| Author | Message | ||
     Larry Seltzer Citizen Username: Elvis Post Number: 107 Registered: 4-2006  |
There are 2 kidnapped soldiers in Lebanon, one by Hamas in Gaza. Radish, let's do a little parsing: Me: "...There's a long history of attacks against Israel from Lebanon [emphasis added], and the last one the Lebanese government officially approved was in 1948...." You: "No, there isn't a long history of attacks of Lebanon against Israel. Incase you didn't know, Palestinian insurgents in Southern Lebanon were attacking Israel in the 70's and 80's, not the Lebanese government..." Exactly the point I was making and even though you quoted me you didn't see it. Lebanon officially allowed a militia to use their territory to launch attacks against Israel (in violation of a specific UN Security Council resolution) and also brought this militia into the government. I think it's very fair to hold the government of Lebanon responsible. If the people of Lebanon don't like the consequences of their government's actions they can replace their government. | ||
| sbenois Supporter Username: Sbenois Post Number: 15346 Registered: 10-2001  |
That's probably a good thing for the rest of the universe. | ||
| tulip Citizen Username: Braveheart Post Number: 3774 Registered: 3-2004  |
Amen. | ||
| tulip Citizen Username: Braveheart Post Number: 3775 Registered: 3-2004 |
Oh! Ah! Sbenois is so funny! Oh, I am laughing like I don;t know what!! He made it look like I was agreeing with Wendy!!! Ha, Ha, Ha. Third grade boyfriend, go play with Wendy. Wendy, I answered Dave as much as I thought was appropriate. You answer Dave if you think he should be answered. I am listening to Pat Buchanan, and he is right. What Israel is doing is absolutely inhuman. Lebanon cannot disarm Hezbollah. Don't attack Lebanon. They have always been friends with the US. This is horrible, you are horrible, and your friend is really not that great. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1032 Registered: 4-2006 |
Nohero- There you go again. As the Texans say, you are " big hat, no cattle" when it comes to specifics of your progressive agenda on the war on terror. Bush is a moron, war-mongerer, etc. but non-exsistent response to how you progressives would handle the terror war being forced on us. What would your dream Secretary of Defense, Cindy Sheehan, do?  . As for the web sites, guess they would only matter to you or be of interest if I was posting from sites that represent your ideologically pure version of pravda like Kos. Open your mind. | ||
| Wendy Supporter Username: Wendy Post Number: 2763 Registered: 5-2001 |
"Those of us in childhood during the war years were introduced to Hitler only as a caricature…Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier’s soldier in the Great War, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him. But Hitler’s success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path." Pat Buchanan - St. Louis Globe – Democrat, Aug 25, 1977 "Perhaps this endless search for Nazi war criminals, these endless re-enactments, on stage and screen, of Hitler’s concentration camps are good for the soul. To what end, however, all this wallowing in the atrocities of a dead regime when there is scarcely a peep of protest over the prison camps, the labor camps, the concentration camps operating now in China and Siberia, in Cuba and Vietnam." Pat Buchanan - Washington Times, August 24, 1983 | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2558 Registered: 3-2003 |
"The UN and the rest of the European powers have treated it [Chechnya] as an internal Russian matter and only raised their voices now and then when Russia's response was perceived as eggregious." Yeah, Mustt, but Bush and the American neocons have raised their voices when no one else could be bothered. That's why Putin is so furious with us now, and is using the mideast crisis as an opportunity to take us down a peg. "No, I do not need a reading list but looks like you need one to understand a term that you used wither wittingly or otherwise - "oriental thought process." Now that is Orientalist thinking on your part when you claim to know about Muslisms, Arabs and the like. " I suppose you think being a devotee of Edward Said makes you erudite. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2559 Registered: 3-2003 |
"By the same token,even Kashmir has been off the UN burner because India did not want third parties to negotiate a peace deal between Pak and India depsite the fact that tens of thousands of people have perished in the last two decades." Peace negotiations were well under way without any third party help until piss-sucking terrorists blew up trains in Mumbai and killed 174 innocent civilians. You are the worst sort of apologist, Mustt. The worst. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2560 Registered: 3-2003 |
Tulip: "I am listening to Pat Buchanan, and he is right." I always thought the notion of the "self-hating Jew" was a really bit of psychobabble. I stand corrected. | ||
| sbenois Supporter Username: Sbenois Post Number: 15347 Registered: 10-2001 |
Please, no big words. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1033 Registered: 4-2006 |
All Israeli airstrikes have been strategic: Preventing potential movement of its kidnapped soldiers from Lebanon, hitting Hezbollah missle storage and launch sites, preventing routes of re-supply of missles from Syria and Iran, and targeting Hezbollah command and control facilities. They are going after the underground facilities of Hezbollah in Beirut and the Bekaa next as I understand it. For tulip- A old Israeli song from the Nahal troupe: The whole world is against us, this is an old song, an ancient melody from our ancestors, to which they would dance and sing, and after us, our children. The whole world is against us, never happy for us, but we will live to sing this song well, in the land of Israel, and those who are against us, can go to hell.  | ||
| tulip Citizen Username: Braveheart Post Number: 3779 Registered: 3-2004 |
Nice song, FVF. Too bad they're committing mass murder right now. | ||
| Nohero Supporter Username: Nohero Post Number: 5630 Registered: 10-1999  |
Well, If you want to do folk songs, that's fine. I've always been partial to Lo yisa goy - And every man ‘neath his vine and fig tree | ||
| sbenois Supporter Username: Sbenois Post Number: 15349 Registered: 10-2001 |
Songs are wonderful. I don't know what the hell they have to do with soldiers being killed and borders being breached but I suppose if the singer is Celine Dion, the combatants will stop long enough to shoot on both sides of the head. And that's a good thing. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2563 Registered: 3-2003 |
Which reminds me: I have it on good authority* that Armageddon will not occur until Celine Dion records "Lo Yisa Goy." *It came to me in a vision of Rabbi Nachman of Breslau. | ||
| notehead Supporter Username: Notehead Post Number: 3578 Registered: 5-2001  |
Seven Canadians were killed and another three were wounded Sunday in southern Lebanon amid Israeli shelling and airstrikes, Canada's foreign ministry said. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/16/mideast/index.html | ||
| Illuminated Radish Citizen Username: Umoja Post Number: 33 Registered: 6-2006 |
Larry: I'm sorry, didn't notice that little nuance of words. "Lebanon officially allowed a militia to use their territory to launch attacks against Israel (in violation of a specific UN Security Council resolution) and also brought this militia into the government. I think it's very fair to hold the government of Lebanon responsible. If the people of Lebanon don't like the consequences of their government's actions they can replace their government." See now you're on a completely different issue. A downfall of democracy is that radicals tend to get elected in violatile areas. It'd be undemocratic not to allow Hezbollah to run, and I'm sure we could talk about Syrian influence on the elections, but I honestly am not a master on middle eastern politics. It's also worth noting that Lebanon 'allowed Hezbollah' to exist because until last Spring they were under Syrian occupation. If you recall, Syria funnels in alot of support for Hezbollah. So even talking about patrolling the border is fairly difficult, since Lebanon has been occupied by a foreign army for so long. But even moreso, that doesn't matter. The militia of Hezbollah is not part of the Lebanese government, the members of Hezbollah who do make up the government are a minority, and most importantly they can't just oust unpopular members of government without voting on it first. It's democracy remember. You can claim that it's justified for Israel to attack Lebanon as a result, but the justification is rather weak, as I am trying to convey. Israel has also violated UN resolutions in the past. Honestly, all I can tell from what you've been saying is that democracy has destabilized the middle east even more. Israel seems to have run into a problem with this, and instead of trying to negotiate with these governments, they're just riding the coat-tails fo the US's masterwork 'The War on Terror,' and are trying to use similar tactics to reel in American support. I'll be the first to say, I don't think 'The War on Terror' has been a success, and I doubt it ever will be. Has Afghanistan really stabilized all that much? If we look at Iraq, it's been made all that stable either. Honestly, I think we'd have a better chance with a real 'bad-guy,' like North Korea. | ||
| Mustt_mustt Citizen Username: Mustt_mustt Post Number: 610 Registered: 8-2003 |
JCrohn, Apologist for what? I am not sure whether you are aware of the history of Kashmir. Get your facts straigh before you launch attacks on others. There are sane Indians and Pakistanis who realize that Kashmir is a political problem that can only be politically solved. The peace negotiations that you claim were well underway was actually a composite dialogue that covered areas like trade and opening rail links rather than solving the long-standing dispute. Neither nation is willing to compromise on Kashmir as it will be political suicide for leaders on both sides of the broder. India has refused to dialogue with Pak until the latter stops breeding terrorist organizations that carry out cross-border attacks which brings me to Dave's point about nation-states being able to control groups within their own borders. The Bush admin is well aware of this and yet endorses Pak as a non-NATO ally. Here is a piece from HAARETZ – Israel – Mon., July 17, 2006 Tamuz 21, 5766 Operation Peace for the IDF By Gideon Levy Every neighborhood has one, a loudmouth bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger. He's insulted? He'll pull out a knife. Spat in the face? He'll draw a gun. Hit? He'll pull out a machine gun. Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction! It's not that he's not feared, but nobody really appreciates him. The real appreciation is for the strong who don't immediately use their strength. Regrettably, the Israel Defense Forces once again looks like the neighborhood bully. A soldier was abducted in Gaza? All of Gaza will pay. Eight soldiers are killed and two abducted to Lebanon? All of Lebanon will pay. One and only one language is spoken by Israel, the language of force. The war that the IDF has now declared on Lebanon and before it on Gaza, will never be considered another "war of no choice." Let's save that debate from the historians. This is unequivocally a war of choice. The IDF absorbed two painful blows, which were particularly humiliating, and in their wake went into a war that is all about restoring its lost dignity, which on our side is called "restoring deterrent capabilities." Neither in Lebanon nor certainly in Gaza, can anyone formulate the real goals of the war, so nobody knows for sure what will be considered victory or an achievement. Are we at war in Lebanon? With Hezbollah? Nobody knows for sure. If the goal is to remove Hezbollah from the border, did we try hard enough over the last two years through diplomatic channels? And what's the connection between destroying half of Lebanon and that goal? Everyone agrees that "something must be done." Everyone agrees that a sovereign state cannot remain silent when it is attacked within its own borders, though in Israel's eyes Lebanese sovereignty was always subject to trampling, but why should that non-silence be expressed solely by an immediate and all-out blow? In Gaza, a soldier is abducted from the army of a state that frequently abducts civilians from their homes and locks them up for years with or without a trial - but only we're allowed to do that. And only we're allowed to bomb civilian population centers. The painful steps taken in Gaza, which included dropping a one-ton bomb on a residential building, or killing an entire family of seven children under cover of darkness in Lebanon, killing dozens of residents, bombing an airport, cutting off electricity and water to hundreds of thousands of people for months were a response lacking any justification, legitimacy or proportion. What goal did it serve? Was the soldier released? Did the Qassams stop? Was deterrence restored? None of that happened. Only lost honor was supposedly restored, and immediately the next evil wind showed up, this time from the north. Two more soldiers were abducted and it was clearly proven that the deterrent power was not restored, while IDF failures repeated themselves. How does one erase those searing failures? On the backs of innocent populations. In Lebanon, the situation is more complicated. There is no Israeli occupation and no justification for provoking Israel. If Hezbollah is so worried about its Palestinian brethren, it should have first of all done something for the hundreds of thousands of refugees living in camps in Lebanon in conditions that are just as bad as those under the Israeli occupation, before it grabbed soldiers in their name. But does the fact that Hezbollah is a cynical organization that exploits the misery of Palestinians for its own purposes justify the disproportionate reaction? The concept that we have totally forgotten is proportionality. While we're in no hurry to get to the negotiating table, we're eager to get to the battlefield and the killing without delay, without taking any time to think. That deepens suspicions that we need a war every few years, with terrifying repetition, even if afterward we end up back in exactly the same position. The war we declared on Lebanon has already exacted from us, and of course from Lebanon, too, a heavy price. Did anyone give any thought to the question whether it should be paid? Everyone knows how this war begins, but does anyone know how it ends? Heavy casualties in the Israeli rear? A war with Syria? A general war? Is it all worth it? Look what a new rookie government can do in such a short time. Behind the operations in Lebanon and Gaza is the same foolish idea about pressure on the population leading to political changes that Israel wants. In the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict, that concept has only led us from one disaster to the next. We "cleansed" southern Lebanon of Palestinians in 1982, and what did we get? Hezbollahstan instead of Fatahland. Hamas won't fall because Gaza is in the dark, and not even because we bombed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry building at the weekend - another nonsensical move; Hezbollah won't be smashed because the international airport in Beirut has been put out of commission. Israel once again is not distinguishing between a justified war against Hezbollah and an unjust and unwise war against the Lebanese nation. The camouflage concealing the war's real goals was ripped off by this defense minister, who says what he means: "Nasrallah is going to get it so bad that he will never forget the name Amir Peretz," he bragged, like a typical bully. Now at least we know that Israel went to war so that the name Amir Peretz is never forgotten. It's the war for the perpetuation of the name Peretz and the blurring of Dan Halutz's failures. And to hell with the cost. | ||
| Larry Seltzer Citizen Username: Elvis Post Number: 108 Registered: 4-2006 |
>>It's also worth noting that Lebanon 'allowed Hezbollah' to exist because until last Spring they were under Syrian occupation. If you recall, Syria funnels in alot of support for Hezbollah. So even talking about patrolling the border is fairly difficult, since Lebanon has been occupied by a foreign army for so long. There's certainly something to this, but it hardly mitigates things from Israel's point of view, and I think there's plenty of reason to argue that the Lebanese government has been assisting Hezbollah as part of the truce. If the Lebanese can't or won't stop Hezbollah from operating against Israel then certainly Israel has to itself. So how do you do that? I see pictures of bombing in Beirut and captions that say it's an attack against a Hezbollah stronghold and then I hear complaints about civilian casualties. If you put a military target inside a city (doesn't the Lebanese government control Beirut?) you're risking civilian casualties when it's attacked. Whose fault is that? You can't say that Israel should only confront Hezbollah and then say they can't do so if civilians might get hurt. Obviously Hezbollah will then do what they have done, hide in civilian areas. In his presentation to the Security Council the Israeli ambassador said that Hezbollah is storing missile launchers in people's homes in the south. They have them in their living rooms. Is such a home a legitimate target? | ||
| tulip Citizen Username: Braveheart Post Number: 3787 Registered: 3-2004 |
You know, Israel and Bill Kristol and the Zionists will have their way. Obviously, there are short term consequences of actions, and there are long term consequences. We will suffer at the hands of angered and injured factions and nations for a long time. It will be a fact of life, as long as the US is repeating the errors of ancient Rome. | ||
| Bob K Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 12167 Registered: 5-2001 |
The issue is that Israel is making little or no distinction between the government of Lebanon and Hezbollah. There has been hundreds of milli8ons of dollars, maybe billions, of damage to their infrastructure that is going to do nothing but increase the power of the radicals. Guess who is going to pay to repair it? Right, Iran and Saudi Arabia and with that gift comes more power. Israel is very good on short term goals. Hezbollah raided into northern Israel, killed a few soliders and captured a couple of more. Israel reacted and probably over reacted. Long term they will have a more hostile neighbor on their border. The interesting part of this is that they were trying to pull a "Kosovo" and basically bomb Hezbollah and Lebanon into submission without having to send in ground troops. Now they are sending in ground troops. | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 718 Registered: 1-2006 |
The light are still on, and electricity flows. In Gaza, the opposite. So, restraint rules. So do over a thousand rockets' red glare. jd | ||
| Nancy - LibraryLady Supporter Username: Librarylady Post Number: 3687 Registered: 5-2001  |
Israel Solidarity Rally July 13, 2006 Remarks by Rabbi Marvin Hier We have come here today to express solidarity with the government and the people of Israel who have been victims of vicious unprovoked attacks from Hezbollah and Hamas. Let us be very clear, this is not a conflict over borders, not about 1967 or 1948. This is about enemies who have one purpose in mind, a Middle East that is Judenrein, free of Jews. For years, the critics of Israel opined that when Israel pulls out of Lebanon and Gaza, when it allows the Palestinians to write their history, to define their own destiny, when they are empowered to rebuild their own economy, then they will devote their energies to peace. Well, Israel pulled out of Lebanon, after guarantees by the international community that the Lebanese government would exercise jurisdiction over its territory and control Hezbollah. But it didn't and look what happened - an unprovoked terrorist attack and the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. In the South, Prime Minister Sharon withdrew from Gaza in a bold attempt to jumpstart the peace process. What was the Palestinian response? They went to the polls and elected Hamas, a terrorist government whose undisputed leader Khaled Meshaal lives in Damascus. Almost immediately, Hamas began firing more then 1,000 rockets at the city of Sderot which is not disputed territory, but an uncontested part of Israel. Day after day, month after month, the rockets fell, but the world watched and did nothing. Hamas felt emboldened and dug a tunnel into Israel, kidnapping Corporal Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier and holding him hostage, but again, the world took no concrete action. However, as soon as Israel acted in defense of her citizens, as any other country would, the criticisms began. A disproportionate response, a form of collective punishment, the sonic booms over Gaza are scarring the Palestinian children. Then following a predictable pattern comes the threat of yet another UN Security Council resolution, placing the majority of the blame at Israel's doorstep. For more than 50 years, this has been the principal failure of the UN's Middle East diplomacy. There is never a price to pay for those who initiate terrorism. It is only those who respond to terrorism that face international condemnation. The time has come for the United Nations to finally recognize that there is no difference between Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. These are the same terrorists, cut from the same cloth, with the same objective of destroying the infidels and bringing down Western Civilization. One final comment - in a conflict, there is always unwanted collateral damage. When the allies responded to Nazi terror, there was no electricity and heat, there were food shortages and long lines in German cities, but the Allies were engaged in a life struggle against evil, and that is the price the German people had to pay for cheering, supporting and glorifying their Fuehrer. The State of Israel did not want this conflict, the terrorists did. And those who idolize them, protect them and support them, have no one but themselves to blame for the current disaster. Today is a public fast day, the 17th day of Tammuz, commemorating the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. Behind me is the remembrance wall with the carved names of the cities and towns destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust and beside us stands a modern menorah, which symbolizes the State of Israel. To Hamas & Hezbollah, we say this, 'Long after you have been defeated, the people of Israel will live on from generation to generation.' | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2564 Registered: 3-2003 |
Thanks for that, Wendy. | ||
| Wendy Supporter Username: Wendy Post Number: 2770 Registered: 5-2001 |
I'd say you're welcome but the above article was brought to you by our friendly librarian. How're the family and friends doing J.Crohn? | ||
| Nancy - LibraryLady Supporter Username: Librarylady Post Number: 3690 Registered: 5-2001 |
Some how being refered to oas our friendly librarian reminded me of Caspar the Friend Ghost. Oh well! Spoke to friends who spoke to friends in Haifa and everyone there is holding it together. The biggest complaint so far is that the safe rooms are a threat to their asthma cause they are dusty from non-use. Hopefully after all this, they will return to that condition. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2565 Registered: 3-2003 |
Wendy, last time I knew, my aunt in J'lem had no email access, so I don't know if she got the message she asked me to send her. I've heard no more news from Israel, but I assume that's a good thing. My friend and her family who were in Beirut are now in a Greek Orthodox enclave with the in-laws, living in their basement and first floor. I assume it's Zahlah, in the Beqaa Valley. Unfortunately, that's where the Syrians moved in, in '82, with surface-to-air missile batteries. The IAF bombed them all to hell. I am of course praying Syria keeps its feet on its own soil this time. International pressure will help. I'm hearing on the radio & TV since last night that Blair and Annan have called for a UN force to take over from Hizballah in S. Leb, along with an Israeli ceasefire. I'm guessing this has occurred with the US's blessing and I hope to G-d there's a chance for it to come about. But I'm not very sanguine. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2566 Registered: 3-2003 |
From Reuters: Yahoo! News Unplugged Bush, Blair speak frankly on Mideast, G8 23 minutes ago A microphone picked up an unaware President Bush saying on Monday Syria should press Hizbollah to "stop doing this ••••" and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle East soon. Bush was talking privately to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a lunch at the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg about an upsurge of violence in the Middle East. Neither immediately realized a microphone was transmitting their candid thoughts on that and other issues. "I think Condi (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) is going to go (to the Middle East) pretty soon," Bush said. Blair replied: "Right, that's all that matters, it will take some time to get that together." Rice said on Sunday she was thinking of going to the region if it would help. However, Rice headed back to the United States after the G8 summit closed on Monday, a State Department spokeswoman said. Blair added: "See, if she (Rice) goes out she's got to succeed as it were, where as I can just go out and talk." Bush replied: "See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this •••• and it's over." While his language was salty, the message from Bush was what it had been throughout the summit -- that Syria is supporting Hizbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon and should force them to stop shelling Israel and return abducted Israeli soldiers. U.S. officials believe that if Hizbollah did so, Israel's military strikes on Lebanon might stop. Bush also seemed to complain about U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan wanting an immediate ceasefire to stop the violence between Israel and Hizbollah. "I don't like the sequence of it," Bush said. "His attitude is basically ceasefire and everything else happens." Blair said: "I think the thing that is really difficult is you can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed." A G8 statement on Sunday suggested the U.N. Security Council should consider an international security and monitoring presence on the Lebanon-Israel border, an idea Blair is pushing. Later, Bush said he felt like telling Annan to telephone Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "and make something happen." "We're not blaming Israel and we're not blaming the Lebanese government," he said. NICE SWEATER The two leaders also appeared to chat about the stalled Doha Round of world trade talks. "I just want some movement," Bush said, to which Blair replied: "It may be that it's impossible." Later, plans were announced for ministers from six key trade powers to meet in Geneva from Monday to try to unblock the talks. Ultimately Blair noticed the microphone and hastily switched it off, but not before the recording had reached news media. In the chummy conversation between long-time allies, Bush teased the British leader about a sweater Blair had apparently given him. "Thanks for the sweater, it was awfully thoughtful of you. I know you picked it out yourself," Bush said. "Oh, absolutely," said Blair. Bush also said that when he next spoke to G8 leaders, he would keep it brief. "I'm not going to talk too long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long. Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight," he said. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2567 Registered: 3-2003 |
Red dots obscure the President's words, which refer to feces. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1039 Registered: 4-2006 |
Nohero- Why don't you teach tulip that one? She seems incredibly philo-semitic. | ||
| Mustt_mustt Citizen Username: Mustt_mustt Post Number: 612 Registered: 8-2003 |
"The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel" Atrocities in the Promised Land By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON former CIA analyst Words fail; ordinary terms are inadequate to describe the horrors Israel daily perpetrates, and has perpetrated for years, against the Palestinians. The tragedy of Gaza has been described a hundred times over, as have the tragedies of 1948, of Qibya, of Sabra and Shatila, of Jenin -- 60 years of atrocity perpetrated in the name of Judaism. But the horror generally falls on deaf ears in most of Israel, in the U.S. political arena, in the mainstream U.S. media. Those who are horrified -- and there are many -- cannot penetrate the shield of impassivity that protects the political and media elite in Israel, even more so in the U.S., and increasingly now in Canada and Europe, from seeing, from caring. But it needs to be said now, loudly: those who devise and carry out Israeli policies have made Israel into a monster, and it has come time for all of us -- all Israelis, all Jews who allow Israel to speak for them, all Americans who do nothing to end U.S. support for Israel and its murderous policies -- to recognize that we stain ourselves morally by continuing to sit by while Israel carries out its atrocities against the Palestinians. A nation that mandates the primacy of one ethnicity or religion over all others will eventually become psychologically dysfunctional. Narcissistically obsessed with its own image, it must strive to maintain its racial superiority at all costs and will inevitably come to view any resistance to this imagined superiority as an existential threat. Indeed, any other people automatically becomes an existential threat simply by virtue of its own existence. As it seeks to protect itself against phantom threats, the racist state becomes increasingly paranoid, its society closed and insular, intellectually limited. Setbacks enrage it; humiliations madden it. The state lashes out in a crazed effort, lacking any sense of proportion, to reassure itself of its strength. The pattern played out in Nazi Germany as it sought to maintain a mythical Aryan superiority. It is playing out now in Israel. “This society no longer recognizes any boundaries, geographical or moral,” wrote Israeli intellectual and anti-Zionist activist Michel Warschawski in his 2004 book Towards an Open Tomb: The Crisis of Israeli Society. Israel knows no limits and is lashing out as it finds that its attempt to beat the Palestinians into submission and swallow Palestine whole is being thwarted by a resilient, dignified Palestinian people who refuse to submit quietly and give up resisting Israel’s arrogance. We in the United States have become inured to tragedy inflicted by Israel, and we easily fall for the spin that automatically, by some trick of the imagination, converts Israeli atrocities to examples of how Israel is victimized. But a military establishment that drops a 500-pound bomb on a residential apartment building in the middle of the night and kills 14 sleeping civilians, as happened in Gaza four years ago, is not a military that operates by civilized rules. A military establishment that drops a 500-pound bomb on a house in the middle of the night and kills a man and his wife and seven of their children, as happened in Gaza four days ago, is not the military of a moral country. A society that can brush off as unimportant an army officer’s brutal murder of a 13-year-old girl on the claim that she threatened soldiers at a military post -- one of nearly 700 Palestinian children murdered by Israelis since the intifada began -- is not a society with a conscience. A government that imprisons a 15-year-old girl -- one of several hundred children in Israeli detention -- for the crime of pushing and running away from a male soldier trying to do a body search as she entered a mosque is not a government with any moral bearings. (This story, not the kind that ever appears in the U.S. media, was reported in the London Sunday Times. The girl was shot three times as she ran away and was convicted to 18 months in prison after she came out of a coma.) Critics of Israel note increasingly that Israel is self-destructing, nearing a catastrophe of its own making. Israeli journalist Gideon Levy talks of a society in “moral collapse.” Michel Warschawski writes of an “Israeli madness” and “insane brutality,” a “putrefaction” of civilized society, that have set Israel on a suicidal course. He foresees the end of the Zionist enterprise; Israel is a “gang of hoodlums,” he says, a state “that makes a mockery of legality and of civil morality. A state run in contempt of justice loses the strength to survive.” As Warschawski notes bitterly, Israel no longer knows any moral boundaries -- if it ever did. Those who continue to support Israel, who make excuses for it as it descends into corruption, have lost their moral compass. Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession. She can be reached at kathy.bill@christison-santafe.com. | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 720 Registered: 1-2006 |
CIA, pure as the summer breeze at a garbage dump. Wrong about everything, all the time. Nothing new here. Over 1,200 rockets have fallen on Israel. Not the military of a moral religion. jd | ||
| Dave Supporter Username: Dave  Post Number: 10155 Registered: 4-1997  |
Looks like she's hawking 2 hateful books. Maybe she and her husband still work for the CIA and sends them their customer list. | ||
| Nancy - LibraryLady Supporter Username: Librarylady Post Number: 3693 Registered: 5-2001 |
From Frontpagemag.. VIPS' ex-member Kathleen Christison, wife of “Bill”, was a CIA “political analyst”, which tells us volumes about why CIA analysis is so often wrong. Incredibly, given what she now writes, she was evidently assigned to analyze developments among “Palestinians” while still at the Agency. Kathleen Christison, quite simply, understands absolutely nothing about the Middle East. Needless to say, neither Christison speaks Arabic or Hebrew, yet on the basis of their two-week travel junkets they claim to be “experts.” A typical proclamation by Kathleen reads: “Before there was terrorism, there was the (Israeli) occupation. Before there was terrorism, there were (Israeli) settlements.” Actually Arab anti-Jewish terror started decades before Israel “occupied” the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, and before there were any “settlements” constructed in those areas. So how could such a person be a Middle East “analyst” for the intelligence service of the world’s only superpower? Kathleen Christison says in her bio that she is today “preoccupied (her word) by the issue of Palestine.” She has published several “books” that are nothing more than anti-Israel pro-terror propaganda screeds, including Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession, both published by the University of California Press, a publishing house that just can’t seem to find enough anti-Israel books to squeeze into its publication schedule. Her “books” got rave reviews from the “Radio Islam” web site, which not only supports bin Laden, but routinely reproduces neonazi and Holocaust Denial materials on its site, including the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” While allied with the world’s most open racists, Kathleen rants that Zionism is a form of racism and that Israel is an apartheid country. Arabs who blow up buses full of Jewish children are NOT racists and certainly not terrorists in the Christison point of view. Kathleen Christison often crosses the line from merely demonizing Israel to smearing all Jews. She claims that all Jews are “self-absorbed” and blames them for not coming out openly in support of destroying Israel. She mocks and derides Jewish leftists who think that, in spite of its faults – real and imaginary, Israel has as much right to exist as other countries. Kathleen will hear nothing of that! Even one of Israel’s leading “post-Zionists” has publicly denounced the Christisons for their anti-Israel bias. The two Christisons are today a husband and wife SWAT team for both the anti-Semitic Far Left and Neonazi Right, although they despise Christian pro-Zionists almost as much as Jews. They are so extremist that even the pro-terror Kroc Institute at Notre Dame University, which tried to sponsor Tariq Ramadan in the US, cut its ties with the duo. Both are regular columnists for Alexander Cockburn’s Counterpunch web magazine. They claim the US is seeking “global hegemony”. They have written that the Bush Administration is governed by “dual loyalties”, that old smear-term applied to Jews, because Israel supposedly controls American foreign policy. They use the term “neocon” as interchangeable with “Jew”. In writing about Jews, the Christisons sound like typical commentators on Holocaust Denial neonazi web magazines: The issue we are dealing with in the Bush administration is dual loyalties-the double allegiance of those myriad officials at high and middle levels who cannot distinguish U.S. interests from Israeli interests, who baldly promote the supposed identity of interests between the United States and Israel, who spent their early careers giving policy advice to right-wing Israeli governments and now give the identical advice to a right-wing U.S. government, and who, one suspects, are so wrapped up in their concern for the fate of Israel that they honestly do not know whether their own passion about advancing the U.S. imperium is motivated primarily by America-first patriotism or is governed first and foremost by a desire to secure Israel's safety and predominance in the Middle East through the advancement of the U.S. imperium. "Dual loyalties" has always been one of those red flags posted around the subject of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict, something that induces horrified gasps and rapid heartbeats because of its implication of Jewish disloyalty. The Christison pair claim to have resigned from VIPS in 2003, a cosmic development that they ceremoniously announced in an article in Counterpunch. Their resignation was, in their own words, explained thus: “We share the disgust of other VIPS members at the aggressive policy direction of this administration and particularly at its distortion and politicization of intelligence. Our disagreement is over methods, not principles….We continue to respect the VIPS organization itself and its purposes.” They claim they were upset by the VIPS call for Cheney to resign, but a far more credible explanation would seem to be be that the Christisons just resented being outshined and upstaged by VIPS’ Ray McGovern. The Christison pair devote themselves to demonizing Israel from their home in Santa Fe and they seem to do little else. They paint Israel as an apartheid state mistreating Arabs, and one would never know from their writings that Arabs in Israel are treated a thousand times better than are Arabs are in Arab countries. They repeat anti-Semitic conspiracy nonsense about how a cabal of Jews has seized control of the United States. They denounced the 9-11 Commission report because it failed to blame the 9-11 attacks on the Jews. Kathleen Christison has turned justifying Palestinian terrorism into an art form. Her “expertise” on Palestinians is based upon having taken a couple of short tours through the region over the years. She constantly plays Orwellian games with words like “terror” and “violence”, so that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip count as “terrorism,” but Palestinians blowing up buses full of Israeli children do not. She is a master of the Orwellian inversion: Israeli retaliations cause Palestinian terror attacks and not the other way around; Israelis run around murdering Palestinian civilians for the heck of it, while Hamas terrorists are merely protesting occupation. It is Israel that is seeking to perpetrate “ethnocide against a powerless people,” and not the other way around. Kathleen insists that Palestinians have the right to use terror because THEIR weapons are mere suicide bombs, whereas Israel loses its right to defend itself because IT actually uses helicopters against the terrorists. Her definition of “terrorism” is flexible, and is constantly adjusted so that Arab and Islamic terror is always legitimized, whereas the only permissible form of self-defense for Israel is to capitulate to terrorist demands. Kathleen claims the PLO has long ago recognized Israel’s right to exist, something that will no doubt surprise the PLO, and that the Palestinian Authority has even supposedly purged all those anti-Semitic images from the Palestinian textbooks that the Christisons are unwilling and incapable of reading. Here is a typical example of Christison “fact checking”: “The ISM (International Solidarity Movement, to which Rachel Corrie belonged) has (never) been associated with terrorism of any sort.” The only Israelis whose right to exist she recognizes are Israel’s extremist far-leftist anti-Zionists, Israel’s equivalents to Noam Chomsky and Ward Churchill. When it comes to smearing Israel, Christison feels not even the tiniest need to stick to facts. And she is incapable of parsing statements she hears from Arab propagandists: “Palestinians in both Palestine and Amman made a point of telling us that Arabs like and respect the American people, have always loved what America stands for, but now hate the U.S. government and its policies. We heard this so often that the message almost became a ritual. It's a sincere message nonetheless.” Sure it is. She insists that the near-suicidal offer from Israel’s leftist Prime Minister Ehud Barak to the PLO at Camp David in 2000 was not a generous offer at all, I guess because it did not involve the immediate annihilation of Israel. Kathleen ran a column devoted to serious discussion of a “report” (meaning a rumor) she heard from an Israeli far-leftist extremist reporter, one who has already been convicted in a court for fabrication (Amira Hass, who is also on record calling for Israel’s elimination), about an Israeli supposedly defecating on a Palestinian photocopying machine. Forget 9-11, folks, the Christisons have discovered a REAL human rights atrocity! This alleged morning dump proves that Israel is an immoral society, opines the same columnist who has never denounced a single Palestinian atrocity against Jewish civilians. Here is her conclusions from this alleged potty incident (one which no other media outfit reported, by the way): “Is it anti-Semitic to wonder what happened to the moral compass of a society that spawns a group of young men who will intermingle their own religious and national symbols with feces and urine, as if the drawings and the excrement both constitute valued autographs? Do they think Israeli •••• is cleaner, holier than anyone else's? Why are my taxes paying for this army? How can Palestinians ever make peace in the face of filth and disrespect like this?” Is it anti-Semitic to conclude that Israel must be destroyed simply because of a rumor that someone crapped on a photocopy machine? You bet it is! The Christisons continue their obsessive interest in the potty functions of Jews, in their newest “Number Two “ commentary in Counterpunch, “Polluting Palestine: The Settlements and their Sewage”. (You can see that the Christisons have not spent much time touring the Middle East if the only pollution they can locate comes from Israelis.) And destruction of Israel, with the inevitable accompanying second Holocaust, is openly what the Christison’s advocate. They do so on Palestinian pro-terror propaganda web sites, where they urge people to think “beyond the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.” They insist there is no room for people claiming they are “neutral” in the Middle East conflict, supporting the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians. The only permissible position is one requiring that Israel be annihilated. Israel is the ONLY country on earth that the Christisons seem to think needs annihilation, although it would not surprise us if one day they were to come out in favor of the elimination of the United States as well. Singling out Israel, of course, should not make anyone suspect that THEY are anti-Semitic, they reiterate while goosestepping their way through the web. Kathleen Christison claims that “Palestinians” were historically denied the attention of American statesmen, no doubt due to Jewish influence, going all the way back to Woodrow Wilson. The great irony of course is that the term “Palestinian” referred to Jews living in the Land of Israel down until 1948, and “Palestinian” Arabs were never regarded by the Arab world as a separate people at all until 1967, when they were Sudetenized and defining them as a “people” turned out to be such a wonderful propaganda bludgeon against Israel. The Institute for Historical Review (IHR) is one of the largest neonazi web sites on earth, and proudly calls itself a site of Holocaust Deniers. Besides serving as cheerleader for deported Canadian nazi Ernst Zundel, it routinely praises and reproduces the work of the Christisons, including their articles denouncing the Jewish “neocons”. IHR routinely dismisses the Holocaust as a myth, denies that German Nazis ever used gas chambers to commit mass-murder, and insists that Auschwitz was never used for mass execution of Jews. It has run Christison articles on the exact same pages calling for demonstrations against the Simon Wiesenthal Center. And IHR is not the only neonazi web site that regular publishes the Christisons. Others include “Liberty Forum”, Stormfront (white supremacists), and web sites claiming that the Jews actually were behind the 9-11 attacks on the US This month, the lead article on the IHR site is a reprint of the Christisons’ article “Travels in Palestine”. The Christisons do not seem to be bothered by the fact that they are so popular on neonazi web sites, and Alexander Cockburn does not seem to mind sharing so many of his columnists with Holocaust Denial web sites. (Needless to say, the Chistisons are NOT the ONLY Counterpunch regulars with ties to neonazi web sites and organizations.) Both Christisons regularly contribute articles not only to Counterpunch, but also to the anti-Jewish and anti-American books edited by Cockburn, which Counterpunch publishes. However, Aljazeera has a much different opinion of her. www.aljazeera.com | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 722 Registered: 1-2006 |
LL: Once was not enough? jd | ||
| Billy Jack Citizen Username: Kendalbill Post Number: 205 Registered: 6-2002  |
Do we change the name of this thread now?? Is 355 posts a "deafening silence"? | ||
| dave23 Citizen Username: Dave23 Post Number: 1875 Registered: 5-2001 |
It's deafening white noise. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1043 Registered: 4-2006 |
mustt_mustt: Why ,you use the same sources as kathleen !  . Gideon Levy is the Palestinians favorite Israeli journalist ( he and Amira Hass) and has been widely reviled in Israel by the public, and his fellow journalists. Not the best Israeli source to use if you want to claim an Israeli journalist can take an "objective", pro-Palestinian view of the circumstances. | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 724 Registered: 1-2006 |
From Captainsquartersblog.com The French want Israel to stop attacking Hezbollah communication lines within Lebanon. It believes that force should only be used "proportionately" in times of war, which explains why they lost to Germany in 1940 despite having a larger army. The great lesson of the last century has been that anyone wishing to win a war should avoid taking advice from France, and it's comforting in a strange way that France has decided to extend that axiom into the 21st century. jd | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1046 Registered: 4-2006 |
Nohero- Sorry I forgot I had a question: Did Neville Chamberlain also sing " Lo yisa goy..."? If you think it applies here.... "oy vey". joel- If the French contribute any troops to an international force in Lebanon ( let us hope this and that does not occur ) what are they going to do, headbutt Hezbollah? |
