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A Hard Look at the Israeli Election: No Good Choices

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Posted on Feb 7, 2009
Israel elections
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Will Israel become a “country of fear or a country of hope,” as Tzipi Livni, a candidate for Israeli prime minister and the current foreign minister, recently asked? This week’s Mosaic Intelligence Report serves up an analysis of the coming election. (Hint: It doesn’t look good for the whole hope thing.)

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By Allan Gurfinkle, February 10 at 9:30 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

By Folktruther, February 10 at 3:57 pm #

....Allen Gurfinkle- you appear to be worse than a dingbat. I am ashamed to say that I have never read the Jewish Bibile, of which the Tulmud is the first five chapers,  all the way through.  It being so boring, irrelevant and tedious. 

Are you joking?  The Tulmud?  LOL.  You are referring to the Torah, not the Talmud.  You could very well be a Jew I suppose and know nothing of Judaism.  As I was raised as a Christian and know basically nothing of Christianity.  I did have enough sense to recognize that the biblical answer to the question ‘What came before the world?’, an incredibly important matter to this 10 yr. old, .. the biblical answer did not lessen the mystery.  So I didn’t buy it, but was afraid to tell anyone.  A born skeptic, you might say.

The Talmud is a huge collection of volumes, and it is the basis of Judaism today.  See the wiki entry ...  “Conservative Judaism accept the Talmud as authoritative”, rabbis spend their lives studying the Talmud.  It is an incredibly scurrilous piece of literatue.  Read the full cite from my previous post to get an idea of what it’s about.

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By Folktruther, February 10 at 8:57 pm #

Allen Gurfinkle- you appear to be worse than a dingbat. I am ashamed to say that I have never read the Jewish Bibile, of which the Tulmud is the first five chapers,  all the way through.  It being so boring, irrelevant and tedious.  The whole thing is a war ideology with accompanieng holy massacres and saced atrocities.  And it is Sacred to three religions, all of whom are extremely warlike.

It is the basis for a culture of death.  Against everyone. Let me assure you that I have the same contempt for some Jews that I have for some non-Jews, an equal opportunity contempt.  You will note, should you wish, that many of the most scathing attacks on Isarel and Zionism are being made by Jews.  Because we are disgusted by how we are represnted.  But most of us have no power, and US and Israeli policy is being made by Jewish and Christian Zionists who do.

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By Allan Gurfinkle, February 10 at 5:25 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

By Folktruther, February 8 at 5:30 pm #

....Badlawdog-you are a dingbat.  It is quite true that the Zionist worldview is strongly ethnocentric, but the Jews are certainly not alone in belief in being a Chosen People.

Badlawdog is not a dingbat,  he is exactly right; it’s easy to verify the absolutely extraordinary contempt of Jews for non-Jews, just by reading the Talmud.  Fortunately, now much of it is online, including my favorite representative passage ... “Heathens prefer the cattle of Israelites to their own wives”.  The Talmud is full of virulent racism like you’ve never seen.  For the quote above see ...Babylonian Talmud: Tractate ‘Abodah Zarah

http://www.come-and-hear.com/zarah/zarah_22.html#PARTb

Does this have a bearing on how the Israelis behave in Palestine?  Of course it does.

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By PSmith, February 10 at 4:19 am #

THE BEAUTY OF THE SELF-INFLICTED WOUND - FASCISM IN ISRAEL, Contd

THE END OF THE ‘ZIONIST ENTITY’

Nir Rosen has pointed out that the Zionists, by their fanaticism and disregard of the human rights of Palestinians have made a two state solution impossible. Thus there WILL be a one state solution. And the Jews will be a minority in it. They will then face the same fate as the white Afrikaners in South Africa. The only question is whether they will go quietly into a peaceful, multicultural future. Or whether they will first try to entangle the oh-so easily entangled US into another Middle-East disaster. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/29/gaza-hamas-israel

Given that their most extreme citizens - those now creating settlements on Palestinian land at gunpoint, are Jews from the US - and that the Russian arrivals are backing openly fascist policies, the future does not yet look bright. A US government in straightened circumstances could clip the Zionists’s wings completely. But the US administration is widely populated with Zionists and Neocons. The US Zionist dual-citizens’s first loyalty is to Israel and not to the US which they are governing. The Neocons’s first and only loyalty is to those with money - the 0.001% - and is fanatically opposed to the interests of the great majority of the US people - the rest of US.

EXPECT

We are now watching hubris. We can expect Nemesis.

And as the US empire collapses at the speed of a Fedex delivery, in a globalized world the Zionists are likely to get theirs sooner rather than later.

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By PSmith, February 10 at 4:17 am #

THE BEAUTY OF THE SELF-INFLICTED WOUND - FASCISM IN ISRAEL

We have just seen the three week Zionist Gaza genocide on TV and internet, with pictures of a blackened baby’s torso - the rest missing, dead beatific children, and men, women and children with limbs torn away or other horrific injuries. And body after dead body, crumpled and abandoned and so pitiful among the debris of their shattered homes. http://portail.islamboutique.fr/gaza2008/

Forgive us if we now see a beautiful symmetry to the disaster taking place in Israel. And it is completely self-inflicted, which is a joy to behold. There is wild swing to the extreme right and to open fascism. Which is likely to speed up the end of that genocidal state - as the Neocons did the destruction of the US empire.

THE RUSSIAN GAMBIT

The Zionist right wing saw a demographic time bomb that would leave the Jews a minority in their stolen country, outbred by the Palestinians. So they dreamed up the wheeze of importing boatloads of Russians from the old Soviet Union. The fact that many were criminals, were in the Russian mafia, and that most were neither practising nor actual Jews was ignored. In this they were building on past ploys, where Ethiopian ‘Jews’ were ‘discovered’ living in that country and flown to Israel en-masse. As were the remaining Jewish populations of the Maghreb - Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco. All to boost the numbers of Jews in a failed bid to win a demographic race with the Palestinians.

When the Russians got to Israel and experienced the delights of a ‘free,’ if theocratic, state they suddenly flipped from being secret capitalists in a communist state to being enthusiastic backers of a fascist party. Why, they are nearly US Republican in their disregard of the rights of their fellow citizens and for democracy. The Soviet Union had a saying “They pretend to pay us. And we pretend to work.” In order to survive an inhuman criminal regime, at least three generations of amoral criminal citizens had to do whatever was necessary to survive. And now many of their most successful offspring have moved to Israel.

COMMUNIST TO FASCIST - TWO SIDES OF ONE COIN

In intelligence circles it has long been known that the type most likely to become a traitor to his country is the excessively zealous fanatic. The dull centrist stays a dull centrist, but a fanatic can flip from one cause to its opposite with nary a pause. The barking mad left wing communist can much more easily become a barking mad right wing fascist than the plodding level-headed centrist. And vice-versa

Christopher Hitchens is a great, if revolting, example. From being a backer of radical socialism in the UK for many decades, he found the pastures greener in the US and there was persuaded to the senseless beauty of the Neocon position. Or the beautiful senselessness. Quite what it was that he was converted by, he, and we, are not sure. Cynics suggest that it was green. But it was certainly fascist.

THE ISRAELIS - LESS POPULAR THAN A WHITE SOUTH AFRICAN DURING APARTHEID

The delightful irony is that the obnoxious, and genocidal, Zionist Israeli regime which has been murdering and metaphorically screwing its Palestinian victims for half a century, will finally be defeated by being out-reproduced by the Palestinians. A counter-attack using a loving and very human un-metaphorical version of the same technique the Palestinians have been attacked with. Lock an entire people into a concentration camp with (sometimes) enough food and water and little electricity and is it any wonder that the only activity left to them is to get friendly with their spouses? Who says that the Gods do not exist? They certainly have a sense of humour.

Contd.

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By Tony Wicher, February 10 at 1:49 am #

Re Fadel Abdallah, February 9 at 6:58 pm #


Today, in his first prime time news conference, Prez. Obama docked the question from the famous veteran journalist Helen when she asked him whether he knew anything for sure about any Middle Eastern country that actually possess nuclear weapons!
=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=xx=x=x=x=xx=x=x=x

You are unfortunately right, Fadel. This was the only time he avoided the issue in what was otherwise a bravura performance, in my opinion. He’s certainly not prepared to confront Israel yet. I hope it will become inevitable before too long.

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By Fadel Abdallah, February 9 at 11:58 pm #

Today, in his first prime time news conference, Prez. Obama docked the question from the famous veteran journalist Helen when she asked him whether he knew anything for sure about any Middle Eastern country that actually possess nuclear weapons!

That was a pointed question by Helen which came after Obama talked about the danger of allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons- a speculative situation that has been a hot rhetorical topic with Bush administration and continues under Obama’s administration.

So instead of saying what the whole world knows about Israel being in possession of some 100-200 nuclear heads, the man who ran on a platform of “change you can believe in” proved that when it comes to Israel he does not even have the minimum courage and freedom to just say what the whole world knows!

The more things “change” the more they stay the same or get worse! What a disappointment after a long two years campaign with millions of dollars in small campaign contributions by the average main street people like myself and many other Americans of Arab and Muslim backgrounds who suffered for long years from Israeli occupation, terrorism and fascism!

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By sally colatto, February 9 at 8:20 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Let’s face it Israel is a racist state. It has been engaged in ethnic cleansing for 60 years. Read “The Ethnic Cleansing” by Ilan Pape to understand the Zionist movement and the mentality of Israeli politicians.

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By Spiritgirl, February 9 at 4:32 pm #

The hardline Israel firsters don’t want peace, because it will mean a compromise - and heaven forbid that should happen!  Oh, they talk the talk, but what they want is for the Arab nations to allow the Palestinian people to emigrate to their countries, then, Israel can doesn’t have to deal with them at all!

Much like Bush, Chaney, et. al - Israeli hardliners live in the state of fear of other!  What these yahoo’s don’t understand is that they are creating their own reality!  How, by continuing policies that provoke the very people they claim to want peace with!  No, there will be no military solution - and the United States, needs to stop being the back-up bully to these thugs!  Until Israel is really willing to come to the negotiating table the US must divest!!!

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By Jameel, February 9 at 4:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Fadel, you are 100% correct.  The only “peace” Israel wants is the kind of peace achieved by slaughtering all of those inconvenient Palestinians, who had the horrible judgement to be born on land that the Zionists would one day decide was their own.

IMHO Americans who support this terrorist state do so because their own ancestors brutalized the natives of the US (my mother’s ancestors) and stole their land from under their feet just like the Zionists are doing in Palestine.  Truly, those who live by the sword, and gain by it, will in the end be dispatched by it.

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By Folktruther, February 9 at 3:56 pm #

Badlawdog, Kews being smart is a complete myth.  Look at me.  And if you think I’m dumb, you should see my wife’s relatives.  It is true taht historically Jews have had to step lively and that keeps you on your intellectual toes.  But since the founding of Israel Jews have become increasingly mindless and braindead.  Look at Howard and Inherit.  It is the intellectual restrictions imposed by any blind identification with nationist militarism.

All leading Israeli politicians, including the leading gonif Olmert, supported the the slaughter and political and military disaster in Gaza.  they all are publically committed to a military solution of an historical problem that doesn’t have a military solution.  And most, or a large fraction, of American Jews support this miitary approach.  How smart is that?

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By Shingo, February 9 at 2:07 am #

>> 3 cheers for Israeli democracy.  Hip, hip, hooray !!!

And here I was thinking you had no sense of humor.  Good for you Howard.

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By Howard, February 9 at 1:37 am #

3 cheers for Israeli democracy.  Hip, hip, hooray !!!

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By P. T., February 9 at 1:28 am #

All three are into Zionist expansionism.  Netanyahu’s tone is more belligerent than the other two.

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By badlawdog, February 9 at 12:52 am #

FOLKTRUTHER,
Sure I agree that just about every tribe of one stripe or another claims supremacy, etc. You cite an american indian tribe as example. Most natives support sovereignty anyway. Problem is they have about as much power as a piss ant. Why is it that most native tribes the world over are the most oppressed people on earth? Sociobiology. Jews are the only long standing “tribe” that has been forced to migrate, constantly assimilating to new cultures, employment demands and restrictions, etc, while natives were locked down, and required to submit to the same ole boot. As a result, Jews have evolved over thousands of years into some of the smartest linear thinkers alive. Couple this w/ a long history of persecution and volia, you get israel. A violent, racist state, packed full of nobel prize winners, all working in unison to defy the world…

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By Folktruther, February 8 at 10:30 pm #

Badlawdog-you are a dingbat.  It is quite true that the Zionist worldview is strongly ethnocentric, but the Jews are certainly not alone in belief in being a Chosen People.  All people tend to identfy themselves.  The Navahos, according to Carl Sagan, refer to themselves as THE PEOPLE, and do not even have a traditional word to refer to all Indians.

Zionisn is so destructive because a small fraction of Jews have gained enourmous wealth and are bound together by Zionist values.  And most of the Jewish community supports them out of fear of attack.  Some, like myself, attack Zionism, as do many other Jews in the truth indusstries.

Zionist power is the problem, of which only one part is worldview.  However, it is quite true that he presuppositions of the Jewish religion, like the Christian and Muslim religion, make these religiious war ideologies.  But that doesn’t mean that all the people who have these origins are bloodthirsty.

However, your view is a common one, so I suppose you arn’t really a dingbat.  I apolozize; you are merely wrong.

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By badlawdog, February 8 at 6:54 pm #

The Jewish worldview is completely separate from any other worldview on earth.              Incompatible with any other race, religion, political, social or cultural system ever devised or practiced by mankind. In the mist of billions, the Jews are a separate world isolated unto themselves, militantly protective and infinitely exclusive. To the Jew, all the world is a stranger and ultimately a potential enemy. 3000 years of ruthless persecution from every social system on earth has solidified their beliefs. This is a fact they never let you or themselves forget, and an occurrence that will never happen again. Never again!

“Never again” is quite a statement. Has anyone ever really thought about what this means and its implications, especially to a free and open society like the United States? The world? Never again is synonymous with the statement that this will never happen “to us” again, or “we” will never let this happen again. In social psychological parlance, this is a classic in-group verses out-group formation. Jews verses Americans. Jews verses the world. In accord with this, Lieberman has it right. Hard right. He’s the only honest guy over there. He hates goy’s and openly admits it. Go Lieberman! You nasty snake!!!

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By randyha, February 8 at 2:25 pm #

Since Israel claims to be a democracy and Netanyahu wants to hold on to the West Bank, why not allow Palestinians to vote for a state for all its citizens?- One person, one vote.

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By Folktruther, February 8 at 2:15 pm #

It is true that Likud, Labor and Kadima all support continued ethnic cleansing.  But it is not a larger militarism that is needed to defeat them, but the military-political strategy that Hamas and Hezbollah are now pursuing.  It would help enormously if Egypt and Jordan would overthrow their American financed puppets and assist this strategy.

In that case the Zionist controlled US power system would probably intervene militarily directly with ‘peacekeepers.’  The Zionist NYTimes Friedman has already suggested it.  That is why the fate of the Palestinians are largely in the hands of the American people, who must distinguish between anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism, obfuscated by the Zionists, and oppose US Zionism.

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By Fadel Abdallah, February 8 at 11:54 am #

Sorry! But the “Hamas Is Not Going Away” article by Mel Frykberg can be accessed at the following link:

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/frykberg.php?articleid=14211

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By Fadel Abdallah, February 8 at 11:49 am #

Click the following to access the sent link:
   
   
Hamas Is Not Going Away - by Mel Frykberg*

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By Fadel Abdallah, February 8 at 11:15 am #

Likud, Labor or Kadima they are all fascist terrorists representing different layers of savage colonialist occupiers. This charade thing called “Israeli democracy” is not only a disgrace to so-called democracy, but a deceitful camouflage for terrorism, militarism, and fascism.

Likud, Labor or Kadima are different names for competing gangs of fascist terrorists. And only a counter larger scale terrorism and militarism will defeat them, based on the old formula of “those who live by sword must perish by sword.”

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