Günter Grass, the 1999 Nobel Prize winning German writer, sculptor, playwright and illustrator has now been officially made an official persona non grata in Israel. He is not welcome to visit. In fact, he has been banned from entering the country at all by Israel's ultra-orthodox Interior Minister Eli Yishai. Why?
In a recently published poem, entitled “What Must Be Said,” Grass takes the West – especially Germany - to task for the hypocrisy of its unquestioned willingness to accept the fact of Israeli nuclear capability while at the same time pronouncing Iran a rogue state possibly seeking its own nuclear weapon. The more important point he makes in this (not very well made) poem is the West's – specifically Germany's – not-so-tacit support for Israel's policies toward its neighbors. He claims Germany's stigma from World War II has rendered the country incapable of being truthful to the reality that Israel, as much as anyone in the region, is as destabilizing to a just peace as Iran is currently being accused of being by the West.
It is important to remember that Günter Grass was conscripted into the Waffen SS near the end of the war, as a 17-year old, something he kept hidden for 60 years, until 2006. This fact was not overlooked by the Israeli government in their banning of him from Israel. Yishai remarked: "Grass' [sic] poems are an attempt to guide the fire of hate toward the State of Israel and the Israeli people, and to advance the ideas of which he was a public partner in the past, when he wore the uniform of the SS."
Yishai's comment, certainly made with the acquiescence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was to this writer a pretty crude appeal to the man rather than to the argument Grass tries to make in his poem. Yishai offered a classic argumentum ad hominen attempt to divert attention from one issue to another. Yet Grass's poem calls, once again, the entire Middle East quagmire into consideration.
What they say and what they do
In its declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel, the founders proclaimed, “THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
It doesn't take much to understand that the Israel of today, let alone the modern Israel, since its very birth, is hardly the state which was envisioned by the post-war Zionists who brought Israel into being. Or is it? In fact, there is a strong argument that even the notion of a “Jewish state,” the whole raison d'etre of Zionism, is incompatible with democracy. (Can you imagine the founders of the United States including the idea of their new nation being a “Christian state” in 1789?)
Yet, the well-deserved sympathy and guilt that the West, including the United States, felt toward what was left of European Jewry after the carnage of the war has been used as diplomatic tool by Israel for 70 years. Hence Yishai's comment about why he's keeping Günter Grass out of Israel. No seditious speech, even if worthy of consideration, is allowed. So much for freedom and adherence to the UN charter, so eloquently stated above.
Democracy and the Jewish state
Had Israel lived up to its own declaration, it would not be a Jewish state today. If Israel is to be a Jewish state, admitting the Arabs to full rights as citizens, particularly Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza, which make up about 52% of the biblical Israel, Israel would cease to exist as Israel, most likely as a result of demographics alone. If, by some magical change of heart, Israel decided to transform itself into a pluralistic, fully open, fully egalitarian, fully democratic entity, it would soon lose its identity as a state founded in 1948 for the purpose of restoring Jews to their own nation - a nation which the Romans literally erased from history in 135AD when they renamed the country Syria Palestina and scattered the inhabitants throughout the empire. The name Palestine, for that region, lived on in successive conquests by the Arabs, then the Ottomans, and finally the British.
All the above said, Israel certainly has a right to exist. But as what? Certainly, a new Arab majority would likely even take back the name Palestine, should it decide to do so.
Israel: the new South Africa?
As it presently is, Israel is not much different than South Africa during Apartheid. There are two distinct groups of inhabitants of Israel: the powerful minority of Jewish Israelis, and a downtrodden Arab majority (who call themselves Palestinians), living both inside the 1948 Israel, as well as the West Bank and Gaza, which were taken from them in 1967. One group lives in relative freedom and controls the wealth, as well as the government; and the other is relegated to 2nd class status, without a vote, without political or economic power. It is a tribal war but the camps are divided by religion and not ethnicity or race, as it was in South Africa. And just as in that case, both sides claim victimization to world opinion: that they are the aggrieved party.
The political power in Israel has moved far to the right of the founders of the country. Orthodox settlers in the West Bank would be happy to exterminate or force the remaining Arabs out of Eretz Israel; appropriating the remainder of the occupied land to themselves. As in the case of South Africa, this is not going to happen. And just as surely, this whole stalemate must resolve itself, one way or another. Which, of course, was Grass's point.
In the meantime, Israel continues to use the Holocaust as the card most likely to be played when someone – anyone – calls it to task. If you happen to be a German, or worse, and old German who happened to to be a 17-year old soldier in World War II, you have no right to speak out against Israeli behavior.
Is Israeli victimhood wearing thin?
Understanding that American support for Israel has been pretty much without anything resembling limits (Except for when Jimmy Carter speaks out), it's fair to ask whether this will always be the case. What will be the American position if Israel mounts a strike on Iran's atomic works? What will the admission of massive Israeli infiltration of the American defense and political establishment have on both Jewish and non-Jewish voters who are now two generations removed from the horror of World War II and what happened to Jews in Europe? Will Israel ever be held to behave more like a mature member of the community of nations, or simply excused as doing what it sees itself as having to do to survive, its neighbors being an existential threat?
The two options
Grass's point is that it's time to talk turkey about the Middle East. If we continue the present status, there is only one possible outcome: another holocaust in that region and possibly beyond it, with both Jews in Israel and Muslims throughout the Middle East employing nuclear weapons against each other.
The only workable solution is that the world – and Israel – must come to terms with the idea of a free and independent Arab Palestine, in which the security of both is guaranteed by the rest of the world. Reparations to displaced Palestinians and their descendents will need to be paid. It is the only way Israel can be a democracy primarily made up of Jews.
As it presently is, the government of Israel has no intention of backing away from colonizing the West bank and, eventually, Gaza. Israel is currently run by a coalition a religious yahoos who simply see themselves as restoring what existed 2,000 years ago. (There isn't a dime's worth of difference between the man who assassinated Yitshak Rabin in 1995 and the man shot Dr. George Tiller to death. In both cases the act was initiated by religious fanaticism.) And they are certainy aided by the religious fanatacism of the evanglical Christian members of the American Congress.
It is time for Israel and her guarantors, most of all her strongest ally, the United States, to speak the truth, just as Günter Grass said. It is what also must be said.
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Comments
Günter Grass ,in pointing out the danger of a nuclear war in the Middle East which might in effect lead to a severe conflict in the whole region and from there expanding with the possibility of a world wide escalation.
The trouble is:Günter Grass said what everyone fears for a long time,and because of this,he is the one to be blamed for just about anything people can think of in order to force a person like Günter Grass into submission.
He was serving in the SS,and for that he is brought into connection with antisemitism.
Whether or not he is to be found in these thought pattern I cannot say.
The truth is that the escalaton in the Middle East might lead to a conflict at a larger scale with the danger of a world wide catastrophic conflict.
THIS IS WHAT HE SAID AND WHAT HE IS ASKING FOR IN ORDER TO SECURE PEACE IN THIS TROUBLED REGION VIA A MODERATE CONCEPT OF NEGOTIATION ON BOTH SIDES:
ISRAEL versus IRAN
1) re: Israel having nukes. Does anyone worry about Israel using nuclear weapons and using them on a first strike as opposed to the worry about having Iran having the same?
2) Should Israel trust the West to always come to their aid if they give up nuclear weapons, leaving themselves without an ultimate deterrent?
3) "The more important point he makes in this (not very well made) poem is the West's – specifically Germany's – not-so-tacit support for Israel's policies toward its neighbors. " Evidently, he is not concerned about the "neighbors'" freely expressed policies towards Israel.
Time is not on Israel's side, and by simply dismissing everyone who disagrees as "anti-Semitic" or "self-hating" Jews they do not increase their chances of survival.
Answers to your questions (first comment)
1. Yes. The Arabs worry. Quite a bit
2. Yes. Especially the US. How many presidents have guaranteed Israel's security? Israel using nukes is no "ultimate deterrent." It would probably mean the end of Israel.
3. The "freely expressed" policy of *some* Muslims toward Israel is, I believe, nothing more than rhetoric. The fact is that both sides are totally wedded to non-nogotiable demands. And until both give something to the process, nothing will get done, and time, as Ben Sen points out, doesn't work for the Israelis.
Israel has taken no positive actions. Quite the contrary.
Israel is run by religious fanatics bent on their one biblical idea of what the modern Israel should look like. Both sides are being intractable. God didn't give them that land. The United Nations did.
The only way for Israel to be a true democracy is for them to give back the land they took in '67 and work to build a viable Palestine.
Everyone who thinks Israel should just hang on to the real estate they took in '67, annex it all to Israel, and hold the line on anything resembling serious discussion about returning it, thereby ensuring the inevitable Armageddon in the ME, raise your hands.
1. I said nothing about given the bomb to the Muslims. Any Muslims. Or Christians, for that matter.
2. Grass did NOT personally send anyone to a death camp.
"On August 12, Grass explained in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (excerpt in German) that he was not in the armed forces but in fact in the Waffen SS, in the 10th SS tank division "Frundsberg". He said he was called up in the late summer of 1944 when he was just about 17. The following autumn and winter he was trained as member of a tank crew and he was involved in rearguard action of the German army in Lausitz in March and April 1945, until he was wounded on April 20. He ended up in an American war prison soon afterwards."
You're doing the same thing that that Yishai did. Not surprised in the least.
Don't argue the message. Just trash the messenger.
Until BOTH sides do what they have to do: Give the land back in exchange for recognition as a Jewish state with international guarantees of security for BOTH, this will fester until terminal blood poisoning sets in.
Israel cannot be a democracy as long as it has to deal with displaced Arabs.
I have not been here for a few days.
Thank you for your clear statement to the conflict.
The poem in my opinion is an indication for the urgency as Günter Grass perceives it.
As you know,there are many who feel the same way.
Anyone else could have said this,but because G.G.is German,he caused an éclat.
Sorry for the mistakes in my first comment.
I am also delighted that Israel has atomic weapons and that its enemies do not and if that makes me a ba person to some, a-ok.
My Zionism does not mean I'm obliged to support every Likud act or statement. It does require me to be open-minded but not so open that my brains fall out. W.o a militarily superior Israel every Jew's life is at risk and I have and my family has as much right to life as anyone. So, yes, I support Stuxnet or pretty much every measure from preventing it from getting nuclear weapons. Again if this makes me a bad person, tough.
Nearly every year, there is a poll in Europe concerning which nations pose the greatest threats to world peace. Every year america and its client state, israel place numbers one and two in this poll.
As I've oft stated, israel need not fear being cast in the sea by Arabic nations, as it is hell-bent on its own self-destruction through a thousand self inflicted wounds cheered on by diaspora jews in name only.
EXCELLENT post.
-R-
But,
It is disingenuous at best to equate the situations of Israeli Muslims and Palestinians who aren't citizens. One has the vote, parliamentary representation, etc.
Dismissing threats as "just rhetoric" is firstly not reliable and secondly puts responsibility in the wrong place.
Israel developed nukes for survival, having learned that when the chips are down, the world can't be expected to be reasonable. They didn't even admit their existence for decades, let alone threaten to destroy other nations. Who is threatening to destroy Iran? If the US, why is their rhetoric aimed at Israel? The threats to them are not symmetrical. This is not quite as hypocritical as it looks.
Screaming about the Holicaust will accelerate while people like Ahmedinejad deny its existence. That doesn't exactly help.
It is odd to claim that Israel wants Gaza after their having physically dragged all their settlers out.
Likud's behavior regarding the West Bank is basically unconscionable. It is a blight on the reputation of a country representing my people.
Calling Grass a Nazi for regular military service is basically a smear. It's what I'd expect from American Republicans (who aren't unlike Likud).
In conclusion, I agree that Israel is wrong to ban Grass, because he doesn't have to be right about everything. But, he isn't .
Be careful about overdoing it. That hurts your case.
Both of you miss the larger point:
There is a one-state solution: Israel having to deal with its traditional UN mandated lands and the West Bank/Gaza as a colonial power would have a 100 years ago, two separate peoples, one on top, the other on the bottom; one tribe oppressing the other. THAT is not Zionism as envisioned by its founders.
Then there is a two state solution: Israel and the Arabs working together to create a viable Palestine, with accessibility to contiguous lands between Gaza and the WB.
If the Zionist movement, as envisioned by Ben Gurion and all those 1947 people who brought Israel into existence - and even Hertzl - devolves into a colonial power (is there a better word?) then the entire Zionist movement will be for nothing. It will have lost its entire reason for existence. The irony of the descendents of a class of people nearly made extinct in Europe becoming oppressors themselves of millions of Muslims would be tragic.
This is not about bombs, nor who is bent on who's destruction. It is about the very legitimacy of Zionism. There is no doubt Israel can defend itself (thought the A-Bomb would be superfluous if it's ever used in that region. You could kiss it all goodbye if that happened.)
The fact is that there have been no significant talks about a solution since 2009 or so, and the Israelis keep subsidizing settlers moving into the West Bank while the Palestinians are as obstinate as ever, mostly because they have no skin in the game. If they had their own sovereign nation they would be far more receptive. Meanwhile Hamas and Fatah keep telling their people, "See, I told you they're duplicitous. " It's all a vicious circle.
Both sides need to make very hard decisions if there is ever to be a chance at a lasting peace. But neither side has the political courage to do what needs to be done. Certainly Netanyahu is far more hamstrung by his own coalition consisting of crazy-assed hyper-orthos. Nor, for that matter, is he amenable to a two state solution, and has written as much.
As it presently stands, both sides are poisoned by hatred. (I have actually read interviews of orthodox settlers who have absolutely said that the Arabs need to be done away with.) MY concern is what this is doing to the original idea of WHY Israel was founded and WHAT it was supposed to be once it came into existence. It is presently being run by a Jewish version of evangelical Christians.
Rabin was the last best chance, but they shot him to death.
...
jonathan wolfman - Yes, it does make you a bad person.
kosher - We'll call your version wolfman-lite.
I refer to him as a jew in name only. Having been born to a jewish mother is about all that qualifies him to call himself a jew. Ignorance of the basic tenets of the religion, hypocritical fealty to imaginary tenets that he himself has dreamed up make him a danger to all who read his screeds and malicious ruminations.
Note that it has always been the Palestinians and the Arab States who have refused a two state solution, first from the UN and then in multiple offers from Israel.
You say that both sides have to give up something.
What is it that you expect the Palestinians to do?
Whenever Israel has made any concessions, it has been answered with rockets - e.g. Gaza.
What behavior by the Palestinians or the Arab States could induce Israel do do anything but rattle sabers?
Here's an idiot who denies documents from the jewish library because they don't support his agenda.
Another time he claims there are 620 mitzvahs in the Torah, does't say "about" 620 or "approximately" 620, just make she erroneous statement 620.
Another jew in name only. Never heard the expression, "I obey the ten, but fail the 613.
You are and have always been a phony, lew.
I am absolutely in favor of the two state solution. I agree about Rabin. I haven't lost sight of the big picture at all.
I also understand that the current Israeli regime furthers its agenda by making its paranoia credible. The best way to undermine this is to refuse to feed it. If you take liberties with accusations, you essentially support Likud intransigence, because those liberties become the issue, distracting everyone from the actual issues.
A further piece of advice: If you want a decent discussion on your blog, don't let it get too personal. Otherwise, you run the risk of people not defending their views because we're all getting distracted by flying mud. The mud isn't yours but this site is.
Zionism's thesis #1: ALL JEWS HAVE NO HOMELAND BUT ISRAEL AND THEY *MUST* MOVE THEIR WITH ALL THEIR ASSETS OR THEY ARE BAD JEWS. I've seen this insane propaganda play out as a conspiracy to frighten the 75% of World Jewry that deems Israel a nice place to visit but not their homeland. And still, Israel is the land of the young Sabras, not the foreigners with multiple passports ready to leave, just in case....In this least are at least three Mossad chiefs at one time or another!
I wish I could be as calm and civil as you. But I see great danger and feel I must yell, "fire! fire!" before it is again too late. Once again the Zionists will do business with the criminals that butcher Jews. But this time they will have done everything to pain OUR Jews as THEIR Fifth Columnists because they need their bodies and all the wealth they may have acquired. Jews should be left to be Jews and the militancy for more nukes is incriminating them into a dangerous misrepresentation of their allegiance to their real homeland. Could it be that with anti-Semitism so low but anti-Zionism so high, the Zionists decided that it's time to balance the equation?
for saying" what must be said".
You have gone even further,pointing to the post Rabin era.
It is indeed fire in the bush,and it takes high logistic
to extinguish it before it is too late.
Günter Grass' poem is an appeal more than anything else.
I have a problem with the negative but, at this point, not the problem most people would assume. I know a fair amount about Israel's mind-set, enough to know that most of the world's strategy for changing their behavior is guaranteed to fail because that strategy results in propping up hard-liners. I want them out of the West Bank but most of the opposition to Israel I see on OS will ensure that they stay. Israel is a lot like a Chinese handcuff: The harder you pull, the more you aren't moving. The way to approach Israel is with surgical opposition, not general opposition, because general opposition means the Rightists have a tool with which to make everyone else panic.
Would any other nation be allowed to ignore at least sixty-five UN resolutions concerning a whole host of issues?
Would any other nation be allowed to ignore with impunity article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention for over sixty hears?
Start with false hypotheses, in this case, "morally equivalent behavior," and you can easily arrive at false conclusions!
I, also, make it my business to know, at least "a fair amount about Israel's mind-set," but I don't skew my perspectives to support illogical conclusions.
By making a paranoid nation with a couple of hundred nukes more paranoid?
Of course not.
By taking survival off the table as an issue.
Survival is The issue that keeps non-Rightist Jews in line. Go on OS; you'll find all sorts of Jews who don't like Likud and don't like what Israel is doing on the West Bank but defend Israel. I'm one, Jonathan's another, and there are a whole lot more, some of whom aren't as vocal as we are but who agree. But the thing is....
Neither Jonathan nor I defend Israeli policy for the most part. I can't stand Likud. I want to get rid of Likud. However, there's very little chance of that while Israeli survival is perceived as an issue.
So, if you want change, take it off the table. It is Likud's biggest weapon. Take it out of their hands.
Say:
Our problem with you is what you do in the West Bank. We don't want you stealing land. We don't want you stealing water. We don't want you building new settlements in East Jerusalem and we sure as Hell don't want you announcing them while Joe Biden is in the country.
However:
We don't accept what Hamas does. We don't approve of the whole human shield tactic. We understand that when someone fires missiles at civilians every day for over a year, you're going to retaliate, just like any other country would. We get that a charter stating that these guys will use any means necessary, including terrorism, to kill you for as long as it takes isn't acceptable.
We think that when the United Nations has a membership of 193 nations and only one is prohibited from serving on the Security Council, something is clearly wrong, as you flat-out don't have the worst human rights record in the UN; not close. Frankly, in private conversations, you'd have trouble getting unanimous support for the contention that you have the worst record from the staff of Al Jazeera.
We get that everyone around you practices discrimination and gets away with it and we won't let that go unacknowledged any more. When the NY representative of the Palestinian Authority says on camera that they won't allow gays and Jews in, we will not act like you're automatically the biggest pigs in the neighborhood just because we're pissed at you. It's not OK when you do it, but it's also not OK when they do it.
When a national government in the region, particularly one run by religious officials, starts making speeches and conspicuous sermons about killing Jews, starts using Jewish symbols in military parades (as intended targets), starts holding conferences denying the Holocaust (which not even the Germans do), and finances and arms organizations like Hezbollah who use those to actually kill Israelis, we will not dismiss what they say as overblown rhetoric; we will hold them responsible for what they say and do.
We will not turn a blind eye to government antisemitism, including running the Protocols on national TV networks as fact.
In short, we will take your concerns about national safety seriously, in all respects. We will not dismiss every threat by saying your military can meet anything that comes down the pike; frankly, you don't have enough space to meet anything that comes down the pike.
However,
While we will cease tolerance of demonizing you out of reflex and while we will help guarantee your survival, we will increase criticism and pressure in areas where you unquestionably persecute without justification.
If you don't work toward a property settlement with Fatah, who has mainly renounced violence in favor of economic development, we will publicize this.
If you don't work toward more equitable treatment of your citizen minorities, even on issues as basic as garbage collection, we will publicize this.
If you divert water, we will publicize this.
The American Jewish community was heavily involved in the American Civil Rights movement. If Fatah is actually on the short end of a civil rights struggle, we will support them in their struggle. We do not support bigotry, even among our own. We'll turn a blind eye to some of it when your survival is at stake but, if it isn't, and we will help insure that it isn't, no more blind eyes. We will treat you as oppressors to the extent that you earn the label, Jews or not, in part because it embarrasses us to see Jews in the role of oppressors.
We will not tolerate this based on some corruption of Judaism. You can claim to be more Orthodox than we are, but we are not idiots, nor are we strangers to Torah. You will not oppress in the name of our religion and get away with it because, regardless of what you refuse to carry on Shabbat, you can't be a Light Unto The Nations while treating other nations as subhuman, Particularly when those other nations also worship God. Don't you dare pretend that they don't; we know full well that Jews are permitted to enter mosques according to Rabbinic edict and we know exactly why that is true.
We know that Israelis view religion as either Orthodox or Nothing, which means secular Jews don't question the religious justification for policy divisions. We're not Israelis; we know that Torah supports social justice and denying this will not prove that you are more knowledgable Jews; all it will prove is that you are willing to corrupt Torah for your own purposes. Pulling rank will not win you this argument. It will in Israel, but it won't with us. Try this and you will find yourself in the unique position of being accused, not of being too Jewish, but of being not Jewish enough, and this accusation will come from Reform and Conservative Jews. As angry as this will make you coming from Jews who don't keep kosher and aren't shomer shabbes, the part that will make you angriest is the fact that we'll be right.
We will divide us for the sake of justice provided that survival is off the table.
-------------------------
That's the best shot. Demonize Israel for everything reflexively and you might as well write Bibi a check.
Turn your tough love onto the militant Zionists and not on those of us weathering at times the anti-Semite accusations, though I appreciate I am being spared a lot for my outspokenness on o.s., who are trying to call out for justice and acknowledgement of amoral heinous behavior in our own government and that of the Israeli government!
Big Media and US Congress and the President have no spine to be HONEST.
Yes, I have profound empathy for what horror came with the Holocaust. (btw, my Dad, uncles, etc. served in WWII so they risked their lives, some of my secondary relatives lost them, fighting against that grotesque injustice and underwent their own sacrifices and (sustained beyond the war) challenges.)
I see the plight of the Palestinians as NEVER ON THE TABLE FOR DISCUSSION AND SERIOUS CONSIDERATION with our government or with big media or with a Congress so beholding to AIPAC.
I am glad to hear you have issues with what is happening with the settlement building and I am assuming or at least hoping the anti-Iran war-mongering.
I grew up with too much group-think cronyism among my family, and when cronyism supports denial, minimization or willful anti-reality embracing it seriously frustrates me. Also when I say borderline personality applied to the Israeli government, I mean all or nothing, you are totally with us or totally against us kind of judgment. I grew up around that oppressive system, too.
I will try to be more sensitive, but I get strident sometimes because I feel like cronyism or tribalism or groupthink or whatever you call it is stifling what should be more tough love outspokenness among American Jewish people and their non-Jewish cronies, who can certainly call out the US government it seems, but so much less so Israel's government.
I call it tough love not anti-Semitism, btw!
best, libby
Before taking a more objective look at the israeli way, I'd like to respond to one of his oft commented delusions; that of "missiles" fired from Gaza have taken such a low toll of life due to poor aim. That is a common excuse offered by those too busy to take the time to Google pictures of the actual "missiles," which in reality, for the most part, are little more than glorified firecrackers due to the ongoing boycott imposed on Gaza:
"According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at various times, Israel has blocked goods including wheelchairs, dry food items, and crayons, Stationery, soccer balls, and musical instruments.[105][106][107] International aid group Mercy Corps said it was blocked from sending 90 tons of macaroni and other foodstuffs. After international pressure, Israeli authorities said that they were giving the shipment a green light.[59] Israel was also reported to have prevented aid groups from sending in other items, such as paper, crayons,[citation needed] tomato paste and lentils.[108] Because of an Israeli ban on the importation of construction materials (such as cement and steel) for fear of Hamas using them to build bunkers and fortified positions from which to shell villages in Israel, the UN Relief and Works Agency built at least one mud brick home, and planned to build up to 120.[109] Aid agencies[who?] say that food waits on trucks and in warehouses, and many basic items are rejected by Israel as "luxuries" or are turned down for unexplained reasons[citation needed]. Tin cans are banned because the tin might be melted down and used to build weaponry or structures by Hamas, making it hard for Gazan farmers to preserve their vegetables.[110]
In January, 2010, the Israeli group Gisha took Israeli authorities to court, forcing them to reveal which goods were permitted and which goods weren't. The Israeli government replied that canned fruit, fruit juices and chocolate are blocked, while at the same time canned meat, canned tuna, mineral water, sesame paste, tea and coffee are allowed into the Gaza Strip."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
With such stringent and punitive measures, it is hard to imagine missiles, kosh would have you believe are congruent with the israeli arsenal, only poorly aimed.
An abridged history of the manner in which israel has inculcated extreme and inhumane demonization of Palestinians, even before the inception of the "state," would include statements such as these:
Ze'ev Jabotinsky stated in a letter to one of his Revisionist colleagues in the United States dated November 1939:
"We Jews, thank God, have nothing to do with the East. . . . The Islamic soul must be broomed out of Eretz-Yisrael. . . . [Muslims are] yelling rabble dressed up in gaudy, savage rags." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 29)
Moshe Katsav, the Israeli ex-president who is now charged with rape once said: "There is a huge gap between us and our enemies not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy." (Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001)
"We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village." Moshe Dyan, March 19, 1969, speech at the Technion in Haifa, quoted in Ha'aretz, April 4, 1969.
"The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more".... Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000.
" (The Palestinians are) beasts walking on two legs." Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the Beasts". New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
"The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." " Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988.
"When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to." Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.
"There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed." Golda Maier Israeli Prime Minister June 15, 1969.
"The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war." Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972.
Ben Gurion also warned in 1948 : "We must do everything to insure they ( the Palestinians) never do return." Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes. "The old will die and the young will forget."
"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.
"We must do everything to ensure they (the Palestinian refugees) never do return" David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar's Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.
"We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai." David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." Israel Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum."
"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist... There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.
"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'" Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.
Rabin's description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet. "We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters" Uri Lubrani, PM Ben-Gurion's special adviser on Arab Affairs, 1960. From "The Arabs in Israel" by Sabri Jiryas.
"There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance; and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry out surveillance over the activities of a neighbor than over those of a tenant. [I] tend to support the latter view and have an additional argument:...the need to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish...with a non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this fundamental position as early as 1940 [and] it is entered in my diary." Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department. From Israel: an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5.
"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them." Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.
"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism,colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands." Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972.
"Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine,Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.
* "One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail." -- Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb. 27, 1994 (Source: N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 1994, p. 1).
"We will establish ourselves in Palestine whether you like it or not...You can hasten our arrival or you can equally retard it. It is however better for you to help us so as to avoid our constructive powers being turned into a destructive power which will overthrow the world." (Chaim Weizmann, Published in "Judische Rundschau," No. 4, 1920)."
Zionist pressure has had the Wikilink's page from which these quotes were compiled removed, but sensing that the amen lobby would resort to such tactics, I long ago, made my own copy.
I'm not making an antisemitism accusation here. I don't think I've ever accused someone on OS of actually being an antisemite.
How I view the West Bank with Fatah and how I view Gaza with Hamas are two very different things. Fatah is a formerly corrupt organization that has changed its orientation from terrorism to economic development and should be rewarded for doing so. Hamas is basically a terrorist organization that is mostly responsible for what has happened in Gaza, particularly in recent years.
There are no settlements in Gaza. Israel pulled its settlers out, forcibly, in many cases literally dragging them out, kicking and screaming. After the Israelis left, violence increased. The missiles started, being fired at a community (not a military installation) on a daily basis for over a year. Not too many dead, in part because the Israelis ran to bomb shelters constantly. Also, as I have said elsewhere, I don't believe in giving moral credit for bad aim - you fire at civilians for in the vicinity of 400 times but hit a few, you attempted murder that many times.
Firing missiles like that is essentially an act of war. That Israel intercepted a shipment going to this population doesn't bother me; I just think it was stupid of them to do so on the high seas instead of in port. That the flotilla was strictly a humanitarian mission doesn't wash. If it were, it wouldn't have been launched at rallies with assorted references to Auschwitz. The relatively new Turkish leadership was looking for an expanded leadership role in the Arab world and taking on Israel was a convenient way to do it, in much the same way and for the same reason that the Iranian regime hosts Holocaust denial conferences.
As nasty as Likud is, any country, including Israel, on the receiving end of that kind of attack on civilians has a right to defend itself, and I cannot think of a country that would have reacted less or more slowly. Are there casualty imbalances? Yes, but they're due to two factors: the aforementioned bad aim and the human shield tactic, whereby Hamas finds its cause furthered more by seeing civillians killed by the Israelis than by preserving the lives of their own population. Watching aerial video of the reaction to Israel's dropping leaflets saying a given building would be bombed - gunman forcing civilians into the building - was interesting to say the least. (The Israelis bombed the building next door, resulting in those loaded into the target fleeing - when they'd counted the same number out as went in, they bombed the target, and we saw the secondary explosion when the munitions hidden there ignited.)
I have sympathy for the Gazans as I understand why they elected Hamas at the time - as often happens in the Third World, the choice was between the Corrupt and the Zealots, and Fatah during Arafat was extremely corrupt and they were fed up - but that is their current leadership and that is who sets policy. I can usually find a mixed moral message in an organization but I find nothing good about Hamas at all. Dedication to terrorism, destruction of their neighbor as their continued stated mission, kneecapping of Fatah members found in Gaza (literally shooting out their knees - some got prosthetics because Israeli doctors found out and secretly operated on them in Israel), burning of a UN summer camp for children because the camp admitted girls, a long record of human shield tactics whereby they put a violent cause before the welfare of the populaton they're supposed to protect, increased violence after Israeli withdrawal, complete intolerance of gays, etc.
As much as I detest Likud, there are times when they're right. I find the international reaction backward, frankly - I get why they're doing what they're doing in Gaza; it's the far more peaceful West Bank that is really getting the raw deal.
I expect basic realism from both parties in this conflict and I've seen it from neither. Regardless of who is right about what, the fact is that if we were to travel forward in time by half a century, we'd almost guaranteed find both the Israeli and the Palestinian populations still there. Neither is leaving. Given that as a long-term fact on the ground, the question becomes how to maximize the chances of coexistence because the alternatives are too unstable and expensive. The only alternative that makes sense is a two-state solution, because a one-state solution results either in Israel ceasing to exist or in an actual apartheid state as opposed to the phony apartheid state that exists there now. Israel is nothing like apartheid within its borders. An actual apartheid state is neither morally nor logistically tenable.
I will say one thing concerning what these various officials allegedly said: When I visited Israel, I had extensive conversations with a woman a college friend of mine married. She is what might be best described as Palestinian Jewish, meaning her ancestry is long-term from Palestine. She was asked at one point by officials where her ancestors were from and they wouldn't take Israel as an answer. She had a Syrian great-grandfather, so they eventually said "Syrian." Part of the problem here is the Ashkenazic leadership refusing to acknowledge the Sephardic natives who actually were natives. The Jewish population of Palestine well before the foundation of Israel wasn't zero or anything like zero.
What outcome are you after? I know who you're angry at but I don't know what you ultimately think should happen.
I think Grass (and the stir he's caused) simply highlights this lunatic element that runs the country today. When Bibi comes over and has "frank and candid" talks with the President, who was trying to pour oil on stormy water, comes away with "We have certain certain security requirements" and the very next day rattles his own rockets in an AIPAC speech...well, it's not hard to understand he has no intention of either talking about the West Bank or backing away from a military strike on Iran.
This log jam has to be broken and I'm afraid that once again, it's us who has to break it...it's our own Jewish community, just as you say, that must call a spade by its name. As it is, I just don't see any other way out of this mess.
Of course, now we have our very own version of Likud, aka the Tea Party types, who just wave Bibles in the air and tell the Arabs to go to hell.
In the end, once again, it comes down to courage, which everyone running that show on all three sides seems to lack. Zionism can only exist in a Jewish democracy. As long as Israelis are occupiers and, God forbid, annexers of land they stole in war, the question of a democratic Israel will remain. It cannot be both. Rabin, Peres, even Barak, and the peacemakers have it right.
Finally, we all know that the leaders of all these Muslim countries have been using Israel as a convenient foil for their own despotism.
What better way to turn people's heads away home grown oppression then by making Israel the focus of religious hatred?
In trying to correct typos in my own post, I inadvertently erased your comment. I apologize and invite you to repost. Again, I'm sorry.
Flylooper
I appreciate your sensitivity. I really do. Also your courtesy; I know that in this case you have two extremely conflicting impulses, because I'm a person you fundamentally respect defending what appears to you to be indefensible.
Given what you've written, my guess is that you favor the dissolution of Israel. Make that case, then.
If what you really want to say is something like:
"Israel was founded by being stolen. Ultimately, the only moral solution is to give it back,"
then make that case. Why not? What you're saying adds up to that anyway.
Or, you might want to say:
"Israel was founded by being stolen, but it isn't feasible to get rid of an existing nation after 64 years. It has to be scaled back pretty seriously."
Stating what you don't want repeatedly is, in the long run, insufficient. State what you do want.
Given the sensitive nature of what I think you'd suggest, you may have to play this one a whole lot more carefully than you're accustomed to, but that's OK; at least you'll open the discussion.
However, I really do want to know what you think should happen. That's the only way you'll really make sense to me.
A. ALL atomic energy facilities should be open to an international inspection agency.
B. All settlements outside the '67 borders should be dismantled, by force of the israeli government if necessary.
C. israel should be forced to return to their '67 borders, which should be monitored and manned by an armed international peacekeeping force to insure no repeats of operation cast lead.
I definitely agree with you on A and B ;for the other two points,negotiations might be necessary.
In any case,anyone,from the smallest infant to the oldest person,regardless of nationality ,should be able to live a decent life without terror.
point three and four are worthy of serious consideration.
If only it could be realized without bloodshed.
Conversation with History: Roya Hakakian
kosher, how can you justify the Gaza War or the flotilla killings? Not only did those war crimes shock and awe and revile me, but the grotesque minimization of them internationally and especially in the United States.
Turn your tough love onto the militant Zionists and not on those of us weathering at times the anti-Semite accusations, though I appreciate I am being spared a lot for my outspokenness on o.s., who are trying to call out for justice and acknowledgement of amoral heinous behavior in our own government and that of the Israeli government!
Big Media and US Congress and the President have no spine to be HONEST.
Yes, I have profound empathy for what horror came with the Holocaust. (btw, my Dad, uncles, etc. served in WWII so they risked their lives, some of my secondary relatives lost them, fighting against that grotesque injustice and underwent their own sacrifices and (sustained beyond the war) challenges.)
I see the plight of the Palestinians as NEVER ON THE TABLE FOR DISCUSSION AND SERIOUS CONSIDERATION with our government or with big media or with a Congress so beholding to AIPAC.
I am glad to hear you have issues with what is happening with the settlement building and I am assuming or at least hoping the anti-Iran war-mongering.
I grew up with too much group-think cronyism among my family, and when cronyism supports denial, minimization or willful anti-reality embracing it seriously frustrates me. Also when I say borderline personality applied to the Israeli government, I mean all or nothing, you are totally with us or totally against us kind of judgment. I grew up around that oppressive system, too.
I will try to be more sensitive, but I get strident sometimes because I feel like cronyism or tribalism or groupthink or whatever you call it is stifling what should be more tough love outspokenness among American Jewish people and their non-Jewish cronies, who can certainly call out the US government it seems, but so much less so Israel's government.
I call it tough love not anti-Semitism, btw!
best, libby
You are lost in chilling minimization and denial.
Israel’s 23-day assault on the Gaza strip in late 2008, early 2009 1,385 Palestinians dead, 318 of which were under the age of 18. (5,300 more Palestinians were also wounded.)
So you are not blaming Israel for this?????? Human shield bullshit and the Gazans should blame their own leadership?????? THAT'S WHAT YOU'VE GOT????
DEAR GOD!!!
Let's spin reality 180 degrees and blame the victims!!!! Why not, Hillary and Obama are on board, the NYT and big American media, Congress. Just because the entire Arab world with all its in-fighting is completely on the same page about the injustices against the Palestinians, let's swill the koolaid for minimization and rationalization of ethnic cleansing and genocide and apartheid.
This is the tribalism cronyism I was referring to. For half a sec I thought ...
What about R2P when Gaza War happened? Humanitarian bullshit for all people from the US government? What a farce that is. Hillary's calls out Israeli settlement building as "unhelpful"???
Chris Hedges called out “unconscionable use of lethal force” Israel so easily resorts to whenever challenged and its easy and flagrant lying thereafter to cover up its anti-humanitarian crimes. Hedges stressed Israel wants the world to know it will always play hardball to achieve its needs. It devalued the lives of these unarmed peace activists without caring what the rest of the world thinks.
Zee on serious injury of an American art student protesting the Gazan flotilla slaughter in the West Bank.
"An American solidarity activist was shot in the face with a tear gas canister during a demonstration in Qalandiya, today. Emily Henochowicz is currently in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem undergoing surgery to remove her left eye, following the demonstration that was held in protest to Israel’s murder of at least 10 civilians aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters this morning."
"21-year old Emily Henochowicz was hit in the face with a tear gas projectile fired directly at her by an Israeli soldier during the demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint today. Israeli occupation forces fired volleys of tear gas at unarmed Palestinian and international protesters, causing mass panic amongst the demonstrators and those queuing at the largest checkpoint separating the West Bank and Israel."
"“They clearly saw us,” said Sören Johanssen, a Swedish ISM volunteer standing with Henochowicz. “They clearly saw that we were internationals and it really looked as though they were trying to hit us. They fired many canisters at us in rapid succession. One landed on either side of Emily, then the third one hit her in the face.”"
"Henochowicz is an art student at the prestigious Cooper Union, located in East Village, Manhattan."
BUT US POLICE ACTION IS USING THE SAME PLAYBOOK NOW.
Sustained demonization of the Palestinian people by the Israeli leadership to help justify its anti-humanitarian treatment of them in their subsistent, ghetto-ed existence in Gaza.
Israel rails against Palestinian terrorism, while constantly justifying its own as self-defense of itself as victim in spite of its awesomely disproportionate use of force in every act of rationalized retaliation.
AWESOMELY DISPROPORTIONATE!!!!
Israel refuses to take precautions to protect the lives of civilians in its military actions in complete defiance of the Geneva Convention.
The siege that Israeli defense Minister Ehud Barak is flatly denying at the moment -- “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza" -- THIS IS BULLSHIT.
Alan Goodman:
"At the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009, Israel launched a one-sided massacre of Gaza, delivering weeks of collective punishment to the people of Gaza, destroying schools and shelling hospitals, killing some 1400 Palestinians, and locking down the 1.5 million people of Gaza in what is called the world’s largest outdoor prison. Efforts to break the siege of Gaza, including the Gaza Freedom March a year after the massacre, have been blocked by Israel and Egypt, with the full backing of the U.S. government."
Israeli storm troopers attacking the flotilla ship in international waters was a crime under international law.
The massacre on the Mavi Marmara is a crime to enforce an ongoing great crime. Amnesty International’s current Annual Human Rights Report states that Israeli’s siege on Gaza has “deepened the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Mass unemployment, extreme poverty, food insecurity and food price rises caused by shortages left four out of five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid. The scope of the blockade and statements made by Israeli officials about its purpose showed that it was being imposed as a form of collective punishment of Gazans, a flagrant violation of international law.” According to a recent World Health Organization (WHO) report, there has been an increase in malnourishment, now at over 10 percent of children in "Gaza, because of a chronic lack of protein, iron, and essential vitamins. Israel's 2008-2009 invasion damaged 15 of 27 hospitals in Gaza and damaged or destroyed 43 of its 110 primary health care facilities, none of which have been repaired or rebuilt because of the construction materials ban. Some 15-20 percent of essential medicines are commonly out of stock. And Israel's sadistic lockdown means that the people in Gaza are not allowed to leave and are totally cut off from family and friends outside."
SADISTIC LOCKDOWN!!!!
Abdeen Jabara on the forever troubling, anti-humanitarian and dangerous construct of Zionism:
"First, there can be no doubt that any group or members of that group should not be obliged to relinquish its particularism, religion, culture, language or expression of self where those characteristics do not violate the rights of others. The Jews or any other national or religion-ethnic group should be free to maintain their specific expres sions of their individual or collective consciousness of existence. To the extent that Jews or any other people are prevented or prohibited through discriminatory legal structures from doing so, they have the right to resist and rebel. They have the right to undertake a struggle for change of the system which denies them equal rights."
"There is only one unconditional rule attached to the right of national liberation. No man or people may achieve national liberation at the expense of another people. Given this fact, any movement including Zionism which seeks to solve the national problem of one people at the expense of another may not properly be called a movement of national liberation."
SOLVING YOUR NATIONAL PROBLEM AT THE EXPENSE OF ANOTHER PEOPLE IS NOT LIBERATION, IT IS OPPRESSION.
Account of Pam Bailey of Peace Action I heard speak:
"Bailey had recently lived in Gaza for five months or so. It is not easy for “internationals” to spend time in Gaza, she confided. She gave up a lucrative corporate job to do humanitarian work for Gaza. She decided to become more than an “intellectual” liberal, and to walk the spiritual walk. She managed to get over there and fell in love with the people, and embraced first hand the horrifying restrictions on that comparatively tiny population of people collectively being punished by Israel.
"Bailey stressed how the United States is profoundly responsible for what is happening to the Gazans both financially and politically. Our unconditional support of Israel against UN sanctions (40 vetoes so far), our $3 billion a year support for military weaponry when Ms. Bailey points out Israel is the eighth largest exporter of weaponry in the world? The over-the-top pro-Israel bias, especially of our lobbied Congress and administration.
"Again, as all three speakers stressed, if only citizens of the world could experience their commonality as human beings hostility against “specter enemies” would dissipate. But sadly, Ms. Bailey pointed out that the Gazans are profoundly isolated from the international community and even the citizens of Israel. The Israeli government keeps them in their open-air prison and prevents the natural acculturation that would occur with communal integration. This separation beefs up the spirit of tribalism and nationalism of many Israeli people. It seems to justify for them the Gazans being forced to live a subsistent ghetto life.
"Palestinians are a wonderful, resilient people, Bailey asserted. But so few can appreciate this. She flashed a picture of a sweet faced, bright-dark-eyed little girl across the screen. She is painfully thin, Ms. Bailey explained and added the little girl had ceased talking after she was awakened one morning in her little bedroom when Israeli commandos drove the family from its home. No warning. The ugly right of might, apparently.
"Ms. Bailey said she and some internationals while they were there took the family back to visit their empty homestead at one point. The family was so excited just to see it, maybe take heart there was hope to return to it, they had a picnic of gratitude and celebration in spite of the ominous presence of the nearby watchtowers. Soon after, that one home, their dear empty homestead, was bulldozed completely. Specifically singled out from the rest. Ms. Bailey showed the pictures. A zero tolerance message sent. Zero tolerance for hope?
"She showed a picture of two charismatic looking male teens whom she declared were her best friends over there. She had wanted them to join her on the tour. They wanted to dream of someday leaving Gaza but did not believe it could happen. They don't even know what an escalator is Bailey mentioned. This seemed a startling but human revelation amidst Ms. Bailey's summary. Can any of us imagine their limitations, she asked. To not even have a hope of some day seeing the world? Bailey tried hard to get them visas. Apparently the US and Czechoslovakia are the only two countries that demand in-person interviews to acquire a visa, no videoconferencing. The boys would have had to go to Tel Aviv to apply. They are not be allowed to go to Tel Aviv.
"The blockade of Gaza has been in effect for 3 years now, she told us. 34% of Gazans live under the poverty level. 67% of the population is under 18 years of age. There are power outages 8-12 hours each day. 90% of the water is unsafe to drink. More and more restrictions are placed on the people. The most fertile wheat fields were confiscated recently. What self-supporting outlets are available to the Gazans are steadily being ripped away.
"The Gazans are informed of a change in rules and new restrictions by suddenly having live ammunition showered on them, as was done to earnest, hard-working women bent over the wheat fields one day recently. In the West Bank rubber bullets and tear gas are used (though as we have heard, those canisters are viciously aimed) but in Gaza, live ammo is used. Ms. Bailey said while she was there she had to watch one Gazan bleed to death before her eyes.
"Ms. Bailey explained that those infamous rockets sent against Israel are no longer sent. The ones the entire 1.5 million population is being punished for. And the population does exercise non-violent protest. Ignored by Israel. Unseen by the rest of the world, especially America.
"She showed pictures of incredible artwork made from broken glass of destroyed infrastructures done by one artisan. Artwork that would be highly marketable if the man could participate in Israel's nearby commerce or even beyond. The Gazans live on humanitarian aid and if not for the tunnels would starve to death, Bailey asserted, but they don't want to live on aid. They are proud and talented and want to be self supporting. It is the blockade that needs to end. They appreciate the massive amounts of humanitarian aid the flotilla freedom workers attempt to bring them. But they want OPEN borders. By the way, Ms. Bailey stressed, they were horrified and heartbroken by the deaths and woundings of those humanitarian activists on international waters on May 31st.
"Ms. Bailey ended her talk by encouraging Americans to not stay silent about the Gazan situation. She said she knew, often, people did not want to emotionally inconvenience their Jewish friends bringing it up. But she said it is a matter of morality. She encouraged us to write letters to the editors when bias is evident in their reporting. To contact our Congress, assert what pressure we can."
best, libby
It isn't that missiles are responsible for all of this. It's also years of terrorism. Those events get at least as graphic as anything you've described, and those events have a long history of targeting children, not as any form of collateral damage, but as prime targets.
It's not that I think the Palestinians have no rights and deserve their suffering. I have never said that. I actually think that the general population has gotten a raw deal from a whole lot of directions for many years, some of which are Israel. However, keep in mind that for the first nineteen years of the existence of those refugee camps, they were not run by Israel, nor were they opened by Israel. They were opened and run by Jordan and Egypt, who opted to keep this population isolated and angry rather than attempting to integrate them. They were screwed by the countries who told them to evacuate Israel in 1948 pending victory, then left them high and dry when it didn't materialize. They were screwed by a PLO led by Arafat who robbed them blind. They were screwed in Gaza when they finally got fed up with Arafat's Fatah and replaced them, unfortunately with a party who thinks they have more value as casualties of Israel than as living citizens. They were screwed by a leadership that led them down the Jihadist terrorism path rather than down the non-violent resistance path, a choice that has limited their progress horribly for forty years. They were screwed by an Iraqi leader who paid their families $25,000 if they were suicide bombers- showing all too graphically that they were worth supporting when they died but not when they lived.
Now the question becomes how to focus attention on their suffering and make it stop so that they're no longer screwed by the Israeli leadership. The answer is actually quite simple. Without reacting to violence, the Israeli leadership doesn't have a leg to stand on. Without a physical threat, the Israeli left and the liberal Jewish American majority will have no excuse to give Likud a pass for this stuff. These Jews are willing to overlook being associated with oppression if survival is on the line, but not if it isn't. So take it out of the equation, ASAP.
The day Hamas says "We will contest West Bank borders but we will no longer contest Israel's existence" is the day Likud has a huge problem. Hamas doesn't say that because they think it's all they have to negotiate with. On the contrary; that's exactly what gives Likud the luxury of refusing to negotiate in good faith while having united Jewish backing. An insane amount is built on the refusal to say that.
I'm not making a moral argument here. I'm making a tactical argument. Likud derives their power from keeping Israelis afraid. Remove the fear, remove the power.
Mark,
You're right, what you have in mind is way less draconian than I suspected. Aside from one aspect of the 1967 borders - Israeli ownership of the Wall - I agree. However, if Americans or UN Peacekeepers or anyone else guards that border, don't believe for a minute that the biggest threat is going to be a repeat of Operation Cast Lead because, without violence coming from the Palestinian side of the border, it won't happen. There wouldn't be a point. Worry more about Hezbollah's tactic in Lebanon of launching missiles from right next to UN forces so that Israeli retaliation endangered those UN forces. If there are UN forces there, Job One is preventing those launches. If the launches happen without UN action, your plan doesn't work, because Israelis will regard the UN as part of the problem instead of part of the solution. If, on the other hand, a foreign presence actually keeps Israel safe, it will actually solve the problem, among other reasons because if some Israelis are inclined to try initiating violence, others will be inclined to stop them. Unlike the Palestinian population, the Israelis are neither united nor intimidated by each other.
That's what you want? Fine. No problem with that at all. So now the problem becomes how to get the parties in question there from here. And that's what I spend most of my time talking about. As I said to Libby a few minutes ago: Likud gets its support by making Israelis and allied Jews afraid of those who would do them harm, so Remove the Fear, Remove the Power. Currently, Iran is doing what it can to raise the fear factor, which solidifies Likud's grasp on Israel. Don't tolerate that if you want Likud out.
It doesn't matter if you think the Israelis are safe. They don't think they're safe; that's the issue in a nutshell. So, as backward as it sounds, make them feel safe. That's what it takes. That's exactly what it takes.
Remove the Fear, Remove the Power.
As one of the blatant Zionists here, I agree, and said so earlier. Grass should absolutely have been let in.
Such a rational tone you use to minimize and avoid seriously addressing the horrors I spelled out above and who is responsible for them, apologizing for them using your own skewed pro-Israel configuration of its history of how it all came to pass as if even if it were true it would be an excuse for the horror happening now.
Any normal but RARE in Post-Morality America human being would have offered more than token faux-caring myopic (truly patronizing) acknowledgment of the above disclosures. It chills and nauseates me, your shallow response to me.
So you have advice on how to walk on egg shells with the monstrous borderline personality government of Israel responsible for the atrocities I spelled out, as if they must be handled using obsequiousness, as if they have a right to being murderers and torturers and ethnic cleansers and genociders. A disorder can not be coaxed, enthrallment cannot be ended with begging and coaxing and placating. Once again, never put the blame, accountability, responsibility on the perpetrator of the crime, in this case chillingly anti-human crime, put it squarely on the victims or those speaking out for the victims.
The quicksands of cronyism. Too many Jewish Americans and their politically correct so they think cronies won't call out decency because of their respect for the rules of cronyism rather than of human decency, some black Americans embrace Obama despite his ferocious assaults on law and decency out of their cronyism at also being black. Hillary has her feminine apologists despite her war criminal activities. It is all too human and all too anti-humane.
I thought I was sharing with someone capable of respecting the basic sanctity of human lives. I was wrong. A so-called intellectual finessing gamesperson. Your intellectual and rational veneer may work for you and those you play your CHOSEN "role" with but not for me. I know I can't win exploring evil with someone who turned off his or her heart.
I am not ranting as I write this. I am mourning the wall of your denial with all its stylized superciliousness (tragically grounded by plenty of fellow amoral cronyism) that exists between us.
libby
No bait and switch here.
How exactly do you think the Israelis got to the point where they pull all this miserable crap on the Palestinians? You think they woke up one morning and said "Let's go oppress Palestinians?" Do you think it's a land issue? That might be feasible if the worst oppression were happening in the West Bank, but it isn't; it's happening in the territory they actually pulled out of.
Israel is a little country filled with people who are raised on the idea that other people want to kill them based on who they are. Because it's little and because conscription is nearly universal, just about everyone knows war dead. Perhaps more to the point, most of them also know terrorism dead. If not, there are always local sites. Places on the streets they use every day where a bus was blown up. A pizza parlor they walk past where a suicide bomber walked in, found sixteen people, noticed that half of those were children, and detonated anyway. A hotel that had a seder (Passover religious ceremony but one done around a table instead of in a synagogue) filled with the elderly that was bombed with a whole lot of dead. When fences went up, the incidence of that went down. This isn't all about missiles that drive people into bomb shelters but don't kill too many. This is about a people who live their lives on red alert. I've been there once, over thirty years ago, but I noticed things then. My sister and I bought a gift for our parents in Jerusalem, then went to grab a meal at an outdoor cafe, but I left the package on my seat when I went to the line to get food - a guy who worked there asked "Is that your package?" "Yes." "Then sit with it." because everyone in the whole country thinks a package left alone is probably a bomb, because enough of them have been.
You'd be hard-pressed to find any military action taken against Gaza that wasn't a reaction to a recent attack of some sort. The Israelis are mainly reactive, many would say Overreactive, but still reactive.
Now there's a task in front of us. That task is to make the Israelis stop doing what they're doing to Palestinians. There is a moral imperative to this task but, once we get past the initial issue that we think the task should be accomplished, we then get to the question of how to accomplish it effectively.
I'm really not worried about the sensitivities of Likud. I'm extremely worried about the sensitivities of the people Likud recruits, galvanizes, etc. Hearts and minds time. We have a task, and the task is shaking people, particularly Jews, within Israel and internationally, off of the Likud defensive party line. We know the arguments Likud makes and we know how they make those arguments stick. If that's what you want to accomplish, it will be necessary to make Jews worry less about Israeli survival. This is not a moral point. This is not a Who's Fault Is It point. This is a strategic point, a tactical point, a logistical point.
I'll use an analogy from American history: Back during Vietnam, a few idiots on the Left burned American flags and/or spat in the faces of returning American soldiers. Frankly, most liberals didn't approve of these actions; however, they didn't condemn them, because they viewed what triggered them as worse. It was an absurdly costly mistake. Conservatives were fundraising on flag burning thirty years after Vietnam. That image stuck, even though it didn't actually apply to most of the people conservatives were painting with it, but the fact that they didn't divorce themselves from that behavior at the time meant that the conservatives got to saddle liberals with the alienating behavior of our fringes. Our tolerance of this stuff gave conservatives something to scare moderates with.
That's basically what's happening in Israel. As I've posted somewhat recently, the Israelis derived certain lessons from the Holocaust, such as: Don't dismiss outlandish threats as outlandish or you risk losing a third of your people to what sure looked like an outlandish threat, and Tolerance of actual antisemitism is dangerous because it can grow big enough to kill you.
Think about it. It's 1938. Germany is a civilized country. If someone were to come up to you and say the following:
"The Germans are going to round up Jews, then stuff them into cattle cars to where they can't sit down, without water or toilet facilities, and transport them long distances, sometimes for days, and some may die standing up. The trains will pull up to this facility with guards, dogs, and a string quartet playing. People will be separated into two lines. One line will head for showers, to be cleaned off from the trip. These people will undress, go into the showers, and the doors will be locked. Out of the nozzles, instead of water, will come an insecticide gas. In a few minutes, everyone inside will be dead. Then inmates in gas masks will come in with pliers to pull gold teeth out of the mouths of the corpses, and their heads will be shaved to use hair to stuff pillows with. The bodies will be carted out to enormous furnaces, where they'll be burned, and soap will be manufactured out of the by-products. Then the next train with its cattle cars will pull up and the process will repeat, several times daily over a few years."
If someone had said that to you, you'd say, with complete justification: "You have a horrid imagination."
Four years later, that was happening, and three years after it stopped, Israel was founded, and some of Israel was populated by people who'd lived through that.
My point is NOT what anyone owes Jews or Israelis; this isn't about guilt. My point is what Israelis view as credible, and what they believe the consequences are of failing to view a threat as credible. When the president of Iran starts talking about changing the regime in Israel and when he also sponsors conferences that deny that these events happened, events that some of the Israeli citizenry lived through, most of the rest of us go "It's talk. Stop worrying about nukes." Not these people. They start fueling planes.
Since their country was founded, neighboring nations have been looking to get rid of them. That's not true of their neighbors, but it's true of them. That's how they live, that's how they think. When other Jews see that, our first impulse is going to be "They're right."
You want to peal us off? We have to be able to say "They're wrong." What that means in practical terms is acknowledging what they face and structuring reactions in those terms. Screaming at Israel is fine, unless the same people don't scream at Syria if they do worse, because when that happens, Israelis will conclude that part of the screaming doesn't come from what's being done but from who's doing it, and that translates to them as Antisemitism - in other words, if the criticism is based on who we are, which we can't change, why bother treating it as valid? The best way to break up Likud's hold is to be very conscientious about making sure criticism isn't selective, and also never to excuse bigotry in any direction, which is a good idea to begin with.
If you throw around a term like Apartheid State when the victims of this alleged Apartheid don't allow Jews or Gays into their territories at all and you don't say a word about it, Israelis are going to conclude that your outrage is selective - based on actors rather than acts - and that they are therefore dealing with antisemitism, leading Jews all over the world to come to their defense. The issue isn't that these Jews are right or wrong; the issue is that this reaction is predictable and we want it to stop. That means that if we aren't tolerant of stuff done By Israel, we also can't be tolerant of stuff done To Israel. Not terrorism, not missiles, not barely veiled nuclear threats, not UN resolutions that treat Israel like it has the worst human rights record out of 193 member nations when it is probably somewhere in the top half in that respect.
The two-way street is how Likud loses.
I'm sorry, but that's what it will take. It's not what I want it to take, it's what it will take, because that's how these people think and, if you want to modify their behavior, you have to understand that.
This issue isn't who started it (Kosh), nor is it how Israeli policy is so damned oppressive, which it certainly is (Libby).
The issue (A) what the founders of Zionism envisioned the state of Israel to be; (B) what Israel is presently is (despite how it got to where it is); and (C) whether the Jewish democracy known inside the Green Line can last as along as it controls land it took in '67 and which the "Revisionist Zionists " believe is rightfully theirs can last as a democracy. It cannot. No more than South Africa was a democracy under Apartheid.
If you both accept that the West Bank must be given up in a 2-state solution, which you seem to believe, correctly, then the time at which that can still be accomplished is running out - and quickly. Each new subsidized settlement on the WB lessens the liklihood of a solution unobtainable. We can argue over who and what is responsible for it, but the facts on the ground (as opposed to endless talking about it) are what they are.
I caught a great (well, actually, just pretty good) Israeli movie at the local arts cinema, called "Footnotes." There were scenes where the protagonist goes to a convention to receive the Israel Prize (kind of a Nobel deal). What we see are the characters going through all manner of security checks, even in such a situation. IOW, the state of Israel is an armed camp. What we take for granted; something as simple as going to a movie, is considered some level of a security risk in Israel. A democracy cannot function in such a climate.
So, if the only viable solution is never accomplished and Israel winds up with millions of Palestinians under its thumb, they are handing the radical elements among the Arabs all the ammunition they need to continue lobbing rockets and such into Israel. The Arabs' struggle will continue until there is an ultimate (final? OMG!) solution. And honestly, I don't want even to contemplate it. No one will win that thing. No one. Not either side.
I think, with due respect to you both, that you need to move beyond finger pointing.
Netanyahu has shown no propensity to deal with the Arabs. Like his father, he sees his country as being like every other country. And Israel, to mind at least, is NOT. It was designed to be a special place of refuge for oppressed people everywhere. It cannot be like
every other country and still be Israel.
Why are there no lists of activities for the Palestinians?
This kind of continuous one-sided assignment of blame is certainly counter-productive and it is intellectually dishonest of the ONL to write paragraph after paragraph listing Israeli sins and totally ignore what Hamas has done and continues to do.
Why should Israel do anything if they won't get any reciprocal behavior or even a promise of reciprocal behavior from Fatah/Hamas?
Why cannot MIJ and ONL dwell a bit on what the Palestinians must do to make the situation better? Cutting and pasting old blames just makes the situation worse.
Read me closer. I'm not pointing fingers.
I'm telling anyone who reads what it will take to solve a problem. I make no bones about what I'm doing.
If Jews believe that what they're looking at is largely driven by antisemitism, they'll be too sidetracked by antisemitism to correct what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians.
Traveler asks a valid question:
Why is Israel the only party here that has to meet expectations?
Right now, Syria's government is killing way, way more people than Israel has in quite a while. It's in the same neighborhood; in fact, a lot of it is within driving distance if the roads are any good. And yet, this isn't drawing nearly as much outrage as a teargas cannister hitting a protester in the face.
Most of us don't even bother noticing it, because it's, well, normal. You think Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman don't notice that this is normal? They also both notice that the problem is that it's normal. The Palestininian Authority representative is interviewed within the last few weeks and says on television that the PA will not accept Jews or Gays. Go into Israel proper; does anyone think Israel doesn't, I don't know, accept Muslims? So the Apartheid State has its persecuted minority with Parliamentary representation and the victims in the territories don't have to worry about Apartheid because they simply don't let certain minorities in in the first place? You don't think the Israelis don't notice the discrepancies? When Netanyahu comes and points this stuff out, what are we supposed to tell him? "You're wrong?" We can't, because as inhumane and shortsighted as the man is in all sorts of policy directions, he isn't wrong. Hell, he isn't wrong on OS. By a long shot.
All he has to say is: "Judge them like you judge us and we'll consider it." What are we supposed to tell him: "No, we have to judge you differently?"
Why?
Because of all the American aid? Do you have any idea how much American aid Egypt has received over time? Do you have any idea how low expectations are to receive it? Israel, certainly in terms of military technology and intelligence, at least provides some return on investment.
Because they're Western? Let's start with just how Eurocentric that series of assumptions is - as bigotry goes, it's amazing no one's been called on that one. Let's continue with the fact that it isn't as true as people think. The only time I visited Israel, it had a Middle Eastern Jewish majority, not a European Jewish majority, and it was during this period that the hard-line Likud displaced the Labor Party as the party ruling Israel.
Because they claim to be democratic? Sorry, but you don't avoid having to hit moral standards simply by avoiding aspiring to them, which is what this argument amounts to.
Someone will, without question, think that I'm playing Poor Israel here, just because people are so much more apt to notice that I look like I'm defending Israel without bothering to look at WHY. Almost everyone who reads this wants change, and almost everyone who reads this wants change in the same direction. Tolerating or, worse, participating in what I'm outlining here will help give Netanyahu and the Likud Party the ammunition they need to stay in power and keep worldwide Jews in line. If Netanyahu makes this case successfully, nothing changes.
It's horribly simple, and I mean "horribly" in two ways:
Tolerance of this convention for judging the area players amounts to voting for Netanyahu. If you're going to vote for him, don't complain about his staying in office.
I want him out. Stop keeping him in.
KOSHER, AGGGHHHHHHH, YOU CONITINUE TO BLAME THE VICTIMS!!!
How many deaths from rockets in 8 or 9 years is it? Something like 14, with some from friendly Israeli fire? I am NOT defending any of those deaths. But COME ON!!!! How many deaths in
the end of 2008 Gazan massacre? 1,400 in 23 days. And you are not blinking about the disproportion there???? DEAR GOD!!!
As mentioned below, Andrew M. Lobaczewski believes Israel is a "pathocracy". I am also coming to believe the US is one, too. (form of macrosocial evil). Gilad Atzmon calls Israel a morbid society that has lost touch with humanity. Again, I am thinking the US is joining this label, too.
Can we meet at the same point about Palestine? I don't think so. Because I hear too much disinformation and minimization and apologizing re Israeli history and now. Too little sense of urgency and compassion for the victims of Israel.
You know two or three times when I mentioned Palestine and not dramatically, mind you, a while ago on Huffpo my comments were zapped. I thought it was a tech prob at first. The same thing happened on the guardian. I left off reading and commenting on those sites. But there is such a white-washing pro-israel propaganda throughout the US to begin to have a real honest discussion seems impossible. real heart-involved explorations. total boycott of reality. where do you begin a discussion there?
Hard to trust the propagandized Israel-speak when reality has been so OPPRESSED BY BOTH DOMESTIC AND even international media at times. Cronyism overwhelms. And even when the conditions are laid out specifically, no skin off anyone's nose to really EMPATHIZE with the outrageous horror being perpetrated. Advice to be given is be gentler when referring to what Israel is doing to Palestine?????????
Kosher, you call it a "raw deal" what the Gazans are suffering? That is your take on poison water and 10 hours or so a day without power and shooting innocent people including children like ducks in a barrel? Little medical care and education. And worse punishments that I didn't quote in my comment above. Raw deal? It is OBSCENE AND INDECENT AND THE FACT THAT ALL PEOPLE ARE NOT JUMPING UP AND DOWN DEMANDING JUSTICE IS DISGUSTING. But the pro-Israel, borderline all or nothing support or there will be vengeance, propaganda has been so saturating.
Here are some excerpts from a blog I did after the flotilla attack:
Rady Ananda takes on the Israeli rationalizations in psychological and moral terms:
"Indeed, after the Israeli attack yesterday on the flotilla which carried 700 passengers from 50 nations and 10,000 tons of food, medicine, water and other essentials:
“Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon blamed the victim … saying the activists themselves were responsible for the massacre and branding them allies of international terrorist organizations,” reported Tehran Times.
Psychopaths are “extremely skilled at rationalizing their behavior, often seeing themselves as the victims (and blaming their real victims),” writes Andrew M. Lobaczewski, author of Political Ponerology.
It is to our benefit to understand the actions of Israel in terms of ‘ponerology’ or, the study of evil. Lobaczewski explains:
“Ponerology describes the genesis, existence, and spread of the macrosocial disease called evil. Its causes are traceable and can be repeatedly observed and analyzed. When humanity manages to incorporate this knowledge into its natural worldview, it will have defensive potential as yet unrealized.”
He explains that “evil can manifest on any societal level. The greater the scope of the psychopath’s influence, the greater harm done. Thus any group of humans can be infected or ‘ponerized’ by their influence. From families, clubs, churches, businesses, and corporations, to entire nations. The most extreme form of such macrosocial evil is called ‘pathocracy.’”
In describing some of the ways that a psychopath or a pathocracy can infect a population, he writes of the Israeli occupation of Gaza:
“When determining the morality of the occupation of Palestine, many reject that the Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in the Nabka of 1948. Accepting this datum would lead to a correct, albeit disturbing, conclusion regarding the morality of Israeli military occupation…. In the case of Palestine, some groups have convinced themselves that there is no such thing as a Palestinian: Palestine was empty when the Jews found it, they say.”
ANOTHER ONE
One of the most compelling and enlightening accounts about this nightmare comes from an Israeli citizen. Gilad Atzmon:
As I write this piece the scale of the Israeli lethal slaughter at sea is yet to be clear. However we already know that at around 4am Gaza time, hundreds of IDF commandos stormed the Free Gaza international humanitarian fleet. We learn from the Arab press that at least 16 peace activists have been murdered and more than 50 were injured. Once again it is devastatingly obvious that Israel is not trying to hide its true nature: an inhuman murderous collective fuelled by a psychosis and driven by paranoia.
For days the Israeli government prepared the Israeli society for the massacre at sea. It said that the Flotilla carried weapons, it had ‘terrorists’ on board. Only yesterday evening it occurred to me that this Israeli malicious media spin was there to prepare the Israeli public for a full scale Israeli deadly military operation in international waters. Make no mistake. If I knew exactly where Israel was heading and the possible consequences, the Israeli cabinet and military elite were fully aware of it all the way along. What happened yesterday wasn’t just a pirate terrorist attack. It was actually murder in broad day light even though it happened in the dark.
Yesterday at 10 pm I contacted Free Gaza and shared with them everything I knew. I obviously grasped that hundreds of peace activists most of them elders, had very little chance against the Israeli killing machine. I was praying all night for our brothers and sisters. At 5am GMT the news broke to the world. In international waters Israel raided an innocent international convoy of boats carrying cement, paper and medical aid to the besieged Gazans. The Israelis were using live ammunition murdering and injuring everything around them.
[Snip]
What we saw yesterday wasn’t just a failure on the ground. It was actually an institutional failure of a morbid society that a long time ago lost touch with humanity.
MORBID SOCIETY THAT HAS LOST TOUCH WITH HUMANITY!!!!
Finian Cunningham gives a thorough and chilling account of what actually seems to have happened and how he knows:
"The Israeli government had denounced the Freedom Flotilla as “provocative” even before it departed and warned that it would be intercepted – despite the fact that the convoy had declared that it would be entering Palestine from international waters in the Mediterranean, well away from Israeli territory
While the Israeli naval interception was clearly well planned, its accompanying blackout of communications was evidently not swift enough, failing to prevent Turkish satellite TV footage broadcasting for several minutes what was taking place. Those images relayed by international media nail the lie in the Israeli version of events. (Whether the US media do so will be telling.)
Taken from different angles on various positions of the vessel, the TV images show the following:
The convoy was intercepted at around 5am local time, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) off the coast of Gaza in international waters.
Israeli commandos are seen hauling themselves on to the aid ship. The commandos were armed with assault rifles and handguns, wearing helmets and full body armour. It appears that the passengers and crew are unaware of the intrusion. The Israeli personnel were able to assemble without any opposition; they seemed casual in their movements, then raising their guns in assault mode, covering each other with pointed weapons before filing off to their intended target area on the ship. Other images show an Israeli military helicopter hovering over the convoy and high-speed marine dinghies approaching.
Chaotic scenes ensue. Aid workers are seen lying on decks wounded with what appear to be gunshots. Some of the injured – all clearly civilian in appearance – are lying motionless and unconscious, presumably dead. Other aid workers are shown trying to assist the wounded. One woman is seen carrying a blood-soaked stretcher amid the mayhem.
Some of the footage shows a melee of aid workers scuffling with Israeli commandos. None of the civilians are shown to be carrying knives.
Cunningham anticipates the disinformation drumbeats that will go out about “terror suspects” and “self defence”, efforts to “sow doubts over such events.” But this time, he contends, it is not hidden in “some poor ghetto in the Gaza Strip from the full view of the world.”
Cunningham maintains that both Israel and the United States are reaching a full out tipping point in terms of world contempt with their shallow, amoral rationalizations for Israel’s serious crimes against humanity. He delineates:
1) The discounting by both countries of the United Nations’ Goldstone report on human rights violations by Israel during the Gaza offensive (because Israel was responding “in self defence to rocket attacks”)
2) The crushing to death of American peace activist Rachel Corrie in 2003 by an Israeli military bulldozer excusing it as a “tragic accident”
3) The assassination of Mahmoud al Mabhoub by Mossad agents in a Dubai hotel in January of this year since the victim was an official of Hamas.
4) the warmongering towards Iran over trumped allegations of nuclear ambitions when Israel is actually the only state in the Middle East to possess nuclear weapons illegally
Cunningham’s conclusion:
What the world has witnessed is an outrageous act of sea piracy bordering on an act of war that transgresses the diplomatic rights of 50 countries and the premeditated, cold-blooded murder of civilians.
At the same time that world powers are demanding a tough response to the alleged attack by North Korea on a South Korean warship in which 46 seamen died, public opinion will likewise see the appropriate demand for the same legal standard applied to Israel.
The US government stands to be severely exposed by this latest, most glaring crime against humanity. No mealy-mouthed US censure of its client will placate world anger that is inevitably pushing governments, especially the increasingly critical governments of the non-aligned movement, including Turkey and Brazil, to apply international law on the US-Israeli war machine.
Washington is so bound up by mendacious contradictions in its support for the Israeli war machine while at the same time posturing for international standards to be imposed on others such as Iran and North Korea – this latest outrage by its favourite criminal client will surely impose a diplomatic manoeuvre on Washington that even the great escape artist Houdini could not defy.
Glenn Greenwald reports on international reaction as well as Obama’s:
Among the countries condemning Israel for its attack are Russia, Turkey, India, China, Brazil, France, Spain and many more. By stark contrast, the White House issued a statement which conspicuously refused to condemn the Israelis (Obama "expressed deep regret at the loss of life in today’s incident, and concern for the wounded"), while the U.S. State Department actually hinted at condemning the civilians delivering the aid ("we support expanding the flow of goods to the people of Gaza. But this must be done in a spirit of cooperation, not confrontation").
Obama's call for "learning all the facts and circumstances" is reasonable enough, but all these other countries made clear that this attack could never be justified based on what is already indisputably known: namely, that the ship attacked by Israel was in international waters and it resulted in the deaths and injuries to dozens of civilians, but no Israeli soldiers were killed and a tiny handful injured. In any event, Obama's neutrality will have to give way to a definitive statement one way or the other, and soon.
[Snip]
But there would be something quite symbolically appropriate about having the U.S. stand at the side of Israel in the aftermath of this latest massacre, because it is only the massive amounts of U.S. financial and military aid, and endless diplomatic protection, that enables Israel to act with impunity as a rogue and inhumane state. So complete is the devotion of the U.S. Congress to the mission of serving and protecting Israel that it even overwhelmingly condemned the Goldstone report, which found that Israel and Hamas had both commited war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during the Israeli attack on Gaza (the U.S. Congress, of course, never condemned the Israeli war crimes themselves -- only the Report which documented those crimes). Israeli actions are a direction reflection on, and by-product of, the U.S. Government, because it is the U.S. which enables and protects the behavior.
[Snip]
As Americans suffer extreme cuts in education for their own children and a further deterioration in basic economic security (including Social Security), will they continue to acquiesce to the transfer of billions of dollars every year to the Israelis, who -- unlike Americans -- enjoy full, universal health care coverage? How is the revulsion justifiably provoked by this latest Israeli crime going to impact American efforts in the Muslim world (as but one of many examples to come, Al Jazeera reports that "Moqtada al-Sadr has called for a large anti-Israel rally across from the Green Zone in Baghdad")? How much longer will Americans be willing to pay the extreme prices for its endlessly entangled "alliance" with its prime Middle Eastern client state, whose capacity for criminal and inhumane acts appears limitless?
In an update from Greenwald:
The formal statement submitted to the U.N. by the U.S. Ambassador today rather clearly seeks to blame everyone -- from Hamas to those attempting to deliver the aid -- for what happened: everyone, that is, except for the party which actually did the illegal seizing of the ship and the killing (Israel):
[snip]
And it's extraordinary that we refuse to condemn a blockade that, as classic "collective punishment," is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, and even refuse to condemn today's violent seizure of ships in international water. But, of course, the central rule of American politics is that Israel cannot be criticized, even as the rest of the world condemns it. How do you think the rest of the world will perceive the U.S.'s extreme, out-of-step protection of the Israelis, while subtly (or not-so-subtly) heaping the blame on the victims of its aggression?
FROM ME then:
It seems that the US will insist from the U.N. that it allow Israel to investigate the incident. Swell. Just as the architects of the financial meltdown were allowed to arrange the jobless recovery. Just as the extorting insurance providers were allowed to set the terms of Obamacare. Just as BP is allowed to “clean up” its tragic mess.
Yes, real accountability and justice? As if Israel is capable of and honorable enough to explore its heinous behavior.
We as advocates for social justice will have to rally and fight to CHANGE the anti-humanitarian status quo. We must assert truth to power through the flurry of lies and crazymaking amoral reframing.
AMORAL REFRAMING!!! I DON'T WANT TO PLAY THE GOTCHA GAME IN FAUX-INTELLECTUAL MINIMIZING OF THE HORRORS HAPPENING NOW!!!!
Just as the media and the US government and the UN lied or yawned through the flotilla massacre, where is the hope when REALITY AND DESERVED EMPATHY are shunned so???
libby
traveler, you deserve not even the time it takes to respond, as your ignorance is willful.
you will call it name calling, but I will call it a statement of fact. you may scoff at my comment concerning 620 commandments or 613, and in your mind you are thinking why is this guy making such a big deal over seven commandments, and the answer, REALLY, is quite simple. It is indicative of the sloppy way you approach intellectual matters. Accuracy is irrelevant to you.
When israel collapses from within, as I posit in my latest blog piece, it will not be due to critics like me, but the fault of those like the traveler who are too self-absorbed or lazy to sit down and look at facts objectively and/or take the time to ascertain what is true and what isn't.
I've, previously, devoted a whole post to the traveler (and his fellow comrade, babs) based on this site: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
but to him it is merely propaganda and not worthy of significant analysis.
Please let this recent PM be the last time you besmirch my inbox, OK?
I've never PMed you, never will, and would appreciate reciprocity.
Casualties happen.We all know that.But this was"only" a demonstration.I honestly don't know if the situation in Israel will calm down after the next elections.
People like Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin,Pres.J.F.Kennedy,Robert Kennedy, Dr.M.L.King were shot dead for their peace keeping missions.
If you were elected for presidency, you'd live a dangerous life,too.
History has taught us that any extreme is calling for reaction.
The access to internet has changed the worl situation dramatically.
The young generation in any culture is well informed and I believe that here lies the chance for a real change,in the Mid East and elsewhere.The young generation to which you seem to belong,holds the key for a new society in their hands.
I honestly hope that you and others of your generation will not turn into radicals because then the change will not come,and the horror which has gone on for much too long will claim more victims.
Kosh and Traveler ask, What about the Palestinians? Indeed. What must they do? Well, what *can* they do, other than recognize the state of Israel and stop the terrorism. They have no state, no territory, no money, no hope, no future.
I would say that at this point, even if somehow Hamas and Hezbollah acceded to recognition, not a damned thing would happen. The WB would stay right where it is. And so Israel, would become just another two-bit country, no better than its neighbors.
Libby, re: American ME foreign policy, AIPAC runs it, clearly. But I wonder if that will always be the case. American Jewry isn't like it was 50-60-70 years ago. It's becoming far more secularized due to intermarriage and, actually, the passage of time. I Look forward to the time when American Jews ask pointed questions about our own behavior in the ME. The memory of Sabra and Shattila is not going to fade way, I don't think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMrBYtSvmHE
A little long, but thoroughly enlightening.
As you see for yourself,you kicked a stone loose.
What a world we live in!!!
Thank you for the link,both book and video.
In one way or other, we all are affected,for different reasons.
I think if Hamas and Hezbollah acceded to recognition, actual recognition, not truce but We know you're staying put and it is not our intention to work for the end of your state's existence, things would change. If conditions in Palestine didn't change quickly, conditions inside Israel and the United States would in such a way that the current regime would end up changing or, more likely, being replaced.
Look at the rhetoric that comes from Israel and Israel's supporters: The justification for what they do comes overwhelmingly from the threat. The justification for international Jewish support for conduct to Palestinians comes overwhelmingly from the threat. Without it, all you're left with is a mostly liberal community with a long history of support for civil rights supporting oppression for strictly ethnic reasons and that won't fly with enough people.
Keep in mind that the RAC, or Reform Action Committee, which represents the largest Jewish demonination in America, is already working on civil rights issues within Israel, mainly involving Muslim citizens of Israel. At this point, Reform Judaism is tiny in Israel but growing. It's not that I'd pin hopes on that much growth in Israel, but I think they would spearhead more pressure from the Reform movement on change. We're all sick of the fighting in and around Israel; if an opportunity actually comes up to end it and defuse it, a real opportunity, an unambiguous opportunity, an opportunity that isn't hedged to death, the ball game changes. We don't want to be identified unambiguously with oppressors, we don't want the continuous danger (which we've been facing for a lot longer than Israel has been in existence), we'd love the opportunity for the country that represents our ancestral people to stop being a pariah and finally see Middle Eastern normalization, we don't want to be spending billions in military aid perpetually, we want to see Israel in a position where if a threat comes from elsewhere that the US isn't the only blatant defender, we'd love to see the endless UN resolutions stop already.
What happened when Sadat decided on peace? He got the Sinai Peninsula back from Menachem Begin, the founder of the political party now in power in Israel, and the Sinai had Israel's only functioning oil well. People who look at Israel and say they are never serious about concessions for actual peace tend to forget that, the one time it happened, they gave up land for peace and have maintained a non-agressive relationship with Egypt since, for over thirty years now.
What did it cost Sadat to Israel? I know what it cost Sadat ultimately, the same thing as what later efforts cost Rabin, but what did Israel need from Sadat to give the Sinai back?
Exactly what they need from Hamas and Hezbollah. I get that Hamas in particular doesn't want to give away its bargaining chip, but it has so much more value spent than held. That chip is their biggest obstacle to the unambiguous moral high ground, I mean the unambiguous moral high ground as far as Jews are concerned which, given AIPAC, etc. is the moral high ground that counts the most.
Cynicism about Netanyahu and company is fine, but there's a lot more to this than just them..
first of all I disagree with you on AIPAC having any kind of moral high ground. It has one mission, and that is to affect American foreign policy to work reliably with the Israeli government, no matter what its position on open or another issue. It has never, ever, done anything more than that. They do not talk about morality, let alone the admoniition in the Bible, among other admonitions to live and let live. AIPAC is first, last, and always a political pressure group. Moreover, dragging that into the discussion is to redirect it. Let's not, because I think we've all got some really good stuff going on here.
PLEASE, look at that Shalom TV discussion between Beinart and a rabbi of a very different generation. The link is above in my previous post. They disagree, but it's all with great respect. Tell me (us!) what you're impressions are after having seen it.
"Kosh and Traveler ask, What about the Palestinians? Indeed. What must they do? Well, what *can* they do, other than recognize the state of Israel and stop the terrorism. They have no state, no territory, no money, no hope, no future."
It has been said of the Palestinian government that they never miss a chance to miss a chance. If Arafat had had the power and the will to accept the peace accords offered so many years ago, the Palestinian State would have the 1967 borders and no encroachments. Without suicide bombers there would have been no wall and no checkpoints. The current state of affairs has as much to do with the Palestinians actions as the Israelis. The fact that they have come out on the losing end doesn't give them any moral stature except in short-sighted views.
@MarkinJapan
It is a little pathetic that your only contribution to a discussion is either a quote from someone else or a personal attack. You seem not even to understand Kosher' point - and so you attack me.
Fine. At one point in my career, I spent 6 months working with the emotionally challenged and have learned to expect nothing and I'm certain you will never fail for disappoint in that regard.
In this case, you have the wrong target. Since I have always been a secular Jew, probably since my circumcision, I can't imagine I would ever have mentioned anything about Hebrew Laws or Hebrew, so whoever mentioned the 600 or so thingies that you are clinging to as an insult, it wasn't me and it doesn't offend me.
I wasn't saying that AIPAC had the moral high ground. I was saying that because of AIPAC's influence, swaying Jews is critical. Incidentally, my rabbi, who's a pretty serious social activist, is a member of AIPAC. I haven't learned much about its inner workings, but I supposed I might be able to find out. Frankly, I know very little about AIPAC.
I'm not sure I have an hour and a quarter to devote to this video. It's playing in the background at the moment. In listening to the introduction to this, I'm going to want to hear this. He says he's a Zionist, which actually makes sense in the same way as J Street does. ------ I don't have time for this but, so far, I'm not sure I can stop listening. This guy's good. His generational point is absolutely apt - young Jews don't feel the same sense of urgency because they haven't lived through big Jewish communities in danger. There's a sort of second point here that has to do with the young's commitment to Judaism, but that's probably not a discussion for here.
Uh, Traveler,
"The 600 or so thingies?" That's just way too quotable, even though Mark isn't referring to something you said.
I'm curious as to how some of your other readers react to Beinart. I'm not disagreeing with what I'm hearing. What Beinart has said he opposes so far, for all sorts of reasons, is most of Israel's presence in the West Bank. Over and over and over again, I've said that. They both talk about giving the Palestinians a piece of East Jerusalem. I've also said that repeatedly. Do these guys discuss Gaza? On the West Bank, I don't disagree with Markinjapan or libby. I've said all along - Israel should be getting out.
I learned a few things about facts on the ground I was less than up on, notably two:
1. How the West Bank settlements are getting settled, and
2. That AIPAC is advocating for the Israeli government rather than the State of Israel independently.
I do not disagree with anything Beinart said. He gave me more information but I reach the same conclusions with that information that he does, for the same reasons. I notice that I have, in fact, made some of the same arguments on OS, particularly regarding the two-state solution vs. the one-state solution.
Regarding Golub:
I agree on one hand that the primary reason Israel is in the Palestinian territories is that they won't let Israel leave. However, if Israel is going to keep sending settlers to the West Bank and fill swimming pools on the West Bank while giving the Palestinians access to water four hours a day, that statement becomes disingenuous in a hurry as far as the West Bank is concerned.
I have stated what Beinart said about how Fatah is going to look like patsies if they forego violence and get territorially penalized for it; actually, I've sort of said it backward: that the way to get rid of Hamas is to reward Fatah for their moderation, which is not what Israel has done at all.
Beinart is right that it is disingenuous to simply say, as Golub does, that the West Bank just isn't Israel. It is and it isn't.
Golub brings up the point that Beinart may be stating something that could be construed as stating that Israel is fundamentally bad and undermining it from that standpoint. That point is BS. The biggest complaint I get from anyone on OS who criticizes Israel and isn't Jewish is that they feel like they're constantly accused of antisemitism. The equating of criticism of Israel per se with antisemitism is not valid. Period. My problem with some criticism of Israel has consistently been based on one criterion: If Israeli conduct is to be compared to the conduct of any other nation or territorial entity, it has to be done with consistent standards. No free passes. In the recent development of tensions between Israel and Iran, for example, treating Iran as an innocent party is the result of insufficient information, blatantly dishonest, or actually driven by bigotry, in which case the antisemitic label applies. To clarify: I'm not saying Iran should be viewed as the only guilty party, but they certainly aren't innocent victims.
They didn't talk about Gaza at all. In terms of what's happened in discussions on this post, that's my biggest problem. I agree with the West Bank stuff. The arguments I've had here have been about Gaza and they didn't help.
"Although Mizvahs are the complete set of rules (620 of them) - both positive and negative, given in the Torah, in casual usage, a mitzvah is a good deed. And these are important.
the traveler
NOVEMBER 18, 2011 05:42 AM"
When confronted with Arafat's words vowing to recognize the state and cease all hostilities as stated by the jewish virtual library, lew lied.
Lying is lew's way of dealing with difficult situations. Been lying so long, can't recognize reality from delusion.
Hey, lew, take your f*cking withered old lying as* and travel to some place with padded walls.
You earn insults and deserve MANY more. You are a racist old f*ck who brings tsuris on all jews with your lies, dissembling and revisionist history. A charpeh und a shandeh.
Derides me for cut and pasting FACTS while he goes his merry lying way.
Working with the emotionally challenged - clearly a case of the blind leading the blind; only difference is that lew is willfully blind akin to his willful ignorance alluded to earlier.
But knowing this scum for these years, he'll wiggle and squirm and find some illogical justification. Must be some other guy wearing a dress who said that!
I'm so glad you gave that vid your time. I think you and I are on the same page....and I'm not even Jewish! (I come from the Catholic tradition which, aside from a ghetto here and an inquisition there, is not much more than Judaism with some fender skirts.)
I think Beinart is definitely on the right path. As for Gaza, what I make of it is that Gaza and the WB need to be connected, or connectable, in some way; accessible to all Palestinians. Maybe a swap? Maybe trading Gaza for some of the Negev? I dunno. In any case, it's going to require enormous risk for both, but more so for the Israelis. And given the rate of settlement going on in the WB, will get harder and harder to solve, if ever at all. The point is that everything can be negotiated.
As I said, if the Palestinians are invested in their own sovereignty and are helped along by the international community, there will be far less violence, it seems to me.
To do nothing is, as Beinart says, disastrous.
You are a pathetic little man with nothing left but hate. I don't feel sorry for you, although its a temptation, but you just scatter hate around so much that feeling sorry for you is impossible.
I do feel sorry for your family, if you have any, trapped in your little circle. If there is one certain thing about you it is that you brighten any situation or any country merely by your leaving.
PS- I looked that stuff up. Make yourself happy.
Ignore me and I will you.
You looked it up?
You're not gonna' find accurate information using your comic books or volumes of nursery school rhymes.
Is that where you also found "knowledge" contradicting the jewish virtual library documenting Arafat's overtures complying with israeli demands?
you've made your own bed, lew - now go back to your urine-soaked crib. you're a documented liar.