Two Instructive Articles

Max Blumenthal's video from the streets of Jerusalem is instructive. 

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/max-blumenthal-feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem-on-eve-of-obamas-cairo-address.html

And then there is this story in the Asia Times:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF05Ak01.html

The basic story here is simple.  Israeli intelligence are doing their best to fake the evidence of rapid Iranian advances towards weaponization of nuclear weapons.  In their usual short sighted way, they care not that they are systematically undermining the credibility of the US intelligence community.  The US IC has been the source of 90% of all valid raw intelligence information that Israeli intelligence has ever had.  Israeli collection operations are really rather primitive and the farther the target from their borders the poorer they are.  What the Mossad is good at is covert action and black propaganda, not information work.  It is sad to see an era of cooperation ending in such a way.  pl

Comments

[Fred]

Max's map is quite informative. The report from Israel is instructive not only to see the views of more members of "Generation Chickenhawk" but the complete incompetence-laziness of American journalists, though I would never expect this on Fox. “we’ve never seen his birth certificate!” “Who’s Benjamin Netanyahu?” this is a political science major?

[Ian]

"The Israeli co-authors of The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran, Yossi Melman and Meir Javeanfar, revealed that "Western" intelligence was "laundered" to hide its actual provenance by providing it to Iranian opposition groups, especially NCRI, in order to get it to the IAEA."

Wonderful. Iranians in favor of democracy also get discredited by this. That won't make Iran a better neighbor in the long term, not in the slightest.

[maui bob]

somebody please cue Cyndi Lauper's True Colors asap!

Max's video is ghastly. Jewish first, American second I suppose, but confused they are not. They are simply ungrateful SOBs.

[arbogast]

A superb post. The video is must see.

[Bill Wade, NH, USA]

06/06/2009

Obama postpones U.S. embassy move from T.A. to Jerusalem

By Haaretz Service

United States President Barack Obama on Friday postponed moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by an additional six months, Israel Radio reported.

A senior White House official said that U.S. policy regarding the status of Jerusalem remains unchanged, and that it is a final-status issue to be resolved within the framework of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The U.S. Congress approved the transfer of the embassy 14 years ago.

Last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that all of Jerusalem would always remain under Israeli sovereignty. Netanyahu said he had made the same declaration during his visit to Washington last month when he met with Obama.

"The new U.S. administration informs us with intolerably ease that we have to give up Jerusalem," the premier said during a May ceremony marking Jerusalem Day.

"With all due respect, the U.S. president sees the American interest and does not know that Jerusalem is not a territorial issue, but a much deeper one - 'the hope of two thousand years/the land of Zion and Jerusalem,'" he said, quoting Israel's national anthem."

I can't help but wonder if had those kids been of the Muslim faith what their fate would have been upon arriving back in the USA.

[David]

Yes, the video is compelling.
It is also very sad, "Generation Stupid"

[Cold War Zoomie]

... "Generation Stupid"

My hope is that they are too stupid to become successful enough to influence anyone, much less US foreign policy. That they just become so self-absorbed with their own gratification that politics passes them by.

Since they come from fairly well-to-do families, though, they'll be successful enough to fund some PAC regardless of how ignorant they are. Oh well.

And this video reminds me of the "Irish" guys in Boston and New York who funneled money and support to the IRA. They were no more Irish than the Man on the Moon. I think that support actually prolonged The Troubles, and we're seeing a parallel in Israel - our support based on emotion from afar is actually prolonging the problems and making it worse.

I must admit, though, the second-to-the-last guy made me laugh. He knows where his priorities are!

[Robert C.]

Amazing video.

As I watched it, I flashed back to the days immediatley after 9/11, when we saw, repeatedly, video of celebrating West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, only to find out later that it was all file video. There were no Palestinian celebrations after 9/11.

Imagine the airplay this excellent (albeit crude) video would get if these were Arab-Americans partying in, say, Beirut. The video would surely make it through the MSM filters.

[Serving Patriot]

@David, I might call them Generation Coddled. I wish they would simply turn in their U.S. passports and stay in the Holy Land they profess to love.

@COL Lang, Thanks for this post. You are very much on the mark and at least someone is saying it! At this point, though, I am more worried that the little dog will start the fight irrespective of the big dog's wishes... all on the premise that big dog will save them.

Citizens should be asking if there are any treaty pacts between the US and Israel that obligates our action to defend them no matter what they do. I might also add that there is a not so small group of US forces stationed in the Negev manning a US owned missile defense radar (a development not unnoticed in Tehran). A missile attack on the Negev (e.g. Dimona) where these forces are located would presumably permit a proportional military response from the U.S. -- with or without a Congressional declaration of war.

SP

[optimax]

"Who is Benjamin Yahoo?" Great. It's "Jaywalking" in Israel and makes it look like the West's major cultural influence in the ME is beer and pornography.

[arbogast]

Those kids are parrots. Drinking beer and getting [rhymes with weighed] don't leave much time for developing your prejudices.

The girl who knew that Obama wasn't a citizen but didn't know who Bibi was is the best example.

They're repeating what they've been told.

They're the ass end of the iceberg, if you will.

[Fred]

I finally finished the Asia Times article. This is far worse than the video. Why is a journalist the chief researcher for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, especially with the apparent entanglements with foreign governments?

A United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Douglas Frantz, a former reporter for the LA Times with extensive under orders not to speak with the media and further on is noted to be “… apparently forbidden by Israeli officials from revealing their national affiliation as a condition for the interviews.”

“Frantz, a former journalist for the Los Angeles Times, had extensive contacts with high-ranking Israeli military, intelligence and Foreign Ministry officials before joining the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff.”

This is yet another disappointment from Senator Kerry. http://www.johnkerry.com/news/entry/kerry_announces_top_foreign_relations
_committee_staff/ I wonder if this was going on during his campaign in 2004; that would certainly have helped contribute to his losing.

[meffie]

Maybe this answers the question, "why do they hate us?" Not because of our "freedoms" but because of our arrogant stupidity.
If young muslims expressed the same threats against Obama's life, they'd be sent you-know-where. Perhaps these kids can be tortured until they reveal the names of the American institutions of higher learning that failed to educate them.

[rjj]

Generation coddled?

They are viiiiictiiiiims!!!! They are clearly suffering from esteemia, the PoMo pox.

[Jackie]

CWZ,
You are point on with the American Irish contributing to the Troubles. The same is going on with regard to Israel.

Take the outside money away fueling the war and you might get a solution.

I haven't watched the video by Max. I've heard it described enough to be repulsed without watching it.

[Nancy K]

Uri Avnery has a new column regarding Israel, it is quite amazing.

[David Habakkuk]

CWZ,

'And this video reminds me of the "Irish" guys in Boston and New York who funneled money and support to the IRA. They were no more Irish than the Man on the Moon. I think that support actually prolonged The Troubles, and we're seeing a parallel in Israel - our support based on emotion from afar is actually prolonging the problems and making it worse.'

In the end the USG did play a very important role in making peace possible in Northern Ireland -- but certainly a lot of us here do think that support for the IRA from the U.S. prolonged the problem. Some of us moreover have certainly wondered whether such support might have had as much or more to do with identity politics in the U.S., than with real concern about -- let alone understanding of -- the intractable communal rivalries in Northern Ireland.

And a similar suspicion certainly arises in relation to the support of some American Jews for hard-line Likudnik positions -- which I fear will end up not simply delaying a settlement in Palestine, but making one impossible, and in so doing ensuring that Israel ends up going the way of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Not long ago Philip Weiss -- on whose admirable blog the video to which the Colonel linked appeared -- commented:

'A lot of the life of this website is a response to a challenge that Tony Judt issued two years ago: "Why is the American Jewish community so determined to convince itself that we are living in 1938? Why does the most successful, the most well integrated, the most culturally and politically influential, the most socially and economically well situated Jewish community since the late years of the Roman republic, why is it so worried about the demon of anti-Semitism -- more worried than the Jewish community in any other country I know and certainly more worried than Israel itself?."

But, oddly, Weiss does not seem to have taken on board a key part of Judt's own answer to the question, which reflects his experience as a British Jew who has made a successful academic career in the U.S. In an interview with the FT two years back, Judt noted that back in the Sixties the U.S. did not care so much for Israel, while France was that country's great friend. The change since then, he suggested, had something to do with the rise of identity politics:

'It became possible, fashionable and in the end almost necessary to identify yourself - Irish-American, Italian- American, Native American, Asian-American. Part of it was because of the rise of the culture of the victim but also because it was a way of being part of the new multicultural space.”

'You couldn't just be Jewish-American, however, he says. To create an identity, he says, Jewish people instead tied themselves to the Holocaust and to Israel. ''So it became very much a threat to American-Jewish identity to unravel one of these.'''

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Judt.)

[linda]

ignorant-assed punks; with a profound sense of entitlement. perhaps customs might want to pull aside upon their return to the u.s. those loudmouths who threatened the president.

and that poli sci major. oy. she reminded me of the idjits in jay leno's street segments who can't identify photos of high profile newsmakers -- but know every celebrity photo put up.

[Cloned Poster]

ultra orthodox = fundamental muslins

ISRAELI police fired water cannons at hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem who threw stones in protest against the opening of a public parking lot they see as a violation of religious law.

[J]

The 'crux' of our U.S. Mideast policies is that most of our D.C/State Mideast policy makers can't read/understand/speak Arabic. And if you don't know squat about how to 'communicate' with the Arab world, then policy making goes in the hole in the outhouse.

[J]

And the 'second' problem with our D.C./State Mideast policy makers is that they don't have enough 'backbone' to do what needs to be done -- castrate AIPAC.

[lowlander]

@David Habakkuk. You have your finger partially on the truth in your comment. Hatred like these kids have, doesn't sprout up over night from a vacuum. You've got to be carefully taught from year to year, it has to be drummed into your dear little ear. These kids parents and grandparents harboured these same hatreds for generations which was your point. Tradition, without it our lives are as shaky as a fiddler on the roof.
The question I have is are these attitudes examined by outsiders? Outside elites? I say they are more then examined , they are nurtured and protected by a group of Anglo American/European nobility. These little people of haters are used by the elites as foot soldiers for use in execution of a variety of hidden agendas throughout history.

[Patrick Lang]

All

The video IS depressing, but what it really shows is a bunch of privileged very drunk post-adolescents talking tough to impress each other, especially to impress the girls. The most truthful guy is the one towards the end who says something like "what I really want is p---y."

Unfortunately, as someone commented, the racist drivel and hatred towards Obama is probably representative of their families' thinking.

I think these guys should make use of their new Israeli citizenship to stick around and join the IDF. This would give them a chance to "be all they can be" against Hizbullah troops next time around.

What was the Kilmer line about "midnight in some flaming town?" pl

[Serving Patriot]

I think these guys should make use of their new Israeli citizenship to stick around and join the IDF. This would give them a chance to "be all they can be" against Hizbullah troops next time around.

Perhaps this is why the IDF is not doing so great these days? Too many kids like these (American and Israeli) have joined up! While many, many more children of the educated, central-liberal side of Israel leave with their families to some other country.

SP

[Fred]

PL, I agree these kids should sign up but I also think these kids at least realize what they would face in the IDF is much different from the first intifada 22 years ago. It's much easier to be a couch commando than a real one.