The Media Review Network has a story on their website from the Guardian by Sharif Nashashibi which claims that not only the BBC, but also Al-Jazeera, favour Israel in their coverage.
Sharif debunked his own study. Applying his methods use on the BBC to Al-Jazeera he was forced to conclude that Al-Jazeera is also biased in favour of Israel.
I bet his analysis would conclude that even the Media Review Network are pro-Israel!
Find the article on the MRN site at http://www.mediareviewnet.com/index.php/200906291050/News-Headlines/BBC-anti-Israel-bias-is-a-myth.php
See a response from Honest Reporting at the Jerusalem Post: BBC Pro Israel? Don't make me laugh
Greetings Zionists
As you might have heard,Al-jazeera has been banned from operating in the West Bank. This follows an earlier restriction by the israeli government regarding access to government sources.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/07/200971515380676310.html
Question is: If the PA don't like what Al jazeera is doing and the Israeli goverment don't like what Al Jazeera is doing, who is Al jazeera biased in favour of? Hamas? and why?
Posted by: Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls | July 15, 2009 at 22:11
Correct, Al-Jazeera does favor Hamas.
Why? Hamas promote a violent overthrowing of all non-Muslim lands.
Al-Jazeera’s programming makes a point of undermining and even sensationalizing reporting that undermines the regimes of western powers or less dedicated Muslim states.
For more on this I suggest you follow the money that Hamad bin Khalifa provides to the various branches of the Muslim brother hood. This is the same Hamad bin Khalifa, who started Aljazeera. He is also the “moderate” Emir of Qatar who overthrew his father in order to take control of the Kingdom and its massive oil wealth.
Cheers
Posted by: Shaun | July 16, 2009 at 09:26
So are you saying the PA isn't interested in the "violent overthrow of non-muslim lands"? Clearly, the Israeli gov likes them much more than Hamas I'll concede. During Cast Lead the PA helpfully beat and arrested protesors on the West Bank. Plenty of Hamas members dying during 'arrests' on the West Bank lately.
What has this more moderate pro-isreali stance (relative to Hamas anyway)gained for the PA?
Posted by: Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls | July 16, 2009 at 10:47
This perception of "moderate" has gained the PA international Aid, conveniently funneled to Swiss bank accounts, not to mention a mandate to Rule i.e. the ability to collect taxes with the guns supplied by America and Israel.
QED
Posted by: Religious Fundamentalist 1 | July 16, 2009 at 11:28
Why all the different names? Soutof...Nazisoutof...now this?
Please stick to one name.
Posted by: Steve | July 16, 2009 at 13:50
If you desperately feel the need to personally attack someone please don’t use the blog as a tool.
I would have hoped that the moderators would delete any such posts.
Posted by: Shaun | July 16, 2009 at 14:29
Mike, Steve
I'm with Shaun, not only is this not the place for personal attacks of this sort, the length of the post and the tone should be grounds enough to delete it. This is for comments, not Solar Plexus bashing and copy-and-paste.
Zinn is also a repeat offender in the area of copy-paste and long unsubstantiated vitriolic diatribes. Even if he is the ultimate source of truth lecturing to the unwashed masses - let him do it on his own blog.
Posted by: Religious Fundamentalist 1 | July 16, 2009 at 14:56
I'm not this Zinn fellow, though his post is probably the most agreeable and lucid I've read in IAS. Obviously, there are jews in the world who havn't allowed themselves to devolve into racist freaks. It's urgent that the world be reminded of this every so often lest the anti-semites win the argument. The 'lefties' and the 'bleeding hearts' are the only ones preventing perception of jews from being smeared further.
Assuming we all survive this clash of civilisations I think you will eventually come to thank guys like Zinn for keeping his head and keeping the flame of decency and justice alive through very dark times indeed.
Posted by: Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls | July 16, 2009 at 14:58
So once again the Fundie Fool accuses me of two directly contradictory charges, namely copying and pasting, presumably from other sources, and writing "unsubstantiated diatribes". Either my posts are unsubstantiated or I have relied on sources, but I can't both substantiate and not substantiate at the same time. Though I suppose such subtle logic will ever elude the Zionist mind.
To those who might not know, Fundie Fool's strategy consists of quibbling with 3 out of every 100 or so facts I cite, and thinking he's scored some sort of great moral victory while simultaneously always missing the larger point I was making. That is when he doesn't simply ignore facts that he can't refute and which utterly shatter his worldview. Delusion is something of a speciality with this specimen, as it is for most Zionist clowns.
It's been quite a busy few weeks in the realm of news pertaining to Israel. Not that you would know it from reading the 'It's Almost Supernatural' blog. Firstly, Israel's army has been accused of war crimes by Amnesty International, which one can read about in a Time Magazine article at http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1908285,00.html.
Israel has turned yet again to piracy, of a far more egregious sort than any Somalis have ever have done, in illegally capturing the 'Spirit of Humanity' ship in international waters and taking all 21 passengers prisoner on 30 June, including a Nobel Laureate and former US Congresswoman. Read all about it in Paul Craig Roberts' excellent article 'Pirates of the Mediterranean' available at http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07012009.html.
Also, congratulations to Israel for being safer than Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. It's just a pity these are the only countries less peaceful than Israel as indicated in a Global Peace Index published recently where Israel ranks 141 out of 144 countries. For more on this story please see the relevant Jerusalem Post article available at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1243872323079&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull.
I could make mention of Jonathan Cook's article on how Israeli doctors have been found to be colluding with the Israeli government's ongoing torture regime, but I wouldn't want to bore everyone with all this reality-based information. I have to wonder how the Zionists spin the fact that Israel is the only country in the world to legalise torture.
So have I provided enough substantiation, Fundie Fanatic, you miserable schmuck?
Thanks for the kind words Iok Sotot, also wish there were more people with your outlook in this world.
Posted by: David Zinn | July 16, 2009 at 15:45
Welcome back David
You still have a few unanswered questions from a previous thread…
I’ll remind you of a couple…
Please acknowledge the intension of Hassan Azzamaha.
Please read the origins of the Nakba (Hint it predated 1948).
If you are going to call Jonathan Cook as a reliable source, it would also be wise to remember that he was one of the “journalists” who published stories about mass graves and hundreds of dead in Jenin during operation defensive shield.
This blog is not a government sponsored forum and has no official organizational sanctioning therefore I claims that in the context of this blog, free speech is a privileged and not a right.
The world is not lacking for forums where filth, anti-Zionism, personal attacks and bad language are tolerated and encouraged.
I humbly request that comments like those of Zinn be screened and delete where necessary.
There is no need to comply or publish the posts of someone who proudly claims…
“Arab hatred which simply isn't at issue. One isn't responsible for other people's actions, one is only responsible for one's own actions.”
Or refers to other bloggers as “miserable schmuck”
There are many other forums where ZINN can rant without hinderace.
Posted by: Shaun | July 16, 2009 at 16:44
David's comment has been deleted.
NazisoutofPalestine, I was not referring to David. I wrote the comment without even seeing his. I am referring to all the comments posted by you with different Names. Nazis, Sout, and now Lot.
Why do you want people to think you are someone else all of the time?
Posted by: Steve | July 16, 2009 at 18:33
David,
I don't know what makes you think this blog is your personal tool for your vendetta against Mike Berger.
I hate to delete comments, but I do the same when personal attacks are launched against Doron Isaacs and his colleagues.
Shaun, the only reason he calls RF1 a "miserable shmuch" is because of the way RF1 destroyed his entire argument a while back.
Posted by: Steve | July 16, 2009 at 18:39
Steve
My previous nic "Nazisoutofpalistine" was chosen after watching some Al Jazeera. But, seeing as I'm more interested in constructive debate than merely insulting people (even if i think they deserve it and the insult is accurate) I decided to change it.
I am now, until the stars are right, Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls which I chose because it's more memorable than Jim-Bob77534.
I think it stinks that you deleted Zinn's post. What makes this Burger guy so special that he doesn't have to justify himself? And as for RF1s argument, I thought he was hallucinating another argument entirely, as usual. Unfortuanately, thanks to your censorship no-one will ever be able to decide for themselves.
Private blogs might not be required to adhere to the principle of free speech, but one that hopes to "expose bias" and "promote balanced foreign policy" regarding Israel should consider it, unless you merely want to sermonise to Zionists that are already in total agreement with each other.
I can assure you it will take more than "schmuck" to offend me. What the hell does "schmuck" mean anyway???
Posted by: Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls | July 16, 2009 at 19:03
Nazis,
What are you smoking? The schmuck comments have nothing to do with you.
My blog does not exist so that people can print emails that Mike Berger hasn't responded to. Free speech isn't even part of the issue here.
Btw, was your nick chosen after watching the same Al Jazeera that the Palestinians have banned?
Posted by: Steve | July 16, 2009 at 19:17
Ja, that Al Jazeera. It's the best news channel on satalite IMO. Just out of a morbid sense of curiosity, is there a single news source on this planet, except for your humble blog perhaps, that isn't part of the global anti-israel conspiracy?
Posted by: Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls | July 16, 2009 at 20:52
And really, what is a schmuck?
Posted by: Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls | July 16, 2009 at 20:53
'And really, what is a schmuck?'
From dictionary.com:
–noun Slang.
an obnoxious or contemptible person.
Origin:
1890–95; < Yiddish shmok (vulgar) lit., penis (of uncert. orig.)
or
n. Slang
A clumsy or stupid person; an oaf.
[Yiddish shmok, penis, fool, probably from Polish smok, serpent, tail.].
Posted by: Ariel | July 16, 2009 at 21:06
Thanks for clearing that up Ariel :-)
Posted by: Steve | July 16, 2009 at 21:28
Dear liberal minded anti-Zionists.
Please could you assist me and explain the following contradiction.
In today’s modern world of moral relativism where there are no absolutes and we are encouraged to see everyone’s actions or reactions with context.
How is it that despite all this you are able to view Israel as wrong?
Surely by being an Anti Zionist you are defying the very basis of liberal tolerance by deciding that one group is wrong and another right?
How can it be that Hamas rockets being fired into civilian populations are regarded as “unhelpful”, yet IDF soldiers stationed at checkpoints are regarded as “brutal”?
Why are these two events not seen within context and judged equally?
What makes the situation in Israel so unique?
Cheers
Posted by: Shaun | July 19, 2009 at 10:32
Greetings, oh Zionist ones
Sorry for not coming back to you guys sooner, but remember it was the Jewish Sabbath yesterday, after all.
So I see that in honour of the state that all the Zionists here love so much you have decided to replicate its increasing disdain for dissent and free speech by removing my post addressed to Solar Plexus. This is a most apposite gesture of homage to a state where the very mention of the term ‘Nakba’ could soon be a criminal offence and Israeli Arabs will have to sign a pledge of allegiance to the Jewish state of Israel. That is, if they aren’t deported before this new legislation comes into effect. I suppose considering that Israel is a country where Mordechai Vanunu was forced to spend 18 years in jail, 11 of those in solitary confinement, all for supposedly revealing nuclear secrets everyone already knew, and where Palestinian leaders Israel doesn’t like are subjected to “targeted assassinations”, where thousands of young men are kidnapped and held for years in Israeli jails under “administrative detention”, a euphemism for no charges being brought against them, and where young boys are killed by Israeli soldiers for sport, to mention just some of the egregious acts that the Israeli state has been, and still is, responsible for, I shouldn’t be at all surprised that my missive to that foul Mike Berger has been unceremoniously deleted. I would have expected nothing less from the sorts of people (I use the term very loosely) who populate this noxious swamp of fevered fanaticism. Seeing as how Israel treats the lives of Palestinians as privileges which could be instantly revoked at any moment, I have come off rather lightly.
Despite that fact that one of the central pillars to Shaun’s defence of Israel, in line with all Zionists, is undoubtedly the questionable claim that Israel is the “only democracy in the Middle East”, he clearly has no time for democracy himself as his request that my comments “be screened and deleted where necessary” makes amply clear. In the land of the Zionists irony abounds.
Now as regards the matter of the repugnant Berger specimen, I regret nothing I’ve written to or about him. In fact, he’s come off rather lightly considering all the hatred he has flung my way. What raised my ire to near unimaginable heights was his comparing me to a bunch of drunken American Jewish low lives in Jerusalem who bandied about such ferociously foul language as calling Obama a “nigger” and saying “f—k Obama” repeatedly. These young thugs were filmed by Max Blumenthal in Jerusalem and the video was called ‘Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem’. It caused quite a stir, to say the least, and after being watched around 400 000 times was pulled from Youtube. He has recently released a follow up video called ‘Feeling the Hate in Tel Aviv’ where an Israeli youth proudly says that he is a racist and calls Obama the obligatory n-word. Racial hatred is clearly one commodity in Israel that has little chance of being exhausted in the near future. Now anyone, and I mean anyone, who even mentions my name in the same sentence as such despicable pieces of garbage is liable to be ripped to shreds, whether in the blogosphere or in real life. If Mike Berger had made the comparison in person I would probably have punched him in the face, regardless of how ancient he is. Fortunately for him, I’m generally quite a pacific character so would have probably held back, but only just. Considering how deeply I deplore racism, which Zionists have absolutely no problem with as I will discuss later, this sort of analogy sickens me to the deepest recesses of my being and that’s why I lashed out so harshly against this vile hateful smear merchant.
Another thing to keep in mind, apropos your dear Mike, is that I have never once used any foul language in reference to him, and the only vulgar terms I used in my last e-mail were either his quotes or terms of racial derision that I used to illustrate a point. He wrote an e-mail to Steve, which he naturally forwarded to me, in which he referred to me as a “cunt”. This disgusting display of vulgarity from a man more than double my age shocked me considerably, and Mike should be ashamed of himself. If I had an uncle or father or grandfather who used such terms I would hang my head in eternal embarrassment. Such is the man’s infantile approach to ‘debate’, and if I ever had any doubts that Zionism is a phenomenon of the gutter they have been thoroughly dispelled.
Steve, you are either trying out a new stand-up routine or indulging in some perverse irony. Anyone with a functioning brain who reads the exchanges between myself and Religious Fundie Fool Numero Uno would see that I utterly trounced him in every department. The Fundie couldn’t defeat me in any argument even if his IQ increased by a hundred points and he read twice as much as I have on the Israel/Palestine conflict. You simply cannot buy logic, reason and an affinity for facts.
In a face to face debate the defeat that I have already meted out to the Fundie would even be more profound. Just think about how a debate between the Fundie fool and myself in a packed lecture hall in front of an audience of people whose brains’ were still partially intact, which naturally precludes all Zionists, Christian fundamentalists and neocon nut jobs, would proceed. I would marshal masses of evidence from dozens of books, hundreds of articles, loads of human rights reports, dozens of UN Resolutions over many decades condemning Israeli actions, International Court of Justice rulings, eyewitness testimony from IDF soldiers, to name just the primary evidentiary samples I could call on, and the Fundie would have, uh, Israeli government pronouncements, IDF reports, a smattering of Islamaphobic professors whose anti-Arab racism is barely concealed, and precious else. I would be able to trace the history of Israel right from the genocidal founding of Israel through to the horrors of Operation Cast Lead and in response the Fundie would either ignore all the evidence, distort what I say, or go off on tangents that have no bearing on the argument at hand. It would soon become clear to the audience that the Fundie is an embarrassment to the cause and he would probably be laughed off the stage, if he hadn’t already slinked off by then. You see, in the real world, at least those parts of it where reason is still somewhat present, logic beats illogic, rationality trounces irrationality, reasoned argumentation confounds unreasonable hysterics, and facts thoroughly destroy fabrications. In short, it wouldn’t be pretty, and I would almost, but not quite, take pity on my poor adversary.
You will note in previous engagements on this blog that Fundie assiduously makes the point that we’re not debating, when that’s all we’ve been doing up to that point, because he knows that any debate with me will end in utter humiliation for him. I will concede, however, that in an important sense it is actually impossible to beat Zionists in an argument for one simple reason which was wonderfully encapsulated by Rachel Maddow, bless her, in a recent broadcast of her show where she said "You can't win an argument with someone who doesn't deal in facts.” Though it really isn’t my problem that Zionists are so estranged from factual information.
Now Shaun, perhaps you don’t know that one is supposed to defer to one’s betters. Jonathan Cook lives in Nazareth, that is in Israel, a country that you love but don’t live in. I will rather trust what Cook writes about anything to do with the Israel/Palestine conflict than I will ever listen to any Zionist troll. So what I’d like you and your fellow Zionist cohorts to do is to shut the hell up about what’s happening in Palestine until such a time as you actually have an inkling of what you’re talking about. Let me repeat that very slowly – shut…the…hell…up. Got it? Good. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts. So until such a time as you read UN Resolutions, starting with 242, copious human rights reports, both within Israel and the ones compiled by international agencies, and read books by scholars who actually have some knowledge of what’s going on in Palestine, neither you nor any of your fellow Zionists have the right to mouth off about the country. And if you insist on spewing filthy lies then I suggest you and your Zionist cronies leave South Africa and move to Israel, never to return home again.
On the Jenin issue, even if we accept that 52 people died, ask yourself whether you’d be so comfortable if Hamas launched an attack in Israel and killed 52 Israelis. Oh, what’s that you say, Palestinians lives aren’t worth the same as Israeli lives. I thought you’d claim something like that.
I am glad you quoted my words in full regarding the hatred of Arabs because the second sentence is far more important than the first. I would have thought it’s an elementary point of logic, but I forgot that Zionists aren’t generally the most logical of people so I’ll have to spell it out again, I suppose. We are always only ever responsible for our own actions, whether we live in South Africa or Outer Mongolia. This is a website devoted to painting Israel in glowing light while denigrating its enemies. Thus the actions of Israel are clearly highly important to the defenders of Israel, at least they should be. I have primarily addressed the actions of Israel as these are clearly the subject of the blog, or at least very integral. Now if I was discussing Israel’s actions in a blog devoted to Afghanistan you would have every right to ask me what the heck I was doing. However, because the terms of discussion are Israel-centric that’s where I have focussed the debate. If I was talking to a white Australian about the genocide of Aborigines and he tried to make excuses for his ancestors’ actions by pointing to the genocide of Native Americans by the white settlers in North America I would point out that, while the latter genocide certainly happened, it is not related to our current discussion. This is something of a tu quoque argument and has no place in any discussion which attempts to exist on the plain of logic.
Now as for the hatred that Arabs feel towards Israel, there are a number of dimensions to this. Firstly, the Palestinians have a justified reason for hating Israel considering that they were kicked off their land and thousands were killed so that the state could be founded. Couple that with their experiences during one of the most brutal and longest running occupations in the world and you would have to be certifiably insane, or a fanatical Zionist, to assume that there was no reason for their hatred. Much of the hatred for Israel from the larger Arab world also stems from Israeli state action. Should the state change its behaviour, and actually help create a viable Palestinian state, or incorporate the Palestinians into a single secular democratic state, then much of that hatred would dissipate. That clownish demagogue Ahmadinejad is much hated in the Jewish community, but if one actually pays attention to what he says about Israel, he tends to stress the term “Zionist regime”, rather than “a Jewish state”.
I find analogies work very well to illustrate the appropriateness, or blatant illogic, of a particular proposition. White people are a small minority in the African continent, where the vast majority of people are black, and these whites happened to be predominantly concentrated in Southern Africa. Now could we not argue, taking your logic as our guiding principle, that because of the black hordes that exist beyond the borders of South Africa that it is perfectly acceptable to brutally oppress the black majority in SA and to destabilise and attack surrounding nations? Isn’t it interesting to note that while white South Africans would have had a very difficult time travelling to other parts of the African continent during the Apartheid era, today one is liable to be welcomed, regardless of skin colour, as a fellow African. The difference? A brutal, terrorist regime has been replaced by a democratic one.
One could also argue that the Germans after World War I, and even well before, were surrounded by hostile countries. The French hated the Germans for what they had done to them, and the Treaty of Versailles saw a parts of Germany being parcelled off to a host of other nations. Germans are a minority in Europe and they must have felt awfully victimised and humiliated by their post-World War I fate, so perhaps we should justify Hitler’s expansionist tendencies leading up to World War II and his attempts to conquer the entire continent.
I don’t really care about the pronouncements of some unknown figure who never was able to enact any of his ideas. You see, Shaun, another point of elementary logic is that we don’t tend to judge people by what they say but rather what they actually do. The very term “intension(sic)” is a dead giveaway. There have probably been people who held far worse views than Hitler throughout history, but only Hitler, and a small number of other individuals, have ever been able to subject the world to their sick fantasies. In short, we cannot simply judge people on their intentions alone. Why don’t you read the disgustingly anti-Arab racism found in the writings of Theodore Herzl and pronouncements by David Ben-Gurion, individuals whose visions actually came to fruition unlike the forgotten Arab figure you cite.
Seeing as though you fancy yourself quite the tough guy who likes to ask the difficult questions, why not answer a question I posed to you twice in an earlier thread but which you refused to answer both times:
While you’re at it, maybe you and your fellow Zionists would like to grapple with this paragraph originally included in the last e-mail I sent to dear demented Uncle Mike Berger:
I’d also be really interested as to how you and your Zionist comrades would answer the following, which was also posed to Mr Berger in an earlier e-mail and similarly ignored:
Speaking of Zionists, you actually wrote about anti-Zionism as if it's such a bad thing. I now realise, having dealt with you lot and other Zionist fools, that Zionism is a racist ideology, plain and simple. Just as Nazism = racism and Apartheid = racism, so too Zionism = racism. As such, I am proudly anti-Zionist and always will be. Now before you start screaming like some slack-jawed imbecile that “neo-Nazis are anti-Zionist!!”, may I remind you that neo-Nazi scumbags hate all Jews regardless of their ideology, and Zionism is and always will be a particular ideology. The really tragic thing about the rise of Zionist thinking is that Zionists have in many respects fuelled anti-Semitism by insisting that by criticising Israel, the ultimate expression of Zionism, one is being anti-Semitic. By so closely allying a specific cultural group, which is an international phenomenon, with a particular state the Zionists are helping to tar all Jews with same brush, which I find one of the most revolting aspects of the whole Zionist way of thinking.
Let’s also look at examples of the kinds of people who sympathise and help maintain the Zionist enterprise. There’s those major international terrorists Tony Blair and George W Bush, ultra right-wing fundamentalist lunatics like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, plagiarisers and liars like Alan Dershowitz, war criminals like Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, baby-killing IDF soldiers, fanatical settlers who attack and kill Palestinians who simply walk to close to their illegal settlements and that Stalinist hatemonger Abraham Foxman, to name but a few of the most egregious supporters of Israeli racism and massive state terror.
Now let’s take a quick glance at the sort of people who are critics of Israel. There’s the magnificent Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the amazing journalist John Pilger, the astoundingly brilliant Noam Chomsky, former Knesset Member Uri Avnery, former United Nation's High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, Peace Now founder Amos Oz, Nobel Prize winning playwright Harold Pinter, and Haaretz reporter Amira Hass, to name but a few high profile figures who have a serious problem with racism and the massacre of babies and young children.
Taking a cursory glance at the different lists I think I’ll stick with Tutu and Pilger and Avnery, people who have more bravery and morality in one finger nail than most Zionists in the world combined could ever muster. That is, those who didn't survive the concentration camps. You and your ilk can stick with the terrorists, the racists, the religious fanatics, the liars and the baby killers, if that’s what you really want.
Having seen Yoav Shamir’s Defamation I heartily recommend it to all you Zionists out there as it really is one of the most balanced films on the subject of anti-Semitism I have ever seen. Most of you probably won’t like the conclusions reached by many of the figures in the film, virtually all of whom are Jewish. I know Norman Finkelstein is something of a hated figure around these parts, but he came across as one of the most logical and cogent interviewees, which, admittedly, wasn’t as difficult as it sounds considering some of the Zionist wing nuts on offer. He utterly destroyed one of the favourite arguments that Zionists throughout the world like to throw at Israel’s critics, and an “argument” I’ve seen plenty of times on this blog. Shamir asked him about the focus on Israel when there are so many other atrocities committed throughout the world, so Finkelstein responded by saying that he hears about Darfur and Tibet all the time, but the only country he ever hears excuses for is Israel. I thought this was utterly brilliant, because no decent person anywhere ever defends the horrors in the Congo, or Darfur, or Iraq, or Pakistan or Colombia, but yet people who fancy themselves as such civilised members of society go to bat for Israel no matter what atrocities the state commits. So the point, Shaun and the rest of you, isn’t that I, or anyone else, is ignoring what happens elsewhere in the world, we simply want criticisms of Israel in the mainstream media and among the vast majority of Jewish people to become widespread. In other words, the coverage of ALL atrocities, whether in Palestine or Congo or Burma, should be equally condemned, regardless of the players involved.
Having grappled with various “arguments” on display among participants on this blog, and in the film, I realise that Zionists are responsible for an Orwellian degradation of language where certain terms are hollowed of their original meaning. For starters, the term anti-Semitism used to mean something, but now it’s just a byword for criticism of the State of Israel. In the Zionist context ‘bias’ simply means an accurate assessment of what’s actually happening in Israel and the Occupied Territories. ‘Balance’ means Israel is supposed to be seen as a paragon of purity regardless of what it does and anyone who quibbles with this assessment is immediately to be branded as delivering an ‘unbalanced’ critique of Israel. So my question is whether dishonesty is a job requirement to be a Zionist, or does this quality emerge as a result of the inculcation of certain values from birth?
Another thing I’ve realised about Zionists is that if you’ve met one you’ve basically met them all. In my dealings with Zionists the qualities they most evidently exhibit are pathological narcissism, intense paranoia, a hatred of Arabs, dishonesty, and a totalitarian cast of mind second to none.
Although ‘It’s Almost Supernatural’ will suppress this story, as they do all inconvenient facts which relate to Israel, I couldn’t help but notice this article which appeared in the Cape Times this past Thursday, the 16th July 2009, entitled 26 Israeli soldiers break silence over Gaza War. Some of the most important details are as follows:
No doubt these Israeli Jewish soldiers, who testified anonymously, are deeply anti-Semitic and lying about a war they have firsthand knowledge of, unlike Shaun who knows the truth thousands of kilometres away from the scene of the fighting. A particularly telling paragraph is the following one:
This not only vindicates my assertion in an earlier thread where I stated that most of those killed during Operation Cast Lead were civilians but I now know why Religious Fanatic 1 was so reluctant to divulge his sources on the OCL body count. He was relying on Israeli government sources which just goes to show yet again that, according to the Zionist mind, the only reliable information about the Israel/Palestine conflict comes courtesy of the torture-endorsing, baby-killing and officially racist Israeli state. I’m sure you already know this, but you are utterly pitiful, RF1.
One last thing, Shaun, I’m not a moral relativist, never have been and never will be, so your last comment clearly can’t be aimed at me. Nevertheless see above where the very point you raised has been utterly demolished.
Cheers, DZ
Posted by: David Zinn | July 19, 2009 at 19:50
"He has recently released a follow up video called ‘Feeling the Hate in Tel Aviv’ where an Israeli youth proudly says that he is a racist and calls Obama the obligatory n-word. Racial hatred is clearly one commodity in Israel that has little chance of being exhausted in the near future."
Like the rest of the above comment, that's a brilliant piece of logic, an excellent induction. Some kid says something racist so obviously racist hatred abounds in the whole country. And being so evenhanded, I'm sure you'd admit that racist hatred must abound among Arabs, especially given the things that some of their kids say.
"people who have more bravery and morality in one finger nail than most Zionists in the world combined could ever muster. That is, those who didn't survive the concentration camps."
Now that's an exceedingly wicked thing to say.
Posted by: TC | July 19, 2009 at 22:53
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
"Dramatic irony is a disparity of expression and awareness: when words and actions possess a significance that the listener or audience understands, but the speaker or character does not. "
Posted by: Religious Fundamentalist 1 | July 20, 2009 at 07:50
Fascinating stuff Zinn
Your assumptions are worse than your rhetoric.
I am no real fan of absolute democracy and never have been. We Zionists are not all alike. Fascinating that you call yourself open minded but then comments that. “I’ve realised about Zionists is that if you’ve met one you’ve basically met them all.”
Further more, please do not accuse me of attempting to curtail free speech and then tell me to “shut…the…hell…up.”
Correct Jonathan cook lives in Israel, and he calls himself a free lance journalist because his writings have been discredited to such an astounding degree that he connoted find any permanent work except for a few odd comment posted on blogs, electronic intifada an occasionally Aljazeer.com.
As you wrote, we are all entitled to our own opinions. Therefore where we choose to live has absolutely no relevance to this discussion. Unless you admit that if you live outside of the Middle East, your own opinion is irrelevant?
Congratulations on finding the story about breaking the silence. Were you able to follow the testimonies? Notice how every event was told a third about someone? There were no names places or even dates of the events these “soldiers” witnessed?
I’m sure that Jonathon cook will jump at this story.
As we have seen over and over again in your posts DZ, you are not interested in any real truth and you proudly mushroom any crumb of anti-Zionist incitement you stumble across.
I’m still waiting for your correction to the CODEPINKers getting hit with rifle butts by policemen not carry rifles and Tel-Aviv university.
Please explain your intensions with the comment: "people who have more bravery and morality in one finger nail than most Zionists in the world combined could ever muster. That is, those who didn't survive the concentration camps."
Sounds very much like you are saying concentration camp survivors are devoid of morality?
Finally I ask that you lay off the personal attacks and keep your gripes with mike and others out of this blog, it is getting rather tiresome.
I assume you have your own blog,
If your readership is low, up your standard, don’t spam other blogs with your dribble.
Posted by: Shaun | July 20, 2009 at 09:41
TC and Shaun
Apologies if I offended you with my comment about concentration camp survivors, and I realised afterwards that my sentence construction was rather clumsy. What I meant to imply was that there are Zionists who survived the concentration camps so, of course, these individuals, due to surviving such extreme suffering, are not to be included in those lacking "bravery or morality" in comparison to the critics of Israel I cited.
For more on Israel’s endemic racism perhaps you’d like to read this:
You’re right, TC, how very unfair of me to conclude that a country that proudly boasts of its racist character could possibly have racists as citizens. What was I thinking?
Shaun, do you really expect me to keep answering your silly questions when you refuse to even acknowledge any of mine? Sorry, this isn't a one way street, which is something you and RF1 don't seem to understand. You might have noticed that I actually answered your earlier question in my last post, so why not pay me a similar courtesy? Until such a time as you actually address the issues I raise, I don’t think I am under any obligation to provide any answers to your enquiries. Nothing personal, but it’s a manners thing.
Also, I'm interested to know who has been discrediting Jonathan Cook considering that Zionists have a tendency to lie about anyone who criticises Israel. Witness the thousands of sites devoted to Finkelstein being a Holocaust denier when in reality his parents are Holocaust survivors. Not only do I take statements like yours about Cook, or anyone else who criticises Israel, with a pinch of salt, I basically just dismiss it as yet more ramblings from doctrinaire fanatics with a totalitarian ideology.
Your comments about me “not [being] interested in any real truth” are beyond laughable in light of your performance here and elsewhere. You wouldn’t know what truth is if it bulldozed your house and killed your children, much as the Israeli government has a habit of doing to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. I don’t “proudly mushroom any crumb of anti-Zionist incitement [I] stumble across”, but rather have provided copious evidence of deplorable acts committed by the Israeli government. If anyone has provided crumbs it’s you and your fellow Zionist cronies who can only keep dismissing all the evidence I cite with hardly a shred of your own. Don’t you find it strange that your immediate reaction is to dismiss any article or book even slightly critical of Israel? Isn’t that evidence of some psychological condition. Do you honestly think that Israel is, unlike all other states in the world, absolutely perfect, with nary a blemish to spoil the view? Please answer as honestly as possible as I really do want a response.
I'd like to write about this notion of "moral relativism" which Shaun raised in a recent post. As already noted I am the furthest thing from a moral relativist and have had running battles with the wishy-washy post-modern crowd for many years now.
However, it is ironic that Zionists should raise this issue considering that they, along with all partisan zealots, are the true moral relativists. In a past thread Shaun told me to stop banging on about how badly the Palestinians are being treated in Palestine as they're apparently so horrendously discriminated against in Lebanon. Now there are two primary interpretations to his statement. Either he is levelling a tu quoque accusation against me, that is I am not being sufficiently consistent in my supposed sensitivity towards the plight of the Palestinians, or he is attempting a defensive manoeuvre. The former case is always a dubious sort of argument, but one that has some degree of relevance. I never ever stated that it was excusable for the Palestinians to be treated badly in Lebanon, or anywhere else, but focussed on their treatment by the Israeli government, the ostensible focus of this blog. If we accept this interpretation, Shaun is thus implying that the principle of Palestinian suffering is always and everywhere important. As such, the plight of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories should automatically be of grave concern to him.
This brings me to the more accurate interpretation of Shaun's critique of my supposed "selective" concern for Palestinians. In light of his comments throughout my engagements with him he has never expressed a single iota of sensitivity to the plight of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Nor has anyone else, for that matter. His reference to their suffering in Lebanon was clearly meant to deflect attention from the way they are treated in the Occupied Territories. He has never exactly defended their treatment in these areas in a pointedly direct manner, but similarly he has never acknowledged that their treatment is criminal and violates basic human rights.
This trend of defending Israel no matter what it does is a common theme running through the Zionist discourse. Yet the same people who can defend the merciless slaughter of women and children in Gaza or the West Bank, are the first to criticise similar actions in the Congo, Sudan, Afghanistan, and on and on. All serious left wing commentators, whether one is referring to John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein or Norman Finkelstein, aren't asking of Israel any more than they ask of any other nation. They, along with me, simply want Israel to abide by international standards of civilised behaviour. The point is exactly the opposite of what you accused these anonymous "liberal anti-Zionists" of, namely that there is in fact nothing special about Israel. That is the fundamental principle that underlies all serious criticism of the state, which is that it isn't exempt from international law.
As I noted in my last comment, Norman Finkelstein makes the point in Defamation that he constantly hears about what's happening in Darfur and Tibet, but when it comes to the atrocities committed by the Israeli government there are always excuses, both among the Christian right wing, the neocons and the ever trusty Zionists. So why is this, if Israel is supposedly not "special", as you claim?
You see, either certain principles are always to be adhered to, such as the massacre of civilians is intolerable, or we become selective in our denunciations and thus become moral relativists. To take Noam Chomsky as an example, it’s not as if all his time is focussed on the Israel-Palestine conflict as he has written extensively on the criminal attacks on Vietnam, Nicaragua, Colombia, El Salvador, Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, Haiti, to name but a few areas he has covered throughout his vast output. Actually, his criticism of Israel pays closer attention to the US role in supporting that state as his guiding principle is that we are responsible for the predictable consequences of our own actions, so as a US citizen he bears primary responsibility for what his government does, rather than the governments of other nations. The reason I admire Chomsky so much is precisely because he is the furthest thing from a moral relativist. He has stressed throughout his career that we should be as consistent in our positions as possible, and has achieve this ideal more than most.
In Chris Hedges' brilliant book War is a Force that Gives us Meaning he discusses a number of conflicts he has witnessed in his two decade long career as a foreign correspondent. In the book he discusses his experiences in the former Yugoslavia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Iran, Iraq, and Argentina, among others. He doesn't spend much time on the condition of the Palestinians, though he includes this telling paragraph after describing a particularly disgusting incident:
He witnessed Israeli soldiers doing just that in Khan Younis, and the description of what happened should make all normal people, regardless of their political or religious affiliation, sick to their stomachs. At least that was my reaction.
Anyone who reads this book will not be able to conclude that Hedges singles the Israeli government out for special treatment, because he spends in total not even 20 pages on dealing with the Palestinians. The book's underlying theme is the condemnation of warfare, and the mentality that fuels it, and he draws from a plethora of real-world examples to make his case.
What makes the above passage particularly telling is that, unlike Shaun, or anyone else on this blog, Hedges has actually been to many war zones throughout the world so his comparison between what the Israelis do and other heinous regimes is most significant. As anyone who reads the book will know, he clearly doesn't single Israel out for particularly harsh treatment, which all violent regimes receive in the book, however in this particular instance, namely the luring of children to be shot for sick sport, he notes that Israel is unique in his experience. Please tell me, Shaun, how you would justify this abominable behaviour witnessed firsthand by one of the finest journalists in the world?
Please also explain to me, Shaun and anyone else who might have an answer, in the simplest language possible so I'll be able to understand it, why is killing children in Sudan wrong but when the Israeli government kills children in Gaza or the West Bank it's perfectly acceptable? Why is it fine to support the many protesters in Iran right now who are hoping to topple Ahmadinejad, but perfectly acceptable to subvert the democratic will of the Palestinians who happen to vote for a group the United States and Israel despise? Why is the discrimination of Apartheid so terrible and worthy of denunciation, but the often far worse discrimination against Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and even within Israel itself, not worthy of similar condemnation?
I eagerly await your response.
Posted by: David Zinn | July 21, 2009 at 14:03
Shaun
While we're on the matter of "truth", and my supposed lack of it, why not help me in this regard by answering the following query I posed to the odious Mike Berger in a personal e-mail and subsequently reposted in my last lengthy comment (which you strangely ignored):
I also noticed that you and your Zionist compadres were conspicuously silent on another issue I raised with Mighty Mike in my last e-mail to him, also reposted in that lengthy recent comment. Just in case you missed it here's what I wrote:
Can't wait for your response. Take care.
Posted by: David Zinn | July 21, 2009 at 14:57