What Became of Western Morality?
On the last day of the old year in the newsletter CounterPunch, two Israelis—Jeff Halper, who heads the Israeli peace movement ICAHD, and Neve Gordon, who is chairman of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University—asked, "Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?"
"Not one of the nearly 450 presidents of American colleges and universities who prominently denounced an effort by British academics to boycott Israeli universities in September 2007 have raised their voice in opposition to Israel's bombardment of the Islamic University of Gaza earlier this week," report Halper and Gordon. They note that Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger, who has in the past ignorantly insulted Islamic representatives, "has been silent."
It is the goyim moralists who are silent, not the Jews. It is the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, not the goyim media, that provides reports of Israel's abuse of Palestinians. Gideon Levy's "The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again" was published in Haaretz on Dec. 29, not in the goyim press. Levy's words—"Once again, Israel's violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom"—are not words that can appear in American print or TV media. Such words, printed in Israeli newspapers, never reach the goyim.
The extent of Americans' ignorance is breathtaking. Israel has the Palestinians jammed into tightly controlled ghettos known as Gaza and the West Bank. With Egypt's help, Israel controls the inflows of food, medicines, water and energy into Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza are not permitted to enter Israel or Egypt. Last week, a humanitarian ship bringing food and medicine was rammed by Israeli gunboats and turned away.
In the West Bank, Palestinians are walled off from their fields, jobs, medical care, education and water, and from one another by endless checkpoints, roads for "Jews only," walls, barbed wire and machine gun towers. Palestinians are being evicted from their towns house by house, block by block.
Israel's slow theft of Palestine is illegal under international law but protected by U.S. "diplomacy."
The Palestinians are no more of a threat to Israel than Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were a threat to the Nazi state. Yet, everywhere in America—Congress, the executive branch, the print and TV media, the universities, evangelical Christian institutions—there is the belief that Israel is on the verge of annihilation by Palestinian terrorists. This ignorance, so carefully cultivated by the Israel lobby, turns genocidal aggression into self-defense.
It fools Americans, but it doesn't fool Israelis. The Israelis have always known that "self-defense" is a cloak for a Zionist policy of territorial expansion. The policy is controversial within Israel. Many Israelis object, just as many Americans object to President Bush's illegal wars and violations of U.S. civil liberties. Many Israelis give voice to their moral conscience, but they are overwhelmed by vested interests.
Karl Marx declared morality to be merely a mask for vested interests. The writings of Marx and Friedrich Engels are scornful of good will and moral ideals as effective forces in history. The Israeli state epitomizes Marx's doctrine that power alone is the only effective force.
Many American conservatives share the Israeli state's belief in the efficacy of power. Conservatives who turned against Bush's wars did so because the United States was not brutal enough. They turned away from Bush's long inconclusive wars in the way that fans desert a losing team.
Americans used to say that "the pen is mightier than the sword," but this hasn't been the case for U.S. and Israeli aggression. The success the two regimes have had in instilling fear into their populations is part of the explanation for the impotence of morality. Another part of the explanation is that vested interests are a powerful constraint on morality.
Consider the case of Bollinger. Columbia University is dependent on Jewish money, faculty and students. If Bollinger were to take a stand against Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians, he would be denounced as an anti-Semite. Presidents of competitor universities would not come to his defense. They would pile on in hopes of recruiting Columbia's top faculty and students, and redirecting the flow of financial resources from Columbia to themselves.
An American newspaper or TV network that took a stand against Israel's abuse of Palestinians would be confronted with an advertising boycott organized by AIPAC. American politicians who criticize Israel would go down to defeat by Israel lobby money.
Georg Hegel gave too much emphasis to ideas; Marx too much to material interests. Both forces operate in the world. There are times in history when revolutionary ideas shatter material interests. Other times the two coexist in a balance of power. In other times, material interests prevail over morality.
We are living in the latter time. Financial interests, the military-security complex and the Israel lobby are the powers that rule America. They are buttressed by neoconservatives and Christian Zionists, and by the patriotic hubris that America is the main force for good operating in the world. The evils America commits are dismissed as necessary to the service of good. The destruction of Iraq, for example, is justified as "bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people."
A number of commentators, including myself, predict a decline in America's economic power. As this occurs, Israel will have to abandon its policy of violence. With the accumulated hatred that its policies have fomented, Israel will be vulnerable.
The world will need to remember that although Israel is a Jewish state, it is a state whose policies many Jews find objectionable, just as a majority of American Jews oppose President Bush's wars of aggression in the Middle East and his unconstitutional policies at home. We must not confuse Israel's Zionist government with world Jewry, just as we must not confuse the American people with the war criminals in the Bush regime.
Consider, who do you trust with your civil liberties, the U.S. Department of Justice or the ACLU's phalanx of Jewish attorneys?
We must avoid the mistake that was made by blaming the German people for Adolf Hitler. It was the aristocratic German military that tried to remove Hitler. In contrast, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blocked the attempt to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Pelosi is a discredit to California, but shall we blame all of America for Pelosi's defense of war criminals? How can we do so when U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich courageously read out the articles of impeachment on the House floor?
Are all Americans guilty because Kucinich did not prevail?
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
Its not the "goyim moralists" that have lost their confidence it is the white man who has lost everything, the West is done. The morality that defined the West is lost with the white man. Now that is heresy amongst the editors here, for they are sure that the words they read and recite shall carry forth to the rest of the world, they debate this without cease. No evidence exists that it does, but they are sure nonetheless. The only repositories for identity and culture left to white men and women are that of the self loathing sociopath and that of ignorant violent bigot as illustrated by talk radio personalities who are down to cheerleading Israel into a genocide policy. For the record I would trust neither with my civil liberties, neither should you once you ask of yourself. "who are these people?"
Another great jeremiad by Paul Craig Roberts. I may be a little over-optimistic, but I think most Americans are increasingly opposed to giving the Israeli government a blank check.
Roberts is sometimes a bit over the top, IMHO, but he's spot on here.
Why are we supporting a sordid little statelet, far from our borders, that lacks any resource we require?
Israel is bombing Gaza City with phosophorus, and telephoning people telling them to get out. Where to? Apparently using the rather ineffective homemade rockets as an excuse, the Israelis plan to empty large swaths of Gaza.
Who supplied the planes and the bombs? We did.
Here's Tacitus, quoting the Briton:
Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Translation: To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace
Kirt Higdon @2
I cautiously share my brother's "over-optimistic" analysis. However, since when--especially lately--has it mattered a rat's patootie what most Americans are opposed to? Most Americans are opposed to bailouts. Most Americans are opposed to foreign aid in general. Most Americans are allegedly opposed to this, that and the other ad nauseam. However two things utterly neutralize their "opposition." 1) Those in authority promulgating the policies to which "most Americans" are opposed utterly ignore them, their Constitution and the complete illegitimacy of the policies being promulgated, and 2) "most Americans" keep electing and re-electing those who ignore them.
As usual, the people in a republican form of government get exactly the government they deserve, because they keep voting for it.
It would be advisable if PC learn a little,just a little ,something about Islamic morality.It would be advisable if PC read a little,just a little,about the beliefs and morality of Hamas.It is a shame that anyone would try and base a coherent criticism of Israel, a state often in need of criticism on its absolutely justified military reaction to Hamas.It doesn't as they say "cut ice".Just yesterday (on the relatively unbiased BBC) Hamas' spokesman reiterated that the only acceptable goal for Hamas is the destruction of the "Zionist entity",that the rockets will continue until the entity is destroyed and that there are no civilian targets only settlers.Hamas openly....open for even the struggling intellect of PC Roberts ...delegates to itself the right to kill Israeli civilians while demanding the world condemn Palestinian civilian casualties.We saw this hypocrisy in Kosovo,we saw it in Bosnia;put your civilian Moslem population deliberately at risk to curry Western sympathy;refuse partition , expel non-Moslems from your areas of control and cultivate Western dhimmitude.Congratulations,PC,you've arrived.
"Whom do you trust with your civil liberties? The U. S. Department of Justice or the ACLU's phalanx of Jewish attorneys? "
Is this a trick question?
Mark Higdon, @4:
I concur with your remarks. However, what is the practical solution?
Leo,
PCR knows all that. He's a shill for jihadists in the ME, doing all he can to make sure the Serb supporters are unable to comprehend that their enemies are the same as Israel's enemies.
Divide and conquer.
The same WWII genociders fund the NGOs that attack both people.
Not a little hypocritical of the US to condemn Russia who were protecting it's civilians when Georgia lead by Israeli advisors blitzed South Ossetia turning 70% of it to rubble including the Jewish quarter with GRAD rockets after the US and Britain vetoed an emergency ceasefire resolution while Georgia was shelling South Osseta yet supporting Israel claiming right of self defence.
@5Leo
Found a website that lists the various Jewish politicians, organisations, and Jewish news sources that supported Bosnians and Kosovars demonising the Serbs.
Jewish U.S. Senator Arlen Specter introduced the resolution authorizing air operations and missile strikes as part of larger NATO operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
http://sacru.com/
Mr. Roberts makes a very important and easily overlooked point. A great many Jews are just as appalled and horrified by what is going on in Gaza as we here at Chronicles are. Slim does not represent all Jews, as he himself would be the first to acknowledge.
The problem is that very few prominent Jewish Americans are willing to raise a voice against the ruckus, and so those who would question the Israeli government's line are marginalised to the hard left, often self-hating, opposition. It is akin to why so many "conservative" Americans (and Britons!) were inclined to support the Iraq war: the opposition had a left-wing face, and boy, what an ugly face. The only ones arguing against the war that were not at the same time apologising for Islam were Chronicles, AmCon and the BNP.
Yes, you are right about that, but it only shows that Jews -- like many other Americans -- are timidly conformist and politically correct, and don't want to get into trouble. They can't be blamed for the same cowardice that afflicts many gentiles.
It's ironic that some of the most trenchant criticism of Israeli brutality and intransigence is coming from Israelis themselves. They can say things that no American newspaper would dare print.
PCR packs in a lot of information in a short piece.
The crack in post 9 above about "Israeli advisors" in South Ossetia is priceless. You should have called them "secret Israeli advisors" (Jews in the woorwork! They ARE insidious!), which would have been even funnier. If there had been "Israeli advisors" in South Ossetia, do you not think that the Russians would have made it an issue? Even without physical proof?One of the problems, historically, with conservatism has been antisemitism. It is good to see that Chrolicles is not afraid to embrace it. It may be discrediting, but it is red meat for the troops (assuming your troops are would-be storntroopers) PCR is an embarassment to Chronicles and paleo-conservatism.
Leo @ 5:
The commitment of Hamas to the destruction of the Israeli state is an insufficient justification for Israel's actions. As Dr. Roberts points out in this article "The Palestinians are no more of a threat to Israel than Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were a threat to the Nazi state". This doesn't mean that Hamas and their sympathizers don't wish for Israel's destruction, just that they stand no realistic chance of accomplishing this goal. Therefore, Israel is not justified in treating them as a mortal threat.
Just because someone hates you, and would destroy you if it were in their power to do so, does not mean you have the right to "do unto them before they do unto you". Israel is right in providing for her own security, retaliating against Hamas' rocket attacks, and putting the needs and safety of her own people first over those of other people, such as the Palestinians. She is not right in inflicting collective punishment on the Palestians (Christians as well as Muslims) or in the use of the kind of force that can only be justified by a threat that places your own existence in peril.
Ah, the infamous trio of McNulty, slim, and Leo are here to parrot their neocon platitudes, yet they probably cannot, for the life of them, disprove anything PCR has pointed out as being fact. Mr. Beware-of-anti-semitism, slim, believes he has put himself up on a superior pedastal by pointing out, in response to an earlier PCR article, that the British made a last-ditch effort in 1947 or '48 to stop the partition of the Holy Land and the reestablishment of the Jewish state, and so now we must all align ourselves with Israel's interests and ignore PCR's racist rants. To him and Leo and Joe McN., the West is guilty of many crimes against humanity, and must now pay for them by supporting the goals and interests of foreign peoples. The true threat to this world is anti-semitism and racism, after all. The leftist mind is surely an ideological one.
Not surprising, after all, crying racism or anti-semitism has been a defining characteristic of the Marxist forces of the neocons and far-leftists in their efforts to steer the United States away from the goal of putting its own national interests and its Western traditions first, and the interests of other peoples and their traditions second or last. I'm surprised Leo didn't have a nice classy name to call PCR like he did last time, I believe it was "fruitcake." I'm sure he and slim and Joe McNulty probably dismiss the fact that Hamas was elected by the Palestinians either in spite of or because of their extremism, as merely the result of a hefty amount of support for their campaign from outside the country, plus the Palestinians are just reactionary anti-Semites, not enlightened rational thinkers like slim, Leo and McNulty. Do I understand your neoconservative method of thought, gents, or do I misunderstand it in some way?
Nobody here but us neoconservatives (whatever that word means, beside as a code-word for Jews). I am not a Jew, as you might imagine from my name. I am also NOT a neoconservative (I do not believe in any Wilsonian project). I did not know that the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had Grad rockets. No wonder conquering the Warsaw ghetto took the SS so long, and no wonder Stalin had the Red Army stand down (since they presumably were being bombarded by those rockets). So I am not only in sympathy with the Jews, I AM A CRYPTO-MARXIST! What stuff. These are people at Chronicles seem to have a worldview that stopped about 1810 (certainly before Jackson). The reality is that the Hamas Charter, the organization's founding document, calls not only for the destuction of Isreal, but for the annihilation of the Jews. But I gluess, since the Palestinians are so powerless, Israel is supposed to just tolerate thousands of rockets fired at its territory -- even after evacuation of all Jewish settlements in Gaza. Yes, people voted for Hamas. Was that because Fatah is corrupt (as opposed to the shining honesty of the bullyboys of Hamas), or because a majority in Gaza wanted to kill Jews more effectively. Where is the evidence that Hamas WANTS peaceful coexistence? Hamas has showed NO evidence that it wants to act as a functioning government.
0987654321
@14Joseph McNulty
YNet news dated August 10th 2008.
"The Israelis should be proud of themselves for the Israeli training and education received by the Georgian soldiers," Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili said Saturday.
Yakobashvili is a Jew and is fluent in Hebrew. "We are now in a fight against the great Russia," he said, "and our hope is to receive assistance from the White House, because Georgia cannot survive on its own.
http://russiandefenseleague.com/War_in_Georgia-The_Israeli_connection.pdf
You seem to think any criticism of Jews is anti-Semitism even when Jews themselves talk about it and as I mentioned before Israeli trained/US equipped force blitzed the Jewish quarter there turning it into rubble who living fairly comfortable under Russian protectorate.
More than 600 people died in the aerial bombardment on South Ossetia in the first 12 hours before Russians entered the region so were the outcry in the media like they have over Gaza which is about 400 after several days.
Joe McNulty,
An American neoconservative is an imperial ideologue who wishes to establish American power and hegemony over most other nations of the world, via collaboration with other powerful nations who share the same vision, in addition to eradicating all forces or organized movements which stand in the way of realizing that goal. If you do not share this vision, I apologize for my allegation. Authentic American conservatives denounce so many actions of Jews so often because we believe that they have an alarmingly huge amount of influence in the media and in the government, not because we hate Jews as a race of people. Your preemptive assertion that neocon is a code-word for Jew is very telling of your own ideology, however. I have always believed, since I was first educated about the difference between a conservative and a neocon, that the great majority of neocons, probably at least 2/3, ARE Jews.
#17 - Don't confuse the Jewish Warsaw ghetto uprising with the later and much larger scale Warsaw uprising of the Poles in general. It was in the latter case that Stalin halted the Red Army advance to allow the Nazis time to finish off an opposition which was anti-Communist as well as anti-Nazi. At the time of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the Red Army was not close to the scene of the action.
J Meng @7
Thank you for your concurrence. However I think you ask the wrong question in "...what is the practical solution."
First of all, I might ask: Solution to what? What is the result you seek?
A fundamental flaw in the American psyche is the mindset that there is a practical solution to most every problem--even the apparently intractable ones firmly rooted in Original Sin and our fallen nature. We merely need to find something new to try or a new way of trying something old. That's what good old American ingenuity and upstanding American character are all about, right?
But in pursuing our goals politically, our noblest efforts are inevitably reduced by the political process to the least common political denominator: pragmatism (i.e. the "practical solutions" that voters will swallow both before and after they vote). Such solutions are easily accomplished because most voters believe that only an extremely limited number of office-seekers are "electable." Voters know this is true because party bosses, the media et al. have told them so. And so it goes. (Frankly, I think every politician who brags of being a "consensus builder" should be hanged in the public square.)
You might not find this practical, but the best answer I can give you for now in anecdotal, not strategic. In 2004, a good and dear Republican friend and I engaged in a running battle over our coming presidential votes. He pushed W. Bush on me for all the predictable reasons I will not bore you with here. I told him of my intention to vote for Michael Anthony Peroutka.
My friend responded by saying: Mark, if too many people vote as you intend to, we'll be totally screwed, all will be lost, etc. etc. (all the totally predictable doomsaying right out of the RNC playbook).
I replied: Bill, the problem is not that too many people will vote as I do. I think the problem is that not enough will.
So we seek God's will in all things and pray/strive that His will be done. As articulated for us by His Divine Son. Who never told us to vote at all, let alone how.
Now, you tell me if you think this a practical solution.
Peace, brother.
actually Brock, you are lying not unlike PCR.
Israel has no 'Jews' only road. This is a lie and PCR knows this.
the Palestinians aren't 'jammed' anywhere--this is a nazi lie that tries to make it sound like there is literally no space to move, when both regions are mostly empty desert.
It is a lie that medical care and food are not getting in: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=55&x_article=1574
Israel has been shrinking for 40 years, and sits on a small fraction of what was given to the Jewish homeland in the 1920s, thus another lie.
He engages in the most revolting holocaust revisionism by comparing the Hitler loving, husseini loving palestinian Arabs to the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto. Kind of like I had read that bosnian muslims used to send out pictures of dead Serbs and say that they were Muslims.
This particular nazi lie is the most revolting one yet.
He is aware that there is no policy of 'zionist expansion', rather there is one of Jewcleansing (Gaza) and creating ethnically clean muslim nazi states.
I don't feel like reading the rest. But the Serb supporters that admire husseini's work when it entailed killing Jews should be ashamed of themselves. You are all quite sick.
"They can say things that no American newspaper would dare print."
Well, of course they have more moral authority on the matter. Anything a foreigner says about another country's policy is going to sound patronising and condescending. To be totally fair on the matter, American newspapers would have to walk a fine line between telling Jewish parents they don't have a right to protect their houses and children on the one hand and on the other hand arguing that Arabs don't have the right to stay in their own homes.
The only legitimate way I, for example, could critique the Israelis in a way that touches something that rightfully matters to me would be, say, in taking issue with their negligence toward Palestinian Christians, and on that issue I have gripes (and bigger ones) with plenty of other countries, including my own.
THAT SAID... when our tax dollars are the enablers, we most definitely have the right to tell them what to do, and the fact that we are not is a little bit irksome. However, as a tax resident of France I no longer figure into that "we." Almost all I can do is say, "What a pity."
Mark Higdon, @22: Thanks for your comments; they are appreciated. I agree with you. My question about a solution was meant to be a sort of joke, sorry it didn't come off. Dr. John Rao in his book, Americanism and the Collapse of the Church in the United States, addresses American pragmatism, and shows it is an outgrowth of one of several components of what he calls the American soul: "the attempt to unite a multitude of ethnic groups under a tradition inspired by the English experience." One of the ways this task was to be effected was to instill in immigrants a "kind of materialistic 'pioneer mentality'". Immigrants, especially Catholic ones, who might upset stability by touching upon religion, were guided "towards the practical exploitation of this country's riches." Pursuing material achievement was the main, practical distraction from more important things.
Yes, for the same reasons, I too supported and voted for Michael Peroutka in 2004. I was an early supporter of Ron Paul and voted for him in the Michigan primary, and I voted for Dr. Paul's recommendation in November.
Certainly, seeking God's will and that it be done on earth as it is in heaven is truly the practical solution.
Thanks again, and peace to you, brother.
Neocons are greasy opportunists who want to get rich quick in the realm of politics. They start out as Hill Rats (attending law school at night) on some congressional staff, committee work is best, and then move on to jobs like assistant deputy under-secretary of something-or-other, but always keep an eye open for a better opportunity. Political consulting and lobbying follow on that career path, until they get to hang around the cabinet. Then it's an office on either 15th or K Street. If you ever meet one of them call them Fifth Street Lawyer, they turn maroon with rage and swear like a drunken frat boy -- which is what they are.
Maybe some are Jewish, few ever serve in the military, some of them can even ghost-write a position paper. But such drudgery is considered work and therefore undesirable. This shower move up solely on relationships. Women are as bad as the girly-men in the field.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
Kurt Higdon, you are correct about the Warsaw ghetto uprising. I was making a satiral point, not trying to cite history, but you are correct to call me on it. The point that I was making was that the Jews in the ghetto were alone -- as Israel is isolated internationallly -- and represent no military threat to the Palestinians, absent rocket aggression by Hamas. One ineresting fact is that the Jews in the ghetto killed traitors who helped the Nazis. But you cannot compare the acts of the Jews in Warsaw (remember, the uprising was provoked by Nazi "resettlement" of helpless and starving Jews and dawning knowledge that Jews were being exterminated) -- and the action of Hamas killing anyone opposed to incessant warfare against Isreal. The assertion of Brock H. that 2/3 of those in the media are Jews only proves my comments about antisemitism, which cannot hide behind concern about "neocons." That is just a polite way to condemn the influence of Jews.
J Meng @25: "My question about a solution was meant to be a sort of joke, sorry it didn’t come off"
Went right over my head, no doubt because it has been posed to me ad nauseam by people--like my friend Bill--who mean it as a serious and hamstringing challenge to my arguments. From reading your many posts, I should have known you were not like that. Consider this note a belated LOL at my own, deserved and delighted expense. Also thanks for the Rao literary reference. Gotta look that one up.
Bottom line is that US tax dollars are not 'aid'--it's how the US purchases Israeli policy, which is often quite suicidal.
Not unlike the way a booster gives money to the athletic department--to buy influence.
Let us not forget too that the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto did not have Soros and Henry Ford spending hundreds of millions of dollars on NGO lies to aid their cause.
No, the new nazis are the same as the old nazis: Soros and Ford support the same people now as they did during WWII.
Joseph McNulty @27:
My statement was simply a guess as to the percentage of avowed American NEOCONS who are Jewish, NOT the percentage of media personnel. On the contrary, I truly doubt that the majority of the media is made up of Jews. I believe they have a lot of influence and a lot of power in the media, but probably not high numbers to go with them. It is probably other minorities like blacks, Hispanics, and Asians that the media is filling up with in this day and age. Both Jews and non-Hispanic whites are getting harder and harder to come by because of their low birthrates.
Nice new format, but I'll miss the numbers on the replies.
Mr. McNulty, I can't quite see the Israelis as being isolated internationally when they have the blank check support of the US, the world dominating empire. Hamas rockets were fired in a foolish attempt to break an Israeli blockade which has deprived the Gazans of anything they need to exist barely above a starvation level. Hamas is wrong to put the Gazans in an even worse situation than they were in before, but it is Israel, along with US ally Egypt, who have put the Gazans in such a miserable situation to begin with. Cardinal Martino was right to call Gaza "a big concentration camp" just as he was right a few years ago to condemn the US invasion of Iraq and US treatment of Saddam Hussein. Needless to say the pro-Israeli media and the Israeli government are furious at his latest comments. I suspect the Cardinal speaks for Pope Benedict in situations where there is a need for frankness, but where the Pope must preserve a certain diplomatic distance in the interests of future peace-making.
The pro-Israel media is a myth. The media is acually pro-Hamas. Why else does CNN credulously show Hamas propaganda videos (feauxtograhy). Check out the recent video of a Gazan child supposedly killed while playing by an Israeli missile. The "doctor" is obviously NOT doing actual chest compressions. In fact, he is barely in contact with the child's chest. Meanwhile, a Western doctor (actually a well-known Hamas fellow-traveler) tries to do what he thinks are "medical" things. I have also read that the famous "Green Helmet Guy," who faked many photos during the Lebanon War, including the infamous photo of the "wrecked ambulance," which was altered by Hezbollah to appear that it had been hit by an Israeli missile, has been seen in Gaza. No doubt he is helping Hamas with their "public communications." Hamas has decided who the enemy is -- Israel, of course, but also the United States (a Hamas leader recenetly threatened the United States while on Egyptian television) -- and the posters on this site have decided that our enemy may be Israel despite the effort to be lofty and disinterested about the influence of the "Jews."
Israel is not our enemy, but it is certainly bad for the country to finance Israel's wars and occupations. Hamas is our enemy simply because the US rulers have deferred to their Israeli clients and let them choose our enemies for us. Israel has tried occupying Gaza from inside and outside and neither has worked well. If they thought they could get away with it, they would probably just drive all Gazans out into the Sinai desert and make them Egypt's problem, but this would threaten the stability of the Mubarek government, another US client. The solution which I fear has not yet been voiced, but I suspect it will be soon - namely to let the US occupy Gaza, probably under a UN "mandate" and with token forces from such countries as El Salvador and Fiji. The last thing the US needs now is to be involved in the bloody bullying of yet another group of Moslems.
Mcnulty,
excellent work. Unfortunately, those with the pathological sickness of antizionism are unable to comprehend that just as we portrayed our 'oppressed' Bosnian mujahedin allies with much sympathy in the 90s, we now portray hamas with the same sympathy.
In both cases, we are pro-Islamist. From what I read, US weapons given to fatah often end up with hamas, and our Islamification of Iraq was not only aided by Iran, but was most beneficial to Iran.
One would think these people would be a bit more skeptical of the 'open society' and Ford Foundation big lies that are on the websites where they get their 'take' on Israel.
Higdon--we don't finance Israel's wars, we finance the handcuffing of Israel as we rescue people like Arafat, hizbollah, and likely will rescue hamas in the next few days or weeks.
If three billion per year in mostly military aid to Israel is handcuffs, let's stop the handcuffing by cutting out the aid. The US will "rescue" Hamas at whatever point the Israeli government decides that the cost of its war in terms of Israeli lives, bad public relations, or (most important) political reaction against Barack and Livni has reached the point where the war must be stopped. Then the US will permit the UN to "force" a ceasefire on Israel, whose government will then claim that they were just on the verge of wiping out the "terrorists", but the "anti-Semites" (gentiles) stopped them again. In truth the US government makes a practice of rescuing the Israeli leadership from its own folly. It's time to get US troops, US money, and US diplomacy out of the Middle East.
Remember the old saying, "Bettet to be an army of sheep, led by a lion, than an army of lions, led by a sheep." American aid is the Acihilles heel of Israel. The benefit of aid is dwarfed by the possibility that the aid will be used for leverage against Israel. With the uncertainities posed by Obama, this danger is much greater than in the past. The danger is that Israel will be forced to agree to a truce that includes an American or international peacekeeping force that will be supposed to police Hamas, but will end up protecting it. At that point, any attempt to strike beck at Hamas will involve "Blue Helmets," and the first dead American peacekeepers will lead to an American reaction againswt Isreal. Of course, it will be in the interest of Hamas to provoke such an incident. In fact, Hamas is not above killing Americans while wearing Israeli uniforms. Isreal should be on a crash program to become self-sufficient in arms. It has the technology; all it needs is the will and determination. Can Israel count on the Americans? Just ask the South Vietnamese.
I don't support McNulty's pro-Israeli position, but he does make one solid point: We Americans have betrayed every ally who trusted in us.
Higdon,
You seem to have no comprehension of reality. Israel is a 1st world country that could entirely eradicate palestinians. Why doesn't it? 1) it's against the zionist ethos. If Israel was about ethnic cleanliness, it would not be 20% non Jewish.
2) the US swoops in to rescue Israel's enemies (fatah, hamas) who have always been covert US allies.
The US sponsors anti-progressive fascist movements all over the place. The ME is no exception. US rescued Arafat in 82, hizbollah in 2005 (with our media), and will likely rescue hamas (with media or some other intervention).
Looks like Obama is about to legitimize hamas. How is this possible if our government is run by 'pro Israel neocon zionist' Jews?
Nope. Our foreign policy is a balance of it's gehlen org heritage vs. doing what it needs to do to bamboozle the American people.
#37 - Looks like you and I are in practical agreement, Mr. McNulty. We're both opposed to having US troops involved in policing any "peace" in Gaza. You consider US aid a danger to Israel and I consider it a danger to the US, not to mention a further drain on US taxpayers. End the aid, end the danger and the drain. Problem solved.
slim,
"Looks like Obama is about to legitimize hamas. How is this possible if our government is run by ‘pro Israel neocon zionist’ Jews?"
Israeli neoconservatism is different from American neoconservatism. Our government, until January 20th, is under the influence of American neoconservatism as it has been since W. took the reins of power, much more so during his first term. The goal of American neocons is to establish benevolent global American hegemony and take charge and possession of valuable resources like oil. The Israelis, although powerful, do not have the power to take over and police the world, but they do constantly seek to crush all movements which they perceive to threaten their existence . . . and their existence is a controversial one, established against the will of the people already living there for hundreds of years prior to '48, by a corrupt world-government-seeking organization, the U.N.
Now I'm in the unusual position of desiring information from you, slim, so that I might learn a thing or two. How exactly does the U.S. government finance, directly or indirectly, and support radical Islamic movements like Hamas and Hezbollah? Indirect support can happen quite frequently and unintentionally, I imagine, so I'm more interested in the direct type.
Brock,
Your theory is contained in a fictional work called 'the protocols of zion'.
I'm a firm believer in Jared Israel's take on Iran/Iraq. First off, the US started attacking Iraq in 1996. State Dept policy does not change from prez to prez. It is only 'grand theater' that makes one think anything is different under bush than under clinton.
The biggest favor the US did for hamas was to conquer Iraq, which was Iran's enemy. Iran also funds hamas.
@slim
If you don't like PCR commentary I suggest you don't go over to TakiMag and read Taki Theodoracopulos latest article on Israel.
Actually is anyone else having the same problem I have with TakiMag were your not able to comment on the articles?
I think I have been blacklisted after the comment I made in an article were Kristol was being replaced by another Neo-conservative in some newspaper or publication.
Pelosi is a discredit to California...
To make matters even worse, she's a discredit to Baltimore as well, hon!
43 Comment by george:
"...problem I have with TakiMag were your not able to comment..."
I can't comment there, either; They pulled the plug on commentary. Why? I'd like to know because Taki himself is no slouch when it comes to controversial and non-PC opinions.
This was debated in another thread in this forum and, because of the numbering change, and change back to numbering of commentary, some off-the-cuff remarks lamented that CHRONICLES might curtail commentary also.
I hope not. From a very young age I have always turned to the commentary pages of the newspaper, and now Blogs, before reading the underlying opinion piece.
While blogs without commentary can be informative, and LewRockwell is one of my favourites, commentary adds a liveliness, and a means of correcting errors, omissions, and pure rubbish at times.
H.F. Wolff
Slim,
"A fictional work called the Protocols of Zion" ?? Bet you haven't read it, have you? Don't be so naive, babe. Hate to bring this up here but their reflections of our reality today are uncanny.
Mr Tarkin:
Based on pure logic Slim is correct, The Protocols WERE a work of fiction.
It was a plan that would lead Zionists to their ultimate goals, and as such it was an invention, a figment of the imagination, ie. a work of fiction describing what could be if implemented and how to achieve this.
And implemented it was.
Consequently if one were to write a critique on the EFFECT of The Protocols, this would be a serious work of fact and research because The Protocols were implemented with terrifying consequences.
In the past The Protocols were decried as forgeries to which a logical response would have been "OK where are the originals?"
Nobody ever claimed that the Zionists were not clever wordsmiths.
H.F. Wolff
What a sad and pathetic statement about this entire website that half the writers and most of the comments posters think that the protocols are non-fiction.
What a bunch of chumps.
Slim, @48: In Russia, in 1905, when Professor Sergyei A. Nilus first published the Protocols, his concern was to expose what he believed to be a ruthless, cold-blooded conspiracy for the destruction of Christian civilization (see the March 15th, 1923 edition of the Jewish World, which asserted, "Fundamentally, Judaism is Anti-Christian."). There is a similarity between what the Protocols forecast with regard to the fate of Russia and what actually happened under the Bolosheviks. By the way, if one had the Protocols in their possession in Bolshevik Russia, the penalty was death.
Anyway, the Jews worked hard to descredit the Protocols, but it was not until 1933, that they (Federation of Jewish Communities of Switzerland and the Berne Jewish Community) could get a Swiss court to hear their complaints. Certain legal procedures were thrown out by the Court and after two years found in favor of the plaintiffs: the Protocols were a forgery. However, in November 1937, the Swiss Court of Criminal Appeal quashed this judgment in its entirety.
As H. F. Wolff perspicaciously asked, if the Protocols are forgeries, where are the originals. As Henry Ford Sr. declared, "The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old [his remarks were made in 1921], and have fitted the world situation up to this time. THEY FIT IT NOW."
The question is: do they fit the events since Ford's remarks to the present? Some may wish to read Protocols, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, & 21.
Slim,sad and pathetic certainly describes the lives of a few of these losers that over-post the same conspiracy sludge over and over and over...or just simply over-post on every article as if they,not the author,had the most important things to say.Sad and pathetic describes the end career of Paul Craig Roberts...when you begin to blame the American media and the ever-present" Zionist conspiracy "for your failure to win a significant acceptance of your lunacy,,,well,that goes with the lunacy.Robert Novak and Patrick Buchanan were critical for decades of Israel in major news outlets.Both have had successful careers;there simply has never been a general blackout of information critical of Israel.Sure,Novak and Buchanan had plenty of clowns that tried to shut them up,like Frum,but there are Frums everywhere and always and the brave persist.Incidentally.both men are self-described Zionists.My dearest hope is that PCRoberts will let it go and retire.His prose stinks,his conclusions are hysterical and insane,he misleads the young and naive and he will go bonkers at CounterPunch trying to criticize Obama.I am your friend,Mr. Roberts...please retire.Until next week sometime,signing off.