“102692 by Jack on 9/26 at 6:26 am

In the true spirit of the “new” antisemitism any criticism of Israeli foreign policies or actions is immediately equated with anti semitism. Most people who are interested in and familiar with the issue distinguish very carefully between Jews, Israelis, Zionists, Likudniks, and the many other groups. The worst of the hard right wing Zionists are the ones always screaming antisemitism. Criticizing Israeli government actions is no more antisemitic than criticising Bush is anti American.”

....and so after all these years away from my summer camp in the Catskills… the same question again returns… Can an ethnic jew be “anti-semetic?” I do not approve of Israel’s foregin policy..  So Am I anti semetic?

In the true spirit of the “new” antisemitism any criticism of Israeli foreign policies or actions is immediately equated with anti semitism. Most people who are interested in and familiar with the issue distinguish very carefully between Jews, Israelis, Zionists, Likudniks, and the many other groups. The worst of the hard right wing Zionists are the ones always screaming antisemitism. Criticising Israeli government actions is no more antisemitic than criticising Bush is anti American.

boggs on 9/24 at 12:53 pm
(128 comments total)

Of course the fall of the Lebanese gov’t would be exactly what Israel and the U.S want. They want to destabilize the entire middle east. This is their mission.
Divide and conquer one small country at a time. Thats why we sent all the bombs to Israel to be used in the thirty day war last spring against Lebanon. A pure power play against Lebanon for no reason.
We have been behind the displacement of the Palestinians all these 60 years.
But if you ask our gov’t officials we are the caretakers of the world. We are the nurturing country. We are the lords over humanity and democracy.
Anyone who isn’t blind can see plainly where Israel and the U.S. are trying to take us.

Posts like this flabbergast me because I cannot believe anyone could be so dense and blind.  But I should expect it because it comes from people who think Jews are genetically evil and born with a desire to do mischief in their DNA, even if it gets them killed.

Since it has been Syria’s intent and purpose to de-stabilize Lebanon for 30 years, at least, how could it POSSIBLY be in Israel’s interest to give Syria what it wants?  How could it POSSIBLY be in Israel’s interest to destabilize all her neighbors and try to battle them all into submission? Because if you believe that Israel wants to de-stabilize Lebanon, then the same logic would force you to conclude that Israel also wants to destabilize Jordan and Egypt, a conclusion that defies fact, actions and sanity.

No, the only logical path for Israel’s NATIONAL SECURITY is help moderate neighbors stay stable and peaceful so Israel can focus her efforts on her real enemy: Syria. Following the First Gulf War, Iraq was contained and eliminated as a threat.  Iran is very far away and such threats are mostly noise.  Eventually, sanity will break out in Iran and they’ll realize that the Shah, bastard that he was, was right: Israel IS Iran’s natural ally.  Think about it (those of you who can).

The LAST thing Israel needs is trouble in Lebanon--while she’s struggling with the West Bank, Syria and Gaza.  To say that Israel wants Lebanon as another danger zone ON HER BORDER, is simply moronic and typical of anti-semites--they will blame Jews for ANYTHING even if it makes no sense. In fact, the less sense the better because then OTHER people will say “who would say something so crazy if it wasn’t true?” Easy.  A paranoid liar eager to spread what Geobbels called “The Big Lie”.

Outraged on 9/24 at 10:54 am
(202 comments total)

It’s too bad that your defense of Israel is supported only by name calling and incongruities.  Otherwise, we could’ve had a valid debate.  In order to gain a realistic view of any issue one must listen to several points of view and incorporate all facts currently known, some of which might not be flattering for one’s position.

******

Talk about living in a glass house! You started off by mis-quoting and deliberately mis-interpreting me, dragging in irrelevancies, ignoring obvious and critical facts, and then telling me to “wake up and smell the coffee” which, of course, implies that I’m an idiot.

Truthdig is FULL of characters like you--"debate" means you set the rules, you act as the umpire, and you fix the deck so you always “win”.  It’s not debate--it’s simply a forum for your propaganda.

I swear, if someone’s kid gets a boil on his butt, people here swear it’s an Israeli plot and dig up “evidence” to “prove” it.

102228 by thomas billis on 9/23 at 4:44 pm

“If you chose to believe George Bush on the middle east that is your prerogative but I believe Jimmy Carter.”

I challenge you to cut&paste;one thing I have ever said that suggests I would “believe” ANY government official on ANY issue.

I saw what I saw… hard to color that.  and on the 4000 Americans killed, you believe they are fighting and dying for a free and peaceful Lebanon?

Who sold you that bill-o-goods?

I find it strange that you would bring this up, as it is so OBVIOUS!  Israel wants the REAL ESTATE that Lebanon and Palestine has, and in no uncertain terms has LET THAT BE KNOWN! What would Israel lose....not a frickin’ thing!

Wake up and smell the coffee.

******

Typical irrational Israel-hater.

Israel, like most nations, and most leaders, whether elected, king, or dictator, views its NATIONAL SECURITY above all.  It acts to enhance that national security, and to ameliorate or eliminate threats to it.  The fact that we, in the US, have for the first time a President with NO understanding of this is an oddity, not the norm.

Even a monster like Saddam Hussein understood this--which is why he gave up his WMDs--having them was a bigger threat than not having them.

Yet myopic conspiracy-plot types like you think Israel is insane, that she will put her national security at risk for expansion into Lebanon. And why is Israel willing to do this, according to you? Because Israel is evil and insanely expansionist.

Yet this doesn’t fit the facts. How Israel deals with the Palestinians, where they are justified and where they are not IN THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES is another issue.  You like all the Israel haters, thinks Israel should react to kidnappings and rocket attacks by doing nothing--that they “deserve” it.

No nation tolerates that if they have the means to prevent or punish the perpetrators.  And no, before you raise, I DON’T think Sharon was right in allowing the refugee camp massacre in 1982.  I think he should have been punished for war crimes for that --I did then, and I do now.  I believe it was DETRIMENTAL to Israeli national security and not punishing him was a mistake.

Of course, you didn’t and can’t answer the obvious questions:
Isn’t Israel more secure with a stable, moderate democratic government in Lebanon than civil war?  Isn’t it in Israel’s interest to promote that government?
Hasn’t that been Israel’s policy for the last 30 or so years?
Isn’t just the OPPOSITE in Syria’s best interest?
Doesn’t a stable democracy threaten Syria?
Hasn’t Syria’s policy for the last 30 years to insert, instead, a puppet government dependent on Syria?

I’m not the one not smelling the coffee.

To conservative yankee yes like I said there was always a mess there.But 4000 Americans were not dead with no end in sight.Through the deats previously Egypt negotiated a peace with Israel.Jordan negotiated a peace with Israel.With eight years of Clinton there was a hope of an accord between the Jews and the Palestinians.Where do you see any hope now?Which country will follow Egypt and Jordan and attempt to make peace with Israel.When we moved away from talking to shooting we killed all hope that we could remain a semi honest broker.I know people hate it but read what Jimmy Carter says the Israelis have done to the Palestinians with the approval of George Bush.If you chose to believe George Bush on the middle east that is your prerogative but I believe Jimmy Carter.

Yes, Charles, everyone “knows” but no one has evidence.  That’s all Fisk said.  I don’t think passing on bar talk qualifies as good journalism.

Every time Lebanon comes close to getting a rational democratic government, some key member of it is murdered, going back to the Gemayel brothers.

Such a government in Lebanon is clearly and obviously in Israel’s best interest, and civil war and unrest is a threat.  Yes, Israel wants to destroy the radicals in Lebanon--their Bush-inspired weird foray last year was part of that.  Why wouldn’t they? My ONLY question about that exercise is how they could have planned and executed it so badly--as if Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush had planned it for them.

Yet the anti-semitic conspiracy shit-heads here INSIST that Israel and Mossad MUST be behind these killings.  It makes no god-damn sense, whereas it is TOTALLY consistent for Syria and Iran to be behind such killings as THOSE states are TOTALLY interested in disrupting democracy in Lebanon.

Naturally. If Democracy succeeds in Lebanon, Syrians are going to say: “Hey! We don’t need the shithead Assads--we can have a peaceful, stable nation with FREEDOM!” And so it needs to be crushed.

Yet for Israel a moderate, stable democracy on their border is one less thing to worry about.  Only a madman would want otherwise.

Yet all you anti-semites INSIST that Israel MUST be engaging in such a self-destructive and suicidal policy. Why? Because you believe GestapoShit’s nazi propaganda that all Jews are the spawn of Satan?  Or the Arab Fundamentalist bloggers who say the same thing?

If you TRULY are rational and logical, then use your gray cells and ask what could Israel gain, and more importantly, what would she lose by such de-stabilizing tactics?  Ask yourself: Was the invasion a deliberate attempt to discredit the government, or a desperate attempt to stop what that government cannot stop?

But this idea that all Israelis are inherently evil, power-hungry, insane and irrational is the ONLY way you can explain such actions.  If you grant that Israeli leadership is rational, even if you believe them evil and power-hungry, such actions make no sense.  They aren’t rational.

102133 by thomas billis on 9/23 at 2:34 am

“But until the chimp got into office it was never this bad.”

Either you are young, or you have forgotten.  I remember watching the bombing of Lebanon in the Sixties when it was a battleground.  The TV had pictures of the “Holiday Inn” Beirut burning from the upper stories. Than there was the Seventies with a car bomb a day for several years. then there was the 80’s when we lost a number of our troops in a garage, and Reagan answered by calling the rest of our forces home. Lebanon has been a seething cauldron since.

US policy failures in this region are best summed by an inexact quote I heard from Gore Vidal some years ago: “The USA is too small, too young, and too impatient to be a superpower.”

The middle east has always been a mess but when the gasoline of a moron in the White House it is ready to come apart.You could get lost in the minutiae of Hezbollah and the civil war and a mllion other constant irritants in the middle east.But until the chimp got into office it was never this bad.There was the close call peace treaty with Arafat and Clinton and then Zippy took over the White House and decided that talking to Syria and Iran was that wimps Bill Clintons way of dealing with these guys.Well that change in stategy by this monkey has caused more unease in that region than at any time in my lifetime and that includes two wars there.If you do not talk to the Syrians and the Iranians the ones pulling strings there you are never going to effectively attack the problem.You will keep going after the symptons and never bring the disease under control.This is all that rapture bullshit.You know all those morons you see on the street who say the war will end on such and such a date well one of those guys is in the White House making policy.

Why is it that the only people in the world who do not know that the Syrians are trying through use of assassination to bring down the anti-Syrian government of Lebanon. is Robert Fisk and and the truthdig readers? 

This is from The Daily Star of Lebonan report about Antoine Ghanem’s funeral:
“Syria and its friends are behind all these crimes,” said Tharwat Abu Salim, a [Walid] Jumblatt supporter who along with hundreds of others came from the Chouf in a bus.

Even in the Beirut bar where Fisk hangs out they talk about this, so what is the great one trying to hide?  Fisk along with numerous ignorant truthdig readers are so consumed with hate for Israel that they are willing to protect Syria in order to promote hate for Israel.  Everyone in Lebanon knows that Israel and the Mossad had nothing to do with Antoine Ghanem assination.  Every story from Lebanon about Ghanem’s assination talks about Syrian involvement.  Everyone in Lebanon knows that if the current government falls through assassinations, Hezbollah will gain power and invite the Syrians back into Lebanon.  Everyone in Lebanon knows that that is the deal between Syrua and Hezbollah.  But Robert Fisk is so consumed with displaying his hate for Israel, he is oblivious to the obvious.

Once, back in the 1950’s my father took me to Beirut. A gleaming jewel on the shore of the Mediterranean. The warm breeze from the west blew through our non-air conditioned hotel rooms, sweet and unpolluted.  The Lebanese people were friendly and many of them spoke English. During our journey to Ramallah it was not uncommon for folks, who did not know us, to wave and smile. I grieve for that part of the world knowing that there’s not a damn thing I can do to make anything there better.

TAMARLAIN, I cannot imagine your characterization of the disastrous 2006 Lebanon war as having been a “victory” for Israel. Their BushWar style aerial campaign made Nasrallah into a rock-star.

Hizbollah still has rockets that can hit Israel and throw it into chaos. And Syria is still the conduit for weapons to Lebanon.

Israel has destroyed everything south of the Litani River. What did that accomplish?

About the only “victory” Israel achieved was to prove to the (arab) world that it is armed and crazy - not to be messed with.

Terrific.

The bombing of Lebanon is part of a carefully planned and coordinated military road map. The extension of the war into Syria and Iran has already been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners. This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic oil and oil pipelines. It is supported by the Western oil giants which control the pipeline corridors. In the context of the war on Lebanon, it seeks Israeli territorial control over the East Mediterranean coastline.