Harry's Place

“under the apple boughs”, of course. With apologies to Dylan Thomas.

Corrected

S.O.Muffin: “But once people come spewing hate, Holocaust-baiting about “ZioNazis” and “Israeli apartheid state”, throwing ludicrous accusations that are the very caricature of reality, judging Israel by criteria they apply nowhere else, boycotting, using “Zionist” as a code name for “Jew” in classical anti-Semitic screeds, my immediate reaction is to forego all criticism and simply to affirm that yes, I am a Zionist.”

Agreed. Different background; same conclusion.

Eve

Yeah, it is amazing really how radicalising the past decade has been.

Spot on. I was never particularly into Israel until university, when the ultra-left, goaded by the state-sponsored students from reactionary Arab countries studying at my college, forced me into having to take sides. There are many things about Israel I don’t like, especially its settlements and robbing of land in the West Bank, but despite that, I consider myself a Zionist. Because at university it wasn’t enough to be against the policies of Israel’s government. To be on the “correct” side, I had to be against Israel’s very existence. Because I refused to deny Israel’s right to exist, fellow students branded me a far-right Zionist stooge. That was it. Either cave in to the far left baying for Zionist blood and become their Uncle Tom, or stick with the Jews, many of whose political views on Israel I strongly disagreed with.

Zionist or not is a difficult call. I think reclaiming the word is going to be an uphill struggle and I wonder if it is worth it. I would prefer the formulation that zionism achieved its objectives in ‘48 and cemented them in ‘67; the future will be about the Israeli and Palestinian peoples achieving mutual security, which is a post-zionist project. The problem with the demonisation of Z is that it ascribes to Z a bunch of objectives that are not in it, such as ruling the ME from the Nile to the Euphrates, world domination etc etc. If one says that zionism was a historical political movement that had as its objective the creation of a Jewish national home in British mandate Palestine and that it is not a current political phenomenon, then one can move the debate on. Continuing the debate around zionism feeds into the hands of the one-staters, demonisers and Israel abolishers.

The first time I knew I was a Zionist was when Richard Seymour told me I was.

The first time I knew I was a Zionist when as a teenager living in Liverpool in the 1960’s and my so-called “mates” started with their “big nose” jokes. I knew back then that England, though better than Nazi Germany, was no place for the Jews. The recent actions of the members of the AUT, NATFHE and UCU only confirm what I knew since those days.

In my foolish and idiotic SWPpies days, the ideology of Zionism was so contorted by SW and much of the soft left that its actual meaning became lost. It was ‘clerical-fascism’, Neo-Imperialism of the worst sort, a theocratic project unhead of in its violence, all fantasy, all complete puerile screed. The condition of ‘actual existing’ Zionism was ignored, it was a blank canvas onto which every ‘pleasing’ moteif of oppression, rascism and capitalist exploitation was daubed on. The problem remains that this black and white denuciation is more ‘pleasing’ to the eyes, than the complex reality. It is simple, it has goodies and babbies, it ’stick’ it to the man etc. It is still the Socialism of Fools

The canards of classic anti-semetism, of conspiracy, of the inate ‘evil’ of Jude, of tails wagging dogs etc. operate (and can only operate) in such a fantasy. It can only operate in wilful ignorance. I remember bringing up the Taliban’s take over of Kabul in early 1999 to some ‘comrades’ and remarking it was like Franco sans the typewriters and they immediately (displaying their ignorance of the situation) insisted that as it was American’s fault. Thus it was somehow less deserving of attention than criticising the Oslo argeements (the mechanics of this mental jijitsu were never made clear).

Whilst Socialists are programmatically against the primacy of national identity, they cannot ignore it, nor can they somehow create some weird unsubstantiated hierarchy of National worth. I am hopefully that a corner is being turn within the left, from the I/P fetish to the lauding of theocratic murderers to the defence of caudrillist snake-oil salemen. But then I am a hopefully sort of sandel wearing hemp smoking layabout (no…thats self libellous, I own no sandals, real leftists go barefoot:)

….or DMs

For me, it was when I found that, whenever I went to get my hair cut, my barber called on me to comment upon the policies of the government of Israel.

I don’t think I would call myself a Zionist though. Zionism only seems to make sense to me as an aspirational project. And, aspirationally, I favour regional confederations, voluntarily pooled sovereignty, promotion of equality, common standards of human rights, political liberaties, democratic structures, and so on.

“Zionism”, such as it is, seems to me no more than another nationalism which – like other nationalism – can only be accomodated to the extent that it is reconcilable with liberal democratic norms.

That said, given that the people who tend to use the term “Zionist” as an insult, also tend to be Stalinists or other sorts of foolish or nasty communists, or are White Power supporters and other sorts of fascist, or are Islamists, jihadis, pan Arabists, or their fan clubs… frankly, I’m happy just to tell them to fuck off.

Oy gevalt! Such a post to write on yom tov! Now everyone can know what you were doing when you should have been davening in shul.

Are you writing that from your Blackberry Mikey, during a quick break in the service?

When did I first know I was a Zionist? When as a teenager I reached roughly the same conclusions as Sartre (though I hadn’t yet read him). We are at least partly defined by the attitudes of others – especially when these are hostile.

“That said, given that the people who tend to use the term “Zionist” as an insult, also tend to be Stalinists or other sorts of foolish or nasty communists, or are White Power supporters and other sorts of fascist, or are Islamists, jihadis, pan Arabists, or their fan clubs… frankly, I’m happy just to tell them to fuck off.”

Or just ignore them. Why get bothered by these marginal and irrelevant people? I really don’t understand why there are so many blog posts here devoted to analysising and criticising the views of a very small number of fanatics on the far left whose position has no influence over events in the Middle East.

Or just ignore them. Why get bothered by these marginal and irrelevant people? I really don’t understand why there are so many blog posts here devoted to analysising and criticising the views of a very small number of fanatics on the far left whose position has no influence over events in the Middle East.

Oh, I agree. None of this has anything to do with the Middle East. Little of what I’ve written on this subject has much to do with that region.

It has everything to do, though, with the influence of these marginal, extreme, and nasty people within British liberal politics.

Anti-semitism is bad for Jews. But it is also hugely dangerous for political movements that accomodate it.

Not all Liverpudlians were Jew haters Eddie.

“3777022 Pte G. /James or Josh “Lefty” Levene/Levine , DCM, from 51, Caryl Gdns. tenements, Toxteth, Liverpool, son of a Jewish Liverpool docker – 77th Brigade under Brig Mike Calvert – 1st bat. Kings Liverpool Reg. – won DCM at Battle of Mogaung, Burma 1944, first town to be re-taken from the Japs in Burma . Citation written by Major F C Freeman of Caldy, Wirral – personal interview – mention found in “Liverpool Echo” 27.4.45 and LG 26.4.45 page 2212 – “cool under fire and in very close proximity to the enemy, he cleaned his muddy bren gun and calmly drove off the Japanese, saving the day”. Gazetted 26.4.45, Levene developed cerebal palsy and died in 1948 – Liverpool docks closed in his honour. DCM mentioned in Jewish Year Book 1945/46. Confirmed in War Diary of Kings Reg. page 129, footnote. Letter from eye-witness comrade Jack Lindo, who writes “Jimmy was firing his bren gun from the hip position, blasting the Japs from the tops of the Bashas. A very brave act indeed. He just went about his business quietly, not shouting, just shooting from the hip….he earned his medal that day. The village was holding up the 77th Brigade advance”. He says the name “Lefty” was given him because of his likness to a famous American boxer of the period. ”

The dockers thought he was special but unfortunately the woodwork was still infested with post Mosely fascists who in the same year attacked Jewish shops because of activity by the Irgun and Stern gang.

That said, as a Liverpudlian I am extremely proud of the Jews who fought for Britain.

Jews who fought with the Chindits

There is also a clear breakdown on this issue between:

(a) Jews and people who really like Jews

(b) Palestinians, Islamists and people who really like Palestinians/Muslims.

The division doesn’t seem to be hugely ideological, although on the Left, ideology feeds into it.

Ultimately though, a huge amount of this politics seems to operate at the ‘warm fuzzy feelings’ level.

To some degree, also, it seems to be determined by the ‘who do you want to shag’ question.

I knew back then that England, though better than Nazi Germany, was no place for the Jews. The recent actions of the members of the AUT, NATFHE and UCU only confirm what I knew since those days.

Well seeing how unfavourable opinion of Jews in Britain is one of, if not the lowest in Europe at between 7-9%, compared to 46% in Spain, 33% in Russia & Poland, 25% in Germany, 20% in France etc etc, where would you suggest that ‘a good home’ from Jews would be?

*for Jews*

The first time I realised I was a Zionist was the second Intifada. I’d lived in Israel in the 1970s and like most self-respecting broadly left-leaning types I was critical of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians. The West Bank was under military law; this restricted the free movement of Palestinians; restricted their access to services like hospitals for instance – or blood supplies. Restricted their travel abroad; they were ’stateless’ persons; in limbo.

I lived on the Mount of Olives. My landlord, Ibrahim, was a Palestinian. I remember being pleaded with on a bus into town by a young Palestinian boy to donate blood for his ‘poor brother’ who was lying very sick in hospital, only there wasn’t enough blood. Foreigners were often the focus of such pleas, as apparently ’superstition’ and fear disinclined Palestinians to be blood donors themselves… Israel had its own blood bank, of course, and they didn’t share! Whether this was administrative, racial or ideological, I never found out; but it was explained to me that it was administrative.

Every night, from the roof of my house, I could see Israeli planes fly over the border to Lebanon. I saw flashes of fire light up the night sky in the distance. I wondered which souls were in mortal agony tonight.

With the first Intifada, I had a feeling of dread. Oh no, the poor Palestinians, the Israelis will crush their puny efforts. But the Israelis showed remarkable restraint; doubt began to set in. Clinton tried sincerely to broker a deal, but Arafat refused to play ball. Then the second Intifada happenned, not long after Rwanda. I started to wonder: why do we feel so darn sorry for the Palestinians? What about the poor Africans? What is the problem with the Palestinians? Is their situation so darn tragic compared to the poor Africans? Here are a people (Palestinians) who have a culture, who have strong families, a modicum of social care (far above the Africans) who can go to university, who eat, and have an ancient literate culture and strong identity: how come they never produced a leader of the moral and intellectual calibre of Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu, or Gandhi?

Then I realised I was a Zionist. It was the childish and unstatesmanlike emotional blackmail of Palestinians over two decades that alienated me, set against the restraint of Israelis when severely provoked.

I don’t know if a lapsed Methodist in Texas can be a Zionist, but if I am, it happened when Gaza and the West Bank erupted with approval on the night of September 11, 2001.

“Bob Latchford”

I know you’re some sort of racist provocateur… but I will answer that question.

I think that the best place for Jews is nowhere.

I marvel at the moral strength of Jews who have maintained their Jewish identity, from generation to generation for thousands of years. I acknowledge that the Jewish culture and religion is a source of incredible richness, and a heritage in which Jews can take some pride.

However, since round about AD 67, being Jewish is a choice which no sane person should take. To be Jewish, and to bring your children up to identify and be identified as Jews, is to make yourself into the paradigmatic bad guys of both Christian culture and Muslim culture. Even to the irreligious and Left wing, Jews occupy a similar place in the pantheon of the wicked: whether as world-controlling capitalists, or as persecutors of the innocent.

Jews leave their religious and cultural entity behind for a variety of reasons. It is, after all, a religion which requires a great deal of effort. In multicultural comopolitan cultures, it is easy enough to claim to be half-greek, or to have a Lebanese mum, or what have you. However, in periods of persecution, I strongly suspect that many more Jews simply leave their identities behind, than cling to it defiantly or secretly. I’m reminded of a couple of the interviewees in the programme about the children of Holocaust survivors, who were never told that they were Jewish, and who found out after their parents’ death. One was making some sort of effort to get involved in Jewish activities; to the other, they found they had no reason to think of themselves as Jewish, and so didn’t.

I think that Judaism will survive, as a smallish religion and cultural identity. Those who hold to it will find that life is OK for them most of the times, but very difficult some of the time. There have been loads of Jewish “golden ages”. Most of them last 100 years or so. Jewish culture expects persecution, because that’s the experience of Jewish history. That fear is often thought to be paranoia. As I child, I found it both self-pitying and disturbing. Now I think it is pretty much fair coment.

Whether Jews will survive in Israel, long term, is another question. Frankly, I really don’t know.

for all the eloquence of parts of the post at the top of the page, it is in no way accureately summed up by the title ‘How The UCU Reminded Me That I Am A Zionist’.

The piece mentions the UCU once, in passing.

the only explanation of how this actually involves the UCU is the list of terrible crimes at the end of the piece.

adopting a term you’re clearly uncomfortable with purely because uoi think that some others use it as an insult is not the only available course of action.

You will note that ‘good home for Jews’ is not my phrase.

“It has everything to do, though, with the influence of these marginal, extreme, and nasty people within British liberal politics.”

The far-left is not liberal in any way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/page/0,,184826,00.html

“Zionist: [...] someone who believes in the right for a Jewish national home to exist within historic Palestine”

Is that accurate (given the Palestinian Mandate) or tendentious (given historic Israel and Judah)? I’ve been wondering since I read it in their free guide to writing English at the weekend (which seemed a bit like a free guide to feminism being given away by the News Of the World, but I digress).

“There is also a clear breakdown on this issue between:

(a) Jews and people who really like Jews

(b) Palestinians, Islamists and people who really like Palestinians/Muslims.”

I like both. Where does that put me?

“where would you suggest that ‘a good home’ from Jews would be?”

Latchford caught at slip by Freud for nought.

No but liberals think of the far-left as part of their ‘family’.

Few liberals think badly of groups like the SWP. Few liberals would think it wrong to invite Lindsey German to take part in Question Time. Few liberals would refuse to take part in an anti racist campaign, because it was run by Socialist Action and the SWP. Few liberals would refuse to go on a march run by the CPB.

“I don’t know if a lapsed Methodist in Texas can be a Zionist, but if I am, it happened when Gaza and the West Bank erupted with approval on the night of September 11, 2001.”
So did schools in High Wycombe, and they had absolutely no reason to.

it was quite a simple point really. Someone suggested that Britain is ‘no home for Jews’, yet Britain has just a fraction of the dislike / hatred for Jews that most of our European neighbours have.

Obviously raising such a point makes me a racist

What do you mean “schools in High Wycombe”?

“I like both. Where does that put me?”

In the sensible centre.

Personally I dont understand why Israel/Palestine, which is smaller than Al Gore\s backyard, is such a disproportionately (to use a popular word) issue. American paleo-cons think that their country’s interest would be best served by cutting loose Israel because Israel is the reason the world hates America. I suspect it’s as much the other way around, at least as far as Anglo-American leftists are concerned. I dont think lefty anti-Israelis were intrisically anti-Semitic in the same way conservative and nationalist thought easily becomes anti-Semitic. On the other hand anti-Semitism is a key that can fit any lock, and if your mindset is ‘the people versus plutocrats banking-military-industrial complex types’ then its easy to cast Jews in that role.

it’s also because israel filled a void left by the end of apartheid. I notice how SA airways and El Al are both still in the no friends section of Heathrow in the corner. I imagine the South Africans must resent that still. Maybe they can swop with the Serbs.

In retrospect apartheid wasnt the worst of all worlds, in that SA’s future now looks probably much worse. I wonder how a South African collapse will affect the west’s (both on left and right) attitude to Israel?

since round about AD 67, being Jewish is a choice which no sane person should take.

Are all Jews then insane? I am sure that for many who make that “insane” choice the uniqueness of Judaism contains something that is a vital component of sanity, and of survival despite (or because of) the history.

Zionism, on the other hand, does not have an eternal, universal message. And it is precisely because the term is empty of contemporary political meaning that it has become infected with negative connotations. Politicians in Israel adhere to the name Zionism in the same way that those in the US are Republican or Democrat, not because the existence of a democratic republic is questioned, but as a historical badge of identity.

David T: What do you consider to be liberal?

it would be ludicrous to punish Israelis and Jews, uniquely in annals of modern history, by withdrawing their right to national home

It’s not a “unique punishment.”

The Afrikaners were denied the right to a national home in 1995. They had a country for themselves, where they were realizing their national aspirations, and all of a sudden they had to share it with the Zulus, the Xhosa, the Bapedi, the Venda and other groups.

No one’s saying the Jews must leave Israel. We’re only saying they must share the country with the Palestinians as equal partners.

But once people come spewing hate, Holocaust-baiting about “ZioNazis” and “Israeli apartheid state”

Bad faith there. You mix the “ZioNazi” allegations, which are repugnant and intolerable, with the “apartheid state” allegations, which are respectable and upheld by people like Yossi Sarid and Shulamit Aloni, who have at least as much moral authority as you.

I don’t know how things will work out in the future, but at the current moment Israel controls the West Bank and 96% of Arabs are excluded from 55% of the land. While not formally apartheid, it’s apartheid in practice.

I have been, openly and often vocally, critical of Israeli policies since my political puberty.

Experience indicates that “But I criticize Israel” is to Zionists what “But I have a Jewish friend” is to antisemites. You do some token criticism of Israel, but it’s invariably accompanied by a much stronger criticism of the Palestinians. You never criticize an action only Israel can be blamed for.

For instance, 2 months ago Israel approved construction of a new civilian settlement in Maskiyot. That’s Israel’s fault, and only Israel’s. It was not necessitated by the circumstances. It was not the regrettable but inevitable result of Palestinian violence. It was simply a government bending to the requirement of fanatics.

Where’s your criticism?

the restraint of Israelis when severely provoked

In 2006, after a border incident in which exactly zero civilians died, Israel carpet-bombed Lebanon killing 1,191 civilians. Whatcha talkin’ bout, Willis?

Dan

In bed with a Yemeni or Iraqi Arabic speaking Jew, would be my recommendation (speaking from a little experience)

Sorry, maybe it was Slough. there were reports about British Muslim schoolchildren cheering 9/11. my point is I can understand Palestinians hating America because it’s an ally of Israel. But people brought up here cheering the deaths of thousands is less excusable.

Well, some people are particularly defiant, and will do the opposite of the ‘consensus’. So I think that for some, becoming increasingly identified with the Jewishness is a reaction. For others, the religion element clearly does contain some magic, that they feel hugely strongly about.

Most people, however just want an easy life for them and their children. Assuming that you don’t live in a regime which registers people by religion, it is pretty easy to stop being Jewish, in a generation or two.

Those who do identify as Jewish come from a long line of people who either couldn’t or didn’t want to stop being Jewish. Three or so generations on, most people with a Jew in their family tree think little of that part of their ‘heritage’. Their Jewishness evaporates.

‘moral and intellectual calibre of Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu, or Gandhi?’

You mean those still making a living off the Apartheid Industry?

Or the idiotic way that the Left creates false messiahs out of racists (Gandhi), terrorists (Mandela) or postruing religious moralists (Tutu) that they accuse their ‘enemies’ of doing/being?

Just maybe ‘the Left’ was fucked-up all along? And it is irredeemable.

In 2006, after a border incident in which exactly zero civilians died, Israel carpet-bombed Lebanon killing 1,191 civilians.

Buster: where do you get the figure from? How many Lebanese civilians killed were armed members of Hezbollah? Are they included in the total? How many Iranians were killed?

“David T: What do you consider to be liberal?”

Liberalism is self defining, surely.

I’m not using “liberal” to mean (for example) somebody who adheres to Raz, Nozick, Mill, Rawls, or whoever you think best exemplifies Liberal political philosophy. I’m using “liberal” to mean people who share a set of attitudes. For example:

- Nationalism is broadly a bad thing, and allied to racism.
- Equality for all, irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity
- (usually) Abortion is a right
- Guardian or Independent is your paper of choice
- Mistrustful of the police, ID cards, state power.

You know, you can add that to the list.

A person with those views would typically regard a SWP activist as passionate, possibly wrong, but with their heart in the right place.

Come on now chaps. Pull your socks up. Stiff upper lip. Don’t be defeated by the weakest of enemies. This reminds me of the US response to 9/11. The terrorists bloody well got exactly what they wanted, because the US let the US president rip up the constitution, promote fear, and change the way things were done. Its nonsense. Don’t allow yourselves to be defined by fringe idiots, with no power, and no influence. Its bloody cowardly apart from anything else. If you want Jews to be defined by anti-Semites, and Zionists to be defined by anti-Zionists, then that might become the reality – but that is your concious choice. I think its beyond ridiculous.

Geez I became an anti-zionist when I realized that Zionism conflicted with my left wing views of secular states… but it is comical for you to FINALLY admit that politics to you is about vendettas, not logic or ideology. Seriously, you do not hate your usual suspects because they are relevant or mildly influencing, you hate them because they call you names, boo hoo. I never took a position opposite to what a dumbass here thought.

That said there is something so comical about respecting “Israeli self-restraint” about as much as respecing a mugger because he stabbed my thigh and not my stomach. Here is a clue to the fools here, it is called PUBLIC RELATIONS!!! Israel knows they will be punished for carrying out genocide. and if the rest of the world was raptured and Israel and Palis lived all alone. You can bet your sweet ass that Israel would exterminate all Palestinians.

So on the left wing (arf) Harry’s Place, Apartheid wasnt all that bad, and Mandela was a terrorist.

How much longer until these pages appear as a tab on the Spectator website?

“If you want Jews to be defined by anti-Semites, and Zionists to be defined by anti-Zionists, then that might become the reality – but that is your concious choice. I think its beyond ridiculous.”

Yeah

But, as a matter of fact, in a broad range of countries in both western and eastern Europe, a huge percentage of people do in fact dislike Jews.

In the Middle East, and places like Malaysia, I’d guess it was the majority. In Malaysia, where there are basically no Jews at all, the two main political leaders attack each other by claiming they’re Jewish puppets!

So, how do you stop being “defined” by that? This is the reality of the situation.

“So on the left wing (arf) Harry’s Place, Apartheid wasnt all that bad, and Mandela was a terrorist.”

Yeah, we also seem to have a number of semi-professional apologists for Chavez, anti-Jewish racists, and supporters of extreme left wing political parties in the comments.

Perhaps we’ll become a page of the Socialist Worker.

PS: Fuck off.

I came out as a “minimalist” Zionist on Sept. 12th, 2001. It wasn’t exactly a bunch of “marginal and irrelevant people” (per se) making antisemitic arguments in an academic context that inspired my public announcement among my politically lazy group of left-leaning friends. Rather, it was a bunch of marginal but very relevant people trying to kill me and those same friends in New York City that made me a Zionist-for-all-the-world-to-know that day. It made me much less popular, socially.

Those who do identify as Jewish come from a long line of people who either couldn’t or didn’t want to stop being Jewish.

I’m not particularly good at “being” Jewish. I don’t think its that much fun really. But I decided in the time following 9/11 that I generally liked Jews (and even worse, I liked Americans!) and that I was one of them. And as long as people were trying to kill Jews, around the world, for what they are, the least I could do is own up to the fact that I was one of them too. Anything less seemed a bit cowardly to me.

After reading50% of the item my immediate thought is:-

All citizens of Israel (Jewish and Arab) must automaitically be Zionists – or traitors. If one posed the question to them “Do you support your country, agree to abide by its laws and recognise your responsibility as a citizen” any No to those attributes suggests disloyalty.

Hence, the other side is loyalty. If you are loyal to Israel as a citizen then you believe in its right to exist and so believe in the protection and right of Israel to be what it is – The Jewish State.

Surely, that is a Zionist.

Ergo you are automatically a Zionist if you are a loyal citizen.

Self-restraint:

I merely note that the Israelis do not behave towards the Palestinians like the Chinese at Tianamen would, or the Russians in Chechnya. Or Georgia, for that matter. Public relations is nothing in the rationale of power.

Actually, modern Turkey behaves with restraint towards Kurdish nationalists on the other side of its border.

“Come on now chaps. Pull your socks up. Stiff upper lip. Don’t be defeated by the weakest of enemies.”

Put it this way. Within living memory, Jews in Europe – including in extremely tolerant societies manifesting only “polite” anti-Jewish racism, massacred their Jews.

The major political movements in the Middle East both deny that that took place, while expressing a clear desire to massacre and expel Jews from the region.

The reaction of the dominant strand of liberalsand progressive thought in this country is:

1. You’re overplaying it

2. There’s no prospect of it happening.

3. You’re using it as an alibi for your own desire to commit genocide, or trick countries into fighting your wars, against their interests.

4. Accusations of racism are illusory and made in bad faith.

There are some people who oppose that argument. Most of them are Jewish. They are most certainly not the dominant voice on the liberal Left.

David – all of what you just wrote in reply to me has nothing to do with Muffin’s stated reasoning, which is concerned only with the British left. What you just wrote is another topic I think.

I didnt say apartheid was good, just the lesser of two evils, the other being a Zimbabwean future (which, who knows, might not happen). I think the comparisons between Israel and pre-1994 South Africa are valid, but an imperfect and sometimes wrong Israel is better than the alternative.

- Nationalism is broadly a bad thing, and allied to racism.
- Equality for all, irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity
- (usually) Abortion is a right
- Guardian or Independent is your paper of choice
- Mistrustful of the police, ID cards, state power.

Well, I agree with most of that, so I must be a liberal, but I hate the SWP, a party that uses every opportunity to attack “bourgeois” liberals and the “liberal defence of murder”.

Fourthly… I have been, openly and often vocally, critical of Israeli policies since my political puberty. I have been active in the Israeli peace movement since soon after the 67 war. I can give chapter and verse on all the missed peace opportunities, on the wrongs of occupation, the iniquities of settlers, the misbehaviour of IDF, the moral turpitude of Israeli political class

So why not go and join Hamas so you can give us a two-sided instead one one-sided apologist guilt-trip opinion.

I didnt say apartheid was good, just the lesser of two evils, the other being a Zimbabwean future (which, who knows, might not happen). I think the comparisons between Israel and pre-1994 South Africa are valid, but an imperfect and sometimes wrong Israel is better than the alternative.

Well seeing how a definition of apartheid is “A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups”, and a great chunk of the West Bank has a hulking great wall, sorry fence, snaking through it carrying out that exact purpose, one only has to use their eyes to see that Apartheid has been implemented in Israel

“David – all of what you just wrote in reply to me has nothing to do with Muffin’s stated reasoning, which is concerned only with the British left.”

No, it has everything to do with the British left.

I’ve had discussions with you, or with John Game, where – for example – I’ll point to the open racism and promise of genocide enshrined in the Hamas charter, and I’ll get the response:

“Oh nobody believes in that, and here’s Azzam Tamimi four years ago saying that it is about to be changed, and here’s an article by somebody else explaining why nobody can take those passages seriously, and – look – here’s an article which explains that Hamas is ready and willing to make a historic and permanent compromise, and this statement from a senior Hamas official saying that the struggle is eternal and will never end shouldn’t be taken at face value, and I’ve heard that Jews in Arab states faced no real racism and left these countries because Mossad tricked or bribed them…”

What I’m saying is that, generally speaking, the British Left is at best blind to anti-semitism.

As an Israeli and someone critical of settler behaviour (which we can all be critical of) can you tell us which agreement or UN resolution states that Jews now have no right to settle in The West Bank. There may be such a device of which I am unaware.

Briefly, the Mandate for Palestine gave Arabs and Jews the right to inhabit West Bank (as part of Palestine). Jordan took it over after teh 1948 war and until 1967 when they handed it back to Israel as part of Res 242. So why aren’t settlers allowed to live in West Bank?

Maven

This is not relevant to the issue under discussion. Wait until there’s a discussion about the status of the West Bank, rather than the British Left.

No, TheIrie, I am not concerned with “British left”. I am concerned with views and voices, many of which (but not all: see Mersheimer & Walt) are on nominal “left”. And some of which (cf. the “Hasbara Buster” above and elsewhere) are neither from left not from right but from a cesspool.

Stop being defensive, for goodness sake. Do you deny that such views exist? Do you deny that a disproportionate number of them comes from the left? Do you deny that those who have always seen their political home on the left (like me and probably like you) have the extra moral duty to keep their political house in order?

It is really funny old world. Exactly the same mechanism that upsets me more when Israel does wrong than when Palestinians do wrong is the one that upsets me more when objectionable views are put forward from a left perspective. It is not rational (wrong is wrong, no matter what’s its origin), it is emotional. So be it…

Great post S.O Muffin. Have forwarded to many people I know.

Personally Ive never been much of a ‘zionist’. More an ‘anti anti-semite’.

But….I have also been a frequent visitor to this site since the news ‘coverage’ of the Lebanon War a couple of years ago and the unpleasant undertones that went with it.

This site is doing brilliant work and making it almost impossible for racist, anti-semitic filth (sonic,theiriot,flanker,latchford/abdul) to pretend to me anything other than….racist, anti-semitic filth.

If that opinion makes me a zionist, count me in!

Matt

I think the comparisons between Israel and pre-1994 South Africa are valid

Well, yes, in the ignorant, racist, antisemitic mindset of a waste of space like you.

Excellent post,

but its contents and underlying arguments will be oblivious to some, given their lack of history, inability to think outside of today’s conventions, need to be spoon fed, etc

Maven, don’t confuse antisemites with facts.

Maven: Let me explain something to you. During the last few years of frequenting this blog and occasionally writing here, I made it my business to engage with fellow posters with whom I disagree, often totally and vehemently. Maybe I persuaded them, maybe they persuaded me, but we entered into a discussion that respected each other’s views. There is only one precondition to this: that their views are expressed cogently, intelligently, with more content than slogans and that they are not dripping with hate and invective. I am afraid that, as your posts don’t meet the above criteria, I don’t plan to respond to your question.

devorgilla: you lived on Mt Olives just across the border from Lebanon?

Maven:
Muffin refusing to engage with your perfectly reasonable statement tells us all we need to know about that hateful creature.

“Israel is better than the alternative.”

I fail to see a state that respects human rights of an entire ethnic group, to be the bigger of two evils.

I don’t know if a lapsed Methodist in Texas can be a Zionist

If you support the right of the Jewish people to an independent state in their ancient homeland, I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be called a Zionist.

David T, how are you defining nationalism?

Personally I think of myself as a liberal but I am proud of my country, and I think it’s better than many other countries. Does this make me a nationalist? If so it’s a label I’m very comfortable with.

If being a nationalist is about pride in country how can one be a Israeli and a Zionist without being a nationalist?

“Well, yes, in the ignorant, racist, antisemitic mindset of a waste of space like you.”

Do you have sort of automatic out-of-office anti-semitism accusation responder? I support the state of Israel. I think all peoples have the right to a homeland if it doesnt trample on other people’s. I’m just curious as to how anti-apartheid activists can square their support for majority rule in SA and not in the Holy Land. Personally I dont believe true multi-ethnic states can work, especially when the majority group are prone to vote for the likes of the ANC or Hamas.

the restraint of Israelis when severely provoked

In 2006, after a border incident in which exactly zero civilians died, Israel carpet-bombed Lebanon killing 1,191 civilians. Whatcha talkin’ bout, Willis?

-You forget about the how many thousand of rockets that Hezbollah fired down on Northern Israel in the same period? The only difference in fatalities is because their munitions are less effective. Still was a war crime by Hezbollah, and extension the Lebanese Govt though.
As to carpet-bombing – Assad Snr showed you how it was done at Hama – he killed 12000+ of his own people with blanket bombing of the city. I guess Israel showed a little more restraint than that.

David T: “I think that the best place for Jews is nowhere.”
and “Being Jewish is a choice which no sane person should take. To be Jewish … is to make yourself into the paradigmatic bad guys of both Christian culture and Muslim culture”
Oh My. David T, these are very sad sentences to come from you, and I didn’t expect you to make them. The first quote would more comfortably come from the mouth of someone like Ahmadinejad, while the second… Let’s put it this way: If your neighbors hate you for whatever reason, then by this reasoning the best solution is suicide.
Similarly to what you propose, Herzl initially thought the solution for Jews is mass conversion to Christianity, but then he witnessed the Dreyfuss trial, and realized that the solution has to be something else – that there has to be a place were Jews can uphold their culture safely, and as a collective.

ag

I also regard myself as a British nationalist, and a patriotic Englishman.

However, I would feel a bit funny waving the Cross of St George, because I’d expect to be regarded by my friends as a sudden convert to BNPism.

That’s not so. But liberals discuss patriotism – in this country at least – very circumspectly.

Flanker
Btw, you seem to be another South American (like HasbaraBuster) who seems to have profited from the dispossesion, ethnic cleansing, cultural genocide and racist treatment of the indigenous peoples of your continent – which is ongoing. What makes you different from a west bank settler? You live off the profits of racist imperialism you scumbag.

Agreed, Muffin. And I just read this, about these Jewish anti-Zionists looking for a name for themselves!

http://blog.z-word.com/2008/10/jewish-anti-zionists-from-vanity-to-lunacy/

“Oh My. David T, these are very sad sentences to come from you, and I didn’t expect you to make them.”

Yes, I find it hugely sad. It is a real tragedy that I feel like this.

“If your neighbors hate you for whatever reason, then by this reasoning the best solution is suicide.”

The best solution is to move or hide. This is what Jews have been doing for about 2000 years.

“Similarly to what you propose, Herzl initially thought the solution for Jews is mass conversion to Christianity, but then he witnessed the Dreyfuss trial, and realized that the solution has to be something else – that there has to be a place were Jews can uphold their culture safely, and as a collective.”

Israel is the locus for such an effort. But have you looked at it on a map? Do you seriously think that Israel will continue to survive indefinitely? Israel’s opponents certainly don’t.

What I hope for the world generally – liberal pluralism, federation of states, etc – I also happen to think is likely to present the best chance for the region, including Israel.

But lets face reality. The paelo right and significant parts of the left either think that Jews are secretly tricking them into fighting their wars. If lefties don’t think that, they think that Jews are the tools of western imperialism. Muslims tend to think that Jews invented the holocaust to justify their rape of Palestinian children, and the dominant strand of muslim theology – as well as Islamism – is premised on the notion that the final hour will herald a grand battle in which they’ll kill all the Jews. Christians, for most of their history, have thought that Jews killed God, and then asked to be blamed for it. A good proportion of the Christians who are “Zionist” believe that Jews need to gather in Israel, so that they can either convert of be destroyed when Jesus comes back. And most of the British Left thinks either that (a) this is nothing to worry about (b) that being worried about it is part of a Jewish trick to disguise a genocide being planned and carried out by the Jews.

I mean, all the signs are that it won’t turn out well.

The first time I found out I was a Zionist was when some angry anonymous racist (and if his claims were right – a terrorist/militant/freedom fighter/whatever) called me one in a the comments section of some article on some website somewhere. It was also around that time that I found out I was a Mossad agent, a Neoconservative and a ‘Sheeple’.

It was useful to know that I was a proponent of a political movement I wasn’t at all familiar with, and that I worked for an intelligence agency of a country I’ve never been to though, and I thanked the aforementioned angry racist terrorist and whoever else it was who enlightened me profusely.

I am a little disappointed at how little money I receive for my efforts though. In fact, I haven’t received any so far. That’s not very impressive for a group of people who control and run everything. Not impressive at all.

Well, Israel does seem to be a locus for such an effort.

But have you looked at it on a map?

Do you seriously think that Israel will continue to survive indefinitely

Having the unswerving and unconditional support of the worlds only military superpower, and an arsenal of nukes isnt bad in the way of defence is it?

Maven

This is not relevant to the issue under discussion. Wait until there’s a discussion about the status of the West Bank, rather than the British Left.

Sowwy!

I only felt it relevant to question Muffin on what I see as a one-sided concept of Israeli vs Palestinian rights. I was interested to understand, as an insider, if the argument I have made has any resonance. Because he criticised the settlers then I wanted to point out that they might have a point – but go about it in ways that we all find disgusting.

Anyway, as you know I can spew this out at a moment’s notice.

Pleased to see you dealing with Bob Latchford as he deserves.

Regards,

Mavey-Baby!

David T: Nationalism was a product of liberalism. I don’t really understand where you are coming from on this and it is probably not relevant to the topic. Personally, I find people who bang on about the greatness of their country to be tedious.

What do you reckon. That this will continue for ever?

One of the major reasons that there hasn’t been a negotiated peace in the region is that the consensus in the Arab and Muslim world is that Israel will falter and fall. Fatah has returned to negotiate, chiefly because it has lost to Hamas, and fears for its own position. Iran is preparing nuclear weapons, while talking about its own capacity to survive a nuclear hit.

Thing may turn out differently. For example, the Arab-Persian/Sunni/Shia divisions may get Israel some breathing space. There may be a regional political re-orientation. Who knows. I doubt it, though.

The best solution is to move or hide. This is what Jews have been doing for about 2000 years.

A lot of Jews have been following the injunction to make themselves visibly different from the host community. I.e. the opposite of hiding. Whatever. Personally I think being a diaspora Jew is just fine and I feel no compunction to hide, make aliyah, become a goy or top myself.

“Having the unswerving and unconditional support of the worlds only military superpower, and an arsenal of nukes isnt bad in the way of defence is it?”

And if they didnt the Mid East have long ago had a major war costing the lives of millions, including lots of Israelis and plenty more Arabs. Bloody Amerikkkans ey, what wankers?

…being Jewish is a choice which no sane person should take. To be Jewish, and to bring your children up to identify and be identified as Jews, is to make yourself into the paradigmatic bad guys of both Christian culture and Muslim culture.

Through no fault of our own of course!? I find this an odd reason *not* to own-up to be being a Jew, when it is one of the very reasons I do so. It’s also very surprising to me that David T, someone who seems to enjoy being a contrarian wise-ass every now and then, critiques the decision to acknowledge one’s Jewishness on the grounds that it might upset the neighbors.

At least on some level, I guess this explains why David T chose Morrissey over Punk in his teenage years. There is definitely something “fundamental” going on here.

John That said, as a Liverpudlian I am extremely proud of the Jews who fought for Britain.

Its a little known fact but at the start of the first ww a rabbi in the East End of London had posters and a pamphlet made in both English and Yiddish exhorting Jewish immigrants to join the army to fight for King and Country. There is a museum in London of Britain’s Jewish forces personnel and they have an original copy.

I can just see a similar recruiting pamphlet in various dialects going down well in the East End today.

The first time I knew I was a Zionist when as a teenager living in Liverpool in the 1960’s and my so-called “mates” started with their “big nose” jokes. I knew back then that England, though better than Nazi Germany, was no place for the Jews. The recent actions of the members of the AUT, NATFHE and UCU only confirm what I knew since those days.

Eddie, do you agree that the 1960’s Antisemitism declined during the late ’70’s and resurged itself in about 2005-2006?

Its a bit hard to trust someone as a ‘moderate’ when he says that all Jews are insane.

Is a ‘Sheeple’ a church tower made out of wool?

“Flanker
Btw, you seem to be another South American (like HasbaraBuster) who seems to have profited from the dispossesion, ethnic cleansing, cultural genocide and racist treatment of the indigenous peoples of your continent – which is ongoing. What makes you different from a west bank settler? You live off the profits of racist imperialism you scumbag.”

The difference is that unlike US, UK, and Israeli citizens. I know it is SHITTY SHITTY thing and I am ashamed of it, and work my best to reverse the situation. Besides having a half indegenous president kinda makes the whole point moot nowadays. For all intents and purposes indigenous people run the country. Wake me up when a Palestinian runs Israel or a member of the Sioux tribe sits in the WH. WILL NEVER HAPPEN!

MattG

Great post S.O Muffin. Have forwarded to many people I know.

If that opinion makes me a zionist, count me in

You indicate a good point which is perhaps we have concentrated in this debate on “Jews as Zionists” and forgotten maybe 60m Christian Zionists in the USA and World leaders such as Sarkozy, Merkel, Howard, Berlusconi, Brown, Blair, Bush (Obama & McCain, Clinton etc who would probably say there were Zionists too.

I also perceive that the more there are boycotts of Israel announced so we get politicians railing against those decisions. Thios tends to shift them into the camp of “Zionist” by those who are of Antisemitic bent.

PS Its fun to see Bob Latchfor straining at the bit to try and prove he hasn’t antisemitic credentials. Go on Bob – Spit it Out!

“the Arab-Persian/Sunni/Shia divisions may get Israel some breathing space. There may be a regional political re-orientation. Who knows. I doubt it, though.”

There is also a strategic issue. The Gulf Arabs are far more afraid of Iran than they are of Israel to the point where they are more open to dialogue with Israel. Iran poses the same existential threat to the UAE, Kuwait and particularly Bahrain as it does to Israel. The only thing obstructing GCC-Israel relations is Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia.

Of course, you won’t find the lobby group CAABU represent Gulf Arab interests because they are hardline pro-Iran, hence the reason why it refuses to meet any Ahwazi Arab.

There is only one precondition to this: that their views are expressed cogently, intelligently, with more content than slogans and that they are not dripping with hate and invective. I am afraid that, as your posts don’t meet the above criteria, I don’t plan to respond to your question.

Great way to avoid answering a difficult question.

I couldn’t give a stuff if you are offended. The attempt at eloquence and controlled language you used are simply attempts to attain a superior higher ground. A classical psychologically understood response. Point one’s nose in the air, write a few more words than are required for communication, carefully edit, puff oneself with air of superiority and press Submit.

So, let me re-state. You gave a one-sided account of how bad Israeli troops and settlers are but said nothing about the animalistic behaviours of Palestinian terrorist.

It makes me feel as if you have an ‘understanding’ why Palestinians might tear the flesh of Israeli reservists who made a wrong turning, or the gunmen who shot a pregnant mother and her four children cowering in their car. I guess you have an understanding of why a Palestinian sprayed a Yeshiva with hundreds of bullets.

Got any condemnation of Palestinian actions in you – or is it all Israel’s fault.

You seem to me to be a self-absorbed self-hating Jew who now runs to the comfort of declaring themself a Zionist (for the first time?) because you realise people hate Jews – for being Jews.

And that brings me full circle. That is why Arabs and Palestinians hate Jews – because it started with Mohammed and Medina not because Israel exists.

Want eloquent? I do that too. I ain’t backing down.

Maven, if you knew anything about muffin’s personal history, you would realize what a jerk you are. Or, knowing you, probably not.

You seem to me to be a self-absorbed self-hating Jew who now runs to the comfort of declaring themself a Zionist (for the first time?) because you realise people hate Jews – for being Jews.

There is absolutely nothing in muffin’s original post, his comments on this thread or his comments in previous threads that tie in with what you are saying. You are making it up.

The issue for you is that Muffin does not see things in black and white, that he recognises that the situation is complex and there are no easy answers.

Despite the fact he has stated he is a Zionist, you regard his acknowledgement that Israeli policies are sometimes wrong, as evidence that he is a self-hating Jew. He doesn’t believe, as you do, that Palestinians are by default evil and nasty (sub)humans.

You have serious issues.

“Besides having a half indegenous president kinda makes the whole point moot nowadays. For all intents and purposes indigenous people run the country.”

-how long did this take Flanker? 400 odd years? And perhaps you can tell us all how many South American countries have had indigenous leaders since the 16th C?
Additionally, perhaps you can tell us how many indigenous people constitute the wealthiest people in South America?
You should be embarrassed especially considering that you have directly profited from these enormous crimes – which are ongoing – in fact you should take yourself off to campaigning for indigenous rights in other South American countries before you start preaching about Palestine.

Seriously, you have to ask yourself:

(a) Why the frantic and obsessive focus Palestine/Israel even in countries which – as Oniad points out – themselves have utterly atrocious histories; and

(b) Is any of this likely to change in the short, medium, or long term.

I think it is right to focus on the role of Christian and Muslim mythology, and of the way that Christian mythology (as well as Jewish theological explanations for the ‘punishment’ of Covenant-breaking Jews) has informed even athiest and socialist perspectives on the issue.

I see absolutely no sign that any of these factors will diminish or disappear.

devorgilla: you lived on Mt Olives just across the border from Lebanon?

I meant that I could see the flashes in the night sky, far-off. It’s a small bit of land we’re talking about.

“-how long did this take Flanker? 400 odd years? And perhaps you can tell us all how many South American countries have had indigenous leaders since the 16th C?”

Considering we have been an independent republic for 200 odd years then yeah half that.

“Additionally, perhaps you can tell us how many indigenous people constitute the wealthiest people in South America?”

Few if any. But at least they have power in two countries.

“You should be embarrassed especially considering that you have directly profited from these enormous crimes”

Earth to Oniad, I already admited I was embarrassed, as any real leftie in the US, UK, Israel, West should be.

“take yourself off to campaigning for indigenous rights in other South American countries before you start preaching about Palestine.”

I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

David T

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing that because they have equally or worse histories that they shouldn’t be concerned about the I/P issue.

I’m calling out hypocrites like Flanker and HasbaraBuster etc who seem to focus on the I/P issue in preference for concerns which are much more local to them and appropriate for them to address in priority. It’s particularly galling for privileged South Americans to bang on about Palestine when they are living in similar circumstances themselves. How many indigenous people live in their neighbourhoods? Talk about apartheid.

Their focus is beyond my explanation – perhaps Flanker or HasbaraBuster or BobLatchford or theIrie etc can explain why they feel the need to focus on I/P over the others, particularly those which should be, priority wise, principal in their concerns?

“(a) Why the frantic and obsessive focus Palestine/Israel even in countries which – as Oniad points out – themselves have utterly atrocious histories; and”

AGAIN, because we do not have our indigenous population locked up in cages, refugee camps, behind apartheid walls, molested every day, bombed etc.

That and a half-indigenous half-black president is in power.

Your country is the Human Right’s hellhole, not mine.

And for this I have to thank assorted members of the UCU executive, SWP, Respect and several posters on this blog.

Golly. I think you forgot CI(F) too.

Great article Muffin. (Any butter????)

Where are you Flanker?

Also for Oniad, here is me defending the indigenous people of Bolivia from you neocons, to no avail, nobody dared to debate me, Gene also deleted a few posts.

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/09/12/freedom-depressed/

“Where are you Flanker?”

Where I want to be.

Are you a “gringo”?

“AGAIN, because we do not have our indigenous population locked up in cages, refugee camps, behind apartheid walls, molested every day, bombed etc.
That and a half-indigenous half-black president is in power.
Your country is the Human Right’s hellhole, not mine.”

Flanker – you have to admit that there are other, far worse offenders surely when it comes to the indigenous pop – Morocco, China, Botswana, Iraqi Kurdistan. The Turks occupy lots of Greek land in Cyprus just across the water but the Greeks dont keep them in refugee camps for pr purposes.
so why does the world focus so much on Israel?

Flanker

Lets be honest here.
The apartheid that occurs in your country is economic – the vast majority of indigenous people don’t live in the nice areas because they can’t afford to. How many of them live in your immediate neighbourhood? How many of them attend the best schools and universities? How many of your graduation class were indigenous? How many of them are leaders of industry?
This poverty is as a result of imperialism and is grinding and hellish for the poor.
(And your country is by a long way not the worst compared with your neighbours true? so its even worse in those countries.)

And, again, speaking truth – you have to admit that there is racial discrimination and racism practiced across a broad spectrum of South American society against these indigenous peoples – sometimes it is overt, sometimes discreet, but it definitely occurs – I’d say even in your own country, true?

Sounding pretty hellish isn’t it?

“Are you a “gringo”?”

This is what I love about David T, I have over 2 years here and he still can’t tell me apart from the next anti-Harriet :)

No I am not, I am also not scottish like you assumed last time (and racistly dismissed my argument when I told you I was not)

The Greeks occupy a lot of Turkish land. In fact, all of Greece was once a Turkish possession. The Greeks who live in Greece now have come to live there from all over the disapora. They ethnically cleansed every single last Greek Muslim from most of Greece: families who had lived in the region for generations, if not from the beginning of recorded history.

Fortunately, for the Greeks, they are not held responsible for trying to kill any religious figure. Neither are they associated with international finance, or anything else bad like that.

Lucky Greeks!

Which South American country is Flanker writing from?

The Hasbara Buster No one’s saying the Jews must leave Israel. We’re only saying they must share the country with the Palestinians as equal partners.

Oh dear.

That was a give away.

I am ex CI(F) and that narrative is just too familiar.

Have you consulted the Prophet on sharing anything with infidels???

David T.,

how much do you think it might be, as I think I’ve argued before, that teh problem is very much the opposite of racism. That Jews, seen as European, modern, etc. are seen as self rather than other, and thus the pecular vehemence heaped on Israel is of a form that would be heaped on the Britsih government, etc. without the restraint of talking to the Other?

The model obviously being narratives of the Indians War, and ethnic cleansing in colonial times…

S.O.Muffin. Bravo!

“No one’s saying the Jews must leave Israel. We’re only saying they must share the country with the Palestinians as equal partners.”

that is what i mean by the greater of two evils – Ulster in Arabia, with nukes.

“so why does the world focus so much on Israel?”

I could tell you of a half dozen reasons, but hatred of Jews is not that high IMHO.

1) Human Right violations that are on par to the worst of the worst. Palestinians live like animals, and they have lived like animals for decades. While genocides are worse they generally flash in and out, I/P is eternal and never gets better but worse.

2) Disproportionate use of force against its neighbors over frivolous cassus belli. Seriously, Russia has 10 times the case for invading Georgia (which was still a neocon move) than any case Israel has ever mustered.

3) That land was taken away from the immediate inhabitants to settle Israel, and it is still ongoing.

4) The near fanatical hold Christian Zionists have over US politics.

5) The fact that victims and descendants of victims became victimizers.

6) That there is no strict separation of religion and state.

I don’t really care that much about #6 after all Iran/US is also a fundie state, resolve #1-#5 and I won’t give a damn. I would oppose it in principle but not really care.

“Which South American country is Flanker writing from?”

Which country has a half-black half-indigenous president?

My own country.

Deathy

That’s certainly the way that Western left-liberals think of it. At the same time, they do seem to be remarkably susceptible to

- arguments about powerful Jewish cliques
- narratives about rootless cosmopolitants v those who are grounded in the soil
- rhetoric about subtle Jews, using accusations of anti-semitism to defend their crimes

And when they do encounter racists – articles by the likes of Joe Quinn, or “Israel Shamir” – there’s a tendency to scratch your head, make a formal denouncement of racism, explain that the racist may actually be making some important points.

If the racism comes from an Arab/Muslim racism: it has to be “understood” and “contextualised”.

And, of course, some of them just spill over into acknowledged anti-semitism. There is a website being run the the former chair of the PSC which has completely adopted the Atzmon analysis, for example.

But we’re only talking about a very small number of people: predominantly in universities or writing for newspapers who take such a nuanced view.

If you look at most of those people who are strongly involved in this issue, they typically tie what they have to say to orthodox religious (mostly Muslim) perpsectives on the pernicious nature of Jews. And as we know, even (particularly) Christian Zionists have a very racist view of Jews.

They’re the majority.

People angsting about these issues on blogs like this are a tiny percentage of those taking part in this debate.

I would have thought that a ’self-absorbed self-hating Jew’ might have stupidly suggested that the BNP were ‘useful idiots’….eh..Maven…imagine?

‘Want eloquent? I do that too’

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

And that ain’t the Nitrous Oxide!

AGAIN, because we do not have our indigenous population locked up in cages, refugee camps, behind apartheid walls, molested every day, bombed etc.

You may not where you are, but you’re quite happy for that to be visited on the Bosnians, the Darfuris, the Kosovars and the Tibetans.

Maven: ‘PS Its fun to see Bob Latchford straining at the bit to try and prove he hasn’t antisemitic credentials. Go on Bob – Spit it Out!’

Indeed. And notice how his spelling and punctuation have also improved markedly in recent posts. Well done Bob. Good man!

“I meant that I could see the flashes in the night sky, far-off. It’s a small bit of land we’re talking about.”

No you couldnt

Flanker, I guess (1) is the one that really matters, and it’s the one that I dont really believe. Palestinians are treated badly, I dont doubt that and no one here does, but I dont accept that even people in Gaza and the West Bank are treated worse than minorities in countries all over the world. A life expectancy of 70 (Gaza) would put much of South America to shame.

“You may not where you are, but you’re quite happy for that to be visited on the Bosnians, the Darfuris, the Kosovars and the Tibetans.”

Nonsense, and yet STILL Palestinians live worse off.

so why does the world focus so much on Israel?

It works both ways. Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel make headlines; Tamil terrorist attacks on Sri Lanka, with an incomparably higher number of casualties, go unnoticed.

I don’t see any Zionist complaining about the world focusing on Palestinian terrorism, when the Tamils are much worse, and when not a word has been said about the Second Congo War which left millions dead.

You can’t have the cake (criticize the disproportionate attention given to Israel’s atrocities) and eat it (benefit from the disproportionate attention given to Palestinian terrorism).

etc, where would you suggest that ‘a good home’ from Jews would be

Latchford I told you before. Its called “leakage” when your conscious mind doesn’t ni=otice what your subconscious writes/says/types. You did it with Lieberman on the brain instead of Buchanan and nots its “FROM” Jews. ie its an subconscious desire to move away from Jews, to have Jews elsewhere.

If I was you ‘d have a brain cell conference. I suspect you know the names of your brain cells personally. After all, not too many names to remember.

1) Not true
2) Sometimes true, sometimes not
3) Ditto the creation of Pakistan, Greece, Poland, and any number of countries. A majority of those living in Israel are the “immediate” inhabitants of the region. If an Egyptian Jew doesn’t count as an “immediate” inhabitants, then why should Cairo-born Yasser Arafat?
4) A bad thing, but overplayed. Certainly not the only group of religious (and non-religious) fanatics involved in political activism.
5) A racist canard.
6) Stricter than in the United Kingdom

I think an anti-Zionist should be:

well-versed in Middle Eastern history

well-versed in Jewish history

therefore specifically anti-antisemite as well as generally anti-racist

tolerant of facts intruding on their ideology

brimming with commitment to equal rights

armed with worked-out, feasible plans, including contingencies, which prioritise avoiding bloodshed

very reassuring in general

universally anti-nationalist – and primarily involved with merging Canada and the US because it’s a good place to start.

I have never met one. I only ever seem to encounter weird obsessive Israel haters or SWP robots.

Flanker, when have you shown a smidgin of concern for the rights of the Bosnians, the Kosovars or the Tibetans against those bent on ethnocide against them? Can you tell us just how worse off the Palestinians are than the Darfuris?

“Which country has a half-black half-indigenous president?”

You tell me.

Gene et al, if I have gone over the top with Muffin I apologise. I don’t know anything about his history and I take his words at face value and not related to any history of his posts. In fact its quite likely I have supported posts he has made in teh past – I just don’t have that good a memory.

Good YomTov (belatedly)

BTW – all bold letters were an accident. I didn’t mean to do the whole post. Whoops. Leakage!

“Geez I became an anti-zionist when I realized that Zionism conflicted with my left wing views of secular states…”

So tell me, FlanKKKer, how does your view of secular states accommodate so nicely Islamic States such as Iran or “Taliban” Afghanistan?

I know: your politics give one law for the Jews and another for everyone else.

Jews can’t be a nation, because FlanKKKer’s national socialism won’t accept that. Israelis can’t be a nation, despite having their own uniqure language, history and literature and viewing themselves as a nation, because I say they’re not a nation.

Hey, the Jordanians are a nation because even though the artificially created out of the lion’s share of Palestine, and even though there is nothing unique linguistically, historically or culturally about its inhabitants and even though it was the British empirialists who created them, that’s fine with Flankker because his national socialist politics say so.

Ok, Flankkker, we all know you’re an anti-Zionist, but hardly for reasons to be proud of.

So what about Iran, Flankker, what right has it to exist as a theocracy?

Flesh Everywhere:

“I only ever seem to encounter weird obsessive Israel haters or SWP robots.”

There’s a difference?

to stop the speculation, Flanker is from Venezuela and part of that very small elite in the country, which both speaks English and has high speed Internet access

anyone remotely familiar with Latin America will realize how detach Flanker’s existence is from that of ordinary people in the region

Nevertheless, Flanker is a dedicated supporert of el commandante Chavez and all of his policies, including embracing the racist President of Iran.

but let us try to ignore these Jew hating/baiting cranks, they add nothing to our understanding of Muffin’s arguments (or maybe they do indirectly?)

“1) Not true”

We are never going to agree with this, because the moment you do your entire political ideology would crumble, this is the foundation of your entire core belief: “Palestinians are really not that bad off”.

“2) Sometimes true, sometimes not”

Well guess what the real left does not look kindly at wars of aggression, and neither do I, in particular when the offending state tries to make itself the victim using intellectually insulting arguments (1954 Egypt took control of the canal!, 1967 The Tiran straights were blockaded!, 1982 That darn PLO!, 2006 Hezzie kidnapping two soldiers!).

“4) A bad thing, but overplayed. Certainly not the only group of religious (and non-religious) fanatics involved in political activism.”

It is creepy and obscene, the way they one-up each other sends chills down my spine, and they are not my leaders, so you can imagine how the US left feels.

“5) A racist canard.”

A weep for humanity.

“6) Stricter than in the United Kingdom”

Err doubt it, a Rabbi can decide whether you become an Israeli citizen (if you convert from any other religion), does that happen in the UK?

We have a head of state that must be a member of the church of england, and must marry a member of the church of england.

Bishops have a right to participate in the process of legislation.

None of this you know about or care about because you are part of a Christian/Left culture which regards Jews, and what they do, as of cosmic importance. Therefore, deaths in the Congo don’t count because Jews aren’t involved. Likewise, theocracy in Iran doesn’t matter because your President Peron is friends with Ahmednejad. That fact also prevents you from having anything to say about racism directed at Jews.

This is precisely the point that Muffin is making.

your President Peron is friends with Ahmednejad

And your PM Disraeli is friends with Bush.

Chávez is the President of Venezuela, Fernández is the President of Argentina, Perón died in 1974.

The Queen also has some African heritage and is half indigenous.

“So what about Iran, Flankker, what right has it to exist as a theocracy?”

Err the same as Israel? do try to keep up.

“anyone remotely familiar with Latin America will realize how detach Flanker’s existence is from that of ordinary people in the region”

If it weren’t for the fact that you think you have an attachment because you visited Venezuela over a decade ago makes this oh so comical.

“and yet STILL Palestinians live worse off.”.

What bullshit. A Palestinian woman in the West Bank has more rights and freedoms than all the women in Saudi Arabia put together. Flanker you are a myopic twat.

David T-
“Israel is the locus for such an effort. But have you looked at it on a map? Do you seriously think that Israel will continue to survive indefinitely? Israel’s opponents certainly don’t.”

However, Israel’s opponents have continually underestimated it. Look at “Bob Latchford” and his response to you:

“Having the unswerving and unconditional support of the worlds only military superpower, and an arsenal of nukes isnt bad in the way of defence is it?”

He can’t see beyond US support and nuclear weapons.

Israel has more- national conciousness through a shared language, religion and customs, a powerful economy that easily outperforms the rest of the middle east, a national culture and science base that makes most countries around it look embarrassingly backwards, a democratic culture (with problems, admittedly) and a claim on the support of non-Israel haters.
In foreign affairs it has made significant advances with new allies emerging such as Australia and India. Every country attacked by Islamist terrorists is another country that looks on Israel just a little more sympathetically.

“Bob Latchford” can’t admit this because it would undermine his fantasy of Israel as an illegitimate nation on the verge of destruction.

“We have a head of state that must be a member of the church of england, and must marry a member of the church of england.

Bishops have a right to participate in the process of legislation.”

Oh please spare me, if that were the case the UK would be a dictatorship because the House of Lords was not elected. You cannot have it both ways. Either you are a democracy because your legacy monarchy is just there for show, or you are a monarchy plain with window dressing of democracy. Choose one.

“None of this you know about or care about because you are part of a Christian/Left culture which regards Jews, and what they do, as of cosmic importance. Therefore, deaths in the Congo don’t count because Jews aren’t involved. Likewise, theocracy in Iran doesn’t matter because your President Peron is friends with Ahmednejad. That fact also prevents you from having anything to say about racism directed at Jews.”

Again wrong, I already gave you 6 examples of why it has nothing to do with Judaism.

“The Queen also has some African heritage and is half indigenous.”

WTF?

“Perón died in 1974.”

Really? I thought he had been reincarnated as the President of Venezuela.

Israel has more- national conciousness through a shared language, religion and customs

This is the kind of Freudian slips I love.

What kind of religion and what language do Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs share?

Very telling of the Zionists’ true feelings about the Arab minority in Israel.

“Chávez is the President of Venezuela, Fernández is the President of Argentina, Perón died in 1974.”

Let him be, that is just David T showing nonchalant racism, oh but never dare call his current leaders little Netanyahus, because boy o boy he will put you on his front page.

Are you quite mad?

Which do you mean?

mad as in hatter? or mad as in boiling teapot?

“In foreign affairs it has made significant advances with new allies emerging such as Australia and India.”

[David T]I am sure that Ghandi running India is such a dear friend of Israel because Ghandi loved everybody![/David T]

Hasbara, I hate to intrude on your sick fantasies about Israeli Arabs, but a) Israeli Arabs speak Hebrew and often English, b) Arabic is Israel’s official language alongside Hebrew and c) there is a successful ‘Language As A Cultural Bridge’ programme which has hugely improved non-compulsory uptake of Arabic by Jewish school students. Note the project partner is the Israeli Ministry of Education.

OK, benefit of the doubt given: David T was speaking facetiously and didn’t actually believe Perón was alive.

“Bob Latchford” can’t admit this because it would undermine his fantasy of Israel as an illegitimate nation on the verge of destruction

I think the technical term is ‘wet dream’. His mentality is that of a 12-year old, so that’s hardly surprising.
He knows nothing about Israel, of course, and about as much about the UK:

Oh please spare me, if that were the case the UK would be a dictatorship because the House of Lords was not elected. You cannot have it both ways. Either you are a democracy because your legacy monarchy is just there for show, or you are a monarchy plain with window dressing of democracy. Choose one

His thinking is so simplistic that he equates democracy with electiond, as though they are one and the same. Democracy involves rather more than elections, moron: e.g. a free press, free courts of law and a lot more.

Fwanker dribbles:

“So what about Iran, Flankker, what right has it to exist as a theocracy?”

Err the same as Israel? do try to keep up.

Yes, you should keep up with your Ladybird books, moron. Nobody gets sentences to hanging or stoning in Israel because of adultery or being raped, antisemitic asshole.
Just fuck off and stop embarrassing yourself.

devorgilla: you lived on Mt Olives just across the border from Lebanon?

I meant that I could see the flashes in the night sky, far-off. It’s a small bit of land we’re talking about

Err, no, Devorgilla, sorry: you could not see any flashes in Lebanon from Mt Olives. Simply not possible. You would have seen flashes in Ramallah, most probably, and maybe Nablus at a stretch, but no way in Lebanon.

Sunday at the election to Austrian parliament 29% of the votes went to the extreme right wing parties. 40% of people younger than 30 voted for those parties.
One F.E. who was for more than five years the social-democratic Austrian member in the Middle East committee of the Socialist International came just now out on his website (Austro-Arab friendship) with an article explaining that boycotting Israel is not antisemitic.
Once long time before Hitler, the Zionists were accused to draw away the Jewish masses from the class struggle. Now the antizionists try to draw away from the fight against the extreme right, while postulating to “fight fascism”.
“How The UCU Reminded Me That I Am A Zionist” is until now the best article among many excellent ones I have read on this blog.

In 2006, after a border incident in which exactly zero civilians died, Israel carpet-bombed Lebanon killing 1,191 civilians

Utter drivel. That was the final flashpoint, but the Israeli response was to ongoing shelling of its territory. You don’t like the Joos defending themselves? Well, tough titty. This is not 1942. Live with it.

Thank you, Karl. Coming from you, this is a much-cherished praise.

Maven, I don’t consider it necessary for you to apologise to anyone for standing your ground – for which I have always admired you – in the face of vile distortions of the truth from antisemites and fellow-travellers.

Arabic is Israel’s official language alongside Hebrew

Yet for some reason when Olmert goes on TV the sign reads “Prime Minister’s Office” in Hebrew and English. Why would you think an official language is shunted aside, and a non-official language is used instead? In an egalitarian society, one would expect Arabic to be used in the Primer Minister’s office.

Next thing, you’ll tell me the Jews are taking courses in Islamic rituals so as to respect the beliefs of their partners in the national enterprise.

“His thinking is so simplistic that he equates democracy with electiond, as though they are one and the same. Democracy involves rather more than elections, moron: e.g. a free press, free courts of law and a lot more.”

Here is a little etymology
Democracy: Demos people, -cracy rule

Democracy: Rule by the people.

Anything else is another topic unrelated, what matters is that people (ALL OF THEM) get to choose their own fate of their nation. Israel is a dubious democracy because they are apartheid. Just like the US was a dubious democracy up until full suffrage. (heavy doubts still because of their electoral college)

That was the final flashpoint, but the Israeli response was to ongoing shelling of its territory.

Exactly the other way round. Hizbullah’s rockets were in response to Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure. And Israel had violated Lebanese airspace 2,000 times before the first Hizbullah action, terrorizing the civilian population with sonic booms.

…. and Jewish witchcraft

Loud noises and shellfire…they’re just as bad…plain as a pikestaff.

David wrote,

“Ultimately though, a huge amount of this politics seems to operate at the ‘warm fuzzy feelings’ level.”

It also – in the case of Israel – seems to operate on the erroneous and reverse-racist assumption that the Jews are white Europeans and therefore always wrong, while the Arabs are brown third-worlders and therefore always right.

Bob

It really is’nt worth trying to reason with HP types.

I note that David T just tells outsiders to “fuck off”.

What TV viewers are shown depends on the audience, but there’s Arabic, Hebrew and English on the Israeli PMO site, so I’m not sure what you mean.

“In an egalitarian society, one would expect Arabic to be used in the Primer Minister’s office.”

Of course. Israeli Arabs have experienced a lot of exclusion. Israel’s failure to ensure that the de jure first language status of Arabic was a de facto status is partly responsible. But if you’re trying to suggest that’s an inevitable consequence of being ‘Zionist’ you’re just wrong.

If you gave a toss about an egalitarian society you’d support developments like Language As A Cultural Bridge. But all you seem to care about is busting Israel.

Muffin – excellent article.

Tzimisces –

The Jews are clearly a nation through every possible criterion – language(s), culture, religion, genetics, values, history, consciousness, self-identification. And that nation has show a remarkable genius for surviving and flourishing against impossible odds for over 3 millennia. I have no doubt the Jews will survive Islamic hatred just as they survived the endless Inquisition and as they (barely) survived the NSDAP death machinery.

To the individual who said

“Having the unswerving and unconditional support of the worlds only military superpower”.

US support of Israel is neither unswerving nor uncoditional, nor has it ever been either. Examples:
1. Arms embargo during 1948-49
2. Oppositon in 1956
3. Forcing Israel out of Sinai in 1956-57
4. Reneging on “assurances” of Sinai non-militarisation in 1967
5. Telling Israel it would have to go it alone in 1967
6. Forcing Israel to release the Egyptian 3rd army in 1973
7. Selling AWACS to Saudi
8. Refusing Israel political and logistic support for attacking Iran
9. Forcing Israel to accept Euro-bunglers at Rafah inspection point
etc.

Hasbara Buster -

You keep harping on the Israeli Arab minority and its problems. I agree. Its problems demand solution, by the simple expedient of the population exchange begun circa 1948. Gaza Arabs should be expelled to Egypt. West Bank Arabs should be expelled to Jordan. And Israeli Arabs should be given a choice of the two.

In 2006, after a border incident in which exactly zero civilians died, Israel carpet-bombed Lebanon killing 1,191 civilians

1. Israel did NOT carpet-bomb Lebanon. It pinpoint-bombed any structure it thought could be used to move Israeli prisoners out of, or Syrian arms into, Lebanon. An Israeli report after the war found the Leb airport almost completely intact. The only bombing remotely close to “carpet-bombing” was of Hiz headquarters in the southern Beirut suburbs.

2. The death toll was indeed about 1,200, but NOT civilians as you falsely claim. Hiz has admitted in a number of Arab publications that 500 to 700 of those 1200 were Hiz, leaving a civilian death toll of 500 to 700 – about the same number Iraqis killed of each other in ONE WEEK at the height of their fratricide.

3. Had Lebanon or Hiz wished to avoid those 500 to 700 civ deaths, they need simply not have started a war with Israel.

All I see is post 67 love, which is what history shows, pre-67 there was no love. Idiot.

“You keep harping on the Israeli Arab minority and its problems. I agree. Its problems demand solution, by the simple expedient of the population exchange begun circa 1948. Gaza Arabs should be expelled to Egypt. West Bank Arabs should be expelled to Jordan. And Israeli Arabs should be given a choice of the two.”

Now see why can’t the rest of the Harriets be so honest?

actually John Edwards, David T tends only to tell people to “Fuck off” when his patience is finally exhausted, after long arguments when such people have demonstrated that they are immune to logic or reason.

Not unsurprisingly, said people are often as not hung up on the existence of Jews, and as far as I can see it David T is far too polite and restrained in these matters, which brings us nicely back to the topic of this thread.

“1. Israel did NOT carpet-bomb Lebanon. It pinpoint-bombed any structure it thought could be used to move Israeli prisoners out of, or Syrian arms into, Lebanon. An Israeli report after the war found the Leb airport almost completely intact. The only bombing remotely close to “carpet-bombing” was of Hiz headquarters in the southern Beirut suburbs.”

They used cluster munitons on civilian centers, ergo carpet bombed.

@The Hasbara Buster
1 October 2008, 5:45 pm@
You have really a bloody cheek to complain about Arabic neglected in Israel.
I am living in a country in which Social democrats have been decades in the government and where Mr. Kreisky demanded from Israel the highest socialist standards which he would not respect in his own country.
We have here in Carinthia (where about 40 % voted for extreme right wing parties) a Slovene minority. Austria has signed the State Treaty giving guarantee that the rights of this minority will be respected. But until today in many places where Slovenes live there are no road signs in Slovene language. When they were put up in the seventies, nazionalists have put them right away down. The socialists and the extreme left so keen criticising Israel has until today not achieved a situation where those minority rights which the Austrian govt. has promised to safeguard are respected.
Now in Israel everywhere you see Road signs in 3 languages. Nobody is protesting against such road signs in Israel.

“Israel is a dubious democracy because they are apartheid”

Really? How is all of Israel’s citizens, Arab or Jew or Druze or Armenia, have the right to vote?

If Israel is a theocracy, how come it allows other political parties, including anti-Zionist ones (such as the communist party) to stand for election?

Tell me one Arab / Islamic country that allows a) a party that calls for the dismantling of its state and b) a communist party?

You FlanKKKer, my family comes from the Arab world, so unlike you, I have genuine experience and knowledge of what it’s like living under Arab and Islamic rule.

We have a saying at home, “aj-Jaur qabl ad-Daur, al-rafiq qabl al-tariq.” Fuck me, wherever you live or go, who would event want to have such a boorish, self-righteous little rich kid as “Flanker” for either a neighbour or a travel companion?

“Really? How is all of Israel’s citizens, Arab or Jew or Druze or Armenia, have the right to vote? ”

Because clearly it is very selective on who gets to be citizens (Palestinians marrying Israelis is the most obvious bar), you see neocons you live in a house of cards. A perfectly constructed limbo where Jews are a religion or a race depending on the discussion at hand, that Palestinians are or are not in control of Israel depending on the discussion at hand.

In short Israel controls and claims to have sovereignty over the WB and Gaza meaning that Israel is RESPONSIBLE for what happens to these people. Denying them a right to chose their own destiny whether by voting in their own sovereign state, or voting in Israeli elections (the ultimate apocalyptic scenario for the Israeli right), is non democratic, it is apartheid.

Do you know how we handle foreign immigrants that want to vote? we give them citizenship.

“If Israel is a theocracy, how come it allows other political parties, including anti-Zionist ones (such as the communist party) to stand for election?”

So? the US is a capitalist state and they never outlawed the CPUSA (persecuted yes)

“You FlanKKKer, my family comes from the Arab world, so unlike you, I have genuine experience and knowledge of what it’s like living under Arab and Islamic rule.”

Not that I really care about fallacies, but we are talking about Palestinians in particular, I do not remember mentioning the arab world outside them.

“that Palestinians are or are not in control of Israel depending on the discussion at hand.”

This came out backwards, you know what I mean.

“1. Israel did NOT carpet-bomb Lebanon. It pinpoint-bombed any structure it thought could be used to move Israeli prisoners out of, or Syrian arms into, Lebanon. An Israeli report after the war found the Leb airport almost completely intact. The only bombing remotely close to “carpet-bombing” was of Hiz headquarters in the southern Beirut suburbs.”

Response: They used cluster munitons on civilian centers, ergo carpet bombed.

Flanker it often considered antisemitic to propogate blod libels about Israel. Given your history you obviously are one.

A cluster bomb is NOT the same as carpet bombing you stupid turd!!!

It referes to the technique of taking a small area and making bombing runs such that the timing of bomb drops leaves the area looking like a new carpet has been laid. Generally its a rectangle.

A cluster bomb is dropped in a precise manner knowing that it springs out bomblets at the point of explosion taking out equipment and terrorists in the locale.

Let us also remember that Hezbollahs attack on Israel was an Act of War. They made a cross-border raid, killed eight soldiers and although they said they kidnapped two soldiers, in fact the were killed too. At the same time they fired missiles at Israeli border towns. Its was a clear ACt of War. In such circumstances and agressor has absolutely no right to determine the scale and timing of any response. Note Res 1701 blames Hezbollah for starting the war and also note it was Hezbollah’s allies who cried for a ceasefire – so preventing Hezbollahs destruction.

Perhaps you should be posting at MPAC UK where they will hang on your every word

Albert the reason FlanKKKer hates Israel is because it is a democracy. People like him adore autocratic regimes like those in most Arab countries, where elementary Human Rights are constantly violated.
It reminds me of those British Stalinist, who 1939 until 1941 were ready to make peace with Hitler, who were condemning Churchill and declared, that the war against the Nazis is an “imperialist war”.
I am usually polite, but I can understand David T. loosing patience and telling them where to go.

“It referes to the technique of taking a small area and making bombing runs such that the timing of bomb drops leaves the area looking like a new carpet has been laid. Generally its a rectangle.

A cluster bomb is dropped in a precise manner knowing that it springs out bomblets at the point of explosion taking out equipment and terrorists in the locale.”

O’RLY?

Your complete ignorance in military manners leaves me aghast. For your information carpet bombing means dropping bombs indiscriminately on targets, a war crime if the target is civilian. Cluster bombs are most definitely indiscriminate.

PS the terrain does not look like a carpet you idiot, it looks more like your zit covered face.

“David T. loosing patience and telling them where to go.”

David T does not lose patience, he simply shuts off his brain and forgets the whole discussion even happened.

Flanker you are definitely a piece of shit!

Your response:-

Your complete ignorance in military manners leaves me aghast. For your information carpet bombing means dropping bombs indiscriminately on targets, a war crime if the target is civilian. Cluster bombs are most definitely indiscriminate.

PS the terrain does not look like a carpet you idiot, it looks more like your zit covered face. (yeah, zit faced like yours!)

WRONG!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing

When an order was given to carpet bomb, a group of planes (usually ranging from 6-21 planes) would group in a “V” formation and release a bomb from each plane every 3 to 5 seconds. This technique was very effective and usually destroyed whole cities or large targets

See, dropping bombs at regular intervals described by a V shape which produces a rectangle.

S.O.Muffin

Great article. I am Deputy Chair, Zionist Federation and we have been through precisely these arguments: What is the relevance of the Z-Word 60 years after the Jewish state became a reality? And with the rise of anti-Zionism as often a ‘respectable’ substitute for antisemitism, has the brand been devalued and should we drop the word? My answer is precisely the same as yours – that the use of the Z-Word in a derogatory sense by our enemies makes it all the more important to keep it. We must not allow the language of our discourse to be defined by our enemies.

FlanKKKer, “How can you say Let me take the speck out of your eye, and behold, the log is in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

What TV viewers are shown depends on the audience, but there’s Arabic, Hebrew and English on the Israeli PMO site, so I’m not sure what you mean.

See the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KXbCaxMcYE&feature=related

Stop it at the 52nd second and be sure to read, below the Menorah (Israel’s coat of arms), “Prime Minister’s Office” in both Hebrew and English — but not Arabic.

And this does not depend on the audience. This is how the PMO is shown to the world. Would you know that any Arabs live in Israel seeing it?

Flanker, Israelis are as much as a nation as any other nation. It’s not up to you to decide whether the Jews are a religion or “race”. Actually, there is no such thing as “race” even if there certainly are racists. No one but racists like yourself would ever raise the point of Jews being a race.

Nations, as you clearly don’t understand, have nothing to do with race. The Jews are a nation because most of them feel they are. Same with the Israelis (Jew or Arab) – the majority of Israelis believe themselves to be a nation.

If Israel is in control of Palestinian land, perhaps you should ask yourself how that came about and why it continues? Perhaps you should look at whom the Palestinians have elected as their leaders and ask yourself whether they are the sort of people capable of negotiating with. If you genuinely think that the Jews can do business with people who actively say the Jews are the cause of all the world’s evil, then I strongly suspect you think the same about the Jews and that your antipathy towards the Jews is the driving force of your hostility towards Israel. In other words, your views on Israel have nothing to do with Israeli policies or injustices, but everything to do with your hatred towards Jews. If you really don’t have anything against the Jews – then why do you deny them the right to see themselves as a nation (rather than just religion)?

The Hasbara Buster so you draw far reaching conclusions because one presentation. Why dont you relate, to what I have written about those antizionists (antisemites) who see the speck in the Israeli eye, but do’nt take the log of their own eye out.
I can now thanks to Internet listen to the Israeli state radio and watch Israeli state TV on both there are Arab broadcasts.
A lot of Arab books are translated into Hebrew. Compare this with the number of Hebrew books translated into Arabic in Arab countries.
I have visited not so long ago Haifa university. 20 Percent of the students are Arabs. And I have visited a relative in Hadassa Hospital in Jerusalem who was treated by an Arab doctor.
Is Israel an ideal country? No. But one has also to see how the neighbours of Israel behave.
Do Israeli state TV and radio incite hatred against Arabs? No. Does PA and Hamas TV and radio incite murderous hatred against Jews? Yes. It does propagate the myth that Jews use the blood of children for ritual purposes and of course the Jewish world conspiracy.
So Hasbara Buster could you relate to this?

The Hasbara Buster Stop it at the 52nd second and be sure to read, below the Menorah (Israel’s coat of arms), “Prime Minister’s Office” in both Hebrew and English — but not Arabic.

You’ve convinced me. I know its true. But why do you find this offensive. We mostly dislike Arabic as it is the language of our enemies. Half the population is evil Ashkenazim and hate the sound of Middle Eastern music. All of the Jewish population see the Arabs as one of the great non-achievers only rivaled by Eskimos and Pigmys from central Africa. Why would we ever agree to share anything with people like that. People who cull curiosity and treat their women like property. Better you take your skills such as they are to your own people and try and achieve something. Build a state in Gaza. Don’t waste your energy firing rockets and mortars into Israel. Use other peoples money to build a state as the Kurds are doing in Iraq. Try to show the world that ‘Arab’ is not synonymous with violence, ruin and non-achievement.

Work for respect. Don’t think that you will get it by muddling the abominations of your Prophet. Accept that he was a dirty old man who got his thrills with young girls. Get past it.

Clap Hammer, what you are saying is not true. Israelis like Arab food. In most Jewish towns you have well frequented Arab restaurants. And most Israelis have nothing against the Arab language. Some Israelis have prejudices against Arabs, probably Clap Hammer belongs to them or he is just an antizionist provocateur. So Jews and Arabs live together in Israel pretty well. Of course of the neighbours would stop incitement and really strive for their own state besides Israel situation would even be better.
Most israeli Arabs are keen on their Israeli citizenship. So Clap Hammer speak in your own name and not in the name of Israelis.

How I became a Zionist.

Well it is very definitely case of I didn’t make myself one but was made.

I would have considered myself to be an anti-Zionist and I know that I was understood not to be anti-Arab.

I am pretty certain I have never been anti-Jewish however and my earliest memories of an ethical political wakening were in relationship to the Holocaust watching a ‘World at war on TV’ I was reduced to tears as quite a young child and given nightmares because it was one of those how could adults lie so badly and do such bad things and let this happen moment.

I think that the Munich Olympics and Baader Meinhof meant that post 60s leftists tended not to engage in Anti-semitism and then we had Thatcher to deal with so to my shame I did not notice the warped and poisoned minds of some on the left.

There was still a kind of Kibbutsnik attraction to Israel in any event and a lot of socialists of my Stalinist Grandfather’s anti-fascist generation were vehemently pro-Israel.

I thought the Palestinians had, been treated badly, but we knew that that included by Arab countries.

Often my work took me to Muslim and Arab countries with insane dictatorships but very nice people and I never really engaged in a polemic way with the Israel/Palestine debate and it rarely was raised, though i was once accused of being a Jewish CIA spy by members of the DFLP.

My experiences did though bring me often into direct awareness of Islamism and its dangers (they seemed to have a habit of murdering the social progressives i worked with).

I shared an office with Arab leftist who had flirted with Islamism and taught me how to spot its manifestations rapidly in everything from style of dress from each Muslim country, to habits of speech and ideology.

This is when i began to become aware of holocaust denial and a Western style anti-semitism (protocols style) as characteristic.

For me it is the obscene collaboration of leftists with Islamists that has made me a Zionist, and a Jew apparently (I am flattered but my genes though no doubt shared are probably pre-monotheist in origin).

Because after all who could accuse a rabid Islamist apologizing anti-semite of being those things other than a (cough) (well funded) Zionist?

A neo-con I suppose but my nose is more Olmert than Dick Cheney.

I just hope that Israel’s new found raggle taggle ‘Zionist’ refugees from the left will turn out to be useful in a fight.

Do Israeli state TV and radio incite hatred against Arabs? No.

Hatred of Arabs is taught at state-supported Israeli schools under state-subsidized programs. See:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/997629.html

Also, political parties that form or have formed part of government coalitions openly advocate various forms of transfer of the Arab population from Israel. For instance, Moledet or Yisrael Beiteinu.

Of course, no one’s saying that Israel is not sophisticated enough not to make stridently racist statements on TV. But you’ve only got to scratch under a very thin veneer to find the most obnoxious racism: “We mostly dislike Arabic as it is the language of our enemies,” “Gaza Arabs should be expelled to Egypt. West Bank Arabs should be expelled to Jordan. And Israeli Arabs should be given a choice of the two,” etc.

“No one but racists like yourself would ever raise the point of Jews being a race. ”

You must be shitting me, I am from the camp that it is a religion, but the Nazis turned it into a race too, and now people are keen to follow such a warped logic in considering it a race?

“If you really don’t have anything against the Jews – then why do you deny them the right to see themselves as a nation (rather than just religion)?”

Because every nation has religious minorities? and the best way to remove discrimination is separating religion from state? Secularism is a word that has lost all meaning to some, it means OUTISDE the church/synagogue/mosque.

… unless of course you support Hezbollah or Hamas, which are anti-colonial national liberation movements, and which are therefore to be supported uncritically.

The Hasbara Buster. In a democratic society like Israel every party – not the Kahanists – have the right to express their opinion. So also the Arab parties and the antizionist communist party.
Now you quote one fellow who might be a racist or an antizionist provocateur.
You cannot deny that on state TV and radio there is no racist incitement, but on the official media of PA and Hamas there is frequent racist and antisemitic incitement. Lets not forget that in the main dailies, Yedioth, Maariv and Haaretz you find usually no such incitement while in the PA and Hamas media you can find frequently such incitement.
It is true that some Israelis dream about expelling Arabs. But so dream many Arabs about almost all Jews leaving Israel.

Yeah, racist Israel treats Palestinian Arab children in its hospitals FOC – how racist!

Funnily enough, I learned what Zionism means in the year 2001.

Before that, I was very weakly linked with Israel. Planted a tree, visited twice, not thought about the subject much.

It was the simultaneous hit of the suicide bombers and the hatred of the far left in my university in Buenos Aires that made me anxious to know about the subject.
You could say that I share Muffin’s causal explanation.

But I do think that Zionism and Israel have a lot to give, still.

“You must be shitting me, I am from the camp that it is a religion, but the Nazis turned it into a race too, and now people are keen to follow such a warped logic in considering it a race?”

Apart from the Jews, only two types of people have ever believed they have the right to tell Jews who they are: Nazis and Islamists.

Which one of the two are you, Flanker?

You refuse to listen to what most Jews say about themselves i.e. that they are a nation? On what grounds? I’m not religious at all – most of my family and Jewish friends aren’t religious, yet we all call ourselves Jews. If we don’t have any religious affiliations, why do you think we do that? And why would an Iraqi Jew like me immediately feel comfortable and capable of fitting in with Ashkenazi Jews in the UK? It’s not that I prefer Jews to anyone else, it’s just that I feel when I’m around other Jews that I’m with my own people. You have no fucking right to tell me whether or not being a Jew means merely being a member of a religion or something more like a nation or people.

It’s your Aspergers-level lack of basic human compassion and empathy here – allowing you to block your ears to other people’s genuine suffering, deeply-rooted feelings and affiliations – that exposes you for what you are: an ignorant, fuck-wit poser.

And by the way, Flanker, the only person here to mention “race” was you. Like the Nazis, you’re clearly obsessed with it. Most Jews don’t see any relevance to it. But you can’t grasp the notion of nationhood with race. Fucking loser.

Sorry… Flanker’s Freudian slip made me write “nationhood with” when I meant “nationhood without”. Tsk tsk

reading Flanker’s posts can be illuminating not for their content, they are rather repetitive drivel, but in thi case how they illustrate one of the themes of the post:

“But once people come spewing hate, Holocaust-baiting about “ZioNazis” and “Israeli apartheid state”, throwing ludicrous accusations that are the very caricature of reality, judging Israel by criteria they apply nowhere else… “

the Flanker’s of the world are not terribly concerned with logic or balance, they do not worry if their views are extreme, bordering on sociopathic, no, that’s not their prime concern

instead they use the various conflicts in the Middle East as an opportunity for them to indulge in a bit of Israeli/Jew bashing, as Muffin so ably predicted.

still, we shouldn’t come away with the idea that the Flankers of the world are racists, heaven forbid! no, rather their acerbic views on Israel are mostly just a release valve for their other mental hangups, and they have a lot of those

so when you see those Flankers, pity them and consider that if your brains were re-arranged in a food mixer and put back, that’s what you’d be like

and remember how fortunate you are not to be like them,

they are Israeli/Zionist/Jew obsessed cranks filled with pettiness, juvenile mannerisms, no character and little real empathy for ordinary people in the world

so all in all, it is good to reflect how lucky you are, not to be them

“Apart from the Jews, only two types of people have ever believed they have the right to tell Jews who they are: Nazis and Islamists. ”

Well there are evidently more, sociologists for one.

“And by the way, Flanker, the only person here to mention “race” was you. Like the Nazis, you’re clearly obsessed with it. Most Jews don’t see any relevance to it. But you can’t grasp the notion of nationhood with race. Fucking loser.”

Trust me kid, I did not come up with that concept, if it were up to me people would be logically consistent and simply call it a religion, like Islam, Christianity etc.

PS modernity, love ya back.

Clap Hammer, what you are saying is not true. Israelis like Arab food. In most Jewish towns you have well frequented Arab restaurants. And most Israelis have nothing against the Arab language.

Hahaha, Karl… let’s do some damage control, no? It’s a bit pathetic to see you, a non-Israeli, correcting an Israeli who’s prepared to show us Israel’s true face.

You cannot deny that on state TV and radio there is no racist incitement

You’re right, the incitement comes from rabbis and educators. You’ve got state-paid rabbis calling for the ethnic cleansing of Arabs, for instance, without even getting a slap in the hand.

The result? Julian Soufir, a French oleh, lured a Palestinian taxi driver to his apartment and stabbed him to death.

What — WHAT — would be the reaction if a Jew was murdered by a Muslim in Teheran? But it has never happened. Quite curious, given that Iran incites against the Jews, but Israel doesn’t incite against the Arabs.

There have been in the region of 25 trials of Israeli Jews who have killed Arabs in the last 30 years. The majority have received long terms in prison for murder etc. Soufir – a recent French immigrant – was judged to be a lunatic and sent to a secure prison. His victim was treated by the state as a “terror victim”, and his family were entitled to the benefits reserved for other victims of terrorist attacks.

David T does not lose patience, he simply shuts off his brain and forgets the whole discussion even happened

Much like your persistance in claiming you’re in favour of the human rights of all and in trumpeting that you will have nothing to do with those who commit ethnocide against their neighbours in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.

It’s your Aspergers-level lack of basic human compassion and empathy here

Albert, enough of that. There are people in my family with Asperger’s; you know little of the condition if you suggest that sufferers have as little compassion as Flanker.

What — WHAT — would be the reaction if a Jew was murdered by a Muslim in Teheran? But it has never happened.

Sick fantasy.

Flaker misses the boat again. His beloved Soviet Union listed Jooooo as a nationality on all official documents. One does not speak Jehovas witness or talk of a Methodist nation.

Flaker I have seen the documents many times. Do you have a response.
FYI All Muslim nations list religion and many cases ethnicity. Do we hear a peep from the Flake? How many foreign documents have you examined Flaker?

There is no need to take Stalinists or Trotskyite fools seriously. They are more rigid in their fundamentalist lunacy than the folks at Hezbollah.

“The Jews suffer from official inferior status under Iranian Law and are not protected by police or the courts. The amount of financial compensation a Jew can receive from a Muslim in case of murder or accidental death of a relative is equal to one-eighth of that which would be paid if the victim was a Muslim.

In practice this means that a life of a Jew in Iran has very little value. In addition, since Iranian courts routinely refuse to accept the testimony of a Jew against a Muslim, most cases of this sort are not even prosecuted and the police do not even investigate such claims. As a result of their legally inferior status, Jews find themselves outside the protection of the courts and police. This is not simply a perception on their part, but rather, sadly, a harsh reality. In none of the cases of the murder of Jews in Iran has a perpetrator ever been found, much less prosecuted. “

But bollox. As long as Ahmadinejad is chums with Chavez, who are we to question the wisdom of the Iranian legal system.

The majority have received long terms in prison for murder etc.

I’d like to know where this information comes from. Do you have a report handy?

Meanwhile, here’s some food for thought:

“A Jewish settler walked free from court yesterday after being sentenced to a mere six months’ community service and a $17,000 fine for beating to death an 11-year-old Palestinian boy.” Source.

“[In 1987-2001], 119 Palestinians have been killed by settlers and other Israeli citizens in the Occupied Territories. Of these, 23 were minors.”Source.

But bollox. As long as Ahmadinejad is chums with Chavez, who are we to question the wisdom of the Iranian legal system.

It’s not Chávez, it’s Perón!

David T,

but if it were one trial, not 25, that would be one too many for the Jew baiting cranks like “The Hasbara Buster”

after all “The Hasbara Buster” and his mates seek to prove how singly murderous Jews are, so the number of trials is inconsequential to them, the real evidence is unimportant to them

it is those voices in the back of their minds have told these things and nothing else in the world will convince them otherwise

In none of the cases of the murder of Jews in Iran has a perpetrator ever been found, much less prosecuted.

Which were these cases? And is there even an indication that a Jew has ever been murdered in Iran because he was a Jew? Keep in mind that the Palestinian cab driver was killed because he was an Arab.

Hasbara Buster: “What — WHAT — would be the reaction if a Jew was murdered by a Muslim in Teheran? But it has never happened.”

Yes it has. Some 27 Jews have been executed since 1979, including Habib Elghanian, the head of the community.

The Afrikaners were denied the right to a national home in 1995. They had a country for themselves, where they were realizing their national aspirations, and all of a sudden they had to share it with the Zulus, the Xhosa, the Bapedi, the Venda and other groups.
Oh fuck off. In apartheid South Africa (where I was born and grew up) there were 5 million whites spread over a country, twice the size of France, containing 25+ million non-whites whom they lorded over.
On the other hand, Israelis and Palestinian live in contiguous areas and both wish to live in seperate independent states. A single state would require the approval of both electorates, which, for the forseeable future, is not a realistic prospect and probably never will be.
In 2006, after a border incident in which exactly zero civilians died, Israel carpet-bombed Lebanon killing 1,191 civilians.
You do talk utter crap at times, well most of the time actually. If Israel had’ve carpet-bombed Lebanon in 2006 there would be nothing left of Beirut to speak of.
Idiot.

“Flaker misses the boat again. His beloved Soviet Union listed Jooooo as a nationality on all official documents. One does speak Jehovas witness or talk of a Methodist nation.”

I don’t give a shit what the old CCCP thought of Jews (nationality/religion/race), only logic can sway me, not whines from mod, nor the ignoring by David T, nor the baiting from Gene.

Keep in mind that the Palestinian cab driver was killed because he was an Arab.

And how many Jews have been murdered by Palestinians because they were Jews? In a fairly recent case, in Jerusalem, a jogging Israeli Arab was murdered by Palestinian terrorists because they believed he was a Jew.

Come on, Alberto José Miyara, aka “The Hasbara Buster”, your grandpa Salomon would have been very dissapointed with you for demonizing the Jews like you do. If he had had the chance, he would have immigrated to Eretz Israel, and not a far away corner of the south, to a place where natives were just exterminated to make room for him.

And it is especially funny to watch, coming from a person who is trying by all possible means to rise the nationhood status of the Catalonians but hates the same in the Jews.

But you are not Catalonian, Alberto, you are a lunatic who has a Jewish father and a big inferiority complex, coming from your very short stature and your unfulfilled dreams of fame. You are a self-hating Jew, Alberto.

Flanker, you throw around wild assertions around in the manner of a provocation -seeking irresponsible infant and because your assetions are so scattergun and cretinous and you throw up so much dust with your flailing responses you are not held to account for a good many of them. yOu were asked, in what way Palestinians are treated worse and are in a worse situation than Darfuris. As someone involved in taking testimony from Darfuris, i take this is as an insult to the experience of Darfuris. Justify this clearly, soberly and precisely or reingest the offensive drivel you spew about this comparison.

“You do talk utter crap at times, well most of the time actually. If Israel had’ve carpet-bombed Lebanon in 2006 there would be nothing left of Beirut to speak of.”

Barring nukes. Israel does not have the capability of leveling Beirut. the IDF is a small military, in the bombing of Dresden for example the Allies dropped 4,000 tons of ordnance.

I don’t give a shit what the old CCCP thought of Jews

Well, that just about sums up your attitude, with regards to the Jews, and their quest for self-determination.

Flaker

Lets hear how your Commie Icons rearded dem Joooos. It so happens that Commies have always regarded Jooooos as a nationality until recently when it became expedient to do a 180. The Soviet documents are clearly labeled under nationality Joooooooo.

How is it that an un reconstructed cartoon like you can’t get your story correct. Then again your kind always is rewriting history as it has no grasp of logic or facts.

How many foreign documents have you examined?

It seems that you are talking out of your backside once again.

Barring nukes. Israel does not have the capability of leveling Beirut. the IDF is a small military, in the bombing of Dresden for example the Allies dropped 4,000 tons of ordnance.

Wth are you talking about? Israel used a fraction of its firepower in 2006 – 20 to 30 fighter bombers instead of 100’s. The explosive power of WW2 ordinance is a fraction of what it is today.

I have decided to just disregard Flanker and HasbaraBuster from now on.
They both live in racist apartheid states and are willing participants in it and profit from the dispossesion, cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and exploitation of the indigenous people’s of their region.
To his credit (the little that is due) Flanker is marginally better than HasbaraBuster in that he recognises there is a problem. He just doesn’t care to resolve it as he comes from the most privileged part of his society and so has a vested interest in eating and continuing to harvest the bloody fruits of imperialism. Unfortunately they are both scumbags – just a little bit better than those settlers in Hebron to be honest.

I encourage all readers to boycott their contributions until they demonstrate their anti-racist/anti-imperialist credentials and prove that they are not supportive of the ongoing oppression of indigenous people in South America*. (thanks UCU for the advice on this)

*The proof needs to be more significant than posting some ramblings on another thread regarding Bolivia. Perhaps Flanker can do some charity work in a remote indigenous village and can send us some photos of himself getting his hands dirty.

I know you are trying to pin me on a weirdly silly fallacy, again I do not care what the USSR did with their official documents. You can keep harping about it but it is the last time I respond to a bizarre accusation.

“Wth are you talking about? Israel used a fraction of its firepower in 2006 – 20 to 30 fighter bombers instead of 100’s. The explosive power of WW2 ordinance is a fraction of what it is today.”

You really have no clue, it would take over 1000 fully loaded F-16s to equal Dresden (which BTW only downtown Dresden was leveled, the rest untouched).

“*The proof needs to be more significant than posting some ramblings on another thread regarding Bolivia. Perhaps Flanker can do some charity work in a remote indigenous village and can send us some photos of himself getting his hands dirty.”

Hehe I would never post my identiy here. Talk about raving harpies.

Again even though you don’t care to acknowledge it, having indigenous people in power makes me sleep better at night after what the west did.

I know you are trying to pin me on a weirdly silly fallacy, again I do not care what the USSR did with their official documents. You can keep harping about it but it is the last time I respond to a bizarre accusation.

Translation, you’ve got me stumped.

Darfuris and Palestinians, Flanker. Compare or contrast. Or eat your toxic words.

Ok Ami lets put it this way, if I am Darfurian I could probably seek help from blue helmets in case of raving mobs, if I am Palestinian who do I run to for help?

Ami: you are wasting your time. The entire purpose of Flanker is to get under the skin of people, make arguments that (in his juvenile mind) will upset them and to hell with facts, logical contradiction, nonsense, lies, whatsoever. You can’t pin him down any more than you can pin down a dog’s mess.

The only proper reaction is to disregard his existence. He is obsessed with this blog to an extent which probably requires expert psychiatric intervention, something that neither of us is qualified to provide. Meantime, don’t feed his habit.

You really have no clue, it would take over 1000 fully loaded F-16s to equal Dresden (which BTW only downtown Dresden was leveled, the rest untouched).

Okay, lets take your comment at face value – which is generous, at best.

Israel probably has a couple of hundred F-16s. Using your logic it would take 5 days for Israel to level Beirut. (5 x 200 = 1000)

Maths obviously is not your strong point.

eh fully loaded? again do you happen to have a clue of the ordnance required? A Su-30 can carry twice that of an F-16, but we don’t have the freaking 4,000 tons of bombs, so Bogota is “safe” pfft.

eh fully loaded? again do you happen to have a clue of the ordnance required?

I was using your yardstick of ww2 (Dresden) ordinance, kid.

A Su-30 can carry twice that ….

ZzzzzZzz

Flaker

You are a cliche Stalinist at best. Must we remind you of the facts once again. Your Commie and Anarchist clowns have always regarded Jews as a nationality. Start picking up the pop up versions of Marx and start picking up Soviet documents.

Your kind reversed course after the Six Day War when genocidal rants aimed at Jews had an obvious odious past. Now your kind merely plays
word games with Joooo, Zionist, Neocon and so forth. Are you the only
antisemite who can’t land a job in higher ed?

Lets hear an explanation from the good commie as to where and when Jews became a mere religion. Do you need to go back to your cell and look at the notes?

The facts are commies regarded Jews as a nationality on their official
documents. This is not an opinion, it is a fact backed by thousands of examples. When and where did Communists do a 180 and say Judaism is merely a religion?

You have no answer.

Please tell us how many foreign documents you have examined?

You are just another

Wrong child I said specifically 1000 FULLY LOADED F-16s. You can send the birds on multiple sorties, but you forget the fact that they LEAVE fully loaded and come back EMPTY. (which BTW the pure bomb configuration is unrealistic).

So can Israel level Beirut? NO it simply lacks the ordnance for that. Could it buy said ordnance? sure but so can every small army on the planet, even us. You don’t see me feeling great about ourselves for not sending Bogota to the stoneage. Superficial restraint will win you no accolades.

indeed muffin, but Flanker’s pathology is interesting to study, his almost total lack of empathy, fascination with military weapons, indifference to the existence of Jews, parroting whatever comes out of Chavez central, etc

if I am Darfurian I could probably seek help from blue helmets in case of raving mobs. No they can’t. Not probably, not at all. YOu are catastrophically and unabashedly ignorant on this, as on all else.

muffin. I know he is addicted to the attention which is acheived with no greater tactic than a child shouting bumpoowee in a supermarket. I ignore him 97% of the time, and realise that all he needs is 3% cumulatively to feed on.
I am sorry it has deflected from your excellent post.

surely, Flanker’s absurd conduct actually reinforces the message of Muffin’s post?

“if I am Darfurian I could probably seek help from blue helmets in case of raving mobs. No they can’t. Not probably, not at all. YOu are catastrophically and unabashedly ignorant on this, as on all else.”

OK, why am I wrong?

test

Just to point out what Flanker supports in his own country:

http://hrw.org/reports/2008/venezuela0908/

Flanker

US Military Dictionary: carpet bombing
The intensive bombing of a designated area in a close pattern by many aircraft, usually B-52s, as though laying a wall-to-wall carpet. In World War II the term denoted bombing campaigns designed to clear wide areas for advancing troops.Also called saturation bombing.
“You really have no clue, it would take over 1000 fully loaded F-16s to equal Dresden (which BTW only downtown Dresden was leveled, the rest untouched).”
3300 tons of bombs were dropped on Dresden in total.

The IDF have 17 C-130’s, each one could drop a 20 ton pallets per trip. That is 10 trips in 48 hours, same as Dresden.
Also add the 101 F-15I’s can drop 10 ton’s, so 3 sorties is 3030 tons, let us say that will take 10 hours.
You can also throw the 100 F15’s into the mix, a quarter of them are E’s, designed for bombing, each can drop 20 ton’s, so that is 1.5 sorties.

Now TNT is so passé, RDX was 1.4x more powerful than TNT.

So the IDF could do a Dresden, using its transport fleet over two days, using its F16I fleet during the daylight hours or using its F15 fleet in the morning.

BTW You are a racist, lying cunt.

In apartheid South Africa (where I was born and grew up) there were 5 million whites spread over a country, twice the size of France, containing 25+ million non-whites whom they lorded over.
On the other hand, Israelis and Palestinian live in contiguous areas and both wish to live in seperate independent states. A single state would require the approval of both electorates, which, for the forseeable future, is not a realistic prospect and probably never will be.

Do you think for a moment that the South African white electorate would have voted for the end of apartheid if the country hadn’t been shunned by the rest of the world?

TODAY the Jewish electorate of Israel doesn’t want a binational state — why would they? They get the West Bank’s land and water without the inconvenience of having to give the vote to the Palestinians. But under the proper circumstances (international pressure), Israeli Jews would realize that doing the right thing is worth it.

In case it hasn’t been noted on this thread I am pleased to advise:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/australian-holocaust-denier-arrested/2008/10/02/1222651205020.html

I expect a howl about free-speech etc but this character is a 1st class scumbag that I feel absolutely no sympathy for.

Good article SOS:

Those who say a Zionist is anyone who supports Israel as a Jewish state are 100% wrong. By that definition, virtually the entire world is “zionist.” No, zionism means something more, to be a zionist means that Jews should want to live in Israel, to ingather. By that definition, i’m not a zionist, as I don’t believe that.

Why should the question of supporting Israel as a jewish state even arise? After all, it’s a successful country that has existed now for 60 years, as the country of the Jews. Sure, others live there. Turkey is the country of the Turks, and has a sizeable Kurdish minority. Same with Iran. Romania has a sizeable hungarian minority. Big deal.

Given that, I don’t even bother discussing Israel’s “right to exist.” It exists. Those who say Jews aren’t a nationality as such are joking, as they don’t get to decide that (much as some who post here pretend that Palestinians don’t have the right to decide they are a nationality).

Jews came back to their ancestral homeland, and fought a bloody war to establish their state, and have continued to fight to maintain it. Those who say Jews should go back to Europe should read some history. Before WWII, there were more Jewish socialists (bundists) in Eastern europe than Zionist Jews. But Socialism could not protect Jews from the Holocaust, and so after WWII the remnant, and the rest of World Jewry, collectively decided they had to have a state to survive. People can argue with that decision but it really doesn’t matter a goddamn.

Those who say this is a reaction and “boo-hoo” show a stunning lack of empathy and clearly don’t realize that, as Sartre said, the anti-semite does define the jew, as those who were sent to the gas chambers as Jews though they hadn’t lived as Jews for generations found out. Incidentally, that’s what makes N. Finklestein the lowest of the low — his parents are holocaust survivors, like mine, yet he pooh-poohs that history and allies himself with the successors of his family’s murderers in a “we are all hezbollah” moment.

I never considered myself a zionist and still don’t. I don’t believe Jews have an obligation or duty or calling to live in Israel. But by the definition floated by the anti-zionists — ie. supporting what already exists, a jewish state in Israel, not only am I a zionist, but so are the majority of states in the world that recognize the state of Israel. Not that it really matters, as long as the state exists and has the capacity to defend itself.

Both have sizable minorities,

“I can give chapter and verse on all the missed peace opportunities…”

I don’t think you can – there weren’t any such. It is becoming clearer and clearer that peace is not possible between Israel and the Arab world as it currently exists because of the psychotic and pathological condition of Arab political and national life. The way in which Arabs relate to Israel will never be better than the way they treat each other, and they behave abominably among themselves, periodically unleashing cruel violence against their brothers and sisters without mercy or restraint. When opinion pollsters ask Arabs what they should do if, after making peace with Israel the military balance tilts in their favour, a huge majority say “attack Israel”.

When the PLO took over Gaza in 1993 after the Oslo agreements, the first thing they did was to remove Hebrew from road signs and shop fronts. In East Jerusalem, all Hebrew street signs get defaced and vandalized – a demonstration of the Arab interpretation of the concept of “sharing”. And the Palestinian declaration of independence does not mention Jews or Judaism. These people don’t want peace – they want victory for themselves and oblivion for Israeli Jews.

I disagree so regularly with s.o.muffin that I owe him a duty of adding my voice to the many complimenting him on this essay. Very well said.

My own Zionist awakening came in the days before the 6 Day War, when every morning we would turn on the news expecting to learn that Israel had been annihilated while we slept, and hearing instead only of the latest Nasser speech detailing what the Arabs were about to do to the Jews and their country. In Britain then, before the start of the 40 year propaganda war, only an overt antisemite could fail to side with Israel against that aggressive malice, and only the most screwed-up Jews could fail to be Zionist. By chance the war coincided almost exactly with my bar-mitzvah, and the feeling of tension and fear in my parents and the Jewish community is woven through my memories.

A couple of additional comments:

- When muffin says “it would be ludicrous to punish Israelis and Jews, uniquely in annals of modern history, by withdrawing their right to national home”, the word ludicrous seems to me insufficient. ‘Unjust’ and ’shameful’ would be more apt.

- When muffin says “I am critical precisely because I love the place and the people” he identifies precisely what unifies the whole spectrum of Zionists, from the rightmost to the most critical left, and separates them from even the most careful of antizionists. From Neturei Karta, who believe that any Jew not like them is too sinful to merit a state, to Ilan Pappe, who thinks that only Palestinian suffering and Arab national aspirations have value, to the antizionists who would destroy Israel “for the good of the Jews”, to the morally-stunted trolls who haunt Harry’s Place, interest in the needs and aspirations of Israelis and Jews, or even a willingness to understand them as real people rather than the straw men of their arguments, is the missing ingredient.

- Finally, the word ‘Zionist’ would be a quaint relic of an interesting and romantic past, long out of use, were it not for the fact that the Arab world en masse and their new friends on the Western left are still so hell-bent on destroying Israel. Muffin is absolutely, 100% right — it is hatred of Israel that keeps the term relevant and alive. Mazel tov to the haters.

two points:

1) The Arabs given 96% of the greater Syria region, carved up into Syria, Jordan etc. after WW1 . The Arabs have exclusive ownership of those countries with the exception of Israel which shares its democracy between Jews & Arabs.

Jews have much more right to a homeland than the “Palestinians” (a Western term borrowed to create a “people” in order to get yet more land for the Arabs). Palestinians already have a homeland: Jordan.

2.) Despite the fact that Israel isn’t after more land, doesn’t want to destroy or invade neighbouring countries and only wants is to survive in peace, the “Israeli Peace Movement” is stupid, ludicrous, futile and possibly self destructive.

The thing is, peace can’t be achieved until the people that want to wipe Israel out, stop wanting to wipe out Israel.

An Israel Peace Movement is like the bulls getting together to make peace with the matadors. All that can happen is more discord and less resolve. Palestinian paramilitaries see an Israeli Peace Movement as, at best, useful idiots.

SO Muffin

You can say the Flaker is a product of a vulgar system. One can meet the Jews of Venezuela in NYC and Miami and hear the stories of kidnapping and extortion by the thugs of Chavez. I have heard several of these accounts but the left shakes its collective head and ignores the reality.

The left has no explanation for how such a tiny nation is the third largest source of H1B visas as American companies scramble to get their
employees to safety. I have even seen applications of petroleum engineers to be poorly compensated Head Start teachers just to get away from Chavez.

The thugish Chavez supporters also harass bloggers. A friend of mine worked as a missionary to local indians and gets threats to her children
from supporters of Chavez.

Flaker is the product of an evil despotic regime that is corrupt and antisemitic at its core.

RE: Light sentence for Settler who killed boy.

Here is the quote from the Independent (bollox!) “It began in October 1996 when Nahum Korman, a security officer from Hadar Beitar, ”

It then goes on to describe how he chased stone throwing Palestinian children,

My point is that he wasn’t just a stroll by settler but a Security Guard. He was also pelted with stone (which can kill), He chased the kids and got angry with them. One died. So its manslaughter in that it wasn’t pre-meditated. While six months is light I don’t think it is out of the scale of convictions for manslaughter based on the circumstances ie provocation.

What the item is supposed to convey is that a settler went out, killed an 11 year old and only got six months. The reality is different.

The Hasbara buster is going again.
To your information. I was serving in Palmach and in Zahal 4 years. I speak Hebrew and have about the same informations as you.
You are seeing the speck in the Israeli eye and not the log in the eye of the Palestinians. And you are telling us, what we all know, that Israel has like other states also racists and extreme rightists. And you tell us things we can see, hear and read in mainstream Israeli media.
So a Jewish racist murdered an Arab in Israel and you are complaining that Israel has not reached utmost perfection. And you argue with the alleged good situation of the Jews in Iran. Do you tell us what you believe? or do you really believe that what you told us?
Since HH is published in the UK where a union wants to boycott Israeli academia, lets not forget, that the UK participated in the war against Saddam Hussein and participated in the occupation of Iraq. So UCU should probably boycott itself. And there is not one case of racists murdering black people but several. And there is racism sometimes in the police and the prisons. So why does UCU and yourself not concern yourself with those problems in the UK?

Modernity said:

“surely, Flanker’s absurd conduct actually reinforces the message of Muffin’s post?”

Absolutely. I have said, many times, much as they are pretty detestable, the likes of Flanker serve a purpose here. You almost couldn’t make them up and in some ways you could almost be thankful for them.

As for the (now busted) Buster; I made the mistake of visiting his ‘blog’. In all honesty I would leave the chap alone and hope he gets some pyschiatric help. That’s not a jibe, I really mean it.

Matt

Happy New Year to everyone, (except the disgusting trolls.)

Hasbara Buster said TODAY the Jewish electorate of Israel doesn’t want a binational state — why would they? They get the West Bank’s land and water without the inconvenience of having to give the vote to the Palestinians. But under the proper circumstances (international pressure), Israeli Jews would realize that doing the right thing is worth it.

It’s NOT WORTH IT.

You seem to have forgotten that the Palestinians have at least three fully armed, barely controllable militias who are hell bent on wiping the word “Israel” from the map and throwing the Jews into the sea.

You speak of “international pressure” and all I see is partisan sadism.

Bearing in mind the persecution the Jews have experienced and the threats they face today, forcing them to give land to a nation run rife with balaclavered extremist gunmen can hardly be seen as a warm gesture for peace. It’s like forcing a victim of violence to give a room in their house to some Hell’s Angels.

Israel should be under no moral pressure at all on this. 96% of Greater Syria and 79% of British Mandate Palestine has already been given to the Arabs. Why should Israel give them an inch more? The only reason I can think of is “incentive” – not threat.

The incentive is peace and that can not POSSIBLY be achieved while the Palestinians hoist Islamic Jihad, the Al Asqa Martyr Brigade, Hamas and any other death cult antisemite in a balaclava.

You can’t have land for peace without peace being a genuine reality (rather than a vague hope or a tenuous hudna).

What about REAL international pressure on the Palestinians to disband their paramilitaries and outlaw any group that seeks the destruction of Israel? That is the ONLY thing that will encourage Israel to give yet more land to the Arabs.

Until then, you can campaign for all the racist boycotts you like, but I can’t see the Jews committing suicide to please your naive sentiments.

Hasbara Buster said

TODAY the Jewish electorate of Israel doesn’t want a binational state — why would they? They get the West Bank’s land and water without the inconvenience of having to give the vote to the Palestinians. But under the proper circumstances (international pressure), Israeli Jews would realize that doing the right thing is worth it.

It’s NOT WORTH IT.

After a horrible history of persecution at the hands of non-Jewish hosts, all we want is to be able to live in our homeland in peace and security.

You seem to have forgotten that the Palestinians have at least three fully armed, barely controllable militias who are hell bent on wiping the word “Israel” from the map and throwing the Jews into the sea.

You speak of “international pressure” and all I see is partisan sadism.

Bearing in mind the persecution the Jews have experienced and the threats they face today, forcing them to give land to a nation run rife with extremist gunmen can hardly be seen as a warm gesture for peace. It’s like forcing a victim of violence to give a room in their house to some Hell’s Angels.

Israel should be under no moral pressure at all on this. 96% of Greater Syria and 79% of British Mandate Palestine has already been given to the Arabs. Why should Israel give them an inch more? The only incentives I can think of are peace and security.

Peace can not POSSIBLY be achieved while the Palestinians host Islamic Jihad, the Al Asqa Martyr Brigade, Hamas and any other death cult antisemite in a balaclava.

You can’t have land for peace without peace being a genuine reality (rather than a vague hope or a tenuous hudna).

What about bringing REAL international pressure on the Palestinians to disband their paramilitaries and outlaw any group that seeks the destruction of Israel? That is the ONLY thing that will encourage Israel to give yet more land to the Arabs.

Until then, you can campaign for all the racist boycotts you like, but I can’t see the Jews committing suicide to please your naive sentiments.

The fastest way to peace? If the UN said “the Formation of a new Palestinian state is on permanent hold, until the Palestinians disband all paramilitary groups.” (not that I can see the UN saying any such thing).

The paramilitaries are like the rain stopping the picnic and it’s pointless to even think about peace, land and new states until they’ve gone. The paramilitaries should be the prime focal point of any conversation, debate or meeting about the Middle East.

Get rid of them and everything else is comparatively easy.

I have just gone and reread 6 or 7 articles on Harrys Place involving Israel, Zionism & Judaism, and EVERY person who has adopted the opposite opinion to the majority, and to the author has been labelled an anti-semite, every single last one. What chance of debate and conjecture on a place where the merest veering from the party line sees you defamed in the most awful of ways, a way designed to immediately netuer and make your opinion invalid, and to cast you out as some sort of racist, hate filled pariah.

I know I’m a bit late on the scene, but:

Flanker:

“They used cluster munitons on civilian centers, ergo carpet bombed.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing :

“Carpet bombing refers to the tactical bombing of a strategic area[1] usually by the use of large numbers of unguided gravity bombs, often with a high proportion of incendiary bombs. The tactic is to attempt the complete destruction of a target region, either to destroy personnel and materiel, or as a means of demoralizing the enemy (see terror bombing). The phrase probably is intended to invoke the image of bombs completely covering an area, in the same way that a carpet covers a floor.”

Flanker’s argument: Israel carpet bombed, despite not allegedly having the means to carpet bomb.

Cluster munitions would be a hugely inefficient device to use for carpet-bombing. It is anti-personnel, not anti-infrastructure, weapon.

Also, by far the most cluster munitions used by the Israelis to stop rocket launchers and their crew (which were mobile -the reason cluster munitions were deployed in a pattern to attempt to catch them, even if they had moved) were shells from self-propelled guns.

The rocket launchers fired from or hid in civilian areas. Flanker makes it sound as though cluster munitions were used principally to kill large numbers of civilians.

Also

“Israel knows they will be punished for carrying out genocide. and if the rest of the world was raptured and Israel and Palis lived all alone. You can bet your sweet ass that Israel would exterminate all Palestinians.”

Also, if one actually pays attention to Palestinian and other Arab discourse i.e. what they say to each other, not merely what is said for western consumption, if they had the means they would drive out all Israeli Jews, or worse, world opinion regardless.

If Israel were not strong, Israel would not exist.

Flanker’s anti-Zionism is to intentionally exaggerate the alleged evil of the Jewish state, as well as to excise all mitigating circumstances and justification for her existence in the court of history.

That is not justice, but demonizing, pure and simple.

It also fulfils the criteria for discrimination or racism against Jews, which is anti-semitism. Which does not, in this respect, make the alleged Flanker a progressive left-wing socialist but, rather, a right-wing reactionary, who has found socialist discourse a convenient means to purvey his hatred while attempting to disguise its true nature, even from himself.

If Flanker were a right-wing reactionary, he would probably be a contributor to these pages

I have just gone and reread 6 or 7 articles on Harrys Place involving Israel, Zionism & Judaism, and EVERY person who has adopted the opposite opinion to the majority, and to the author has been labelled an anti-semite, every single last one.

You sir are a liar and an ass. But in lying, I guess you’re not straying from your party line.

O my God, you’re such a bunch of mindless automatons (unlike my lot)! HP is a party (unlike my lot). Everyone who diverges, even the teeniest, weeniest, tiniest bit from the Party Line is stuck all over, slandered, defamed, has his mothers and sisters insulted, and LABELLED AN ANTI-SEMITE (regardless of whether they actually express anti-semitic views or not).

I am in such personal distress about how non-existent the debate is here (unlike among my lot). My lecture is delivered in a purely disinterested manner, without any agenda of my own at all.

I am here to defend the brave, noble Truth Speak, Flanker, from the slanders of the HP mob.

And the lynch-pin of my argument is that it is a theoretical impossibility for Flanker, or indeed anyone who claims to be left-wing, to be racist because, since it is solely HP who are racists, Flanker or that alleged left-winger would then be HP*.

I thank you.

* This lecture was delivered to you by the Bob Twatchford school of philosophy and logic.

Bob Latchford and Flanker “contribute to these pages” which according to Latchford’s definition makes them “right wing reactionaries”. You couldn’t make these clowns up. Maybe after explaining how and why opposing those who wish to see Israel destroyed excludes one from the left, Latchford can tell us (since Flanker won’t) how Bush had his reichstag burned. See you in the funny papers Latchford.

Bob Latchford:

“If Flanker were a right-wing reactionary, he would probably be a contributor to these pages”

He is. And so are you.

A paradox, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox: aha aha aha aha, a pa-ra-dox!

Ah, Professor Leibnitz, I see you got there first.

Has Nearly Oxfordian managed to provide any actual evidence of Bob Latchford’s alleged antisemitism? Something more substantial than his evidence that Jimmy Carter is a “Nazi because he consistently uses the Nazi language of the loony left”.

‘What chance of debate and conjecture on a place where the merest veering from the party line sees you defamed in the most awful of ways, a way designed to immediately netuer and make your opinion invalid, and to cast you out as some sort of racist, hate filled pariah.’

Who exactly, Bob, has cast you out?

Also, HP’s free speech policy means that it is all but inevitable someone will express objectionable views. That is the price of free speech.

And if Nearly Oxfordian really said that on those grounds, he is an idiot.

observer, I will give you an example from this very thread. Someone posted that the anti semitism he had seen in this country led him to beleive that this country was ‘no home for Jews’. My response was to post the recently report that showed that Britians levels of dislike and distrust for Jews were enormously lower than our European cousins, and maybe Britain wasnt that bad….David T immediately called me a ‘racist provocateur’ and that was generous to what followed. No debate, no attempt to even acknowledge the point, just slander and playground insults.

Flanker,

‘Again even though you don’t care to acknowledge it, having indigenous people in power makes me sleep better at night after what the west did.’

Surely having some kind of steady income-by product of Venezuela’s oil wealth, something you can do in Venezuela because it is a developing country and, as a westerner, you can exploit certain of your skills (i.e. in the language of the west, English) and middle class education, helps you sleep much better.

Latchford

Would you care to address your remarks to the Orthodox Jews that emigrate from London to NYC? They would say that you do not know what
you are talking about. I know plenty of them and see several at my job each month.

Bob,

if David T was responding merely to your one particular response to Eddie (whose opinion none bar David have echoed), he was wrong to brand you a racist, in my view.

But without trawling endlessly through this particular thread, Bob, it looks to me as though most people have ignored you. Is that what you meant by being ‘cast out’?

Beakerking, noone is saying that anti semitism doesnt exist in the UK, thats just nonsense, my point is that our dislike and distrust of Jews is nowhere near that of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, Poland, and probably the rest of London. I’m sure there is anti semitism in NYC too. Unfortunately all minority groups, whether they be defined by colour, race, religion, sexuality etc will be subject to attacks, but, if you believe the figures released recently, Britain is a safer home for Jews than anywhere else in Europe.

I can give you an anecdotal story too. I work in the suburb of Birmingham that has the highest number of Muslims in the whole of the UK. Slap bang in the middle of this community, and directly opposite to the office I work in is a Jewish infant & primary school. It has no high walls, no reinforced glass, no bars on the window, no razor wire on its perimeter walls, no security guards on the front gate.

BTW, people, you know why ‘Flanker’ is so knowledgeable about the Sukhoi 30 war planes of his (adopted?) beloved Venezuela?

It’s because he semi-worships them: he has even given himself their Nato designated codename:

Flanker.

I always thought our little friend showed a keen interest in military hardware.

I meant probably the rest of Europe……..

Flanker asks “why am I wrong”. You made the assertions, it is for you to demonstrate why you are right. As muffin says, it is impossible to say why a dog’s mess is “wrong”.
The blue hats in Darfur are ineffectual, unable to defend even themselves, not from raving mobs but from the surrogates stormtroopers of the Khartoum gvt, regarded increasingly by Darfuris as part of the problem, partisan even. If you had any bona fide interest you would read the most comprehensive and up to date resource on Darfur on Eric Reeve’s site. But I know you have no interest, so this is aimed at any casual reader of this who might latch on to your drivel.

There is no point whatever in indulging you in a comparative discussion with the situation of Palestinians. There are no commonalities or interstices between the 2 issues. Even chalk and cheese at least have the same initial consonant.

‘Slap bang in the middle of this community, and directly opposite to the office I work in is a Jewish infant & primary school. It has no high walls, no reinforced glass, no bars on the window, no razor wire on its perimeter walls, no security guards on the front gate.’

Yeah, like it wouldn’t immediately be condemned as ‘unneighbourly’ and ‘anti-social’ if it did.

But, as a matter of interest, how do you know what security measures it has? Have you asked? Have you checked? How do you know what kind of glass it has in its windows? How high, exactly, are its walls? And what do you classify as ‘high’?

And how do you know what such a school can afford anyway? Or have you ever asked what kind of security concerns it has, or what kind of abuse its children may or may not have experienced?

How many Jewish schools in Britain do you know have ‘razor wire’?

“For those who have grown up with Zionism programmed into them from birth, there are simply certain places that the mind cannot go. For this reason, Zionism is the greatest obstacle to peace. Challenging it, unfortunately, is no easy feat since it has become an integral part of all Jewish community life everywhere. The Jewish school, the Jewish camp, the Jewish campus clubs, the Jewish day care, the local Jewish community center, even the shul – in all of these places one absorbs Zionist ideology through osmosis. Unless you belong to one of the anti-Zionist ultra-orthodox sects such as Neturei Karta, to reject Zionism is to tear yourself apart from the connection to friends, family, and Jewish life. Increasingly, there are small anti-Zionist Jewish spaces opening up, and though they are marginal and not always accessible, their importance should be underestimated. Only if there exists the ability to participate as an anti-Zionist and a Jew in some sort of Jewish life will the risk associated with breaking from Zionism diminish. And only by rejecting Zionism can we who are Jewish break free from the trap we have created for ourselves, the trap of a Jewish state.”
for the rest
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18478
A Genuine Peace Movement Cannot be Zionist
By Jason Kunin
“Israeli violence and oppression, however, is rooted not simply in a few laws or politicians, but in the ideological foundations of the state itself. The problem, in short, is Zionism. Any opposition to Israel rooted in Zionism can only seek to mitigate Israeli apartheid and racism, not end it, because apartheid and racism are what Zionism – and by extension, the Israeli state – are all about. Zionism is rooted in the fundamental premise that the state be a Jewish state and that it occupy the physical space of an ancient Arab Christian and Muslim culture. Because it is impossible to achieve these two goals simultaneously without violence and racist oppression, you cannot have a genuine peace movement that is Zionist.”

Wrong child I said specifically 1000 FULLY LOADED F-16s. You can send the birds on multiple sorties, but you forget the fact that they LEAVE fully loaded and come back EMPTY. (which BTW the pure bomb configuration is unrealistic).

Well obviously they would leave fully loaded and come back empty. Why would they come back half-full and why is the pure bomb configuration unrealistic?

Do you think for a moment that the South African white electorate would have voted for the end of apartheid if the country hadn’t been shunned by the rest of the world?

But Israel isn’t shunned by the world, quite the opposite in fact – including all the main eastern and western powers. Israel is also a member of the UN. You also fail to address the fact that the majority of Palestinians are in favour of a 2 state solution.

TODAY the Jewish electorate of Israel doesn’t want a binational state — why would they? They get the West Bank’s land and water without the inconvenience of having to give the vote to the Palestinians. But under the proper circumstances (international pressure), Israeli Jews would realize that doing the right thing is worth it.

Exactly, why would they? Israel and the Palestinians need to agree borders and come to arrangement on water sharing.

Btw there is nothing to say the 67 borders are the offficial borders between Israel and Palestine.

Yugoslav,

Zionism, in your world view, clearly occupies the same place as Judaism in that of your antisemitic Balkan nationalist Catholic and Orthodox Christian anti-semitic predecessors.

Then most Jews lived outside the land of Israel, in the diaspora. Now Israel is the largest Jewish community in the world.

Also, by your argument, the greatest obstacles to peace in the Balkans are the respective nationalisms of Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Turkey etc.

Fascist hypocrite.

Dear, Fwanker, Hasbara Soap and Bob Detachford,

I want to express my gratitude to you, and I hope on behalf of some at HP, for the fact that you give up your valuable time to post here. Time that could be better spent editing your web pages at some right-wing Nazi site or extremist Islamist portal.

HP does seem to have a speciality in outing Antisemites in its splendid articles but there only has to be any article with one of “Jews”, “Zionists” or “Israel” in it and you find US! Now that is very convenient to have commentary by antisemites as a constant reminder of the problem your sort of people, people of your ilk like to spread.

Its also so wonderful that you display first class ignorance, so demonstrating that antisemites are often knuckle scrapers, niqab wearers and nascent Islamist Terrorists – if not avid supporters of terrorism and terrorist groups. (Majority of non-violent Muslim and Arab friends excluded of course).

Regards,

Maven

opps, sorry for the repetition of the epithet ‘antisemitic’.

The use of phrases like “raving mob” utterly inapplicable to any Darfur scenario, is just a small indication that not only is Flanker abysmally ignorant of any specific situation, he has no self insight or self respect to care that he spouts forth publicly on matters he has not bothered to investigate even cursorily. He is as disinhibited as a 2 year old throwing a tantrum in a public space.

Yugoslav

also.

Jason Kunin is essentially saying that, in order to be ‘good’ Jews, Jews must actively and professedly divorce themselves from Zionism in the same way as Christian Jews said that, in order to be ‘true’ Jews, Jews must divorce themselves from Judaism, before the Jewish state of Israel existed (kind of like many of your Balkan Orthodox and Christian predecessors too).

He is irrelevant. Like you.

And Flanker is saying something very similar.

You are both neo-Christian anti-Jewish evangelists.

Flanker clearly has found his adopted socialist republic, which he can, as a poster has said above, exploit by virtue of his western acquired skills, a convenient place to vent his unique obsession with Jewish nationalism and the Jewish state of Israel, in the language of ‘progress’, and not be considered a reactionary obsessive.

Having said that, we have no idea how Flanker is regarded in the real world. He doesn’t sound like the most sociable kind of fellow.

“Also, by your argument, the greatest obstacles to peace in the Balkans are the respective nationalisms of Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Turkey etc.”
agree

S.O. Muffin,

please read this perfect example of what you wrote in the article by Jason Kunin: the essentialising and identifying of Jews as ‘Zionist’ even if they do not define themselves so.

‘In mainstream Jewish circles, hardly anyone self-identifies as a “Zionist” anymore, though almost everyone is. Today, it’s probably more common to hear words like “Zionist” and “Zionism” used by Palestinian solidarity activists than it is by “supporters of Israel,” a newer preferred term for a Zionist. “Supporting Israel,” however that gets understood, is simply for many a natural function of being Jewish, whereas the term Zionism, even if it amounts to the same thing, makes supporting Israel sound rather ideological. Which of course it is.’

Thank you, Yugoslav, for proving S.O.Muffin’s point.

“Also, by your argument, the greatest obstacles to peace in the Balkans are the respective nationalisms of Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Turkey etc.”
agree’

OK, Yugoslav, dissolve the states of Greece, Bosnia, Turkey etc, restore all populations to their former places etc. Stop all disputes over land and territory, accord all minorities the rights you think they merit, or stop discrimination or worse against them, by external force, if necessary, or by boycott or international campaign.

Restore the state of Yugoslavia.

Also, stop the privileging of one dominant national or ethnic group over another e.g. Greek law of return.

Well, Yugoslav, at least you have come out openly as supporting purging Jews of their allegedly ‘reactionary’ mentality, their ‘Zionism’, even as your predecessors sought to purge them of Judaism.

‘Zionism is rooted in the fundamental premise that the state be a Jewish state and that it occupy the physical space of an ancient Arab Christian and Muslim culture.’

Note the privileging of a Christian and Muslim culture that in turn, quite consciously, occupied the space of an ancient Jewish culture; a culture that both Christianity and Islam had held to have been destroyed as a just punishment for its sins. How different the values that same Christian and Muslim culture applied to itself when partially dispossessessed in a failed attempt to conquer, subject or dispossess Palestinian Jews.

Note also the ‘forgetting’ of the fact that Palestinian Jews accepted partition and compromise, Palestinian Christians and Muslims rejected it.

The real progressive solution for Balkan nations was always Balkan Federation (read some history) from 19 century till now! How many millions of lifes were lost and destroyed in creation of national states! Creating pure national states on theritory with high mixture of ethnic groups was always a criminal political endeavour.

This from a man whose country’s dreams of a Greater Serbian “federation” resulted in truckloads of Muslims being lined up and shot.