Advertising

  • Advertise here

Blog Awards


  • Sablogpolitics

  • Sablogpolitics

  • Sablogrunnerupgroup

  • Sablogrunneruppost

  • JIB

Miscellaneous

« Dept of Foreign Affairs Funds Apartheid Israel Study | Main | Official Jewish Community Responds to HSRC Witch Trial »

June 11, 2009

Comments

Hard Rain

What a hypocritical lunatic. He states that "people have the right to defend their country from foreign occupiers" and then offers up the Soviet Union as a liberating, resistance movement (and claims the regime was merely unlike a bed of roses)! As if they didn't violently occupy half of Europe for decades!

Apparently the only people in the world who have no right to defend their country from foreign attacks are Israelis- who, to Finkelstein, are worlds away morally from even Stalinists...

Truthis Abitterpill Toswallow

Where did you find this information that Finkelstein is coming to SA. Shouldnt the clown link take you to Mr Dershowitz?

SOLAR PLEXUS

Is F really coming to SA? He is not a clown but a serious obsessive with a paranoid fixation on Israel. He would really be an interesting study in depth psychology. Did you note how infuriated he became when the interviewer timidly suggested the Lebanese may seek a peaceful relationship with Israel? In his mind the USA and Israel are indeed the great and lesser Satan and must be defeated so that good can triumph. His paranoia came out even more strongly in his remark that "the Jews" never forgive or forget - the classic stereotypical thinking of the obsessive anti-semite. Take away his academic veneer and push him a little and he would rant and rave like a mini-Hitler.

Truthis Abitterpill Toswallow

Please would you provide some information on Finkelstein's visit to SA

Ariel

You'll have to wait until later today or tomorrow. Steve's pretty observant from what I've seen.

Steve

Yes,
F is really coming to SA. I think Stephen Friedman and Naeem Jeenah are bringing him.

David Zinn

Norman Finkelstein is coming to South Africa? Great, can't wait. So why no details?

Considering how often Finkelstein has revealed Alan Dershowitz to be a liar, fraud and plagiarist he's the real clown. I concur heartily with 'Truthis Abitterpill Toswallow'(great nickname and oh so apposite with this lot). For more on this go to:

- http://www.counterpunch.org/menetrez04302007.html

- http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09262003.html

- http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/alan-dershowitz-exposed-what-if-a-harvard-student-did-this/

Have any of you actually read "Beyond Chutzpah" or any of his other books? Any articles? Wouldn't have thought so.

I suppose one has to resort to ad hominem attacks if one has no means of countering claims with facts and logic.

Hey, Solar Plexus, would you like to tell us how a Jew can be an anti-Semite?

You people are a disgrace to honesty, humane values and intellectual integrity, as well as being smear merchants to boot.

TC

And observe how Benny Morris totally destroys Finkelstein in this interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBoAmylupHM&feature=related

Now that's how a serious historian exposes someone as a liar and a fraud! Not that someone who openly supports the homophobic, misogynistic, genocidal theocratic fanatics in Hezbollah needs to be exposed.

TC

David Zinn asks: "Hey, Solar Plexus, would you like to tell us how a Jew can be an anti-Semite?"

I'm not sure what Solar Plexus needs to explain. Why couldn't a Jew hate Jews? I don't see why this is any more difficult to understand than understanding how a woman could hate women or an American could hate Americans? Of course, such hatred might be mean, even pathological. But some people are mean and pathological.

Truthis Abitterpill Toswallow

Morris is an important historian, slanted to the Right over the years but still his '1948' is critical to understanding the conflict. I'm not sure if Finkelstein was 'destroyed' there. However if you want to see someone get destroyed see the Finkelstein Dershowitz debate on Democracy now. Dershowitz is a joke, and his work unlike Morris, can never be taken seriously.

Truthis Abitterpill Toswallow

Steve, do you have any more information on Finkelsteins visit?

Steve

Truthis,
You think F slammed D in a debate with such powerful evidence of plagiarism such as attributing quotes to the authors who wrote then and then winnig the $10000 bet by pointing out that D attributed to Morris a quote saying that only 2000-3000 Palestinians left on their own accord when the actual number is 200000-300000? If D was trying to mislead readers he would have over-estimated that number since and not under-estimated it. And D pointed out at the end of the initial tape on the bet that it needs to be a material and willful distortion of facts. And the only powerful facts F can bring is that D under-states his case of how many refugees were created as a result of voluntarily leaving as opposed to Israel forcing them to leave!

I'm quite happy though, to accept that people who side with Hizballah will side with F and call D the clown.

David Zinn

Read this for a more detailed debunking of Dershowitz's work:

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/alan-dershowitz-exposed-what-if-a-harvard-student-did-this/

Don't simply rely on a debate where Dershowitz rudely interrupted his interlocutor continually and was allowed to hog the mike.

Also see Chomsky destroy Dershowitz in another debate on Democracy Now where the latter proves to be an atrociously rude and disrespectful propagandist who has no facts to defend his claims so resorts to name-calling and ever louder declarations of certitude.

Debate available at http://www.democracynow.org/2005/12/23/noam_chomsky_v_alan_dershowitz_a.

Read 'Beyond Chutzpah' for further detailed debunking of Dershowitz.

SOLAR PLEXUS

According to David Zinn: "You people (you people??) are a disgrace to honesty, humane values and intellectual integrity, as well as being smear merchants to boot."

I suppose I could have said the F would rant and rave like our Zinny (rhymes with N......), but then who has heard of DZ?

For those who would like to read my rather longwinded repy to Zinny's first comment(I didn't want to inflict it on It's Almost Supernatural) please see http://froggyfarm.blogspot.com.

But I don't really wish to get into the F - Dershowitz or F - anyone debate. All this is for the Hyde Park corner nutters (like...well you know who). If one hasn't got the brains or simple commonsense to see that F is a grade A paranoid who occasionally gets a fact here and there right (all paranoids do) then it would be a waste of time to try to engage in rational debate. Let's leave the froth and hot air arena to those who specialize in such things and remain with the real issue: what kind of malicious madness brings F and the whole Virginia Tilley-HSRC circus to this distant corner of a troubled continent? Poor Obama!

Hard Rain

Finkelstein is a lunatic. Pure and simple.

Truthis Abitterpill Toswallow

Finkelstein is a brilliant scholar. If he is a lunatic then why does the former Israeli foreign minister and former minister of internal secrurity; Shlomo Ben Ami reference Finkelsteins work (Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict) in his book "Scars of War, Wounds of Peace"?

See the Finkelstein/Ben Ami discussion on Democracy now, there is no real debate, as they both agreed on most issues.

Religious Fundamentalist 1

Which would probably want to make you question Shlomo Ben Ami.

David Zinn

Have you read anything by Norman Finkelstein, Religious Fundie? I doubt you have, because you seem to prefer propaganda peddlers like Daniel Pipes and Alan Dershowitz. Facts be damned, so long as your side emerges smelling like roses.

What sweet ignorant bliss must be the life of the fundamentalist adherent to tribal identification...

Truthis Abitterpill Toswallow

Religious Fundamentalist, start packing up and moving your family, its time to move to Israel, and get out of the settlements

Religious Fundamentalist 1

Yes, Zundie(l): I've read Finkelstein, which is how I arrived at my opinion of him. I also read Pipes, Derschowitz, Pappe, Fisk, Pilger as well as people who have critiqued their work and came to an opinion of them and their research.

Unlike you, I don't rely on second hand or unattributed quotes in the media and I don't make up my mind before considering the facts, which I go finding for myself.
Again unlike your self confessed behaviour, I read articles with titles I don't like. And unlike you I don't tolerate lies. One deliberate lie is enough to discredit a scholar. Excuse me for being pedantic.

Religious Fundamentalist 1

Good point Truthis, I mean how can you possibly expect those swarthy savages to accept a piece of land that isn't Judenrein. It's only enlightened people who can tolerate diversity.

David Zinn

So the Fundiefool "reads articles with titles" he doesn't like? That's news to me, considering that all information that you don't like, namely that which casts a critical gaze upon your beloved Israel, is summarily dismissed. This has been demonstrated throughout my frustrating engagements with you. If you've read Finkelstein you would be able to assess that he actually backs up his claims with copious sources, unlike Dershowitz.

If you're so keen on reading articles with titles you might disagree with, why not try this one on for size, "Alan Dershowitz cast in new role - Plagiarist and Fraudster", for some insight into how the great Israel propagandist not only steals from other people's work, but misuses sources. Available at http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/Finkelstein/HarvardCrimson_2.html. There's a very nice comparison between Joan Peters' From From Time Immemorial and The Case for Israel.

Interestingly, all one ever hears from the Zionist squad is how Pappé and Finkelstein et al are such liars, but they never manage to adduce any evidence. Hate to break it to you, Fundiefool, simply saying someone is a liar isn't an argument, nor is it proof of anything.

Oh, one more thing, whatever happened to the source for your claim that during Operation Cast Lead, 700 of the known Palestinian casualties were militants? You do a sterling job of deconstructing my sources, relying on the time tested method of dismissing them as "biased" or "dishonest", though your sources remain strangely out of view.

Also, even if this were true, does it then logically follow that Palestinians murdering 700 Israeli soldiers in a combat situation would be perfectly justified?

David Zinn

Fundiefool

If all it takes to "discredit a scholar" is "one deliberate lie" then Pipes and Dershowitz are completely out, I'm afraid. For some details on Pipes' wilful dishonesty see "Daniel Pipes on Tariq Ramadan: Why French literacy still matters" at http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/minorities-and-integration/daniel-pipes-on-tariq-ramadan-why-french-literacy-still-matters/.

For his love of violence, particularly of the Muslim on Muslim variety, see "Neocon Advocates Civil War in Iraq as 'Strategic' Policy" by John Walsh, available at http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh03092006.html

Religious Fundamentalist 1

"but they never manage to adduce any evidence"
is this another deliberate lie or are you just conveniently forgetting?

"Sources"
As I explained, this isn't "doctor doctor". You made a claim for which you haven't produced a single actual source. You've done this on many occasions and been shown wrong on many. This isn't about my claim - I could have been bluffing, point is, you blinked and got caught with your pants down.

"does it then follow logically"
Based on your logic I assume you're quite comfortable with the people of Sderot, Ahkelon and Ashdod making "home-made" rockets and arbitrarily lobbing them into Gaza?

"Summarily Dismissed"
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, if the information or its bearers are so easily dismissed and so tainted, that they might actually not be worth much or are you trapped in a post modernist vision of relativism?
Or have you entertained the notion that maybe if the facts don't support your conclusions, your conclusions might just be wrong?

David Zinn

Oh, Fundiefool, you are funny.

That question posed to me about entertaining "the notion that maybe if the facts don't support [my] conclusions, [my] conclusions might just be wrong?" is sheer comic gold. Have you been dozing these last few days, or are you just living on another planet? You've done nothing but reject all my sources, and I've produced a fair share (though I admit not nearly enough), with you doing nothing but the equivalent of stuffing your fingers in your ears and repeatedly screaming "I refuse to believe that!!" I absolutely reject "post modernist visions of relativism", that's why I believe in facts, and reality, concepts seemingly completely alien to you.

Your quaint, though typically silly and abjectly childish, reference to "doctor doctor" is a way of saying that the entire burden of proof rests with me and that the argument proceeds according to your suppositions, and those who share your views. Sorry, my friend, that's not how things work in the real world.

You claim that I've "made a claim for which [I} haven't produced a single actual source", so in response let me borrow from you yet again - "is this another deliberate lie or are you just conveniently forgetting?" You clearly haven't read even a fraction of what I've posted, so I urge you to return to the "MRN Propaganda 101: Lie!" thread.

Interesting how a claim that you made, namely that "during Operation Cast Lead, 700 of the known Palestinian casualties were militants", which I pointed out in my previous post and is available on that thread just mentioned, requires no source. Or do you just operate, contrary to the accusations you level at me, according to the principle that whatever "facts" fit your worldview are to be accepted while all those that challenge this worldview are to be discarded? It's just that I can't help but feel a pattern has emerged where I provide numerous sources, which I admit are by no means sufficient in light of the vast documentation on this issue, while you provide almost no sources and simply impugn all those who cast a critical perspective upon Israel. I urge all those who may doubt this hypothesis to test it in light of the respective contributions to the aforementioned thread.

Religious Fundamentalist 1

Zundie(l)

Given your display of insight, logic, maths and simple reasoning on this blog I'm not surprised you're choosing to side with Finkelstein and Ramadan.

Religious Fundamentalist 1

Zundie(l)

I find it confounding that someone of your mighty intellectual prowess can't follow the simple concept that making a claim carries a burden of proof but questioning a claim does not.

As I said, whether I made the numbers up, took them from the Hamas website, UN, PA, IDF or anywhere else, you've failed to back up your side with anything other than links to newspaper articles with unattributed figures. This is echoed in your claims on Israel's budget, Israel's army, foreign aid etc.

Hence, it stands to reason that any claim you make is in question and therefore you might as well be ignored entirely. Which I intend to do, until you quote a direct source and make a logical argument of your own. It doesn't help to quote Finkelstein, Cole or anyone else's argument - I might as well go argue with them and you can stop stealing oxygen.

By the way - can't you see that despite your brilliance, (long-winded) erudition and vast knowledge you can't get through to any of the knuckle-draggers around here?

David Zinn

One more thing: It's very important to keep in mind who's doing the "dimissing", and what, exactly, is being dismissed.

Finkelstein quotes extensively from numerous major human rights organisations in Beyond Chutzpah, whereas Dershowitz, in his attempts to argue for Israel's wonderful human rights record in The Case for Israel, refers to none of them. So now you tell me what's more plausible, that a range of independent human rights groups, both international ones such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as ones based in Israel, such as B'Tselem, should all be wrong, despite coming to an agreement on a number of key issues over many years in the field, or that a known fabricator and plagiarist, who happens to be a well-known defence lawyer for crying out loud, should be right in all his claims, or elisions in this case?

In Dershowitz's own words he states that "the defense(sic) attorney comes close to being a pure one-sided advocate for his generally guilty client", taken from Letters to a Young Lawyer.

The Blacklisted Dictator

Davis Zinn,

Please spill some Zinn beanz... what do you think about the above article by Ryan Rutherford? Does it give South Africa some sort of political "moral high-ground" ?

(see Davis Zinn starring as Ryan Rutherford)

David Zinn

RF1

I find your reference to Ernst Zundel interesting, as I'm sure that you were thrilled to see him jailed for being a Holocaust denier but probably raised not a peep over the 18 year imprisonment of Mordechai Vanunu, who spent 11 of those years in solitary confinement.

One of my chief arguments against religion is that people who make extraordinary claims must bear the greatest burden of proof and those who question such claims don't have to adduce any evidence just in the act of questioning. You're misleading the folks on this thread by claiming that you were merely questioning my assertions. You see, Fundie, I did indeed make a claim, namely that the majority of the Palestinians killed in Operation Cast Lead were civilians, and you questioned this, as is your right as an apologist for Israel or just a regular sceptic. You asked for proof, I provided some sources, though there are countless others out there. You also went a step further by citing, based on your sources(which you never divulged) that around 1200 had been killed, 1000 known, and of the known 700 were militants. From that point on, and in light of me providing you with sources, however flawed according to you, the burden of proof was on you to buttress your claims. What you are now doing is twisting a perfectly legitimate logical position into what is commonly known as "weaselling out". Be that as it may, I've come to expect these sorts of tactics from the Zionist faction. After all, facts, as Dershowitz and his acolytes have long known, are certainly not on their side so have to be avoided at all cost.

In one of your recent posts you accused me of two seemingly contradictory inadequacies, to euphemise, as I both apparently made a "claim for which [I] haven't produced a single actual source", supposedly doing this "on many occasions and been shown wrong on many" to boot. Then a bit later on you state that my "information or its bearers are so easily dismissed and so tainted" because they're not "actually ...worth much". This raises an issue I queried with RF2 on another thread, though typically he failed to respond, and I think it's worth re-quoting myself:

It would seem I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t as you lambaste me for having “no facts” and “no sources” in my last post (of course that’s a lie) while the sources that I cite elsewhere are deemed “unreliable” and my “research false”. It would thus seem that the only way I could possibly be correct would be to agree with all your points of view and sources. Isn’t this a bit like countering all my arguments and facts with the statement “No it’s not, because I say so”? Or perhaps this is yet another example of your sterling “logic” which is obscure to all but yourself and those who think like you do.

I also discussed the notion of "bias" that seems to be such an obsession for members of this blog, so tackled this head on in another post addressed to RF2(which he also failed to respond to) which I believe is similarly worth recapitulating:

Your reference to “activists” and their supposedly innate bias precisely reverses cause and effect, the assumption being that the likes of Finkelstein, Pilger, Pappé and Chomsky are born with some inchoate loathing of Jewish culture and the state of Israel. Why would Norman Finkelstein, a Jew, whose parents survived the Holocaust possibly hate Jews and Israel without prompting? In reality he simply learned more and more about the nature of the Israeli state, and how it was founded, and was appalled. If you read his work, which of course you never will, you’ll notice that he doesn’t harangue Jews or Israelis in any generalised manner, instead opting to focus on specific actions or words by prominent American Jews and the Israeli government.

Noam Chomsky is the son of a Jewish Ukrainian émigré who was a relatively well known Hebrew linguist, and Chomsky has revealed that in his youth he was involved in various Zionist organisations that were attempting to foster Jewish-Arab co-operation in Palestine. Him and his wife even lived on a Kibbutz for a number of years in the 1950s and seriously considered living there for the rest of their lives. So, according to you, we are to believe that a man who was raised in a very Jewish milieu, who speaks fluent Hebrew and who used to read Hebrew literature with his father on Friday nights from the age of seven or eight until he was in his teens, is an anti-Semite or self-loathing Jew merely because he criticises Israel?

I also grew up without any particular beef with Israel, but as I came to political consciousness I was horrified with the true nature of the Israeli state, as I still am. The parallels with Apartheid South Africa are striking, as is often noted by Israelis themselves. The decent and perceptive ones, of course. I have actually met Israeli members of B’Tselem and thought they were among the most decent people I’ve ever met. The group of Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories, known as the ‘refusenicks’, are also highly admirable figures. As is the courageous journalist Amira Hass who, unlike most Israelis, actually makes a point of living in the Occupied Territories to discover what conditions are like for herself, and not just relying on Israeli government propaganda like some people I know. Unlike virtually everyone on this blog I actually think it’s a terrible tragedy when Palestinian civilians are killed, but also think it’s a terrible tragedy when Israeli civilians are killed.

Most of the people on this blog seem to be Jews and Zionists so it is in fact clear that you and other participants are the ones with an inherent bias and who seek out books and articles to corroborate your positive image of Israel. The fact that no one here has raised so much as a whisper about the condition of the Palestinians is highly indicative of this blinded and uni-dimensional approach to the Israel/Palestine conflict. Just look at how Fundiefool discusses Operation Cast Lead. Even if we concede his unsourced information about 1200 people having been killed, 1000 of which are known and of these known casualties 700 were militants. So that would mean, according to Fundiefool, though he took care not to mention it, at least 300 Palestinian civilians were killed. Now keep in mind I’ve never encountered such a low civilian casualty rate in any of the sources I’ve read, but even if this number is correct that would mean that at least a quarter of those killed, according to Fundiefool’s low unsourced estimate, were civilians. His response is to quibble over my contention, based on sources, some of which I’ve cited, that most of those killed during Operation Cast Lead were civilians. So I asked him what would he think of a Palestinian army invading Israel and killing 700 IDF soldiers? He conveniently failed to answer this rather uncomfortable question because he knew that this would expose his innate bias on the issue. He can’t answer this question, lest the twisted logic he’ll no doubt use to justify Palestinian “militants” being killed but not Israeli soldiers exposes his racist outlook.

Strangely, you actually get something right, Fundie, I seemingly can't get through to anyone on this blog, such is the power of brainwashing and cultural identification. Can't blame a guy for trying, though no doubt you will, but it really is time for me to bow out, less my head explodes from frustration.

David Zinn

So, Fundie, are we also to believe that newspaper articles are by default inaccurate? Or just when they criticise Israel? So I suppose we can safely dismiss the following article, written by Gideon Levy and originally published in Israel's most important newspaper Ha'aretz:

More than 30 Palestinian children were killed in the first two weeks of Operation Days of Penitence in the Gaza Strip. It's no wonder that many people term such wholesale killing of children "terror." Whereas in the overall count of all the victims of the intifada the ratio is three Palestinians killed for every Israeli killed, when it comes to children the ratio is 5:1. According to B'Tselem, the human rights organization, even before the current operation in Gaza, 557 Palestinian minors (below the age of 18) were killed, compared to 110 Israeli minors.

Palestinian human rights groups speak of even higher numbers: 598 Palestinian children killed (up to age 17), according to the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, and 828 killed (up to age 18) according to the Red Crescent. Take note of the ages, too. According to B'Tselem, whose data are updated until about a month ago, 42 of the children who have been killed were 10; 20 were seven; and eight were two years old when they died. The youngest victims are 13 newborn infants who died at checkpoints during birth.

With horrific statistics like this, the question of who is a terrorist should have long since become very burdensome for every Israeli. Yet it is not on the public agenda. Child killers are always the Palestinians, the soldiers always only defend us and themselves, and the hell with the statistics.

The plain fact, which must be stated clearly, is that the blood of hundreds of Palestinian children is on our hands. No tortuous explanation by the IDF Spokesman's Office or by the military correspondents about the dangers posed to soldiers by the children, and no dubious excuse by the public relations people in the Foreign Ministry about how the Palestinians are making use of children will change that fact. An army that kills so many children is an army with no restraints, an army that has lost its moral code.

As MK Ahmed Tibi (Hadash) said, in a particularly emotional speech in the Knesset, it is no longer possible to claim that all these children were killed by mistake. An army doesn't make more than 500 day-to-day mistakes of identity. No, this is not a mistake but the disastrous result of a policy driven mainly by an appallingly light trigger finger and by the dehumanization of the Palestinians. Shooting at everything that moves, including children, has become normative behavior. Even the momentary mini-furor that erupted over the "confirming of the killing" of a 13-year-old girl, Iman Alhamas, did not revolve around the true question. The scandal should have been generated by the very act of the killing itself, not only by what followed.

Iman was not the only one. Mohammed Aaraj was eating a sandwich in front of his house, the last house before the cemetery of the Balata refugee camp, in Nablus, when a soldier shot him to death at fairly close range. He was six at the time of his death. Kristen Saada was in her parents' car, on the way home from a family visit, when soldiers sprayed the car with bullets. She was 12 at the time of her death. The brothers Jamil and Ahmed Abu Aziz were riding their bicycles in full daylight, on their way to buy sweets, when they sustained a direct hit from a shell fired by an Israeli tank crew. Jamil was 13, Ahmed six, at the time of their deaths.

Muatez Amudi and Subah Subah were killed by a soldier who was standing in the village square in Burkin and fired every which way in the wake of stone-throwing. Radir Mohammed from Khan Yunis refugee camp was in a school classroom when soldiers shot her to death. She was 12 when she died. All of them were innocent of wrongdoing and were killed by soldiers acting in our name.

At least in some of these cases it was clear to the soldiers that they were shooting at children, but that didn't stop them. Palestinian children have no refuge: mortal danger lurks for them in their homes, in their schools and on their streets. Not one of the hundreds of children who have been killed deserved to die, and the responsibility for their killing cannot remain anonymous. Thus the message is conveyed to the soldiers: it's no tragedy to kill children and none of you is guilty.

Death is, of course, the most acute danger that confronts a Palestinian child, but it is not the only one. According to data of the Palestinian Ministry of Education, 3,409 schoolchildren have been wounded in the intifada, some of them crippled for life. The childhood of tens of thousands of Palestinian youngsters is being lived from one trauma to the next, from horror to horror. Their homes are demolished, their parents are humiliated in front of their eyes, soldiers storm into their homes brutally in the middle of the night, tanks open fire on their classrooms. And they don't have a psychological service. Have you ever heard of a Palestinian child who is a "victim of anxiety"?

The public indifference that accompanies this pageant of unrelieved suffering makes all Israelis accomplices to a crime. Even parents, who understand what anxiety for a child's fate means, turn away and don't want to hear about the anxiety harbored by the parent on the other side of the fence. Who would have believed that Israeli soldiers would kill hundreds of children and that the majority of Israelis would remain silent? Even the Palestinian children have become part of the dehumanization campaign: killing hundreds of them is no longer a big deal.

Originally published on 17 October 2004. Available at http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node/1436 or http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-levy201004.htm or https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/project-x/2004-October/007804.html.

Hopefully that's enough sources to satisfy the First Fundie. The article is probably just propaganda anyway.

David Zinn

By the by, the article is entitled 'Killing children is no longer a big deal'...

Shaun

As DZ pointed out most of us our Proud Zionists.
I’m proud to live my beliefs. Too many people are willing to die for theirs.
DZ, you are the self proclaim humanist/liberal and I would have expected some kind of evenhandedness, tolerance or understanding of “the other side.
Your world view does not include a Jewish State and therefore all your posts are as biased against Israel as mine are in favor.

You proudly claim: “Arab hatred which simply isn't at issue.” Is a suitable answer

Who is berating like an apologist now??

Perhaps this could sum up “virtually all of” your arguments?
(See reference to Israeli military strength and US made weaponry)

BTW I’ve noticed that CODEPINK have started deleting the post you quoted and began adding corrections.

Still no word on how policemen without rifles were able to use said rifles on CODEpinkers?

Truthis Abitterpill Toswallow

To all,
I am what you may call ‘leftist’ or ‘liberal’, and I’m Jewish and proudly so, there are many people like myself who believe in the existence of a Jewish State, the development and maintenance of Jewish culture and identity in what is a beautiful country. However, I feel along with many others terribly uncomfortable with Israel’s actions over the years in the territories and especially in the Gaza War and stand firmly against the illegal and brutal occupation of the Palestinians.
If Israel is to be the 'light unto the nations' then it must give up the territories, remove the settlements and make serious concessions toward a two state solution.
I visited the psychologically scarred city of Sderot earlier this year and seen the bomb-shelters 30 seconds apart. I've spoken to the people , and seen how they’ve had to live their lives in fear, the extent of the trauma is devastating, especially on children.
I've also visited the West Bank, and Hebron, where discrimination against Palestinians is rife and human rights are violated on a daily basis by the IDF. This is no surprise given the ages of the young soldiers, 18, 19, 20 years old, who when faced with fear at places like checkpoints are bound to react abrasively and forcefully.
I think everyone here will have to agree that equality, justice, understanding and a shift in mentalities on both ‘sides’ are inseparable from solving the conflict, so that our Jewish state can live side by side with a sovereign Palestinian state in Peace.


jp

Yes I would say newspaper articles are by default inaccurate.

Firstly there are enough articles that are just plain wrong, enough with unintentional errors, enough that are written on hearsay, and from biased sources, to place the entire realm of news articles (even when they are accurate and about any subject) to be not seen as any sort of source material. Newspaper and news reports are also highly influenced by there own internal bias, compare the telegraph, to the guardian, to any other right/left/central news organisation, and then to just believe what they are dishing out?

It is really naive to believe that what news organisations from any perspective is feeding you anything accurate.

All the article from the haaretz really proves is Israel has a completely free press policy. The press has complete media freedom. Which state anywhere in its surroundings can make a similar claim??

Hard Rain

Truthis:

The man is a lunatic. I could ascertain this from the video linked in the original post. Anybody who could purport to believe that the Soviet army brought people freedom from oppression and moralizes the atrocities of the most evil regime in human history as "not a bed of roses" has to be.

SOLAR PLEXUS

It is amusing reading inveterate polemicists using their dubious and carefully selected quotes to support the "truth" of their claims. Zinny is one of the most egregious offender, but there are plenty of others. A bit of reading in social and cognitive psychology would help them gain some insight into the roots of their behaviour, but I guess that's the last thing they're looking for.

But just to keep this absurd pot boiling a little longer here is yet another "dubious" and "selective" quote which just happens to support my views (I'm an an "Israel-lover" just as I was a "kaffirboetjie" in the good, ole days). So put this in your pipe and smoke it Zinny et al:

The revolution that had begun in freedom, ended in the rule of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. President Ahmadinejad boasted that he would wipe Israel, a member of the United Nations, from the map. Many like me feel a deep shame at this uncivilized and un-Persian anti-Semitism.

Iran's semi-official anti-Semitism and tyrannical rule towards its own people reveals the moral failure of the regime that you lead. Millions of people in Teheran and other Iranian cities have condemned this moral bankruptcy by demonstrating and by voting for Mir Hossein Mousavi."

Written by Afshin Ellian, 43, (was) born in Tehran. In 1989, he arrived in the Netherlands as a political refugee and now works as a professor of legal philosophy at the University of Leiden. He wrote his dissertation about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and its role in the country's move away from the Apartheid system.

See: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,631233,00.html#ref=nlint

JoeTalin

Wow. a source called "FromOccupiedPalestine".
I'm sure that has no bias whatsoever.
Nice one DZ

adamlevy

I think Finkelstein is a superb scholar. Why not get him to debate David Saks when he is here. That should be an interesting debate - which will allow us to hear all sides of the argument.

Steve

It's laughable how many times the word "scholar" is used to describe Finkelstein. I think it's because he always uses the word and people reuse it thinking that it makes them sound clever. Do you think you sound clever?

Anyways, you think he is a superb "scholar"? Why? On what basis?

Is it because you loved how he spoke "truth to power" when he condemned Spielberg's Schindler's List as an attempt by American Jews to divert attention away from American foreign policy? Finkelsetin said " Who profits from the movie? Basically, there are two beneficiaries from the dogmas of Schindler's List: American Jews and the American administration".

Or do you just love the way he accuses Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel of being a fraud and a hoax?

And what has your esteemed scholar recently said about his beloved Hizballah's defeat in Lebanese elections? The whole world sees this as a triumph for democracy over tyranny, but Finkelstein is angered by it.

Scholar indeed.

The comments to this entry are closed.

Search this Blog


Contact Us


  • Email_1

Events & Lectures

  • Advertise your event or lecture here

News Feed



Comments Disclaimer

  • Comments on this site are the views and opinions of the persons who write the comments and do not reflect the views of the authors of this blog. Comments are often left unmoderated. Should you feel that you have been personally slandered in the comments, please let us know and we will remove the offensive comment.