No, no, Ihherit, try to pull yourself together.  Neither Sombart, Weber or I say that capitaalism is anybody’s ‘fault’.  I was giving an alternative version of its historical origins to that of Weber.  Capitalism was a progressive movement when it began.

So….Jews created Capitalism?  Fascinating piece of fantasy, since it doesn’t at all jibe with how Capitalism arose and its connection with Venetian merchants, the Age of Exploration, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Age, and the growth of all of them, and their connection to each other.

But, oh, it must be the Jews fault!  Is it FolkTruther or VolksVahrer?

Actually, Inherit, what bothered me about marxism is that it did not have an ethnic component that embodied racist and natiaonal identifications, in additionl to economic class identification.  That is a reason, in my opinion, it took progressives so long to identify a faction within the American ruling class, the head of what James Petras calls the ‘Zionist power configuration.’

25% to 30% of the American ruling class are apparently Jewish families, which is quite astonishing considering that Jews are only a few percent of the American population.  that is apparently the reason, or at least a reason, why Zionism became so strong in the US.

There was a now unfashionable sociologist called Werner Sombart who was more famous than Max Weber in his prime.  He is unfashionable because he was a marxist in his youth and capitualated to German nationalism in his old age, although not Naxism as near as I can figure.

He was an academic and is still read for a six volume specialized history he wrote in the early 20th century.  But he is most interesting for his combating Weber’s famous notion that it was the Protestant ethic that initiated capitalism.

He argued that it was the Jews that began capitalism.  I read parts of his work and he makes striking arguments.  I don’t know what the truth of the matter is, or even if there is a truth of the matter.  But the relation of ethnicity to a great historical movement is a distinctly unmarxist notion, at least in the classical sense.  I point it out to you so you can include a little historical texture in your bigoted ravings.  No charge.

NEWS YOU WON’T FIND ON CNN & FOX NEWS…

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land
U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

How Israel manipulates and distorts American public perceptions

Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how—through the use of language, framing and context—the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied territories appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one.

07/17/06 - VIDEO - Runtime 79 Minutes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Folktruther…If you have a chance to watch this video, but I must warn you that it does contain scenes of Israel’s IDF brutality & violence.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14055.htm

Folktruther,

I know you don’t need to read what I post because you can read my mind and know what I’m saying without reading it.

That’s how Marxists think.  Marxism gives all the answers, you just fit people into it.  If the facts say differently, well, just ignore the facts.  They are wrong, because to a Marxist, Marxism is NEVER wrong.  Hey! That sounds just like the “creationists”, doesn’t it?

No wonder.  Fanatic faith is fanatic faith.

The reason that the racism of Ihnherit and Sepharad is so poisonous is that it dovetails with American racism. Mainstream progressives operatively identify with it while giving lipservice to Tolerance, Freedom, Equality, Multi-culturalism, etc.
Sepharad teaches her children mult-culturalism while supporting Israel shooting down Arab children, starving them and depriving them of medicines, and dorpping cluster boombs to maim and kill them in later years.

This is the American way, the duplicity that has been inherited in the Amereican narrative.  Because not only has Israeli racism influenced the US, but American racism has influenced Israel.  It is not accidental that the US and Israel both supported apartheid South Africa.  They both support racist terrorism under the guise of Freedom and Democracy.

What the US and Israel calls Terrorism is the usually the resistence of dark-skinned people to American and Israeli imperialism.  It is used indescriminately even if their leaders were elected in the Western electoral process.

Sepharad:

If Fadel was willing to accept the idea of a two-state negotiated peace between Israel and Palestine, that adjusted the borders, addressed settlements and even worked out an agreement on Jerusalem, I think his “war” with me would be at an end.

I’m not saying Israel should dictate terms, nor am I saying Palestinians should.  Rather they should come to a mutually acceptable agreement—a good treaty is one where nobody is happy, but everyone knows everyone gave up something for the agreement.

I would, for one, be deeply grateful for the two sides to work out an agreement they can all live with.  And “live” in this case is used literally.

But if “peace” starts with the pre-condition of a right-to-return for every Palestinian to Israel (even if they were born within the last 60 years), and ends with CONTINUING the call for the destruction of Israel, the war, sorrowfully, will continue.

Likewise, if the Israelis demand that settlements stay unconditionally, and elect a government with the explicit agenda of “Greater Israel” expansion, I would be forced to side with the Palestinians.

No.  Settlements must not only stop, they must be reversed. Borders must be fairly drawn (“Good fences make good neighbors”).  Both sides MUST abrogate encroaching on the other’s territory.

Eventually, a Middle-Eastern Union, modeled on the European Union, could incorporate Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt into a single trading zone.  But I don’t expect to see that in my lifetime.

You do a real service, Robert, by presenting honest truthers who subvert the Zionist narrative.

Ari Averny, an Israeli peace group leader, has maintained in an article on Counterpunch that the reason that Americans identified with the Zionists so much is that they both have inherited a religious racist experience. Traditonal American racism against Indians, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and now Muslims, have been incorporated subtlely in religious doctrine, as anti-Muslim assertions have in Jewish doctrine.

Some of this is defensive, since the Christian inheritance included the racism of anti-Semitism.  This has led to a right wing American religious ethic of both pro-Zionism and anti-Semitism simultaneously, as in Rev. Hagee who was featured by Aipac.  This is an identification with power against people, as American Patriotism identifies with militarism and a police state against the
American people and people of the world.

As the American people begin to realize how American policy has been ripped off by Zionism, the tendency is now to airbrush Zionism out of American ideology.  A new book by Scoblic, a New Republic editor, a Dem Zionist magazine, is called US VS THEM, and discusses the need for the US to stop nuclear prolification.  It does so without mentioning Israel or Zionism in any way, an amazing intellectual feat.

The editor of the New Republic is Peretz, who inherited, through his wife, Singer Sewing machine money, and supports neocons and neolibs.  He was Al Gore’s campaign manager.

Occupation Hazard

Norman Finkelstein Challenges the Conventional Line on Israel.

By Ilan Pappe | BOOKFORUM | Feb/March 2006

“Why is the history of modern Palestine such a matter of debate? Why is it still regarded as a complex, indeed obscure, chapter in contemporary history that cannot be easily deciphered? Any abecedarian student of its past who comes to it with clean hands would immediately recognize that in fact its story is very simple. For that matter it is not vastly different from other colonialist instances or tales of national liberation. It of course has its distinctive features, but in the grand scheme of things it is the chronicle of a group of people who left their homelands because they were persecuted and went to a new land that they claimed as their own and did everything in their power to drive out the indigenous people who lived there. Like any historical narrative, this skeleton of a story can be, and has been, told in many different ways. However, the naked truth about how outsiders coveted someone else’s country is not sui generis, and the means they used to obtain their newfound land have been successfully employed in other cases of colonization and dispossession throughout history.

Generations of Israeli and pro-Israeli scholars, very much like their state’s diplomats, have hidden behind the cloak of complexity in order to fend off any criticism of their quite obviously brutal treatment of the Palestinians in 1948 and since. They were aided, and still are, by an impressive array of personalities, especially in the United States. Nobel Prize winners, members of the literati, and high-profile lawyers—not to mention virtually everyone in Hollywood, from filmmakers to actors—have repeated the Israeli message: This is a complicated issue that would be better left to the Israelis to deal with. An Orientalist perception was embedded in this polemical line: Complex matters should be handled by a civilized (namely, Western and progressive) society, which Israel allegedly was and is, and not entrusted to an uncivilized (i.e., Arab and regressive) group like the Palestinians. The advanced state will surely find the right solution for itself and its primitive foe.

When official America endorsed this Israeli position, it became the so-called Middle Eastern peace process, one that was too sophisticated to be managed by the Palestinians and hence had to be worked out between Washington, DC, and Jerusalem and then dictated to the Palestinians. The last time this approach was attempted, in the summer of 2000 at Camp David, the results were disastrous. The second intifada broke out, and it rages on as this article goes to press.

The Zionist narrative is as simple a story as the history of the conflict itself. The Jews redeemed their lost and ancient homeland after two thousand years of exile, and when they “returned” they found it derelict, arid, and practically uninhabited. There were others on the land, but they were basically nomads, the kind of people you could, as Theodor Herzl wrote in 1895, “spirit away” outside the Promised Land. Still, the empty land somehow remained populated, and not only this, but the elusive population rebelled and tried to harm the Jewish returnees. Like any other narrative, this one too can be laid out elegantly and scholarly or conveyed coarsely and simply. It can appear as a sound bite on American television when a suicide bombing is “contexualized,” or it can dominate a book produced by one of the prestigious university publishing houses in the West. But however verbose or taciturn Israel’s advocates may be, the historical narrative they insist on broadcasting is a false representation of the past and present realities in the land of Palestine.”

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=132

THE 1948 ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE ILAN PAPPÉ

“This article, excerpted and adapted from the early chapters of a new book, emphasizes the systematic preparations that laid the ground for the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians from what became Israel in 1948. While sketching the context and diplomatic and political developments of the period, the article highlights in particular a multi-year “Village Files” project (1940–47) involving the systematic compilation of maps and intelligence for each Arab village and the elaboration—under the direction of an inner “caucus” of fewer than a dozen men led by David Ben-Gurion—of a series of military plans culminating in Plan Dalet, according to which the 1948 war was fought. The article ends with a statement of one of the author’s underlying goals in writing the book: to make the case for a paradigm of ethnic cleansing to replace the paradigm of war as the basis for the scholarly research of, and the public debate about, 1948.

ON A COLD WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, 10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches on a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine1. That same evening, military orders were dispatched to units on the ground to prepare for the systematic expulsion of Palestinians from vast areas of the country2. The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be used to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centers; setting fire to homes, properties, and goods; expelling residents; demolishing homes; and, finally, planting mines in the rubble to prevent the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit was issued its own list of villages and neighborhoods to target in keeping with the master plan. Code-named Plan D (Dalet in Hebrew), this was the fourth and final version of vaguer plans outlining the fate that was in store for the native population of Palestine3. The previous three plans had articulated only obscurely how the Zionist leadership intended to deal with the presence of so many Palestinians on the land the Jewish national movement wanted for itself. This fourth and last blueprint spelled it out clearly and unambiguously: the Palestinians had to go.

The plan, which covered both the rural and urban areas of Palestine, was the inevitable result both of Zionism’s ideological drive for an exclusively Jewish presence in Palestine and a response to developments on the ground following the British decision in February 1947 to end its Mandate over the country and turn the problem over to the United Nations. Clashes with local Palestinian militias, especially after the UN partition resolution of November 1947, provided the perfect context and pretext for implementing the ideological vision of an ethnically cleansed Palestine.

Once the plan was finalized, it took six months to complete the mission. When it was over, more than half of Palestine’s native population, over 750,000 people, had been uprooted, 531 villages had been destroyed, and 11 urban neighborhoods had been emptied of their inhabitants. The plan decided upon on 10 March 1948, and above all its systematic implementation in the following months, was a clear case of what is now known as an ethnic cleansing operation.”
—————————————————————————

Here is the link to Ilan Pappe’s article “The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”:

http://71.18.226.238/final/en/journals/printer.php?aid=7175

But at least your bigotry is out there plainly for everyone to see, and wrapped in the absurdity that Israel’s racism is justified by the oppression of other Muslim regimes, which are often installed and paid by the US, with Israeli support.

Sepharad’s racism, which is exactly the same as yours, is clothed in a likeable sensibility which conceals the vicious values that she espouses.  By her supporting fake peace groups, like PEACE NOW, the more gullible are lulled to sleep by the lullibies of Zionists. 

Right. Qaddaffi is supported by Israel.
Sudan is supported by Israel.
Saudi Arabia is supported by Israel.

Sorry, I’ve been around folks like you all my life.  You are a Marxist.  The “bourgeois” this and “bourgeois” that confirms that your entire perspective is based on antique and long-discredited Marxist philosophy. I too, thought it was wonderful.  Then I turned 16 and figured out why it was garbage….more on that later.

Inherit, acknowledging that you are a drooling, fire-breathing Zionist and a racist to boot is, for you, the first step toward wisdom and away from your perverted values.  I hold you personally responsible for the entire Zionist tradition, beginning with the birth of Hertzl and continuing past the death of Sharon, may his soul rot in hell. 

But at least your bigotry is out there plainly for everyone to see, and wrapped in the absurdity that Israel’s racism is justified by the oppression of other Muslim regimes, which are often installed and paid by the US, with Israeli support.

Sepharad’s racism, which is exactly the same as yours, is clothed in a likeable sensibility which conceals the vicious values that she espouses.  By her supporting fake peace groups, like PEACE NOW, the more gullible are lulled to sleep by the lullibies of Zionists. 

Parties of the Israeli establishment, from the bourgeois Labor Party to the right, have all been in favor of a two state solution for many years in lipservice, while supporting, often with silence, the stealing of Palestinian land.

As the American people begin to understand how they have been decieved by the Zionist media, Sapharad’s gentle support for mass murder, torture and robbery will replace your more obvious perverted irrationality.  Her humanistic platitudes will lull the sheep to sleep and turn their eyes away from the starving and shooting of Muslim children.  Her approach is even more disgusting than yours, and I commend you for not adopting it.

Writer on the Storm:

I hear you and here’s a translation: What Arab nations do to their minorities is irrelevant. What Israel does in the buffer zone seized from its attackers is the only relevant issue.

Justice is only measured by what Jews do to Arabs, not by what Arabs do to anyone who isn’t Arab.  According to you, it’s fair to apply one standard of judgment to Israel, but a wholly different standard to her attackers and the supporters of those attackers.

I’ve never once, not once, seen ANYONE here who says Israel is a criminal state acknowledge the crimes the Saudis or the Sudanese have committed that make Israel’s look like a parking ticket.  Not once has ANY of Israel’s critics recognized that any Arab state, no matter how well documented the brutality, should be judged by the same standard.

I’ll go even further, Writer, and tell you that I FULLY support a 2 state solution.  What I don’t support is a phony “right to return” for people who never lived in Israel. When 900,000 Jews were forcibly expelled from Arab nations, where were they to go?  The 800,000 who left Israel HAD the chance to stay, and even return.  They ELECTED to stay away after the right to return expired.  Why? Because they didn’t want to live under Jewish rule.  Those that stayed found they received full citizenship, voting rights, and even the right to serve in Parliament.  Nothing like THAT existed or exists to this day for Jews ANYWHERE in the Arab world.  Somehow, tiny Israel absorbed 900,000 Jews.  But gigantic Greater Arabia, far larger than the USA, couldn’t absorb 800,000 Arabs.

It’s all BS…just an excuse to divert Arab subjects from the evils of their own governments, aided, of course, by many Moslem leaders.

So let there be a two-state solution.  I believe, that once that Palestinian people stop having to live in a war zone OF THEIR OWN MAKING, they’ll return to old ways where these folks pushed education, sophistication, trade, etc, and WILL prosper and eventually make a TRUE peace with Israel that will allow the barriers to come down.

But to expect and demand that openness when every opening and channel is exploited to ship terrorists into Israel who blow up buses and pizza shops full of children, is to demand that Israelis commit suicide.  Not just the nation commit suicide, but the people too.  Who would accept that?

Sepharad—

For the first time in a few years, I feel a degree of optimism about Israel’s future alongside the Palestinians. And I have you to thank. It’s especially refreshing to hear that Netanyahu, who enjoys the status of a wise elder statesman here in the US, is not universally admired in Israel. It seems to me that he, like the neocon right in America, favors fear mongering, tribalism and its requisite condemnation of the “other” as his ticket to political power. 

Inherit The Wind—

Your insistence upon considering both sides of the story appears to be an even-handed position at first glance. Your apparent neutrality, an admirable quality. So fair, so above-the-fray.

But considering further, it seems to me that this stance, after all your justice is weighed up and all your addition and subtraction done, adds up to nothing. If everyone adopted your “neutral” tit-for-tat stance, it would guarantee that nothing would ever happen. It would only assure the continued violence and radicalization of the youth of both sides.

There is a original transgressor in this situation. Sooner or later one must decide who that transgressor is. Sooner or later, one must make a commitment to possible solution, rather than holding on to indignation.

There will always be plenty of recrimination to go around. But even with the best intentions, it may be less than constructive to seek justification for every act of violence in the actions of the enemy. Such an approach will only lead to a perpetuation of the notion that violence is necessary and warranted.

It’s not your merry-go-round. But it is up to you to decide when to get off.

Funny think Sepharad: I agreed with virtually everything you wrote. I even agree that the Palestinians are entitled to rule themselves how they see fit, without interference.

I agree with your assessment of Likud—it has been mine since the days of Begin (obnoxious little man.  His behavior reminded me of some of my relatives).

Yet somehow I am portrayed by others as a drooling, fire-breathing “Zionist” (whatever that is) who hates all Moslems and is a racist to boot.  This is DESPITE the fact that I agree with you. 

Why?

Because I demand that ANYONE condemning Israel for its actions against Arabs must examine the 23 Arab states for their actions against Jews and other minorities.  I argue that when Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Sudan (for example) are held to the same standard as Israel, Israel’s shortcomings seem far smaller, and its leadership more willing to resolve them.

It’s simple: If you live in a glass house you shouldn’t throw stones at your neighbor’s house.

By Sepharad, October 1 at 4:34 pm #

“It was also his theory that the main reason Oslo hadn’t worked was that Arafat did not want to go down in history as the leader who recognized the existence of Israel, thereby giving up part of once-Palestinian land, Dar al Islam, to non-Moslems.”
=====================================
Sepharad, greetings!

I was following your latest post with some interest till I came across the statement quoted above, at which point you lost me.

I don’t know whether you were quoting Sharon with approval or not. However, nothing can be more removed from the truth that Arafat had any serious Islamic dimension to his thinking. I can bet lots of money and my reputation and dare to say that possibly the phrase of “Dar Al-Islam” has never crossed Arafat mind.

Arafat was the epitome of secularism, and that was partly responsible for the birth and creation of Hamas. I don’t know if you know that Arafat, after abstaining from marriage till he was very advanced in age, he ended marrying a Christian Palestinian who was raised and educated in France, and was not known to have any patriotic or national credentials. In fact, after marrying her, being the daughter of a woman of bad repute during the British Mandate, Palestinians who still cared about their Islam started turning away from supporting him and his Fatah movement. The Oslo didn’t work because the Palestinians were offered crumbs of what was once their homeland, which no Palestinian with the minimum degree of patriotism and love for the homeland would accept. I was one of those despite of being known as very moderate and pragmatic and willing to compromise for a lasting peace.

Additionally, though I hated Arafat in his later years, he was one of the few people after Sadaat who clearly recognized Israel, but the problem remained that Israel never explicitly recognized the Palestinian grievances and their rights to self-determination. Palestine is not the property of a certain Arafat or the Hamas leaders; its the property of the Palestinians, and unless and until the Israelis collectively understand that, accept it, and make gestures of good will and sincerity, I am sorry to say that there will never be a lasting peace!

Here we go! I managed to drag you into confessing why “Inherit The Wind” has a personal resonance for you because have been in the business of troubling your own house and now it’s in you psychic to trouble the little house of Truthdig which is relatively peaceful and harmonious before you entered it with your bigotry and irrational rants!
************************************

I’m sorry. I’m out of my league on this… I need a real intellectual, a real philosopher to address your pointed comment.

My choice of philosopher and quote?
“What a Mar-oon!”—Bugs Bunny.

I guess Fadel the Fake doesn’t understand why the threat of “Creationism” destroys science and education.  Because THAT is what “Inherit the Wind"is all about.

By Inherit The Wind, October 1 at 8:35 am #

The play gets its name from the Old Testament, Proverbs, I believe: “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind, and the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart.”
===============================
Here we go! I managed to drag you into confessing why “Inherit The Wind” has a personal resonance for you because have been in the business of troubling your own house and now it’s in you psychic to trouble the little house of Truthdig which is relatively peaceful and harmonious before you entered it with your bigotry and irrational rants!

Another observation: Have you noticed yourself and has anyone else noticed that you hardly initiate any meaningful thought or idea. Your trademark is that you always react to other people’s statements and get into the hairsplitting rants you’re known for. Do you know what the language calls someone who is only stimulated by reaction to others?! The language calls him /her “REACTIONARY;” one of the most negative terms to describe people with backward and outdated mentality!

Sepharad—-

I wanted to thank you for your comments. Well beyond what I might have expected. It is unfortunately rare to find such careful and detailed responses. What a welcome respite from the usual sturm und drang that monopolizes most blogs whenever the subject of the Middle East comes up. I’m making a note to myself: more questions, less opining.

I do hope you continue your commentary, as it seems you had set the stage, and were just getting to my original query about the thinking behind Olmert’s interview. Is he attempting to frame the debate for Livni? Does he hope that such potentially incendiary rhetoric will make Livni appear more moderate by comparison? Or is it simply that he is finally free to say what he really thinks now that he is political driftwood?  If it’s the latter, do you believe that a majority of Israelis may be ready to move toward Olmert’s newly professed position?

Your reference to the Shas party rang a bell. Then I remembered coming across it in a review of the R.D. Gold’s book “Bondage of the Mind”. Judging from the review, it seems that this Fundamentalist group is quite radical. Apparently, one of its leaders, Rabbi Yosef, speaking on television, once called for the death of the minister of education. It’s surprising to hear that these people would take a moderate stance on the Palestinian question.

andrushka, October 1 at 5:44 am #

A bit late, don’t you think?

*********************************

Just a bit.  Ohlmert may have the distinction of being the worst PM Israel ever had or, hopefully, ever will have.  Why didn’t he do this stuff while he had the chance?  Sometimes I think he’s dumb enough to be George W. Bush’s smarter brother.

Despite what Fadel the Fake says about me, I’m fully in favor of a two-state solution. I’d even see a safe way to share Jerusalem as acceptable, and move most of the settlers out of the West Bank, except for those that would bring the Palestinians something constructive and accept Palestinian rule.

Fadel can’t accept that I don’t want to see Israel destroyed, therefore I must be a crazy-fanatical ultra-zionist.  I don’t think he’s actually read a post of mine through.  I have less in common with those fanatics than Fadel the Fake has.

He asks for empathy for Palestinians, but has none for the Germans pushed out of East Prussia, or the Southern Sudanese being massacred by the Sudanese Arabs (even when they are fellow Muslims—Mohammed would weep at that).

When I showed that all of his “history” (in which he claims a PhD) was fake or false, all he could say was I was “splitting hairs”.  Fadel, you can’t just make crap up.  And posting what is EASILY verifiable when it’s clearly wrong is, well, foolish.

He doesn’t even recognize the source for “Inherit The Wind”.  So I guess I have to spell it out.

1) “Inherit the Wind”, a play (later a movie) by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee about the Scopes “Monkey Trial” of the mid-1920’s, where Biblists charged a school teacher with a crime for teaching science in science class, specifically Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. It made a laughing-stock of the “creationists” then and separated science from religion in public schools.  It’s one of my very favorite plays.

2) The play gets its name from the Old Testament, Proverbs, I believe: “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind, and the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart.”

A bit late, don’t you think?

Surreal! A political joke! An early April-fool-like jest on the eve of the Hebrew New Year! An expression of sour grapes coming from a falling evil politician!

These are some of the thoughts that ran through my mind when I first read this piece of information. So, while I am writing my comment, I still think about the possibility that a disclaimer might follow declaring that Ehud Olmert was wrongly misquoted or his words were wrongly translated into English! 

Then, at a second thought,I say why not?! For the truth has a way to conquer falsehood and knock off its head, forcing the most ardent evil ones to succumb to the majesty of the truth and declare their surrender. So based on this premise, I am willing now to accept that Olmert, in a moment of enlightened awaking, or in a moment of desperate weakness, was forced to admit the truth about the sixty plus year old Zionist falsehoods.

I have mixed feelings about Olmert’s statements! And though you can’t take words, said in the context of ceremonial speech, to the bank of truth and justice, I am more inclined to view them in a positive vein following my positive attitude of giving suspicious matters the benefit of the doubt.

It’s the implications and issues related to this declaration of the long denied truth for me and others on the different sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that matter as highlighted below:

1. As a person of Palestinian stock who has been a direct victim of Israeli aggression, and a strong critic of Israel, I feel vindicated by Olmert’s words which put me on the side of the truth and justify my constant criticism and open hostility to the Israeli brutalities, terrorism and falsehoods.

2. Additionally, I feel that this vindication applies also to many individuals and groups, some of them are Jewish, such as Peace Now Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, President Jimmy Carter, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Wall, Naom Chomsky to mention only a few, who have been on the side of truth and justice.

3. On the other side, Olmert’s revelation condemns the fanatic irrational Zionists who were and continue to be the enemies of truth and justice, which include himself and not less than half of the Zionists, including some of the most bigots racists who occasionally write on these TD threads, such as Lefty and the other full of hot air who calls himself Inherent-The-Wind; what a name!

4. Likewise, all Palestinians who have been victims of Israeli occupation,dispossession and state-sponsored terrorism are also vindicated and justified in putting continuous courageous resistance by all means possible.

5. Olmert’s confessions condemns, as criminals, all countries, organizations and individuals whoever supported Israel, morally or materially, including in particular the British colonialist power, the USA political-military-industrial complex and the Christian-Zionist groups in both the US and many countries in Europe. The leaders of these states and groups should ideally be forced to stand in front of a world court of justice and be condemned for their crimes against humanity.

6. All these evil-supporting countries and organization should be forced to confess their crimes and get a chance to redeem their sins by agreeing to moral and financial support for the aggrieved Palestinians.

7. All people of good will and supporters of truth and justice in the world should capitalize on Olmet’s words and unite to demand that Israel should be forced to act on its words of confession immediately and in a timely manner.

8. The two presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, and all future seekers of Congress should capitalize on Olmert’s words and demand a plan of action to put the words into action and to correct the shameful control Zionist lobbies exert on this not so-democratic institution!

Yes, stop the settlements and either completely fulfill the two or one state solution, and do it now; let the Palestinians have completely independent lives, with their own passports, nationality, and trade.

Ohlmert is right and these things need to be said, not only by a retiring Israeli Prime Minister but by one currently in office. No doubt Mossad is already chewing the carpet and planning ways to ‘off’ Ohlmert for daring to tell the truth. Look what they did to Yitzak Rabin. I’m suspicious about what happened to Sharon too. The most recent, bloodsoaked history of Israel would have been completely different if Rabin hadn’t been assassinated. The Likud monsters are regrouping now to try to derail any peace plan, to get back into government and to move Israel even further into international disgrace and isolation.

I wonder if any readers out there more familiar with Israeli politics can bring a little insight as to why Olmert is doing this.

Has he seen the light? Or is this just a political suicide bomb?

It is not “contested” territory.  International law makes clear that it is Palestinian territory.

If Olmert had any sincerity, he would stop the building of settlements.

Dear Karim
“Occupied” is close to the truth. The total truth is “stolen.” What do we do in our society with persons who steal over and over again? Lock them up. In California for life. Where is the jail for Olmert and his predecessors? In The Hague, Netherlands. Is any of them there now? No. Obviously the so-called “World Community” is soft om criminals.

When Theodore Herzl was asked about the so-called Balfour Declaration whether Zionism was satisfied with “half a loaf” he reportedly answered: “yes, because we will take the other half later” which is still the objective of “extremist Zionism.”
Incidentally, Olmert’s “downfall” is not mainly due to some alleged financial shenanigans but to the defeat of Israel’s Defence Forces by Hezbollah in the most recent Lebanese war. That war also still fuels Israel’s intent to bomb Iran as an act of revenge. For Olmert’s foes he is the Israeli “Novemberverbrecher” which were the German “surrenderers” of 1918. Netanyahu is the analog of the German “revanchists” of those times which included, among others, one Adolf Hitler. Netanyahu has already challenged our next president by publicly declaring that he will do exactly what Herzl demanded namely a continuation of stealing land from the Palestinians. Prediction: the candidates for our next presidency will not be asked at the next debate to respond to Netanyahu’s brazen challenge nor will they volunteer any response because Israel is holy. holy, holy.

Please it’s about time one of these deluded leaders announces the TRUTH!
Why would God allow those who have been run out, to return to only do the same????
What god would want endless conflicts, deaths and hardships over One clump of land?
What One and Only One True God would Prefer one Mortals idol (sacred Cow) over another??? Esp since the First Rule is to worship No other Before HIM!
God did Not Build those Temples - so why would he give a shit about them, When his gifts are far more majestic and Worth of Defense?
How many Trillions of dollars have been Spent to ‘Secure Israel’, How many Lives have been losed or ruined? And yet we can’t even find a red cent to save the planet from Global Warming - the Polar ice caps??Actaully, Willing to spend more to increase and hasten environmentally destructive behaviors?
It is Not that Damned Peice of Dirt in the Middle EAst we are meant to Protect and Defend as the Stewards, it’s the entire planet and All she produces and provides for US!
So for 60 yrs we have been Derelict in our Innate Duties, and have allowed Dirt, Brick & Mortar to control all Of Humanity- I’m Guess this is Not HIS Design nor Desire!
Pry you Greedy fanatical heretic fingers from around this Blasphemy you Refuse to Drop!
As One who feels when the ‘end of Days’ will come is WAY above MY pay Scale in speculation, I often consider what exactly that could actually look like.Which will be deemed Sinful, heretical, hell bound- those ‘Warriors for God’ Or the Meek?!?
Israel is not the Battle Ground- it’s the Test of True Faith and adherece in the UnKnowable Omniscient Almighty.
It is as Irrelevant How it all will end as it is How it all began…Our Jobs are to make sure we take care of the present and provide for the Future Stewards Shift.
These Christians, Jews and Muslims fighting over this miniscule acreage of Earth are Killing Us Literally,figuratively and Redemptively (if that should be true). A god or just mere nature WE are designed and Drafted to be the Keepers, the current link..We’d better start acting like it- if not for our Souls, for our Descendants!

Israel, like the US, has been ruled by a bunch of gangsters who have been united, from the Labor party to the Right, on oppressing the Palestinian population.  Olmert is a crook in the customary tradition, currently going on trial for bribery, the president having already resigned and been indicted for rape.  The kind of thing that you expect from American political leaders.

However the police still function to some extent there against political criminals, and the Israeli press print truths routined censored in our American media. And Israeli’s have to put up with American ruling class bigots who sponsor Likud policies both in Israel and in Aipac, el al, and resent it, making the people more alert than the American population. 
They are more disgusted by their leaders than we are of ours.

However, people can be very surprising, even politicians who identify with evil, like Olmert.  Here he acknowledges that his entire career of leading Israel toward oppression is against the long term intersts of Israel.

While this certainly doesn’t redeem him, it must be acknowledged that he is performing a real service not only to Israel, but to the US and the rest of the world.

That Israel’s Licud policies are not only horribly brutal, but short sighted, irrational and self defeating as well is obvious in any simple geo-strategic analysis.  But most Zionist Americans have no geo-strategic sense at all, having been Educated and Informed by the power delusions of the mainstream learned amd mass media.

They therefore are afraid to acknowldege the apartheid existence imposed on the Palesitians because this subverts the power delusions that they have been indoctrinated in.  These they identify, falsely,  with the welfare of Israel and the world Jewish community.

The disgusting Olmert has stated publically, as a national Israel public figure, truths contrary to the Israeli, and American, authorized media truth.  A political sinner has repented.  Since Zionists can’t think so good, and certainly can’t think indendently, this will certainly help Zionist racist bigots, like Inherite the Wind, reevaluate their premisses and sweetheart up to a decent political position.

An authority figure has told the simple truth, and even if Zionists can’t recognize it, they identify with authority and with the truths legitimated by them.  Since they are often as ideologically disgusting as Olmert, they are more likely to follow one of their own.

The transformation of ideology began by Carter with his use of the term ‘apartheid’ applied to Israel, is now being carried on by Olmert.  It can be assumed that other leaders will follow eventually.

It just shows you, no one is too depraved to occasionally emit truths and values that serve the interests of humanity.  This must be taken into account when they imprison him for a long period of years.  As they should. He is less disgusting than he would otherwise be and, who knows, unlikely as it appears, someday he might crawl out of that can of worms we all inhabit and become fully human.

Amazing how people will start to speak a little truth when they have no more hope for power.