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|  Israel’s Primal Myth: A Barrier to PeacePosted on Jul 21, 2007
By Barry Lando Forget about Hamas, the wall, Gaza and the occupied territories. There can be no peace in the Middle East until Israel and the Palestinians deal with one key issue: the Palestinian demand that Israel recognize their right of return. That demand is based on the Arab charge that the Zionist state created the refugee problem in the war of 1948-49 by a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing. It’s an accusation that Israel’s leaders have consistently rejected. Jewish soldiers could never commit such crimes. It was the Arabs themselves, they say, who created the refugees. It has become increasingly evident, however, that the Israeli position is, in fact, a self-serving myth created when the Jewish state was born, perpetuated ever since by the country’s leaders and still blandly accepted by Washington. The myth goes like this: In 1948, when the Arabs attacked the newly declared state of Israel, the Arab population fled by the hundreds of thousands. They left not because of attacks by Israeli soldiers but because of the calls of their own Arab leaders, who guaranteed them a speedy return once the Arab armies had triumphed over the upstart Jewish state. Indeed, they fled despite the attempts of many Israelis—as was movingly portrayed in the film “Exodus”—to convince their Palestinian neighbors to remain. Why should such treacherous people have the right to return? Not to mention the fact that their return by the millions would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state. This is the story that Israel’s leaders and Jews throughout the Diaspora have clung to for more than half a century. But since the early 1990s a new generation of Israeli historians and investigative journalists—drawing on formerly classified documents as well as recollections of Israeli leaders of the War of Independence—has demolished the traditional Israeli position.
According to their research, the Palestinians fled their villages not in response to a call from Arab leaders but because of a concerted campaign of terror—including massacres and rape—perpetrated by military units of the newly declared Israeli state.
The key point, often overlooked, is that in 1948,
According to Sylvain Cypel, a leading correspondent for Le Monde, the full version of that U.N. resolution was never published in its entirety in Hebrew. The reason for that may be simple. From the beginning Israel’s future leaders were determined that the Jewish state, carved out of the British mandate, would be just a first step toward the eventual takeover of all the land of Palestine. As David Ben Gurion, who would become Israel’s first prime minister, confided to Labor Party members in 1941, “As soon as we gain power, once our state is established we’ll annul [the partition] and will spread out over all the territory of Israel.”
There was, however, an obvious demographic hitch to such ambitions. If the Palestinians were allowed to remain on their lands, their numbers would overwhelm the Jews—the Jewish state would be stillborn. In fact, according to
Such blunt talk was for internal use only. Outwardly, a different myth was already being prepared. “They lied, oh, how they lied,” thundered Gideon Levy. “The Arabs were always the bad guys, and we were the just, absolute, and sole victims. That’s what we’ve been told.” Indeed, after thoroughly researching Israeli archives, Morris found that not only was there no evidence that Arab leaders had called upon their people to flee in 1948-49, but that records revealed exactly the opposite: “In no case did a Palestinian population abandon its homes before an attack.” To the contrary, Israeli intelligence services had actually intercepted calls from Arab leaders asking Palestinians either to remain in their homes or to return if they had already fled. Morris and other Israeli historians concluded that the Palestinians’ flight was—as the Arabs had long claimed—the result of a purposeful policy of Israeli forces, whose communiqués at the time spoke openly of “cleansing” or “purifying” the conquered Arab villages. According to Gen. Yigal Allon, in May 12, 1948, as his men approached each Arab town, they tossed in tracts with the message in Arabic, “if you don’t flee immediately, you will all be slaughtered, your daughters will be raped.” Those were not empty threats.
“The reality,” writes Cypel in his newly published book,
Another Israeli historian, Gail Ehrlich, concluded that a dozen massacres of more than 50 victims each were committed during Israel’s War of Independence, apart from about 100 killings of smaller groups and individuals. He described a “conspiracy of silence” surrounding those massacres, which were carried out by elite Israel troops and continued even after the creation of the state of Israel. “When the first expulsions were undertaken no local officer received an order to stop them,” says Cypel, who lived for 12 years in Israel and served in the army. “Everyone understood from then on what direction was to be followed, without any need for an explicit formulation.” In 2004, Benny Morris wrote a new study concluding there had been far more “ethnic cleansing”—far more massacres and rapes than he had originally thought. The Israeli fighters had been given explicit orders “to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves.” In October 1948 in the Galilee, he said, “There was an unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion. This can’t be chance. It’s a pattern.” The orders for expulsion followed the visit of Prime Minister Ben Gurion to the headquarters of the units that undertook them. According to Cypel, “Of the 875,000 Palestinians who found themselves in the expanded State of Israel at the end of the war, only 150,000 were left after the new expulsions following the cease fire with the Arab states. The others, that is 82 percent, were driven out, half of them by military force, the rest under the combined influence of threat, terror, and a deep feeling of abandonment and powerlessness.” What sealed their fate was the decision of the Israeli government in 1948 to refuse to allow any Palestinians who had fled—no matter what their motive—to return to their homeland. At the same time, Israeli residence was offered to anyone in the world who could claim Jewish ancestry. As if to destroy evidence of the Palestinian past, over the following years some 400 out of 500 Palestinian towns and ancestral villages were burned, dynamited and bulldozed, obliterated from the maps of Israel. When the war in Kosovo broke out in 1999 an Israeli editorialist wryly wrote, “How lucky we were then there was no CNN in 1948 or the whole world would have been able to see in Palestine the images we are seeing today.” The particular irony in all this is that it has traditionally been Israel demanding that other countries acknowledge their own past moral failings, specifically with regard to the Holocaust. There is, of course, no comparison between the horrors of the Shoah and the campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians. But that fact, say some Israeli writers, should not absolve the Zionist state from recognizing the less than glorious episodes in its own history. “Maybe we had to act as we did,” says Gideon Levy. “Maybe there was no other way possible. But why lie all these years? Why not say, ‘One right came up against another, one victim came up against another, and the result was inevitable. We had to drive them out. It was them or us.’ That would be much more persuasive than the lie. It would also lead to peace.” Most Israelis are still unwilling to take that step. They cite the fear of being overwhelmed and annihilated by a flood of returning Palestinians. But most Palestinian and Arab leaders are under no illusions that Israel would ever open its doors to the 4 million refugees. What they ask from Israel is formal recognition of what actually happened in 1948-49—a recognition that would entail the Zionist state’s assuming some responsibility for finally resolving the refugee problem. The great majority of Palestinians, they acknowledge, would never return. That was the kind of deal that Yasser Arafat sought in the ill-fated Camp David talks of 2000: a face-saving accord that would have allowed him to claim victory, even though he and everyone knew there would not be a real right of return. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, however, refused to cede any ground on the issue. The claim that Israel’s offer at the time was more than generous, says Cypel, was false—another case of Israeli myth making. In fact, negotiations in following years between leading Israelis and Palestinians made it clear that a compromise on the issue was very much within reach. Six months after the failed Camp David talks, for instance, at Taba, Barak’s former minister of justice, Yossi Beilin, submitted a draft proposal acknowledging that “the nascent state of Israel was drawn into the War of 1948-1949, which had its victims and led to suffering on both sides, including the displacement and expropriation of the civilian Palestinian population. ... Since that time the refugees have for decades lived without dignity, citizenship, or property.” Israel, he promised, “will be an active partner in closing this terrible chapter.” The proposal offered the refugees several options: return to Israel within limits to be agreed on, repatriation to a future Palestinian state, or relocation in their current host countries or elsewhere, much of this to be underwritten by additional international financing. “For the first time,” says Cypel, “Israel was admitting the illegitimacy of its demand that the Palestinians forget their own history.” Speaking to his fellow Israelis, Beilin attempted to make them understand that “it is impossible to ask the Palestinians to give up the right of return. If we ask them, there will be no final record.” Ehud Barak, however, broke off the Taba talks. Similar draft negotiations two years later in Geneva, which resulted in the Palestinians agreeing to limits on their right of return and Israel undertaking to compensate the heirs of Palestinians it had expelled, ended after the talks were denounced by Ariel Sharon. Four years later, Israeli leaders and the great majority of its people still refuse to accept responsibility for the refugee problem. It boils down, says Cypel, to a question of appearances. Despite Israel’s great accomplishments, he says, there is still widespread apprehension among Israelis about any questioning of the country’s self-image of moral superiority and perpetual victim of aggression. “The revelation of the slightest flaw, the revelation of the least stain, whether in the past or ... the present, seems to evoke such fear that it challenges not only the existence but the very legitimacy of this society in the eyes of a large majority of its own members.”
While Israel’s difficulty in dealing with its own past may thus make some sense, much more remarkable is how successful the Israelis have been in convincing American leaders to play along with their founding myth.
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By yourbestbuddy, August 30, 2007 at 9:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
wow bob wow,
i’ve been listening to you on “left, right, & center” for a couple years at least, and i agree with about half of what you say.
I had no idea that you are such a shithead.
Every one of the reporters you quote in this article is a notorious kook.
How can you defend the Palestinians who are a hateful, violent, homophobic, oppressive, undemocratic people who are hated by even their own brethren in Jordan, in Egypt, in Iraq, etc?
How can you be so contemptful of Israelis who are pushy, no doubt, but who value representative democracy (including representation of non-Jew Arab-Israelis), who have built the only place in the entire middle-east with gay-pride parades, the only place that treats women as equals, and which is surrounded by 23 nations that openly wish for God to drown its people in the Mediterranean?
And how do you explain the fact that 25% of Israeli citizens are non-Jewish Arab-Israelis, many of whom volunteer for the Israeli armed forces, and who enjoy a level of liberty that, for example, the Jews of Iran can only dream of? Where did these 1.5 million Arab-Israelis come from? Why were they not “cleansed” with the rest? How did they manage to get Israeli citizenship, and lucrative jobs, and nice houses? Why are they so damned happy to be there, in Israel, as citizens, as non-Jew Arab-Israeli citizens?
Report thisBy Robert, August 8, 2007 at 6:00 am #
ISRAEL’S NAZI SYSTEMS AT WORK!
Palestinians are lined up to get to their town, schools, families, children, farms...etc…
THEY MUST GET THROUGH ISRAEL’S APARTHEID CONCRETE FENCE “CUTE NAME FOR IT” WHICH WILL TAKE SEVERAL HOURS OF HUMILIATION, VERBAL AND PHYSICAL ABUSE FROM ISRAEL’S BRUTAL IDF.
Click on the link to get the full picture and the story. Feel free to click on “NEXT” to see the others too:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/GeoPoints/Bethlehem _536/Picture_11179.html
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, August 7, 2007 at 6:15 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Well, thats how I saw it too until I began having my doubts a year ago. Maybe its that $750 billion military budget. I tell you that there are trillions unaccounted for and the money is just flowing out like a sieve. There could be a hundred billion going into black ops, all totally under the control of Cheney and his gang. There is no telling what can be done with that kind of unaccountable power, what kind of images can be created, what kind of falsehoods can be perpetrated.
Yeah. All we have to go on is that Cheney and Rove are really good at politics but totally and utterly incompetent at actually getting things done. Remember: when Cheney was CEO at Halliburton he was totally inept and made colossal blunders. He’s mean, he’s vicious, but that doesn’t mean he could conceive or pull off the WTC attack. And, again--too many downsides. There could be far less risky ops that would have the same effect.
But there’s still no smoking gun linking the attack to anybody but Al Qaeda. Heck, Here’s a PERFECT example--Look at the bumbling, inept way they tried to link the attacks to Saddam Hussein. Only because of Fox Noise and the fact that most Americans are functionally illiterate (including congress critters) did that link get anywhere despite it being ludicrous. With the kind of money and resources available, they SHOULD have been able to craft a link that was unimpeachable, even if it was phony as a $3 bill. But they couldn’t.
My point? If someone can’t the side of a barn while standing inside, it’s an awfully long reach to accept that he could then function as a marksman.
Just so you know where I stand politically, no matter what else Johnson did, he can rot in hell forever for the Vietnam War as far as I am concerned. If he didnt assassinate Kennedy, he just about assassinated the United States. We havent recovered yet and it doesnt look like we ever will.
I’m not too far away from that POV...Because of Johnson’s excesses, he opened the door to Nixon--which laid the precedents for Reagan, which laid the precedents for President Mussolini. The kicker was even LBJ knew that Viet Nam was a quagmire right from the start.
Report thisBy tuantu, August 7, 2007 at 5:45 am #
WIND you certainly are a quick, busy beaver here at TRUTHDIG occupied as you are with plugging any breaches in your dam called America. It has taken a small but highly dedicated minority, all working together with a single goal in mind, many years to successfully dam up in order to control America and all those years of hard effort cannot be jeopardized. Dont worry your dam is not going to break, none of your water is going to escape. America is thoroughly damned up by all the busy beavers who believe they have really entered into a covenant with God and are thus obligated to damn the country up or suffer His repercussions.
Report thisI am not feculent - I am fecund and what I am trying to do is fecundate this hopelessly unconscious dead water all you busy beavers, all working together with a single purpose in mind, have managed to build so that you can “enlighten” us. This hopelessly unconscious dam called America actually believes that it is the home of the free and the land of the brave doesnt it?
Dostoevsky was very perceptive. He had to have been extraordinarily insightful and observant since he was Einsteins favorite author.
The truth hurts doesnt it? But like surgery even though it may hurt, the truth also may also cure you. Run towards it, not away from it, like Chomsky and Finkelstein and thousands of other good decent Jews have done. It may eventually make you decent person too.
The Jews ARE certainly very RICH. Israels Former Prime Ariel Sharon admitted as much (before his stroke) when he admitted that We (the Jews) own America. According to the dictionary an owner is someone who has the rightful claim or title to a thing. Divide Americas net worth by the number of Jews in the world and I believe you would all be very rich -
even more rich than you are now. And please dont be ashamed of owning America. If I were Jewish I would brag about also. As far as I know there is NO LAW against owning America is there?
Americas Constitution doesnt say it is illegal does it?
Rupert Murdoch is half Jewish - his mother was Jewish which makes him a Jew. And even though he may not(yet)officially consider himself a Jew he is unofficially because he loves and supports the Jews very much. I have been accused of being too pro-Israel and too pro-Jewish, to
which I plead guilty as charged, media baron Rupert Murdoch told 400 supporters of the Jerusalem College of Technology (March 5, 1999). Driving home his point, the chairman of The News Corp. added:For 50 years, my companies have taken a strong, even strident, position in support of Israel. Our commitment to Israel and its people is unyielding and I believe in Israels future.
I am not a Nazi. I know why you wish I were. I am just someone who has noticed certain
circumstances in my environment and am examining them out of curiosity and commenting on
what I see.
I do not think the Jews are going to let them be slaughtered again. There is no law, as far as I am aware of, against controlling or owning America and through America the world. So why would anyone sane want to slaughter the Jews? I think as George Bernard Shaw once thought - that the art of government is the organization of idolatry. The dictionary defines idolatry as an immoderate attachment to or veneration for any person or any thing. And using Hollywood and Americas mass media, the Jews have managed to organize their idolatry and have caused America to fall in love with them. I do not believe that with a wife such as America - a nation of 220 million used car salesmen
with no qualms about going around the world and killing anyone - the Jews have to worry about
being slaughtered by anyone EVER. And dont worry about the dam breaking. Take solace in what Voltaire once said: It is difficult to free (madly in love) fools from chains they(been conditioned to) revere.
By Tony Wicher, August 6, 2007 at 10:52 pm #
#92505 by Inherit The WInd on 8/06 at 7:28 am
(Unregistered commenter)
TW:
Does Bush, lie, cheat, coverup with impunity? Sure! No doubt about that--look at Gonzo and Cheney hiding the US Atty firings and the Valerie Plame Wilson outing.
But I see them as OPPORTUNISTIC about WTC--it just doesnt parse that they would be behind it--too many things could go wrong, too many unpredictables, too many people to keep too deep and awful secrets--like planting charges--this is the WTC, not a warehouse in Afghanistan. Such a building has never been demolished that way.”
ITW,
Well, that’s how I saw it too until I began having my doubts a year ago. Maybe it’s that $750 billion military budget. I tell you that there are trillions unaccounted for and the money is just flowing out like a sieve. There could be a hundred billion going into black ops, all totally under the control of Cheney and his gang. There is no telling what can be done with that kind of unaccountable power, what kind of images can be created, what kind of falsehoods can be perpetrated.
Just so you know where I stand politically, no matter what else Johnson did, he can rot in hell forever for the Vietnam War as far as I am concerned. If he didn’t assassinate Kennedy, he just about assassinated the United States. We haven’t recovered yet and it doesn’t look like we ever will.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, August 6, 2007 at 6:05 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Tuantu,
You are so feculant you could open a fertilizer factory. You use fancy words and phrases but all you are doing is mouthing age-old lies. Dostoyevsky wasn’t perceptive--he was a typical bigoted 19th Century Russian. No more.
Most Jews aren’t rich. A few are. But the financial powerhouses of America were mainly British--like Morgan--as Morgan Guaranty Trust and JP Morgan get closer to merging, the House of Morgan is on the brink of re-forming. During WWI EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION with the Allies passed through J. Pierpont Morgan’s bank. Every last one. Not Jews, Morgan.
And this crap about Jews owning the media? Hello, you liar--Rupert Murdoch, the NON-JEWISH mogul from Austrailia now owns the Wall Street Journal AND Dow Jones. Disney owns ABC. Walt Disney was not only not Jewish, he was anti-Semitic--and Disney is a FRENCH name.
My grandfather was the child of orphans, a night watchman married off to the ugliest, meanest woman in town--my great-grandmother--nobody else would have her. They were dirt-poor, shtetl-poor. My grandfather (actually, both of them) went to work before they teenagers. He got sent to Siberia as a political prisoner by the Tsar when he was 17.
After 5 years he was released and came to America, with NOTHING. No relatives, no money, nothing. He busted his ass, tried to start a little business of his own, failed, tried again and again, until FINALLY he had a tiny shop that was successful. But at times his oldest son, my uncle, was making the money the family lived on. Rich Jews! What chickenshit is that? You can kiss my Jewish ass you nazi prick! It was my father and uncle who got their families from working class to middle class.
You go to the towns of New Jersey and Long Island and see ordinary people living in ordinary houses, but they are Jewish. Rich? I don’t fuckin’ think so!
But this myth of the Rich Jew has been used as an excuse for every atrocity down the years. Now assholes like you want to use it to justify destroying Israel and slaughtering the 5.5 million that live there!
Do you REALLY think Jews are going to let themselves be slaughtered again, EVER AGAIN? Go kiss a picture of Hitler or something.
Report thisBy tuantu, August 6, 2007 at 3:06 pm #
Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness by which the many are governed by the few. David Hume
Report thisBarry Lando ended his report on Israel and the myths the Jews have created about their colonization of Palestine with this comment: much more remarkable is how successful the Israelis have been convincing American leaders to play along with their founding myth.
I would like to point out that it really isnt all that remarkable that less than 1% of Americas population - less than a million Jews - own and operate America when you realize that as far back as 1790 the French philosopher Condorcet wrote that because of the gullibility and stupidity of the vast majority of the French population, a cunning highly organized minority (such as the Jews) would be able to indoctrinate the French public at will and create an elite oligarchy behind a democratic front. When Senator William Fulbright declared in 1972 that the Israelis control politics in Congress and in the Senate, and added that the United States was subservient to Israel I realized that what Condorcet (over 200 years ago) had theorized could happen had actually become a reality in America even before 1972.
I would also like to point out that the dominance of a highly organized highly educated minority (like the Jews) obeying a single minded impulse, while working together towards a collective goal over a generally feeble minded, unorganized and generally uneducated majority is feasible and possible since the power of a dedicated highly organized very intelligent (and very wealthy) minority (such as the Jews), as against the power of a single unorganized pitiful individual within the majority (such as myself) is much greater since the minority is highly organized, rich, very smart and very dedicated and single unorganized uneducated pathetic individual within the majority (like myself) is not.
And it is even more extraordinarily easy to accomplish when the rich dedicated single minded very smart minority (i.e., the Jews) also just happen to own and/or control all of majoritys mass media.
If there is no deliberate single minded organized combination of Jews in the world working together towards a single goal, then the indisputable and easily provable control which the Jews have achieved (which is visible to any man with the eyes and intelligence to see things honestely and objectively) in America and England and Australia and Canada and France and Germany etc., and the uniformity of the policies which they follow must be the simple result, not of deliberate organized decisions, but of a similar nature in all of them who just happen to be working independently around the world all unconscious of one another and all working in the same way.
I think the brilliant Russian novelist Dostoevsky hit the nail right on the head when he noticed and then said this of the Jews: They would have you believe that they do not rule over Europe, that they do not manage....the politics, the internal affairs, the moral life of the United States.
And that was over 100 years ago before Hollywood, AIPAC and Americas mass media! Dostoevsky was an acknowledged genius (Einsteins favorite novelist) and he must have noticed something in his environment to prompt him to say that.
I wonder what it was…
By Inherit The WInd, August 6, 2007 at 7:28 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
TW:
Does Bush, lie, cheat, coverup with impunity? Sure! No doubt about that--look at Gonzo and Cheney hiding the US Atty firings and the Valerie Plame Wilson outing.
But I see them as OPPORTUNISTIC about WTC--it just doesn’t parse that they would be behind it--too many things could go wrong, too many unpredictables, too many people to keep too deep and awful secrets--like planting charges--this is the WTC, not a warehouse in Afghanistan. Such a building has never been demolished that way.
Look AGAIN at the WTC7 evidence--the videos. Look at the opposing views and the examples of similar collapses. Keep an open mind: When I saw a side-by-side of 7 and a controlled demol they LOOKED the same and took the same time--but I SAW it was cooked. How? Because WTC7 was far, far taller than the “example” yet took (apparently) the same time to fall. Also, I’m NOT seeing one thing in all the videos that I’ve ALWAYS seen in demol videos: First, there’s a loud, clear explosion at the bottom which completely cirles the base of the building followed by the other cutting explosions higher up...then the building comes down. In the WTC7 vids all I see is the building coming down, not the signature base level explosion, or the pause after it. There are also other photos and vids the conspiracy buffs ignore because they show WTC7 was damaged far, FAR worse prior to the collapse than their conspiracy allows for....
Rumors about LBJ being behind JFK’s murder are not only absurd, they are disgusting. While LBJ had a temper and was ambitious as hell, and certainly was NOT too fond of JFK (at least prior to being VP), there is far too much of LBJ’s character that indicates he was a bold, brave humanist (secular? doubtful) who wanted very much to improve America--going back to his young days teaching Black children and deciding the Southern racism of the time was evil...He was a New Deal Democrat and WORSHIPPED FDR as The Perfect President. He put everything on the line for the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and Thurgood Marshall’s nomination. He was a LOYAL AMERICAN who would have seen killing a President, and a fairly competent Democratic one, as treasonous.
But conspiracy theory is a delicious, exciting, but rarely nourishing soup. You are right not to hang your hat on them.
Report thisBy Tony Wicher, August 5, 2007 at 2:49 pm #
Re #92251 by Inherit The Wind on 8/05 at 4:34 am
Everybody knew Oswald didnt kill JFK alone, and probably wasnt involved. Oliver Stone made a movie about it. It was all crap. Later evidence demonstrated that the objections to Oswald as the sole killer were all crap.”
ITW
First of all, I have never been a conspiracy theorist. I never got very involved in the JFK theories, although I will say that Paul Krassner’s hoax about Lyndon Johnson being discovered by Jaqueline Kennedy aboard Air Force 1 fucking Kennedy’s neck wound may have been close to the truth. The killing of Oswald by Ruby just strains my credulity too far. I think there was a coverup, and if so it must have come from Johnson. I think Johnson was power-hungry enough to do it, and if there was a coverup, it would have to have begun with him.
But I have never hung my political hat on this or any other conspiracy theory, including 9-11. At least I will say that the collapse of WTC7 hours after the planes hit the towers was clearly a deliberate demolition. Are you saying I should believe the official account instead of my lying eyes? Most people do that, including me. We actually believe what we see and hear on television. They show us a picture and tell us what it’s a picture of and we believe it without question. At least I would like to know why WTC7 was demolished, and who gave the order. It didn’t just collapse. No way.
What I’m saying is that I see all the signs of a coverup about 9-11. Bush-Cheney obviously wanted a war. I used to think 9-11 just came as a god-sent opportunity, but now I think Osama probably had help from Cheney and his special ops/black ops people. Again I’m not hanging my hat on this.
What I am hanging my political hat on is that the American people are being kept in the dark. No one, I presume including you, thinks the Bush Administration is candid and honest. It’s the most secretive administration in history. How much they are hiding I don’t know, but it’s plenty. I don’t think we can have a democracy unless we have an informed public, and I wonder how committed Hillary or any other Democrat is to full public disclosure. Maybe Kucinich, but what chance has he got?
“If women are voting for HRC, because shes a woman, then its REALLY because shes not another lying, cheating, assume-women-are-stupid man.”
Hell yes! I don’t blame ‘em a bit. And just maybe they know something I don’t, and Hillary will surprise even cynics like me. I sure hope so.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, August 4, 2007 at 8:34 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Fascism will not be stopped unless the entire truth of 9-11 comes out. I believe both the World Trade Towers and WTC7 were intentionally demolished.
I feel quite sure Cheney was involved. We will not have a democracy unless there is full public disclosure. It will not matter much who is president.
*****
Everybody “knew” Oswald didn’t kill JFK alone, and probably wasn’t involved. Oliver Stone made a movie about it. It was all crap. Later evidence demonstrated that the objections to Oswald as the sole killer were all crap.
Everybody “knew” flight 800 didn’t just crash. Pierre Sallinger bet his career on it, claiming it was shot down. It was crap. He lost the bet. It just crashed.
The conspiracy buffs “Know” Sirhan Sirhan didn’t kill RFK. Yet not only did he admit it, he said he did because RFK was a shoe-in and a solid supporter of Israel--and Sirhan is Palestinian. So a Palestinian “hero” murdered the man who would have and SHOULD have been elected President in 1968.
Tony, it’s hard for me not to be insulting on the WTC because I find the conspiracy arguments such as you present just plain silly. I find the supposed “scholarly” work equally silly. You want to believe them? fine. You think Cheney was behind it? Fine! I don’t--not because he isn’t evil and a fascist, but because I don’t think he’s clever ENOUGH to pull it off and hide it.
But whether or not he was, that does NOT change the fact that Cheney and the whole administration are OVERTLY driving us toward fascism and that drive CAN BE STOPPED! Because until the “smoking gun” is found, it’s all just conspiracy theories and they are STEALING OUR COUNTRY while you argue over 9/11.
If women are voting for HRC, because she’s a woman, then it’s REALLY because she’s not another lying, cheating, assume-women-are-stupid man.
Report thisBy Tony Wicher, August 4, 2007 at 8:11 pm #
#92133 by Inherit The Wind on 8/04 at 2:01 pm
“Thats a damn sexist thing to say.”
I don’t think it’s sexist at all. It’s the feeling I get after talking to a lot of women. On the contrary, they have every right to feel that way. I applaud their determination and I respect their power enough to say they can’t be stopped by male sexism. Hillary might not be my choice, but she is theirs. I hope she does a good job.
“Id like to see the next Congress STRONGLY define what the legal limits on the President are and are not--No signing statements, no Unitary (dictator) theory. They can abort fascism COLD!”
Fascism will not be stopped unless the entire truth of 9-11 comes out. I believe both the World Trade Towers and WTC7 were intentionally demolished.
Report thisI feel quite sure Cheney was involved. We will not have a democracy unless there is full public disclosure. It will not matter much who is president.
By Inherit The Wind, August 4, 2007 at 6:46 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
TW:
We are making progress!
This thread ends when we have nothing more to say to each other. Im sure Truthdig will start another one on the same topic. I would very much like to reach at least the beginnings of common ground with you. Perhaps if I put it this way, we could understand each other better:
LOL! Well put!
There is no escape from the exercise of power. The more power one has, the more moral responsibilty one has. The United States is the most powerful country in the world. If civilization is destroyed, which appears to be fairly imminent, the United States will bear the most responsibility. Instead of using its power to prevent this from happening, its power is being used to make a small power elite obscenely rich and impoverish the rest of world. So far from trying to bring peace, it profits from war. We are the lords of war. Our military budget far exceeds the entire rest of the world combined. This obscenity is ruining the American people and their once wonderful culture as much as the rest of the world.
Up to here we have nothing to talk about--I agree completely.
The alliance with Israel serves only the interests of this power elite. It is terrible for the American people and the world.
THIS is the basis for our disagreement. I do not accept either statement as valid.
Empires rise and fall, and the United States is currently going the way of the British before them. I for one am doing everything I can think of to help this process along. Just think, we could be a civilized, peace-loving country like Germany and most other European countries are now. That would be great! Once we are out of the empire business, maybe we could get such things as universal medical care, decent public schools, etc., like the Europeans have. It would take only a small fraction of our current military budget.
This much is true--Iraq alone is going from a $60 billion/year drain to $120 billion/year and it didn’t serve our Sun-Tzu security needs...at ALL!
But when the United States leaves the Middle East as the British did, where does that leave Israel? Up shit creek without a paddle, as matters stand.
Possibly, probably. But “when”? There are SO many pieces to the puzzle, as Scott Ritters’ “quiz” shows. Another was the imbecilic decision in 1980 to replace Carter with Reagan, ending for the next TWLEVE YEARS all real oil conservation and replacement effort and support.
Just think: Had we continued on Carter’s road to energy self-sufficiency, the IRON GRIP the Middle East has on us would have been totally shattered...If the BIGGEST consumer went away,, well, it would have taken Western Europe as well--all those Petro-Dollars (and now Petro-Euros) would be giant piles of sand...and the $$$ that left our shores for Arabia--invested back in productive businesses--like the mil- excess you described...The WHOLE Balance of Power in the ME would be completely different--and Israel wouldn’t need our support!
Republican short-sightedness has been the scourge of America since the last progressive Republican President left office: Theodore Roosevelt.
Report thisBy Tony Wicher, August 4, 2007 at 10:27 am #
Re #92064 by Inherit The Wind on 8/03 at 7:11 pm
“However, Tony, you DIRECTLY contradicted yourself:
Therefore I advocate that the United States should end ALL military alliances and weapons sales to states in the area, including Israel, but also including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. U.S. power should be used to stregthen and support genuine international bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Court, to deal with such matters as terrorism and aggression.
The United States has no business stationing troops outside its borders anywhere in the world, or selling arms to any other country.
THAT, my friend IS isolationism, whatever you call it. I dont want us supporting dictators either, but sometimes you have to hold your nose...think of ALL the troubles that would have been avoided it President Shithead had just left Saddam Hussein be....
“But Truthdig has moved this thread to page 2 which means they want it to end.... “
ITW,
This thread ends when we have nothing more to say to each other. I’m sure Truthdig will start another one on the same topic. I would very much like to reach at least the beginnings of common ground with you. Perhaps if I put it this way, we could understand each other better:
There is no escape from the exercise of power. The more power one has, the more moral responsibilty one has. The United States is the most powerful country in the world. If civilization is destroyed, which appears to be fairly imminent, the United States will bear the most responsibility. Instead of using its power to prevent this from happening, its power is being used to make a small power elite obscenely rich and impoverish the rest of world. So far from trying to bring peace, it profits from war. We are the lords of war. Our military budget far exceeds the entire rest of the world combined. This obscenity is ruining the American people and their once wonderful culture as much as the rest of the world. The alliance with Israel serves only the interests of this power elite. It is terrible for the American people and the world.
Empires rise and fall, and the United States is currently going the way of the British before them. I for one am doing everything I can think of to help this process along. Just think, we could be a civilized, peace-loving country like Germany and most other European countries are now. That would be great! Once we are out of the empire business, maybe we could get such things as universal medical care, decent public schools, etc., like the Europeans have. It would take only a small fraction of our current military budget.
But when the United States leaves the Middle East as the British did, where does that leave Israel? Up shit creek without a paddle, as matters stand.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, August 4, 2007 at 6:01 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
TW: I actually have very little to disagree with about your last post:
OK maybe we can talk about this. I say the objective must obviously be world-wide peace and democracy, and that this cannot happen except through the strengthening of international law......... realize how much more secure and more peaceful the whole world would be? When will the people see this? When will they see that the military-industrial complex is sucking them dry, making war after war, rotting us financially and morally?
I see very little I disagree with other than emphasis. “World Peace” is a great objective (gee, I sound like Miss America, without the great looks)...but from a realistic POV, it’s simply a great way to enhance OUR national security. In other words, we make ourselves more secure and safe by a careful and thoughtful embrace of “world peace”. Make the world safe for Democracy? I’m like you: I’m an American and I think self-rule of the people by the people is not a great thing--it’s the only thing. But it’s not our right to FORCE it on them--like Bush is trying to do in Iraq.
I will say that Clinton was a model of democracy compared with Bush. But Clinton was a centrist Democrat who did not fundamental U.S. policy either foreign or domestic, and in fact the best you can say is that he slowed the rate of descent into fascism which was already very far advanced when he took office. Under Bush 2 we went off the cliff, of course.
Let us remember that for 6 years Clinton was dealing with Congress dominated by obscenely hypocritical Republican leaders who spent years trying to “get” something on him, and, when he actually DID try to fight terrorism, 1) they blocked his every move 2) they criticized and belittled him 3) they said it was “Wag The Dog” and 4) They let Bush re-writethe history of what happened. Given all that, Bill Clinton did a damn fine job, though he could have been less accommodating of Congress.
I expect we will get Hillary next, because I get the feeling that this is what women want. They are more than half the electorate, and they want a woman president for a change. I dont think they can be stopped.
That’s a damn sexist thing to say. I’m no Hillary fan but of the realistic candidates she’s as well-qualified as any--both technically and politically--and she KNOWS how the WH works. I think she’s doing what she needs to do to get elected, then we’ll see a far more dynamic leader. My first choice would be Gore, my second Edwards, then a virtual tie between Hillary and Barack Obama. But of ALL the Democrats, there’s NOT ONE I wouldn’t prefer to the Republi-scum now running. Only Ron Paul in the GOP shows signs of intelligence, backbone and morality.
Is she going to make any fundamental changes in U.S. policy? I doubt it. The descent into fascism may be slowed, but its long-term prospects look good - unless Americans wake up. Im pinning my hopes on the investigations and the possibility of impeachment at this point. My hopes arent very high.
Two different questions. I don’t see how ANY President with a brain can’t seek to fundamentally un-do the cluster-fuck Bush got us into. Will she/or anyone take the steps YOU (or I) think they should? Probably only partially.
But remember that Congress is now (barely) Democratic. Things are looking like a BIG landslide in 2008 and they should be able to get past GOP obstructionism (again, the hypocrites were willing to violate the Constitution to get rotten judges approved--"Obstructionism" is only good when blocking Dem nominees!). Plus, with a Dem Pres, we won’t see a plethora of vetos and signing statements that undermine sound laws.
I’d like to see the next Congress STRONGLY define what the legal limits on the President are and are not--No signing statements, no “Unitary” (dictator) theory. They can abort fascism COLD!
Report thisBy Tony Wicher, August 3, 2007 at 10:19 pm #
#91954 by Inherit The Wind on 8/03 at 8:30 am
“So where in that vision of the world does Israel and the Arab nations fit?
A topic for further discussion ”
ITW
OK, maybe we can talk about this. I say the objective must obviously be world-wide peace and democracy, and that this cannot happen except through the strengthening of international law. As you said a couple of posts ago, we have to have laws because we cannot depend on the goodness of human nature (Jewish or otherwise). It is the responsibility of the most powerful counties to transfer a portion of their power to international bodies such as the World Court and the United Nations. If the United States would take only, say 10% of its 750-billion dollar military budget, and use it to finance support and build up the U.N., the ICC and build other international institutions, do you realize how much more secure and more peaceful the whole world would be? When will the people see this? When will they see that the military-industrial complex is sucking them dry, making war after war, rotting us financially and morally?
I will say that Clinton was a model of democracy compared with Bush. But Clinton was a centrist Democrat who did not fundamental U.S. policy either foreign or domestic, and in fact the best you can say is that he slowed the rate of descent into fascism which was already very far advanced when he took office. Under Bush 2 we went off the cliff, of course. I expect we will get Hillary next, because I get the feeling that this is what women want. They are more than half the electorate, and they want a woman president for a change. I don’t think they can be stopped. Is she going to make any fundamental changes in U.S. policy? I doubt it. The descent into fascism may be slowed, but its long-term prospects look good - unless Americans wake up. I’m pinning my hopes on the investigations and the possibility of impeachment at this point. My hopes aren’t very high.
Report thisBy Robert, August 3, 2007 at 9:36 pm #
PALESTINE IS STILL THE ISSUE
By John Pilger
Documentary directed by John Pilger regarding the Palestine / Israel conflict. This documentary has to be seen and is important in understanding the most important issue of the Middle East.
For this video Please Link to:
http://www.spiderednews.com/Videos/62446.htm
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, August 3, 2007 at 7:11 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Secondly, you really misunderstand and mischaracterize me when you call me an isolationist. You think Im Pat Buchanan? Hardly. I want total involvement of the United States in international affairs, but I want that involment to be peaceful, and by means of strenthening international law.
No, I don’t think you’re Pat Buchanan--but he’s far from the only kind of isolationist.
However, Tony, you DIRECTLY contradicted yourself:
Therefore I advocate that the United States should end ALL military alliances and weapons sales to states in the area, including Israel, but also including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. U.S. power should be used to stregthen and support genuine international bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Court, to deal with such matters as terrorism and aggression.
The United States has no business stationing troops outside its borders anywhere in the world, or selling arms to any other country.
THAT, my friend IS isolationism, whatever you call it. I don’t want us supporting dictators either, but sometimes you have to hold your nose...think of ALL the troubles that would have been avoided it President Shithead had just left Saddam Hussein be. Yeah, the people were in a bad way, but what HE gave them has been 10 times worse. As FDR said about Samoza “He may be a sonuvabitch, but at least he’s OUR sonuvabitch!” To defeat Hitler and Tojo we allied ourselves with Stalin and Chiang-kai Shek, and even (I kid you not) with Ho Chi Minh. All of these men were brutal murderous killers, especially Stalin.
Real Politik is not always pleasant: But the VERY FIRST line of Sun-Tzu’s “Art of War” says everything:
“The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”
The road either to safety or to ruin. The message? ANY OTHER pursuit of war is criminal in WILL lead to ruin. And Shrub is taking us to ruin.
But Truthdig has moved this thread to page 2 which means they want it to end....
Report thisBy Tony Wicher, August 3, 2007 at 6:44 pm #
91954 by Inherit The Wind on 8/03 at 8:30 am
“Well, Tony,
At least we have SOME basis for discussion. No Double standard means: You dont rant and rave about Israeli transgressions but ignore Arab ones. You dont talk about Israeli aggression and ignore Arab aggression. You dont talk about Israeli ethnic cleansing and ignore 60 YEARS of Arab ethnic cleansing, not just of Jews (900,000 of them) but of non-Arab Moslems and non-Arab non-Moslems. You dont pretend that the invasion of Lebanon is the worst war crime in history and that Darfur is not far, far worse.
OK, we have THAT out of the way. Now on to the next weak argument:”
ITW,
I don’t think you got my point. It was that if Israel is not to be held to a higher standard than Arab countries, then there is no particular moral reason to defend its existence. There then remain only the usual calculations of “U.S. national self-interest”, and in that case there is every reason for the United not to support or defend Israel, which has no oil, and which is a constant source of irritation to the countries which do have the oil, who would be happy to sell it to us anyway if Israel disappeared from the face of the earth.
If there are no moral reasons to defend Israel, then I would like you to tell me what the other reasons might be. Because it just looks to me like a very bad deal for the U.S., which is something that is beginning to occur to more and more Americans.
“Tony, the gist of your argument is that either we withdraw to our own borders, become isolationist, refuse to sell arms, refuse to intervene in other nations, refuse to take ANY responsibility in the world (like WWII when we let the Jews get slaughtered in Europe)....or we are a terrible, rotten imperialist.”
Secondly, you really misunderstand and mischaracterize me when you call me an isolationist. You think I’m Pat Buchanan? Hardly. I want total involvement of the United States in international affairs, but I want that involment to be peaceful, and by means of strenthening international law. What I don’t want is the kind of involvement that we have now, where we are propping up brutal dictatorships all over the world to feed the coffers of the military-industrial complex that has pretty much been running things and following the same imperialist policies since the end of WW II. I don’t want us supporting the degenerate kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or the police state of Egypt, or the apartheid state of Israel. In fact, we should be working with the United Nations, the World Court and other international bodies to put pressure on all these regimes to democratize. But of course the United States and Israel have combined for 40 years to destroy the United Nations and any meaningful reality of international law, for which both nations have shown utter comtempt.
I also support Tikkun’s “strategy of generosity” for a new Martial Plan for underdeveloped countries, in place of our current imperialist foreign policy.
I would greatly increase the size of the Peace Corps and send Amercans all over the world as ambassadors of peace and good will.
So how am I an isolationist?
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, August 3, 2007 at 8:30 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Well, Tony,
At least we have SOME basis for discussion. No Double standard means: You don’t rant and rave about Israeli transgressions but ignore Arab ones. You don’t talk about Israeli aggression and ignore Arab aggression. You don’t talk about Israeli “ethnic cleansing” and ignore 60 YEARS of Arab “ethnic cleansing”, not just of Jews (900,000 of them) but of non-Arab Moslems and non-Arab non-Moslems. You don’t pretend that the invasion of Lebanon is the worst war crime in history and that Darfur is not far, far worse.
OK, we have THAT out of the way. Now on to the next weak argument: Tony, the gist of your argument is that either we withdraw to our own borders, become isolationist, refuse to sell arms, refuse to intervene in other nations, refuse to take ANY responsibility in the world (like WWII when we let the Jews get slaughtered in Europe)....or we are a terrible, rotten imperialist.
Both are exaggerations and foolish paths--we see Bush’s imperialism is making a huge mess (his clumsy ignorant incompetence makes it even worse).
But you cannot withdraw to “Fortress America”. That dream died a century ago. Nor can you ignore the fact that if WE aren’t there projecting power, hopefully wisely and benignly, SOMEBODY ELSE WILL BE! And, while I might not mind that vacuum being filled by the European Union, I wouldn’t like to see it filled by either Putin’s Russia or by China.
Therefore, our national security, which is the safety of our nation, DEMANDS that we be involved in world affairs. We can do it wisely, as Bill Clinton did getting NATO into Yugoslavia to abort the slaughter there, or insanely stupidly, as Bush has done in Iraq. Or a combo:
Afghanistan was BEGUN as a fine coalition, could WELL have been the paradigm for such actions, but President ButtHead decided he needed a war in Iraq, and he needed it in the spring of 2003--other seasons weren’t do-able and 2004 was too much into the Presidential season. So he sacrificed Afghanistan for his idiot plans in Iraq.
But we cannot withdraw--it doesn’t work. And imperialism is a dumb idea--there’s better, less-costly and less-deadly ways to influence the world.
So where in that vision of the world does Israel and the Arab nations fit?
A topic for further discussion…
Report thisBy GodSend, August 3, 2007 at 7:12 am #
Here are a few more submissions for the name of the American Division of Zionist warriors, exclusively dedicated to fighting Israel’s wars of aggression for them:
‘Armageddon’
Report this‘729th’
‘Matzos’
‘Masseltoff’
‘Never Again’
‘Dancing Shlomos’
‘SOMBFAJ’ (the Military loves acronyms!)
‘Eye and Tooth’
‘Greater Israel’
‘Shalom’
By Tony Wicher, August 2, 2007 at 11:05 pm #
re #91634 by Hilljew on 8/02 at 4:45 am
Tony Wicher,
You said, If what you say is true, the U.S. should immediately end all support. We are just pissing off the Arabs who have the oil. Hmmm, I actually find that agreeable, if only because its more truthful than the line We should end our support for Israel because its a criminal state. It acknowledges the truth that behind the unique and disproportionate condemnation of Israel (as opposed to far worse countries) are not empathy, moral considerations or any other kind of idealistic motives, but pure self-interest (keeping the oil flowing). As Golda Meir said of the Useless Nothings, more than 30 years ago: They cant talk, their throats are choked with oil. Little has changed since.”
U.S. imperialism will abandon Israel if it is in its interest to do so. If I thought Israel worth defending I would advocate its defense on moral grounds. However, since according to ITW and other supporters of Israel, we should not hold Israel to a higher standard than any of the surrounding Arab or Muslim countries in the region, there remains no reason for avocate support for Israel against the Arabs. Let’s have another Arab police state there instead - what’s the difference? Even Osama bin Laden has said he will be glad to sell us all the oil we want at a fair market price. Why should we antagonize him? He just wants us out of the Middle East. So do I.
Report thisBy Tony Wicher, August 2, 2007 at 6:11 pm #
#91633 by Inherit The Wind on 8/02 at 4:42 am
“So the question that is NEVER asked here is: Of what tactical, strategic, diplomatic and economic advantage is it for the United States to support Israel and to maintain relations with Israel? Start THERE and youll see a very different landscape.”
IHW,
I have never believed or said that the United States supports Israel for anything other than reasons of state - not morality, and not because Israel is maniupulating Congress or the media. As I have said before, almost too many times to repeat again, I agree with you that the real motives of the United States are economic. The motive, as I have said all along, and Chomsky and others have also said all along, is to control the region for its natural resources, particularly its oil - not only because the U.S. needs it to support its outrageous consumer culture of a bunch of fat-assed, SUV-driving United Statesians, and to make huge profits for oil companies, but also because from a geopolitical standpoint it gives the U.S. economic leverage over Europe, China, India, etc. Now, that is what I call imperialism. U.S. support for Israel is an integral part of U.S. imperialism. The idea that we should defend our plucky ally, Israel “the only democracy in the Middle East”, is nothing but imperialist propaganda intended for the ears of the aforementioned fat-assed, SUV-driving, gullible, ignorant United Statesians. I am against imperialism. I think history is a struggle between imperialism and democracy. I’m on the side of democracy. I want my country, the United States, to cease being an empire and be the peace-loving democracy it could be. Therefore I advocate that the United States should end ALL military alliances and weapons sales to states in the area, including Israel, but also including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. U.S. power should be used to stregthen and support genuine international bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Court, to deal with such matters as terrorism and aggression.
The United States has no business stationing troops outside its borders anywhere in the world, or selling arms to any other country.
Report thisBy GodSend, August 2, 2007 at 2:08 pm #
CM:
The problems of the world (and the solutions) are inextricably linked to human spirituality - what you call ‘religion’. It’s what sets humanity apart from the animal kingdom! To debate humanity’s problems without considering spirituality would be like debating cooking without mentioning food!
Report thisBy GodSend, August 2, 2007 at 1:55 pm #
It occurred to me that ‘Gefilte Fish’ Division may nor appeal to the majority. So here are some other candidates:
‘Borscht’
‘Sara Lee’
‘Starbucks’ (that’s a good one!)
‘Bagel and Lox’
‘Greenspan & Bernanke’
‘Hollywood’
‘Spielberg’
‘Hebrew National’
‘Chicken Liver’
‘Corrie Rachel’
Perhaps we should hold a naming election (Diebold, anyone?)
Report thisBy GodSend, August 2, 2007 at 12:41 pm #
Let’s form a ‘Gefilte Fish’ Division in the US Military, composed of Zionists of all stripes (Jews, ZioChristians, Neocons, etc.) who are itching to fight Israel’s wars! By God, let them! Lieberman, Pelosi, Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Barack, Reid, Krauthammer, Palast, Chomsky, Zakheim, Abrams, Feith, Wolfowitz, Greenspan, Bernanke, Blitzer, Fleischman, Perle, Pipes, etc. etc. etc. can volunteer their sons, daughters and other interested relatives to murder Arabs or be killed and/or maimed! We could even eliminate the age restriction so they can each grab a gun themselves and head for Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran - wherever Israel wants to send them to knock some heads or olive trees off. Heck, we could even let them fight under the Israel flag and they wouldn’t have to use ‘false-flag’ tactics any more!
And the Pentagon can hide all the returning coffins and we won’t mind! 
We can nominate Bush to be their Commander-in-Chief and ‘Decider’. He’ll LOVE it! Pelosi and Clinton can be a 4-star Generals 
Problem SOLVED!
Report thisBy GodSend, August 2, 2007 at 8:18 am #
Helljew:
FG, Sr. is right - you and Zionists have been exposed as liars, murderers and rebels against Yahweh. God (and no other god in his (or her) right mind) would condone what the Israeli Zionist Satanists have done, are doing, or intend to do to the Palestinians and other Arabs in the ME - not to speak of humanity!
Yahweh and His Son, Jesus the Christ, have identified your true nature and who you worship: Satan! He also pronounced Final Judgment on the rebellious house of Israel: “...and I will leave them there {in His furnace} and MELT them.” After the great MELTING, all the grandiose plans for a “Greater Israel” and NWO will dissolve into Desert Glass!
This is where our discussion (and the story) ends!
L’Chaim (to LIFE - Jesus the Christ is LIFE!)
Report thisBy Chris Murphy, August 2, 2007 at 8:04 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Massive reading comprehension problem godsend. I’m happy to participate in a rational, non-religious, discussion.
The pro-Israel camp has no response to the writings of its early Zionist leaders, who knew perfectly well Arabs would not self-dispossess. They knew they’d have to force them out, scare them out, do whatever it would take in order to get them to leave so that Jewish immigration could create a Jewish majority. Israel is the result of colonization.
There has been no response to Jewish terrorism either. Because there can be no response. Jewish terrorist groups killed men, women and children, just like Arab terrorist groups did.
Yitzhak Shamir and Menachim Begin were members of the Zionist terrorist group Irgun. Begin was the head. Shamir once said “it was the only way we could operate, because we were so small. So it was more efficient and more moral to go for selected targets.” Targets like the King David Hotel, and Deir Yassin where 260 innocent people were killed there by the Stern Gang.
Ben-Gurion later said “ without Deir Yasin there would be no Israel.”
You argument against terrorism belies the truth. Palestinian terrorists do not deny who they are targeting. Israel merely denies it. Again, saying something doesn’t make it true. You don’t get to say that Israel doesn’t target civilians when the civilian count is so, so much higher than the number of terrorists it actually kills. OK, you can say it, but it’s intellectually dishonest. Maybe you don’t actually know these things though.
One might be able to argue that Israel came into being through terrorism and then successfully transformed its violent arm into its military, whereas through lack of money and leadership Palestinian Arabs continued to resort to the same tactics they’ve been using since this conflict started.
But then last year Netanyahu was at a ceremony commemorating the bombing of the King David Hotel. One of the surviving Irgun terrorists, Sarah Agassi, was quoted as saying, “We fought for our independence. We thought it was the right way . . . If I had to fight for Israel, I swear even now I would do anything.” Netanyahu called her a freedom fighter.
Zionism and Jewish immigration was an invasion. And it never intended to be contained within the boundaries defined in the U.N. partition plan, resolution 181. Not for one moment were those borders realized.
And after the 1967 war, as I previously mentioned, as a matter of numerous UN records, Arab states explicitly offered a recognition of sovereignty, and peace, in exchange for complete withdrawal of the occupied territories captured in 1967. Israel rejected all of these, and then proceeded to take even more land through illegal settlement activity, in violation of the 3rd Geneva conventions, to which it is a signatory. No rational response by the pro-Israel camp.
Gandhi even got the complete moral bankruptsy of the whole venture. He understood it was Arab land because they actually LIVED there. If Jews wanted to immigrate, let alone setup a new state there, it was literally up to the Arabs to agree or not. Well, they weren’t given a choice. It’s no different than what Europeans did to Native Americans, except that exporting another race and culture to solve your problems had rather recently been determined to be a war crime. Again no rational response.
Report thisBy Hilljew, August 2, 2007 at 7:43 am #
Frank Goodman,
1.A. “No concept of God could...” - so you just don’t want to take the Torah at face value. Numbers 33:50-54 is just too much for you. Your problem.
1.B. “...what Israel is doing to Palestine.” Israel IS Palestine, you Jew-hater! Israel is its name, not “Palestine”, the name Emperor Hadrian gave to the region in order to blot out the Jews’ historical connection to it. How well it has worked, as we can see right here! The Jews are taking back what is theirs, their land, retrieving it from Arab invaders who are coveting and stealing it. God condones, nay, commands that.
2.A. “No concept of goodness and honor could justify killing old men, women, and children to take their lands, homes and destroy their social systems...” I agree: no concept of goodness and honor could justify what the Muslims are doing all the world over.
2.B. “...in order to make way for a greedy, money grabbing, grubby group of aggressor.” Ah, the anti-capitalist spin. A reminder: 100,000,000 deaths due to Communism. He who lives in a glass house shouldn’t throw stones. And the only aggressors here are the Arabs.
“The hordes of escapees from the ovens of Hitler learned well from Hitler.” In other words, you’re saying the Jews are the new Nazis. And we all know what should be done to Nazis, right? We don’t flinch when, in the Indiana Jones movies, we see Indiana kill them by the boatload, because it’s held they’re not worthy of life. So if you equate Jews (or Zionists, to use the modern codeword) with Nazis, then you’re as good as saying you believe it’s justified for Arabs to murder Jews. Like Tom Paulin when he said of the Jewish settlers that they “should be shot dead” and that “they are Nazis, racists. I feel nothing but hatred for them”. Anti-Zionism is our age’s cloak of acceptability for hating the Jews and seeing their being murdered as justified.
We don’t see the Arabs as cockroaches, and certainly not as harmless. We see them for the Jew-haters they are, we recognize they want us dead. If that makes us “racists”, then so be it! We’ll be called racists, but at least be alive! Not praised by the world after being led like sheep to slaughter, which is what happened more than 60 years ago.
Let us raise the curtain on the real world and see wrong for what it is. Anti-Zionists are the same as the Jew-haters of 60 years ago, just with an updated justification for their hatred: the Post-Colonial Narrative, of standing up for “the rights of the weak and oppressed, indigenous peoples against strong Western colonialist aggressors”. The narrative that says, if you’re strong you’re automatically in the wrong, and if you’re weak then every crime is permitted for you. The mindset that says Arab suicide-bombers murdering Jewish women and children is something that should be understood, because “it’s their only weapon, they have no army like the Western colonialist aggressor, and they’re fighting against oppression”. The mindset that gives Robert Mugabe a blank check because he’s a black oppressing blacks, not a white oppressing blacks. Marxism is PURE EVIL written in ideological form.
I pray you will repent of your position. All of you anti-Zionists. Failing that, I pray God will destroy you all.
Leftist scum.
Report thisBy Frank Goodman, Sr., August 2, 2007 at 7:16 am #
Re: #91634 by Hilljew on 8/02 at 4:45 am
Yeah! I do get tired of your bullshit. But where there is bullshit, there is bound to be a bull. In fact there is a lot of bull. That is why we call it bullshit.
I do not intend to counter your missiles. I intend to go for the source and take out the bunkers from which the dung is flung.
So much for the cultural shock of scatology to describe the reality of aggression against true democracy and human rights.
1. No concept of God for humans could include a belief that God would condone what Israel is doing to Palestine.
2. No concept of goodness and honor could justify killing old men, women, and children to take their lands, homes and destroy their social systems in order to make way for a greedy, money grabbing, grubby group of aggressor.
The hordes of escapees from the ovens of Hitler learned well from Hitler. They also learned from the Americans to mask their crimes in a cloak of honor and decency to prevent another mass killing of Jews. But, in the process it is OK to kill masses of Arabs, if they get in the way. After all, Arabs have been compared with cockroaches. They are harmless, but you have to kill them on sight. Cockroaches carry no known diseases. But just the sight of them turns the stomach. That is how the Zionists see Arabs.
In fact Americans were pretty shabby in their treatment of Africans in this country. But, no matter how badly Africans were treated, they were used as a source of cheep labor to build out industrial might from slavery, to slum workers.
Let us raise the curtain on the real world and see wrong for what it is. See it as a blight on our humanity, not as a justification for God’s favoring the greedy, self praising bigots who propagate Zionism and Jewish domination of Palestine.
Report thisBy Hilljew, August 2, 2007 at 4:45 am #
DevilSend (and others who do the same),
You seem to have a penchant for using the doctrines of the Neturei Karta (splinter-sect of a splinter-sect, condemned by nearly all Jews, as I said) in order to hammer your anti-Zionist points home. Can I, then, use the doctrines of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (splinter-sect of Mormonism, itself a splinter off of Christianity; nearly universally condemned for advocating polygamy) as the basis for my critiques of Christianity? That would only be fair.
When the Arabs talk of “land stolen by the Jews”, they mean all the lands that make up the state of Israel now. They don’t want just Judea and Samaria ("West Bank” to all you anti-Zionist revisionists), they want for all of the state of Israel to be wiped out as a sovereign entity. Naturally, these are not demands we can comply with. There will be war, then, until we have driven them all off our land.
To Life! (God, having no human form, no fleshly incarnation and no literal son. That’s what the Bible, sans man-made Christian additions, says)
Frank Goodman, Chris Murphy,
Sorry to see you tired out. It’d be more honest, though, not to mask that tiredness with transparent pretexts such “undebatability of religion”, “twisted logic” and “lack of enlightened discussion”.
Tony Wicher,
You said, “If what you say is true, the U.S. should immediately end all support. We are just pissing off the Arabs who have the oil.” Hmmm, I actually find that agreeable, if only because it’s more truthful than the line “We should end our support for Israel because it’s a criminal state”. It acknowledges the truth that behind the unique and disproportionate condemnation of Israel (as opposed to far worse countries) are not empathy, moral considerations or any other kind of idealistic motives, but pure self-interest (keeping the oil flowing). As Golda Meir said of the Useless Nothings, more than 30 years ago: “They can’t talk, their throats are choked with oil”. Little has changed since.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, August 2, 2007 at 4:42 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Tony Wicher on 8/01 at 10:58 pm
(183 comments total)
Re #91332 by Inherit The Wind
Actually I have addressed these points of yours ad nauseum, and you have completely ignored everthing I said.
I will try one more time, I guess. First of all, the idea that I am holding Israel to a higher standard than 22 Muslim states strikes me as morally sleazy. Thats like saying that other people are murdering scumbags so its ok for me to be one too. OK, I wont hold Israel to a higher standard. OK, so Israel is as big a piece of crap as Egypt or Saudi Arabia, then. We wont expect any more of it. Fine. So why then does it deserve our support? If not for its superior virtue, or its democratic values, what else? What good is Israel, then? If what you say is true, the U.S. should immediately end all support. We are just pissing off the Arabs who have the oil.
***************
I FINALLY got through to you! You are FINALLY beginning to understand! Yes, there have been MANY issues for which Israel is accountable, and many leaders should be in front of the ICJ (like Sharon, if he wasn’t in a coma). Yes. we want Arab oil. So why do we support Israel? You and others seem to think it’s the AIPAC and other lobbies, but NEVER consider another possibility:
REAL POLITK!
It never seems to occur to the pro-Arab types that there is a reason that we have been supportive of Israel for 60 years, and especially the last 40, across various administrations. Put aside “morality”. Put aside “influence peddling” and think like a skilled diplomat and negotiator. Until George Bush purged them, there were LOTS of talented people in the State Dept who understood that supporting Israel is a key element to having influence and projecting power in that part of the world. You don’t have to be a neo-con Bush idiot to understand that projecting power is important--you can use it carefully, benignly, an iron fist in a velvet glove, or empirically and stupidly, li