From an op-ed in today’s Washington Post, the writer takes a second look at a controversial thesis:
Jimmy Carter raised hackles by titling his book about the Palestinian question “Peace Not Apartheid.” But Palestinians allege this is worse than the former South African racial separation. Nearing the 40th anniversary of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, the territory has been so fragmented that a genuine Palestinian state and a “two-state solution” seem increasingly difficult.
The security wall has led to virtual elimination of suicide bombings and short-term peace. But life is hard for Palestinians, whose deaths because of conflict increased 272 percent in 2006 while Israeli casualties declined.
[…] Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey was at the university the same day I was, and faculty members could hardly believe a real live member of Congress was there. Smith later was given a tour of Jerusalem to see with his own eyes that the separation barrier in most places is a big, ugly and intimidating wall, not merely a fence.Smith, an active Catholic layman, was drawn here because of the rapid emigration of the Holy Land’s Christian minority. They leave more quickly than Muslims because contacts on the outside make them more mobile. Peter Corlano, a Catholic member of the Bethlehem University faculty, told Smith and me: “We live the same life as Muslims. We are Palestinians.”
Concerned by the disappearance of Christians in the land of Christianity’s birthplace, Smith could also become (as I did) concerned by the plight of all Palestinians. If so, he will find precious little company in Congress.
Take a moment to read the whole thing, which definitely does not come from somebody with an axe to grind about the Palestinian plight. Make a point to skip the byline and read the article without seeing who wrote it. Then read the byline. Huh.
As for my feelings, I think that Israel’s security is inextricably linked to the quality of life in Palestine. I took it as a positive sign when Israel recognized that endless occupation of the Palestinian territories was a non-starter, but this wall just worsens Israel’s isolation and further pushes her immediate neighbors towards extremism. I don’t think that the Palestinians have any more crazy extremists than any other group of people (call it my Conservation of Craziness rule, or Tim F’s Third Law), which means that if people don’t feel like supporting the crazies anymore then the crazies will go back to being a noisy minority.
The author describes a pervasive feeling of hopelessness in Palestine and makes a compelling case that much of the violence stems from that rather than some innate evilness. I don’t have any specific solutions for that. Despite an unserious negotiating partner Yitzhak Rabin seemed to be moving in the right direction. Ariel Sharon shocked me with a series of surprisingly sensible policies, beginning with pulling many settlements and revisiting Israel’s support for the rest. Arafat died. Whatever the solution, bricking over the problem with a wall that arbitrarily separates Palestinian communities and removes them from the commercial life of the region seems like an enormous mistake.
jeff
Question that will probably raise a lot of hackles. How many of those Palestinian deaths are now due to the infighting between Fatah and Hamas. The Gaza is now completely run by the Palestinians and is a warzone. Also, there is a lot of evidence that Christian Palestinians are facing more persecution by the Muslim Palestinians now than in the past, especially with Hamas winning the elections.
Tim F.
I don’t really see why that should be. The problems that you describe all sound like consequences of having crazy people in charge. Crazy leaders gain power because of a general sense of hopelessness. All of which I addressed above.
Randy Paul
The byline doesn’t surprise me in the least (and btw, it’s very hard to miss when you click over). One of the few areas where Novak is a bit heterodox compared to the rest of the red-meat conservatives is with regard to Israel.
Darrell
Wow, just wow. Seen this? I mean, Palestinians are no more prone to dance in the streets after 9/11 or blow up pizza parlors and buses full of innocents than any other group of people, huh? And to think that you thought so highly of that idiocy that you even gave it a name – “Tim’s third law”.
Palestinian culture, like Taliban culture, is depraved in many, many ways. From cultural oppression of women, to blaming others for their self inflicted failures, to their celebration of violence against innocent victims. I’ve read various surveys that more than 70% of all Palestinians support suicide bombings.
Incredible that your “thought” process cannot comprehend these basic realities.
jeff
While you may not think it should raise hackles, the idea that all of the increase in violence as well as the exodus of Palestinian Christians is mainly the fault of the Palestinians alone and that the wall actually does what the Israelis said it would do usually gets some folks up in arms (rhetorically, of course).
The wall is seen as only an evil in some quarters without regard for the reality that it does what the Israelis said it would do. Are there implementation problems, of course. Israel’s supreme court has even overruled the government on the placement of some sections because of it.
However, the gist I got from the article is that the flight of Palestinian Christians (the only ones right-wingers like Novak, “The Douche Bag of Liberty, seem to care about) is Israel’s fault. I’d argue there are a lot of other contributing factors that were not raised.
stickler
Wow. Just wow. Anyone who blames only the Palestinians for the trouble in that area is insane or sociopathic.
For one thing, not only is the wall a PR disaster for Israel, it also runs deep into Palestinian territory. When Palestinians (be they Christian, Muslim, or agnostic) say the wall is turning the West Bank into a big outdoor prison, they’re not kidding.
See the map here.
For a much more detailed (PDF) version of the map, take a look at this. Look around the northwest corner, just up from Jerusalem, for the town of Qualqilya. It’s almost completely surrounded.
jeff
When was the last time the Israelis really cared about a PR disaster. They care about one thing, survival. Israelis consider the wall a success and do not give a rat’s ass what other people think.
I do not argue that the wall is terrible and has been implemented badly in areas. Getting rid of many of the outpost like settlements in the West Bank would have made the wall’s lines much more reasonable and there was definitely some, “let’s just usurp this area here,” in the wall design. However, you never addressed the main points in my argument and by calling me “insane or sociopathic,” proved my point about hackles.
1. Violence has increased because their is a Palestinian civil war.
2. Christians are leaving because they are scared of living under Hamas.
The article Tim cited was all about the poor Christian Palestinians and how they are being persecuted by the Israelis without any thought to what the Palestinians are doing to themselves.
Thomas
‘They care about one thing, survival.’
Please. Security and survival are not the same things. The idea that Israel is in some deep crisis where it’s surrounded by enemies who are on the verge of wiping it out is ridiculous. The Palestinians may hate the Israelis. They may succeed in murdering Israeli citizens. But they are not a threat to the state of Israel, nor are they a threat to Israel’s existence.
Rome Again
Agreed. Hi stickler, nice to see you back here again.
Wilfred
Gee, ya reckon? Any ideology able to induce statements that grudgingly accept the possibility (a compelling, not convincing case) that Palestinians are not innately evil is, well, ideology:
The peace-loving, well-meaning, honest, hard-working, White, English-speaking, White, Israelis are good, right, true, WHITE.
Palestinians are [removed] who live in a ghetto of their own making.
chill with the language. first and last warning. -ed.
chopper
‘taliban culture’ and palestinian culture are two different things, friend. incredible that your “thought” process cannot comprehend these basic realities.
Rome Again
American culture is depraved in many ways too, so what’s new?
Andrew
Novak is an old-school Jew hating conservative. He’s still a little confused about this new fangled Christianist pro-Israel stuff.
demimondian
I happen to be a fan of the wall, although not of the particular path it follows.
Remember some history: back in 1998, the Palestinian Authority chose not to interfere with the progress of suicide bombers into Israel. The Israeli left, quite reasonably, responded by saying “OK, we’ll make it harder ourselves,” and proposed building a wall. That wall’s construction was a peaceful and effective way to protect the people of Israel from repeated mass murder.
The Israelis did not create the current civil war. They chose, instead, to remove their soldiers from its midst, leaving it to rage unabated. (And it was no surprise — Fatah is justifiably despised, and Hamas is unwilling to take the steps necessary to negotiate.) Before you criticize the Israelis for allowing that to happen, though, ask yourself one question: what will happen in Iraq when we pull back to Kurdistan and help the Kurds secure their own borders? Is the war of all on all which will ensue any different?
empty
If you are interested in the Palestinian Christian viewpoint the NPR show “On Point” devoted an entire segment to the plight of Christians in the Middle East. You can find it here:”
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/04/20070405_b_main.asp
In the middle there, there is a lady who seems to be Jeff’s soulmate who puts forward an interesting critique of the Middle Eastern Christians.
Darrell
Hello dumbass! Novak is a jew. Kinda sucks that the facts get in the way of your simpleton caricatures, huh?
Darrell
So American culture is equivalent to a culture that celebrates the killing of innocents as long as they’re jews or “infidels”.
Do you see now what lowlife filth you truly are Rome?
Darrell
Note the correlation on this thread between abject ignorance and strong support of the Palestinian cause. “Wilfred” is so ignorant to believe that Israelis are ‘White’. Many (most?) Israelis are semitic people, indistinguishable from arabs. Quite a number of others are black Africans. Nonwhite, no?
So sorry to let facts get in the way of your ignorant “black and white” characterization of the situation. I’m sure in your own eyes you consider yourself to be ever so enlightened, making profound truth-to-power statements against Israeli ‘racist’ oppression.. when in reality, you’re nothing but a stupidass halfwit that doesn’t know the first thing about what he’s talking about.
Hyperion
you mean ethnically?
he converted to catholicism.
Dave Ruddell
Er, no, he’s actually Catholic. Converted back in 1998 (if Wikipedia is to be believed). Of course, he was raised Jewish, although I have no idea how serious he was in his beliefs.
Darrell
He was born Jewish. Born to a jewish family, but yes, he later converted to catholicism. Doesn’t absolve Andrew’s ignorance (“he is conservative so therefore must not be a jew”), but he did convert from Judaism to Catholicism
Randy Paul
Hello dumbass! Novak is a jew.
I saw an interview with him in which he acknowldged his conversion to Catholicism.
Professor Chaos
“Hopelessness” is now the cause of depravity. Never mind the billions of other human beings on this little planet who have it as bad if not even worse than the poor poor Palestinians. Because, ya know, they are the only people on this planet that have been screwed, that have had bad things happen to them or that have suffered or been oppressed. Maybe they’d like to switch places with the people of Darfur, Chechnya, or some other hellhole on this planet that receives far less publicity and far less Western support and sympathy. Perhaps the hundreds of millions of Chinese stuck in appalling poverty all at the mercy of a ruthless totalitarian regime. How ’bout any number of sub-Saharan countries where poverty and “hopelessness” is rampant, not too mention devastating health problems such as HIV and AIDS. Yet, for some odd reason, not many of these other “hopeless” people choose the righteous path of the Palestinians. But anyway, all of their depravity and stupidity can be excused or blamed on the evil Israelis. It seems the Israelis have nothing better to do with their existence than to torment, abuse and take advantage of the noble and righteous Palestinian people. Sorry, but whatever sympathy I had (and it was quite considerable having grown up with many Arabs) for this pathetic people died around the time they gleefully started sending suicide bombers into Israel, blowing up women and children and glorifying their mass murderers, oops, sorry, “freedom fighters”, “insurgents” etc.
At some point, people have to take responsibility for their own actions instead of blaming everybody else all the fucking time. And that’s pretty much all the Palestinians do. Actually, that’s pretty much the modern Arab mindset. There is little if any sort of introspection or self-criticism. Those that entertain such “blasphemous” ideas are quickly mowed down in typical contemporary Arab fashion ie murder. Which is why the choice is between the odious Fatah and the equally loathsome Hamas, both advocating the destruction of the state of Israel, one more overtly and, paradoxically, honestly than the other. Some fucking choice. They are, for the most part, the authors of their own misery. A person has really 2 choices in life: go forward or keep looking back. The Palestinians are stuck in their self-pitying, self-delusional, woe is me, look how bad life has treated me, it’s not my fault I’ve become insane, I have no choice, blah, blah, blah – vicious cycle. Well yeah, you do. It’s a tougher road to be sure and you’ll have to give up many of your dreams. But you have a consistent 70-80% of Israelis willing to grant you most of what you desire (a la Clinton’s peace plan) so long as they are guaranteed peace and their nation is recognized and accepted as is. That means that the idea of having ALL of Israel is DEAD and BURIED. Mourn it and move on. Which means none of this “right of return” bullshit and none of the “temporary” peace or hudna crap either that they and their idiot Arab propagandists keep on insisting on. It also means that you don’t get to consistently demonise Jews anymore either. There are consequences to losing wars, especially ones you began; you don’t get to dictate terms. Ask the Germans. And the Arabs, for all their bullshit about “Arab brotherhood” and “solidarity” can give a rat’s ass about the welfare of the Palestinians so long as they have their club to rhetorically beat the shit out of Israel, the US and the West in general. Who else will they have to blame for the complete and utter political, economic, social and cultural failures that are their societies. Themselves? Heaven forbid!
The Palestinians are blessed that their opponents are Israelis, and Israelis shaped very much by the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust. Israelis who actually, on the whole, still care about what happens to people dedicated to their destruction. If their opponents had been Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Turks or more deliciously other Arabs, there would not be a “Palestinian” problem today. In fact, if Israel never existed, we’d probably have a Greater Syria, Greater Jordan, Greater Lebanon, Greater Egypt “problem”. Actually, scratch Lebanon, as Syria already considers it hers. Lebanon like “Palestine” belongs to Greater Syria after all.
Oh and as for the Christians. What.a.fucking.joke.again! The entire Muslim Middle East has become progressively more inhospitable to Christians overall, never mind Jews who barely exist outside of Israel, who incidentally predate Muslims by centuries in many modern ME countries. Must be all that Islamic tolerance. How do you explain the mass exodus of Christians from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Turkey etc? In the 1920s, there were over 200 000 Greeks in Istambul. Today, there are less than 4000. A close to 2500-3000 year Hellenic (about 1900 years for Christians) presence in the city will soon be coming to an end. Must be Israel’s fault. This has been happening for decades, especially as these societies have become increasingly more Islamicized. Ask my brother-in-law, whose family had to flee Egypt about 20 years ago or any number of his friends or relatives. Ask any number of Lebanese Christians here in Montreal. Is that the fault of Israel too? It must be damn it, somehow. In fact, the only place in the Middle East where Christian populations have not shrunk and have even slightly increased is yes, you guessed it, big bad evil Israel. Novack and Carter are both pathetic jokes, especially when it comes to the subject of Israel.
Yes, that worked spectacularly well during Oslo. Israel’s security is inextricably linked to whether or not the Palestinians and Arabs in general can ever come to terms with the existence of the state of Israel thus abandoning their all or nothing attitudes. Sorry but I don’t see that happening for a very long time. The rest is wishful thinking, sorta like hoping the removal of Saddam and subsequent elections would produce in just a few years, a fully functioning liberal democratic country capable of positively influencing the course of the entire ME. In retrospect, sheer fantasy, one that I naively bought. There was not the concrete evidence within the population to suggest that course of action was feasible, but we ignored that. Similarly, almost all the evidence in Palestine points to an inability and/or unwillingness, as of yet, to come to terms with the existence of the state of Israel. Anything else is people seeing what they want to see. Maybe the Palestinians need to waste yet another generation.
Randy Paul
Here’s a little more:
Darrell: Not to be too snarky, but I found this after two minutes of googling.
Darrell
Randy, are you so stupid as to have missed the point entirely? Andrew bluntly suggested that any conservative, pointing to Novak as an example, cannot be a jew. I called the ignorance for what it was. You are defending his ignorance on a minor ‘technicality’ because you yourself are an extreme leftist. Hey, it’s who you are.
Pb
Let’s see if I can turn this discussion into a closed loop:
Nope.
Rome Again
Classic Darrell, I’m antiwar, and you call me lowlife filth? Fuck off derelict. I’m not the one who supports war, YOU do.
demimondian
That’s a typical Darrell-esque slander. What Andrew actually said is
He accuses American Conservatism of being riddled with anti-Semites.
Seeing as how that statement is unquestionably true, I can see what your problem with it is — you don’t like truth.
The Sanity Inspector
The Palestinians hands’ have been wet, purple, and smoking with innocent Jewish and American blood for decades, long before 9/11, or even the establishment of Israel. I’ve got no sympathy for them. Lefties hate Israel nowadays mostly as a way of hating America by extension, Israel being America’s best ally in the region. So the Palestinians have to do proggy duty as avatars of the Poor & Oppressed©. It’s too gruesome a farce to endure–Lipstick ain’t never gonna look good on that pig.
Palestinians want to exterminate Israel.
Israelis want to survive.
Western proggs want to “find middle ground.”
It isn’t there.
Darrell
Silly me, I didn’t get your “point”. Which other groups besides Palestinians, Taliban and Al Queda celebrated 9/11 by dancing in the streets with their children? I have seen nothing in my lifetime which rivals the black hearted celebration of the massacre of innocents like I saw among Palestinians celebrating so openly in the streets after 9/11.
Darrell
Unsupported lying assertion.. typical of the left.
Yehudit
Glad to see some people take issue with the propaganda Novak uncritically swallowed. More.
Darrell
It’s not as benign as you suggest. On this very thread you can read leftist filth aggressively claim that Israel is engaged in “racist oppression” of Palestinians with zero acknowledgement, NONE, NADA, of the murderous aggression of Palestinian terrorists against Israelis
Part of it is extreme ignorance, which is why we hear Israelis being described as “white”, but much of it is leftist hatred of jews.
Zifnab
Dear BJ readership,
Please stop feeding the trolls. They will become angry and fling poop at you.
Thank you,
The Staff
Seriously, though, the Isrealis had two options to end the Palestine problem. Either A) deal with the Palestinians and make peace or B) develop an absolute defense the Palestinians couldn’t bother them through. A) would have been preferable, but at this stage of the game I can hardly blame them for resorting to B) just because you can only be bombed for so long before you lose your tolerance for it.
Of course, this doesn’t really solve the problem. So long as the Isreali people can go back to pretending like Palestinians don’t exist, the Isreali government can continue to treat the Palestinians like shit. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few Mossad agents don’t have full time jobs making pranks calls between Fatwah and Hamas just to keep the blood at a low boil.
If the Palestinians were united and strong, they’d be building their own 50ft wall six inches off the Isreali one, setting up their own checkpoints, running around with their own bulldozers, and generally giving Isreal a taste of its own medicine.
Unfortunately, the Middle East remains a comedy of errors. No sooner does the radical Islamicist lose his favorite Jew targets, then he resorts to taking pot shots at his fellow Pallies.
This shit just needs to sort itself out. Palestinians need a MLK or a JFK or… anybody but another Arafat to lead their people out of this mental bondage. They need to get nationalized in a way that matters and get attention in the way that works.
Until then this is just… stupid. All around stupid.
clb72
Most discussions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict usually devolve into another round of who’s more to blame.
News flash: no one has clean hands.
Better question is whether there’s any way out of it. As long as everyone keeps arguing about who’s more wrong, probably not.
demimondian
That’s pretty rich. Here you’re spreading a lie, and you’re caught, so you change the subject. And, worse still, you have the gall to speak of “an unsupported lying assertion”.
All right, you slanderous pig. Here are some names: Father Coughlin. Joseph McCarthy. The John Birth Society. The Aryan Nations. There’s your support.
Darrell
True, but that doesn’t mean that the discussion of whose hands are “most dirty” aren’t instructive. Such discussions are extremely instructive, and necessary in my opinion. When was the last time a jewish suicide bomber blew up a Palestinian pizza parlor? Oh my, can someone ask that question in public?
Darrell
Ok then demi, I’ll make it easy for you. What “lie” was I “caught” spreading?
ThymeZone
That is essentially the basis for the religious right wing of the Republican party, is it not?
Otherwise, can somebody explain to me what their point is?
There’s a reason why we call them the American Taliban:
They are.
Rome Again
Sure, the world will only become a better place once we make all the guilty pay for their share. I got news for you Darrell, peace isn’t made that way, it’s by laying down arms and understanding that we are ALL human.
The only lowlife filth I see here is YOU.
demimondian
Seems to me that is pretty definitive, loser.
Darrell, I like pie.
Darrell
Typical leftist filth. Equate the religious right with those who have massacred in cold blood thousands of innocent Americans. It’s a rhetorical grab, for sure. But it takes moral filth to do it.
Darrell
You win the “classiest” post demi. Typical leftist filth. Just revealing who you really are. Read and learn.
Darrell
Yeah, the Tibetans tried that, laying down their arms to make way for peace.. how’d that work out?
Rome Again
You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. The Religious Right IS trying to massacre people, it’s called WAR, you support it, and you separate yourself from those you hate war by calling them FILTH. You’re the filth Darrell, YOU are.
demimondian
Darrell, I like pier.
Rome Again
I’ll tell you what, there is no other way… if you don’t want to lay down arms and try it, you’ll always be stuck with war. It’s a chance you take. There is no guarantee it will work, but it won’t happen if you don’t try.
You support war, you support killing, you support hatred… not me, and not TZ, and not any of
Rome Again
any of the others who are arguing here.
ThymeZone
Typical righty stupidity. Of course its to be equated, do you really think that narrow-minded, bigoted demonization based on religious bullshit is OKAY when American Republicans do it, and only BAD when ragheads do it?
Fundamentalist, intolerant activism is the same everywhere, sold by snake oil salesmen to ignorant fools like you.
Good for you, dumbshit. That’s why the Democratic party is looking at an opportunity for a 40-year run at Capitol Hill. People have seen the result of sucking the cocks of those crazy fucks in your party and they are not amused.
Your lameass denials here are pissing in the wind, Darrell.
Party over. Nobody’s drinking the Kool Aid any more.
Darrell
I’ll think about it after your mom finishes choking down my load. She’s coughing now demi, come help her!
empty
If you are interested in the Palestinian Christian viewpoint the NPR show “On Point” devoted an entire segment to the plight of Christians in the Middle East. You can find it here:”
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/04/20070405_b_main.asp
In the middle of the program there is a lady who seems to be Jeff’s soulmate who puts forward an interesting critique of the Middle Eastern Christians.
Darrell
Ah yes, based on what freakazoid prediction which you treat as “fact”?
Rome Again
Yup, and Darrell is a regular customer. He never figures out he’s being ripped off… never!
Rome Again
Based on the fact that nobody believes the bullshit coming from you party anymore? Ummm, yeah, I think that’s why Nancy Pelosi is now speaker of the house.
Based on the fact that your wonderful C-in-C’s own legal counsel is now sweating bullets while he “practices” telling the truth? Yeah, the news is not good for your side Darrell, get used to it. It won’t be for quite a while, because people will not soon forget these last few seven years.
ThymeZone
Watch and learn, you relentlessly stupid fuck.
$100 right now, 250 House seats and 58 Senate seats in 2008.
Plus $100 for every Senate seat over 60.
Put up or shut up.
demimondian
Not just incest, but necrophilia? Wow. You are a more depraved loser than I thought.
It shouldn’t surprise me, I guess. Just another dead-ender.
Andrew
Points of order:
So was Hitler. It is well known that Novak has basically disowned his Jewish roots.
No, I said that he is of the type of old school conservatism that hates Jews. He will never be a blue blood, but he has been their hatchet man his entire adult life.
I am willing to admit that not all conservatives are Jew haters. But I think many are. See: Duke, Davis, Buchanan, Pat, Nativists. (Here’s a little tidbit to make Darrell wet: There are many Jew hating leftists as well.)
So, here we are, Darrell a bit confused about some basic semantics and me typing merrily away, thanks to more than a few bottles of Dos Equis. Well, Darrell, there really weren’t any Jews swinging in the old conservative crowd. See: Nixon, Richard.
The Jewish leftists who hated commies/Arabs had to come up with a new club of their own to play in. One night at band camp, Irv Kristol and Norm Podhoretz, snookered on too many bottles of Manischewitz and full of young lust for expanded Israeli territory, decided to have a bit of fun and pretend to be a new kind of conservative. Et voila, “neo-conservatives” in a manner of speaking.
Pb
You win the “classiest” post Darrell. Typical wingnut filth. Just revealing who you really are. Read and learn.
Chad N. Freude
That isn’t what he said. But if you choose to read that into Andrew’s statement, then it behooves you to point out that (1) many evangelical Christians are much in favor of the Jews returning to Israel because that is the triggering event for the Rapture, and (2) many, if not most, of the neocons are Jewish. This is a somewhat more persuasive argument that conservatives (or those who claim conservatism) are antisemitic.
Chad N. Freude
typing too fast for my own good (or my own logic). Go ahead, Darrell, tell everybody that my previous post was a LIE.
ThymeZone
Apparently, Darrell is done posting here, and wants to go out with a flourish.
Darrell
Except that it’s total bullshit that “old school conservatism” like Novak hates Jews, which makes it ever so rich that Novak was born into a 100% Jewish family
Darrell
Not angry, just making a point. demi, not me, introduced moms into the ‘debate’ in an insulting manner toward me. Having done that, he needs to face the predictable consequences of his choices.
Pb
What choice did we ever make that caused you to first post here–and how can we reverse it?
demimondian
But, Darrell, snookums, I *did* think twice. In fact, I thought many times. You see, I don’t use insults thoughtlessly, I use them thoughtfully. I use them with the full awareness of how vile they are.
Your real failing, Darrell, is that you *don’t*. You insult people without thinking about what your words mean, and so you think other people do, too. You’re wrong — other people mean it when they insult you.
Get into this kind of insult match with me again, and I’ll find other vile things to say about you. When you consider that, think about the fact that I found a weakness in your rhetorical armor on my first attempt. I didn’t even try hard. Do you *really* think that such an argument will be an experience you enjoy?
ThymeZone
BWAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA! It’s Darrell the Enforcer!
This has been today’s episode of “Never Post Drunk” brought to you by the Balloon-Juice Temperance League.
Rome Again
That’s why you’re posting at rapid speed? Right, tell me another one.
stickler
Oh, Mr. Zifnab, think outside the box here:
Only two solutions to the Palestinian problem? And both of them … how would you say … temporary solutions? There are, of course, more than two solutions. Come on, think like the American Taliban, or (ahem) the folks that some of them can’t seem to stop imitating. The ones with the funny brown shirts and snappy black boots …
Rome Again
Um… yes, yes we do.
Darrell
Let’s examine demi’s “thoughtful” insults
‘Nuff said
Chad N. Freude
Hey! The oral-sex-with-your-mother/incest/necrophilia/whatever other sexual imagery turns you on you sick bastard line of argument does not contribute anything to the discussion of a very real, very painful real-life situation where people are killing other people and other people’s children. Cut it out and get back on topic.
I had thought that extended
mudsemen-slinging in lieu of discussion was beneath this crowd (I certainly can’t call it a community), including Darrell. Was I wrong?Darrell
Fair enough. Back on topic
ThymeZone
Sure. And now, it’s time for Cognac and cigars!
I say, my good man, may I pour you a snifter?
Darrell
What’s so ironic is that demi has referred to himself in previous threads as a “money man”, someone who is a shrewd investor. Sorry to be so blunt, but he’s just a garden variety freak. Demi, if I have mischaracterized you, please explain your investing expertise.
Chad N. Freude
Just caught that. ThymeZone, can’t you do any better than quoting Ann Coulter?
Darrell
Ah yes, so “benign”. Sex with one’s mother could mean many things, right Rome? Please elaborate for us
ThymeZone
Not on what they’re paying me here, no.
Chad N. Freude
LGF is not responding (proving that there is indeed a benevolent God), but Darrell, citing LGF in support of anything does not support the proposition that the citer (don’t want to get personal here) has a functional thought process.
Andrew
I think someone has a Bob Novak fetish!!!
Rome Again
Darrell, if you can’t deal with your mother being talked about this way, perhaps you don’t belong on this type of a blog, you need to have a thick skin here dude. I would have thought you figured this out by now.
DougJ
I wasn’t that surprised to see Novak write this. I started reading his columns about six months ago and they’re very good. He seems to have a moral compass I know, I know, he outed a CIA agent…still, he’s worth reading.
Chad N. Freude
What type of blog is this? Seventh grade insults? Ah, it takes me back to the days of whine and runny noses. Used to be a public square of semi-reasoned debate and witty insult. Tonight it seems to be a wrestling arena of reason-free screaming and vile invective.
incontrolados
For any interested, this is the aparthied reference made clear.
Andrew
I just didn’t realize it was future DougJ.
Chad N. Freude
What type of blog is it? It used to be a public square of semi-reasoned argumentation and snarky, satirical insult. Tonight it appears to be a kegger of screaming invective and really gross imagery. I vote for used-to-be.
Chad N. Freude
Apologies for the redundant posting, but John’s server has decided to play nasty little gotcha games with me. Probably has caught the spirit of the evening.
ThymeZone
Doug …. please. Fifteen years of watching the Capitol Gang lets me know for a fact …. Novak is totally self serving.
He’s a whore.
He has a “moral compass?”
Fuck, Charles Manson has a moral compass. Unfortunately, it’s pointed toward Hell.
Chad N. Freude
Yeah, it’s the result of all that theology from two incompatible religious traditions.
tBone
I think this thread has been quite illuminating, actually. I mean, who would have guessed that Darrell’s mother was a Boy Scout troop leader? It explains so much.
demimondian
That’s mud wrestling to you, Chad.
Seriously, what is there to add to Novak’s column? Palestinians are suffering terribly. The Israelis built a wall which took land away without justification. Palestinian forces launched suicide bombs against civilian targets in order to spread terror. They got their terror. Israel responded by building a tool with which to starve the Palestinians into submissions. They got their starvation, but not their submission.
There’s plenty of shame to go around. Nobody is innocent any more — it’s been going on so long that a lot of the second generation fighters on both sides have no direct memory of the first causes, and so they’re acting out of a personal knowledge that bad things were done to “them” in the past. In this, they are all correct on both sides.
What’s to be done? I can’t think of anything.
ThymeZone
Every night around midnight, just like clockwork.
Gotta just grin and bear it.
Andrew
It always points to hell.
Doug’s magic 8 ball, on the other hand, points to snark.
Give me five minutes, and then say something particularly funny. I will be drinking milk, and ready to sneeze.
Chad N. Freude
Thanks. That was a good post. I feel pretty much the same. Both sides have legitimate grievances, both sides respond badly, everybody suffers and the cycle of mutual retribution goes on endlessly.
PaulB
My goodness, but Darrell is certainly obsessed with “filth,” isn’t he? One can’t help but wonder why….
DougJ
I really do think Novak has some kind of a moral compass. He is also a self-serving whore.
I probably should have prefaced this by explaining how low I set the bar for Washington pundits. I think that 100% of Krauthammer’s and David Brooks’s (not to even go into Jonah Goldber and Bill Kristol) columns are essentially propaganda. At least a quarter of Novak’s columns are truthful and fact-based. And he does criticize Republicans. That makes him a “good guy” among Washington pundits.
Ted
Are you on cocaine or something, Darrell? Seriously, please stop being so obsessive.
DougJ
I guess this is a little one of my pet peeves — that people waste time trashing columnists like Novak and George Will. Those guys are supposed to be conservative hacks and if they make even the slightest attempt to be truthful or fair, they should be applauded. The problem with punditry is Dowd, Richard Cohen, et al. who not only trash Democrats more than Will and Novak (despite supposedly being liberal) but also write crappier, less reality-based columns.
In a better world, there would be no conservative pundits. In a perfect world, there would be no pundits of any kind. But if we’re going to be stuck with conservative pundits, better Robert Novak than David Brooks or Jonah Goldberg.
zeezee
I’d like for all those who claim that the Wall has diminished suicide bombing to go read Western News Media and the Manufacturing of Conventional Wisdom
In Israel its well-known, most especially by the security services, that the drop in suicide bombings is most assuredly NOT the result of the Wall.
An excerpt from the link above:
In November 2004, Ha’aretz reported that the police were making 2,400 arrests every week of Palestinians working illegally in Israel, and estimated that between 15,000 and 30,000 permit-less West Bank workers were in the country at any one time. In July 2005, Israel’s Workers’ Advice Centre interviewed undocumented Palestinians openly looking for work at the Geha Junction near Tel Aviv, including one who had just re-entered Israel despite being recently incarcerated with up to 2,000 other Palestinians arrested for working without permits in Israel. In June 2006, Border Police commander Hasin Fares told the Associated Press that Israel apprehends about 4,000 undocumented Palestinian workers every week “and the number is growing”. In the same report, Shlomo Dror – the Israeli Military Coordinator of Activities in the Occupied Territories – said that Israel issues only about 11,000 work permits to Palestinians, but “tens of thousands more enter Israel illegally, mostly from the West Bank”.
So, although it is impossible to give an exact figure, it is reasonable to suggest that during the last two years, while Israel has been enjoying a considerable respite from suicide bombings, the number of undocumented workers coming into the country illegally from the West Bank has been in the low tens of thousands.
You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? If suicide bombings are greatly reduced because suicide bombers can’t get past the wall, then how are tens of thousands of undocumented workers from the West Bank still getting in? I can understand that the wall is very effective at stopping certain kinds of activity: retired IDF General Shlomo Lahat inspected the wall and the checkpoints in the northern West Bank and noticed how effective they were at bringing Palestinian economic activity to a halt (after all, you can’t take a truck off-road to evade a checkpoint or slip it through a gap in the wall). And I am sure it is very effective at keeping farmers away from their farmland, so that Israel can declared it abandoned and seize it for settlement (after all, a farmer without a permit might slip through the wall or evade a checkpoint, but then has to work openly on the land, leaving him susceptible to arrest). But suicide bombers don’t face the same constraints as a truck driver or a farmer; their situation is much more like that of the undocumented worker, who needs to slip unnoticed into Israel and then quickly disappear. And undocumented workers continue to find ways to do just that (BBC News followed one of them in a report – Finding holes in the West Bank Barrier – just two weeks ago). In fact, for all those months and years that Israelis have been enjoying reduced suicide bombings in Israel, undocumented Palestinian workers – and all sorts of other West Bank Palestinians who have no other way of maintaining the semblance of a normal life – have continued to enter Israel (or the parts of the Occupied Territories that find themselves on the western side of the wall) by finding ways to circumvent the wall. This is what Gideon Samet means when he says that the security fence, that enterprise that was so full of promises, is breached along its entire length. Out of necessity, West Bank Palestinians have been bypassing it where it is completed:
If you scroll down the page you will see numerous pictures of Palestinians breeching the Wall. If tens of thousands of undocumented Palestinian workers can do this day after day, suicide bombers can do this as well. So what does the Israel security service(Shin Bet) think is the main reason for the much smaller number of suicide bombings in the last few years?
According to Haaretz, the Israeli daily newpaper, in January of 2006:
The Shin Bet’s statistics on terror attacks confirm the public perception that terrorist activity in 2005 dropped considerably compared to the previous four and a half years. The main reason for the sharp decline is the truce in the territories, the security service said yesterday…
The security fence is no longer mentioned as the major factor in preventing suicide bombings, mainly because the terrorists have found ways to bypass it. The fence does make it harder for them, but the flawed inspection procedures at its checkpoints, the gaps and uncompleted sections enable suicide bombers to enter Israel.
Five suicide bombings took place this year – two in Netanya, one in Hadera, one in Tel Aviv and one, with no fatalities, in Be’er Sheva – compared to only two in 2004. The number of fatalities resulting from these attacks has risen a little, from 14 to 21.
But the main reason for the reduction in terrorist acts over the past year is the truce in the territories, as partial as it may be. The fact that Hamas, in general, stopped engaging in terror activities changed the picture. The Islamic Jihad network in the West Bank upgraded its capability and was responsible for the murder of 23 Israelis in 2005, but during that time, Hamas – the leading terror organization in recent years – has scaled back its engagement in terror. Its focus on the political arena and the preparations for the Palestinian parliamentary elections have limited its active involvement in terror to a large extent….
Ted
Maybe it’s meth…
Ted
Oh My GOD!! What will be the terrible consequences of insulting dear little Darrell?!
He’s a paid political whore. He doesn’t give a shit what anyone says about him.
PaulB
“
Or maybe it’s because he’s seen “American Pie” too often.
Jeff
Boy am I sad I had to leave early and miss all the titillating snd thought provoking conversation.
stickler
Look, Mr. ppAvtoGaz:
I’ve been sitting here, watching the Godforsaken DVD of The Sound of Music my daughter got for her birthday. And I’m waiting for the cognac and cigars. I say, my good man, where’s the cognac? Please?
When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling bad … I simply wait for my blog friends to bring me some booze … and then I don’t feel … sooooo bad.
John S.
Unfortunately, when gruppenfuhrer Darrell comes in and starts slinging around his right-wing fascist code-speak (filth, vermin, rebel scum!) the thread degenerates fairly quickly.
Nicholas Weaver
Since Israel refuses to allow enough contiguous territory or autonomy to actually create a viable two state solution, and it is probably impossible to do so (Gaza is such an irrelevantly small strip of land, and if the west bank was contiguously palestinian, Israel would die of thirst), I fear the only long term solution is the one which applied to South Africa: “One Man, One Vote”.
Of course, this would mean the destruction of the state of Israel in its current form, just as the end of Aparthied was the destruction of South Africa in its then-current form.
This is also probably why the title of Carter’s book gets such a viceral reaction: if you believe that the current situation is akin to Aparthied, and that the palestinian territories are effectively Bantustans, there is really only one viable, long term solution, which will effectively destroy the notion of Israel as a Jewish state.
rachel
So, not only is Darrell a blockhead, he’s also out of his mind. Why do you guys keep responding to him, again?
Andrew
That’s sort of silly, because Carter doesn’t even reach that conclusion.
chopper
is darrell’s daily temper tantrum over yet? has the waaaahmbulance taken him away and can we get back to the subject?
Andrew
Is that a special edition or something? Like a kind of evil director’s cut?
neil
I’ll never understand why people baiting Darrell don’t try to get him to call for the genocide he so clearly desires.
So, how about it, Darrell? Kill all the first-born Arab males? Rid the world of the Palestinian menace? What other choice do we have?
Face
OT:
Yeah, McCant just said this:
Uh huh. He’da walked thru the market unarmed, but The Crazy General insisted on a small brigade to protect him. This guy is just KILLING his cred, if he ever had any.
Time for Senator McCant to put up or shut up.
Zifnab
Novak’s moral compass points right to the bank. But on the days he’s not getting paid to say something, he occationally makes a salient, clear-headed point.
I’ve been asking that question since I started posting here. But poking bears with a stick is a blogger’s national pasttime. It’s the same reason I post on Riehl World View. Except over there I think I might be “the Darrell” over there. Sometimes its not enough to acknowledge stupidity. You must actively combat it, even if Darrell is the world’s biggest spoof, or John Cole’s repressed second psyche, or Karl Rove in a dress, or whomever.
chopper
the money bank.
Tim F.
People, I get paid to do something other than delete comments full of obviously over-the-line language. So when I have to do it, I get pissed off. When I get pissed off I start to think about banning people.
Whoever started it, whatever point there might be behind it doesn’t matter to me. It cannot be that hard to speak your mind without making the blog look like the Imus show.
To add, I have no idea what John is complaining about in the thread above this.
Rome Again
Thank you Tim for taking those posts out, they were really over the top. I apologize for being a part of it, but I thought that needed to be highlighted since no blog police were here at the time. Apologies.
Rome Again
What I meant to say was “highlighted for ridicule”, not simply just to be highlighted.
Rome Again
So you would rather we didn’t make a big deal of it and then it probably could have stood because it didn’t draw attention? Would you have “obviously” seen it if it hadn’t been stressed?
Hyperion
where did you get that idea?
Robert
I’m still marveling at
“The idea that Israel is in some deep crisis where it’s surrounded by enemies who are on the verge of wiping it out is ridiculous.”
The reason why they’re not ‘on the verge’ at the moment is because Israel is armed to the teeth and will stick at nothing to maintain territorial integrity. Israel only gets to lose once; the nations surrounding it get multiple tries.
Does _anyone_ still believe that the ultimate goal of Hamas/Fatah is _not_ the elimination of the State of Israel as a political and geographical entity?
Andrew
Dang, I was going to guess the Left bank.
I heard he had a thing for chain smoking French philosophers.
tBone
Maybe that was the idea, since a lot of the deleted comments didn’t contain any “obviously over-the-line language” aside from a quote from one particular poster.
Tim F.
If you think a comment is particularly bad, email me or John. That lets us deal with it (assuming we agree that it crosses the line) without forcing us to run around the thread deleting things.
Rome Again
Np tBone, he’d rather ban me for bringing it to the blog-police’s attention than ban the actual culprit. Yeah, next time someone gets beaten or raped in my neighborhood, I’ll remember to shut the door and ignore it, because otherwise, the backlash will be on me if I involve anyone in the situation.
Rome Again
Fine, I’ll do this. Something about BJ gods just made me feel like I wasn’t supposed to do that, sorry. Kind of like walking into the chamber of the Wizard of Oz unannounced.
Face
We wouldn’t want that, Tim, would we, you nappy headed ho…
mrmobi
From “Blogs for Brownback.” (he’s really got a chance at POTUS, don’t cha think?)
Fantastic humor aside, John, did you know your blog is a “leftist echo chamber?”
Gruppenfuhrer Darrell, fighter for truth, justice, and National Socialism.
Paul L., has a head. Who knew. No independent brain activity (kind of like Schiavo), but has a head. Top requirement for membership in the Party of Torture.
mrmobi
OT, but I thought this was interesting.
From “Blogs for Brownback.”
So, the question is:
Is American ready for a president who cannot tell the difference between an individual and a city or town?
I think so, vote Brownback. Strong. Conservative. Republican. Stupid.
This has been the first in a series of explanations of issues for the learning impaired.
Richard 23
You’re just jealous that Blogs for Brownback didn’t notice you, mrmobi!
Andrew
Brownback’s spoof candidacy is pretty awesome.
The Sanity Inspector
Maybe the Israelis can bring me a pony for my birthday, while they’re at it.
CalD
Wow. Novak must be conmtemplating a return to journalism.
chefrad
But, but,but how can we speak of “Gruppenfuhrer Darrell, fighter for truth, justice, and National Socialism” when he is also a tireless defender of Eretz Israel? Is the Stern Gang still in business? Is Darrell really Benny Begin?