Jeff says: ….. [crickets chirping…]
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I thought so.

Feh!
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Regarding your offerings, #371 says the part of purchasing the land is omitted. Maybe so but that would imply that the lands that Israel built upon were gained in this fashion across the board. Read this piece quoted from “1949, The First Israelis” (p. 68-91) by the Israeli historian-journalist Tom Segev. I think it puts to rest the claim that lands and property were gained by honorable means, wouldn’t you agree?

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story680.html

#766 deals with control over elements of the American political landscape. If the quote is not real, the control still is. AIPAC’s ability to reward and punish based on the one issue important to them; Israel, is widely acknowledged. Add to that the fact that AIPAC does not have to register as a lobby organization of a foreign government though it should and a picture starts to emerge. Also, the amount of money in play is enormous and there is every reason to believe much of our own foreign aid comes back as lobby money used to further subvert the system.

This is a good piece dealing with that:

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/11/blankfort-interview.html

#775 deals with alleged racist statements by Israeli or Jewish leadership. Even if a few have proven less than accurate, the record of Jews/Israelis/Zionists in regards to the people they are brutalizing and displacing is not good. Even concerning the present, there have been many statements recently about the complete destruction of people and infrastructure, racist statements over Arabs with Israeli citizenship to get the hell out as they cannot be trusted (dual loyalty - a sore spot when leveled at Jews btw), new rules proposed restricting intermarriage, scorched earth type statements when dealing with innocent victims caught in harm’s way, and on and on.

I would feel more confident that you and or Israel truly sought to clear the air and deal with facts if there were not so many misrepresentations of reports and quotes from the Zionist side. Some of the speeches by Ahmadinejad have been slanted, mistranslated, and misrepresented such as when he speaks of a regime falling and it is broadcast that he says the Jews will be destroyed. Granted, he has made statements elsewhere indicated his problems with the actions of the Jews of Israel, but fair is fair if you are sincere about getting the story straight.

So where does that leave us? You listed 3 as far as I could tell, but let’s say half of the quotes I referenced do not hold up (whether they accurately reflect reality or not). Would you care to discuss in detail the ones that have not been debunked? I am particularly interested in the ones dealing with the early foundations of Zionism and Zionist thought (whether listed by me in my post or not). Some are contradictory. One says the homeland will not be created at the expense of the Palestinians, and the other says that the indigenous people are an impediment to the Zionist agenda.

My point being that to chip away at the edges while ignoring those expressing unashamedly the plan to dominate and subjugate the locals commits the same “sins of omission” that the CAMERA Quote-busters do.

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=21&x_article=371
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=21&x_article=766
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=21&x_article=775

And Jeff, you could certainly clarify elements of your position if you would comment on exactly what aspects of Zionism you find positive and worthy of support. Is it a blanket assent? If every action derives from fear of the extiction of the Jewish state, are all things permissable? Is a doomsday scenario with Israel going out in scorched earth fashion with nukes within the boundries of the allowable when “fearing for Israel”?

If Israel laid down it’s weapons, Israel would cease to exist.”

I disagree. Islam is a religion. Israel is a country. It doesn’t address ethinc issues. For instance, it wouldn’t solve the Palestinian issue - there’s a lot of Christian Palestinians. And you could still have problems between Kurds and Arabs, etc.

In other words, if Israel didn’t exist at this point, and the entire Middle East was one religion, we’d still see fighting.

“If Islam laid down it’s weapons, there would be peace in the middle east.

If Israel laid down it’s weapons, Israel would cease to exist.”

I have never said that Israel is Lilly White. No country is. But the statement is absolutely true and every reasonable person knows it. As to the rest of you. . .I SUSPECT you know it too and while you will be “appalled” should every Jew in Israel be killed you seem to be supporting it through your rhetoric.

If Israel laid down it’s weapons, Israel would cease to exist.”

If Israel has no right to exist as a separate Jewish state, then Pakistan has no right to exist as a Moslem state separate from India either.

I’m not worried about this pragmatically because Musharhaf knows that Pakistan would be next.

http://www.middleeastnews.com/unresolutionslist.html

All the non-Jews and non hard-core Bush loving neoconChristians out there need to educate themselves about the issues - reality is different than people like Jeff spin it!

My wish for a perfect planet would be for both types of this dark ages type thinking to just dissapear, so all the rest of us could live in peace. Jeff - by not acknowledging that a Lebanese life = Israeli life you have shown yourself to be a disgusting racist - no better than the Nazis themselves.

But it’s all good, because through this voilence Israel is only digging its own grave! In the end, everyone (and every country) gets exactly what they deserve.

Brett,
Using civilains how:

1. Lebanese Civilians
- Mitch Prothero in Salon.com on the myth that Hizbullah hides among civilians.

‘ Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths — the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far — on “terrorists” who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters — as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers — avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators — as so many Palestinian militants have been.For their part, the Israelis seem to think that if they keep pounding civilians, they’ll get some fighters, too. ‘

2. Israeli Civilains - I think the 600 dead and over 700,000 displaced people in Lebanon set that argument straight. Isnt it Israel that is using civilians to force the Lebanese government to take on Hezbollah and ignite another civil war as they did in 82?

That is spot on - for most of the American Left. Then there are those, such as Jeff, for which 9/11 changed everything and “underdogs” who kill innocent people no longer have any sympathy. Thank god for those on the Left with a sense of self-preservation and decency.

I am constantly dazzled at those who sympathize with those who purposely use civilians in their jihad war. Aren’t the civilians, unarmed and unwilling to be sacrificed for a cause that is not theirs, the ultimate underdogs? Of course they are - unless they are Israeli civilians, and then it’s somehow okay.

Scary times indeed. Rosenbaum’s original piece was written after a summer in which there was a series of physical assaults against Jews and Jewish institutions (schools, cemeteries) in France. It didn’t seem to be organized, or clearly related to the intifada or anything else. At the time the Rosenbaum piece struck me as somewhat overwrought. Now I think it was prescient.

A linguistic footnote: The language of contemporary antisemitism has long been that of the anti-colonialist left, with its double standards and false equivalencies. But what is starting to emerge is the language of the old right. In Anglophone countries the main accusation is that the Jews wield secret and illicit control over government. Oddly, though, the compaint about Jews in Europe seems to be that thay are anti-Christian. Remember the cartoon in Corriere della Sera that showed Sharon eating a baby?

Pretty catty and wholly inaccurate representation. I mentioned them only in regards to Jewish voices (among others) putting forth a solid argument that succeeded in bringing my views in line with theirs, not the “some of my best friends are Jews so I can’t be racist” tactic as you seem to imply. Jews can be racist as well. If you are in doubt of that, please check out masada2000.org and see how the depictions of Jews less than enthused with Zionism, such as Dr. Finkelstein, are portrayed. Does it make you racist because your views are more in line with those expressed at that web site?

The point being that knee-jerk accusations of anti-Semitism ignore those of us choosing friendships and alignments based on the character of the individual and clarity of their insight. I know we both are fans of Howard Stern. I have not felt a need to cancel my Sirius subscription for fear of bankrolling a Jew (1/2 Jew if Howard is to be believed ;-)) because though he has blurted out solutions such as nuking Iran, I consider his views as expressing his own personal worldview (meant to be taken with a grain of salt to boot) and not as part of a global agenda. I think he is wrong on the Kennedy assassination as well. So what?

As opposed to many of the pro-Zionist posters remarks regarding Arabs/Muslims, I have not portrayed Jews as sub-human. One can find fault with National Socialism and not hate Germans. I can offer a viewpoint on Jewish exceptionalism, the culture of victimhood, and its relation to the actions of a Zionist state and not hate Jews.

Compare that with what I heard in a pro-Zionist forum. They said that since 95% of Jews support Zionism, that to be against Zionism was anti-Semitic. This is the just one example of the twisted logic of those arguing in favor of some of the most reprehensible aspects of Zionist rationalizations.

Was to be against South African apartheid to be against South Africa’s right to exist? For Israel to honor its promise of a viable Palestinian state would do a lot for the validity of the insistence of a Jewish controlled state. But don’t call it a “democracy” as their version of minority rule in no way fits that description.

So in regards to your dig, would you feel better if I referenced no Jewish voices whatsoever to try to make my case? Often I do not realize they are Jewish until someone slaps them with the “self-hating Jew” label. Often I do not realize they are Jews when I determine that I do *not* like them (such as Michael “Savage” aka Weiner).

When I wrote to you under my real name, I praised you for your commitment to a rational methodology of discussion and debate even when I was not impressed with your arguments themselves. It appears to me that your commitment is less than absolute and even you are susceptible to the cheap shot. At least you have avoided the death threats and other smears that are common from those taking issue with the views I have openly expressed and shown willingness to discuss. It’s possible that could change sometime in the future as well. With the depth of the hatreds involved, it certainly can’t be ruled out. I could be the next Emmanuel Goldstein, enemy of the state.

Bingo. Israel’s ultimate survival is guaranteed not by Europe, nor even the United States, but by the fact they have in excess of 100 nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to any point in the Middle East. If their very survival is threatened, I have no doubt the Israelis will decide the deaths of a few million in the Arab world are preferable to the extinction of Israel itself.

What really emboldens Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, etc., is not the fecklessness of Euope or the mushy antiwar stance of the American left, but instead the conviction that Israel, along with the United States, would never, under any circumstances, ever use its nuclear arsenal against its enemies.

There was a time, back when men named Kennedy and Johnson, were president, that the left realized that the spread of humanitarian and liberal values depended on the amount of muscle behind those values, as Kennedy demonstrated with his nuclkear brinksmanship during the Cuban missile crisis. Today, it would be impossible for even a Republican president to repat Kennedy’s feat because of the extent to which the “humane war” meme has lodged into our political consciousness. This lingering psychosis from Vietnam and the 1960s unfortunately makes proportional, measured, and effective military responses almost impossible. And that will only help bring about a scenario in which use of nukes is not only plausible but even unavoidable.

Nowhere have I claimed that Hezbollah is not irresponsible. In fact some of its actions are criminal. Others of its actions are political, others indeed involve social services. However, to construe the current conflict as one in which Israel is on the defensive and is the entity facing extermination is inaccurate. You may justify Israel’s attacks on Lebanon for other reasons — but not on the grounds that Israel’s existence is at stake. It is Hezbollah that is in existential danger here (a consummation, I know, you devoutly wish for).

Concerning Israel’s moral right to exist, I have much more confidence in the self-defense capabilities of the Israeli state than you do. To suggest that it will stand or fall on the basis of the goodwill of European and American leftists, overstates the power of whatever rumo of socialism remains there and understates the force, and alliances, supporting Israel’s “actual” (as opposed to “moral”) existence. To reiterate the second point that Garton Ash insisted on, the situation in the Middle East lacks morality sans a state of Palestine. Until that viable state is created and Israel’s policies of occupation and invasion end, then there are no “morals” in the region only “actualities.”

Concerning Israel, Palestine, Lebanon: yes, yes and yes.

Don’t be so purposely blind to what Ash is saying: If Europe and the American left withdraw from the view that Israel has a moral right to exist then supporting its actual right to exist falls and so does Israel.

I believe that Israel has a right to exist and that the Palestinians have a right to a state side-by-side and that Lebanon has the right of self-determination rather than rule by proxy from Iran and Syria through the terrorism of Hezbollah.

Jimmy:
Of course, I agree that every civilian death — every death — is a tragedy in war and if t here are ways to reduce that carnage, then they should be taken. But note well that Hezbollah provoked this and that Hezbollah is putting its civilians in the path of danger by using them to hide weapons. Israel warns the neighborhoods before striking. What other means should be used?

Penny, Isaac:
I haven’t seen some of these people before. I think there is an early warning system on the internet that points out anything written about Israel or the Palestinians or now Hezbollah and it attracts some like flies.

Lance:
You know you’re in trouble when you start arguing that some of your best friends are Jews.