100 Most Recent Comments

The death of the two-state solution is “not a high priority issue, no one is going to lead from within.”

That lazy thinking is what has led to debacles in Kabul and Khartoum, not to mention Kyiv. Don’t people in the State Department or the UK Foreign Office ever do risk assessments or scenario planning?

Netanyahu is right! This has happened over time. Quite a period of time in fact. And here’s his slight of hand, “It’s not related to this or that administration in Israel because it happened, it continued under the previous government as well”.

The problem, Mr Netanyahu, is that YOU have also been in charge for quite a period of time too. More than 15 years. Making YOU the longest serving Israeli Prime Minister in history. So, yeah, that makes it YOUR administration’s fault, because, guess what? Those previous governments were also YOUR government during those same 15 years s Prime Minister.

A half decent interviewer would know that and have immediately followed up with this point and said, “Yes. But you have been in power over this same ‘period of time’, so surely you are at the least partly to blame for this decline in support?”

Alas, we have nothing but more softball questions for this lying and smirking sack of excrement and yet another free pass from the compliant and complicit media.

You’re being needlessly provocative to the point of absurdity. You know full well that the cost to Palestinians of the Nakba and the many decades of bloody repression by Israel is vastly greater than the cost to Israel of the Palestinians’ puny responses.

As, obviously, any child could point out: what ‘democratic system’ in Israel? Again, you are well aware that Israel has only ever been a state founded on the supremacy of one group over all others, an arrangement which is undemocratic to say the least. And that comment about two states… You will not have a career as a wit.

a) Evidence?
b) You’re missing the point – the initial use of it is a demonstration of Israel’s intentions and concerns for human rights.
c) The article’s title is “Israel Is Wiping Out Entire Palestinian Families on Purpose”. Does it merit a careful response?

As far as I know, the IDF discontinued the use of white phosphorus after “Cast Lead” in 2009.

Regarding reparations and compensations; given the state of the Palestinian economy, and their dependence on outside assistance, I doubt that they would be able realistically to pay reparations and compensations to Israel. Besides, the Palestinians may come up with their own parallel demands. So there will be endless and futile deliberations, which will ultimately cancel each other. In short; forget about it.
As for “changes to the system” – right now the most urgent priority is to preserve the democratic system in Israel and foil the intentions of the present government to destroy it. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens have been protesting and marching for 16 consecutive weeks , so far. Once that goal has been achieved and hopefully with a different government we should go back to seeking peace with the Palestinians. Clearly the one state solution is dead, it it ever existed. Two states is the only option.

Those changes that could get to a win-win, a workable future for all citizens. To get to living respectfully together in one state.

Thanks for this extremely valuable and hopeful article. It provides a major new frame of reference in which this discussion can take place. It does not answer all the questions, but it provides a perspective from which a new, saner set of questions can be asked, and more just and realistic answers found.

I would expect a large receptive audience for this line of thought outside of Israel, and a small, but important audience inside Israel. Because it offers a clear and significant step forward toward justice.

“Justice, justice shall you pursue.”

Demanding equality would go a long ways to challenge claims of Israeli victimhood. Non-violent resistance would take away justifications for brutality and separation.

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“We constantly have to defend ourselves against terrorism that is aimed against our people and sometimes when that happens you have what’s called ‘collateral damage,’ which means civilian casualties that are unfortunate,” he continued. “They’re not deliberate and that often enables the vilification of Israel to take place.”

Don’t tell me that raining down White Phosphorus on civilians who have taken refuge in a school is “Collateral Damage”.

Israel Is Wiping Out Entire Palestinian Families on Purpose:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2021-05-19/ty-article/gaza-israel-wiping-entire-palestinian-families-hamas/0000017f-eae3-d4cd-af7f-ebfbbb800000

You make some great points in the article.

And when the day of liberation in Palestine comes, Israelis will face a choice similar to that of the French “Pied-Noirs” in Algeria in 1962, when the peace agreement with France was signed: to stay and live as equals or to leave and “go back” to the metropole in France. Algeria was their home, as it was colonized 132 years earlier so most of the “Europeans settlers” were there for several generations, close to double the number of years of the Israeli colonization in Palestine. Many of the Jews in Algeria lived there for more than 1,000 years.

Most of them chose to leave Algeria. They ran away in panic, out of fear of the day their domination would be over. But in fact, there was no real existential threat to them. They left because they were captive in their own colonial identity. In other words, they could not imagine a situation in which they would live in equality with the Algerians. And they paid a huge price for being uprooted from their home due to their own occupier mentality. 

I would like to add that one of the great accomplishments of Zionist myth-making is the ability of Zionist leaders and institutions to rewrite history and shape the narrative to that of constant victimhood. For example, Israeli literature and the education system, repeatedly places Israelis and Zionists through a victim-only paradigm. Events are cherry picked to emphasize victimhood, aggression and offensive attacks, atrocities and massacres are hidden and swept under the proverbial rug.

So the Nakba, despite the brutal reality of it, becomes a myth, the victim — in this case the Palestinians — becomes the aggressor.

And through this alternate world of victimhood, Israelis and Jewish supporters outside the country, accept the dehumanization of Palestinians and any aggression meted against them.

Those Israeli perceptions will somehow need to change over time to facilitate any understanding and find common ground with Palestinians.

The problem is that denial is strong among Israelis. “I realize that ugly things had to be done, but they were a means to and end, and I’m okay with that” is a common statement you’ll hear from Israelis.

How will that change?

What do you mean by “prudent”?

“We have been teaching humanity what it means to be human from the day we started as a people.”

What kind of arrogant bullshit is that?!?

Beyond a system for just reparations and compensations, what changes, beyond equal civil and political rights, are prudent in Israel? What are the changes to the system needed to move beyond the colonial frame and allow liberation and self determination for both peoples?

You can see Einat Weizman here, she narrates a 5 minute video on the Israeli justice system ( I use the term loosely !) “99.7 Convictions”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj4oBLGsGSQ

Thanks for this excellent interview with the very impressive Israeli, Einat Weizman!

Pro-Israel rabbis, lobbyists, and advocacy groups love to rant about “dual-loyalty” tropes being antisemitic and smearing their political enemies with it at every opportunity ad-infinitum.

Yet one of their own goes on like this and says that Israel is “family”, must be supported at all costs, should “not be criticized publicly” for it’s own protection, that “nothing will stop [him] from identifying with Israel, and that “Any Jew who’s going to say something about Israel has to start every single statement with the list of how they love Israel…”

Also worth noting that he claims that public criticism of Israel is dangerous for “the Jewish people”, yet he only seems to express concern about Israel’s safety and not that of other Jewish people.

Wow! Just wow!

This guy is quite literally openly demanding that ALL Jews pledge loyalty to Israel before uttering a single word on the subject and intimating that the interests of Israel are the direct interests of ALL Jewish people. Which is by definition a textbook case of the “dual loyalty” trope in action, Yet where oh where is the ADL, ZOA, AIPAC, and all the other alphabet soup of groups dedicated to fighting antisemitic tropes and blood libels?

Oh, yeah! Dual-loyalty is only a disgusting antisemitic trope when it’s called OUT and not when it’s called FOR. Got it!

Ilhan Omar will begin accepting personal and official public apologies now, thank you.

The speaker is Mika Almog, a writer and activist and granddaughter of the late Shimon Peres.

Anyone familiar with Israeli society understands the significance of this time of year- religious and national holidays and memorial days , one after the other, from Passover to Shavuot:
Passover , including the Seder night, the holiday ,the entire week and the 7th day holiday; the Maimouna on the day after; Holocaust Remembrance Day; Yom Hazikaron (for fallen soldiers and murdered civilians); Independence day; Lag Ba’omer; “Jerusalem Day”; Shavuot.
Not every event is on everyone’s calendar: only religious Jews count the Omer, “Jerusalem Day” is celebrated primarily by the Rightists (and it certainly impacts the Palestinians who are routinely attacked…)
This year Passover coincided with Ramadan and Easter, but this year is different in more ways: this year we are in the midst of an unprecedented crisis and a wave of anti-government, pro-democracy protests. The idea of protesting during the ceremonies honoring our fallen soldiers or during Independence Day ceremonies would have been unthinkable in past years (although last year Bennett was heckled by right-wingers. ) The focus tomorrow will be on Be’er Sheva, where non other than Ben Gvir is scheduled to represent the government and many bereaved families are planning to protest his presence.

One bi-national state may work if both sides can manage to rethink a vision.

Mondoweiss can help.

Excellent. The narrator mentions the lack of a constitution in Israel, I would put that issue closer to the top of the list.

But having a constitution would mean having to really define what it means to be a “Jewish state”, and who wants to do that?

Self-examination is admirable and encouraging for working toward a desirable future. America and the world need it as well.

“Here are Artson’s rules for the road to Jews:… the Jewish people have the right to national self determination…”

Maybe I’ve seen too many Hitler documentaries on Netflix, but whenever I hear about how such and such a ‘people’ have the right to national self determination it gives me the creeps ( recently I saw “Hitler: the Lost Tapes of the Third Reich” – one of the historians interviewed commented on how easily seemingly stable democracies can devolve into fascism ). That’s part of the debate on ( and inside ) Israel: do we want an ethnocracy or a liberal democracy with equal rights for all?

On the present crisis, see this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QMYM3AVOvc&ab_channel=USA4IsraeliDemocracy

Here in the UK, the courageous campaigners of Palestine Action have for several years been attacking the buildings and equipment of Elbit Systems and linked companies, successfully driving it out of Oldham. Danish campaigners for Palestine should take note.

Thank you Jasonius Maximus for detailing the desperate need for both parties to have referendums to achieve a consensus on their future.

Let’s hope the intellectual classes appreciate this need.

IIRC, UNRWA claim 711,000. The real point, however, is that the Nakba would have been just as heinous and just as genocidal even if the Zionist militias had ‘only’ expelled half a million Palestinians in the process of cleansing The Land™ for ethnocracy.

What inflated figures, exaggerations, and mistakes do is not to strengthen the argument, but to provide the hasbaristas an opportunity to question any other facts you may adduce and to challenge your motives.

Gaza is not the most densely populated area in the world; Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is not the longest ongoing military occupation; and the number expelled in 1947-48 is probably lower than a million. To assert otherwise is to shoot oneself in the foot to no discernible gain.

The ‘shared values’ also include acquiring territory by force of arms, justifying torture, besieging populous cities, use of airpower and ‘intelligent’ weapons to target individuals in populated areas, collective punishment, etc., as discussed in my critique of Mearsheimer and Walt.

But they also go deeper than that, as both countries are founded on the basis of racism and genocide, principles that have underlay their actions to this day.

The questions may differ, but the answer is always the same: It depends on ‘context’, basically, who said it and their perceived aims and allegiances.

“The problem, according to Golan, is that “Palestinian Kids & Teenagers are being brainwashed against Israel day and night,” and that this results in “constant violence against IDF soldiers,”…
_____________________________________________________

Now one state is reality, humanist Jews are necessary allies.

The crook knows that he can do anything he wants to, including appointing “proud racists” to a job representing his apartheid nation, and that this racist diplomat will be accepted by the US and the Biden administration. If this had been a Palestinian who had stated he was a “proud racist”, and given this top position in New York, Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL, and others would be howling like wolves about anti-semitism…but here you are, no one seems to mind, not even the media or the US government. Anthony Blinken should be “concerned” for sure, but he will not.

The Progressive and Liberal Jews should accept the fact that Israel has gone from bad to worse, and right now reached a point where the damage cannot be undone. They have no one but their crooked fascist PM to blame for this huge mess, not Iran, not Lebanon, not the Arabs, and not the Palestinians.

“…when you’re a Kahanist, it goes without saying that you want Jewish purity, and it’s not only about wanting African refugees out, it’s also about Palestinians.” With people like Golan, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in Israel’s government it’s time to seriously consider Peter Beinart’s latest essay in Jewish Currents:

https://jewishcurrents.org/could-israel-carry-out-another-nakba

“Could Israel Carry Out Another Nakba?...Expulsionist sentiment is common in Israeli society and politics. To ignore the warning signs is to abdicate responsibility….When Palestinians explain the current government’s agenda, however, many describe the policies advanced by Gottlieb and Ben-Gvir as part of a larger strategy: mass expulsion. In early March, Palestinian anti-occupation activist Fadi Quran told me he felt “like we are at the cusp of another Nakba”—the term that denotes the expulsion of roughly 750,000 Palestinians at Israel’s birth….when Palestinians claim that Israel’s long term goal is not Palestinian statehood but Palestinian expulsion, they aren’t hallucinating. Expulsion is deeply rooted in Zionist history, and the sentiment pervades Israel today, including among politicians and commentators generally viewed as centrists.”

In my view this essay falls into the ‘must read’ category.

Then what’s your estimate?

The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) puts the number at 750,000 to 1,000,000. https://imeu.org/article/quick-facts-the-palestinian-nakba

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Finally, a point about the perennial question regarding  how many Americans “support Israel”. Many polls and studies show that strong majorities of Americans “support Israel” a finding I consider meaningless. Without clarifying, exactly, what “support” means, these results are functionally useless except to raise morale among panicky Zionists. A more meaningful question to ask would be: “Do you support Zionism?” 

The answer to that question would be, at the very least, revealing. 

Question for Any Zionist: Is it antisemitic according to IHRA to suggest that Americans look closely and critically at Congressional and White House claims that the US and Israel share “unbreakable” bonds?

View here 360 posters on the subject of Israeli Independence Day

View here 435 posters on the subject of the Palestinian Nakba

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What can accurately be said about shared values is that in Israel there is a radical, right wing, ultra-nationalistic constituency – Likud, Jewish Power, Religious Zionist Party, Kach and La Familia, among others that closely resembles a similarly radical, racist and xenophobic demographic found in the US: the Tea Party; QAnon; Proud Boys and MAGA Trumpism among others.

One can credibly suggest that Itimar Ben Gvir is Israel’s Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson is America’s answer to Bezalel Smotrich. So much sharing!

We should be well beyond the point where we allow that there ever were, or could be, universally shared values between a messianic, ultra-nationalistic, ethno-theocratic irredentist movement on the one hand and the world’s first, longest running and most mature popular democracy. Events unfolding in Israel as this is written would seem to bear out the problematic nature of American support, even liberal Jewish American support for Israel-as-is.

It would be more honest to say that Israel shares some overlapping similarities to the US governmental model as do scores of other countries. As for the claim that Israel is the “only democracy in the Middle East” this may in fact be accurate but it is also irrelevant given that both Israel and the US have been actively preventing the rise of truly democratic societies in Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, et. al., often via a variety of modalities but always to either maintain the status quo or change it in a preferred direction. Hegemony has its advantages but one cannot arrest all the firefighters and disable all emergency equipment in a city, set fire to its neighborhoods and then complain about the failure of the city government to address the crisis. 
Israel is a democracy in exactly the same way the Confederate States of America was a democracy: true, complete, authentic power was held by one demographic – the white slaveholding class – at the expense of all others, even non-slaveholding whites. And yes, there are progressive, liberal, decent, rational communities in both countries however, their presence does nothing to subvert the fact that the two countries are radically different from one another and becoming more so with each passing day.

(cont.)

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An important essay, belongs on the shelf right next to “The Israel Lobby” by Mearshiemer and Walt not least for its temerity, meticulousness and scholarship. I salute the authors.

I disagree with them however, regarding their position that the US and Israel do not have “shared values”:

The “shared values” argument is the foundation of support for Israel for members of Congress and the Biden administration. It is the argument they use most regularly to justify support of or inaction about Israeli crimes. However disingenuous that may be, it is what the public debate in support of Israel depends on.

And:

The authors of this piece demonstrate that those values are not shared, so the most basic argument for the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel falls to dust.

In my opinion the US and Israel DO share values. Lots of them. 

Consider that Israeli society is obsessed with guns. 

Just like us! 

Israeli parties have elected many fascist, sexist, xenophobic politicians. 

Just like us! 

Many Israel citizens consider themselves exceptional. 

Just like us! 

Israeli military operatives are often involved clandestinely in counterinsurgency, wars, espionage, illegal weapons sales/transfers, political surveillance, kidnapping, etc. 

Just like us! 

Israel’s secret agencies have long played a not-so-secret role in global realpolitik, often criminally swaying election outcomes or effecting “regime change” via hostile ad campaigns, sabotage, assassinations, illicit funding, etc. 

Just like us! 

Israel political parties and Knesset committees are known to manipulate domestic elections, results, votes and media. 

Just like us! 

Powerful religious factions seek to limit the political and human rights of women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ communities as well as progressive student movements. 

Just like us! 

And let’s not forget that Israel does all it can to delegitimize non-violent Palestinian social justice movements for example, BDS. 

Just like us!

SO MANY SHARED VALUES!

(cont.)

over 1,000,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced 

Wow. This number must be subject to inflation.

Hopefully on the agenda will be the political arrangement that will make co-existence in one state desirable.

I mean, in a true democracy, wouldn’t everyone have equal rights?

Citizens and residents certainly would. If the non-resident, non-citizen Palestinians of Judea and Samaria desire residency, citizenship and the associated franchise they should appeal for annexation.

For Palestinians on the West Bank … require a permit

The Palestinian Authority controls building permits in Areas A&B.

We’ve all seen those “science is real” lawn signs ( Black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, etc). Well, some enterprising soul should start selling a new sign for the front yard:

The Nakba was real and is still happening.
Judaism is not the same as Zionism.
Judaism is a religion, not a state.
Palestinians are not Nazis. **
Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are all one country.
It’s an apartheid country.

** https://www.972mag.com/israeli-right-palestinian-nazi/

The problem with the Two State Solution charade, is that despite an near infinite amount of lip service, absolutely none of the parties involved have made any tangible or official commitment to it. So it reality, no matter how “aspirational” they claim it to be, the hard fact is that right now (as has been for more that half a century) it is a Single Apartheid State between the river and sea.

The old saying “Put Up or Shut Up” has never been more apt. If the US doesn’t want Israel to be the Supremacist Theocratic Apartheid state that it is and has been for decades, then it has a responsibility to CHANGE that, not just talk about it. That means action, laws, diplomatic, political, and financial pressure until that goal is realized.

If the Israeli people don’t want to be the Supremacist Theocratic Apartheid state that it is and has been for decades, then they too need to demand CHANGE, not just mumble about it under their breath while living their life of entitled entho-racial privilege.

As imperfect and exclusionary as the system was, at least Apartheid South Africa held a referendum for the people to choose their future and end Apartheid and racial discrimination and inequality. The people most responsible for maintaining Apartheid got the chance to decide if they wanted more of the same or change. They chose to end Apartheid.

Israelis and Palestinians desperately need a similar referendum. It’s already a single Apartheid state, the people must now chose whether to officially divorce and split in two as envisioned at Israel’s founding or “tear down the wall” and have an inclusive single secular state with equal rights and representation for all under one government and one law.

Leaders and politicians can’t do it for them, because their ultimate goal is not solutions or even the future of their respective nations, it’s about power, money, influence, greed, and control.

The Two State illusion is nothing more than trying to avoid this choice and have it both ways, while ignoring the simple fact that is already only one way right now and that’s undemocratic Apartheid.

To get to a healthy future, the realists from both sides should develop bonds and work together. Both need to call out their obstructionists.

The original PLO call was for one state. Abbas has said if there was no progress toward two states, one state would be the future.

Needed are ideas on what kind of constitution or political arrangement could work?

For Palestinians on the West Bank, building a new wing on the public library, or any other new construction or reconstruction, or even road repairs require a permit that the occupation authorities almost always refuse to issue.

“A better U.S. policy would advocate for equality, citizenship, and human rights for all Jews and Palestinians living within the single state dominated by Israel.”

I doubt this would fly with the Palestinians who if not now will soon be a majority. The idea of equality is a good one but in reality, the Israeli’s would continue on as if it never happened. They would win votes that continue their supremacy over the Palestinians. The only real way to come to a solution is for the US to threaten to withdraw all funding for Israel No more bombs, no spare parts for jets and equipment. Nothing. Then maybe they will have to negotiate a real peace. In reality, the US will continue to support this apartheid regime and continue down the wrong path until the West Bank is treated like Gaza. Hamas as one may recall is the real elected government. Israel will annex all they can and the just as corrupt Palestinian state will be comprised of small enclaves. There is no hope unless Israel is willing to give some, cease their desire for a country from the river to the sea, plus much of Jordan and Syria. As a military might in the region they will continue to take and not give an inch. Iran will be nuked and it will be goodby to all of us for this little state who thinks the world owes them all. There is no longer a two state solution that is viable. One state?

This despairing article offers the poor of Gaza nothing. Where is the call for working class solidarity between Gazans, Israelis and internationally? Where is the revolutionary socialism which would upend the entire economy in favour of those who create the wealth rather than those who currently take what Palestinian workers create – a few Palestinians, wealthy Israelis, international corporations? Relying on an annual religious festival to support a family the whole year round is no more realistic than someone here in the UK relying on Christmas or Easter to bring in enough for the year. Also, Gaza and the West Bank appear to have widely divergent levels of prosperity, which this piece doesn’t even mention:

Over 2011-17, a divergence in poverty trends at the regional level widened the gap in living standards between the  two Palestinian territories. By 2017, poverty in Gaza had climbed to 53%, while the rate in the West Bank fell to  13.9%, though the decline was largely restricted to urban households. Consequently, the Palestinian poor became  more concentrated in Gaza (71% in 2017, compared to 57% in 2011).

Gaza was effectively reduced to a safety-net state, with over 75% of its households relying on some form of social  assistance in 2017. Gaza’s population is over 50% poor, and its unemployment rate surpasses 40%. Combined with  a nearly universal lack of access to reliable water and electricity services and restrictions on access to medical  services outside the region, the current situation in Gaza is widely recognized as a humanitarian crisis (World Bank,  2018). In the period from 2011-17, a majority of households in Gaza accessed government or non-governmental  social assistance in every expenditure quintile except the richest. This aid accounted for nearly 30% of expenditures  among the poor and for close to a quarter of consumption expenditures, on average, across all quintiles. 

(West Bank and Gaza: Poverty and Shared Prosperity Diagnostic 2011-2017, World Bank, 2018)

(Part 2 of 2)

The latter treated it as if it were a liability in some way.

Did you even read that post by Phil from 2016? Phil was writing about how, judging from the content of the Atlantic’s announcement of the Goldberg hire, it seemed that the Atlantic was trying to hide the Jewish focus of Goldberg’s reporting career, even going as far as not to mention his only published book, and it looked to Phil as if the Atlantic did that because the Atlantic thought of it as some kind of liability.

I like to read Phil for his insights into the media business, because he knows this business inside and out, and knows how to read between the lines in an announcement by a media company. If you can respond to what Phil actually wrote, while showing that you understand the points he’s trying to make, then be my guest. From what you’re writing here, I don’t think you even understood it.

(Part 1 of 2) jrg:

In the first place, if Juan Gonzalez’ new employer makes a point of calling attention to his ethnicity, that would be of questionable legality; it could be setting him up to inhabit a hostile work environment.

Oh really, it “would be of questionable legality” for an employer to announce the fact that new hire Juan Gonzalez is a former president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (which he was)? And what law would that go against? According to you, the law against “setting him up to inhabit a hostile work environment.” Because his workplace colleagues might not take it kindly that the new guy specializes in Hispanic issues? Or because they’d resent that the boss announces this fact to the public, and they’d take it out on Juan? You’ll have to explain where the hostility might come from.

Do you understand why it seems to me that your argument makes no sense?

In the second place, I’m not so much concerned about what Juan Gonzalez’, or Jeffrey Goldberg’s, or Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s, or Demetrius Smith’s new employer says about their race or ethnicity as I am about what third parties such as Mondoweiss say about it. Goldberg was treated differently because he is Jewish: By Mondoweiss.

The reason why Mondoweiss (specifically Phil) was writing about Jeffrey Goldberg in this instance is that it was commenting on the announcement by his new employer. You say “Goldberg was treated differently because he is Jewish: By Mondoweiss.” Treated differently compared to whom or what? Compared to those other reporters (Gonzalez, O’Shaughnessy, Smith) in those hypothetical situations? When did Mondoweiss write about anything like those? I do not know what comparison you’re making to whatever else you’ve read on this site.

Imagine having the ADL’s support for an equality campaign by Israeli citizens.

Let’s hope the clear and present opportunities opening up will be recognized and cultivated by both sides.

“Your point, as I understand it, is that if Juan Gonzalez, for example, gets a new job, and his new employer makes an announcement about his hiring that includes some reference to his being Hispanic, then that’s perfectly fine, but if the new hire is Jeffrey Goldberg, who has made a career of writing about issues of particular interest to American Jews, then his employer should not mention that fact, because it would draw “criticism of the kind that casts a shadow” on all Jews. Do I understand you correctly?” No. In the first place, if Juan Gonzalez’ new employer makes a point of calling attention to his ethnicity, that would be of questionable legality; it could be setting him up to inhabit a hostile work environment. In the second place, I’m not so much concerned about what Juan Gonzalez’, or Jeffrey Goldberg’s, or Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s, or Demetrius Smith’s new employer says about their race or ethnicity as I am about what third parties such as Mondoweiss say about it. Goldberg was treated differently because he is Jewish: By Mondoweiss. The latter treated it as if it were a liability in some way.

whether it is morally justifiable given the growing toll on the bodies of Palestinian civilians – women, children, men – who weren’t asked whether they are happy to provoke the IDF into killing or injuring them in response to that violence.

This…

There is no difference between Bennett and Netanyahu. All the major political parties in Israel support apartheid.
As for the killing of civilians, how many of the hundred plus Palestinians killed YTD by the IDF and their paramilitary wing (the West Bank settlers) were civilians? The answer is many.
The War Crimes calculus does not favor the zionist side of an argument about this long and deadly occupation of Palestine.

Holy cow, the ADL’s 2022 report on anti-semitism has comments on Jewish racism!

https://cst.tau.ac.il/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Antisemitism-Worldwide-Report-for-2022.pdf

This year saw the former disciples of the late racist Rabbi Meir Kahane, who introduced Nazi-
like legislation to the Knesset, enter government. In an earlier report, we wrote that Israeli
governments were always reserved in their engagements with European parties with fascist
roots and that Israeli political parties with similar roots cannot be expected to be treated
differently by other governments. Since then, members of the Jewish Strength party have
polluted Israeli public discourse with chilling racist expressions that would have led to the
immediate termination of their political careers in other democracies. The obvious must be
stated: Racism is racism, and Jewish racism is as deplorable as other forms of racism, and
should never be excused or tolerated.

“… Netanyahu’s impact on support for Israel” – well…

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/us/politics/israel-democrats-jews.html

“Israel’s Right-Wing Government Has Jewish Democrats at a Loss...Mr. Netanyahu this week nominated May Golan, a far-right member of Parliament allied with Mr. Ben-Gvir, to become Israel’s consul general in New York, a move that immediately yielded criticism. Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, wrote that Ms. Golan’s nomination, if it occurred, “will be seen by the American Jewish community as a sign of utmost disrespect” and suggested that the Biden administration should reject her appointment…For American liberals, the Netanyahu government’s push to overhaul the judiciary came on top of the marginalization of liberal parties in Israel, despair in Gaza and the absence of progress toward Palestinian autonomy and equal rights.
“I’ve been to the region three times in the last 10 years, and without question, this is the worst it’s been,” said Representative Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin and one of a growing member of House Democrats willing to criticize Israel openly.”

Nice work, Amna! About time someone representing the Left had the guts to call out this lying hypocrite. Let it be th start of a genuine sea change. About 50 years too late but better late than never.

Well, first it must surely be vital to consider not just the obvious, longstanding and probably permanent ineffectiveness of violent resistance at its current level, but also whether it is morally justifiable given the growing toll on the bodies of Palestinian civilians – women, children, men – who weren’t asked whether they are happy to provoke the IDF into killing or injuring them in response to that violence.

Another ethical point common to all resistance to oppression is what is permissible: we see recently violent attacks on civilian settler colonists using guns and, in one case, a vehicle (which was disturbingly similar to fascist attacks in the USA) which kill civilians. If that is okay, what next when those killings make no difference? Will the militants take a leaf out of the book of, say, the Chechen Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade of Martyrs who perpetrated the Beslan school siege in 2004, and attack an Israeli school? History shows the wasted lives and futility of the PLO’s tactic of hijacking airliners.

As most socialists know, there is really only one way forward, the one which brought down the Russian Tsarist regime in 1917: mass organisation of the working class for a revolution. Religious sectarianism motivating small groups of fighters will not achieve anything worthwhile in any situation. International, individual liberal support for the various Palestinian campaigning organisations has not moved the Israeli state anywhere but rightwards, if we compare its compositional changes over the last few decades. So the international Left must provide whatever is needed to help Palestinian socialists organise their own working class in persuading the Israeli working class that it must join them in a mass movement to overthrow the apartheid state. That’s highly controversial in the pro-Palestinian movement, but nothing else can do it.

“Legal by whose determination, though?”

That was truly well played! In volleyball terms it’s called the ‘set and the spike’.

Bennet walked right into that one thinking, like a good little girl in US media, she’d just move right along after his feckless little lie about Palestinian’s being allowed to vote for their own leaders and “govern themselves”, clearly not expecting her to make a point about EXACTLY whose “laws” are being applied in the West Bank and the Palestinians in regards to evictions and home demolitions, and who gets to vote for that government that makes and enacts those same laws.

The irony, is that it doesn’t really take that much to expose the bullshit these Israeli leaders spew every single day. The slightest of scratching at the surface or even just following up with a half thought out question is usually enough. Far too often the US media just rolls over and lets them drive the conversation, duck difficult questions, or leave their propaganda out there hanging in the air unchallenged, as they briskly move along to easier softball questions.

The likes of Bennet, Netanyahu, Regev, Danon and all the other usual suspects rolled out onto US news have had it waaaaay too easy for waaaay too long. They’ve been treated with kid gloves and think that, despite being born on third base, every one of their easily refuted Hasbara talking points to shut down the conversation is like hitting a triple.

Bennett is a hasbeen. Poor politician, poor prime minister, poor everything. Not going anywhere soon. No value to what he said or didn’t say. Waste of time.
As for the interviewer, I hope that when she interviews Palestinians, that she asks them if killing mothers, brothers and sisters, as has been happening in Israel recently, is acceptable. I look forward to seeing such programs, and your commentary on them. Keep up the good work.

While you make some good points, the question is what else is there to do? We can sit on our comfortable armchairs and suggest what they should or should not do, but we have no idea what these poor Palestinians have gone through for decades, nor how they suffer on a daily basis. We cannot expect them to smile and take this humiliating and sadistic treatment for more decades. They have tried peaceful means to protest, and STILL dozens were killed by IDF snipers. PEACEFUL PROTESTS HAVE NOT WORKED SO FAR, SO WHAT ELSE CAN THEY DO?

The US, UK, and the EU are DOING NOTHING TO MAKE SURE THEY GET THEIR FREEDOM OR RIGHTS.

When you see most of your lands being stolen, thousands and thousands of illegal homes being built after your homes were seized and bulldozed, have your water, olive trees, even soil, being stolen, and see terrorist settlers attack your homes, kill families, olives being stolen, and know the savagery never stops, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO DO? They are after all human, and there is only so much human beings can take. The apartheid nation has got away with murder for too long, and western nations keep enabling them.

It must be clear to many Palestinians that violent resistance – cathartic and desperate – is a dead end for any long-term solution. The Palestinian militants are poorly-armed and few. If we compare them to, say, the French resistance in WWII, that was a much larger force which was well supplied by an external government, the UK. All that is achieved by killing members of the IDF and civilian settler-colonists is to repeatedly bring down massive retaliation which harms non-militant Palestinians. Perhaps that is the cynical point, but it is not one which seems likely to succeed if the goal is a new nation: democratic, secular, free and socialist.

Yonah, when Phil said “The word Jew made no appearance in the Atlantic announcement“, I interpreted it to mean that the derived word “Jewish” didn’t appear in it either, and Phil judged that it would have been excessively pedantic to say “The word ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish’ or ‘Jews'”. The fact that he didn’t put “Jew” in quotation marks suggests to me that he wasn’t aiming for extreme rigor in this writing.

jrg:

Jeffrey Goldberg’s views are not necessarily those of all Jewish Americans

I had no intention to suggest that they were. I certainly didn’t think that; I’m not that stupid.

There are African American, Latino American, Irish American journalists et al who to a greater or lesser extent advocate for the interests of their ethnic communities, but they do not draw criticism of the kind that casts a shadow on everyone of their ethnicity (“Just as it makes sense to talk about “the most powerful X reporter in the country” where we can substitute any other demographic group for X.”), nor should they.

Your point, as I understand it, is that if Juan Gonzalez, for example, gets a new job, and his new employer makes an announcement about his hiring that includes some reference to his being Hispanic, then that’s perfectly fine, but if the new hire is Jeffrey Goldberg, who has made a career of writing about issues of particular interest to American Jews, then his employer should not mention that fact, because it would draw “criticism of the kind that casts a shadow” on all Jews. Do I understand you correctly? If so, I think you’re agreeing with Phil more than you’re disagreeing with him: your disagreement with Phil is just that Phil thinks that a summary of a reporter’s career should include the reporter’s ethnicity if that reporter has had an ethnic focus; you agree with him when it comes to “African American, Latino American, Irish American journalists et al“, but you think an exception should be made for Jews.

If a Jewish American figure acts that way, though, he is treated differently. If his Jewishness doesn’t explain that, what does?

That was Phil’s point: Goldberg was treated differently because he is Jewish. Now I don’t understand your disagreement with Phil.

Since PBS is at least partly funded by the public, I have long hoped that the PBS Newshour would lead the way in breaking through the corporate media’s thick blanket of censorship regarding Israel. My thanks and congratulations to Amna Nawaz for her courage and integrity in punching the first hole in that wall!

Can’t think of another right off, either Israeli or Palestinian. Perhaps Israel Shahak, Miko Peled, Issam Sartawi. Israelis still believe the goal is destruction and Palestinians see building bridges as “normalization”, some identify as treachery. Those dikes are ready to give way.

Yassin is especially relevant as he was a founder of Hamas and came to understand the futility of violence. We keep seeing evidence the world is getting there too. Its become reasonably clear, bullets, especially “outside a one-gun policy”, are not going to work.

How could bullets get to the politics of living in one state?

It’s ironic that the response to the question about the Gallup poll was that Israel needs to do a better job of bringing the reality — the “beautiful reality” (he speaks like Trump) — to the American viewer.
 
Meaning, Israel needs to double down on the propaganda it peddles through the Israel Lobby and various interest groups, and apply more financial and political pressure than ever before.
 
The runny nosed propagandist attempted to use the interview to market Israel as a tourist destination, some beautiful, flourishing, friendly democracy. “It’s not about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
 
Sure it isn’t. It only came into existence on the BACKS of Palestinians, by stealing their land and driving them out by force.
 
Watch Farha on Netflix for a glimpse into how Israel drove out the indigenous Palestinians from their own lands in 1948.
 

 Bennett claimed that apart from Israeli “security” concerns, Palestinians have “full freedom.”

 
I need a few pages to break down the spin and lies he peddled in that interview.
 
Even excluding the occupied territories in which Israel keeps installing colonies, in contravention with international law, it is STILL not a democracy by any western definition of the word.
 
And it is NOT a democracy because there are LAWS, on the books, that clearly discriminate against Non-Jews. Such laws would be considered undemocratic in any western democracy.
 
Any non-Jew can be arrested and placed under Administrative Detention, a British-era law that allows the state to imprison a person without Due Process, without bringing charges against them. Sometimes the state claims that it possesses “secret evidence”.
 
There is also the ironically-named Law of Return, a law that allows any Jewish person, from anywhere, to move to Israel and instantly become a citizen is another law that is undemocratic. No Christian, no Muslim, no Buddhist can do that.
 
And if you move to one of the colonies in the occupied West Bank or Jerusalem, the Israeli government will give you vouchers and subsidies, to encourage you to break International Law and violate it. Why? Because it deems it its biblical right.

Progress, yes … though note that at the beginning, Amna Nawaz implicitly accepts the Israeli invention that East Jerusalem is not occupied.

Institutional racism can fall and civil rights achieved once it is resolved one secular state is a the way forward.

Both sides will benefit to hear and have discussions and dialog about a future in one state.

America is ready.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOt50G8XzaM

“Zionists simply use Judaism to advance their own political agenda.” Intriguing. What is nature of the Zionist agenda that is independent of Judaism?

RoHa, so that could be a good point to make in a discussion with religious Zionists, who w base their position on God’s promise.

Saying that the Palestinians in the West Bank govern themselves ( as Bennett did ) is like saying that the residents of Podunk, Iowa govern themselves: yes, the citizens of Podunk can decide on the garbage pickup schedule and whether or not to build a new wing on the Podunk public library, but state and federal laws supersede any decisions they may make. And if the citizens of Podunk had to pass through dozens of military checkpoints to travel from the west side of town to the east, no one would have any illusions about the situation.

Does Bennett think Americans are idiots?

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BHHS might also do the Jewish students who were said to have been made uncomfortable a real service by inviting them to share, in some forum of their choice – classroom discussion, writing project, Zoom, or as part of the “diversity and equity” program their interpretations of Ms. Arraf’s presentation. It would be useful to know if they were put at unease because they thought the history presented painted a false accounting of Zionist history…or an accurate one. Asking the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students how the presentation, and its reverberations, affected them would also be appropriate. No school should be in the business of protecting its charges from the truth, be it about Zionism, Palestine, slavery, women’s rights, Manifest Destiny or any other element of American or world history.

Demanding apologies, punishing the sponsoring educators, acting in secret, declaring the topic off limits, while doing all in your power to delegitimize the Palestinian narrative are the tactics of organized, political Zionism, not progressive American pedagogy.

The late Supreme Court judge, Justice Louis Brandeis, famously wrote: “If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

(Whitney v. California – 1927)

There is time and BHHS should seize the opportunity to begin to right the wrong it has done to the Palestinian people. Now.

Question for Any Zionist: Is it antisemitic according to IHRA to suggest that the authentic history of political Zionism is a legitimate subject for inclusion in American high school curricula?

View here 541 Palestine posters on the subject of hasbara and Zionist propaganda

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Does a  historically-established animosity exist between the victim’s and the offender’s groups?

(Version 2.0, 2/27/2015 – page 6)

Because the answer is yes, BHHS was obligated to learn about those antagonisms, in depth, and incorporate them into the school’s response. BHHS did not do so. Instead, it took sides acting with bias by choosing to privilege one narrative over the other. Not a very good civics lesson to present to American high school students.  

BHHS is not alone in its cowardice. Mondoweiss and Palestine Legal regularly report on numerous, almost predictably similar, anti-democratic events. Many of which, like BHHS, hide behind coy proceduralism, for example claiming that Ms. Arraf went beyond “our agreed upon parameters” when she “discussed her personal political perspective”. The DOJ/FBI questionnaire would have asked if she did so spontaneously or in reply to a question from a student. 

The point of all the coverage this event received in the Zionist press is not difficult to ascertain. It is to deny the Palestinian perspective the opportunity to be normalized in the public discourse.

BHHS now shares the same self-inflicted dishonorable status as the Harvard Kennedy School owing to the now much-regretted decision of Dean Douglas Elmendorf to discriminate against a renowned Middle East scholar, Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth.

It did not have to be this way. BHHS, as an educational institution, could have chosen to turn this matter into a learning/teaching moment. Rather than smear the participants and suspend the principal, BHHS could have chosen to sponsor scholastically sound, school-based alternatives such as having: the debate society address the issues involve; the history department expand it readings; encouraging the IB program to adopt the Palestine/Israel issue as an acceptable topic; sponsoring a wider range of speakers and presenters; the art department host an art exhibit on any aspect of the matter of interest to the students. Etc. 

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MAD respect … Huwaida and Palestine Legal!

Memo to the Bloomfield Hills High School (BHHS): 

You’ve been played. 

But don’t worry, you are not the only ones. 

How were you played? Partly owing to your own naivete and partly owing to your own cowardice you were tricked into thinking that it was in your best interests to serve as a political proxy for domestic American Zionism. 

It appears to me, and I invite you to correct me if you think I am misled or mistaken, that you allowed yourselves to be intimidated by the fear of being labeled “antisemitic”. BHHS surrendered its critical thinking faculties and debased its professional standards by choosing to privilege politically-driven, and unverified, accusations in direct support of an alien nation, Israel. 

The JCRC and ADL have no real qualifications to evaluate Ms. Arraf’s presentation impartially. They are intrinsically biased towards Zionism and against Palestinians. 

A perfect parity exists between the political rights of the people who supported Ms. Arraf’s presentation on the one hand and those who attacked it on the other. Ignoring that equivalency, or perhaps even rejecting it, BHHS took sides. 

BHHS chose to use its discretionary administrative powers  to advantage one group, those who support the “pro-Israel” narrative to the detriment of those who support the “pro-Palestine” narrative. By taking sides BHHS put itself on the wrong side of history.

By acting against its reputational interests it did real damage to the name and standing of the Bloomfield Hills High School (BHHS). 

Thanks to its decision, BHHS has joined a lamentable list of academic, political and corporate institutions that have betrayed their obligations to serve the interests of their American communities by acting out of fear of a racist, Islamophobic and cynical definition of antisemitism – “IHRA”. 

BHHS must not for a moment consider its response honorable: Quite the opposite. 

BHHS  may test the impartiality of its decisions in this matter very simply: Just answer a single question from the Department of Justice/Federal Bureau of Investigation’s
Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines and Training Manual and decide for itself whether or not its decision can in any way be considered fair or impartial:

Can you give us an example of an Israeli equivalent of Sheik Yassin’s conversion to non-violence?

“The youth took up arms because no alternative path was found to liberate themselves from enslavement.”
____________________________________________________

Now that two states are implausible, there must be found a way to live together. That requires a political path the intellectual classes will have to debate, develop and articulate. Sheik Yassin came to believe a desirable future would not be possible using bullets. That a stand down, a Hudna, was needed to allow for the process of sorting out how to make living together work.

Another reason that young Muslims stay at al-Aqsa overnight is that, during the holy month of Ramadan especially, Israel routinely blocks men under the age of 40 from traveling to, entering, and praying at the holy site. Which is not only a form of arbitrary collective punishment, but a violation of basic religious freedom, and a violation of the status quo at the site. You never hear this in the mainstream media of course, not until radical Israelis have stormed the compound or Israeli police have invaded with teargas, batons, rubber bullets, and unwarranted arrests and then reported the shameless violation during the holiest month as “clashes”.

The media also does a “fantastic” job of failing to report on the other many disruptions and violations of religious freedom and expression around Jerusalem against the Christian population and at their places of worship over the same time during Easter.

Oh, no! Can’t have the American people seeing how the Ultra Right-wing Jewish Supremacist Apartheid State of Israel treats others during one of the holiest months of the year, escalating the situation to the breaking point and then playing the victim themselves and screaming “self-defense” the minute they’ve stirred up enough outrage and retaliation for their sickening behavior. The mainstream media jumps into action with the “both-side-isms” and the US government plays along with perfect time too, calling for “calm, deescalation, and restraint from BOTH sides” and Israel’s “Right to Defend Itself® ”.

Religious zealotry is pretty common these days, as it has been for quite a few thousand years. It’s not restricted to Zionists – who apparently used to be generally quite secular – and it seems to abound in the Occupied Territories, too. One outcome was the decision by the PA in 2004 to make abortion illegal in pretty much all circumstances, making the OPT the kind of place that the US Republicans and Christian Right are attempting to replicate. LGBT+ Palestinians have a pretty difficult time, too, from news reports of murders and assaults.

This naturally raises the question of what kind of society a single state Israel/Palestine would be. Would the imams get to rule? Or would it be a democracy? Neither apartheid Israel nor the current state of things in the OPT (which are not all generated by Israel) looks appetising to this transgender socialist.

Perhaps I’m wrong. Someone put me straight (not literally).

Last U.S. administration to really challenge Israel’s persistent illegal and destructive expansion of illegal and immoral settlements.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-02-25-9201180232-story.html

Here’s what Amira Hass says regarding armed struggle in an interview with Alex Kane: “Those who claim that this will liberate Palestine are deceiving themselves and others, but all other ways of struggle have totally failed: popular unarmed struggle, diplomacy, and lawsuits.”

Powerful article and visuals. Thank you Mariam Barghouti and Mondoweiss.

Make a difference…. forward to Members of Congress.

Mooser used to point this out quite often. He also said that the Jews did break the laws, and so have no right to the land.

In 1967 Israel went on to destroy an entire neighborhood to create the so-called Western Wall “plaza”, just west of the Western Wall:

https://www.jerusalemstory.com/en/article/destruction-jerusalems-moroccan-quarter-centuries-old-maghrebi-community-western-wall

West Jerusalem’s Jewish mayor at the time, signed off on the order:

“On June 10, Kollek went to the wall with a small group of historians, architects, and archeologists, and the deputy military governor of Jerusalem. Clearly, their collective expertise would have allowed them to be mindful of the significance of the Moroccan Quarter and its legal status. They decided to demolish the whole quarter and, while standing there, signed a “scrap of paper”47 with the areas for demolition marked out with two big Xs. They explicitly noted “al-Buraq Mosque” and “the Tomb of the Shaikh” for demolition, showing that they were fully aware of the existence of these two holy sites.48“

The article contains a link to a Haaretz article about Moshe Sharett’s comments about the trashing of churches during the 1948 war of independence, and it is worth reading ( delete Ha’aretz cookies if you have trouble getting access ):

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-01-23/ty-article/.premium/sharetts-censure-of-soldiers-who-desecrated-churches/0000017f-dbfa-d3a5-af7f-fbfee7fa0000

“Moshe Sharett decried troops’ vandalizing Christian holy sites in 1949, telling lawmakers that such events could tarnish the fledgling state’s international image. Seventy years later, his exact remarks are still classified….The exact quote is still forbidden for publication, but transcripts that documented things Sharett said about the same issue and during that same period in other forums enable a nearly exact reconstruction of it. The issue at hand was acts of vandalism committed by soldiers of the fledgling Israel Defense Forces in churches during the War of Independence. Sharett defined the phenomenon as “abuse of the holy that is fit for savages and not members of the Jewish people.” Moreover, he said, they constitute a “disgraceful page full of filth” in the history of Israel. He compared the state, under the auspices of which these deeds were carried out, to “Caesar, who initially behaved like some savage evildoer, a drunkard who destroys and desecrates.” “

( no doubt our colleagues at Hasbara U will point out that war is rough! )

Jewish supremacists emboldened by their government doing NOTHING to hold them accountable, and their hate filled brains telling them they are entitled to behave like uncivilized human beings, because they are superior to all others. Unfortunately these ugly scenes will result in more anti semitism in many parts of the world. It is time groups like the ADL and others who are outraged about anti semitism, should start focusing on other causes too. They seem to ignore those whose hate filled crimes against Christians and Muslims, gives cause to more antisemitism around the world, and demand they stop these hate crimes. A good example of cause and effect here.

Land and property deeds are often forged allowing Zionist Israeli Jews to take over Palestinian land and property.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/israeli-government-creates-fake-deeds-170300066.html

Similarly, Palestinians in the Old City of Jerusalem, both Christian and Muslim alike, face constant harassment at the hands of Jewish Zionist colonists. They move in, often through deceitful fraudulent means, then throw trash at Palestinians who live below.
The problem became so endemic that Palestinians erected and installed in place wire nets to prevent the trash and garbage from reaching street level, where they walk.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/settlement-expansion-in-the-occupied-west-bank-part-1-unjust-pasts-and-interrupted-futures/

The Israeli government, supports the ever-expanding land grab, in its attempts to “Judaize” the entire land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

In Jerusalem’s Old City, the Israeli government wants to change the status quo, by doing what it has done in Hebron, ultimately giving Jewish religious zealots free reign to dictate to the Palestinian majority how their daily lives should be.

Indyk talks about reestablishing deterrence, when Israel is the provocateur, as it often is. I find this very problematic, as it feeds the ‘self-defense’ argument, which undergirds the Israeli argument for occupation. In my view the self-defense story is disastrous—it’s the all-purpose justification for anything and everything Israel does. I don’t think Indyk gets that, even though I consider him to be decent and well meaning. It’s just that his default position, even when critical, is reflexively the Israeli point of view.”

The point of spin is to sound decent. Otherwise, it would fall on deaf ears. The point of propaganda, is to appear, on the surface, to be even handed.

But Zionism and its defenders like to pretend that they are always the egg in the Chicken vs. Egg history of the the land, always the underdogs, always the victims, always the resourceful entrepreneurs who made the dessert bloom, and who were there two millennia ago before indigenous Palestinians ever came to be.

If the same social and moral rebuke that is applied to Holocaust deniers were applied to those who deny the existence of the Palestinian people, with inherent rights to self-determination, there would be no conflict in the region in question.

But hypocrisy is the name of the game in western politics. Europe, for example, likes to claim it is the bastion of human rights, except of course when it sends riot police to beat up helpless refugees washed up ashore. White Ukrainian refugees-good, everyone else-bad. They handed Ukrainian refugees food, toys, clothes, even strollers at the border. When African STUDENTS studying in Ukraine arrived at the border, they were sent away. That’s Europe in a nutshell. And Germany is now so eager to make up for Nazi crimes that it is acting as a fascist nation against Palestinians.

Jews don’t even factor into Zionism. Zionists simply use Judaism to advance their own political agenda.

First you’ve got Zionists descending on historical Palestine under the cover of the British empire, beating Palestinians with clubs and when Palestinians in historical Palestine said “Wait a minute, you can’t do that”, Zionists cried antisemitism. That’s what the last 100 years boil down to.

It’s tired propaganda. It’s old tropes that simply do not sway anyone anymore but the ignorant and intellectually lazy.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-anti-zionism-anti-semitism

It’s a matter of the use of words, but I think many people would consider ‘Xian land’ to be justified by the presence of a large mass of Xs exercising civil rights and not generally regarded as visitors or strangers. If you say that the land is ‘Xian’ in your way of speaking only if there was an Xian sovereign state, that’s up to you. But the moral point that taking something by unjust force – theft – is wrong can indeed, as JohnO says, be made without giving a name to those from whom it was seized

By your new measure, neither was any part…

My claim in its entirety was that Israel has not annexed “Palestinian Land” – I said nothing of West Jerusalem. But the whole of Jerusalem is Israel (recognized or not) as Israel exercises sovereignty over all of it – you apparently understand this yourself with your comment on annexation. That is not a contortion, that is fact.

Also a fact, the state of Palestine has never existed, controlled territory or exercised sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem. They may claim it, but it has never risen beyond a claim. The Jordanians had the opportunity to make it Palestine but chose not to. The only land territory that could conceivably be “Palestinian Land” is Gaza, territory the Palestinians never quite get around to declaring as Palestine proper.

One more fact for you. UNGA 181 is non-binding, not much more than a recommendation. There is not need to annul it as it has passed into irrelevance.

Feel free to provide education on when any land subsequently annexed by Israel was previously territory of the sovereign state of Palestine.

mondonut:
It certainly did. But no part of Jerusalem was ever, nor likely will be, Palestinian land.
Hello mondonut, your rejoinders become more and more gibberish. By your new measure, neither was any part of Jerusalem ever part of Israel. Through what contortions are you going to “explain” why West Jerusalem IS part of Israel, but East Jerusalem is NOT part of Palestine? NO part of Jerusalem was supposed to be part of EITHER. You wish to annul Res 181? Okay, fine! But you cannot annul it for Israel while simultaneously maintaining it for Palestine.

Where will Palestinian resistance be when the people are forced into smaller and smaller enclaves? We ignore Christian Zionism at the Palestinians’ peril – tens of millions in the USA alone. We pro-Palestinians know the score, but we are so few that mainstream media can paint a rosy Zionist picture that fools the masses and get away with it. I fear armed resistance by Palestinians will be just the excuse for massacres in areas of resistance that the Zionists want.
We can tell the truth as we see it, (ie the real truth), but the influence on mainstream media will be negligible and the Zionist truth will prevail.

There you are. That explains why Columbia University is eager to open their center, even if it means ignoring human rights violations against international laws.

There was no “Palestinian side ” of the Armistice Line. There was a Jordanian side.

Thank you Bev. However we may have a different take here. IMO, the world overhearing the Palestinian discussion toward a consensus for a political future that they can live with in one state, would have a positive effect. Perhaps I missed your point. I do know its the last thing Israel would want for Palestinians to enjoy world understanding.

The writers better hope that the inevitable demise of the Zionist project that they foresee is peaceful. Because if the writers are hoping for a demise through violence, that violence will not spare the Palestinians. In which case they are rooting for a catastrophe for their people that will make 1948 look like a picnic.

“Phil’s yardstick is measuring the power of Jewish American reporters to the extent that they are seen as reporting on Jewish American issues and in some sense on behalf of Jewish Americans.” Jeffrey Goldberg’s views are not necessarily those of all Jewish Americans; Philip Weiss himself is the living proof of that. There are African American, Latino American, Irish American journalists et al who to a greater or lesser extent advocate for the interests of their ethnic communities, but they do not draw criticism of the kind that casts a shadow on everyone of their ethnicity (“Just as it makes sense to talk about “the most powerful X reporter in the country” where we can substitute any other demographic group for X.”), nor should they. If a Jewish American figure acts that way, though, he is treated differently. If his Jewishness doesn’t explain that, what does?

You are correct Peter, If there is a wider audience that can witness and learn from the debate and see the merits of one side vs the other. I was thinking of the private one on one conversations I’ve had with ardent myopic Zionists where I feel I’m just beating my head against a wall. It serves me well in those instances to recognize I’m not dealing with someone who is interested in facts and instead is just pushing an agenda. And they do have tremendous power/influence, despite their quackery.

Columbia alumnus Robert Kraft is a huge Lions supporter and a huge supporter of Israeli zionist policies. He is likely part of this cabal.

For the first time I think I have a better grasp of your comments. I totally agree with this one. I also realise that it would not be safe to say on this website or any other how to go about this. Keep up the good work.

Peter in sf, rather than immediately focusing on this specific usage of Jew, let me refer to a different example of the use of the word Jew. David Steinberg, one of the top comedians of the post war era, describes in inside comedy, the book, his relationship as a director re: his interaction with bea Arthur, who drunk at a party, insisted in calling steinberg jewface. See also Annie hall and woody’s character discussing his mishearing “D’you?” as “Jew?” I’m sure Hispanics have their sensitivities regarding being called Hispanics. Well, the word Jew has its own history and nuance and while clearly Atlantic magazine’s skipping the book by Goldberg (which contained the word Jew) was remarkable, Weiss’s flippant formulation is not unremarkable.