Shulamit Aloni on American "anti-Semites"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUGVPBO9_cA

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/aloni.html

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090366.html

Comments

[Walter]

Agreed. If Congolese businessmen owned a majority of media outlets in US, and contributed heavily to politicians, we would be decrying the massacre of the 3 to 5 million people in the Congo over the last several years. If Somalians were influential businessmen in USA, we would have intervened militarily in Darfur already.

It is amazing how far human beings stray from the simple moral dictum : Love thy neighbor as thyself or Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

[Jackie]

The article in Haaretz was interesting. Too bad most Israelis don't recognize the problem.

Did you happen to read Ehud Olmert's op-ed in the Washington Post today? He wants to leave the settlements out of the equation. Fine. It's really the land they are built on that IS the problem. That land belongs to the Palestinians.

[Bill Wade, NH, USA]

It seems the term "anti-semite" has broadened lately on who it can be used against. I'd rather not be lumped in with skinheads and the like but by being a Ron Paul supporter I've been called that on other unmoderated chat boards.

Nonetheless, it is their right to do so and I'm proud of that and proud of myself and every other American having fought, and all too often dying, for that right.

[Fred]

"THE STATE OF ISRAEL will ...it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex…"

"WE APPEAL — ...— to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the up building of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions. "

This is a much different declaration than found in the US constitution (article 1, section3), which only counted negro slaves as 3/5ths of a person (but still a slave, not a citizen) and Indians not all. As Ms. Aloni states:
"The latter are busy preparing blatantly racist laws and sending armed police… because the regime believes the Arabs of the Land of Israel, the native Palestinians, are not worthy of being called human beings."
Should Isreali's prepare for their civil war, for that looks like it is where they are heading?

[LeaNder]

When I read http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071603584_pf.html>Olmert's article, I admittedly thought: Camouflage and cozenage. Unfortunately I can't think of a better phrase for "Tarnen und Täuschen", which fits into a military context. They never miss and opportunity to miss an opportunity?

Settlement construction should be taken off the public agenda and moved to a discrete dialogue, as in the past. This would enhance our bilateral relations and allow us to deal with the essential issues: the political process; preventing Iran's attempt to obtain nuclear weapons; eliminating Islamic extremist terrorism; and creating the necessary dialogue for normalizing relations between Israel and the Arab world.

The time to deal with such important matters is running out. We cannot waste what time we do have on non-priority issues.

FB Ali mentioned Bruce Riedel as the main Afghanistan/Pakistan strategist not long ago, Here a link to an interesting article by him on Camp David. http://www.bitterlemons.org/previous/bl150702ed26extra.html>The Risk of Peace (my title), as a valuable matter of negotiation. Amazing document.

But one aspect of the summit has been neglected in the analysis--the bilateral discussions between Israelis and Americans over how to assist Israel in managing the risks of a peace agreement should one have been concluded. As the President's Special Assistant for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, one of my responsibilities at Camp David was to oversee these discussions and in particular to conduct them with my Israeli counterparts in Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office. It is important to understand these discussions to better assess the proposals Barak put on the table in their full perspective and to understand the kind of peace agreement he and President Clinton were trying to build. ...

[steve]

I respect your opinion Bill Wade, but feel obliged to express my concern that while I agree with you that everyone has, or should have, the right to express their belief that "anti-semitism" lurks around every corner, I am not proud--at all--of a political culture such as ours that routinely debases the term.

[Jon T.]

Having been betrayed, abandoned, or victimized is a self righteous state I can in inhabit forever, should I choose. That self righteous state can include a twisted rage, a violence, a dominance - it can be subtle and covert or visible and overt.

Conscious awareness that being a victim is something I do, or have done, brings choice: will I continue to be manipulative, to be unable, to allow others to provide for me? Will I continue to self righteously dominate and insist that I am right, dammit. Don't you see that I am? There is no other way. We've be maligned and it must be this way.

How does one arrive at conscious awareness that one is being like that? How does one wake up? How does a society, a culture, a people, how do we wake up? A matter for another forum, perhaps.

Ms. Aloni is awake and aware her fellows have perverted the ideals brought to the inception of Israel.

What a powerful writing in Haaretz she has done. What a powerful awareness. What a choice.

Courage is required to make the choice to be responsible or not, to refrain from the song of betrayal. Courage is required to stand in the uncertainty between suppression and acting out, to simply be. Yes. Courage and surrender both.

[Bill Wade, NH, USA]

"The most ludicrous of these, and the one that surprised me the most, is the accusation that my article was anti-Semitic propaganda. The first letter I got on this score I actually mistook for a joke sent to me by one of my friends. Then I got another one which I quickly realized was not a joke at all. “Isn’t it convenient,” it read, “that an Arab-American writer for Rolling Stone looks at Wall Street and picks the most prototypically Jewish firm around to demonize.”

The above is Matt Taibbi commenting on the responses he received after his Goldman Sachs expose in Rolling Stone magazine.

http://undertheradarmedia.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/rolling-stone-writer-called-anti-semitic-for-simply-following-the-money/

Steve, I agree with you 100% and am just making my position known as I fear we'll sooner or later lose this important right. There's a move afoot in Britain to make it a criminal offense to equate the actions of the Israeli government with terms like: Nazi, Facsist, etc..

[curious]

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not place restrictions on Jews seeking to buy land or live in east Jerusalem after reports that the U.S. has objected to a planned city development.

“Our sovereignty in Jerusalem is indisputable,” Netanyahu said before the weekly Cabinet meeting today in remarks broadcast on Army Radio. “We do not accept the idea that Jews do not have the right to live or buy property in all parts of Jerusalem.”

Netanyahu was responding to reports on Army Radio, in the newspaper Haaretz and in other Israeli media that the U.S. has demanded Israel stop a construction project in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as the capital of their state.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abRXOZZ0cvTw

[curious]

Bibi doing his double down bet. (I wonder what Gates going to tell him when he goes to Israel next week.)

(dude, chill out or that expensive ship won't start next time you try to drive it.)

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/07/16/1006577/report-israel-preparing-iran-attack

Report: Israel preparing Iran attack

July 16, 2009

LONDON (JTA) -- Israel's recent deployment of warships through the Suez Canal is “a clear signal that Israel was able to put its strike force within range of Iran at short notice,” a British newspaper reported.

Two Israeli missile class warships on Tuesday sailed through the Suez Canal 10 days after an Israeli submarine capable of launching a nuclear missile strike in preparation for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times reported Thursday.

The newspaper reported that Israeli officials confirmed the deployment.

The Times article pointed out that Israel has strengthened ties with Arab nations that also fear a nuclear-armed Iran. In particular, relations with Egypt have grown increasingly strong this year over the “shared mutual distrust of Iran,” according to an Israeli diplomat quoted in the report. Israeli naval vessels would likely pass through the Suez Canal for a strike against Iran.

[curious]

End of year bombing talk is still on. (I have to find out what all the usual neocon talking heads are saying.

-----

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,630690-2,00.html

The Three No's

Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister once before, between 1996 and 1999. At the time, he became famous for his three no's: no withdrawal from the Golan Heights, no withdrawal from East Jerusalem and no negotiations with the Palestinians under any preconditions. Today, all he has left is an awkward choice. If he distances himself too significantly from the three no's, his right-wing coalition will likely collapse. But if he doesn't go far enough, the pressure from Washington will only increase.

-----------

from huffingtonpost

Neocons invited to Congressional hearing on Iran. Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee announced that it was holding a hearing this Wednesday titled, "Iran: Recent Developments and Implications for U.S. Policy."

My initial thought was that the panel was decent but a bit disappointing, and lacking in progressive voices. Among the initial four witnesses announced were Patrick Clawson, a Bush administration supporter who repeatedly advocated that the U.S. use the threat of military strikes to shift policy in Iran, and Abbas Milani, whose 2004 op-ed arguing that President Bush should resist negotiations and publicly endorse democracy activists in Iran was distributed by the neocon outfit Project for a New American Century. (Milani has since shifted his position on the matter of negotiations.)

Suzanne Maloney, a Bush-era State Department official who notably worked against the administration's hawkish elements, is also invited to testify. So is Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment, who has generally done excellent work on Iran.

On Friday, I spoke with committee chairman Rep. Howard Berman's staff and suggested that they invite Trita Parsi, the superb analyst who heads the National Iranian American Council, to testify. I was told that Parsi would be considered but that it was late in the process to add witnesses.

Now, however, I'm outraged. On Monday morning, the committee announced two new additions to the hearing, both dyed-in-the-wool neoconservatives. One is Orde F. Kittrie of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the other is Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute.

Rubin's addition, in particular, is stunning. His career highlights include working with Doug Feith in the infamous Office of Special Plans to advance dubious intelligence that helped lead the U.S. into war in Iraq; repeatedly advocating for military action against Iran over the last several years; and, in June, laying out the case for why Ahmadinejad would be preferable to a "more soft-spoken and less defiant" president like Mousavi -- "it would be easier for Obama to believe that Iran really was figuratively unclenching a fist when, in fact, it had it had its other hand hidden under its cloak, grasping a dagger."

Now, more than ever, this panel needs the balance of a progressive voice. If you'd like to suggest Trita Parsi (or someone else), I'd urge you to give the committee a call at (202) 225-5021. I would also suggest calling the offices of a few progressive members of the committee to see if we can gain their assistance:

[J]

Israel's Likud types appear to be 'whining' as they see their grip on power (on the international and U.S. stages) slipping from their iron fists, take a look:

The Obama Strategy - Opinion - Israel National News

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8939

What the Israeli Likud types in particular and the Israeli population in general don't get is that Americans are getting tired and fed up with their anti-Semitic whining every-time that anyone question's the Israeli government's in-humane actions and their Israeli selfish self-centeredness spoiled-child behavior.

There are other people on this planet besides Israelis and their Israeli whims, and they need to realize the globe as a whole is getting fed up with their garbage.

The Israelis greatest weakness appears to be that they cannot empathize with their fellow human beings.