from Egypt through the newly opened border terminal at Rafah, and immediately called for the blockade of Gaza to be lifted.
The Israeli panel, to be called the Independent Public Commission, will be led by a retired Israeli Supreme Court justice, Jacob Turkel. It will include two Israeli experts in international law and two foreign observers — Lord David Trimble, a Nobel Peace laureate from Ireland, and Brig. Gen. Ken Watkin, former judge advocate general of the Canadian Forces — whose inclusion is intended to add credibility to the inquiry and to secure foreign support for it. The proposed commission is to be presented to the Israeli cabinet on Monday for its approval, which is expected.
In Washington, the White House press secretary issued a statement hailing the Israeli announcement as an “important step forward.” The statement added that “the structure and terms of reference of Israel’s proposed independent public commission can meet the standard of a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation,” as sought by the United Nations Security Council.
For those of you keeping track at home, this would mean that Bill Kristol, who last week said the United States was supporting an anti-Israel UN resolution, maintains his record of being wrong about everything.
tommybones
Not so fast. Israel hand-picked these international observers, right? Let’s look at some of Trimble’s views on the Palestinian situation from a speech in October of 2007:
“And as we get closer to a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis – itself clouded with uncertainly but still the most significant meeting for more than seven years – those voices urging negotiation at almost any price are getting louder and louder. Commentators point animatedly to the elephant in the corner – Hamas who will almost certainly not be attending the talks. Nothing can be achieved, they argue, if the most extremist elements are not at the negotiating table.
We must hope for agreement at Annapolis. But agreement will mean an accommodation, not a victory of one side over another. Still less will it mean the annihilation of the “other”. Where does Hamas stand on these matters? Will it accept a two state solution? Will it end violence? These are reasonable questions to ask. Failure to reply satisfactorily shows that it would be wrong to try to include them.
The preconditions for engagement are as clear for Hamas as they were for the IRA in the early 1990s. Hamas must be encouraged to take the same steps the IRA took towards the negotiating table. But this will be undermined if they feel they do it on their terms and continue to reject a compromise solution. We must make sure that events like the Annapolis conference are successful and provide Hamas with further impetus to engage in a process with all Palestinians and Israelis of negotiation and compromise.
If there is one lesson to learn from the Northern Ireland experience it is that preconditions are crucial in ending violence and producing a settlement. Over generous flexibility is like giving sweets to a spoilt child in the hope that it will improve his behaviour – it usually results in worse actions.”
As usual, this onus is placed on Hamas to be open to “compromise,” forgetting that every single concession ever put forth in the conflict has come from the Palestinian side of the table and not a single concession from Israel. No, this is not an exaggeration. On every single issue, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. The problem is, EVERYONE BEGINS WITH WHAT ISRAEL WANTS and how much of its wants it’s willing to give up. But that’s not the relevant framework. The only relevant framework is under international law what you are entitled to, and when you use that framework it’s a very, very different picture.
Anyway, these extremists (of course, Israel’s policies aren’t extreme in the slightest!) are like a “spoilt child” and we should avoid giving them too many “sweets.” Yeah, he’s an impartial observer.
arguingwithsignposts
In other breaking news, it appears Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
EconWatcher
Bill Kristol truly is amazing. His only talent seems to be flashing the smuggest smirk I have ever seen. How does this man get paid for his opinions?
Does anyone have anything reliable (no axe to grind either way) on whether the blockade as it was being conducted (much broader than weapons) was legal?
The Reuters discussion that I’ve seen passed around seems like sleight of hand: It discusses whether a country could lawfully impose a blockade, not whether this one, as conducted, is actually lawful.
Why did Egypt join in the blockade?
cat48
Well, hold your breath because a boatload of aid from Iran left Sun. nite and another from Iran is expected to depart before Fri. This will not end well…….
someguy
@tommybones:
Since Trimble has already defined Hamas as “extremist” you know how this panel is going to turn out.
Punchy
Lemmie save everyone a lot of time. The conclusion is that Israel is right, Palestine is the devil, and the Cubs wont make the playoffs.
Easiest. Forecast. EVAH.
JasonF
I’m sorry — are the guys who call for the elimination of Israel and who have a history of sending missiles and suicide bombers into the country [b]not[/b] extremist? I’m not saying that their extremism justifies Israel’s actions, or that the Netanyahu government isn’t also extremist, but let’s not pretend that Hamas is middle-of-the-road.
tommybones
@someguy:
Notice, too, he asks the question, “will they [Hamas] give up violence?” It’s the usual one-sided analysis. Israel is never called upon to give up the violence, are they? It’s self defense, of course! It’s part of the general double-standard which exists and is ultimately the reason why peace will never be achieved. To wit:
Israel has the right to violate international law to defend their people, if those laws fail in their duty to protect the people of Israel. Hamas DOES NOT have the right to violate international law to defend their people, if those laws fail in their duty to protect the Palestinian people.
Israel is justified in violating international law in response to RHETORIC put forth by Hamas, which states its desire to steal Israeli land and make it their own, yet Hamas is NOT JUSTIFIED in violating international law in response to Israel ACTUALLY STEALING PALESTINIAN LAND, by force, and creating new, Jewish-only communities on that stolen land, thus making it Israel’s own.
Israel is encouraged to defend their people with extreme violence in response to illegal actions taken by Hamas. Hamas is discouraged from defending their people with extreme violence in response to illegal actions taken by Israel.
Since the definition of a terrorist organization is, in simple terms, an organization which takes part in terrorist activities, Hamas is rightly deemed a terrorist organization because of their use of terrorist tactics. Israel, however, is NOT a terrorist organization, in spite of engaging in numerous acts of terrorism.
When Hamas doesn’t agree to a peace plan, they “do not want peace.” When Israel doesn’t agree to a peace plan, it’s because Hamas “doesn’t want peace.”
Palestinians are blamed for the violence they receive because they vote for “thugs” to represent them. Israeli leaders, no matter how many crimes they commit, nor how many deaths they cause, nor how many times they actively and unapologetically target civilians for massive collective punishment in violation of numerous humanitarian and criminal laws, are NOT to be considered “thugs.”
Israel is allowed to stockpile the most comprehensive conventional arsenal in the region, as well as a large nuclear weapons cache, but Hamas is deemed evil incarnate for “smuggling” crude, antiquated rockets into their “arsenal.”
Hamas is REQUIRED to “renounce violence,” while Israel is not.
Hamas is REQUIRED to respect “Israel’s Right To Exist” (TM), while Israel is not required to respect the Palestinian’s Right of Self-Determination.
The list goes on and on….
Michael
@tommybones:
Why do you want to throw Jews in ovens, you anti-semite?
Colin Laney
This is exactly what Israel has wanted all along — an Israeli investigation with a few friendly foreign observers. Kristol was pontificating against possible US supporty of an international investigation not controlled by Israel.
Bill
Interesting to note that Turkey, whose ship was attacked and whose citizens were killed, will not be represented on the enquiry.
liberal
@JasonF:
Who’s pretending Hamas is middle-of-the-road? You negotiate with the enemies you have, not the enemies you wish you had.
Though that’s not actually true in the case of Israel. All evidence points to a long-term Israeli strategy of neutralizing moderates among the Palestinian leadership whereever possible, and subtly promoting extremists.
Furthermore, the simple historical fact is that Israeli governments have been extremist long before Netanyahu took over, if you reasonably define extremist to mean “no discernable true interest in a peaceful settlement, and lots of interest in grabbing as much land as possible.”
liberal
@EconWatcher:
Good question. Possibilities I’ve thought of are (a) to keep on the good side of Israel and the US, (b) because the government of Egypt doesn’t like Islamists like Hamas, (c) the blockage gives them some kind of economic leverage over the situation (possibly over Hamas, possibly over Israel, possibly over both).
tommybones
It gets better. The other international observer is Canadian Brig. Gen. Ken Watkin. A little about him:
chopper
@Colin Laney:
exactly. two ‘foreign observers’, handpicked by the country investigating itself, likely with no powers at all outside of writing a dissent if they so feel.
Dave
Who’s pretending Hamas is middle-of-the-road?
John Cole and most of Balloon Juice. They (and you) fall over themselves to whitewash Hamas, the IHH and the Mullahs.
You negotiate with the enemies you have, not the enemies you wish you had.
Tell you what. If the US negotiates with Osama Bin Laden first, and if that goes well, I’ll support your call for Israel to negotiate with Hamas.
Mnemosyne
@Dave:
Osama bin Laden is living in the US and claiming that he has a legal right to land here that his family has been living on for centuries? Gosh, I had no idea that was what 9/11 was all about.
Where is this land of bin Laden’s within the US? Is he claiming to be, say, a Cherokee?
Waynski
Trimble? Fuck’s sake. He’s not exactly antithetical to occupiers, is he? Why don’t you raise P.W. Botha from the dead and put him on the commission also too.
chopper
@Dave:
lol, you’re a buffoon.
NobodySpecial
@EconWatcher:
Can’t imagine why.
toujoursdan
@NobodySpecial:
That, and the last thing Egypt wants to do is violate Israel’s blockade, have Israel seal its borders permanently dumping Gaza into Egypt’s lap, force Egypt to deal with the mess, and then battle Hamas given it has a fundamentalist Muslim insurgency at home its trying to keep a lid on.
maus
@Dave:
I long for the days when BoB trolled these lands. His act seems far less dumb in retrospect.
tommybones
@Dave:
Pot, meet kettle. Who whitewashes what, exactly?
Waynski
@arguingwithsignposts: Win.
Waynski
@maus:
Agreed. Apparently wanting to know why nine civilians got greased in international waters means I love Hamas. Brilliant.
El Cid
“Mistakes were made. Those pushing the raid should have analyzed better. But Israel did not err in stopping pro-terrorists from landing unknown materials in Gaza, who get plenty of materials through via current inspections. Anyone who disagrees with our awesome self-investigation hates Israel.”
Gator90
@tommybones
International law recognizes Israel as a sovereign nation and has done so for 60 years. Perhaps Hamas could toss Israel a sweet by acknowledging that fact.
Uloborus
@liberal:
I actually agree. Particularly the part about neutralizing moderates. I can *just barely* understand the attitude that Hamas winning an election means the Palestinian government is officially a nation at war with Israel. I don’t agree with it, but it merely seems kind of emotional and paranoid.
But the first thing Sharon(sp?) did was blow up civilian infrastructure while doing almost nothing about the government itself. Oh, and go after Arafat, the guy who was willing to negotiate. It was the strategy of a genocidal warmonger who can’t quite get away with directly mowing down the population, which is basically what I think he was, and I think that attitude has ruled Israel since. Either it was moronic, or it was a deliberate attempt to ensure a peaceful solution was impossible.
bobbo
Of course anything less than a total whitewash by this commission will be motivated by anti-Semitism.
El Cid
Via Haaretz:
Oh, well, good then, off to a great, completely disinterested, impartial investigation.
Not like that mean-old Goldstone Commission about the Gaza War, finding Israel, Hamas, and other groups guilty of war crimes, dismissed as anti-Israel, biased, and rejected by Israel and the US.
Not like that mean-old UN commission investigating Israel’s shelling of a UN refugee camp in Lebanon in 1996, which killed over 100 people including UN officials, which also was ignored and dismissed.
It’s so awful that we hold poor, tiny, itty bitty defenseless Israel to such a vastly higher standard than any other nation by letting it investigate itself after sending commandos to shoot aid activists repeatedly in the heads and backs.
John Cole
Link, please. Provide me ONE SINGLE LINK where I have ever said anything remotely positive about Hamas. Just one.
You have a day. Back up your smears of me, or I ban you. Knock yourself out. And feel free to apologize when you fail to find me “whitewashing” Hamas.
arguingwithsignposts
@John Cole:
here, here.
I have read waaayyy too many of these I/P threads, and I don’t recall anyone saying a positive thing about Hamas. There’s been a lot of discussion about why they won the elections (which were promoted by the Bush/Cheney regime, as even evil spawn Liz Cheney admits), but nobody’s been promoting Hamas, despite what Dave (everybody who doesn’t kiss Israel’s ass is a self-hating anti-semite) says.
El Cid
I love Hamas and Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and Islamic Jihad and want to have their babies.
JasonF
@liberal:
My post was a response to someguy @5, who suggested that because Trimble considers Hamas extremist, the panel is going to be a whitewash. The panel may well turn out to be a whitewash, but that has nothing to do with whether Hamas is extremist, and Trimble isn’t necessarily a hardcore Israel supporter simply because he acknowledges that Hamas is extremist.
Svensker
@Gator90:
When will Israel recognize Palestine? Or the elected government of Gaza? (Yes, I know, Hamas took over after a “coup” but only after they’d won the election fair and square and then got dicked by the oddly surprised not to mention clueless Israelis/Bush Admin.)
Sauce. Goose. Gander. Rinse. Repeat.
Say Gator, have you sent your letter to Schumer yet asking him to apologize for his statements and then to resign?
Svensker
@John Cole:
John, Dave is an hysterical zionist troll who used to infest Greenwald’s blog until Glenn finally banned him. He also posts under the name “Pancake” here because he thinks it’s really funny that Rachel Corrie was run over by a Cat. He’s mentally ill.
Dave
Link, please. Provide me ONE SINGLE LINK where I have ever said anything remotely positive about Hamas. Just one.
Stop changing the goalposts.
And learn to read as well. I never said you said anything *postive* about Hamas. On the contrary, I was very specific in what I said, and I stand by it completely.
You and others constantly downplay the behaviour and motivations of Hamas, the IHH and other genocidal theofascist organisations prevalent in the Middle East. You and others ignore any evidence of their wrongdoings, instead casting aspersions upon any and all of Israel’s actions. You and others constantly display a hideous racism by denying brown people any agency in their actions, motivations and ideals, instead casting them as nothing but soulless automations who can only helplessly respond to the Western World.
Repeatedly, you have shown that for you and others, Israel cannot do any right whatsoever other than commit national suicide. By any reading of the standard definitions of anti-semitism (e.g. the EUMC definition), that is outright anti-semitism.
And of course, you’re quite blatant and unapologetic about it. And so you have completed your journey all the way from the far right to the far left, where the edges blur and the only thing they have in common is Judenhass.
You’re the mirror image of the Teabaggers and the cess-pits of the far right, using the exact same memes (e.g. accusations of dual-loyalty towards Jews, equating Israel and the actions of Israelis to Nazism) and exact same ideas.
I hope you’re proud of yourself.
Of course, in the long term, it won’t matter. Israel won’t go away just to give you satisfaction, and there’s nothing any of you here can do that can harm Israel in the slightest.
El Cid
@Svensker: Although direct occupation troops have largely been withdrawn from Gaza on day to day control, the occupation is still under way, so any elected authority is completely operating within the control of Israel. From complete control of borders to disallowing Gazans access to their farmlands to denying them the tools and materials needed to farm and produce or construct needed infrastructure to occasional invasion and laying waste to much of the area and slaughtering thousands of residents, it’s still an occupation and Israeli control of the area.
Mnemosyne
@Gator90:
And what concession will Israel make in return? Funny, I always hear crickets when I ask that.
That’s the funny thing about negotiations: it’s not a negotiation when Israel says, “Give us everything that we demand and then maybe we might consider thinking about one or two of your less onerous demands.” Both sides have to give something up in a negotiation. What has Israel said it will give up to foster peace?
Waynski
@John Cole:
That’s so full of troll busting win. Thanks, JC.
Dave
John, Dave is an hysterical zionist troll who used to infest Greenwald’s blog until Glenn finally banned him. He also posts under the name “Pancake” here because he thinks it’s really funny that Rachel Corrie was run over by a Cat. He’s mentally ill.
I have never posted on Gleen Greenwald’s Blog. You can compare IP addresses for the truth of that.
I have also never posted here under any other name than “Dave”. You can analyse IP addresses for the truth of that.
I actually do think its happy that a hate-filled terrorist groupie got splatted. So sue me.
In short, Svensker, you’re a gobshite.
Svensker
@El Cid:
I know, El Cid. It’s just an intractable problem. Until the leadership of the U.S. can disentangle itself from the Lobby, there’s no way we can be anything other than enablers of slow-mo genocide and/or ethnic cleansing. Sickening, but there you are.
And now the stupid Iranians are sending “aid ships” — way to totally screw up the narrative, guys.
El Cid
It completely doesn’t matter that Hamas or any other Palestinian group refuses to ‘recognize’ the state of Israel, and it is irrelevant who wants to ‘destroy’ Israel or kill all the Jews.
It may be evil and reprehensible, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with negotiations and arrival at a final settlement — enemies negotiate all the time — and no force in the region conceivably has the power to actually threaten either the existence of the state of Israel or the survival of Israeli Jews.
Quite a number of groups in the world want to eliminate other groups; few of them have the power to do so.
People can take their desires for Palestinian representation to feel and declare what they — often reasonably — want, but the fact is that Israel is still carrying out a harsh and illegal occupation and is mainly trying to establish more and more territory within the West Bank and East Jerusalem while completely criss-crossing West Bank Palestinian territories into uselessness, such that by the time a final two state solution is imposed or arrived at, the Palestinian West Bank state will be a joke and Gaza will possibly become a protectorate (occupation) of Egypt and international forces.
Svensker
@Dave:
You’re not David Sugarman? With both the name and the hysteria I assumed you were one and the same. My apologies. And if assumed the poster named “Pancake” was you and I was wrong, again apologies.
You are an hysterical zionist troll, however. And you did find it incredibly amusing to say “Rachel ‘Pancake’ Corrie”. So I’ll stand by my statement calling you mentally ill.
Mnemosyne
@Dave:
In Dave’s world, giving up Gaza and the West Bank, lands that Israel has illegally occupied and controlled since 1967, is “committing national suicide.”
I have to admit, I really feel sorry for Dave. It must be difficult to look at Israel’s actions of the past 10 years — the failed invasion of Lebanon, the killing of civilians and UN personnel, the riots by insane settlers who insist they have a mandate from God to steal land from the Palestinians who legally own it — and still come up with any kind of defense for them. But I guess that’s why he keeps falling back on, “But the other guys are worse!” There really is no other defense that anyone can make of Israel at this point, because their actions have been blatantly illegal and often border on genocidal.
Keep clinging to that dream, Dave, where Israel is perfect and pure and can do no wrong and the only reason they’re starving babies and bombing schools in Gaza is because Hamas, like, totally forced them to.
Asshole
@Dave:
Out of curiosity, what makes Rachel Corrie a “hate-filled terrorist groupie” whose demise we should derive joy from? Would you mind expanding on that remark a bit, please?
I don’t know much about Ms. Corrie, but my understanding is that she was an unarmed American citizen who was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer. I don’t normally applaud the deaths of American citizens at the hands of foreign governments, but maybe you have some information indicating that she merited her death- and merited it to the extent that we should maybe feel happy about it. Could you please provide that information?
El Cid
@Svensker: Although U.S. policy might conceivably be somewhat different, and better, with a less influential AIPAC and other anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian lobbies, I doubt it would be fundamentally different.
The U.S. establishment just doesn’t give much of a shit about the aspirations or conditions of the Palestinians except to the extent it makes other desired policies more inconvenienced. The U.S. establishment didn’t much fetishize Israel before 1967, but they didn’t treat existing Middle Eastern Arab and Muslim states with anything other than harsh imperialist domination.
The overthrow of the Mossadegh government wasn’t because of Israel, nor did it support Saddam Hussein mainly because of the lobby. Nor did it wage a war to remove Iraq from Kuwait via carpet bombing Baghdad or invade and destroy the Iraqi state because of the lobby.
I’m not suggesting the lobby doesn’t play a significant role, but I don’t think it’s the only or even dominant factor. My view. If there were no lobby, I don’t see U.S. policies as radically different, but maybe still better in lots of ways.
Mnemosyne
@Dave:
I’m happy that mass murderer Ariel Sharon is in a permanent vegetative state after multiple strokes and is slowly wasting away as his shell is kept alive, so I guess that makes us even.
Sharon facilitated the murders of a minimum of 800 people, and possibly as many as 3,500. How many people did Rachel Corrie order the deaths of, again?
eemom
@Dave:
Look, dude — as you may have noticed I am not with the majority here on this subject. But when you hurl around accusations of anti-Semitism and “Judenhass” you are part of the problem. All that does is trivialize those things and give credence to the other extreme, i.e, the constant refrain that anyone who says anything critical of Israel is automatically branded an anti-Semite.
And thereby furthering the hopelessness of either side ever actually hearing the other.
El Cid
@Asshole: Corrie merited her death because she defied Israeli policy and attempted to protect Palestinian homes from destruction because they were said to be the homes of or related to the homes of Palestinian militants. Thus, a death sentence.
Likewise, shooting plenty of other Americans and Brits in the head with firing tear gas canisters and rubber bullets right at their heads, that was deserved too.
Those American nuns murded by Salvadoran death squads deserved it because they were probably cavorting with guerrillas in their supposed concern for all the civilians being slaughtered. Same for the other nun seized and tortured and thrown into a pit of dead bodies by our Guatemalan genocidal allies.
It’s all the same, and never different.
eemom
That is true now. But it wasn’t always. I think the people who talk about the Israeli mindset being hopelessly stuck in the past are right.
Waynski
@ Dave
Umm. I don’t remember anyone “downplaying” Hamas’ war crimes, but when we’re talking about the Israelis killing nine civilians in international waters to enforce a possibly illegal blockade I don’t see the relevance. That Hamas indiscriminately launches rockets that kill Israeli civilians doesn’t give Israel the right to light up civilians (who are not Hamas) on the high seas. I guess two wrongs make a right in your world, Dave, but for the rest of us. Not so much.
kay
@Dave:
Can you list the critics of Israel that are not anti-Semites? Not within the country, but without: any nationality.
I’d like to get an idea of the measure you’re using to apply this label.
Name the toughest critic of Israeli actions who is not an anti-Semite. Preferably someone I could look up and read. That will give me a marker on who passes the test.
wengler
I assume with a video out showing the alleged execution of a US citizen by Israeli commandos, our government will soon be conducting its own investigation.
I hear only crickets.
John Cole
Bullshit. Your statement:
Show me one place where I have “fallen all over myself” to “whitewash” Hamas, the IHH (an organization I had never even heard of until the flotilla, so I’m reasonably sure I’ve never said anything for or against or even about them), or “the Mullahs.”
23 hours, douchebag. Search function is off to the left.
chopper
@Dave:
jesus, this is so full of idiocy it has to be a troll. so israel attacks civilian ships in international waters in defense of a plainly illegal blockade and we’re supposed to focus any and all ire on hamas?
because obviously, since hamas is a bunch of terroristic assholes, nothing israel does could possibly be bad.
this is just a rehash of bush’s with-us-or-with-the-terrorists garbage. pro-tip – when israel breaks the law, we’re going to point it out. the fact that hamas sucks at the same time doesn’t mean the former is ‘whitewashing’ the latter.
in short, you’re an idiot. as to the accusations of anti-semitism, you can eat a bag of dicks and choke on every single one.
Gator90
@Svensker and Mnemosyne:
I have conducted an impartial investigation of my comment, and I find it to be entirely justified.
arguingwithsignposts
@Dave:
Wow, that straw man is huge! You should contact the Burning Man festival. They would *love* to utilize your straw man building skills.
@Dave:
Will you fax us your credenza so the helicopters can laugh?
ETA: just realized I didn’t … add … enough … ellipses for the full … effect.
Waynski
@Mnemosyne:
That’s hauntingly familiar. What other douchebags can I think of that would take that position. Oh, wait, nevermind.
Dave
Show me one place where I have “fallen all over myself” to “whitewash” Hamas, the IHH (an organization I had never even heard of until the flotilla, so I’m reasonably sure I’ve never said anything for or against or even about them), or “the Mullahs.”
Come off it, john. With even the slighest research you could have found the true motivations and activites of Hamas, the IHH, Hizbollah et al. You could have *not* believed the propaganda that immediately pumped out of the IHH and Hamas – instead you treat them as morally equivallent to Israel.
This last few weeks you’ve just concern trolled on behalf of any group, no matter how fascist, that pisses off the people you hate. You don’t even have to use the search function to find that, you’ve probably kept a record of what you’ve posted.
John Cole
Fail. Again, show me where I have “whitewashed” Hamas, the IHH, or the Mullahs.
22 1/2 hours.
You could always apologize.
El Cid
The ‘true motivations’ of Hamas are irrelevant to practical negotiations of Israel and Gaza.
arguingwithsignposts
@John Cole:
Perhaps you should appoint a commission of front pagers to study the issue and come up with a report about whether you “whitewashed” these groups. ;)
ETA: I have to admit that I shake my head in wonder that Bush/Cheney didn’t only fuck up Iraq and Afghanistan, but they managed to set back the cause of I/P peace indefinitely by pushing for those elections in Gaza that even Liz Cheney now admits was a massive fail.
El Cid
@John Cole: Now you’re an apologist for fascists.
Howlin Wolfe
@Michael: Not Jews, just Likudniks, you simpleton. And not into ovens, just OUT OF OFFICE where they can do no further harm.
chopper
@El Cid:
likewise the ‘true motivations’ of hamas are irrelevant as to the applicability of international law in international waters.
the anti-semitism and pro-terrorist canards are just red herrings slapped on the table by morons who can’t reasonably support a policy using rational thought. its the ‘pound the table’ school of arguing. which is funny, but especially rich now that dave has accused the blog owner of being an anti-semitic hamas-lover, the fallout from which is going to be fun to watch.
we need a 24-style countdown timer on the blog page.
Dave
You’re not David Sugarman? With both the name and the hysteria I assumed you were one and the same. My apologies. And if assumed the poster named “Pancake” was you and I was wrong, again apologies.
Apology accepted. For the record I am a 30-something member of the Celtic Fringe (haha) living in England. Politically I’m domestically probably left of centre (I’m pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-drug legalisation, horribly conflicted on the death penalty, pro-education, science and nationalised healthcare) but a deficit hawk and also on foreign policy wise I’m a hawk (of the Hitchens Sr. school). Above all I’m a secularist (with slight remaining Thelemic tendancies).
You are an hysterical zionist troll, however. And you did find it incredibly amusing to say “Rachel ‘Pancake’ Corrie”. So I’ll stand by my statement calling you mentally ill.
By all means. I will not hold that against you.
And the reason why I despise Terrorist Groupies like Pancake Girl? Two words: Martin Galvin.
I lost close family relatives in the Troubles because of the likes of him. I walked behind too many coffins of people and friends killed because of (and this pains me to say, as I do consider most Americans to be splendid eggs, even if you can’t speak the Queen’s English) plastic ignorant Yanks like Galvin and (by extension, Corrie).
Subhuman scum like Bobby Sands, Billy Wright (not the footballer), and Rachael Corrie deserve nothing but scorn and ridicule.
Yes, I am pissed about this, and have been, and always will be. And no, I don’t need a therapist, not for this anyway.
Waynski
@Dave:
So now you’re expecting JC to prove you right? Look, dickhead, Hamas is evil. We GET THAT. It doesn’t give Israel free reign to do what ever the fuck it wants to. That’s what you seem fucking incapable of understanding. Al Queda is evil. We GET THAT too. It doesn’t mean the American government should be allowed to torture people — something Israel to their great credit, does not do, by the way. And just as opposing torture in our struggle against Al Queda doesn’t make me anti-American, opposing the Israeli slaughter of civilians in their struggle against Hamas doesn’t make me an anti-semite or pro-Hamas, simply against killiing civilians. Now if that doesn’t help you unscrew your head out of your ass, I don’t know what will.
El Cid
@arguingwithsignposts: Mistakes were made, but the policy was 100% correct. Outside investigations are biased and anti-Coleist, so their conclusions should be condemned.
tommybones
@Gator90:
They have. And Israel rejected the offer. Get informed:
http://tinyurl.com/y9eyy2y
Howlin Wolfe
@Dave: It’s really funny what people will claim to have read here. Please show me how anyone has “fallen all over themselves” to portray Hamas as “moderate”. What utter tripe. Just because someone points out that Hamas is the duly elected Palestinian authority does mean they think anything one way or another about the place of Hamas’s ideology on the political spectrum.
But when one is a tribalist, like Dave, it doesn’t matter; what matters is that when someone mentions an outsider or outside tribe, you have to couch it in extreme negatives, or you betray yourself as outside the tribe.
Screw you and your tribalism. We dont’ need it.
Dave
Fail. Again, show me where I have “whitewashed” Hamas, the IHH, or the Mullahs.m
Check the top of this post, John.
Where you FAIL to mention that the IHH planned to kill Israelis from the start, your previous posts where you FAIL to mention that Hamas a) has a track record of hijacking and sells on aid let into Gaza, b) uses concrete and building materials to build military bunkers underneath hospitals and schools in Gaza, c) is currently blocking all aid into Gaza.
You’ve also FAILed to mention Erdogan’s rabble rousing over the last two years, the linking of the IHH to Al-Queda (by French judges noless), the eyewitness testimony of the IHH thugs themselves that they wanted “martyrdom” and wanted to kill Jews. You FAILED to mention the vile statements coming out of the IHH and the absurd, ridiculous excuses coming out of the so-called “peace activists”.
You’ve become so one-sided and blind in this that you have established a pattern of reflexively pre-accusing Israel of crimes that you wouldn’t dare to accuse other nations of, to the point where you automatically find her guilty.
You’ve also repeatedly posted slurs on US citizens of dual-loyalty to Israel.
In short, John, you fulfil enough of the criteria of the EUHC working definition on antisemtism, that, yes, you, and many here, are anti-semites.
Progressives and liberal, my arse.
John Cole
More fail. This post is about Israel setting up a panel to investigate the flotilla raid.
Is that your final answer?
Mnemosyne
In Dave’s world, Martin McGuinness should be jailed and probably executed because rogue IRA factions are still bombing Northern Ireland. Sure, McGuinness has no control over the bombers and has been participating in the peace process for years, but as long as anyone calling themselves the IRA is bombing anywhere, the entire peace process has to be halted until all republican elements agree to participate.
Is that about right, Dave? After all, that’s what you’re calling for in Israel and the Palestinian territories. I guess Britain should march some troops in and dissolve the Parliament in Northern Ireland again since there are a few anti-peace assholes who are trying to goad Britain to do exactly that.
El Cid
@Waynski: A group doesn’t have to be not-evil and not-violent in order to be recognized internationally as the legitimate representatives of a state or occupied territory in interstate negotiations.
The UN and other respected figures have repeatedly negotiated with the Sudanese government with regard to Darfur (and the war in general), and this doesn’t in the slightest mean anybody likes the ethnocidalists in that government — they’re simply dealing with reality, given that there just is no magic solution, not even attempting to attack Sudan militarily.
arguingwithsignposts
@Dave:
All of that and not ONE LINK. Internet troll fail.
Your celebration of an unarmed civilian’s death (Rachel Corrie) is subhuman and pathetic.
ETA: Since Dave’s worldview is so shaped by the Troubles, I’d be curious to ascertain what he’d do with Rep. Peter King (R-NY)?
El Cid
@Mnemosyne: This is why casinos in Nevada are continually raided by the federales due to some of them having connections to the mob. Same way with cement and waste companies — they just never are allowed to function given their questionable connections to mob-ists.
Waynski
@El Cid: Agreed. My point was more narrowly focused on getting to the bottom of how and why those nine people got killed and that wanting to do so doesn’t make you “pro-Hamas” or anti-Israel.
Cacti
And it’s well worth remembering that the last Israeli Prime Minister who was willing to make meaningful concessions toward peace with the Palestinians was assassinated…
By an Israeli.
liberal
@kay:
That’s easy. Any Jewish critic of Israel is a self-hating Jew, not an anti-Semite.
daveNYC
You just equated Rachel Corrie with Martin Galvin? You really are a no-talent ass-clown.
liberal
@Dave:
Hmm…funny how foreign policy hawks are so often too stupid to understand that wars cost money and lead to…fiscal deficits.
liberal
@Cacti:
Not possible. Someone like Dave, who hates Hamas for their extremism, would be quick to acknowledge that the Jews have their crazies too, if they did, so they don’t.
liberal
@Dave:
Shorter Dave: in addition to being an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bigot, I’m a pretentious asshole.
LD50
Let us not forget that Pancake Dave said that even Jewish Israeli critics of Israel’s policies are antisemites. So Dave has taken it upon himself to be the world’s arbiter of what antisemitism is.
Of course he’s also ‘Pancake’, and probably ‘Phil’. Just ban the dirtbag.
kay
@liberal:
Dave never answered the question. Apparently, in his view, there is no critic of Israeli policy or actions who is not an anti-Semite, so that certainly saves me some time.
Asshole
@Dave:
“And the reason why I despise Terrorist Groupies like Pancake Girl? Two words: Martin Galvin.”
Who’s that? Was he her boyfriend or something?
“I lost close family relatives in the Troubles because of the likes of him. I walked behind too many coffins of people and friends killed because of (and this pains me to say, as I do consider most Americans to be splendid eggs, even if you can’t speak the Queen’s English) plastic ignorant Yanks like Galvin and (by extension, Corrie).”
So it’s every American’s fault that this Martin Galvin guy exists? What does Rachel Corrie have to do with him?
“Subhuman scum like Bobby Sands, Billy Wright (not the footballer), and Rachael Corrie deserve nothing but scorn and ridicule.”
What does Rachel Corrie have to do with Bobby Sands? He’s an Irish guy who starved himself to death in prison when she was about three years old, right?
“Yes, I am pissed about this, and have been, and always will be. And no, I don’t need a therapist, not for this anyway.”
You’re still not giving me any reason why anyone should be overjoyed that Rachel Corrie is dead. Even the IDF labeled her death “a regrettable accident.” What do some Irish guys and some Irish-Americans have to do with her?
Interested, also, in your arguments about the IRA. Using your “gloating at the deaths of others who disagree with me on an abstract political question” moral system, couldn’t an Irishman who’d lost, say, a cousin to the Shankill Road Butchers or to one of those UDA guys who murdered everyone on the bus who made a sign of the cross when the bus drove by a Catholic Church hate British individuals like yourself- and maybe even cheer if you found yourself collateral damage of a bombing campaign someday? Couldn’t they justify it by saying that you were cheerleading UDA terrorists and that they and all right-thinking people, therefore, should be “glad” that you’re dead? Why would they be wrong, if you are right?
Asshole
@El Cid:
The one constant of war seems to be that he who punches the Hippies the hardest, wins.
arguingwithsignposts
@Asshole:
Asshole’s Law. It fits.
Asshole
@arguingwithsignposts:
What an honor. LOL
Gator90
@tommybones: Your link, which you cite as proof of a Hamas offer to recognize Israel, took me to a 2002 San Francisco Chronicle story in which a person identified as a Hamas spokesman was quoted as telling the Chronicle that Hamas could accept the Arab League peace initiative issued in 2002. Sadly, however, and as any person familiar with the Google thingy can readily ascertain, Hamas has many times emphatically rejected the Arab League initiative both before and after the Chronicle story. This would include, for example, direct statements of rejection by Hamas’ foreign minister, whose words presumably carry more weight than an isolated and evidently unauthorized remark by a “spokesman” to an American newspaper.
Even more sadly, Hamas perpetrated the “Passover Massacre,” in which 28 innocent people were murdered, on the same day that the Arab League initiative was announced.
You are a hopelessly inept propagandist.
And, while I think that the accusation of “whitewashing Hamas” made previously in this thread is for the most part unfair, you are certainly proof that the phenomenon does exist.
maus
@Dave:
So the former is supposed to make the latter views more tolerable… how exactly? Your other views are laughably polarized and not indicative of any of the nuance that pushes people “left of center”.
That you’re simultaneously a “deficit hawk” and ball-grabbingly aggressive towards foreign policy is pretty hilarious, considering the ungodly amount of money wasted to make people like you feel “secure”.
El Cid
@Asshole: A couple of German military and political leaders in the early 20th century (just to use one example) figured out that it’s quite easy to justify any war by saying the foreigners are threatening us, we’re about to die, and only the evil traitor peaceniks within threaten our will to defend ourselves from the hordes, while any military loss was from being ‘stabbed in the back’ by those same traitors.
Asshole
@El Cid:
Yep. They punched Hippies harder than anyone else has before or since, and they won- in the very short term, anyway, although if they hadn’t gone after Stalin they might still be running most of Europe.
Asshole
It should be noted that Stalin is not a Hippie, and that punching him usually turned out to be a very bad idea.
El Cid
Hamas may have upheld its part of the ceasefire until Israel’s violation (as an excuse to level Gaza and slaughter over 1200 Palestinians in the 2008 Gaza war), but it would be highly unrealistic to portray them as having advanced a serious plan for statehood negotiations — though, again, there should be no expectations on either the Palestinian or Israeli side to ‘recognize’ the other state except ‘recognizing’ it within the context of official international recognition of nation-states, as long as for the first time Israel announces its actual borders via negotiation.
wilfred
Uri Avnery’s 81 questions for a real Committee of Inquiry:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1276348453
Gator90
@Dave: Rachel Corrie was “subhuman scum”? C’mon. Misguided, perhaps. Bravely foolhardy, perhaps. (Or perhaps a profoundly admirable person who, unlike most of us and sure as hell unlike me, put her ass on the line to confront the injustice she perceived.) But subhuman scum? Fuck you. People who “whitewash Hamas” are no worse than you.
RP
We’ve reached the point where the critics of Israel on this site are just as obnoxious and close-minded as the defenders. Congrats — I guess this is a victory of some sort.
Gator90
@Dave:
I’m a US citizen and loyal to the US, and yet I do feel a certain loyalty to Israel as well. So I guess you could say I have dual loyalty. As do many other American Jews. It is a fact. Does saying that make me an anti-semite?
Asshole
@RP:
I’m still waiting to hear an argument for why I should gloat at Rachel Corrie’s death that doesn’t consist of “because she comes from the same country as this one guy that likes the IRA a lot- namely, America.”
arguingwithsignposts
@RP:
ORLY?
Maybe I don’t see that “one side is just as bad as the other” in the comments here because I realize Israel has done some pretty shitty things to the second-class citizens that happen to reside in occupied territories, just like Hezbollah and Hamas have done some pretty shitty things to Israeli civilians who are minding their own business.
One doesn’t have to be an Israeli hater to realize they can be just as big dickhead assholes as can their enemies.
IOW, I can be a critic of the U.S. policy in Iraq and Afghanistan without being a traitor to my country. So why can’t people criticize Israel’s state actions without being labeled anti-semites.
(Last I recall, nobody who has been critical of the flotilla raid wished that IDF soldiers had gotten killed, unlike supreme major asshole Dave has done dancing all over the grave of Rachel Corrie and nine other people.)
Asshole
@arguingwithsignposts:
In all fairness, those of us who were opposed to the Iraq War WERE objectively pro-Saddam and all… Which is kind of ironic, because the only person involved in that little kerfluffle who loved punching Hippies more than Bush and Cheney was Saddam himself. (He lost, though, because due to the relative unavailability of Hippies, he wasn’t able to punch quite as many of them. He punched the ones he did have way harder, but that didn’t offset the lack of numbers.)
Is it possible that opposition to one Hippie-puncher means that you’re objectively supportive of another guy who punches Hippies?
Waynski
@arguingwithsignposts
This.
El Cid
The Red Cross hates Israel too and loves Hamas and wants to have their babies.
[Note: In fairness, it can’t be “collective punishment” if children are merely suffering stunted growth from protein deficiency and pregnant women’s lives are at risk from anemia, because it’s not like they’re starving to death.]
liberal
@arguingwithsignposts:
Note of clarification: the Palestinians in the occupied territories are not citizens of Israel.
Yes, but also, notwithstanding some nominal US aid directed to the Palestinians, the US is on the side of Israel in the conflict. Thus, those Americans who think that our special relationship with Israel (NB: it’s not a treaty-based alliance) is harming our national security and strategic interests, and want to see that relationship replaced by a normal one between states, are going to focus their criticisms on Israel. Ditto for those Americans who feel compelled to spend more time and energy criticizing attrocities committed with their tax dollars—(as in, “not in our name [or on our dime]”).
Asshole
@El Cid:
Oh, they’re just like prisoners here in the States, whining about how much the food sucks. Why should Israel coddle these criminals just because some of them happen to be malnourished children and pregnant women?
Next they’ll be whining about how they want more concrete, which they’re just going to use to dig escape tunnels anyway. I think Israel should take away their cable TV privileges, since they just use it to tune into Al-Jazeera anyway.
El Cid
On this:
It is also significant that Israel is a massively, heavily armed state repeatedly in violent violation of international law in both illegal occupation as well as repeated invasions and massive civilian casualties since the late 1970s, one which continues to colonize the more valuable portions of the illegally occupied territory, taking more and more of the more valuable land and connecting routes.
Palestinian leaders have, in my view, chosen very unwisely with massive costs to civilians (though they clearly don’t greatly care) to have chosen the armed struggle against Israeli occupation, but it was the targeting of Israeli civilians which delegitimized what would otherwise have been in the mode of classic anti-colonial independence struggles, however ridiculously outmatched. Palestinian intellectuals do often wonder who has done the Palestinian cause more damage, the Israelis or their own leadership, and it’s hard to say.
arguingwithsignposts
@liberal:
Right. I knew that, sort of. But IIRC, Palestinians living in Israel are a sort of second-class citizen.
As to those living in occupied territories, what are they citizens of? I’m not being snarky here, just curious.
liberal
@El Cid:
Is it really true that “classic anti-colonial independence struggles” don’t target civilians? (Not that I think that’s OK. I’m asking about the historical “is”, not the “ought”.)
liberal
@arguingwithsignposts:
Yes. Especially noteworthy is legal discrimination as to who can own land.
Good question. IIRC they’re stateless, though individuals might have citizenship in various places (Jordan?).
RP
On a substantive level, I agree with almost every one of the criticisms of Israel raised in this discussion. But the constant preemptive jokes about anti-semitism and generally snarky and obnoxious tone are really grating.
El Cid
@liberal: A lot of the traditional colonial struggles did occasionally target civilians, and not to attempt to exonerate them from wrongs (occasionally they could be bitter about the thousands and thousands slaughtered by the colonizers), but typically in such wars there were quite a number of military targets and in most scenarios there was an attempt by colonizers to be in the midst of an running the colonized areas. There were plenty of military, government, police, prison, storehouse, dock, and production targets. The typical number of colonial citizens was fairly low.
When there were opposing local forces, typically goon squads which wouldn’t have existed without U.S.- or European or South African support, many more civilians would die in village by village fighting. There certainly were typically occasional massacres of civilians (i.e., the FLN in Algeria), but most of the time these weren’t the main warfighting strategy. At least from what I’m aware, given the imperfections of memory.
Not that the Palestinian guerrilla movements didn’t target primarily military and infrastructure for many years after the 1960s, but what became mostly known by Western societies were hijackings of airplanes. Not many Westerners knew about earlier Israeli hijackings nor the CIA’s sponsorship of hijackings of Cuban airliners, but they all knew of the Palestinian hijackings. And then the waves of assassinations, massacres (Munich).
But then, the PLO recognized by the international community or not, there were dozens of armed groups, many who were Pan-Arabist in devotion, and had lunatic goals of using their tiny and vehement forces to ‘destroy Israel,’ etc., but they generally seemed all of the same phenomenon to Western outsiders, so, there you go.
A lot of people don’t think the armed struggle paid off too much in this case, whether because any armed struggle couldn’t have, or because there wasn’t any coherent leadership among all factions, or because it rapidly became mixed with factions targeting military and infrastructure goals and others doing all the hijacking and kidnapping and massacring and civilian bombing and then suicide bombing that became the most visible acts.
maus
@RP:
I get the feeling that the tone’s going to change fairly soon, and we’ll see those pre-emptive snarks trickle away.
eemom
@RP:
yeah. That. Exactly that.
What’s amazing is that the jokers and snarkers to whom you refer seem no more capable than “Dave” is of comprehending how obnoxious and unproductive their attitude is.
I do NOT believe this attitude is motivated by anti-Semitism, at least with respect to most of the people (with a few exceptions) who post on this blog. But I’m really at a loss to explain it.
maus
@eemom:
Aggravation, primarily at the media dropping even the most basic pretense of “perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between these two positions” and only cycling through discussions of the various Israel-friendly press releases, the Israel-friendly lobbying groups, and Israel-friendly politicians. Things here were a lot more calm before the shit-stirring and name-calling began, as far as I can remember.
Debbie(aussie)
this may be of interest (sorry if already quoted)http://original.antiwar.com/avnery/2010/06/13/who-is-afraid-of-a-real-inquiry/
El Cid
Bill Maher is never more of a loudmouthed, ignorant schmuck than when he starts brow-beating his guests, including Queen Noor, about the Israel-Palestinian situations and doesn’t listen to or let them answer. “They fired 10,000 rockets!” and “Why didn’t Jordan take them in!”, and other things repeatedly.
liberal
@RP:
Hmm…do you think it might have something to do with the reality of people in the US critical of Israel constantly being called anti-Semitic?
liberal
@eemom:
Not surprising, given you make idiotic arguments such as “well, you benefited from the past North American genocide, so who the hell are you to criticize Israel’s current land grab?” (paraphrase).
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I have always defended folks critical of Israel on these threads in the past when labeled anti semitic, even though I disagreed with them on some things. But they have become tedious and fraught with wanking and similar history revisionism as the wingnuts on the other side blindly defending everything Israel does. And after reading the comments on them, I increasingly leave with a creepy feeling of deeper hatreds than just for the state of Israel and it’s doings, and ours in supporting them. Don’t know if it’s anti semitic or not, but it is why I avoid commenting as much as possible when the topic shows up.
eemom
@liberal:
I don’t think that’s an idiotic argument at all — nor is it made so by the fact that you have no response to it other than to insult me.
No past wrong justifies any present wrong. There are, however, past wrongs that a person of real insight and conscience would take to heart, and gain some humility from, before indulging in facile self-righteous condemnations of others based on an at best minimal understanding of the complex history involved.
You, obviously, wouldn’t be that person.
maus
@eemom:
Uh, it’s because of past wrongs that we need to be vigilant against current wrongs.
That we give the Catholic Church a “free pass” for past evil does not mean that we should go light on Scientology for forcing abortions on the women in their “Sea Org” paramilitary organization.
El Cid
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: I haven’t done any of these things.
El Cid
@maus: Well, to be fair, they do sign a billion year contract, so, one or two forced abortions in that time frame is practically unnoticeable.
LD50
@eemom:
Of course you don’t. The argument that “Americans can never criticise Israel since America did bad things too” is just an offshoot of the argument “as long as there are countries with a worse human rights record than Israel, you can never criticize Israel”. Funny thing, the punchline is, no one can ever criticize Israel, because *you* say so.
No, nothing idiotic about that at all. Just full of insight, conscience, and humility.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@El Cid: No you haven’t El Cid. I often disagree with you, though largely agree as well. I think you are intellectually honest, as honest as any of us humans can be debating here. So I was not talking about you in the least.:)
El Cid
@LD50: In addition, we’re not currently cheerleading and propagandizing for a policy of throwing Indians off their land, so it is a bit different.
If, for example, aid activists from Ghana were trying to land in some magical inland port carrying food and cement and wheelchairs for Cherokee reservations and we were cheering when the U.S. Navy shot at the boat and then dropped on and shot 9 Ghanaian activists in the head and back several times, it might be comparable.
wilfred
Face, meet piss:
And:
http://israelpalestineblogs.com/
eemom
@LD50:
Funny thing is, that’s not what I said at all.
eemom
@El Cid:
Look, *I* have never cheered or propagandized in favor of the actions of Israel that people have condemned. In the style of our host, I challenge anyone to find any comment of mine where I did that.
What I have objected to, repeatedly, is the smug, simplistic, hate-perpetuating attitude of some of the condemnors.
El Cid
@eemom: You haven’t. But there certainly are people who think that it’s a defense — or at least, deflection — of Israeli policymakers’ longstanding militarism by noting the original sin of United States domestic history.
When this is done, as it has been done on many blogs I’ve read, the purpose is to divert the notion from the situation now, by drawing upon a need by many listeners to believe these are all just ancient conflicts, based on long ago events, and it’s therefore all just a bunch of ignorable pointless feuding.
eemom
@El Cid:
That is the problem — but imo it’s not limited to the pro Israel side. I think that the mindless bleating of knee-jerk sound bites on BOTH sides of the argument is what makes it impossible to have a reasonable discussion of these issues.
And if it’s like that among us, who aren’t Israelis or Gazans, and aren’t going to be blown up by rockets or suicide bombers, OR confined in deplorable conditions — who are outraged at a safe distance — what must it be like for the people who actually live these things? How is anyone ever going to persuade them to listen to each other?
El Cid
@eemom: You know, I really don’t feel like I get this as much from prominent Palestinian intellectuals. You do get it from every thug about to shoot or rocket or suicide bomb a civilian area.
Jrod
You want to know why we snark? There are many reasons.
Why snark about being called an anit-semite? Because it happens every fucking time you suggest that Israel isn’t the most precious and perfect nation ever created, who can by definition never ever ever do anything wrong. What, you didn’t notice? You notice the preemptive snark, but you fail to notice the accusations of anti-semitism that fly every time anyone criticizes Israel in the slightest? Maybe you’re just not very observant of things you don’t want to see.
Why the vitriol? Here’s a better question: why is it that people who were with me in refusing to make excuses for atrocities committed by the USA, i.e. our own fucking country, can always find some facile justification for everything Israel does? It’s a lot of the same people who condemned their own country for its reaction to 9/11 who are just fine with using rocket attacks from two god damned years ago as a justification for starving the Gazans. Why the hell does Israel get more slack than your own country?
Why so simplistic? Because some issues are fucking simple. No, this isn’t a simple issue on the whole, because both Israelis and Palestinians want, and deserve, the same land. However, brutally starving out a population, for any reason, is wrong. PERIOD. Apartheid is wrong. PERIOD. Collective punishment is wrong. MOTHERFUCKING EXCLAMATION POINT. If believing these things makes me simple-minded, than so be it. If saying so makes me a hate-perpetuator, than so be it. If saying that makes me an anti-semite, than so be it.
And frankly, it’s more than a little offensive that, after Israeli commandos brutally murdered people in international waters for the crime of wanting to bring god damned food and building materials to people who don’t have enough of either, I’m called a simple-minded bigot for wanting to talk about that, rather than how bad the Gazans are for electing Hamas and how terrible Turkey is for… uh… well they must be bad because if they weren’t, Israel wouldn’t have murdered its people, ipso facto presto.
Here’s the bottom line. For my entire life, anyone in this country with anything at all negative to say about Israel has been called an anti-semite. It happened, whether you believe it or not. Some of us are pushing back against that bullshit. If you don’t like it, go fuck yourself. “…Persuade them to listen to each other”? I don’t care anymore. As far as I’m concerned, reflexive Israel defenders are no better than those who reflexively defend the US, and I have no respect for either.
Jrod
Then so it. /sigh
liberal
@eemom:
That’s because you’re an idiot.
Yes, I have, you blithering moron. I pointed out in another thread that your argument is subject to a reductio ad absurdum: since essentially all humanity is living on land that their ancestors stole at some point from some other group, then by your logic no one anywhere can criticize anyone for grabbing land.
liberal
@eemom:
You said something very similar.
liberal
@eemom:
There’s your mindless, idiotic bias showing. “Israelis are blown up; Palestinians are confined…” Uh, you omit that Palestinians are blown up in far greater numbers than Israelis are.
El Cid
@Jrod: You hate Israel, you hate America, and you want to marry Osama bin Laden and Hamas in a weird polyandrous marriage. Disgusting.
RP
@liberal:
Thank you for proving my point so effectively. Stupid trolls like you make it impossible to have an intelligent conversation about this topic.
liberal
@eemom:
More idiotic blithering nonsense.
“Israel should not have settlements in the West Bank, because it involves a form of ethnic cleansing”—that’s some kind of facile, self-righteous condemnation that minimizes some complex history?
I stand by my claim that you’re an idiot.
liberal
@RP:
Up your ass. If you want to attempt to answer the reductio ad absurdum, go right ahead. You’re the one that’s making ad hominem claims. I’m making substantive arguments that eemon’s apologia is essentially vacuous.
liberal
@RP:
I forgot…you’re the asshole who said this: