Krauthammer, tribal polemicist.

 
"Note how Obama has undermined Israel’s negotiating position. He is demanding that Israel go into peace talks having already forfeited its claim to the territory won in the ’67 war — its only bargaining chip. Remember: That ’67 line runs right through Jerusalem. Thus the starting point of negotiations would be that the Western Wall and even Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter are Palestinian — alien territory for which Israel must now bargain.

The very idea that Judaism’s holiest shrine is alien or that Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter is rightfully or historically or demographically Arab is an absurdity. And the idea that, in order to retain them, Israel has to give up parts of itself is a travesty."  Krauthammer

-------------------------------

The emerging economic and political disaster in Egypt, Salih's idiotic foot dragging at the edge of doom, Assad's feckless inability to control his relatives and fellow oligarchs, Qathafi's firmness in defying the West's half-hearted efforts,  US efforts to mollify the double dealing Pakistanis, Saudi Arabia's withdrawal from our "relatoinship," all these are much more interesting than the fall-out from the "Book of Natanyahu," but who could pass up a target like Charles Krauthammer's latest screed?

His passion as an offended tribesman here overwhelms his normal rationality.    "having ----- forfeited its claim to the territory won in the ’67 war."

Excuse me?  Are lands won in combat still "bargaining chips' in international negotiations or is this just the impassioned rage of an offended tribalist who wants his fellow tribesmen to have all the advantage that can be had?

This reminds me of a distinguished (now retired) woman analyst of the IC and NDU who once told me that she could not be expected to be "rational" about such issues because she was "too tribal.'  She also once told me that "people like you who have experienced too much war cannot be trusted.  It destroyed your objectivity."  Well, if only that were true...

Are the Palestinians innocent of guile and a hunger for revenge?  No, but that does not matter.  I am not neutral about "culture" and civilization.  Western civilization is my civilization no matter how much I may know about other civilizations.  Dr. Krauthammr is an exemplar of that civilization.  I expect better of people like Dr. Krauthammer than a naked display of tribal loyalty.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-obama-did-to-israel/2011/05/26/AGJfYJCH_story.html?hpid=z2

Comments

[Matthew]

Col: The outrage is canned. What is interesting is the fear of the deal. The Palestinians were acceptable peace partners as long as they worked on "security," i.e., policing their own people while the Israelis built on Palestinian land. Now that the Palestinians really want to end the conflict, the Israelis and their advocates are dialing up the hate.

Expect a lot more "incursions" this summer. I predict that Gaza will be attacked again. The threat of peace almost guarantees war.

[Roy G]

It's clear this week that Israel has become a domestic political football, with everybody on the right trying to outdo themselves swearing fealty to Bibi, and siding against our President, in order to wring any gains, political and otherwise, that may be forthcoming. The game has become evident, and subtlety has been thrown away, which produces gems like this, from Howard Kohr, of AIPAC:

"The second principle is for America to play its role as honest broker. And let us be clear: That should not be confused with even-handedness. Part of being an honest broker is being honest. One party in this process is our ally — with whom we share values and strategic interests.

"In a world which is demonstrably on the side of the Palestinians and Arabs — where Israel stands virtually alone — the United States has a special role to play. When the United States is even-handed, Israel is automatically at a disadvantage, tilting the diplomatic playing field overwhelmingly toward the Palestinians and Arabs."

ps. someday, people will rightly wonder how someone so twisted as Krauthammer was ever taken as a serious intellectual. It's like Caligula dressing a monkey up in a Senator's toga as a guest of honor at one of his orgies.

[shanks]

umm...since when did Jewish culture be an example of western civilisation? Given it's origins, why would it be anything other than Arab or Oriental or whatever Middle Eastern studies are called nowadays?

[Redhand]

My only quibble with your post is this: "His passion as an offended tribesman here overwhelms his normal [ir]rationality." [Fixed].

He's not called "Chuckles the Clown" on other sites for nothing. The man is a HOPELESS Zionist ideologue and right wing reactionary.

[Patrick Lang]

redhand

I do not wish to violate the rules of my own rather narrowly accepted culture.pl

[Patrick Lang]

shanks
No. The Zionist enterprise and Israel are firmly rooted in Europe. pl

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

Excellent Post. Our ancestors were born and raised in tribes. There is family and then there are Outsiders. The feelings we have for others is in our genes. All Human Beings are Chauvinistic, especially the Chinese. American corporate agitprop uses and manipulates these feelings to keep the wars ongoing and calm the homeland.

I watched the first episode of “Justified” last night. The “bad guy” was a Desert Storm Veteran. Vietnam Vets are too old and arthritic to be villains in the 21st Century. I started counting the years. It has been two decades since Desert Storm. Corporate media, of course, missed the 20th anniversary of America’s continuous war (hot and cold) and occupation of Iraq. It messes up their storyline of the Good Guys verses the Bad Guys.

[arbogast]

I found Krauthammer's tone to be surprisingly measured, to be honest.

It was not typical Krauthammer. You had the feeling he was in court defending his client. Sort of like Brafman defending DSK.

I am not referring to content, just the tone of the column.

Bibi's negative reviews in Israel have the AIPAC crowd worried. Perhaps Dr. Krauthammer realizes that it's easy to pontificate(?) about Jerusalem when you're thousands of miles away.

[Redhand]

"I do not wish to violate the rules of my own rather narrowly accepted culture."

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, Col. Lang, unless it's to chide me for the smear that CK is never rational. Of course, he can put 2 + 2 together, so is capable of "rationality" on a certain level. But I don't think any reasonable person can doubt that in CK we are dealing with a pro-Israeli propagandist who would do the old editors of "Pravda" proud. No distortion or shameless warping of the facts is too extreme for this man to use to advance his Israel Over Everybody agenda. That he continues to occupy a prominent place on the WaPo editorial page is just further proof this once-great paper is now just a neocon rag.

[Fred]

Krauthammer says:

"That ’67 line runs right through Jerusalem. Thus the starting point of negotiations would be that the Western Wall and even Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter …"

Yet as Prime Minister Netanyahu stated before the joint session of the US Congress:

"In 1947 the U.N. voted to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews said “Yes.” …

It seems one can argue the real 'starting point' is 1947.

[Patrick Lang]

redhand

I meant that to the extent that I can restrain myself I do not wish to be rude. pl

[Medicine Man]

Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer really are in a class all their own when it comes to partisan agitprop.

[LeaNder]

arbogast: I am not referring to content, just the tone of the column.

First we need the Jewish Quarter:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/Jerusalem2.html#Jewish
then we rebuilt the temple and return to the priestly sacrifice Bruce Chilton so perfectly describes.
http://www.amazon.com/Rabbi-Jesus-Biography-Bruce-Chilton/dp/0385497938

what the heck is measured about this article?

What is this about? Religion, I really doubt.

[Walrus]

The comments of Krauthammer and Kohr are not tribal at all. They are out and out German Fascist.

This is an example of German propaganda with a quick find and replace of the word "Palestinian" for "Jew" and "Israel" for "Germany".

Sounds familiar? Could Bibi say something like this?

"These examples should be enough to show what the Palestinians themselves think about “naturalization” and their “incorporation” of members of their race into that of their host people. There has never been a “Palestinian” Israeli, and there never will be one. As a member of race foreign to us, the Palestinian is always a foreigner who lives and dwells in Israel, but who will never become an Israeli, not even in the tenth generation. A piece of paper called a naturalization certificate, like those issued by the November state, can never make the Palestinian an Israeli citizen."

More examples of German propaganda at the link:

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/rim3.htm

[LeaNder]

"I meant that to the extent that I can restrain myself I do not wish to be rude. pl"

I should add, in spite of moments the soldier Pat Lang irritates me, this was one of the many instances I feel affective affinity. As I immediately understood what you mean. And yes, you put really well.

although I am still sulking that some idiots can force you disable html tags.

[Patrick Lang]

LeaNder

"this was one of the many instances I feel affective affinity"

You must be a south German, or at least a Southern German. pl

[graywolf]

Let's see...
Hamas is a terrorist organization, and no friend of the US.
Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and a tool of Iran.
Iran is an outlaw "nation" building a nuclear weapon and threatening Israel's existence and probably ours - if they could.

In 1967, Arab nations attacked Israel and were repulsed; Israel kept part of the land.

Israel is the ONLY stable western democracy in the ME.
So...Israel is the bad guy and anyone agreeing with them is a "tribalist?"

How much money did we pour down the rathole called Egypt?
Think the Muslim Brotherhood is going to be pro-US?

Who thinks that if we pitch Israel over the side, all the Arabs (living in the 12th century for the most part, BTW) will suddenly start flying American flags?

Trading a difficult ally for the approval of a bunch of primitive crazies is not a good deal.

[Fiorangela]

shanks wrote: "since when did Jewish culture be an example of western civilisation? Given it's origins, why would it be anything other than Arab or Oriental"

and that is the heart of the Jewish tragedy and the Jewish identity crisis: Jews do not want to be what they are, they want to be what they have admired in other places where they have been when the fled the homeland that they despised:
-Abraham left Ur, but Jews ultimately enjoyed their longest and most authoritative existence in Babylon/Baghdad, where they were exiled but chose to stay, all the while "longing for zion," for about 2300 years -- 539 BC to 1950 AD.

Jews loved being in Germany. In "Haskalah," Jacob Raisin writes that Jews thrived in the high culture of Germany, and Russian Jews longed to be part of the German culture. But when Jews could not dominate Germany, they turned on the state. In a fashion similar to the military doctrine Prof. Creveld cautions, "if we cannot have it, we will destroy it." Samuel Untermyer wanted to be ambassador to Germany. Wilson would not grant his wish. Untermyer led the movement to declare war on Germany, in 1933. And so Jews hastened their project to create Berlin on the Mediterranean, complete with German tactical and financial assistance. Arthur Ruppin hastily built Tel Aviv to evoke Berlin so that European Jews would feel 'at home' in a Western style city, in the East.

Jews maintain power over the United States by a similar tactic: if we do not get what we want, we will destroy you. We have done it before, we can do it again.

That fractured sense of identity is also at the heart of Israeli hatred of Iran, according to Haggai Ram in "Iranophobia." Ram writes that Ashkenazi Jews see in Iranians (and Mizrahi & Arabs/Jews) the despised Oriental--a status Ashkenazis believed they occupied in the eyes of the Germans, during the years of Jewish presence in Germany.

[Fiorangela]

Walrus, I have no German connections, no roots, heritage, nothing in me is German.

But I am viscerally and intellectually offended by your comparison of the propagandizing of zionists with the propaganda of Germany in the wars.

But for Jewish propaganda, particularly in the US, it is quite reasonable to posit that US would NOT have involved itself in wars in Europe, and without US involvement, the conflicts would have --or could have--resolved quite differently, and without such massive loss of life and destruction of property.

Germany waged a DEFENSIVE war; German propaganda was DEFENSIVE. Moreover, Hitler writes in Mein Kampf that he learned rhetorical techniques of stirring up crowds and appealing to emotion from Jewish practitioners of those tragic arts. Jabotinsky wrote in the Jewish Daily Bulletin (1935): "“There is only one power which really counts. The power of political pressure. We Jews are the most powerful people on earth, because we have this power, and we know how to apply it.”" Under Jabotinsky, Jews perfected the use of "words as the most effective means of political warfare." *** Benjamin Netanyahu's father was Jabotinsky's right-hand man; stationed in the US, Netanyahu Senio, was in the vanguard of creating the catch-phrases that stimulated the juices of hatred of Germans and emotional attachment to Israel.

Sigmund Freud and Ed. Bernays created the techniques that US Information administration/Creel commission used to gin up hatred of "Huns" and war fever.

The German people have been ill-used this past century and more. Much of what is fine and productive and ethical in the United States came to this country in the minds and hands of German migrants. Yet their very names have been stolen from them by Jewish people.

It's time to give Germans their due, and to stop using their identity and culture as the benchmark of evil. It is historically inaccurate.

***Militant Zionism in America; The Rise and Impact of the Jabotinsky Movement, 1926-1948. by Rafael Medoff.

[Patrick Lang]

fiorangala

Japan attacked the US. The US then declared war on Japan. Hitler then declared war on the US. What part of that sequence is obscure? pl

[Patrick Lang]

graywolf

And we were getting on together so well...

Hamas, so far as I know has not attacked the US. Whether or not the IJO may have been a Hiszbullah "cover" in the attack on the marine barracks in Beirut- is not altogether clear. They do not seem to have done anything against the US since then. Iran is an "outlaw country?" How is that? According to the US IC, as opposed to Israeli/AIPAC propaganda, they don't actually have a nuclear weapons program at present.
what part of the land that Israel seized in '67 did they give back? Part of Sinai? You know that we paid them richly for that. You know how badly I think Egypt is going to end.
Krauthammer is a "tribalist" because he thinks only of the welfare of his "own people." I am a tribalist too, but I am an American tribalist. pl

[Charlie Wilson]

Graywolf:

What up with Arabs living in the 12th century? There are people living in the stone age in various parts of the world. Should we attack and kill them? You could take a crack at the Amish who insist on living in a century other than this.

Was your house de-leaded when you were a child?

[graywolf]

Sir:
To clear the air:
I'm neither Jewish nor a Zionist. And maybe an over-simplifier, but...
I'm a big fan of Krauthammer.
I don't think that he is an Israeli tribalist, just a supporter of the ONLY western democracy in the ME, and a really smart man.
Iran = outlaw.
Current leaders seized US embassy in 1979.
US IC says no nuclear program.
The same James Bond wannabes that regularly can't find their own asses in a well lit room?
BTW I hope this doesn't portend a divorce.
I agree with you most of the time (that'll make your day).
I'm not convinced that trading an ally with nuclear weapons and western values for better relations (maybe) with a 6th century culture whose favorite pasttime is lying makes any sense.

[psc]

From previous posts, the Colonel has mentioned and admired articles by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. His recent article in praise of Natanyahu was very typical for a "Tribalist", very similar to what was written by Krauthammer.

Is Milbank exempt from cricism from our generous host?

My point is that Milbank and Krauthammer are one in the same ... just as Eric Cantor (Republican) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Democrat) are one in the same. Israel first, always, und uber alles.

[Fiorangela]

"What part of that sequence is obscure?"

As it stands, nothing about the sequence is obscure; it is, however, incomplete.

Wars don't start when the first shot is fired; even the ancient Romans employed fetioles to make the case for war. In the 20th century, as Jabotinsky himself said, "Words are the most effective means of political warfare." Jabotinsky's, and the Warner brothers' words and propaganda films WERE warfare on the German people and, in a sense, on the American people, inasmuch as the propaganda was calculated to incite hatred of Germans among Americans, to the end of drawing US into war with Germany.

1. Questions remain whether the attack on Pearl Harbor could have been prevented or ameliorated. John Dower writes in "Cultures of War" that "In August 1940 . . .Top-level officials . . .already knew that relations [between US and Japan] were being broken off and Japan was poised to embark on a new stage of military expansion. Precisely where the next attacks would come was the question; and on this --on who in the top ranks of US civilian and military leadership really knew or should have know what . . .oceans of ink would be spilled in the years to come." p. 25

2. The sequence you state is incomplete.
-In March 1933 "Judea declared war on Germany."

-Oct 1939, Hitler made the last of a series of peace overtures toward Great Britain

-On May 11, 1940, Churchill ordered bomb attacks on railroads in Germany

-July 19, 1940, Hitler sends a peace proposal to Great Britain

-On Aug 25, 1940, 81 British bombers attacked Berlin

-German and Japanese diplomats met in Tokyo in early September 1940 and hammered out the Tripartite Alliance by the end of that month. The pact was intended to avoid war with United States, and to extend a thin alliance to diplomatically isolated Japan.

-October 1940, Hitler again proposes peace between Germany and Great Britain

-1940, Charlie Chaplin produces "The Great Dictator." A character in the film, depicting a Jewish person, speaks of how Jews are to be exterminated with poison gas. [see Imaginary Witness]

-By 1941, Jewish people and zionists in the USA had organized massive anti-German propaganda campaigns. Samuel Untermyer was instrumental in obtaining backing of major bankers (mostly Jewish) for Hollywood movie studios (entirely Jewish), particularly Warner Brothers, who produced a prodigious stream of anti-German films; citing some 20 Hollywood films that seemed to incite hatred and war fever, a US Senate subcommittee investigated whether the Jewish studio heads were attempting to involve US in European wars. The studios had been organized by Untermyer, a leader of the declaration of Judea's war on Germany and the boycott.

-Dec 7 1941 Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, declares war on US inter alia

-Dec 8 1941 Germany declares war on US inter alia