Anti-Semitism is the oldest hate.
In the past, it was naked. Today, it often hides behind “causes.”
Historically, a hallmark of anti-Semitism was persecution, culminating in murder and the expulsion of Jews from much of Western Europe, including England, France, Germany, Portugal, and Spain.
There was nothing subtle about it.
Jew hatred is rooted in religion.
The followers of the first monotheistic religion, Jews, were subject to charges of disloyalty from nations that worshiped multiple gods. Christianity’s (and Judaism’s) one god triumphed over the many gods.
Later, significantly and tragically, the Catholic church charged Jews with deicide — killing God. (It took until 2011 for Pope Benedict to officially exonerate the Jews.)
More than anything else, deicide justified anything that good Christians did to Jews, including the Holocaust, the mass murder of some 6 million Jews (along with millions of others).
The Nazis killed one-third of world Jewry, and the Jewish population has not yet climbed back to the 16.6 million alive before World War II.
Notice that none of this connects in any way with Palestine, which provides the latest cover for anti-Semites.
Which is not to say all who are “pro Palestine” are anti-Semitic.
It is to say that some are.
When they chant “Death to Israel,” they are saying “Death to Jews.” That is indisputable.
When they chant “We are Hamas,” they are saying death to Jews, because that is Hamas’ purpose. You can see it in the second paragraph of its charter.
The current talking point is that Israel’s actions create anti-Semitism, even though Jew hatred has been around for millennia. It is true that anti-Semites seize on anything Israel does to fan the flames of hate.
Let me ask you this: On the distant day that Arab Palestine achieves independence (Jewish Palestine already has), will anti-Semitism end?
Of course not.
Will opposition to Israel end?
Of course not.
The oldest hate will not go away, but it can be driven underground, made shameful, by loud denunciations by Christians and Muslims of good will.
Like racism, I see no end to it. The best we can do is drive it to the fringes.
If only.
On October 7th, 2023, I saw the world through my Mother’s, grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s eyes as they were driven out by their neighbors and hauled off to concentration camps…it is here.
Stu – you’re starting to sound like Martin Luther King: “I have a dream…”
That’s a first for me. Does that mean I will win a Nobel prize, then get shot in the head? 🤔
This did not start with the Palestinians and their supporters, they are merely the tip of the iceberg.
It is Trump who enabled this type of hatred when he ran a campaign based on name calling and calls for violence. Which provoked others to do the same. Once elected, it was Trump who declared that there were “good people on both sides” at Charlottesville and told the Proud Boys to “stand by and stand back” instead of disavowing them. It was Trump who used an antisemitic trope while campaigning against Hillary Clinton and had White Supremacists at the White House for Dinner.
It is Fox News who in addition to enabling Trump spent months promoting Pizzagate. Pizzagate is nothing more than a modern retelling of the Jewish Blood Libel myth. It is also the Christian Nationalist Movement, consisting largely of Christian Evangelicals who want America to be a Christian Nation and will use anyone, no matter how morally repugnant they are, to achieve this.
The current protests were also enabled by university Presidents who despite of incidents of Jewish students being harassed and intimidated stood by and did nothing. If these protests had been about people of color there would have been an immediate crackdown and counterprotests would have turned violent.
They are facing repercussions for this. Jewish students are suing for failing to provide a safe environment, large donors are taking their money elsewhere, and the federal Education Department is investigating colleges and universities which will lead to hefty fines. All of this is going to cost the each university tens of millions of dollars in legal fees, fines, lawsuit payouts, and lost donations big and small.
BTW Congratulations and good luck!!
Referring to my marriage Friday? Thank you.
Mazel Tov!
Off Topic: Congratulations! Be Happy 🙂
HAPPY THURSDAY !!!
since we last spoke, I’ve had more work done on my body. Does this make more valuable ?
On a lighter note. You are going away for a really great reason. I hope that you two ( and the dog ) continue to have a fabulous life together together.
T
I basically stumbled into marriage almost 58 years ago. Have never regretted it. Good luck!
“When they chant ‘Death to Israel,’ they are saying “Death to Jews.”
One of the college protests was shut down because a Zionist Jew yelled, “Kill the Jews.” Many of the students and professors who you call “pro-HAMAS / anti-Semites” are Jews. The “Jewish Voice for Peace” is on the side of the Arabs. Jewish journalists like Glenn Greenwald, Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté cut through all the Zionist lies.
In UCLA, the violence was CLEARLY started by Zionist Jews and the cops allowed it to happen. Der Führer would be pleased.
Regarding: “the expulsion of Jews from much of Western Europe, including England, France, Germany, Portugal, and Spain,” the Ottoman navy rescued Jews (and Muslims) from Spain in 1492 so they could escape the Inquisition.
Palestinians are more “Semitic” than a bunch of Europeans, many with blonde-hair/blue eyes, who were 90% of the original settlers in the 1940s. According to Avi Shlaim, who is an Iraqi-Jew, historian and professor, Jewish militias would bomb Iraqi synagogues to instill fear in the local Jews and force them to emigrate. Then once in Israel, the Ashkenazim would spray them with DDT before allowing them entrance to The Holy Land.
“‘From the river to the sea’ is anti-Semitic!”
“The Likud Party’s founding charter reinforces this vision in its statement that ‘between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.'”
HAMAS has revised its charter saying they would accept a two-state solution.
Netanyahu was instrumental in HAMAS’s rise, supporting them with suitcases of cash. He wanted a replacement for the PLO who he thought didn’t project an ugly enough face to the Anglo-Saxons of the world.
You insist that being pro-ceasefire means the people (many of whom are Jews chanting pro-Palestinian slogans) are really just anti-Semitic and abusing the situation as a cover for their real, hidden, hateful emotions. And Congress recently passed a declaration conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. If so, then I could see anti-Semitism exploding, especially with the news coming from The Holy Land lately: mass graves dug up showing doctors in their gowns, and palestinian children with their hands tied behind their backs, some seem as if they were buried alive.
All the universities, hospitals, churches and mosques are destroyed.
More journalists killed (137) than in WWII and Vietnam. Why? Because the IDF doesn’t want the world to see their atrocities.
Leaked audio of ADL’s Greenblatt: “We have a TikTok problem” (meaning people are watching things that you don’t see because of the MSM’s pro-Zionist filter).
This is why our AIPAC-bought congress wants TikTok banned.
Censorship: “When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
Zionists will be the reason for any rise in anti-Semitism.
By the way, there’s an Israeli-produced movie (free online) called “Tantura” where fighters from the original IDF brag about killing unarmed Arab prisoners, rαping young Arab girls, and throwing an Arab baby into an oven.
Thank you for showing everyone what an antisemite sounds like. You forgot to mention The Chronicles of the Elders of Zion, Blood Libel, and how Jews control the world via the Rothchild’s, George Soros, Hollywood, banking, and the media.
Welp, there you go again, barfing up anti-Semitic tropes to distract from the on-the-ground reality of today’s newest holocaust.
Pizzagate was nothing more than a retelling of the Blood Libel myth. I could go on but you get the idea.
Instead lets talk about these antisemitic statements of yours.
“In UCLA, the violence was CLEARLY started by Zionist Jews and the cops allowed it to happen.” – Do you have any actual proof that can be verified?
“Palestinians are more “Semitic” than a bunch of Europeans, many with blonde-hair/blue eyes, who were 90% of the original settlers in the 1940s.” – Seriously? Jews have are from Israel, even prior to Christ they lived there. Just because they live in Europe does not make them any less semitic, as that is where their ancestors are from.
“Zionists will be the reason for any rise in anti-Semitism.” So now you want to blame the victims. You forgot to blame Jews for the Holocaust because they did not fight back.
“Welp, there you go again, barfing up anti-Semitic tropes to distract from the on-the-ground reality of today’s newest holocaust.” – Just like the Occupy Movement, these protests are a blip on the radar. As an American Jew I am far more concerned about the American Christian Nationalist Movement that wants to institute Christian Sharia Law. These same people think that the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, should be emulated in American politics.
Pizzagaters believed stories about the Clintons/Democrats (but that doesn’t mean Bill Clinton WASN’T on Epstein’s plane 26 times). And the DNC invented lies that the Russians were involved with Trump’s campaign. Trump and Putin were allies.
It’s more American-exceptional, delusional-goofiness than blood libel.
_______________________________________
“antisemitic statements of yours”
To that I already answered, “Welp, there you go again.”
You can’t be Pee-wee Herman, as in, “I know you are but what am I?” – because he’s dead.
UCLA:
The aggressors are the ones with the sticks, rocks, fireworks (your boys):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KLa5JkU3is&ab_channel=Reuters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STTDNiHKSgI&ab_channel=StoryfulNews%26Weatherhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awtIrUI5HRg&ab_channel=TheHill
Original Semites:
Compare the features of Mizrahi (Arabic Jews) to the Ashkenazim. You won’t find many of them with blonde hair or blue eyes. Tay-Sachs disease only affects Ashkenazi Jews (barely any Sephardim) and French-Canadians. I can’t find anything aligning Tay-Sachs with Mizrahi.
Genealogy of Askenazi from “Nature,” weekly magazine:
“Overall, it seems that at least 80% of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry is due to the assimilation of mtDNAs indigenous to Europe, most likely through conversion. The phylogenetic nesting patterns suggest that the most frequent of the Ashkenazi mtDNA lineages were assimilated in Western Europe”
Alongside with the Mizrahi Jews, other tribes that had lived in The Levant were Canaanites, Philistines, Aramaeans, Hittites . ..
The Roman empire left Britain in 410 AD. Can an Italian now go back and kick a Brit out of his home?
_______________________________________
“Blame the victim?”
The victims are thousands of dead and crippled Palestinian children, mothers, journalists, teachers . . , and you try to play the victim card? It’s getting worn out. The eighty-seven percent of the world not hypnotized by the legacy Western media knows the victims are not the Jews.
_______________________________________
“Just like the Occupy Movement, these protests are a blip on the radar.”
Occupy didn’t gain traction because it was played down in MSM. But with pro-Palestine campus demonstrations, the police started breaking them up much faster and with more violence than was done to the Occupy Movement.
Now the Establishment is pulling out its “outside agitator” card. When students rightly (as they are now) protested the Vietnam war, the Establishment’s (outside agitator) card was the Russian and Chinese (commies).
But there IS an outside agitator: Israel. The NYPD has an office in Israel where they also train with Israeli forces. They also adopt its aggressive tactics, according to Amnesty International.
A Columbia professor, Rebecca Weiner, moonlights as the head of the NYPD intel division. She also has an office in Tel Aviv. She had the power to push the police force to brutally break up the student protests.
I wholeheartedly agree about the dangers of Christian Nationalists. And one thing I admire about Jews is that they’re more likely to be atheists (but have no problem proclaiming that some god gave them land somewhere when convenient). And the wackos you legitimately decry (Evangelical, end-times’ Christians) are the major force in AIPAC which has more of those nuts in its ranks than Jews. And these people (along with the MIC) are pushing money to our politicians to create the hostile conditions necessary for “Armageddon,” because they firmly believe that Jayzus will descend to The Holy Land and rapture them all up – while damning the Jews (who don’t convert) to hell.
This is total insanity.
The Christian Nationalists are on your side. So you know they’re no good.
So your view of U.S. is congruent with David Duke’s idea that what we have is a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG). He wrote about that extensively in the Arab press as an “American political analyst.” Check him out. It sounds like you have a lot in common. He probably has a lot of “facts” you can deploy to your advantage.
Cherry pick much?
Your reasoning is a bit odd, to say the least. In two incidents counter-protestors behaved awfully.
Your conclusion: the pro-Palestinian protestors are as innocent as little lambs. How’s this: I agree that those folks are bad actors. What’s your take on “We are Hamas” or displaying a swastika. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12607931/amp/Times-Square-Palestine-rally-Hamas-Israel.html or ““Whoever is in solidarity with our corpses but not our rockets is a hypocrite and not one of us.” If this was a “peace movement” calling for a return of hostages, a cease fire, and an immediate commitment to the two-state solution by both sides, I’d be right there. But it is not a peace movement. It is a movement to destroy Israel violently, which appears to be your position. Nice.
And seriously, the “fake Jew” canard? Jews were expelled from European countries, and reviled as a non-European race (“antisemite” was not coined by Jews, it was invented by, you guessed it, anitsemites). And now, also invented by antisemites, is that the Jews are not Semitic after all! Blond Jews? Whoop-de-do. There was some rape, intermarriage or other interaction with the surrounding population. What a surprise.
Doubtless you deny Obama the right to claim to be Black, because of the Bill Paci “one-drop rule” that denies people their ethnic identity absent your required racial purity. Of course it follows that we need genetic testing of all people living in historic Palestine to weed out those with any tainted European blood, say, from the Romans, the Greeks, the Crusaders, or the occupying British. Only pure-blood “authentic” Semites have any claim. Is it that you’re not antisemitic, just racist?
To the extent it matters, genetic studies show that Ashkenazi Jews, Mizrahi (Iranian, Iraqi, and Syrian) Jews and Sephardic (Greek and Turkish), not to mention North African Jews are “more related to each other” than the Askenazi are to their non-Jewish contemporary neighbors…this relatedness could be explained on the basis of sharing DNA segments identical by descent (IBD) within and between populations.”
I get that Ashkenazi Jews have to be tarred with the Euro-brush to make the whole “colonization” theory stick. But don’t pretend it is any way “scientific” except as some sort racist racial purity test, applied only to Jews, and not other “semites.” You need it to be a bunch of blonds oppressing POC’s, else the theory collapses. Too bad.
The back-up of course, is the notion that the Mizrahim, the Jews from Arab countries, were fooled into moving to Israel and treated poorly by the land-stealing Euro-trash. Not sure why they wanted the Mizrahim to move to Israel, if they hated them at the same time, but that’s your thesis, right?
In any event, back to cherry-picking. “Jewish militias would bomb Iraqi synagogues” ha, ha, ha. There was one instance where Iraqi Zionists (not one of them blond, not one of them from Europe), allegedly bombed a synagogue–actually, a grenade damaged a high-voltage cable outside Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue. This was in 1951, and was one of 5 allegedly Zionist-staged attacks (not on synagogues, but on a coffee shop, and Jewish-owned businesses). The Iraqi government arrested them, and extracted confessions under torture, so it’s absolutely certain they were the culprits, right? Anyway, your professor Avi Shlaim, does say that 3 of the 5 bombings were attributable to Iraqi Zionists, though the issue remains hotly contested academically.
But even taking that as true, it’s a bit of a stretch to say “Jewish militias would bomb Iraqi synagogues.” Was that your own embellishment, or did you read it on some anti-Israel website? But again, the colonial narrative has to be made to work, no matter how many epicycles have to be introduced to maintain the perfect circle. (Also, you forgot to say “Zionist militias.” Your slip is showing.)
Because Israel is now 55% Mizrahim, i.e. Arab Jews, the Euro-exploitation claim is harder to maintain, so Arab countries’ mistreatment and discrimination against Jews has to be wiped away with the excuse that it was all due to a Zionist plot. Unfortunately, the facts don’t match up.
On balance Middle Eastern and North African Jews had a better time of it, but this is like saying Jim Crow was better than slavery. True. But that did not make it good. Some times were better than others, but Jews, at best, were always, by law, second class citizens, barred from certain pursuits, segregated, specially taxed, and of course, their testimony could not be accepted if contradicted by a Muslim. On the other hand, as in Europe, there were plenty of pogroms and attacks on Jews.
As the highly quoted G.E. von Grunebaum wrote:
“It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizeable number of Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained to high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and recognized intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for Christians. But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms.”
Keeping “bad Euro-Jew” and colonization center stage in light of the majority of Arab Jews in Israel, requires one to embrace the myth that the Jews just had a perfect life in Arab countries (which is the equivalent of claiming that slaves in the US were just singing and dancing all the time), and it’s only the bad Euro’s who have any enmity toward Palestinians.
The problem is that the Mizrahim vote overwhelming for the Likud, the right-wing hardline, settlement-expanding party. Meanwhile, a majority your old time Euro- Zionists are in the peace camp.
And this is where the whole colonization theory ties itself in knots. Why do the folks who are indigenous to the area have the most aggressive “colonial” policies? Well, in your lefty fever swamps, they are not really voting against Palestinian rights, they are just voting against the European Ashkanazi who treated them so poorly when arriving from Arab countries. (It couldn’t possibly be any resentment for how they were treated by Arabs, ’cause they were so beloved).
So, by supporting settlements and the bombing of Gaza, the Arab Jews are just being anti-colonial! It is still the pro-peace Euro’s fault for treating the Mizrahim so badly, thereby forcing them to support Likud just to spite the bad Ashkenazis. This is the kind of reasoning it takes to sustain the “colonial” narrative and maintain the idea that this is all white European oppression.
When one is an ideologue, there is no fact too large to eliminate with a hand wave. There are no unique problems in the world. There is no complexity. There is no such thing, as Golda Meir put it, of “right vs. right.” Every problem is a simple matter of right versus wrong. In short, ideology makes you stupid.
Be careful using facts with this troll. Not only does he cherry pick facts, he uses alternative facts to make them seem what they are not. Bill Paci has yet to see a conspiracy theory he does not like.
I find him entertaining. As I said before, he reminds me of the campus radicals I used to talk to in the seventies, and evokes some nostalgia.
You have to understand he doesn’t care about facts, because he knows “the truth” of the evil of capitalism and Western Civilization generally. Anything that harms or weakens it, from Putin to Bin Laden, is good by definition. His defenses are strategic rather than issue specific, and he will wield any tool that comes to hand, however odious,
Thus, for him, antisemitism isn’t regrettable, instead it is the deserved result of Zionism. And if antisemitism helps him reach his goals, no way is he going to condemn, much less lift a finger against it. If it causes folks to be on his side, it is not a problem. Instead, those against antisemitism are the problem. He doesn’t care about antisemitism because it has no place in his paradigm. So, he’s not so much antisemitic, as he is just against those who are against antisemitism. They are a hindrance to his goals.
He’s not against rape, murder and war crimes if the right folks are doing it, whether it is Hamas in Israel or Putin in Ukraine. These are justifiable comeuppance for the sins of the West, that should not surprise we evildoers.
You will note that there is never “one the one hand, but on the other” in his opinions. They are always a direct transcription of his side’s propaganda. He concedes nothing, and will never make the tiniest criticism of his side. Hamas is defended. Putin is defended. No determination “on balance” ever occurs. It is reminiscent of the old saw, “I don’t believe in criticizing socialist countries.”
The human tragedy in Gaza, is not, for him, so much a tragedy as an opportunity to try to “red pill” the rest of us. Don’t know what kind of lefty-radical he might label himself, but he has fully adopted the Leninist playbook. This makes him, for me, an amusing, if somewhat anachronistic, caricature.
I’m numbering your paragraphs to save space – so regarding your first paragraph:
1) I look for the ripest cherries.
Pro-Palestinian protesters (of which many are Jews) behave peacefully compared to the Zionist troublemakers. I was watching a clip of a NY protestor whose face and head were COMPLETELY covered yelling, “October 7, 100 times, 1,000 times, 1,0000 times!” to which Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté remarked that their “Jewdar” went off as they were laughing about his typical NY Jewish accent.
HAMAS is a political party. “We are HAMAS” is the same as “We are the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto.”
Counter-protestors are often paid. Early on, many were paid to go to the pro-Israel rally in D.C.
Displaying Swastikas could more likely be an agent-provocateur. Yeah, I’m sure there are anti-Semites taking part. But these pro-Palestinian protesters are more sincere compared to the anti-Vietnam protesters who had skin in the game: avoiding the draft. Today’s protesters could lose job prospects. That Bill Ackman had trucks going around with names and faces of pro-Palestinian protesters attached.
It takes a lot of courage to stand up for Palestinians.
You want the hostages back? HAMAS says declare a ceasefire and exchange hostages, of which the many being held by Israel are women and children – being held without charges (kind of like Guantanamo). Thousands of them.
Ben-Gvir says, “The death penalty for terrorists is the right solution to the incarceration problem” to avoid overcrowding.
But Bibi won’t do the ceasefire. If he stops this madness they’ll be time to throw him into prison for all the corruption with which he’s accused.
More broadly, Israel has been illegally occupying Arab land since 1967.
A lot of assumptions and vitriol about my intentions comes from you.
2) I don’t see the relevance of who originated the term “anti-Semite.” You and others on this page use it. Yeah, “rape,” “intermarriage.” In fact Ashkenazim and Sephardic are no more than 4th or 5th cousins apart, as stated in a 2010 NYT article titled “Studies Show Jews’ Genetic Similarity” by Nicholas Wade. But there’s no mention of Mizrahi.
But let’s forget about genetics for now. Here’s what Ben-Gurion (a self-proclaimed atheist) said:
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God [<– haha] promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
3) So now you say (with apparent full confidence?) that I might deny Obama's claim of being Black. I WOULD deny him reparations since his ancestors didn't come from American slaves.
What kind of (haha) monster would it make me if I would deny Lia Thomas's "claim" that she's a woman and has the right to compete against female swimmers?
Apparently "racial purity" DOES matter to Israelis as their doctors injected Ethiopian Jewish women with birth control while in the course of normal vaccinating.
Iran is a theocracy; Israel is an ETHNO-theocracy.
Regarding the rest of your paragraph, see the above (once again) Ben-Gurion quote.
4) Jews have different genetic patterns of non-Jews. But I doubt your "study" that throws "Mizrahi" in there. I've looked and can't find any evidence.
By the way, when Israel applies to be in the Eurovision contest, do they only send Ashkenazim?
5) After WWII, Europe (supposedly) felt guilty. But instead of giving Jews a piece of Germany, it's, "Hey, let's throw them into Palestine and carve-out a new country. Many Jews have lived there and what could the Arabs do if they don't like it."
"Too bad" = Might Makes Right.
Once again, see Ben-Gurion quote.
6) Because they could use the Mizrahi Jews to build up an armed force.
7) You know what the synagogue bombers look like?
OK, fine: It was also Jewish-owned businesses.
"[H]otly contested" often is a term used in bad faith. Cheney and Bush contesting that Iraq DID have WMD (somewhere).
8) So it would have been more precise if I called them Zionist and not Jewish, and if I called them IDF, or gangs, or thugs? A rose by any other name might still stink in the nose of the beholder.
9) In the late 40s, 90% were Ashkenazi. From CIA: "Ashkenαzim continued to be the predominant immigrant group until the late 1940s. From 1919 to 1948, 90 percent of the immigrants were Ashkenαzim" . . . And YES, not now. That doesn't change the legitimacy of who should and shouldn't be there.
10) 11–11.5) N/A, no contest to these paragraphs.
12) Yeah, nowhere on earth does any tribe not have troubles. Maybe the last Mohican was Mohawked – i..e., not killed by a Euro colonist.
13) Even Labor (party) is pro-ethnic cleansing. Headline VOX: "95 percent of Jewish Israelis support the Gaza war." The lefty-ish non-Israeli Jews (like professor Norman Finkelstein, or Katie Halper) have said that many lefties got disgusted and left Israel, as they also point to Netanyahu's followers, or say that Netanyahu's messaging was responsible for the Yitzhak Rabin's assassination
14) The only "knots" are the logic in that paragraph. The Mizrahi and Ashkenazi are in lockstep.
15) You trying to mix stuff up might actually be because you can't help it. There is nothing "pro-peace" about Euro-type Jews. And Netanyahu's partially from the Philly area. His English-language skill is important in enabling him to hoodwink many Americans.
16) I'm glad you mentioned "idealogue." Here's my ideology: "Let's mind our own business." I don't care If Senegal invades Sri Lanka, Ukraine invades Russia, Paraguay invades Uruguay. But my tax-dollars are going to Israel (and Ukraine). Israel has a higher standard of living than USA and universal, single-payer healthcare, while WE have people going bankrupt from medical debt, losing their homes and living under (crumbling) bridges. And what's worse for me is that my money is going to The Bad Guy – so I'm glad you put up that "right vs. right" quote and "simple matter" because many Israeli apologists try the, "It's complicated" lie. In the world of Right & Wrong, we use: Democracy/Voting/Norms/Consensus, as our guides. So you ever notice how in the U.N., we're sometimes the ONLY pro-Israel vote in the UNSC? And in the General Assembly (except for Marshall Islands, Dominican Republic, maybe two more), MOST of the world takes Palestine's side.
I think that shows the proper morality in this case.
We claim we want a "two-state" solution but we just vetoed a United Nations' membership for Palestine.
Tell Israel to go back to its '67 borders. That would be a good start.
PS: My above reply-comment is directed at “Tom A, May 5, 2024 at 3:51 am”
As I said, somehow you can admit no possibility of bad actors at the protests. Anything bad at the protests is a plant etc. Just like Jan 6, right? All done to just to make folks look bad. Zero possibility of bad actors. There are news reports that the Anti-Israel protestors are being paid as well. My working assumption has always been that there bad actors in any camp. Usually I am right.
Hamas is “just” a political party? The National Socialists were just a political party. Even before October 7, this is a “party” that executed its opposition (throwing them off rooftops) and seized power after getting only 40% of the vote. They were founded on genocidal principles, which they never repudiated or revoked, only “updated” in 2017. which was described as Hamas leader Khaled Mashal as “This document reflects our position for now.” it called for continued armed struggle, and claimed an eternal Palestine “from the river to the sea.” But, you know, “for now” subject to change at any time without notice.
Regardless of its supposedly milder intentions, it still committed the October 7 atrocity, and saying “We are Hamas” is support for that action. And seriously? You think “We are HAMAS” is the same as “We are the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto.” Is this supposed to be a laugh line?
What was wrong with “We are Gazans” (the majority of whom never voted for Hamas)? This is a pathetic piece of apologetics. When the US was attacked on 9/11, were people around the world saying “We are Republicans”? Sorry, as far as I know, solidarity with a country or people has never been once stated as solidarity with the political party in charge. You are just making yourself ridiculous. If you want credibility, don’t say dumb stuff like this.
But now you are outing yourself as a Max Blumenthal/Mate Grey Zone follower? Wow. I’d have kept that to myself. What’s next, Infowars?
Let’s take a look at the Wikipedia entry on these guys:
“Most contemporary media analysis of The Grayzone has focused on its critical reporting about American foreign policy, its misleading reporting, and its sympathetic coverage of authoritarian regimes, including those of Syria, Russia, and China. The Grayzone has downplayed or denied the Chinese government’s human rights abuses against Uyghurs, published conspiracy theories about Venezuela, Xinjiang, Syria, and other regions, and published disinformation about Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which some have described as pro-Russian propaganda.
Grayzone writers such as Blumenthal and Aaron Maté acted as briefers on behalf of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations at UN meetings organised by Russia.”
Folks, if you want to know where Paci is coming from check it out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone#cite_note-Wong-25
Just to update that entry, it is useful to know that their special perceptions also told them that the testimony by victims of rape on October 7 were false. Yup, these guys were selling the left-wing version of “crisis actors” simply making up documented atrocities. Nice.
Regarding genetics, here’s the quote again: “we demonstrated that Sephardic (Greek and Turkish), Ashkenazi (Eastern European), and Mizrahi (Iranian, Iraqi, and Syrian) Jews with origins in Europe and the Middle East were more related to each other than to their non-Jewish contemporary neighbors (16). We showed that this relatedness could be explained on the basis of sharing DNA segments identical by descent (IBD) within and between populations.” They go on to show that this is true of North African Jews as well. Here’s the link. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427049/
3. The Ben-Gurion quote may be a stretch. It wasn’t something he wrote. It wasn’t something he said publicly or to a number of people. The source of this quote is Nahum Goldmann, claiming that Ben-Gurion said it to him in private conversation. He published it two decades after the conversation supposedly took place, and five years after Ben-Gurion’s death. For context, Goldmann was urging Ben-Gurion to delay the declaration of independence in order to allow more time for reaching a diplomatic settlement with the Arabs. Ben Gurion thought that wouldn’t happen and made some argument to that effect.
As for the Ethiopian scandal, it was exposed by Israeli journalists and activists, and it was ended. There’s discrimination in Israel, as there is in the US. There are also human rights groups and their lawyers who try to fix it, as in the US. The fact was, though, Israel rescued these folks when no one else would, with unprecedented covert air lifts. I personally knew folks who were working very hard on the Ethiopians’ behalf here in the US.
I get that you couldn’t have cared less if these folks lived or died, since they weren’t being killed with US tax dollars, but folks on the real, not the crazy, left generally feel differently.
You might remember Israel also took in Vietnamese “boat people” in the late ’70s, not only rescuing some from the water, but also offering asylum to those in refugee camps.
I’d be the last to claim that the Israeli’s are perfect and without sin. (God knows I despise Netanyahu who belongs in jail.) I am puzzled however by your notion that Hamas and the protestors cannot be criticized. Nothing is their fault, including any antisemitism or murderous intent, as that all must be attributed to the evil Zionists. It makes no logical or moral sense.
But, again, thanks for letting everyone know that you don’t give a damn about suffering in the world, just your tax dollars. Too bad we couldn’t stay out of WWII. Would have better if we all just learned to speak German, and FDR’s Lend-Lease was a waste of money. 6 million Jews, 10 million Jews, what’s the diff? JFK’s Berlin Airlift? Utter foolishness. Stop the Bosnian genocide, what for? We should’ve just minded our own business.
Of course foreign military aid is usually 1-2% of our military budget (and all foreign aid totals only 1% of our total budget), most of which comes back in purchases from American companies. What great social programs can we finance with an extra 1%? (If you are talking about only military aid, that’s only 25% of that 1%). Let me know, and I’ll lobby for them.
As for the way that Mizrahim vote vs Ashkanazi, the former vote for Likud and other right wing parties by about 65%, while the latter vote 58% for labor and left-wing parties. As I said, though, the Mizrahim are a majority of the population. “Peace Now” is almost entirely Ashkanazi. The security apparatus is heavily Mizrahi, including military who stay after their draft term, and the police. The extreme right-wing Ben-Gvir, whom you quote, is of Iraqi Jewish extraction.
The old saw that well, the Jews of Europe should have been given a piece of Germany for the holocaust, is not the way Mizrahim see it. As one said, “You have to understand that for us, the natives of the Arab countries, the state of Israel was not created because of the Shoah [Holocaust], but because we wanted to realise a millennial dream.” Self-determination.
If a part of Germany would have been “fair”–why not a tiny slice of the Middle East where Jews have been oppressed for 1500 years? Call it a “reservation” for an oppressed indigenous population on just about the only spot in the area without oil or other natural resources–and which is considered sacred ground.
Also, whatever Euro-colonial notions you might attribute to the Ashkanazi Zionists, Israel was expressly intended to address the problem of worldwide oppression, not just the European brand. (Not to mention the fact that Arab nationalists allied themselves with, and fought as allies of Hitler, hoping to become the fourth axis power. Why no penalty for that?).
The irony is that the Ashkanazi tend to oppose the settlements (which are largely Mizrahim), and are in favor of peace through the two-state solution. (And 22% of the electorate is Palestinian Arab.)To the Arab Jews, however, “The tendency of this left today is that they care more about the Palestinians than about their Jewish brethren.”
You can read about this here: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-why-right-wing-mizrahi-vote-misunderstood
I don’t pretend there is any significant opposition to the Gaza war post-Oct 7. But as I pointed out in these pages earlier, “most Israeli’s are in favor of the war, but, at the same time, believe Bibi is making war decisions for political instead of security reasons.” A majority wants him gone, and the sooner the better. This was Israel’s 9/11. Hard to claim they should behave better than we did, but we need to do our best to make sure they do.
The veto of recognition was the right thing. Bargaining chips are needed for negotiation, which is why we resisted, until Trump, moving our embassy to Jerusalem–for which we got nothing. (It didn’t even get him the Jewish vote). Recognition only works once. While the possibility remains, it provides leverage–a carrot for the Palestinians, a stick for the Israelis.It shouldn’t be used for nothing.
“Disengagement”–i.e. withdrawal–was for a short moment the position of the Israeli government under Sharon’s Kadima party–and I supported that. That’s when the Israeli’s vacated the settlements in Gaza, and dismantled several West Bank settlements. Then he had a stroke, and Netanyahu took over. I still think that would be Israel’s best solution, pending negotiations.
As I said, if the demonstrations were about stopping, or even dismantling settlements, getting to a cease fire and release of hostages and getting the parties to the table, I’d be there. (Yeah, Hamas has made offers, Israel has made offers, and neither side has accepted the other’s. It takes two to tango)
But no way will I get near a demonstration which endorses Hamas’ (final?) solution to the problem, or whose leaders say “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”
What makes me a bit mad, is that our supposed “left” does nothing to try to support the left in Israel (“Zionists don’t deserve to live”), and the non-violent left among Palestinians (yes folks, it exists), not to mention joint Israeli-Palestinian organizations, in a quest for peace, instead of demonstrating for the destruction of Israel.
@Tom A, May 6, 2024 at 2:18 pm –
1) “bad actors at the protests”
I would never say “there are no bad actors” even though the cause might be righteous. Anti-Semites might take advantage. Being that there are “news reports” and you are “usually right” (I’m ALWAYS right), who would pay the anti-Israel protesters? If you say China/Russia/ (or commies pre-1991), that would be the same rhetoric we heard during the student anti-Vietnam war protests, student civil rights demonstrations, BLM protests – even Obama’s former security advisor, Susan Rice (a Black woman), said Russia was behind the BLM movement. If any are being paid, nothing could compare to the U.S. Zionist-money, Bill Ackman, Sheldon Adelson (dead but now his wife Miriam Adelson is in charge). If any foreign party interferes in our elections, Israel beats them all. Even in local elections – PA representative Summer Lee has faced Zionist-backed candidates (Pittsburgh attorney Steve Irwin) but she won both times.
Before he was assassinated, JFK forced the “AIPAC” of the time (formerly AZC) to register under FARA. But when they morphed into AIPAC, they skipped registering under FARA.
Jan 6? I’m no Trumpster. But that was a setup to make Trump look bad. The Establishment/Deep State (your boys?) didn’t want him the first time. They (FBI/CIA) steering who should-or-shouldn’t be president is a worse threat to democracy than that buffoon Trump ever could be.
The cops had to finally let the Jan 6 protesters in after their calls for backup went unheeded. Capital Police Chief Steven Sund, who resigned after Jan 6 said his calls for backup were ignored. Here’s a meme showing the difference in security between the Jan 6 riots in D.C. and when BLM demonstrated (showing ubiquitous cops in military gear): https://ibb.co/pZ8PFCq
2) “Hamas is “just” a political party? The National Socialists were just a political party . . .”
Likud is “just” a political party and the IDF are their henchmen. HAMAS is a political party and Al-Qassam Brigades are their defenders. You’re a big fibber. In 2005 HAMAS won with 44.45% and Fatah received 41.43%. HAMAS (who Netanyahu sent $billions to, Google it) didn’t throw people off of buildings. That’s OUR allies: ISIS/al Nusra/al Qaeda who throw homosexuals off of buildings.
Jake Sullivan’s 2012 email to Hillary: “Al Qaeda’s on our side in Syria.”
In fact Israel has been treating Islamic terrorists in their hospitals when they get wounded in Syria. Just last year, ISIS accidentally fired on Israel and apologized for it: “Former Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya’alon reveals that the Islamic State (Daesh) apologized to Israel for opening fire on an Israeli unit in the Syrian Golan Heights in November.” I previously put this up, but maybe not to you: HAMAS has said they would be willing to accept a 2-state solution, Regarding language in Likud’s charter: “Between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
3) Both HAMAS and the Warsaw Jews fought against the aggressor. Tell me how it’s not the same. Who (students) are saying we are HAMAS? I saw where ONE person off campus said, “We are HAMAS” One person? Probably a paid one ($250 is the going rate).
4) “What was wrong with “We are Gazans”
What’s wrong with “We are palestinians?” “the political party in charge” “We are Republicans”
There aren’t two parties in Gaza.
By the way, Trump has said that Islamists were cheering as the Twin Towers were burning. He was wrong. It was a bunch of Israeli (“art students”) who were jumping up and down, filming and celebrating. They were held for 2 months by the FBI. Via FOIA: They said this to the FBI: “Israel now has hope that the world will now understand us.”
5) “But now you are outing yourself as a Max Blumenthal/Maté Grey Zone follower?”You must be a low-information person. You probably believe NY Times (probably not Fox Noise), CNN with Wolf Blitzer (former AIPAC spokesman), Anderson Cooper (two years with CIA). I was never a fan of Alex Jones but there’s a video of him predicting 9/11 six months before the Twin Towers were hit.
Aaron Maté and Max Blumenthal have won journalism awards. Maté has won the Izzy Award, named after journalist I. F. “Izzy” Stone. Blumenthal (who spent time in Gaza) won the Pierre Spray Journalism Award.
6,7,8,9) Wikipedia is a tool of the empire. It’s good for finding out celebrities’ birthdays. Any journalists that The Empire abhors are called “conspiracy theorists” (a CIA invented term) in Wikipedia. Aaron Maté has spoken at the UNSC, showing that 2 whistleblowers from the OPCW were fired because they knew there was no evidence of an Assad-directed poison-gas attack.
There is no evidence of any human rights’ abuses in Xinjiang. “But, but, but, there’s ‘cultural genocide!'” – yeah because the Chinese government built them a mall so they don’t sell their wares out on the road, battered by the elements.There are more mosques per capita in Xinjiang than anywhere else in the world.
There’s a German, end-times’ Christian named, Adrien Zenz, who’s been pushing this Uyghur genocide hoax. When China was fighting Islamic terrorism their enemy was the ETIM (East Turkestan Islamic Movement) in Xinjiang. In 2002 (because we were so obsessed with Muslims) we also had them on our official terrorist list, in solidarity with China. But we removed them from the list in 2020. Why? Because it suits our narrative, it makes it easier to attack China because they’re out-competing us in manufacturing, production. Our phony GDP is based on debt. And our right-wing religious nuts like to denigrate China because they’re “un-Christian.” All of this anti-Asian vitriol is to cause fear so you don’t mind the MIC picking your pocket.
Venezuela? Conspiracy? You mean you still believe that the Trump-appointed Juan Guaidó is REALLY the legitimate president of Venezuela? Did you know Venezuela sits on the world’s largest oil reserves? And we put so many sanctions (first Obama, then Trump and continuing under Biden) on that country making their lives unbearable. That’s why so many are coming to our border – which we secretly like because it’s cheap labor.
What “conspiracy theories?”
Max Blumenthal has spoken at the UNSC. You probably think that Putin just woke up one day and decided to invade. Putin doesn’t need NATO and a country that’s full of neoNazis on his border. The war started in 2014 when we assisted in a coup (with the fascist “Right Sector”). From that time on Ukraine had been shelling the ethnic Russians in the Donbas. Putin had enough. I could go on about the Minsk Accords that Ukraine ignored.
Here’s a photo of what Western media thought BEFORE Feb 2022: https://ibb.co/r6hHW9s
10) “victims of rape on October 7”
The NY Times’ piece, “Screams Without Words” is fiction as Grayzone (and then glommed by The Intercept) has shown. The sister of the woman, who was killed on Oct 7 (Gal Abdush), Miral Alter, stated that in a January 2 Instagram comment that “she (her sister Gal Abdush) was not raped… There was no proof that there was rape. She (the sister) also pointed out that the timeline between Gal’s last message to the family and the time of her reported murder made it impossible for a rape to occur: “How in 4 minutes [were] they also raped and burned” . . . ” Alter concluded, “the New York Times that came to us indicated that they wanted to do a story in memory of Gal and Nagy [her husband] and that’s why we approved. If we knew that it was a headline like rape slaughter, we would never agree. Never.”
The woman who was partly responsible for that NYT story, Anat Schwartz, who previously served in the intelligence division of the Israeli Air Force, has been fired by the Times. Another author, Jeffrey Gettleman, in an interview with Sheryl Sandberg was asked about evidence. His answer was that evidence is a “legal term.”
Sixty-seven journalism professors have demanded that the NY Times either provide evidence or retract the story.
11) “Regarding genetics”
Yeah, you’re right. Because if Israelis take a DNA test NOW, it’s this percentage because they’ve been mixing since 1948: “Over 25% of Jewish children and 35% of Jewish newborns in Israel are of mixed Ashkenazi and Sephardic or Mizrahi descent, and these figures have been increasing by approximately 0.5% annually: over 50% of Israel’s entire Jewish population identifies as having Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi admixture.”
12) So Ben-Gurion’s quote is a “stretch” because you’re “”usually right?”
I’d say something written about Ben-Gurion in the 20th century is more valid than something written 5,000 years ago telling the Hebrews that a piece of land is theirs.
13) Ethiopians, yeah OK, fine.
14) There wouldn’t be Vietnamese boat people if we had minded our own business and not spent $billions on weapons and murder in southeast Asia.
“I get that you couldn’t have cared less if these folks lived or died”
I actually care that my money is sent to Ukraine to continue the war. A half-million dead (just on Ukraine’s side). This could have been settled in March 2022 when there was a tentative peace deal worked out between Ukraine and Russia. But then we sent Boris Johnson to tell Zelensky to keep fighting “or we won’t back you.” Former Israeli PM Naftali Bennet has verified this. Neocon Fiona Hill, said this in “Foreign Affairs” magazine in May of 2022. The pro-Ukraine news’ site, “Ukrainska Pravda” had written about it. Ukrainian negotiator Alexander Chaly has said it. The Turkish Foreign minister Hakan Fidan has said this.
My tax dollars are contributing to this – but I’m heartless, right?
15) I didn’t say HAMAS et al., can’t be criticized. You could criticize Nat Turner (rebellion) for killing babies but compared to slavery for hundreds of years, that pales. But Israel started the whole problem in 1948. Watch (the Israeli produced) “Tantura” where they admit to atrocities.
Palestinians still have the keys to houses that the Israelis stole from them.
Viet Cong might have done horrible things but I can’t blame them. I blame the Big Bad USA overall.
Professor Norman Finkelstein’s parents, both had their whole families killed in Nazi death camps. He said his parents hated Germans and wouldn’t be bothered in the least if they heard that atrocities were committed against Germans.
16) Regarding Yugoslavia, why should we be the world’s policeman? We never get involved out of altruism. It’s always because of a payoff. We (NATO) just started bombing. That’s all we know. Force.
Since the Serbs were cozy with Russia we took the other side (and bombed a Chinese embassy while we were at it).
In 1954 Russia asked to join NATO. In 2000 Putin asked Clinton if they could join NATO. Think how much strife could have been eliminated.
Both times they were ignored. Do you know why? Answer: we need an enemy; it’s good for business.
17) “Of course foreign military aid is usually 1-2% of our military budget.”
In 2021 defense spending was $1.6 trillion out of a $2.8 trillion budget. So that’s 57.1428571% (over half) of the budget. NOT 1-2%
“What great social programs can we finance with an extra 1%? (If you are talking about only military aid, that’s only 25% of that 1%). Let me know, and I’ll lobby for them.”
Answer: “According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States”
18) It doesn’t matter who’s running Israel. I blame the whole mix (Labor, Likud). And they’re so blatant about their intentions because they’ve gotten away with any nastiness especially since Clinton’s time. No Pushback.
19) “The old saw that well, the Jews of Europe should have been given a piece of Germany for the holocaust, is not the way Mizrahim see it. As one said, ‘You have to understand that for us, the natives of the Arab countries, the state of Israel was not created because of the Shoah [Holocaust], but because we wanted to realise a millennial dream. Self-determination.'”
The Mizrahim weren’t affected by Hitler. They were fine living in Iraq, Iran, Syria. If a place was cut out for Jews in Germany, why would the Mizrahi want to move there (unless Ashkenazi started bombing their temples, again).
20) “why not a tiny slice of the Middle East where Jews have been oppressed for 1500 years.”
Jews have not been oppressed for 1500 years in the Levant. Maybe intertribal spats with Hittites or Philistines. Rome for a little while long ago.
21) “Israel was expressly intended to address the problem of worldwide oppression”
And Jews don’t want any other ethnicity there. Especially darker ones.
And WWII is over. Hitler lost regardless of Arabs helping him. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia Hitler gave comforting words to some Grand Mufti. Are you sure Arabs helped the Nazis (that much)?
22) “The irony is that the Ashkenazi tend to oppose the settlements (which are largely Mizrahim), and are in favor of peace through the two-state solution.”
No Jewish leader wants a two-state solution. They want Arabs gone. They’re killing Arabs and stealing houses in the occupied territory. Have you seen the video where Yaakov Fauci is stealing a Palestinian home? The woman asks, “Why are you stealing my house?” To which he answers, “If I don’t steal it someone else will.”
23) “most Israelis are in favor of the war, but, at the same time, believe Bibi is making war decisions for political instead of security reasons.”
Yes. I know they hate Bibi. The defense minister Yoav Gallant might be worse for Arabs if he’s the new boss.
And now the USA is building a pier to make it easier to dispose of Arabs.
24) “The veto of recognition was the right thing. Bargaining chips are needed for negotiation, which is why we resisted, until Trump, moving our embassy to Jerusalem–for which we got nothing. (It didn’t even get him the Jewish vote). Recognition only works once. While the possibility remains, it provides leverage–a carrot for the Palestinians, a stick for the Israelis.It shouldn’t be used for nothing.”
The veto shows we (USA) don’t want a two-state solution. Who was supposed to get something for Trump moving our embassy? Who is “we?” Israel or USA? The Israelis don’t want leverage, negotiations. They want Arabs gone.
25) If Sharon was alive, would he withdraw to the 1967 borders? Israel has been breaking international law for 57 years.
26) “Yeah, Hamas has made offers, Israel has made offers, and neither side has accepted the other’s. It takes two to tango”
HAMAS’s position is clear. A ceasefire then a hostage exchange. But Bibi won’t comply (to the dismay of the hostage families).
27) “But no way will I get near a demonstration which endorses Hamas’ (final?) solution to the problem, or whose leaders say “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”
One student said that and he got suspended. Protesters aren’t demonstrating with the intent of harming Israel. They want the ethnic-cleansing to stop. The students were right when they demonstrated for civil rights, for US out of Vietnam – and they’re right now.
28) “What makes me a bit mad, is that our supposed ‘left’ does nothing to try to support the left in Israel (‘Zionists don’t deserve to live’), and the non-violent left among Palestinians (yes folks, it exists), not to mention joint Israeli-Palestinian organizations, in a quest for peace, instead of demonstrating for the destruction of Israel.”
Oh please, cut the disingenuous drama, the victimhood. You are the Goliath. No one’s demonstrating for the destruction of Israel. If there is any “Left” in Israel they’re quiet. Except for Gideon Levy and maybe some others at Haaretz.
Thank you for an excellent and factual article, Stu. Disgusted by the the opinion of Bill Paci.
“More broadly, Israel has been illegally occupying Arab land since 1967.” You mean land they lost in a war to Israel.
“Counter-protestors are often paid. Early on, many were paid to go to the pro-Israel rally in D.C. ” Do you have any actual proof that can be verified?
2010 NYT article titled “Studies Show Jews’ Genetic Similarity” by Nicholas Wade. Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East share many genes inherited from the ancestral Jewish “population that lived in the Middle East some 3,000 years ago, even though each community also carries genes from other sources — usually the country in which it lives. ” Weren’t you the one who said European Jews were not the same as Jews in the Middle East?
“After WWII, Europe (supposedly) felt guilty.” – No, the British followed through on the Balfour Agreement and post war Europe was not safe if you were Jewish.
“Even Labor (party) is pro-ethnic cleansing. Headline VOX: “95 percent of Jewish Israelis support the Gaza war.”” I couldn’t find anything int he article about ethnic cleansing.
” Israel is an ETHNO-theocracy.” Then why do Arabs living in Israel have citizenship and representation in the Knesset?
“But my tax-dollars are going to Israel (and Ukraine). Israel has a higher standard of living than USA and universal, single-payer healthcare, while WE have people going bankrupt from medical debt, losing their homes and living under (crumbling) bridges.” I can’t help if Israel members of the Kennest are not beholden to lobbyists.
“Tell Israel to go back to its ’67 borders. That would be a good start.” Why should they? This land was captured in war where Israel defeated three countries in six days. Should the Israeli have waited for the soldiers massing in Egypt and Jordan to attack first? Lets face it, the Arab militaries are incapable of succeeding in any modern day conflict.
@Judah, May 6, 2024 at 1:54 am –
Regarding paragraph #1)
First off, it’s illegal to occupy another land. But when it happens these are the rules that Israel is breaking: “The occupying power must not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory [Gaza*, West Bank, Jerusalem] it occupies. If the occupying power considers it necessary, for imperative reasons of security, to take safety measures concerning civilians, it may at the most subject them to assigned residence or to internment.”
Secondly, since Israel started that war, that makes it doubly awful. Menachem Begin in a 1982 speech: ” “In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him. This was a war of self-defense in the noblest sense of the term. The Government of National Unity then established and decided unanimously: we will take the initiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Israel and the future of the nation.”
Now I’m sure you will justify this. But your justification will be as legitimate as Cheney/Bush/Rice/Rumsfeld’s, “But but but, Iraq has WMD! Saddam and Bin Laden are (were) best buddies!”
*And if you retort, “But but but, Israel hasn’t occupied Gaza since 2005” – technically correct – instead, as many have described, it’s the world’s largest open-air prison camp. No one can enter, no one can leave (except with special permission).
Para 2) Yes. They’ve been paid $250:
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_on_Campus_Coalition#:~:text=In%20November%202023%2C%20it%20was,turnout%20at%20initiatives%20hosted%20by
“The Nation”: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/israel-spying-american-student-activists/”Reddit,” screen shot: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMiddleEast/comments/17recu8/250_offered_to_those_who_participate_at_the/
3) I said Mizrahi, the originals. The NY Times only cites Ashkenazim and Sephardim.
4) It was safer than pre-war when EU wasn’t occupied by USA, safer than 1939 when USA rejected a boatload of Jewish refugees.
5) So you’re saying they don’t know it? That’s possible. Regardless. VOX: “Jewish Israelis’ biggest criticism of the Gaza war is that the government isn’t using enough force.” Many Germans say they had no clue that Hitler was committing genocide in death camps.
But none of this obfuscates the war-crimes they’re committing. As most of the world has seen, the Israelis are blatantly cruel. In a previous comment I referred to Palestinian bodies, doctors in gowns, children, with their hands tied behind their backs. Some seeming to have been buried alive.
6) There are a few Arabs in Israel proper. Iran also has a Jew in their parliament.
But an Arab cannot marry a Jew IN Israel unless the Arab converts to Judaism (and if you’re a homo, forget getting married in a “democracy” known as Israel). Arabs and Jews usually go to Cypress to get married.
7) That’s good that Israel may not be beholden to lobbyists. But that doesn’t help American citizens.
8) Refer to my first paragraph. Also in 1967 Israel (our ally) bombed the USS Liberty, most likely to hide that they were going to invade Syria and to hide the fact that they were executing Egyptian prisoners.
Did you check out the Israeli produced “Tantura,” free online? You can easily find trailers for it.