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
1. DZ you are an insensitive bigot.
Killing children is wrong.
Inventing stories about Israelis killing children is wrong…. refer back to line 1
I’m still amused that anti-Zionists hate the Jewish state with such passion that they will print falsehoods and lie outright in order to justify their distain. Then these same people call foul if there are called anti-Semites?
Why do you suppose all Zionist support the Iranian opposition? Some do, I don’t… again us Zionists come with a variety of thoughts and we come in all flavours and colour too… refer back to line 1
You live Thousands of miles away for the conflict your opinion is irrelevant…your words not mine... refer back to line 1
Try getting hit on the head by a rifle butt that doesn’t exist.
If you insist on replying, please make it brief.
Posted by: Shaun | July 21, 2009 at 15:21
"Killing children is wrong", the first honest thing you've said since we've been having this little toing and froing session. If so, the Israeli state is fundamentally in the wrong. It is a documented fact that the Israeli army has killed many children, just read B'Tselem's reports if you doubt this. During Operation Defensive Shield, from all credible sources available, around 300 children were killed. So thanks for finally condemning Israel, though in a roundabout and unintentional way.
If you have doubts about the Israeli state targeting children then I suggest reading Gideon Levy's article Killing children is no longer a big deal, originally published in Haaretz on October 17, 2004. There is an entire section devoted to "Articles About Palestinian and Israeli Children" at http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/children-articles.html.
Considering your ongoing grotesque insensitivity to the misterable existence forced on Palestinians by the Israeli occupiers for over 40 years, not to mention the genocidal founding of the State of Israel, you have absolutely no right, not now or ever, to accuse me of bigotry.
If I'm the "insensitive bigot" why are you always the one who defends the way the Palestinians are treated by the Israeli government? Israel is a state founded on bigotry of the most vile kind, a state that loudly and repeatedly trumpets its racism, and which is deeply ingrained in its citizenry. Have you taken a look at the new Israeli Foreign Minister lately? The man is about as openly bigoted as they come. Why not a peep from you or anyone else on this site about Lieberman's many disgustingly racist pronouncements?
So are you saying that Hedges' own eyes were deceiving him in Khan Younis? Were you there yourself? Are all reports of Israeli atrocities lies? Is Israel unprecedented in the history of the world as a perfect state?
By failing to answer these questions, as well as ignoring the ones I've posed thus far, you confirm the deeply dishonest and inherently racist nature of Zionism. If you hope to disprove this thesis, then answer my questions with a modicum of sensitivity to the plight of the Palestinians. In the absence of answers, I will simply continue assuming that my assumptions about Zionism and Zionists is correct.
Here's Jonathan Cook's explanation for why he is a freelance journalist, markedly different from your typically unsubstantiated claims:
Posted by: David Zinn | July 21, 2009 at 16:08
Here's a few excerpts from Gideon Levy's article:
How do you people live with yourselves justifying such horror? Do you ever ask yourself how you'd feel if your child was killed?
Oh, I forgot, it's probably all lies, despite the fact that the article was written by an Israeli Jew and published in an Israeli newspaper.
After reading articles like this, coupled with your ongoing denials and excuses, any normal person would take issue with the people who consistently take such detestably immoral positions. In short, I don't apologise for my views of Zionists and until such a time as you and your fellow ideologues actively change your ways I will hold to my opinion.
Posted by: David Zinn | July 21, 2009 at 16:20
C'mon Zionists, are you going to let David Zinn go through life without getting his bias corrected?
The sound of crickets chirping is keeping me up at night.
Posted by: Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls | July 22, 2009 at 10:34
woops, whole extra page here I should have clicked on.Don'mind me, continue
Posted by: Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls | July 22, 2009 at 10:36
Dear Anti-Zionists.
You must lead a wonderful life, where you exist behind a keyboard and take verbal pot-shots at the Jewish State from “thousands of miles away”
How do you have so much time on you hands?
“The really tragic thing about the rise of Zionist thinking is that Zionists have in many respects fuelled anti-Semitism.”
Ah, it’s our own fault that there is anti-Semitism in this modern world.
We should all be more like the “good” Jews; Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, Norman Finkelstein, Mordechai Vanunu, and Ilan Pepe. Then the world would not hate us so much.
Funny thing is, none of these Jews are in the least bit concerned with their Jewish heritage, unless they are able to use their Judaism to legitimize their anti-Israel slander.
Judaism has never been only about the “now.” It is also be about the past and our future.
The united history of world Jewry and its future is only as relevant, as the next generation. It is no coincidence that all above mentioned “good” Jews are the last generation of their own Jewish lineage.
They are no different from the “enlightened” Jews of the past; Lev Bronstein, Pablo Christiani, Josephus and Jayson the Hellenist. All of them were portrayed by the world as the as the “good” Jews.
If we had all followed in their paths there would be no Jews left today.
We Jews are here to stay and we will remain in our land. No amount of blogging, official ranting, Human rights reports, suicide bombings, rocket attacks, UN resolution, boycotts, sanctions or lies will ever change this fact.
I understand this really upsets you, tough!
Posted by: Shaun | July 22, 2009 at 11:18
Shaun
Now I’m aware that Zionism and honesty rarely mixes, but I think that the public record should nonetheless be set straight in light of your continued distortion of what I actually wrote about those who have a right to open their mouths about the Israel/Palestine conflict and those who should shut their traps. In the paragraph in question I began by writing that “one is supposed to defer to one’s betters”, meaning those who are experts in whatever field are to be trusted over those who know next to nothing. You and your fellow Zionists on this blog have repeatedly shown yourselves to be contemptibly ignorant about what is happening in the Occupied Territories and Israel’s ongoing criminal behaviour. Or you simply don’t care, which is certainly a strong possibility considering some of the callous remarks I’ve encountered during my time at It’s Almost Supernatural. I actually had very little to write about one only having the right to remark about what’s going on in Palestine if one actually lives there, in fact I basically only mentioned it in passing, and in the context of a reference to Jonathan Cook. Let’s recap the paragraph in question:
So, as can be clearly gauged from the above paragraph, I stressed acquiring more information about the Israel/Palestine situation far more than I did the criteria of living there. Knowledge, which can be gauged from many different sources, is actually far more important than geographical locality. I’m quite sure I know far more about the plight of Palestinians than many Israelis, just as there were people in other countries who knew and cared far more about the plight of blacks in South Africa than did many insular racist whites. A good example of this would be Jean-Paul Sartre’s statement read at the French Liaison Committee against Apartheid in November 1966 in Paris in which he delivered a very touching and eloquent account of the suffering engendered by that aforementioned abomination of a system.
However, geography is key in many areas to the degree that an eyewitness account of what’s happening in a particular country is generally more trustworthy than the rantings of some arm chair zealot comfortably ensconced in his suburban enclave thousands of kilometres away from the scene of the action who thinks he’s some demigod who alone can discern the veracity or falsity of all claims. As stressed before, it’s about having plenty of knowledge from plenty of sources.
The same rule of deference applies to many areas of life, for instance if a religious loon told me that he doesn’t believe in evolution I would also tell him to keep his mouth shut until such a time as he’s actually read up on the subject. Similarly, I wouldn’t presume to tell a theoretical physicist about his field of expertise, nor a mechanic or accountant.
On a related point, if you have such a high threshold for evidence relating to the Israel/Palestine conflict, then surely you must apply this to all areas of possible knowledge. So, judging by how stringent your criteria is for accepting anything relating to the situation in Palestine, the ANC is in fact not the corrupt political party that so many news reports in South Africa indicate on a daily basis. After all, I’m sure there’s a logical explanation to all that pilfering from the public coffers, or perhaps it’s all a conspiracy by white racists who still control most of the media in South Africa and just hate the thought of a black government. Please do explain how you live your life with such a keenly honed and disturbingly obsessive scepticism? Basically, how can you trust anything you read or hear from any sources?
I think the best way to describe my open mindedness would be to quote Rick Warren who once said that “some people are so open minded their brains fall out”. He’s not a great example of this, but that’s another story. My approach to questions follows the scientific method where one doesn’t start out with a particular theory and then find supporting evidence, but rather one should display a willingness to assiduously uncover facts so that a more conclusive picture of a particular area of enquiry emerges. Once a thoroughly detailed picture has emerged I will be very sceptical about people who completely contradict the mountains of evidence I have thus far acquired. Not that I won’t change my mind, but the counter evidence need have to be much more than simple hearsay or someone merely disbelieving my acquired facts because they’re inconvenient to the person’s ingrained worldview.
My open mindedness also tends to end at the point at which the other person begins unashamedly lying or distorting well established facts. The same goes for people who somehow think that their ability to articulate views gives those views the imprimatur of accuracy. That is one of the downsides of democracy, and also a certain breed of open-mindedness most often practised by the Pomo crowd with whom I have had no end of arguments over the years. These so-called “liberals” give the term liberalism a very bad name and it was clearly them you were referring to when you mentioned “moral relativists”, people who often have no problem with anyone else’s behaviour no matter how self destructive this behaviour is to those individuals and eventually to society in general. They also tend not to care all that much about facts, which is why I have such a difficult time keeping my cool in their company. The same sort of mindset encourages certain people to believe that the moon landing was fake, or that the US government was behind 9-11, or that a group of 12 Free Masons rule the entire world. They probably think of themselves as open minded, while I tend to refer to them as idiots, but hey, that’s just me.
I would still like to think of myself as open minded in the sense that I support gay rights, equality for women, interracial partnerships, protection for the most vulnerable members of society, enjoy learning about cultures from across the world, and reject the narrow mindedness of all forms of nationalism and religious affiliation. Feel free to keep questioning my open mindedness, but I thought I’d also clarify this issue for the public record.
You have accused me of being an “insensitive bigot” which is both absurd and hypocritical. In terms of absurdity we are to believe that someone who is deeply opposed to bigotry is himself guilty of the same offence. As already explained to you, and amply confirmed by your continued behaviour, Zionism is by its own admission an ideology that vaunts one particular ethno-religious group above others, thus is elementally racist. The state of Israel, a proud product of Zionism, is a sickeningly racist society and even more so these last few years than in past decades, when racism was in any case very high. It is not for nothing that people within and outside Israel constantly make comparisons between Apartheid South Africa and Israel. If we follow your “logic” then those who are opposed to Nazism or Apartheid policies are also bigots. Cast in that light I’m sure you realise the undeniable absurdity of your position, though I’m doubtful of this based on past obliviousness. A person who is generally intolerant of intolerance cannot themselves be intolerant, as seemingly oxymoronic as this statement may sound. Occasionally in a particular situation it is possible, though rare, that someone is opposed to most forms of discrimination while for some reason, usually ingrained habit or bad personal experiences, holding discriminatory views against a particular racial or religious group. That’s why I used the term “generally”.
In terms of hypocrisy we need only examine your statement that I “mushroom any crumb of anti-Zionist incitement” to realise how amazingly callous and deeply insensitive you really are. So to you the theft of vast tracts of land, killing thousands of people, destroying dozens of villages, and expelling 750 000 Palestinians from their homes, many tracing their heritage back thousands of years in the same area, to found the state of Israel, facts which no one now seriously disputes, are simply “crumbs”? Am I also to conclude that the ongoing theft of Palestinian land, the construction of a now over 400 km long massive annexation wall that has been condemned by the ICJ as illegal and most of it built not along the Green Line but into the West Bank, the demolition of Palestinian homes, targeted assassinations, the murder of children, kidnapping thousands of people who are held in Israeli jails without charge for years on end, some as young as 14, who are then usually systematically tortured, not to mention the countless incursions into the Occupied Territories to supposedly kill “militants” but which leads to the death of scores of civilians, and the collective punishment Palestinians are subjected to which goes against the Fourth Geneva Convention, all these are simply “crumbs of anti-Zionist incitement”? I suppose you would also consider the theft of your land and the murder of your family members as mere “crumbs”.
Typical of the Zionist mind, the overarching meaning of my earlier question was completely missed. I only referred to what is happening in Iran because I noticed on another thread on It’s Almost Supernatural that ‘the Blacklisted Dictator’ wrote something along the lines of the Green Revolution in Iran being one of the greatest moral issues of the day so I was using this as an example of a situation that excites certain Zionists with a great passion for democracy but when it comes to furthering the human rights of Palestinians they say not a word. My original question read “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?”, and I could have substituted the first part of the question with any number of contemporary situations, such as what’s happening in Xinjiang or Tibet or Burma. The real point in asking the question, as anyone with half a brain should have been able to deduce, was the comparison I was attempting to draw between two comparable situations and the differing response from Zionists.
Seeing as how you’ve completely ignored my questions, I thought I’d repeat them, and perhaps this time you’ll have the courage and the decency to reply:
With that Shaun’s last comment which resembled nothing so much as a seething splurge of almost unbridled race-based ranting, coupled with hyperventilated nationalism, he in one foul sweep makes it clear that he and his ilk cannot be reasoned with, not now or ever. They are blood and soil nationalists of the most pernicious variety who simply don’t care about the destruction that their ideology has wrought upon the world. The most tragic irony of all is that this blind allegiance to the State of Israel is the very thing that will guarantee the state’s ultimate destruction, as all serious commentators have long been aware. When that destruction finally arrives, when that dreaded demographic bomb finally explodes with all its might, as it surely will in light of present growth tendencies, and the desperate and deeply brutalised Palestinian population rise up with the unprecedented fervour of a concerted collective with nothing to lose anymore, Zionists like Shaun better not come crying to me or Finkelstein or Hass, or Chomsky, who aren’t merely “good Jews” but good people, who tried to avert the catastrophe by warning Israel, and its supporters, of their ludicrous folly. I dearly hope this eventuality doesn’t come to pass and that some form of accommodation is still possible between the Israelis and Palestinians, but with Israel’s ongoing theft of Palestinian land, brutal suppression of the Palestinians through a myriad of ways, and a hopelessly hard headed approach to negotiations, machinations which Shaun and others on this site always blindly support, the prospects don’t look good. You will have only yourselves to blame should that long dreaded apocalypse finally comes to pass. Not because you’re Jews, of course, but merely due to the ineluctable logic of cause and effect. Norman Mailer, someone who you might racistly deem a “good Jew”, once wrote that “you either change or pay more to stay the same”. Israel is tragically choosing the latter and they will pay the heaviest of prices.
Posted by: David Zinn | July 23, 2009 at 11:17
Seeing as how you’ve completely ignored my answers, I thought I’d repeat them, and perhaps this time you’ll have the and the decency to read them:
. DZ you are an insensitive bigot.
Killing children is wrong.
Inventing stories about Israelis killing children is wrong…. refer back to line 1
I’m still amused that anti-Zionists hate the Jewish state with such passion that they will print falsehoods and lie outright in order to justify their distain. Then these same people call foul if there are called anti-Semites?
Why do you suppose all Zionist support the Iranian opposition? Some do, I don’t… again us Zionists come with a variety of thoughts and we come in all flavours and colour too… refer back to line 1
You live Thousands of miles away for the conflict your opinion is irrelevant…your words not mine... refer back to line 1
Try getting hit on the head by a rifle butt that doesn’t exist.
If you insist on replying, please make it brief.
Posted by: Shaun | July 23, 2009 at 14:33
DZ
Your generalizations about Zionist thought are wrong again.
I’m not the least bit moved by your labeling me a racist.
You however are an invective bigot because you can callously make a comment like "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."
Then dismiss your venom by saying that your “sentence construction was rather clumsy”
I was able to decipher the following from your most recent dribble:
If we follow in the ways of the “good” Jews, Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish State.
If we follow your advice Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish State.
If Israel maintains the situation as it is, it will cease to exist as a Jewish State...
You can keep hoping for this eventuality,
I’ll proudly defend what we have.
History has pointed out rather harshly that when there was no Jewish Sate the result was the “heaviest of prices”
Posted by: Shaun | July 23, 2009 at 14:34
Shaun
You didn't answer any of my questions, merely opting to slander me. Go look back at every one of my questions and then come back to me again when you've answered even one of them.
I didn't "dismiss" my venom, because armchair Zionists like you have no morality or bravery, particularly not in comparison with the likes of Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, Desmond Tutu or Nelson Mandela, to name but a few great individuals who take critical stances towards Israel. I simply clarified my point, which was inelegantly expressed, that Zionists who happen to be Holocaust survivors are naturally exempt from the claim of lacking "bravery and morality". I expressed this both times, but admittedly not as clearly the first time round as I would have liked to, thus apologised for any unintended offence.
In case you hadn't noticed, I've addressed all those points you've raised, and moved on to new ones in the interrugm.
Of course you aren't moved by me calling you a racist, just as all racists are unmoved by levelling that accusation against them. Nazis, AWB members, and bigots of all stripes don't care about being called racists, and are in fact proud to be among their number, just as you have no problem being an anti-Arab racist war monger.
Can you also please learn to actually write properly, because your spelling and word usage are really sloppy. It's not "dribble", which implies spit gently rolling down one's chin, but rather drivel, to nonsensical or poorly formulated written output. Why not actually compare my sentences and word usage to yours, not to mention my infinitely superior arguments for which you have never had any response, and then try and convince us that I'm writing "drivel".
If you don't follow the advice of "good" Jews, as you insist on calling them, and all other people with a functioning brain, the State of Israel, whether it's Jewish or not, has little chance of surviving in any discernible form. That was the reality facing the White Apartheid regime and it is the inescapable reality facing Israel today. Either change or cease to exist, seems a pretty straightforward option to me. But keep insisting, like the racist chauvinist that you are, that Israel should remain as a Jewish terror state and we'll see where that gets the country. It's been an absolute disaster for the region thus far, even for Israeli citizens who must live in perpetual fear and paranoia, but far be it from me to simply point out the obvious to those who, like some clinically insane lunatic, think that one can keep doing the same thing over and over again and obtain a different result.
Here's some of those questions you still haven't even come close to answering:
The longer you go on avoiding these questions the more apparent it is, if it isn't obviously and categorically apparent already, that I have won this debate, and will win any debate in which facts and logical arguments are the surest indicators of victory. All you have in response is to whine about your touchingly childish adherence to your narrow conception of Jewish identity. At least I have finally managed to get you to admit what no one on this site ever wants to be honest about, namely that their support for Israel hinges on only one consideration, namely an ethnic-religious identification with the country and not on any principles that it exhibits. So thanks for finally being honest in this matter and dropping the pretence that this is a debate between competing sets of evidence or logical frameworks.
Posted by: David Zinn | July 23, 2009 at 15:06
“Nazis, AWB members”, you mean the guys who burnt Israeli flags and blamed the Jews when Mandela was released from prison?
Seems like you have more in common with them than I do?
I was not aware that Nelson Mandela had ever called for the dismantling of the Jewish state in the same way that you, Chomsky and Finkelstein do.
Again I will say. Killing children is wrong, even though you seem to think that killing Israeli children is ”unhelpful” or justified considering the “hopeless” situation of the Palestinians.
Hedge’s own eyes deceive him, or he was lying. A well trained journalist who has been to many war zones should know a little bit more about the design of an M-16 rifle and it silencing mechanism.
Jonathan Cook: Lied about the number of dead in Jenin, that’s why he can’t get a real job
Richard Falk: You would call him and “idiot because he is one of those conspiracy theorist when it comes to 911.
HRW: Use their anti-Israel credentials to fund raise in Saudi Arabia. You see no problem with this as someone who is open minded in the sense that you “support gay rights, equality for women.”
ICAHD: In their own words only protest when it comes to Arab housing, they seem to be ok with Jews getting their houses destroyed. Surely you would call this racist?
Apparently it’s ok to be inaccurate or “clumsy” when reporting against Israel.
My children happily live as proud Jews. The Jews you prefer can’t say the same thing.
Israel is not going anywhere. I hope you remain disappointed at this.
Posted by: Shaun | July 23, 2009 at 16:00
Shaun
I can only speak for myself but being opposed to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza does NOT mean I'm anti-jewish! Broadly speaking I won't even call myself anti-zionist.
I've liked most the jews I've met in my life, classmates and collegues, as least as often any other group.I generally found them smart, imaginative and funny but it dissapointed me when I realised how racist most of them were toward muslims. (whom I've generally found, warm, generous and funny too) I can't condemn them as human beings because then I would have to condemn half my family and my younger self, but then again, racist freaks they are/were but they aren't actually hurting anyone.
The AWB were mentioned earlier. I'm sure those folk are as racist as ever but no one cares because they have all safely locked themselves up in Orania where no one bothers them and they don't bother anyone else.
Events like Cast Lead are corrosive to the image of jews in the extreme.
When you start hearing your friends say things out of the blue like "jeez, you see those psycho jew bastards butchering those gazans on tv last night?" and this from the lips of individuals have been almost completly apolitical their whole lives, never paid any attention to the ME, never been heard repeating even the most common stereotypes, wouldn't know they've met a jew if they bit him on the ass. And yet, the picture they are carrying around in their heads are of a race of murderous thugs. It can't go on like this.
I do not wish for the destruction of israel. I support the jewish desire for a homeland where they can practice their culture and feel secure, this they have earned many times over. (I also recognise that my approval of this right is ultimately irrelavant)
I just can't stomach the brutality they are visiting on the palistinians, for which there is just too much evidence to deny. Perhaps Johnothan Cooke is a conniving anti-semite, perhaps he is not. but there is just so much else it doesn't matter. Youtube is rotten with video of settlers beating palistinians, journalists filming their own death, bound prisoners being shot. Too many jews are speaking out against israel's actions for them all to be suffering from some kind of self-hating pathology.
What is to be done?
How can this be resolved?
How can israel force the palistinians to make a choice between:
a) eternal servitude and second class status in a greater israel
b)exile (leaving aside that no country on earth, including Jordan would accept them)
c) fight to the death
No country can force a people to make such a choice and call itself moral, respectable and deserving of recognition. Especially when the main reason behind it isn't security, but land. It's monstrous and it must stop if not for their sake, then for the sake of israel itself and all jews. For the next few years at least israel has the military might to protect itself regardless of if it controls the west bank and gaza or not. Surely the best time to work for peace and work toward normal relations is now? Please think about it.
I've been visiting your blog quite a bit in the last few weeks, but please believe me it wasn't with the intention of insulting you and I'm certainly not part of the global anti-jewish conspiracy. (if there was a unified organisation with the power to controlm the whole world's media AND the Muslim world AND all the "self-hating jews" I think israel would have been destroyed a long time ago.)
Sorry if I came accross as snotty or sarcastic.
Peace and Love.
Posted by: Iok Sotot, Eater of Souls | July 24, 2009 at 00:53
No worries mate.
At least we can all agree that there is a serious need for a lasting peace.
I suppose the major difference is how that will be achieved.
The present direction of the peace process has proved itself time and again as a disaster for almost everyone.
Perhaps a new strategy is needed, a strategy that works toward a solution that actually takes into account the extreme elements of both sides, rather than just ignoring them.
Its not my blog although I seem to have been posting a few too many post recently.
Cheers
Posted by: Shaun | July 24, 2009 at 08:34
I agree with virtually everything you wrote Iok Sotot, and you had a gentle way of communicating all this which I have tried in the past but these Zionists are so blindly loyal to Israel that to even mention what you did is usually to invite accusations that one is interested in destroying Israel. You will note I never ever uttered this, yet Shaun accuses me of wanting the state of Israel to be dismantled.
Shaun
On the subject of dismantling, why not quote a sentence of Finkelstein and Chomsky, either spoken or written, in which they say that they want the state of Israel dismantled? Come on, I dare you.
Mandela, being one of the greatest humanitarians the world have ever known, has been a long time critic of Israel's actions, which is what I am. We have far more in common than you and him will ever have. In fact, I could safely say that he would be horrified by your callousness towards the Palestinians.
I would never burn an Israeli flag, and never ally myself with anti-Semitic racists. On the other hand, despite what Zionists may say, any form of racism is simply another side of the same coin. So you'll always have far more in common with Neo-Nazis and AWB members than I ever will have as your ideology, like theirs, is rooted in one group's superiority. You will have noticed that my ideology, such as it is, is rooted in equality and fairness, hence my condemnation of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and other examples of brutality and injustice throughout the world.
My point about the Nazis and AWB members is that they are racists, just as Zionists are racist in their vaunting of one particular ethno-religious group over all others. You can't honestly tell me that someone qualifies as a Zionist if they don't think that the Jews are the "chosen people". Your own constant references to your Jewish heritage simply amplifies your racist mindset. That you should have inculcated this attitude in your sons is somewhat monstrous, and reminds me yet again of how correct Richard Dawkins is when he states that parents indoctrinating their children into accepting a particular religious tradition is a form of child abuse.
If anything, Human Rights Watch has been far too pro-Israel over the years, so your point is meaningless. Just see an article in the London Review of Books, entitled 'Human Rights Watch Goes to War & available at http://www.merip.org/newspaper_opeds/oped020109.html, about the organisation’s attitude towards Israel for more details.
So Chris Hedges is a liar, or is short sighted, because you say so. Never mind that he actually saw the boy being shot at, and spoke to his family, because Shaun thinks he knows something about silencers on rifles that means he is an authority to disqualify eyewitness testimony of one of the best journalists in the world. Do you have any idea how deplorably arrogant this comes across, the idea that you are some ultimate authority on everyone else’s claims? And we’re just supposed to take your word for it. As Iok says, there is so much evidence of Israeli atrocities in the Occupied Territories over the years that to not believe them one must either be clinically insane, a serious mental defective, or in your case, a Zionist. That’s some great intellectual company you keep!!!!
Considering that I saw many children killed and blinded by white phosphorous on Al-Jazeera during Operation Cast Lead, virtually all reputable human rights organisations putting the number of children dead at no less than 300, I’m not going to be convinced of the lack of veracity of live television footage by someone who has repeatedly shown himself to be willing to debase the most basic standards of honesty to protect the reputation of his most precious and seemingly perfect state.
Unlike you Shaun, because I actually have a functioning conscience and am someone of principle, I would never dream of saying that the murder of Israeli children is merely “unhelpful” or “justified considering the ‘hopeless’ situation of the Palestinians”, because that’s what moral relativists of your lowly calibre do, though in your case you refuse to even admit that Palestinian children have been killed even if the evidence is undeniably conclusive. I condemn all murders of children unreservedly, whether in Burma, Israel or the far side of the Moon. Perhaps you’d like to try this consistently moral approach to the Israel/Palestine conflict.
As for the ICAHD, I’m sure that there are so many instances of Israeli homes being demolished. I mean there was that big photo op/PR stunt in 2005 called the Gaza Settlement withdrawal, never mind that all those settlers were given better accommodation on the West Bank. Never mind that all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories are illegal under international law. Apart from the fact that every last settlement in the West Bank SHOULD be demolished, based on their international illegality, why don’t you point out how many Israeli houses, other than those Israel itself has deemed to be illegal outposts, have been demolished in comparison to Palestinian homes? Only when Palestinians bring in their bulldozers to destroy homes in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem or Haifa, then you will have some semblance of a leg to stand on. Until such a time your hypocrisy is simply yet again on display, even more glaringly than usual.
And yet even after Iok’s wonderful words Shaun still cannot, and surely now will never, get himself to admit that the state of Israel is doing anything wrong. All he says is that "the present direction of the peace process has proved itself time and again as a disaster for almost everyone". Gee, I wonder why that is? Could it be that Israel and the United States have alone repeatedly rejected all meaningful peace proposals, also known as the "international consensus", since the latter emerged in the early 1970s? If you doubt this I suggest you examine the various UN Resolutions over the years which had the entire world voting in one direction, that is for a two-state settlement, with Israel, the United States, and usually the likes of Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands voting against it. The point, Shaun, and fellow Zionists, is that you cannot have any form of peace if you are blind to the principal agents responsible for preventing peace. Only a clear sighted view of what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, just as whites first had to take cognisance of the horrors of Apartheid (which most still haven't), will ever lead to a true lasting peace which requires massive redress for the Palestinians in light of past, and of course present, wrongs.
I find it rich that you talk about "extreme elements of both sides" which must be spoken about instead of "ignoring them", considering all you ever do is ignore Israeli extremism, exemplified by such actions as Operation Cast Lead, practiced by a state with one of the most powerful armies in the world against a largely defenceless population which doesn't even have a state, let alone anything resembling an army.
Finally, you, and anyone else, shouldn't be proudly Jewish, or French, or German or South African, instead you should be proud of the values that you hold. As Finkelstein has said, he doesn't support states he supports principles, a sentiment I wholeheartedly share. Nationalism and religion are tremendous evils in this world, as the situation in Palestine disgustingly demonstrates.
Posted by: David Zinn | July 24, 2009 at 14:10
bored!?
Posted by: Shaun | July 24, 2009 at 15:56
Shaun
Whether you think the reason I’m writing these posts is because I’m bored, or you’re bored with them, quite frankly I couldn’t give a damn. Despite having children, thus presumably being a man in at least his fifties, you are remarkably childish. I noticed this same quality in the disgusting Mike Berger, so perhaps I should add another trait to the list of characteristics that most Zionists share. Though wouldn’t want the big bad Shaun calling me a “bigot” again.
One of the most despicable comments you’ve yet spewed out (which says something) is the notion that I’ll be “disappointed” that the state of Israel “is not going anywhere”. My critiques of the nature of the Israeli state have got absolutely nothing to do with me, you heartless fiend, but rather about how the government treats the Palestinians. Of course the existence of Israel in its present form has no direct impact on my life, but because I have something akin to a conscience, and consider myself to be a citizen of the world, I feel aggrieved about the condition of the Palestinians, just as all decent people everywhere do. I could take the callous or ostrich-syndrome approach, as many people do, but that’s just not how I operate. I am also quite sure that those rescued by the likes of Oscar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg were also eternally grateful that these two men, and all the others who risked their lives to save Jewish people threatened with extermination, didn’t simply pretend as if the plight of the Jews in Europe during the reign of the Third Reich didn’t concern them.
I’m also very glad that enough people around the world stood up in solidarity against the heinous Apartheid regime and organised numerous boycotts directed at the Old South Africa which were richly deserved rewards for the white fascists and their enablers. There is a rapidly growing global BDS movement aimed at Israel to squeeze the Israelis into submission, which they also richly deserve for their terroristic and deeply racist policies aimed at the Palestinians. Even some Jewish organisations, such as a Jewish trade union in Canada, are starting to join the international boycotts aimed at Israel which will not cease until Israel stops its openly racist policies and terrorist atrocities against the Palestinians. I am going to start lobbying my local government representatives to sever all diplomatic, commercial and cultural ties to Israel, an action a wonderful Israeli representative from B’Tselem encouraged myself and others to do a number of months ago, as I seek, along with millions of others the world over, to brand Israel and all their enablers, as international pariahs who should be shunned until they change their ways. It worked in the case of Apartheid South Africa and considering how this movement is gaining pace throughout the world, I’m convinced it will have a serious impact in the coming years on Israel’s ability to function properly as a state. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “the arc of the universe bends towards justice”, which unfortunately isn’t entirely true, and he forgot to mention that people have to do the bending to ensure that justice comes to pass.
I find your tough guy stance directed at me rather laughable, considering that most of the people in the so-called “developing” world, who account for about 5 billion people, are largely on my side, in light of the fact that they know something about colonialism and the theft of resources and land. This is also true in South Africa where the vast majority in this country know a thing or two about institutionalised racism and “chosen people” theories. I also have on my side, as already noted, some of the greatest moral giants of our age. Even in the so-called “developed” world more and more people are seeing Israel for the disgustingly evil state that it is. A recent poll in Australia, a country still blighted by pervasive racism, demonstrated that the more people knew about what is happening in Israel, the more critical of the state they are. The same is true throughout the world where even a sizeable majority of Americans, who can do more than any other nation to end the atrocious actions by a state that they are largely responsible for keeping militarily and economically afloat, want a just two state solution but remain largely ignorant of the nature of the conflict due to their abysmally biased corporate media.
So in light of the above, and much more beside, the only serious defenders of Israel who will defend the state no matter what are white fundamentalist Christians, both in South Africa and in the “first” world, belligerent neocons who dominate US foreign policy and naturally the Zionist dregs in Israel and abroad, groups who have always been notoriously hard nuts to crack due to their rigid ideological persuasions and aversion to uncomfortable facts. Considering how many Jews are adamantly opposed to the vast terrorist enterprise that the state of Israel has largely been since its inception, it really must be quite lonely to be a supporter of such a morally and ideologically bankrupt project.
As far as I’m concerned, though with ample evidence to back up my contention, Israel as it currently exists is the worst disaster for the Jews since the Holocaust, though ironically, unlike the worst genocide in history, the Jews largely control how the story of the State of Israel will end. Taking the advice of you and other hardliners will lead to certain ruin, though self-destruction and brazen irrationality has ever been the way with the religious extremists in our midst.
When I can momentarily cease being horrified, I find the modern Israeli approach to the Palestinians quite fascinating, from a psychological point of view, in light of the Jews’ vast historical suffering. I am reminded of Don Delillo’s great line in that phenomenally superb book Underworld in which he wrote that “the thing to remember about your nemesis is that he brings you to deepest completion”. Some people learn to love their own oppression, while others imitate their oppressors. One need hardly be a rocket science to work out which route the majority of Israelis have taken.
I have warned you and others on this site before about making assertions without providing any sources, or simply dismissing my sources as biased or dishonest. This seems to be the only strategies that the Zionist brigade have to defend their favourite fictions about that paragon of unimpeachable perfection known as Israel. I see you’ve remained silent on the question of sources indicating that Finkelstein and Chomsky want to see Israel dismantled. You discussed the ICAHD in one of your latest posts, yet I never mentioned them in my incomplete list of sources that I have relied on to shed light on the Israel/Palestine situation. Because you’ve ignored all the organisations, and most of the individuals, I listed in my query, I think I’ll post it again:
Your silence, as ever, shouts volumes.
Posted by: David Zinn | July 25, 2009 at 18:12
Thanks David
Happy to see that you can say “I do not wish for the destruction of Israel. I support the Jewish desire for a homeland where they can practice their culture and feel secure, this they have earned many times over.”
It’s been fun.
Posted by: Shaun | July 25, 2009 at 20:29
David Zinn says that "Zionists are racist in their vaunting of one particular ethno-religious group over all others."
But there is no reason for believing that zionists are more racist than other groups. After all, Israel includes citizens from many ethnic groups and religions, and these people generally live peacefully together. In Israel, Jews, Christians and Muslims have far more rights than they do in any other country in the Middle East, and the rules are generally equal, with such exceptions as Israeli Arabs not having mandatory military service.
Indeed, given the historical persecution of Jews in Arab states and the numerous genocidal wars waged against the Jews in Israel in modern times, I might say that the diversity, tolerance, freedom and prosperity in Israel is evidence of zionists being less racist than other groups. But I do not know whether that would count as vaunting.
Now this prosperity does not include the state of affairs among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza (which is nevertheless likely a good deal better than that of most South Africans). But I see no reason for believing that this is the result of racism rather than vicious attacks on Israel. In any case, one can be a zionist - and very many are - while opposing any Jewish presence in the West Bank and Gaza, though such a position strikes some as racist itself.
What strikes me as racist - or at least, as plausibly explained by racism - is unfairly and duplicitously criticizing Israel over the Arab-Israeli conflict while saying less against other conflicts that are far worse and occupations that are far more brutal. Of course, this is a website devoted to Israel-related subjects, and I have no doubt that the critics here publish at least as vociferously on websites devoted to any of the many other states and conflicts. I'm also not implying that all criticism of Israel is racist; I deny that.
I await the lengthy response with due trepidation. Perhaps the response could be substantiated by a large selection from Hass and a link to a video of drunk teenagers on Youtube?
Posted by: TC | July 26, 2009 at 09:57
I recently discovered the Mere Rhetoric blog, which includes analysis of Israel and the media, and so I think that there could be a link from Supernatural:
http://www.mererhetoric.com
Posted by: TC | July 26, 2009 at 10:07
Shaun
I may not want the destruction of Israel, and support some form of a homeland for the Jews, but unlike you my support for such a notion isn't unconditional. Israel always wants its enemies, and the entire world for that matter, to recognise its "right to exist". Well, I've got a newsflash for them, and anyone else, which is that no state has a "right to exist". That states exist is usually as a result of certain historical factors that have created, in that other phrase beloved of the Israeli government, "facts on the ground". So just as I fully support the continued existence of white people in South Africa, I support the continued existence of Jews in Israel, because that is the reality that has been historically established. That doesn't mean I am in any way aligned with the Zionists or the right wing Afrikaner nationalists in this country, because I still demand that Israel change its ways considerably before I accept the state of Israel in its present form. Perhaps you'd like to read that as me giving a full vindication of everything the state does, but that's entirely up to you.
Also, thank you for finally conceding defeat as you simply don't have the answers to my questions, nor any facts to challenge my contentions. It's taken a while, but at least we've finally reached that point.
TC1
Considering the nature of the Israeli state, and some of the sentiments expressed by Zionists on this very blog, there is every reason to believeve "that Zionists are more racist than other groups". Or at least as racist as many similar "master race" theorists. It would depend on those "other groups" perhaps, but the point still stands. I made mention of the "chosen people" syndrome that is inherent to the Jewish faith, or would you dismiss this as so much anti-Zionist propaganda? Is the whole Old Testament to be dismissed while still retaining one's Judaism? That would seem a tall, if not impossible, order for Jews to achieve and still retain their identity.
Considering that around 80% of Gazans need food aid to survive, and malnourishment is around 50% or more, people there are certainly not doing anything close to "a good deal better than that of most South Africans", despite our immense poverty. But then again what's a few facts when fantasty is so much more appealing?
I'm glad that you've actually answered your own critique by pointing out that those who criticise Israel also publish "at least as vociferously on websites devoted to any of the many other states and conflicts", which is certainly true in my case. I utterly detest most of the regimes in the Middle East, and many other governments across the world, as I have made plainly clear. As you yourself point out, and which I have reiterated time and time again, 'It's Almost Supernatural' "is a website devoted to Israel-related subjects", hence that's where I focus my energy in the discussion. That's also how any rational person should conduct a debate, which is to stick to the topic at hand.
Even if it were true that the focus on Israel stemmed from some supposed inexhaustible wellspring of anti-Semitism, would that in any way invalidate any of the criticism levelled against Israel? Put another way, if the entire world only looked at the actions of the State of Israel, would that imply that those actions, such as killing civilians and stealing land, are acceptable? I've never understood how Zionists get around this very simple point.
What I have come to understand, however, is that the Zionist argument is basically a very finite one, with just the odd variation on basic themes thrown in to keep things marginally interesting. The arguments, such as they are, seem to be as follows:
There are probably a few more that I haven't mentioned, but these arguments strike me as the most commonly trotted out excuses and/or defences for the actions of the Israeli State.
Your mocking reference to Amira Hass and the Blumenthal videos are most instructive. Hass is one of Israel's greatest journalist and, unlike virtually all Western and Israeli reporters, she actually lives in the West Bank. As such, her articles about the nature of Palestinian life are primary sources and thus cannot be simply dismissed as the imaginings of a fevered anti-Semitic know-nothing. Her testimony in a court of law, for instance, would hold up far greater than any of the vast number of Zionist fanatics who don't know the first thing about how Palestinians live.
As for the Blumenthal videos I made mention of a while back, they too are highly significant pieces of evidence in gauging Israeli attitudes. You have conveniently failed to acknowledge those polls conducted by the Israeli Association for Civil Rights and included in an article by Conn Hallinan which I inserted into one of my posts. Neverthless, Feeling the Hate in Tel Aviv should, apart from the disgustingly racist attitudes expressed by some of the interviewees, be disturbing for all those who harbour illusions about modern Israelis because of what it portends about the country. Blumenthal wasn't talking to a group of far right Zionist lunatics living in some West Bank settlement, he was talking to young people in the most cosmopolitan and liberal city in Israel, some of them university students. Imagine if a film crew had asked young English white South Africans at UCT, the most liberal university in the most supposedly liberal city in the land, in 2009 about Barack Obama and they had used the k-word to describe the President of the United States. Couple that with some of these students expressing disdain for any grievance black people might have over Apartheid. After viewing such a video most people would surely conclude that South Africa still had some serious problems with race. While it is relatively easy to dismiss the drunken American louts featured in Blumenthal's first clip, Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem, it is far more difficult to dismiss the sentiments expressed by sobre young Israelis in Tel Aviv. Blumenthal's accompanying article was even more disturbing, as he mentions a discussion with a purple robed pot smoking hippy in Tel Aviv, an exchange which was unfilmed, in which this person told him that Arabs in Israel should be expelled from the country. This is a hippy for crying out loud!!
But, if you so wish, keep fooling yourself into thinking that the clips I've referred to are on the order of "man bites dog" and have no anthropological value whatsoever. It wouldn't be the first time Zionists have exchanged reality for more favourable fantasies of their favourite nation.
Posted by: David Zinn | July 27, 2009 at 13:42
Forgot to mention in my discussion on recurrent Zionist themes that there are certain members of this coalition, such as it is, who aspire to a certain pseudo-liberal pretence by making statements such as the "present direction of the peace process has proved itself time and again as a disaster for almost everyone". However, these selfsame individuals always fail to note that the largest and most obdurate obstacles to peace have for decades been Israel and their imperial patron the United States, who have been nothing if not consistent in continually rejecting the international consensus, aka a two-state solution along the pre-67 borders, since it emerged around the early 1970s. This is borne out by countless UN Resolutions where Israel and the US vote against virtually the entire world, with the exception of such significant states as Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands, and every now and again more powerful countries such as Uganda. These selfsame individuals also seem to think that Israel has nothing to do with being a barrier to peace even as the government encourages more and more settlements to be built in the West Bank and murders babies and women in Gaza. I have already noted the Orwellian use of language within the Zionist discourse, which clearly extends here as well where war means peace, and genuine overtures of peace, by either the PLO or Hamas, are always deemed to be naturally hostile.
Perhaps an Alice in Wonderland reference would also not be out of place here...
Posted by: David Zinn | July 27, 2009 at 14:23
David Zinn asks, "Even if it were true that the focus on Israel stemmed from some supposed inexhaustible wellspring of anti-Semitism, would that in any way invalidate any of the criticism levelled against Israel?"
There were two parts of the critique: first, a defense against the charge of racism, and secondly, criticism of those leveling the charge. I never supposed the latter to be a part of the former. I hope that Mr Zinn is not criticizing me for supposing so because that would be unfair.
Mr Zinn claims in reply to my original comment that zionists are particularly racists because they believe that Israel is chosen.
But first, I do not see why believing that God entered into a covenant with Israel makes one a racist; at any rate, I don't see why it would do so any more than would believing, as many people do, that God entered into a covenant with Mormons or Muslims. Secondly, zionists need not believe this or that Israel is special; people can support human rights for Jews in the levant, the national liberation movement of the Jews, etc. as well as the human rights of other people, including Palestinians. In any case, my argument for the conclusion that zionists are not racists is totally ignored.
Mr Zinn also says, "I'm glad that you've actually answered your own critique by pointing out that those who criticise Israel also publish 'at least as vociferously on websites devoted to any of the many other states and conflicts', which is certainly true in my case."
There are two claims here: first, that I point out that those who criticise Israel are not duplicitous, and secondly, that Mr Zinn is not duplicitous. The first claim is false; my original comment was sarcastic. I could never point out that those who criticise Israel are not duplicitous, for there is far more criticism against Israel than there is against any or almost any other states, including the worst regimes.
As to the second claim, even though I think that many of Mr Zinn's criticisms are false, I still applaud him for not being duplicitous if indeed he is not.
Finally, the claim that Israel started the 1967 war is not true, and neither helpful nor humorous. Egypt had closed the Straits of Tiran, kicked the UN out of the Sinai, mobilized the army against Israel, and promised the immanent annihilation of Israel; Israel begged the Jordanians not to attack them, etc.
It’d be more plausible to accuse Israel of abducting the Lindbergh baby.
Posted by: TC | July 27, 2009 at 18:23
Dear Mr TC
I really appreciated your civil tone in the last comment, so thank you for that. I shall attempt to reciprocate, while still delivering the necessary critiques of the points you raised.
With that first quotation of mine you have performed the typical trick of avoidance that seems so common on this blog, where a minor matter is focused on while the larger point is completely ignored. I never accused you of conflating the “defense against the charge of racism” with the “criticism of those leveling the charge”, but instead conceded, in a hypothetical manner, the point you had at least implied with the statement that “what strikes me as racist - or at least, as plausibly explained by racism - is unfairly and duplicitously criticizing Israel over the Arab-Israeli conflict while saying less against other conflicts that are far worse and occupations that are far more brutal”. From the aforementioned concession I asked you, entirely reasonably, how the nature of the person criticising, or the frequency of the criticism, in any way invalidates the substance of the criticism aimed at Israel, a question you completely, and rather conveniently I must add, ignored.
In all due respect, I believe that you need to educate yourself a bit more on the nature of other religions as there is nothing remotely similar in either Islam or Mormonism to the “covenant” that the Jews claim to have forged with their creator. The entire notion of a “chosen people” only really exists in Judaism, hence the unbridled arrogance of many of this religion’s practitioners. You are correct, however, that this doesn’t necessarily imply that Zionists are racist, which is far more apparent if one gauges attitudes to Arabs in Israel, or examines the history of the State of Israel. It’s more a case that being the “chosen people” will logically lead to a racist attitude to those who are not chosen. Religion has always functioned as an extension of humanity’s tribal mentality where the division between the in-group, that is us wonderful holy people, and the out-group, those horrible heathens, is sharply delineated by almost all religions throughout history. Interestingly, the Mormons have a very disturbing history of racism, which began with the religion’s founder Joseph Smith, who was an anti-Abolitionist. Up until the mid-seventies black people couldn’t occupy any high positions in the Mormon church. The often violent intolerance of Muslims towards other religions is so well known I need hardly tarry on this matter. Because this isn’t a theological debate I’ll set aside these religious considerations in the present discussion, if that’s alright with you.
I couldn’t help but notice that you totally ignored my appraisal of the Zionist mindset, a number of facets of which you actually confirmed in your last comment, so it is rather rich of you to accuse me of “totally” ignoring your “argument for the conclusion that Zionists are not racists”, which had has as its centrepiece a rather misty-eyed view of Israel. Nevertheless, I will concede, because that is what most of the evidence indicates, that Israel is a reasonably vibrant democracy with far more rights for women, gays, etc., than all other nations in the Middle East. Now you may think that Israel’s democracy has something to do with Zionism, but as someone who knows something about religion and its history of totalitarian intolerance I am well aware that democracy has ever been at odds with most religious establishments. To attribute Israel’s democracy to Zionism would be like claiming that Western Europe’s modern peaceful democratic order has anything to do with Christianity, when in fact most of the bloodiest wars in Europe’s history are directly as a result of conflicts between different Christian sects. In my former church I once listened to a visiting minister, and supposedly something of an expert on Israel, or so it was claimed, who suggested that 90% of Israelis are atheists. The figure sounded far too high, and I would never claim it to be accurate, but he further mentioned that despite the irreligious nature of most Israelis, all the major religious holidays are observed. In other words most Israeli Jews are culturally, as opposed to religiously, Jewish.
It is also interesting to note the fact that when a gay pride parade was scheduled to happen in Jerusalem the religious leaders from all three major faiths, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, all banded together to denounce this shocking celebration of abhorrently unnatural sexuality. Similarly, one could note that the Orthodox Jews, that is those who most fervently subscribe to Zionism in its full religious dimension, are often the least tolerant of women’s rights, gay rights, peace with the Palestinians, and are also often quite openly racist toward Arabs. It could thus be claimed that, if anything, democracy thrives in Israel in spite of Zionism, not because of it.
I apologise for taking you at your word when you wrote that It’s Almost Supernatural “is a website devoted to Israel-related subjects, and I have no doubt that the critics here publish at least as vociferously on websites devoted to any of the many other states and conflicts”, because I should have made allowance for the astounding paranoia that runs so deeply within the Zionist mindset. Before I tackle this issue in depth, let me first deal with a rather important lexical matter. According to my Concise Oxford English Dictionary the term “duplicitous” means “deceitful” and in the terminology of the law the word means “(of a charge or plea) containing more than one allegation”. In light of this definition, I feel that the context in which the term “duplicitous” was used is somewhat inappropriate, if I may be so bold. To further buttress my case, before referring to actual examples, let me mention that the word “deceive” is defined as “deliberately causing (someone) to believe something that is not true”, again courtesy of my trusty Oxford.
By your own admission your statement regarding those who criticise Israel also vociferously criticising other states was sarcastic, and in your subsequent post you suggested that they are in fact being duplicitous, that is practising deceit. For the time being I’ll set aside my own duplicity or lack thereof, to focus on your charge, at least implied, about the duplicity of those who level criticism at Israel. The reason I think your chosen term is inappropriate is because if someone only ever levelled criticism at Israel that wouldn’t make him or her duplicitous. If this person kept levelling false criticism against Israel then that charge would hold. A person who only criticised Israel could be called selective, or possibly even hypocritical depending on how they approach other conflicts, but the duplicity can only be reserved for an individual who deliberately makes false claims about Israel.
The reason that you claim that those who criticise Israel are “duplicitous” is because, according to you, “there is far more criticism against Israel than there is against any or almost any other states, including the worst regimes”. Again, even if your last charge had anything remotely resembling a ring of truth to it, the act of criticising Israel isn’t in and of itself, however selective said criticism, an example of duplicity.
With that aforementioned quotation from yourself, you have unwittingly provided me with yet another oft repeated Zionist claim that I can add to my list of typical Zionist arguments. You, as virtually all Zionists on this site do, claim that Israel is unfairly singled out for criticism, yet you are very short on specifics as to who, exactly, is meting out all these harshly unjustified brickbats. Fortunately, though perhaps not for your case, I am something of a media junky and have been for many years. I am particularly familiar with the US media, which I’ll start with.
Anyone who pays even cursory attention to the US mainstream media, either print or television, will be hard pressed to ever find so much as a peep or faint whisper of criticism levelled against Israel. I admit that the US media is something of an extreme case in being by far the most pro-Israel press establishment in the world, but I referred to them just to eliminate any potential unfair criticism that could possibly emanate from this source. The evidence of a systematic pro-Israel bias, even in such supposedly “liberal” newspapers as the New York Times, is so pervasive throughout the US media landscape that I hardly need adduce examples, such is its prevalence. A good place to start might be coverage of Operation Cast Lead where the media was uniformly supportive of Israel’s war aims, with the likes of noted syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer spinning the war in favour of the Israeli terror state in the Washington Post. I could go on and on in this vein, stretching over decades and numerous print publications, let alone television coverage, but will refrain from doing so to avoid typing up a 1000 word tome.
I admit that the British media is more critical of Israel than their counterparts in the US, though this is only in very selective instances. In terms of newspapers, The Guardian and the Independent are the most likely to feature journalists who take a critical stance on Israel, though I would deem this coverage merely accurate, as opposed to the whitewashing and dishonest eliding tactics practised by most publications in the US and even throughout most of the British print media. As someone who reads the BBC headlines online almost daily, I can certainly vouch for the fact that, in the absence of a major news event on the order of Operation Cast Lead, coverage of Israel is quite minimal. Even today, of about twenty main headlines my browser makes available for immediate viewing, there is just one story on Israel, which involves George Mitchell’s visit to Israel and nothing that can even be remotely construed as critical. I could safely wager that in a typical year the coverage of Israel doesn’t take up more than 5% of total BBC coverage, and then most of that isn’t what any rational person would describe as critical. How about doing an experiment and trying to uncover the amount of times that Israel is described as a racist apartheid-style terror state by the BBC?
To give an example of how well, as opposed to badly, Israel is treated by the BBC, which generalises to most mainstream media outlets throughout the developed world, one could point to the fact that while the BBC recently reported on the Amnesty International report which claimed that the IDF was responsible for committing war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, the anchors interviewed Israeli spokesman Mark Regev, that woeful Australian-accented clown, who naturally moaned about Amnesty’s methodology and denied all charges. The segment lasted for not much more than 2 minutes, and as far as I know they’ve never mentioned it again. There was no discussion with any of the compilers of the report, or a spokesperson for any Palestinian group. I suppose that’s typical BBC bias for you.
A study by Glasgow University was conducted a number of years ago where it was revealed that only 9% of those interviewed understood that the state of Israel was founded by the theft of Palestinian land. Most people thought that the Israel/Palestine conflict was between two equally powerful sides claiming the same piece of land, rather than one side having no state and being the victim of a brutal occupation that has been going on for more than forty years.
The mainstream corporate media in Europe, Canada, and Australia follow a similar pro-Israel slant, which is reflected by those governments’ almost unconditional support for the state of Israel and the bulk of the population not having a clue about what is really happening in Palestine, with thankfully many notable exceptions, particularly among the young in recent years.
The obvious pro-Israel media bias, at least to those with a functioning brain, is also all too obvious when examining the coverage of Israel on Sky News, BBC, and CNN, the main news channels available to South African viewers on DSTV. The only channel that actually reports from the Palestinian side on a regular basis, and whose reporting actually conforms more closely to the reality of the conflict, is Al-Jazeera, which is thus predictably hated by Zionists.
Let’s look at a recent example of this selectivity (or perhaps even duplicity), in international coverage of the nuclear weapons issue. There have been endless debates and much gnashing of teeth over Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, which they claim is for civilian power generation, as well as much disquiet over North Korea’s nuclear tests, yet one hears nothing about Israel’s nuclear programme, even though Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East. Recently, Time Magazine did break ranks with the rest of the western media by noting in a small story that Israel possessed 80 nuclear bombs. Some estimates place the country’s arsenal at closer to 200, but no one will ever know because the programme is entirely secret and those who do spill beans, such as Mordechai Vanunu, wind up in jail for 18 years. This secrecy is aided and abetted by the international media, the same media who keep banging on about Iran even though a US National Intelligence Estimate released in late 2007 revealed that Iran had discontinued its nuclear weapons programme, which barely got off the ground in any case, in 2003.
I could go on and on in this vein, but I suspect, as already established in my previous comments, that the problem isn’t, as Zionists claim, that Israel is being singled out, but that there is any criticism of Israel in the first place. Here Zionists are being extremely duplicitous in repeatedly denying that there is anything wrong with anything Israel does. As I noted in an earlier comment, Norman Finkelstein highlighted this phenomenon succinctly in Defamation where he pointed out that he constantly hears about atrocities in Sudan and Tibet in the US, but the only country he ever hears excuses for atrocities is Israel. This is a phenomenon that has been confirmed repeatedly by the Zionists on this site.
You see, whereas I am in complete agreement with any Zionist on this site who points out that most Middle Eastern regimes are horrendous, and that what is happening in Darfur is horrific, Zionists consistently deny that Israel is ever responsible for any criminal acts, even when there is a mountain of prima facie evidence that Israel is responsible for these acts. In Operation Cast Lead it is commonly accepted that at least 900 civilians, most of them women and children, were brutally massacred by the IDF during that sickening three week attack. Yet, instead of Zionists saying that this is a terrible tragedy but it was clearly unintended and an example of disproportionate use of force, they deny outright that any such acts ever took place, even when camera footage shows young children murdered or blinded by white phosphorous, images that have been seared into my mind forever. Supposedly moral people like Warren Goldstein write op-eds for the Sunday Times in which he expresses not a hint of regret that 200 people, again mostly civilians, were killed on the first day of OCL, and says nothing about all the hundreds that had already been maimed by that stage in the criminal and utterly sickening assault on a defenceless population. It is this attitude among Zionists, who can seemingly never bring themselves to utter even a faint word of condemnation against Israel, that so angers people and makes Israel a target for what appears to be “disproportionate” criticism, though not by the mainstream media throughout much of the West. Although it still wouldn’t be ideal for Zionists to simply say, “well we’re sorry about those kids who were killed in Gaza, but the IDF was just trying to get Hamas terrorists”, it would at least be a start, but they can’t even do that. There is just always a blanket denial of Israeli actions, and that is what infuriates me and makes me post comments on Zionist websites. You see, no one who is even remotely civilised ever justifies what happens in Sudan or Burma or Colombia, but there are people, such as yourself, who always find excuses for any atrocious behaviour that Israel engages in, and that is the fundamental difference between coverage of Israel and coverage of other states, as opposed to this pretence that Israel is a victim of an international conspiracy that always finds fault with the country.
In the warped Zionist mindset, where words often mean the exact opposite of their dictionary definition, the term “far more criticism against Israel” actually means “all criticism against Israel, regardless of the substance, is automatically unfair”. Zionists don’t want a fair appraisal of the Israel/Palestine conflict, at least not if fair means what it usually means here on planet Earth, but want all blame for everything to be laid at the door of the Palestinians while they want the Israeli government to always emerge smelling of roses. Anything short of this, as your comments and those of others have repeatedly demonstrated, invites charges of unbalanced coverage or unfair criticism.
While I think that Tony Blair and George W Bush should be on trial in the Hague for war crimes, I unconditionally support the trial of that hideous monster Charles Taylor. I also want Omar Al-Bashir to be dragged kicking and screaming to the ICC Tribunal to face charges of crimes against humanity, and am therefore disgusted by the AU’s moral cowardice on this issue. I would never take the Zionist approach and say that because far worse criminals have escaped punishment that we shouldn’t put the criminals responsible for far lesser crimes on trial. When Zionists aren’t denying outright that Israel has done anything wrong, this pointing fingers at others is seemingly the default Zionist position.
Thus another element can be added to the list of typical Zionist arguments, namely “that Israel is unfairly singled out for criticism throughout the world, even if, in the real world, the opposite is true”.
So while I can’t guarantee that I’m free of duplicity, in your phrase, or hypocrisy, because no one is, I at least try and minimise these qualities in my analysis of world affairs which is something that Zionists definitely cannot claim, as the foregoing makes crystal clear.
I noticed that you wrote that you “think that many of [my] criticisms are false”, which implies that at least some of my criticisms, according to you, are true. You also strangely didn’t specify which of my “criticisms are false”, another regular Zionist gambit where charges of falsehood are quick to be unleashed, but factual substantiation are generally a rarity.
You rehashed many of the conventional, and endlessly repeated, myths surrounding the ’67 war, but numerous challenges to this convenient narrative have emerged over the years. While to review all the counter-evidence, as it were, would be beyond the scope of this already far too long comment, I will include this highly significant excerpt from David Hirst’s The Gun and The Olive Branch:
As noted, there’s plenty more evidence to suggest that the Israeli army planned what became known as the ’67 war, and the total destruction of any Arab threat to them, for years in advance and that there was absolutely no serious threat from any Arab state against the might of Israel’s military. So, taking your lead, and even though the organisation didn’t exist at the time, perhaps we should demand that Mossad release its archives to finally find out what they knew about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.
I found this great paragraph from noted conservative Andrew Sullivan who, despite the fact that I have many problems with a lot of his views, managed to reveal an important truth about Operation Cast Lead that all people, Zionist and non-Zionist alike, should take note of:
I’m afraid because the arguments in the Zionist playbook are so tiresomely repetitive, I am going to bow out of this conversation, such as it is, unless you can actually come up with something that I haven’t already heard and rebutted numerous times before.
Regards
Mr Zinn
Posted by: David Zinn | July 29, 2009 at 13:06
I understood by "duplicity" here that vice of having a double standard. I do not know whether this is a meaning of the word, and, if it is not, I'm sorry for causing confusion. I stick by my criticisms, but because the anti-zionist arguments are "so tiresomely repetitive" I too bow out of this conversation.
Posted by: TC | July 29, 2009 at 14:44
Dear TC
Similarly to Shaun, it's taken you quite a while, but thank you for finally conceding defeat. You state that "the anti-zionist arguments are 'so tiresomely repetitive'", echoing my own sentiments with regards the Zionist debating strategy, however you aren't even able to identify my arguments, let alone address any of them. I have rebutted all your arguments and you've had absolutely no reply, other than to bow out pretending that my arguments are similarly repetitive, when this is plainly not true. Thanks for confirming that there is no argument that a Zionist can make that I can't easily swat away like some annoying, but insignificant, gnat. Zionists, at least based on the performances I've been privy to on IAS, have neither the facts, the logic or the cogent argumentation skills to challenge my assertions, though at least even people bereft of such qualities are able to understand when they've been thoroughly trounced, as your scurrying away attests to.
As for "duplicity", whether one intends this word to imply deceitfulness or hypocrisy, the Zionists on this site definitely have something of a stranglehold on both concepts.
Zionists, akin to all nationalists or religiously inclined people, are basically one trick ponies, and considering the breadth of knowledge I can have at my disposal because I haven't debased my intellect at the altar of any particular ideology, people like me will always have the upper hand. So chalk yet another one up for the "anti-Zionists", though I would prefer the term secular humanist, rationalist or progressive.
Thanks for playing, you've been a tenacious, though ultimately very hapless, opponent.
Posted by: David Zinn | July 30, 2009 at 09:52
How about cutting and pasting any Israel bashing web-based article available onto this thread. Then you can prove what an intellectual heavy weight you are. In case these articles are proved inaccurate or false, just paste more…
Remember CODEPINK?
Posted by: Shaun | July 30, 2009 at 10:46
How about answering any one of my myriad of questions? How about rebutting all the facts I've been able to muster thus far which you've had absolutely no comment on? Remember all my previous posts? Please, Shaun, for your own sake, stop embarrassing yourself.
Oh, by the by, because I'm not a Zionist, thus actually can grapple with the real world as opposed to the one of my imagination, I don't consider adducing undisputed facts to be "Israel-bashing". Perhaps you'd like to tell us how Operation Cast Lead wasn't just a display of wanton carnage in which hundreds of innocent women and children were slaughtered and thousands maimed? Would you be similarly blasé or callous if the same amount of Israeli children had suffered a similar fate?
Posted by: David Zinn | July 31, 2009 at 11:33
Well, for starters there are no more Hamas rockets raining down on the children of Sderot. The Operation was therefore justified and a success.
Posted by: Shaun | July 31, 2009 at 13:25
Why don't you start your own blog? Far better than clogging up the comments thread with your own personal argument. It takes 15 min and is free on blogger.
Posted by: Benjamin | August 01, 2009 at 08:28
Does anyone know where I can find more information about what is going on in Nigeria? So far all the most in-depth report I have found was this 4 line article on the BBC. “Around 700 people were killed in the city at the centre of the recent wave of violence in Nigeria, according to a senior regional military official. Col Ben Ahanotu, head of security in Maiduguri, said that mass burials had begun there. An earlier tally of victims of the unrest, in which police battled Islamists, put the figure at 400.”
HRW has an article on there website about Nigerian violence in 2008, but nothing abbot the recent violence, and there is noting on the Amnesty international site.
Even Aljazeera seems to find the fact that hundreds of Muslims were being slaughtered, irrelevant.
Zinn are you copying and pasting articles about these murders on other blogs? Surely the world should question the legitimacy of an independent Nigeria considering all the sectarian violence that has been perpetuated there? Or does you “killing is wrong… and there for you don’t accept the state in it present form mantra, only apply to Israel?
Will you also please get off your “Chosen People” high-horse, no one on this blog has used this terminology and by using this idea as a basis of your racism theories is as idiotic as Richard Falk.
Posted by: Shaun | August 02, 2009 at 08:49
I wrote "Perhaps you'd like to tell us how Operation Cast Lead wasn't just a display of wanton carnage in which hundreds of innocent women and children were slaughtered and thousands maimed?" and in response Shaun stated that "there are no more Hamas rockets raining down on the children of Sderot" thus the "Operation was therefore justified and a success". We can therefore logically conclude that Shaun has admitted that killing "hundreds of innocent women and children" is perfectly justified, that is if Israel does it. Shaun has just endorsed child-killing without any qualifications or reservations, and I applaud, though naturally also deplore, his honesty in this regard. I advise other Zionists to take a page out of his book and to stop pretending that their support for Israel hinges on anything other than ethno-religious identification as they are certainly not defending the state based on any sort of ethical principles as evinced by the continual behaviour of the Israeli government, which itself has recently admitted to kiling children in Gaza during OCL.
As for the reference to Nigeria, see previous comments. This type of "logic", though it's nothing of the short, falls squarely in the typical Zionist arsenal of argumentation strategies as also previously outlined. All arguments, at least as far as the Zionists on this website go, seem to always fall into one of the following categories:
Neither you, nor anyone on this site, has ever managed to avoid at least making one of the above arguments, such as they are, to deflect attention away from your beloved state.
I actually watched Al-Jazeera earlier today and they featured a story on the situation in Nigeria. Interestingly, they also covered the disgusting story of over 50 people from two separate families being evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem. The families had been living in the area since 1956. Here are some choice morsels of the accompanying article on the Al Jazeera website:
The story wasn't picked up on either Sky News, CNN or BBC. Yet we're supposed to believe that poor little Israel is so badly maligned by a cabal of international media outlets who report such vicious untruths about the "light unto the Nations". Reality strikes again, though no doubt the Zionists around here will concoct some justification for the illegal eviction of innocent people, a crime against humanity that, had it happened to Jews anywhere, would instantly lead to screeches about anti-Semitism and a new Holocaust.
Neither you nor any of the other Zionists on this site have to expressly state anything about Jews being the "Chosen People", because it is implied in the very fact of admitting to subscribing to Zionism. The "Chosen People" myth is central to Judaism, in case you were perhaps wondering, and the only way anyone, whether Christian or Jewish, can justify the Jews having some special homeland in the Middle East is by following Biblical edicts and staying true, at least as far as Jewish and Christian votaries see the truth, to God's covenant with his special, or chosen, people.
I have dealt with every argument you have thrown at me, Shaun, and all arguments you will ever throw at me. Try as you might, you won't be able to avoid any of the above "arguments" I've outlined. If in any doubt, formulate an argument, such as you are able, and see if it fits into what I've written above. If it does, which it inevitably will, then I will have no reason to respond, and you will just further embarrass yourself. Just give up, because you and your fellow Zionists siimply cannot defeat someone who applies a fact-based, rational and moral analysis to world affairs.
Benjamin
I realise that Zionism is an inherently totalitarian ideology, as evinced by the behaviour of Zionists on this blog and elsewhere, and so you and your ignoble ilk don't like to be challenged on your worldview, but seeing as though I can do what I damn well please I'll continue to make comments wherever I damn well like. Sorry to use such forceful language, but no one, least of all a lowly specimen on a ridiculously hate-filled site filled with some of the most revolting human beings I've ever encountered in cyberspace (see repulsive comments by Gary and Braam on other threads), will ever tell me what to do. Thanks, cheers...
Posted by: David Zinn | August 02, 2009 at 16:27
Hi again David.
I’ll start slowly, you claim that:” Israel as it currently exists is the worst disaster for the Jews since the Holocaust.” Actually, Israel is one of the only countries in the world with a growing Jewish population. You however, see this as a disaster?
Posted by: Shaun | August 02, 2009 at 18:03
Your conclusion is a complete non sequitur as the issue raised has nothing to do with a growing Jewish population. If there were double the amount of Jews in the world overnight that would, if anything, possibly be a good thing, if one takes into account all the contributions to civilisations Jews have been responsible for over the centuries. Though you dismiss the greatest Jews in history as being ashamed of their heritage and being sell outs to the Enlightenment, a bizarre charge and highly indicative of your religious fanaticism.
By not choosing to integrate into the rest of the Middle East, the founders of the State of Israel, and all subsequent governments, have rejected peace in favour of limitless expansion, which still continues today with the theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israeli Jews are forced to live with a siege mentality, stoked by their leaders, as they see all Arabs as threats, without noting the very obvious point that by acting belligerently towards Palestinians and the surrounding countries, the State of Israel is responsible for Arab antagonism.
And I'm not even mentioning the moral debasement that many Jews, both within Israel and outside the country, pursue in their support of Israel, as amply attested to by the testimony of Zionists on this website.
Note I used the term "as it currently exists" and not the idea of a state of Jews, before the accusations that I'm an anti-Semite or desire the destruction of Israel start flying thick and fast.
Posted by: David Zinn | August 02, 2009 at 18:49
slight modification: I should have wrote "the State of Israel is responsible for a large share of Arab antagonism in the Middle East", because of course there are many Arabs and Muslims around the world who need no prompt to be consumed by anti-Semitic loathing, the real kind and not the fake variety peddled by Zionists, that is. The same holds true for European caucasions, wether in Western Europe itself, or satellite nations such as the United States and Australia.
So no, to pre-empt the obvious follow-up, I'm not so foolish to believe that Israel is the sole reason for modern day anti-Semitism of the real variety.
Posted by: David Zinn | August 02, 2009 at 19:22
Mr Zinn comments, "[i]f there were double the amount of Jews in the world overnight that would, if anything, possibly be a good thing, if one takes into account all the contributions to civilisations Jews have been responsible for over the centuries."
Such Jews must include Steven Weinberg, who is smarter and wiser than any contemporary anti-zionist. I recommend his article:
http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/StevenWeinberg-Israelandtheliberals
By the way, he is not very religious so his zionism likely isn't motivated much by "Biblical edicts".
I'll only make this one observation, since the conversation has continued here. But I won't comment further here; when I said I was bowing out of the conversation I meant to be bowing out. I hope I'm not as "hapless" as Mr Zinn says. Readers can decide for themselves.
Posted by: TC | August 03, 2009 at 02:07
DZ you seem to have a serious problem with Jews actually us Jews living and practicing the religion of our forefathers. I have already pointed out how you seem to favor the last generation Jews like Finkelstein and Chomsky I guess that’s good enough for you, but it also means the end of the Jewish state of Israel. Again this is a solution you endorse. See also your CODEPINK post.
If you are so obsessed with Academic’s being the Authority on the Middle east conflict, perhaps you should read the works of Professor Aumann, he lives in the region and that makes him a rather accomplished expert in your opinion, although he is a proud and observant Jew, something that you seem to find repulsive. Yet he’s a noble laureate, his field of study is game theory, which is very relevant to conflict resolution and he thinks that you and you ilk are wrong.
I’ll follow along with his advice rather that those of a linguist (which has very little bearing on conflict resolution)
Posted by: Shaun | August 03, 2009 at 05:29
DZ, you seem to be contradicting yourself at a rather rapid rate.
Either “The really tragic thing about the rise of Zionist thinking is that Zionists have in many respects fuelled anti-Semitism.”
Or
You are “not so foolish to believe that Israel is the sole reason for modern day anti-Semitism of the real variety.”
Posted by: Shaun | August 03, 2009 at 05:51
David
You, of course, can comment wherever you want (this is an open thread) that doesn't mean you should. In my opinion comment threads should be used for comments on the blog topic. Of course arguments will branch out - thats life - but lately it seems that they are predictable branching out into the same repetitive arguments on this blog; regardless of the original topic. Personally, I tune off when comments are too long - regardless of message.
I don't wish to silence you or anyone. That is why I suggest starting your own blog.
Posted by: Benjamin | August 03, 2009 at 10:48
Shaun
I presume you are discrediting Chomsky's amazing work on the Middle East by stating that you'd prefer to follow Professor Aumann's work "rather that(sic) those of a linguist", which is rather presumptious of you, and because this is an argument from supposed authority, it holds very little water. Either someone's work is accurate and features rational arguments, or it is deeply flawed, with a wide range of intermediate quality in-between, but to dismiss someone's output in one area because they are known to be an expert in another is patently ridiculous, and tells me how little you know about the true nature of good scholarship. Have you read Chomsky's Fateful Triangle or Middle East Illusions, the former being one of the most amazing works of forensic scholarship ever produced on the subject of Israel/Palestine? I daresay you, along with most others on this site, haven't bothered to tackle Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah, which is another amazingly brilliant book that is absolutely saturated with sources and brilliant arguments to boot.
I don't find it "repulsive" that people are "proud and observant Jews", or proud and observant any other religion, but I do find it deeply distressing when people use their religious identification to justify all manner of evil, so long as their side is the one carrying out such acts. There are highly Orthodox Jews who are anti-Zionist, as they feel that founding the State of Israel goes against the Torah. They have of course been vilified and even attacked in Israel, but such people exist. TC mentioned Steven Weinberg, who had a great quote that I use all the time:
I would like to become more acquainted with Professor Aumann's work, as it sounds intriguing, but why don't you point out just exactly who me and my ilk are, and where Aumann points out how wrong we are? If he's honestly endeavouring to bring about peace in the Israel/Palestine conflict, then why would he disagree with someone, namely myself as I cannot talk for any imaginary "ilk", who desires the same objective? Or is this another case of linguistic inversion by the Zionists where "peace" simply means that the Palestinians are so crushed that they can no longer fight back?
If you actually read those two sentences carefully, or even cursorily, you would notice that there is absolutely no contradiction. In my first sentence I point out the obvious fact that anti-Semitism, particularly in the Arab world, has been "in many respects fuelled" by Zionist ideology and behaviour. Note I never said all anti-Semitism can be attributed to Zionism.
In the second sentence I point out yet another obvious axiom, namely that it is "foolish to believe that Israel is the sole reason for modern day anti-Semitism of the real variety.”
So to re-cap, in the first sentence I said that a degree of modern day anti-Semitism can be attributed to Zionism and thus the nature of the State of Israel, and in the second sentence I noted that not all anti-Semitism stems from this source. Please explain how that's a contradiction?
Benjamin
Sorry to have become so aggressive with you, but I honestly thought you were trying to simply shut me up because you didn't like what I was saying. I am still angry at the personal attacks and hate-filled screeds that Braam and Gary on another thread directed at me, so that no doubt coloured my perception of your comment. You are right, it is silly to keep going over the same points ad nauseum, particularly when they have little or no relevance to the original post.
Thanks for demonstrating civility and a clear head, which is certainly needed on all sides.
Posted by: David Zinn | August 03, 2009 at 15:49
Do you seriously believe what you write?
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”
This is nothing more that a silly excuse, but I guess it should be expected from some like you who ignores the Arab desire to Slaughter the Jews. I refer you back to your statements that explain and dismiss the vicious calls by the Arab league on the eve of the 1948 war. Or your dismissal of Arab war mongering prior to the 1967 war. I suppose Nasser words to the UN secretary general were understandable or just clumsy?
Using your own words: “I've got a newsflash for them, and anyone else, which is that no state has a "right to exist".
If you truly believe this, then you should understand why many people don’t want a Palestinian state to exist.
If you insist on answering in your usual elongated fashion, please also include anther CODEPINK reference.
Posted by: Shaun | August 04, 2009 at 09:02
What, exactly, is a "silly excuse"? What are you even talking about? I didn't write that quote, by the by, it belongs to the great Steven Weinberg, I merely quoted it, and agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment. This is a critique of all religions, and isn't meant to make "excuses" for anyone, but rather to indict religion and to point out how baleful it is for society. At best it's an attempt to understand why people may behave in horrendous ways when they are generally quite decent individuals, but it certainly couldn't ever qualify as an "excuse". I have confirmed his statements first hand with the Zionists on this website, including yourself, who are probably not such bad people, but when it comes to Israel any and all atrocities, including the merciless slaughter of children, are excused, which you've blatantly done. Forget about my comments, what about your statement that Operation Cast Lead, during which even the Israeli government admits children were killed, was "justified and a success". If this isn't a textbook example of "good" people justifying evil then I don't know what is. I'm being overly kind to you, of course, because I can't really see how anyone who thinks that killing children and women is successful because it stops rockets raining down on Israel, the same country that imposed a hideously inhumane blockade on Gaza that is illegal under international law, can really be described as a good person.
Maybe you'd like to go back to that excerpt from The Gun and the Olive Branch that I quoted to TC in which the Israeli architects of the '67 war make it plainly clear that the Arab countries never posed a serious threat to Israel. Why not also go and read up about the horribly anti-Arab sentiments expressed by David Ben-Gurion and his desire to drive out all the Arabs from the "Promised Land". Remember Operation Dalit, Shaun, or should anti-Jewish sentiments from Arabs be our only focus when examining the roots of the Israel/Palestine conflict? Don't look now, but your hypocrisy is showing again.
I believe absolutely that no state has the right to exist, as already explained, and it thus follows logically that no state, being itself an arbitrary and generally unjustified entity, can dictate to another group of people that they are allowed to have a state or not. This is even truer in the case of Israel which is founded on massive land theft, genocide and the expulsion of the vast majority of the indigenous population. For you to say that "many people don't want a Palestinian state to exist", you are expressing the opinion, which you obviously hold, of disgusting ideological lunatics who are both brazenly hypocritical and sickeningly inhumane, not to mention insanely arrogant that they think they have any kind of right to pronounce on another culture's right to self determination. To all those who say that they don't want a Palestinian state to exist, then I immediately counter that Israel has no right to exist, it never has and, as long as it behaves as it currently does, it never will have that right. Not you or any other Zionist fanatic will change this inescapable reality.
Stop harping on about my "Codepink reference", whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, considering you've ignored 90% of the questions I've asked you and have, furthermore, ignored all that I've written which has so thoroughly debunked all your arguments.
We're going around in circles, which is really aggravating me, so I don't see any purpose in continuing this "debate", particularly not when my opponent doesn't feel the need to honestly grapple with any points that I've raised.
Posted by: DZ | August 04, 2009 at 14:45
Funny how you harp on about the infamous "Codepink reference", which featured a simple error of location and not of substance (though you'll dispute this of course), but you remain silent on the myriad of sources I have quoted from thus far. Could it be yet another example of Zionists exaggerating a misplaced comma, while ignoring an otherwise grammatically perfect sentence? Why not make mention of my reference to the expulsion of more than 50 people from their homes in East Jerusalem where they had been living since 1956? That was just a few comments ago, in case you're wondering.
From now on I'll take your silence on any sources I quote from as a vindication of their veracity, not I need you for that, of course, but it's nice to know that even Zionists must tacitly concede the accuracy of the articles I refer to.
I find your reference to my the supposedly "elongated fashion" of my comments rather interesting, considering I am often accused by you of being sloppy with my sourcing and argumentation. It would seem I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. You would have noticed that in responding at length I take care to address virtually all your points, whereas in your abbreviated comments you hardly touch on any of my points. Either we're having an honest debate in which we tackle each other's respective arguments, or we have to concede, which is very evident by now, that I'm the one doing the bulk of the legwork in this particular exchange and that you're simply not interested in making, or are unable to, any convincing counter arguments. But to somehow hold it against me for the length of my comments is nothing short of obscene and further illuminates the twisted nature of Zionist rhetoric. Nothing personal, of course.
Posted by: DZ | August 04, 2009 at 15:24
Actually your CODEPINK reference was wrong about the location, wrong about who was involved and was blatantly wrong about the events that transpired. It also lied about significant fact like weaponry and assault that never took place.
All in all it was just another case of you picking up on Anti-Israel slander and then using it to justify your warped worldview. Like many of the selected “facts” you regurgitate, the quote from The Gun and the Olive Branch is wrong, as can be seen by the works of Michael Oren and the wrings of U. Thant himself.
If you wish to write about hypocrisy, why have you not mentioned anything about the Fatah conference, seems like those resisters are making it difficult for themselves, or is that also Israel’s fault? I have not once claimed that Israel is a perfect country. You on the other hand have used every opportunity to claim that Arab violence, no matter hour bloody is somehow Israel fault or a reaction to Zionist aggression.
Your not wanting Israel to exist is understandable considering those whom you prefer to quote, but we are here to stay.
Posted by: Shaun | August 04, 2009 at 16:22
And where, dear Zionist fanatic, did you acquire such wonderful insight into whether or not the Codepink article was incorrect? Once again, even if everything you wrote was true, which is highly unlikely based on your penchant for distortions and outright falsehoods, that is but one article out of dozens that I've quoted from that you've been unable to rebut, or at least have remained silent about (the same thing, methinks).
The problem with you Zionists is that any article critical of Israeli is "Anti-Israel slander" as opposed to simply a matter of factual record. Your entire worldview is so warped, as already noted, that you simply cannot accept any criticism of your beloved state, and must thus categorise all such criticism as "slander".
I find it funny that you accuse me of "regurgitating facts", which is a snide way of saying I simply quoted from someone, something that you and your ilk never seem to do, and which has a firm basis in good scholarship, in case you were wondering. You then expect me to take your word for it that the likes of Michael Oren and U. Thant contradict Hirst's work, without providing me with anything resembling a substantiating quote. Needless to say, you would score very low on an essay where you simply made passing mention of someone's work without at least quoting one or two sentences.
Also, if Hirst is wrong, then the people he quoted from, that is the Israeli defence minister and high ranking generals, are lying. So are you accusing the highest ranking Israelis involved in the war in 1967 of being mendacious? That is quite a serious charge, and I would have thought that you, of all people, would stear clear of unfairly smearing such important figures in Israeli society. Then again, I suppose because you are a person of faith and your vision of Israel has always been a complete fantasy, it makes a strange kind of sense that even Israelis who challenge this fantasy are to be slandered and dismissed.
You state that you "have not once claimed that Israel is a perfect country", but you didn't have to because you've uttered not one word of criticism against any Israeli action, ever. So if you are to be taken at your word, why not tell us what you find so imperfect about Israel?
While we're on the subject of claims, you stated, in yet another bald-faced lie, that I use "every opportunity to claim that Arab violence, no matter hour(sic) bloody is somehow Israel fault or a reaction to Zionist aggression", when I have done no such thing. As you yourself pointed out, I even went to great lengths to say that real modern anti-Semitism cannot all be attributed to Israel, in fact that it would be foolish to think so. I have never justified the murder of children, any children, whereas you have plainly stated that the murder of Palestinian women and children is "justified", which you cannot deny, and haven't even tried to. I have never ever pointed out, nor will ever, that the murder of even a single Israeli is justified. I may understand why Palestinians might become so desperate that they use violence against their oppressors, the way blacks took up arms against whites during Apartheid, but I will never justify violent acts. In case your simple-minded brain cannot compute such nuance, let me spell it out for you - understanding why someone might do something is never the same as justifying it.
Why not point out a single sentence of mine where I have claimed "that Arab violence, no matter hour(sic) bloody is somehow Israel(sic) fault or a reaction to Zionist aggression"?
You won't be able to find one, nor even argue that I have ever implied this, because you are simply a deeply deluded ideologue, who is, furthermore, highly dishonest and without the faintest shred of rationality. You are so way off the spectrum on the reality of the Israel/Palestine conflict that, as scientists would say, you are not even wrong.
Shaun, I've defeated your "facts" and "arguments" ten times over, and then some, yet you obstinately keep coming back for more, which leads me to believe that, all due respect, there is something wrong with you. This is a pointless exercise, as it has been from the beginning considering the sort of fanaticism I'm dealing with, so I really must now insist that this "debate" comes to an end because there is just no breaching some walls.
Posted by: DZ | August 05, 2009 at 10:27
Actually I have debunked most of the “facts” you have quoted.
And I have done so based on actual fact, analysis and a little bit of experience. I’m a bit more than just an arm-chair zealot like you.
You blindly pasted the CODPIK article as an example of Zionist aggression.
The article was a complete fabrication and a lie. You haplessly comment about certain journalist being onsite and there fore more reliable. Yet the CODEPINK article got that significant fact wrong, by quoting the wrong location. It also counties at length about protestors being hit with rifle butts, yet the officers who are actually involved in scuffles with the protestors are not carrying any rifles, this is clearly visible in the you tube video provided by CODEPINK themselves. The article about the location,
You also blindly quote Chris Hedges as brilliant and experienced conflict journalist, yet for all his experience in reporting for war-zones, he can not correctly identify weaponry. So he is either lying or wrong about a significant fact. Either way his eye-whiteness account is wrong and therefore invalid.
The same goes for another reporter, Jonathan Cook, whose writing you enjoy so much. Cook falsified report about a Jenin Massacre, yet you still think he is accurate eye whiteness...
Yes Hirsh is wrong; I suggest you read Six Days of War by Michael Oren or the Sword and the Olive Branch by Martin van Kreveld. Both of them seem to have a significantly different interpretation of the events and interviews leading up to the 1967 war. I also suggest you read the biography of the UN secretary General U Thant, who received a rather clear message from Nasser about his desire for a war he was convinced that he would win.
You asked me to point out “where I have claimed "that Arab violence, no matter hour(sic) bloody is somehow Israel(sic) fault or a reaction to Zionist aggression"?
Please read you pathetic answer to the quote of Hassan Azzamaha. This was said prior to any “occupation” and it even preceded your “Nakba.”
Funny how this commemoration is held on the day Israel was founded. Apparently it is the establishment of the Sate that is the catastrophe?
I also suggest that you read the origins of the word Nakba. You may be enlighten to see that it is always used as a reference to land not refugees, and it was initially used to describe an event that did not involve Zionism.
Posted by: Shaun | August 05, 2009 at 12:43
In case you hadn't noticed, I've quoted from far more sources than Hedges, Codepink and Jonathan Cook, so please don't make me laugh by saying you've debunked "most of the 'facts' [I] have quoted". Your claim, as usual, is a distortion if not an outright lie, again typical of the Zionist strategy.
The only substantial debunking you've done, and even this is questionable based on past performances, is the Codepink one which, as noted, was one of literally dozens of sources I have thus far quoted, and one of the least significant. So well done on taking to pieces a shred of evidence that I hardly need to make my case against the State of Israel. Funny how you haven't said a word about Chomsky's Fateful Triangle or Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah. Not that I'm surprised, just yet more fodder for me to think that I'm well on the right track.
As noted earlier, you Zionists have this incredibly high standard of evidence when it comes to Israel, but to slander critics of Israel, or Palestinians, or any other group you simply don't like, then any half baked propaganda will do. I asked you whether you apply such a high evidentiary standard to what you read in our newspapers about the ANC, and if so, then by your own lights they are not the corrupt political party the educated populace in South Africa assumes that they are. The reason you didn't answer this question is that, obviously, your high standards of proof apply ONLY to Israel.
Please explain to me how Chris Hedges is untrustworthy because, according to you, he mistakenly identifies a piece of weaponry? Why is does this have any bearing on whether or not he saw a child being lured to a fence in northern Gaza and then fired upon by the IDF? Why would he lie about this? Considering, furthermore, that his brilliant book, which I doubt you've read, is filled with anecdotes of horrendous atrocities around the world. He doesn't in any way single Israel out. Once again, this is just blantant hypocrisy from the Zionist faction, and all too typical.
As for Jonathan Cook, you keep making claims without any substantiation. So until you do so I'll simply dismiss this claim as another Zionist canard. In some respects this is a somewhat clever strategy because if you actually have to provide any evidence for your claims then I can of course examine said evidence and see whether or not it's accurate. You can't accuse me of not citing sources, though ironically you hold this against me when, at least according to you, they don't pass the Shaun muster. Considering how quiet you've been on the bulk of the sources I've cited, I'll just take it that these are perfectly sound, which I know they are because, unlike what you may assume, they don't come out of nowhere. It's not as if I only rely on articles to formulate my opinion as I've read plenty of books, have watched documentaries, and follow the news on events in the Middle East to further my understanding of what's going on in Palestine. Because you're an ideologue, you automatically look at evidence selectively and try and "debunk", or distort, or just outright lie about, any facts that don't accord with your mythical vision of your wondrous Israeli state.
I'm still waiting for your account of Israel's imperfections.
To state that David Hirst is wrong, you would then have to naturally declare that the people he quoted from were lying. So if you're willing to conclude that the Israeli Defence Minister at the time and high ranking generals were lying that's your business, but I tend to trust people who were actively involved in a particular situation at the time it occurred over a fundamentalist ideologue who has shown an amazing penchant for mendacity.
By the way, what is an "eye-whiteness account"?
On the matter of sources, do you consider Alan Dershowitz to be trustworthy? He has been shown repeatedly to be an outright liar and plagiarist, but I suppose this just wouldn't accord with the Zionist myth so those who maintain said myth, such as that clown Dershowitz, are given a free pass no matter how dubious their output while others, like Hedges, miss a comma and immediately the Zionists start screaming that he's "wrong and therefore invalid". Talk about pathetic.
I've dealt with the Azzamaha non-issue already, so drop it. Why not quote from Ben-Gurion's revolting anti-Arab racism, a racist stance that was actually carried forward in the expulsion or murder of hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians. I find it interesting that you weren't able to actually quote my words, obviously because you knew that they wouldn't reveal what you claim they do. Once again, your breathtaking dishonesty has been exposed. Tell me, Shaun, is lying a natural part of being a Zionist apologist, or is it something you have to constantly work on?
Helloooooo!!!! Earth to Shaun!!! Of course the founding of the State of Israel was a catastrophe for the Palestinians. Are you that dense, or just so inhumanly callous that this elementary fact can't get through that thick skull of yours. Do you honestly think, in your heart of hearts (if you actually posses such an organ), that if you had been expelled from the land that you and your forebears had been living on for centuries that you'd be happy about this? Would you not perhaps think that this rather significantly tragic event was a catastrophe of sorts? Don't look now, but your racism and hypocrisy are showing in tandem.
The origins of the word Nakba are not as important as how the term is used today, for which I have firsthand knowledge based on testimony by actual living Palestinians. The day I trust a Zionist stooge over a Palestinian to provide me with any information of anything relating to Palestinian culture is the day I'll be locked up in a mental institution. Thanks for trying, but by this stage your word is definitely not your bond, and quite worthless to boot. Nothing personal, of course...
Posted by: DZ | August 06, 2009 at 10:28
“Of course the founding of the State of Israel was a catastrophe for the Palestinians…”
And until this changes we will always be at war.
Palestinians can murder, blow themselves up, and constantly claim that it is always Israel fault. Settlements, Gaza, Israeli policies and everything else are irrelevant, because; “the founding of the State of Israel was a catastrophe for the Palestinians,” So either Israel has to no longer exist or the Palestinians have to accept its presence.
We all know which one DZ would prefer.
Posted by: Shaun | August 06, 2009 at 11:15
My goodness, you Zionists are among the most irrational bigots I've ever had the displeasure to come up against, and that says a lot. How in a million months of Sundays do you make such brazen leaps of illogic which don't even deserve to be called non sequiturs, such is the looniness of the proposition?
Yes, the founding of Israel was a catastrophe for Palestinians, as any half wit baboon would acknowledge, but so too the founding of what we now call the United States was a catastrophe for Native Americans. The arrival of European settlers in Cape Town was an even greater disaster for the San, who are no longer around, at least not in anything approximating their original existence. The settling of Australia by white settlers was also nothing short of catastrophic for Aborigines. Now anyone acknowledging these axiomatic realities isn't saying that Australia or the US or South Africa should be destroyed, but that there should at the very least be an acknowledgement of historical reality and some form of redress for past wrongs. All the above mentioned countries have taken at least some measure to improve the lives of their indigenous populations.
But such is the rabid bigotry and utter psychosis of the Zionist mind that any acknowledgement of past atrocities, let alone calls for any form of compensation or compromise to ensure a just and lasting peace, is supposedly the same as calling for the destruction of Israel. You really are a piece of work, Shaun, and I wonder whether you are always this brazenly irrational and downright dishonest, or whether you reserve that specially for the topic of Israel.
Funny also how many Israelis don't "accept" the "presence" of the Palestinians, and want the last remaining Palestinians still living in Israel proper to be deported. Also interestingly, the likes of Shaun will go on about how awful those Palestinians are, while saying nary a word about the construction of an illegal wall that is basically a cover for grabbing more Palestinian land in the West Bank, not to mention that during the post-Oslo years, when Israel was supposed to have been so magnanimous in its concessions to the Palestinians, that illegal West Bank settlements have more than doubled. There was an article about the lives of these fanatical settlers in a recent issue of Time Magazine if you're interested, though I doubt you are.
You may fool yourself into thinking that
"Settlements, Gaza, Israeli policies and everything else are irrelevant", but those of us in the real world know that these are at the heart of Palestinian resistance. But I suppose I'm wasting my breath with an avowed Islamophobe and defender of child-murderers who sees all Muslims as the embodiment of evil and all Jews as the embodiment of perfection. Hitchens had it more right than he will ever know when he said that "religion poisons everything". You're a living testament to the fruits of such poison, Shaun.
Posted by: DZ | August 06, 2009 at 14:43
I though you dismissed the use of examples from other countries as not relevant, the same way as you dismiss genocide calls from Arab leaders even before the establishment of Israel. Yet you use these same examples in your elongated posts?
Still bored, or perhaps lonely?
Posted by: Shaun | August 06, 2009 at 16:50
You're the buffoon who keeps posting nonsense, I just respond to your garbage. So if anyone's lonely, it's you, Shaun.
And I see you're once again lying your life away. Pray tell, when have I ever "dismissed the use of examples from other countries as not relevant", particularly considering I've constantly made the analogy between Apartheid South Africa and modern day Israel?
Please also inform us where I've "dismiss(ed) genocide calls from Arab leaders even before the establishment of Israel"?
Why not answer the question I posed recently:
Keep in mind that a failure to answer this question in your next post instantly confirms your hypocrisy and even outright racism apropos the Palestinians, above and beyond the myriad ways it has already been confirmed thus far.
To be a truly moral person one should always apply to oneself the same standards one applies to others, a precept you have categorically failed to follow since the beginning of this so-called "debate". If you insist on posting until you have the last word I'm going to start copying articles and pasting them as comments. So be warned, two can play this little game. I think I'll even stop personally responding and let the copious damaging information on Israel do the talking. Again, it's up to you how we proceed.
Posted by: DZ | August 06, 2009 at 17:27
"To be a truly moral person one should always apply to oneself the same standards one applies to others, a precept you have categorically failed to follow since the beginning of this so-called "debate". If you insist on posting until you have the last word I'm going to start copying articles and pasting them as comments”
You have been doing this all along.
Enjoy yourself.
Posted by: Shaun | August 06, 2009 at 19:36
Don't say I didn't give you a chance, Shaun. I told you that a failure to answer the following question:
"instantly confirms your hypocrisy and even outright racism apropos the Palestinians". You have now confirmed, without so much as a whimper of protest, that you are an outright racist and dishonourable hypocrite, and for all the world to see. At least, that is, those who might stumple onto this thread. How can you have such little self-respect? Or is this just part of the Zionist game wherein racism and hypocrisy isn't something that particularly troubles the psyche?
You've also shown yourself to be a most dishonest debater, only ever responding to what you find convenient. Why not go back and take a look at my responses compared to yours and try and notice who has made the more honest attempt to address the other's points. To spare you such efforts, let's just say that if anyone doesn't conclude that I have taken far greater pains to address your arguments their brains aren't functioning. Yet, amazingly, I am accused of "elongated" responses for these efforts at honest engagement.
You are thus also aware, in light of the above, that I have won this debate hands, feet, and all other body parts, down. If we were debating in a public forum all but the most rabid Zionist nuts would have been witness to an absolute massacre. I've so destroyed your every argument, and in the process identified and decimated ALL Zionist arguments (which are admittedly of a very limited variety), that I am amazed that you still show yourself around here. This is the last and most potent confirmation of the deplorably deep-seated delusion that Zionists are in seemingly ineluctable thrall to.
Let me not even get started on the vast chasm that separates our respective writing styles.
Thanks for writing that I've been applying to myself the same standards as I apply to others "all along", a moral precept that you can certainly not be accused of upholding.
I know you really only meant the articles part, so I'll be doing just that for every comment you keep on making. In fact, I might decide to just annoy you and post two articles for every comment you make. Again, can't say I didn't warn you.
I know how little you care about Palestinian children, or probably any children that aren't Jewish, so this article will have little impact upon your hardened and very callous heart:
But I suppose the predictable response by the Zionists on this website to all of the above will be that it's all just lies or anti-Israel slander.
Posted by: DZ | August 07, 2009 at 13:05
:)
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