At a Privileged Resort, an Arab Intellectual Urges Americans to 'Be Themselves' in the Mid East: Be Fair

One of the reasons I'm visiting my parents in Cape Cod is that there was a lecture last night by an Arab, Rami Khouri, in a series about the middle east at the Church of the Messiah, an Episcopal church. I was as curious about what Khouri would say as I was about the local reception. Woods Hole is a scientific community, it's about half-gentile, half-Jewish. When I was growing up it was the old world, and we were on the lookout for antisemitism. That was a long time ago.

The hall was filled, about 100 people. I sensed the crowd was almost all gentile, with a few exceptions. Khouri stood before a smoke-stained brick fireplace with a large cross on it. He was better than I could ever have imagined. A Lebanese Arab with roots in Nazareth, he had stayed at the home of a former ambassador in the community, and he has a courtly aspect. He is a leading Arab columnist, he is at the Wilson Center in Washington. He took care not to offend. 

For a while he only spoke about the American presence in the Middle East. That we had botched it badly. We had acted as a "local" actor in countless struggles, taking sides, say against Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran, when we could be an offshore balancer. So he is an Arab realist. He dismissed the likelihood of Iranian nukes, said they had a right to develop peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Reach out to them and the society will change in an instant, it wants to change. But of course in all cases the U.S. is on the side of the Arab autocrats. And in the last 30 years Arab society has changed. It is mostly urban and educated, the people are fed, and because of polling and other instruments of modern society we know what they want: they are beginning to demand the higher things, human rights, civil rights, and so forth. The era of "docility" is over. The U.S. must be on the right side of this great movement forward. Bush wasn't.

So far so good. Everyone in the room hates Bush. I wondered how long it would take him to get to the Arab-Israeli issue. It was about 30 minutes. From then on it was all that anyone could talk about. He did not disappoint. The U.S. was disliked across the region because it has taken one side in the battle between Israelis and Arabs. Why it does so is a mystery. Well actually it is not a mystery, he corrected himself. But this political dynamic--he obviously meant the Israel lobby--will not change soon. The change will come from the region. Israel is now more realistic than the Americans. It understands that it can defeat state actors forever but nonstate actors, like Hezbollah, will fight it to a draw. Hamas too. Israel understands that it cannot win. So do the Arabs. That is why there are now five peacemaking initiatives in Israel/Palestine all by regional actors, from the Turks to the Saudis to the Egyptians. The Arab world wants to move on, they accept Israel's presence. Only one issue is still up in the air: the right of return. It must be dealt with and most of all the great Palestinian "wound" of 1948 must be dealt with. They were forced off that land. He concluded his remarks by saying that the U.S. should "be itself--be more relaxed and engage people as ordinary Americans engage people." Fairly, good-naturedly. Then everything would change. It felt optimistic. 

At times there were hints in his remarks of a sharp critique, like the one I offer on this blog. But he held back. His Nakba comments were reserved, though it seems his own family suffered, in Nazareth. The wound was very real. He spoke of the Palestinians as a "traumatized" people--as the Israelis are also traumatized. He said there must be an "acknowledgment" of their suffering. He did not say the words Israel lobby and when a speaker asked him about the Jewish lobby he corrected her, said it was way more than Jewish. 

He had the crowd on his side. I noticed the people nodding at his words. I thought they were gentile partly because of their clothing. It was what my family would say was bland. Mostly white shirts, pale blue shirts. The Jews up here have a little bit more sophistication and cultural improvisation in the way they present themselves. And these gentiles wanted to talk about Israel. During the Q-and-A all the questions were about Israel and Palestine. Khouri now took it a step further. He spoke feelingly of the competition of nationalisms, Arab and Jewish, for the same land, he said that the Israelis had won again and again. They were a threat to their neighbors. That was holding the region back. they had militarized their neighbors, who saw them as an expansionist, colonial state. They would be rigid and authoritarian until the issue was resolved. The war on terrorism was a bogey man. The feverish neocons had elevated a few hundred players, Al Qaeda, into a major power thorgh their actions. As for Jimmy Carter, he had created a problem with the apartheid word. His editor should have been more sensitive. Though he was trying to call attention to great suffering in the occupied territories. 

I kept waiting for the Jewish questions. They came near the end. The room was too stuffy and it had been over an hour. The first was a woman standing in the door. You had the feeling that she had just stuck her head in, she wasn't going to dignify this performance with her actual audience. And she was going to have her say. Her words were very emotional. The Jews had been persecuted for thousands of years, of course they must have a homeland, who can deny them that after what they have experienced? And how can anyone dismiss the words of Ahmadinejad or wish them away. We tried that with Hitler too, didn't we, and what happened?

I thought Khouri was very deft. He spoke for a while and acknowledged Jewish suffering but pointed out patiently that Palestinians had been made to suffer terribly. It is a dispute over land, and the Arab nations have accepted the presence of a Jewish state. He didn't get upset. As to Ahmadinejad, he said that he did not have the power, Khameinei does. Iran has been a force in the region for thousands of years. You cannot wish that away. You must work with them and respect them. 

The last question was from an Israeli. He was angry. He sounded like a neocon, the way that almost any fearful Jew can sound like a neocon. I thought you were going to attack the Arab governments. You started out that way, he said. Then what does it come down to, the Arab-Israeli issue. Well i have friends in the Arab community. They agree that the Arab Israeli thing is just a "nuisance." But it gets elevated, because the real issues are not dealt with.

At last the man i had come to hear expressed himself. Khouri was emphatic and dismissive. "I disagree with your basic analysis." This is the longest military occupation of the 20th century, and the colonization continues. Look what the Israeli cabinet authorized two days ago, more settlements. It has created incredible suffering and has "everything to do" with the problems in the region. Hamas and Hezbollah didn't exist until 1982. They are Sharon's children. Israel's colonization "is the most radicalizing influence on the whole region." If you could address one issue that would have the maximum effect to calm the region, it is this one. The absence of a just solution perpetuates the autocracies that surround Israel. Of course the other issues will need to be dealt with. This comes first. "Most people around the world will tell you that. Solve the Arab-Israeli conflict and the radicalizing influence will dampen." They say this in Brazil, they say it in China. Only not in the U.S. and Israel.

It was raining, i walked out with my father. There were a group of women gathered on the steps holding umbrellas and speaking in whispers about the Nakba. I heard one say, "It was just like what we did with the Indians, what they did to them." My father and i walked to the car through an old church yard that he told me is partly ecumenical, Jewish and gentile scientists are buried there. 

I felt no ecumenical cohesion in my childhood community. The gentiles had been nodding and quiet and a little ashamed to agree with the Arab, but it didn't stop them agreeing. The Jews had been defensive, even in this highly educated privileged community. When will that change? And who can wait for that? I gather there are Arab intellectuals making this type of speech in communities around the country and god bless them. For my part I can report, there are huge quiet cultural divisions within the ruling class over this issue. Some will call it antisemitism. i say it is the refusal of my people to see themselves--the Israel in which they are so invested--as others see it, from China to Brazil.

Comments

[charles Keating]

Jesse Jackson (Mister Civil Rights) whispered that Obama was "talking down" to his people. That struck me as similar to the way black teens say "don't act white, nigger" to some lone peer who is striving for an education.

Is there a lesson here for American Jews?

[Richard Witty]

So, what did your father say? Did your mother go as well?

What do you think?

What do you see as the path forward? Practically?

I appreciate the civility that you describe in the presenter. I've met many Palestinians that similarly had a strong sense of consideration for their audience.

The reality that you don't acknowledge is that there is a gorge between two points. As the crow flies, its a hundred yards, but to get there, you have to drive a hundred miles, and wishing that you could drive a hundred yards, hinders the effort.

Maybe someone could build a bridge.

The metaphor that I've used is the drive from Boston to Provincetown. As the crow flies, its what, 45 miles? But, to get there, the shortest route is an 150 mile drive, through a lot of traffic.

Also, China doesn't see itself as the world sees it. Why should you expect Israel or Israelis to?

[charles Keating]

schizophrenia

one hand doesn't know what the other is doing

two different narratives

it's really hard to get beyond the dialogue in one's own head

[charles Keating]

Did Hitler's Germany see itself as others saw it?

[charles Keating]

The right of return.
Who says there's no more irony in the world?

[LanceThruster]

In many events that I have attended (Dr. Finkelstein to name one), I have seen angry Jews react to the speaker in a manner that showed that they hardly heard anything the speaker was saying. No matter how calmly and articulately the speaker tried to address the questioner (or more often, the "accuser"), the angrier they got.

It's as if they fear that without the heated rhetoric, agreements *will* be hammered out in a rational manner.

[Ed]

"The Jews had been defensive, even in this highly educated privileged community. When will that change?"

Never, because it is their lot in life, and their nature. And it is why they should never be given power over non-Jews, because they are bound to abuse it…which is yet another argument for the two-state solution, and the imposition of peace from without.

Force the Israelis to write a constitution enshrining the rights of all Israeli citizens, force them to draw their borders, have the Palestinians to do the same, and don’t give either side another dime until they do so. It’s not rocket science.

Ah, but then we run into the political dynamic and reality here in America, where deranged and “defensive” US Jewish Zionists (like the cow and her Zionist cohort trying to shout down the Arab) impose their dysfunctional will. Until their like is dealt with here, there will never be an I-P peace.

Are hand-wringing liberals ever going to have the gumption to marginalize them?

I don’t think ex-hippy Boomer left-liberals nor their simian-like, WWII-worshipping Bushcon counterparts on the Right are ever going to have the guts to do this. It’s going to take Generation X, Y and Z, which are quickly getting fed up with the entire dysfunctional Jewish and Zionist mentality, in all its sick forms and manifestations throughout American society.

[syvanen]

You capture here a dynamic that I have been sensing now for many years. I remember Aba Eban and his addresses to the UN compared to the statements by the Arab forces. In the PR department it was no contest. Later when Arafat emerged as a major player in Palestine -- it was the same thing. He would bluster away in his barely understandable and unappealing gutteral English while some suave Israeli would calmly explain the Israel position in perfect English. But recently I have noticed much more articulate Arab spokesmen who have a perfected calm who seem to provoke hysterical reactions from Zionist.

I admit these may seem like very superficial observations but when we consider that the US is probably the most critical battleground in Israeli-Palestinian war today, then each of these kinds of PR victories by the Arab intellectuals can make an important difference.

[syvanen]

You capture here a dynamic that I have been sensing now for many years. I remember Aba Eban and his addresses to the UN compared to the statements by the Arab forces. In the PR department it was no contest. Later when Arafat emerged as a major player in Palestine -- it was the same thing. He would bluster away in his barely understandable and unappealing gutteral English while some suave Israeli would calmly explain the Israel position in perfect English. But recently I have noticed much more articulate Arab spokesmen who have a perfected calm who seem to provoke hysterical reactions from Zionist.

I admit these may seem like very superficial observations but when we consider that the US is probably the most critical battleground in Israeli-Palestinian war today, then each of these kinds of PR victories by the Arab intellectuals can make an important difference.

[peters]

beautiful article. i wish i could get people i know to wake up but i can't. some, out of friendship or politeness, ask me a few questions, and quickly get restive. i am talking about highly educated gentiles here, they don't want to know about the issue. i believe they think i am unduly obsessed. i know why my jewish friends don't want to talk about it but i don't understand why the gentiles don't care about our country. this topic is tabu even to think about.

[peters]

beautiful article. i wish i could get people i know to wake up but i can't. some, out of friendship or politeness, ask me a few questions, and quickly get restive. i am talking about highly educated gentiles here, they don't want to know about the issue. i believe they think i am unduly obsessed. i know why my jewish friends don't want to talk about it but i don't understand why the gentiles don't care about our country. this topic is tabu even to think about.

[the Sword of Gideon]

It's the Phil Weiss trifecta, An Arab, in a church, dumping on the Jews.
And how do you see Hitlers Germany Keating. Do you have any of the original SS daggers, or recordings of the Horst Wessel song?

[otto]

More J Street-ery on Matt Yglesias's blog -- and follow the links.

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/new_j_street_endorsements.php#comments

[LanceThruster]

SOG - I have a postcard of Der Fuhrer meeting with a smiling bunch of German girls in some sort of homeland group. To me it bespeaks of how actions outside of conventional universal norms are promoted as cultural norms; therefore not only being acceptable and desireable, but virtually required.

This is how I see Zionist defending every single atrocity and instance of abuse as being justified as it pertains to dealing with the uncivilized "other."

[Ed]

SOG: "It's the Phil Weiss trifecta, An Arab, in a church, dumping on the Jews."

See what I mean? These people hate Arabs, hate Christians, hate everyone who is different than them out of sheer malice. It's not just the I-P issue or history, it's the very existence of a church, which they see as an ever-present reminder that they are different--and yet their difference is a state of affairs that they themselves promote. It's truly nuts.

One cannot hash out peace with nut-cases; one must impose a peace upon them, or isolate them, or both. They will inevitably see any bargaining or give and take as a trick or a conspiracy and throw a monkey-wrench into any progress. It’s all a waste of time.

History and nature are far too stubborn to change with feel-good platitudes. Why, even bombs don’t work, as the Bushcons and the violent liberal interventionists in the vein of Tom Friedman have found out through their Mideast misadventures.

Domestic liberal hand-wringers trying to reason with Jewish Zionists are accomplishing nothing but a waste of everyone’s time, and thus have become part of the problem.

[neocognitism]

Phil, great writing. I've spent some time in Woods Hole and I can imagine the audience. I think it's instructive to notice how the non-gentiles tend to go right for Hitler analogies and the whole 2000-years-of-suffering thing. There is so much fear behind the anger.

Sod of Gideon, aside from Ed, you're the most antisemitic person I've ever seen post here. You should look in the mirror and stop misrepresenting Jews and Israelis.

[Anonymous]

"Some will call it antisemitism. i say it is the refusal of my people to see themselves."

Au contraire, your people do nothing but look at themselves. That's judaism, the absolutely self-referential ideology which makes possible to reduce the distance between the idealized poor victim jew and the real ruthless racist elite jew to nil as the crow flies, while described as a parsec as the witty lies.

In the end your people will willfully keep walking with closed eyes until the pressure is too great, then the elite jews will fly from America and try to undermine it from another host to the applause of the local cattle. New Einsteins trying to detonate atomic bombs in the former host while being labelled "moral giants." The same jew that now demands american taxpayer money to... to buy american politicians, on the smallest reduction of its privileges will side with the next arising power and cal America "the evil empire."

Judaism is about elite preservation. It's about acquiring and keeping privileges against the best efforts of the host nation. That's why controlling the political process is essential. Israel is a cover up. While you are distracted by the human dilemma the elite jew marches on robbing, confident in his ability to captivate the imagination of other peoples and to carve a new niche in another nation's elite.

[Anonymous]

Otto, I don't know if you are aware, but Matt Yglesias has deleted all his posts from before july 2004 in order to cover his positions on the Iraq war, of which he was an ardent instigator. He was also one of the most vocal proponents of the antisemitic epithet to those who dared to talk about the jewishness of the neocons. It's not for nothing that his "host" (the word fits completely) is the same who rejected the original Walt and Mearshmeier paper. As you see, apart from Phil you should find little honesty on the jewish side of the blogosphere.

[Anonymous]

"You should look in the mirror and stop misrepresenting Jews and Israelis."

As far as I can see jews are very well represented in american political institutions, therefore I believe my oppinions have zero effect on misrepresentation. On the other hand, to tell you a tale about how did I become "me" there was I time I would cheer my jewish acquaintances when they departed to Israel full of desire to "curb the power of jewish extremists" only to perceive their talk change from "jewish extremists" to "palestinian extremists" to "painful concessions" to "realities on the ground" an then I cut the crap. I don't believe jews have the ability to stop being ethnocentric, period. Americans either strive to apply their laws equally to jews and humans or then relinquish their freedom altogether.

[Anonymous]

To close my rantings I'd like to say I'm disapointed by Neocognitism's cheap selling of Ed as a mirror image of the sog.

Right now americans feed the likes of sog with billions for them to do as they like. Right now americans are killing iraqis to help protect the colony of sogs in the middle east. Were not your country America people like Ed would be in prison for stating his beliefs in american pluralism and equality before the law, instead of jewish exceptionalism and need of state-sanctioned protection and privilege.

Were Ed wrong in his statement that jewish power over humans leads inevitably to power abuse would there be any need of this Mondoweiss of ours? Would there be need of any of us? Of you, Neocognitism?

Is Ed defending the use of torture while sitting in his Harvard cathedra? If not what are you doing here criticizing him while there are people doing this in the name of you americans? Is that what your founders expected of you? To bite each other's neck while people with no long-term interest in your nation create havoc around the world while posing as americans?

[samuel burke]

youre still my favorite jewish-american writer...sorry about the hyphenated american thing...dont take it personal its just an american way of seeing things.

Robert Frost...
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

[Judy]

Bravo, Mr. Weiss. I applaud your courage and your honest appraisal. You are truly a breath of fresh air.

[Todd]

Amen, Anonymous. Very well stated.

Why shouldn't Jewish power be questioned? Is it healthy for 2% of the population to hold sway over the other 98%? And what does it say about the 2% that it is so driven to hold power?

There is no doubt that my interests are different from Israel's, but it's also true that Jewish interests within the nation rarely square with mine.

[peters]

anonymous,
i would be interested in how you did get to where you are in your thinking. the minute you spoke of your experience i started paying attention. the bitter generalizations about jews don't help. don't you see it's fodder for the ones who want to dismiss phil and his anti-semitic acolytes? same with ed.

[MM]

Matt Yglesias has deleted all his posts from before july 2004 in order to cover his positions on the Iraq war, of which he was an ardent instigator.

Dunno about instigator. More of a continuing apologist for the rationale of violent, sociopathic interventionism under a broad array of humanitarian pretexts, and consequent naive enabler of zionist imperialism's worst excesses?

Though time will tell whether M.Y.'s rejection of Peretzian Arab-is-dogism came from a universalist or simply better-calculating tendency. I'm cheering for the guy.

As you see, apart from Phil you should find little honesty on the jewish side of the blogosphere.

One thing seems clear to me--the less zionist they are, the more inclined toward the truth.

Greenwald and Phil are both invaluable imo.

Speaking of which, Glenn's doing weekly podcasts. He should have Phil--21st century American zionism, W&M, Iraq, I/P "peace process", Obama, ideological roots of the War on Terror, etc.

acknowledged Jewish suffering but pointed out patiently that Palestinians had been made to suffer terribly. It is a dispute over land, and the Arab nations have accepted the presence of a Jewish state. He didn't get upset.

But the catch is that the Jewish state can't be an expansionist, militarist, arm of American interventionism.

But state-building and war-profiteering require: 1) un-fixed borders & corrupt two-tier justice system, and 2) American-economy-generated capital, by the boatloads.

But WWII and the Holocaust simply don't justify that project anymore (if they ever did).

If anything, the history of the 20th century should definitively bury any form of imperial colonialism once and for all.

Phil is right, only in the media-warped minds of Americans and zionists is this even borderline acceptable behavior for a self-proclaimed "superpower".

Re: pogroms (again) - The element of profiteering through manipulation, corruption, and provocation of violence arouses indignation, stereotyping, and worse in any society, towards any group.

[peters]

Caught between sobbing and war chants - by Gilad Atzmon
By Gilad Atzmon • Jul 18th, 2008 at 9:28 • Category: Analysis, Gilad Atzmon, Gilad's Choice, Israel, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, Our Authors, Palestine, War, Zionism

Monitoring the current Israeli collective pornographic lament in the Hebrew press, I found, to my amazement, a critical editorial written by Dr Mordechai Keidar, an Israeli rightwing academic...

Keidar grasps how pitiable the current collective mourning festival appears to outsiders and Israel’s neighbours in particular. As much as one can empathise with the pain of the soldiers’ families, Regev and Goldwasser were IDF soldiers in uniform serving a very hostile army. When abducted they were in a military patrol on the disputed Lebanese border. For those who still didn’t get the picture, they were soldiers rather than merely ‘innocent civilians’. They were theoretically capable of defending themselves. The case of Gilad Shalit is not very different. Shalit, who is presented in the world media as an ‘innocent victim’ was nothing less then a post guard in an Israeli concentration camp, namely Gaza. Shalit, like Goldwasser and Regev, was wearing an IDF uniform when captured. Neither Regev, Goldwasser nor Shalit were victims. They were all serving a state that employs some devastating genocidal tactics including starvation, ethnic cleansing and assassination of those it views as its enemies.

However, it is rather astonishing to find out how short the Israeli collective memory is. The failed IDF rescue of Regev and Goldwasser, following Hezbollah’s successful ambush evolved into Israel launching the Second Lebanon War. In an act of retaliation, retribution and vengeance Israel demolished Lebanon’s infrastructure, it flattened southern Lebanon towns and villages as well as some neighbourhoods in Beirut. It killed thousand of Lebanese civilians. Somehow the Israelis managed to forget all of this. The only thing the Israelis see is two black coffins. They even managed to neglect the fact that in return they themselves traded 190 plain coffins containing the bodies of Hezbollah militants.

The Israelis are pretty gifted in seeing themselves only. In their eyes, their pain is somehow superior to the pain others feel. Yet something puzzles me. In the light of the Israeli collective necrophilic weeping event I find myself rather confused. If Israel and the Israelis can hardly get over two tragic Israeli military casualties, how will they be able to cope with the global war they insist upon launching against Iran. If the Israelis cannot cope with two coffins, how will they ever be able to cope with Tel Aviv turning into the site of a mass grave? Their war cries suggest that this is something they seem to insist upon involving themselves in.

[sword of gideon]

Ed, you know your really going to force me to put in a call to the elders in Jerusalem to do something about you. I think will start with eviction. Come on, after the Knocking off Jesus, ( although he was jew, bad example ). the black plauge, financial panics, and everything bad that has ever happened, anywhere, to anybody. ( not sure where the holocaust fits in or the inquisition, but i'm sure you have theory ) Because after all we are agents of satan. How tough do you think you would be.

[church]

Phil,
Every time I read you it breaks my heart. You are a giant in some ways and I aspire to achieve your grasp of nuance and your writing ability.

But you persist in romantic ideas about right and wrong - you really seem to believe that if we could deal with Israel then things would change in the world.

You do not seem to recognize the level of culpability that Jews have and are not owning up to. How can it be that every popular history, of the inquistion, WWI, WWII, the USSR, is nothing but a record of Jewish victimhood? How can this jibe with what we experience every day? It begins to look more and more like the only accepted and orthodox view of history is written by the Jews.

Is this not exactly what we see today all around us, in every written word?

I have met your loud woman and her bullying, as has anyone who is part of the elite. All the gentiles sit quietly embarrased in the presence of such a self assured ass - someone who appears to be lacking shame, or a gene which tells them how to act decently in a group.

Oh how I detest a bully. Check out Lemoyne's painting "Time Saving Truth from Envy and Falsehood."

[Ed]

Is “anti-Semitism” a form of racism when organized Jewry engages in a collective racialist political program and agenda? What other word is there for opposition to Jewish racialism? Anti-Zionism? But what about organized Jewish racialism unrelated to Israel? I see Israel as merely a manifestation of organized Jewish racialism, but there are plenty of other manifestations, including organized Jewish scorn for Christianity, for Islam, for non-Jews in general, and for any organization of non-Jews that might counter organized Jewish supremacism and its ability to subjugate and exploit non-Jews.

I agree that it is wrong to smear all Jews for the sins of merely a component of organized Jewry (a trespass I myself am occasionally guilty of); but at what point do the racialist tenets of modern Judaism, in conjunction with its enablement of the clearly fascist component of organized Jewry, force non-Jews to view the entirety of organized Judaism as suspect? And at what point does organized Judaism’s blending of racialism, religion and politics (similar to Islam’s blending of religion and politics) allow judgments on the entirety of organized Jewry as free political speech? Aren’t accusations of anti-Semitism an effort to suppress political speech? In fact, aren’t accusations of anti-Semitism themselves a form of hostile political aggression, as this was a regular pretext for a Gulag sentence and often extermination in the former Soviet Union?

SOG’s facile threats will not be so empty if we continue our current trajectory towards a Big Government police state run largely by Jewish Zionists, which is why I continue to aggressively speak out (yes, occasionally crossing the line).

First they came for the “anti-Semites.”

[Eva Jlassi]

Well, I so admire your Arab speaker for not getting upset. Maybe I will arrive at this position after considerable amount of work on self-control. Right now, reading BTselem reports leaves me outraged. Reading about ghetto of Gaza, mini-ghettos of Bethlehem and Qalqilya, micro-ghetto (too numerous to mention, gates open for few hours, can't leave without permit, can't get permit without leaving) leaves me wanting to shout. And in my background, my grandmother, telling me about german occupation. They were human too, those Germans, convinced that without Osten lands their country will not achieve the greatness that history awarded them. And then I read about the catastrophic decline in calories and nutrients allocated to Palestinians in Gaza, and the growing malnutrition, and I believe that your Arab speaker, who did not get upset, is a hero.

[Todd]

"I have met your loud woman and her bullying, as has anyone who is part of the elite. All the gentiles sit quietly embarrased in the presence of such a self assured ass - someone who appears to be lacking shame, or a gene which tells them how to act decently in a group."

I think we've all met them, elite or not. They are in school boards, town councils, and neighborhood committes throughout the country, qualified or not. It's the stereotype that you can't mention.

What drives these people to be a wrench in the gears is beyond me. But they do they do seem to feel entitled to being a nuisance, even when they are so far in the minority that their interests shouldn't even matter.

[samuel burke]

philip giraldi is at it again...speaking about false flags and israel..say it aint so shane, say it aint so. not our little beloved national socialist state of israel.

http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_07_28_giraldi.mp3

"Some intel types are beginning to express concerns that the Israelis might do something completely crazy to get the US involved. There are a number of possible “false flag” scenarios in which the Israelis could insert a commando team in the Persian Gulf or use some of their people inside Iraq to stage an incident that they will make to look Iranian, either by employing Iranian weapons or by leaving a communications footprint that points to Tehran’s involvement.
Those who argue that Israel would never do such a thing should think again. Israel is willing to behave with complete ruthlessness towards the US if they feel that the stakes are high enough, witness the attack on the USS Liberty and the bombing of the US Consulate in Alexandria in the 1950s."

[Vera Beaudin Saeedpour]

More than treasures times erase
Men prefer to worship place
Be it mountain, meadow, hill
Worship terra firma still
And so they live and so they die
For places where their traces lie.

For us Jews this proclivity is particularly hypocritical because we prefer to believe that Israel is a gift from a Higher Authority and yet we worship Washington and weapons to keep it.

[Richard Witty]

The defense of Israel is NOT the defense of place, but of community.

That is distinct from expansion, which is some confusion of whether place or law is more important.

[MRW.]

"Some will call it antisemitism. i say it is the refusal of my people to see themselves."

Or what Robert Bechtold Heilman called the melodramatic mind which sees itself only wholly and lives in a universe of right and wrong for which it will take no responsibility.

Heilman, in his seminal book Tragedy and Melodrama, wrote that one a great civilization is capable producing Tragedy, because only a great civilization is capable of acknowledging the tragic consciousness that faces squarely its own part in what it has become.

The history of Judaism for 2,000 years is that of an immature religion that preaches victimhood, a prime definition of melodrama, although it is not a pejorative. It simply is when compared with the definition of tragedy, which requires self-awareness and a responsibility to know it.

[charles Keating]

The Jewsh dream is aways blood-line survival.

[MRW.]

Bravo, Mr. Weiss. I applaud your courage and your honest appraisal. You are truly a breath of fresh air.

Posted by:Judy | July 28, 2008 at 09:29 PM

I second this.

[MRW.]

Posted by:samuel burke | July 29, 2008 at 08:40 AM

I have a sneaking suspicion (based on nothing but my own nose form reading) that should they try it this time, those military officers and troops who take the vow seriously to protect US citizens from enemies within and without will make what they know known.

That is what was behind the NIE release last December after a year of Cheney trying to hide it. Ditto the nuclear bombs that landed at Barksdale from Minot a year ago, for onward forwarding to the ME. Soldiers on the runway called Army Times and spilled the beans with photos. The AirForce did its first ever lockdown, but the results of the investigation were sealed. The only thing we know is that they admitted to a rogue second line of command. Suspicions are rife that it was Cheney's office.

[Marion Delgado]

Nice blog, and fascinating post. Pity you draw classic Bircher/antisemitic commenters, but to a degree that's them taking advantage of the backlash, since for the first time in my life Americans can actually question the Israel lobby a little. They took advantage of the JFK assassination, they took advantage of 9/11. It's what they do.

Amusingly, "Ed" etc. remind me of the (bad) essentialist German-smearing elements of Dan Goldhagen's fatally flawed "Hitler's Willing Executioners" combined with the eliminationist rhetoric Goldhagen correctly focused on.

Germany in 1936 was not the issue - in a way, we were lucky it was a civilized white nation - something like the holocaust happening in Asia or Africa would be no big deal unless you could pin it on the communists.

Similarly, Israel, Zionism, the Israel lobby and the Jewish state are not the issue. The issues are free speech, fighting blood-and-soil fascism, preserving the environment, and fighting imperialism and racism. Just like always.

[Ed]

Marion: ‘something like the holocaust happening in Asia or Africa would be no big deal unless you could pin it on the communists…The issues are free speech, fighting blood-and-soil fascism, preserving the environment, and fighting imperialism and racism.'

Oh, yes, you Communist-loving left-liberals have all done such a swell job of all of those--that is when you weren’t suppressing political speech, murdering Christians and other dissidents by the millions (the antecedent to the Holocaust), and melting down nuclear reactors in the former Soviet Union.

All your politically correct talk is nothing but elaborate cover for the malice and hatred that boils just underneath left-liberalism’s surface, and employed as utilitarian rhetoric in your quest for power. No surprise that you would collaborate with Soviet Judeofascists for awhile, and now, radical Islam, against the Christian West.

After Communism and its tens of millions of murders (during which the Western Left happily looked the other way, pretending it all wasn’t happening; you’ve got to break eggs to make omelets, right Marion?) why should you left-liberals ever be trusted with power again? Tom Friedman, who regularly asserts that all the Muslims need is a good beating to mend their evil ways, and his liberal interventionism is the exact same product you are selling.

The only change is that because the Judeofascists now have a state of their own and are using it against the Left-wing universalist agenda and on behalf of the Right-wing one, they are no longer your partners. But you all always were the same fundamental, stunted animal.

Aren't socialists Bernie Sanders and Thom Hartmann two of the far-Left’s big heroes? What’s their position on the I-P conflict? I’ll tell you: they’re too busy looking the other way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqybHOaMucI

[the Sword of Gideon]

Actually it's a good thing that the Jewish part of your wife's story ends with her. Any Jewish girl that would marry an anti-semite like yourself is addition by subtraction.

[samuel burke]

i saw this over at finkelsteins website and immediately thought of how american jews are indoctrinated into thinking by their uberlord zionist leaders. while the truth is obfuscated behind the iron wall of holocaustianity.

Overheard in Sderot's beauty salon: "It's a lie, it's a lie. Jews never lie. Jews never shoot except in self-defense. I bet it a was a Palestinian disguised as an IDF officer. But I have to run now. I'm investigating an exclusive NY Times story on Moroccan blintzes."

[Anonymous]

At last I have been called "classic." Something classic. Feel good being classic. The other monkeys will die from envy. Pity I cannot wear ballerina shoes, otherwise I might be able to ask Marion for a pas-de-deux in retribution for her gracious compliment.

"Dunno about instigator."

That was "ardent instigator." You cannot deny me my hyperbole. It's a form of art, you know, requires a certain amount of sophistication... wait... these ballerina shoes are killing me... what? come on I need at least to have a try... where was I? Yes, I was there when the Yglesias kid came from harvardian genesis to blogosphere revelation. It was a pure case of...

[Is]Rael imperial aerosol kid, exits into daylight spray gun hid...
(and the lamb lies down on broadway...)

But after a lot of mistakes, feeling his way upward to the ceiling would be easy with some lite critical-zionist greese...

[Is]Rael imperial aerosol kid, wipes his gun, he's forgotten what he did...
(and the lamb lies down on broadway...)

Just wait while the media Lamias do their licking on Matt and a full grown Slipperman comes out of the bag.

[Anonymous]

"i would be interested in how you did get to where you are in your thinking."

Peters, I thank you and will not forget the request, but today that would kill the well being I'm feeling after becoming classic.

[Ed]

Marion: "Israel, Zionism, the Israel lobby and the Jewish state are not the issue. The issues are free speech, fighting blood-and-soil fascism, preserving the environment, and fighting imperialism and racism."

Nothing to see here...move along, move along. You've been studying your Hartmann/Sanders technique, haven't you? And your Communist talking points. You anti-Christian ideologues are truly so transparently shameless and venal, how have you been able to get away with it for so long?

Now that we've got the psychotic Judeofascists finally contained in Israel, what the hell are we going to do with all these damn psychotic Communists, and their evil twins, the New World Order Bushcons?

Oh Lord, it never ends...

[charles Keating]

RE: "Actually it's a good thing that the Jewish part of your wife's story ends with her. Any Jewish girl that would marry an anti-semite like yourself is addition by subtraction."--SOG

Actually, SOG, you are lucky she's not a pure Jewish racist like you.

[arrgh]

Ed's "Judeofascists" remark is best seen in the context of the "Turner diaries", undoubtedly his favorite book.

There the author is very sympathetic to the Arabs killing off every last Jew they could find in radioactive ruins of Tel Aviv, only to state matter-of-factly a few pages later that all the non-whites of the world were exterminated in 11 months by the victorious Whitey.

One can only assume, Arabs included.

This place is just precious. A meeting ground for your typical leftie, a nazi, a whitey, a Jews-hating descendant of Jews... All richly deserving one another, in service of their true masters, the Arabs.

How's the dirhams coming, Mondowoshkeiss? Feeling proud and self-righteouss AND getting paid for it - now THAT's the racket!..

[Bacolod masskara]

Palmas del Mar Bacolod is a five-acre resort right at the edge of the sea. Set facing the majestic sunset are amenities for everyone in the family to enjoy. There are three swimming pools to choose from…a five-lane lapping pool...a free-form island pool…a Mediterranean-design pool.Visit at www.palmasdelmarresort.net