Rosa Brooks: Criticize Israel? You're an Anti-Semite!

How can we have a real discussion about Mideast peace if speaking honestly about Israel is out of bounds?
September 1, 2006

EVER WONDER what it's like to be a pariah?

Publish something sharply critical of Israeli government policies and you'll find out. If you're lucky, you'll merely discover that you've been uninvited to some dinner parties. If you're less lucky, you'll be the subject of an all-out attack by neoconservative pundits and accused of rabid anti-Semitism.


This, at least, is what happened to Ken Roth. Roth — whose father fled Nazi Germany — is executive director of Human Rights Watch, America's largest and most respected human rights organization. (Disclosure: I have worked in the past as a paid consultant for the group.) In July, after the Israeli offensive in Lebanon began, Human Rights Watch did the same thing it has done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Congo, Uganda and countless other conflict zones around the globe: It sent researchers to monitor the conflict and report on any abuses committed by either side.

It found plenty. On July 18, Human Rights Watch condemned Hezbollah rocket strikes on civilian areas within Israel, calling the strikes "serious violations of international humanitarian law and probable war crimes." So far, so good. You can't lose when you criticize a terrorist organization.

But Roth and Human Rights Watch didn't stop there. As the conflict's death toll spiraled — with most of the casualties Lebanese civilians — Human Rights Watch also criticized Israel for indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Roth noted that the Israeli military appeared to be "treating southern Lebanon as a free-fire zone," and he observed that the failure to take appropriate measures to distinguish between civilians and combatants constitutes a war crime.

The backlash was prompt. Roth and Human Rights Watch soon found themselves accused of unethical behavior, giving aid and comfort to terrorists and anti-Semitism. The conservative New York Sun attacked Roth (who is Jewish) for having a "clear pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel bias" and accused him of engaging in "the de-legitimization of Judaism, the basis of much anti-Semitism." Neocon commentator David Horowitz called Roth a "reflexive Israel-basher … who, in his zest to pillory Israel at every turn, is little more than an ally of the barbarians." The New Republic piled on, as did Alan Dershowitz, who claimed Human Rights Watch "cooks the books" to make Israel look bad. And writing in the Jewish Exponent, Jonathan Rosenblum accused Roth of resorting to a "slur about primitive Jewish bloodlust."

Anyone familiar with Human Rights Watch — or with Roth — knows this to be lunacy. Human Rights Watch is nonpartisan — it doesn't "take sides" in conflicts. And the notion that Roth is anti-Semitic verges on the insane.

But what's most troubling about the vitriol directed at Roth and his organization isn't that it's savage, unfounded and fantastical. What's most troubling is that it's typical. Typical, that is, of what anyone rash enough to criticize Israel can expect to encounter. In the United States today, it just isn't possible to have a civil debate about Israel, because any serious criticism of its policies is instantly countered with charges of anti-Semitism. Think Israel's tactics against Hezbollah were too heavy-handed, or that Israel hasn't always been wholly fair to the Palestinians, or that the United States should reconsider its unquestioning financial and military support for Israel? Shhh: Don't voice those sentiments unless you want to be called an anti-Semite — and probably a terrorist sympathizer to boot.

How did adopting a reflexively pro-Israel stance come to be a mandatory aspect of American Jewish identity? Skepticism — a willingness to ask tough questions, a refusal to embrace dogma — has always been central to the Jewish intellectual tradition. Ironically, this tradition remains alive in Israel, where respected public figures routinely criticize the government in far harsher terms than those used by Human Rights Watch.

In a climate in which good-faith criticism of Israel is automatically denounced as anti-Semitic, everyone loses. Israeli policies are a major source of discord in the Islamic world, and anger at Israel usually spills over into anger at the U.S., Israel's biggest backer.

With resentment of Israeli policies fueling terrorism and instability both in the Middle East and around the globe, it's past time for Americans to have a serious national debate about how to bring a just peace to the Middle East. But if criticism of Israel is out of bounds, that debate can't occur — and we'll all pay the price.

Back to Human Rights Watch's critics. Why waste time denouncing imaginary anti-Semitism when there's no shortage of the real thing? From politically motivated arrests of Jews in Iran to assaults on Jewish children in Ukraine, there's plenty of genuine anti-Semitism out there — and Human Rights Watch is usually taking the lead in condemning it. So if you're bothered by anti-Semitism — if you're bothered by ideologies that insist that some human lives have less value than others — you could do a whole lot worse than send a check to Human Rights Watch.

rbrooks (at) latimescolumnists.com

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/la-oe-brooks1sep01,0,4657959.column?

The take home message to those who have the admirable courage and critical thinking skills to stand up and criticize Israeli and U.S. terror:
Don't let them shout you down! Continue to speak truth to power and take action to change the status quo.
False cries of 'antisemitsm' will never shut us up. You will continue to fail to stop us.

The terror state of Israel is now the new Nazi state.

It's true. That's the default that the rabid pro-israel fanatics throw out. After you beat them silly with facts and history (thoroughly debunking their mythology) they call you an antisemite in a sleazy attempt to stifle criticism. It won't work here. We will continue to speak truth to power and criticize the terror states of the U.S. and Israel! You will not shout us down!

The essence of anti-Zionism is the principle that Jews should be treated as equals. The essence of Zionism, as well as of Nazism, is that Jews should not be treated as equals.

'Quiet transfer' in East Jerusalem nears completion
Elodie Guego, Forced Migration Review, 6 September 2006

Israel is close to implementing a long-term plan to transform the demographic structure of annexed East Jerusalem. Policies to revoke the residency permits of Palestinian Jerusalemites and to Judaise the city have been described as ethnic cleansing.

After victory in the 1967 Six Day war, Israel annexed East Jerusalem - that part of the city that had been under Jordanian rule since the end of the British Mandate in 1948 - together with an additional 64 square kilometres which had been part of the West Bank. Jerusalem thus became Israel's largest city and was declared to be its 'united and eternal capital'. The international community, led by the UN, has continuously denounced this act of unilateral annexation, arguing it is a violation of the fundamental principle in international law prohibiting the forcible acquisition of territory. The international community has consistently considered East Jerusalem to be an occupied territory, thus akin to the West Bank and Gaza.

Their support of the Palestinian claim to East Jerusalem was bolstered by the fact that at the time of occupation Palestinians constituted the majority of residents in this sector of the city. Israel has engaged in a demographic battle to secure Israeli sovereignty over the whole city. For almost four decades successive governments have implemented policies designed to transform the city's population structure and ensure the numeric superiority of Jews. Until the construction of the Wall in and around East Jerusalem, these objectives were pursued through a series of discriminatory regulations to reduce the Palestinian population by rendering their lives increasingly intolerable and encouraging the growth of Israeli settlements in Palestinian neighbourhoods. Today the approximately 230,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites represent around 30% of Jerusalem's total population.

Under the post-1967 plan designed by Israeli military commanders, heavily populated Palestinian areas were not included, but land belonging to several Palestinian villages was incorporated into Jerusalem

Under the post-1967 plan designed by Israeli military commanders, heavily populated Palestinian areas were not included, but land belonging to several Palestinian villages was incorporated into Jerusalem. Those who were left outside the new municipal boundaries, or who happened to be outside Jerusalem in 1967, remained residents of the West Bank and, as such, subject to military rule. The Israeli government conducted a census of the Palestinian population living within the city's new administrative boundaries and granted permanent residency status to the Palestinians residents of the annexed areas. They were entitled to become Israeli citizens provided they agreed to swear allegiance to the State of Israel. Mass refusal to recognise Israeli sovereignty over occupied Jerusalem meant that only 2.3% of Palestinian Jerusalemites became Israeli citizens. The others became permanent residents of Israel subject to Israeli law and jurisdiction, just as foreigners who voluntarily settle in Israel.

Jerusalem permanent residency status differs significantly from citizenship. Permanent residents of Israel are entitled to live and work in Israel without special permits, to receive social benefits from the National Insurance Institute and to vote in local elections. Permanent residency is not automatically granted to the holders' children or spouses, however, and permanent residents, unlike Israeli citizens, do not enjoy the right to return to Israel at any time.

Between 1967 and 1994 Israel confiscated 24.8 square kilometres of land in East Jerusalem, 80% of it belonging to Palestinians. Land expropriation is continuing. Today a mere 7% of the area of East Jerusalem remains available to Palestinians. Confiscated land has mostly been used for the construction of Jewish settlements and settlers' bypass roads, in violation of international humanitarian law prohibiting an occupying power from transferring part of its own population into territory it has occupied. The Jerusalem Municipality has expediently used zoning restrictions to establish 'green areas', supposedly set aside for environmental and recreational purposes, but actually deployed as a tactic to remove the land from Palestinian use and create a reserve for Jewish housing.

The Town Planing Scheme (TPS), another key instrument of 'quiet transfer', restricts building permits in already built-up areas, the only areas available for Palestinian use. TPS has been used to restrict the development of Palestinian neighbourhoods. Palestinians are only permitted to build one- or two-storey buildings while adjacent Israeli housing units may have up to eight floors. Palestinians must go through a complex and time-consuming administrative process to obtain a building permit. These cost around $25,000 - a considerable obstacle as Palestinian incomes are significantly below those of Israelis. Palestinians obtain a disproportionately small percentage of the building permits issued every year by the Jerusalem Municipality. Only 7.5% of the homes legally built during the period 1990-1997 belong to Palestinians.

Centre of life

In 1995 the Israeli Interior Ministry introduced a new regulation requiring Palestinian residents to prove they had continuously lived and worked in Jerusalem during the preceding seven years. The standard of proof demanded is so rigorous that even persons who have never left Jerusalem have difficulties in meeting it. Palestinians who fail to prove that their 'centre of life' is Jerusalem risk having their residency status revoked and their requests for family reunification and child registration rejected. The number of Jerusalem residency ID cards confiscated after promulgation of the 'centre of life' policy rose by over 600%. Suburbs on Jerusalem's outskirts, to which many East Jerusalemites had moved as a result of earlier discriminatory policies, were declared to be outside Jerusalem, thus removing the residency rights of over 50,000 people. In order to defend their claims to residency and the social rights which go with it, some 20,000 Palestinians returned to live within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries.

Israel's 'centre of life' policy seriously affects Palestinians' entitlement to health and social benefits, to family reunification, child registration and membership of the Israeli national insurance scheme. The 'centre of life' is verified for each annual renewal of spouses' residence permits. Thousands of Palestinian children born in Jerusalem of parents who do not both hold a Jerusalem ID have been denied registration and are unable to exercise their basic rights, including their right to education. While the 'centre of life' policy had been officially discontinued, the outbreak of the Al Aqsa intifada in September 2000 led to its reactivation. Since May 2002, Israel has refused to accept applications for family unification and refused to register the children of permanent residents who were born in the OPT.

The Wall consolidates the objectives of the 'centre of life' policy. It not only isolates East Jerusalem from the West Bank and effectively incorporates it to Israel but also divides Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem

The Wall consolidates the objectives of the 'centre of life' policy. It not only isolates East Jerusalem from the West Bank and effectively incorporates it to Israel but also divides Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem. The Wall is being erected to the west of neighbourhoods previously part of the municipality of Jerusalem (the Shu'afat refugee camp and West Anata with a population of 55,000), most of whose inhabitants hold Jerusalem IDs. It also separates from Jerusalem neighbourhoods which are entirely dependent on the city for their survival and the approximately 50,000 Palestinian permanent residents forced to relocate due to the discriminatory tax regime and the building permits' restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities.

Palestinians holding Israeli permanent residency permits who now find themselves on the West Bank side of the Wall, particularly those living outside Jerusalem's boundaries, are set to lose their residency status under the 'centre of life' policy. The Wall makes many unable to reach their places of work and basic services inside Jerusalem which they must do to retain Israeli residency status. Family members who do not hold permanent residency cards will now be unable to circumvent Israeli regulations on residency and their spouses holding an Israeli ID will have to choose between living on a different side of the Wall or losing their jobs and residency rights in Jerusalem. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human rights in the OPT, "Israel hopes to further reduce the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem by compelling spouses to move to the West Bank side of the wall."

The housing crisis and the level of overcrowding of Palestinian neighbourhoods are such that Palestinians have been forced outside the city's municipal boundaries or compelled to build homes in violation of Israeli laws. By building illegally they expose themselves to high fines and the threat of house demolition. In recent years, the number of houses demolished for lack of building permits has grown significantly According to the Israeli human rights organisation, B'tselem, between 1999 and 2003 in East Jerusalem 229 houses and other structures were demolished while in 2004 and 2005 alone 198 houses were demolished, displacing 594 people. This acceleration coincides with new land expropriations and plans for the development of new Jewish settlements in the heart of Palestinian neighbourhoods such as in Ras-al-amud or the Mount of Olives.

The construction of the Wall along and inside Jerusalem's municipal borders will definitively prevent the return of Palestinians expelled from Jerusalem by land confiscations, house demolitions or pressure from extremist settlers' groups. They will lose their rights to permanent residency in Jerusalem under the 'centre of life' policy and will no longer be able to enter the city without special permits. The properties that they have abandoned in Jerusalem risk being seized under Israeli's Absentee Property Law.

This eight-metre high Wall has given Israel a pretext to achieve long-established goals under the guise of security. Jerusalem is at the heart of all the antagonisms in the Middle East. International silence and failure to speak out against Israeli's transfer strategy is likely to have irreversible consequences and destroy regional prospects for peace. The transfer of Palestinians will soon be an undisputed reality but should not remain 'quiet'.


Elodie Guego, a lawyer specialised in human rights law, worked as a volunteer in the OPT in 2005 and is currently Assistant Country Analyst at the Norwegian Refugee Council's Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Geneva. This article was originally published in the August 2006 edition of Forced Migration Review, which poses, Palestinian displacement: A case apart?, and is reprinted with permission. Forced Migration Review, published in English, Arabic, Spanish and French, provides a practice-oriented forum for debate on issues facing refugees and internally displaced people in order to improve policy and practice and to involve refugees and IDPs in programme design and implementation.

well, there ARE some political beliefs that include mass murder. It's just that these political sects couch these beliefs in such phrases as 'A homeland' instead of 'labinshrum'.
So what?

As well they should be. Having a pro-Israel viewpoint today is no different than having a pro-Third Reich viewpoint six decades ago. Having a pro-Israel viewpoint means one is racist to the core. Zionism, like Nazism, is based on the fundamentally racist principle that Jews should be treated differently than non Jews. That's racism. It's repugnant. Racists should not be employed. Neither should they be sold to, bought from, rented to, rented from, fed, clothed, partied with, socialized with, or associated with in any manner at all, whatsoever, not even first aid. They should be shunned utterly.

And if the previous 'declaration' didn't define the term double speak, I can't think of what does.
Nothing in it means anything but fancy words empty of deed, unless you realize in the read, that only zionists are being referred to.
All other humans are lesser creatures.

>it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex;

Except, among other things, for the right of the Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed in '48 to return to their homes.

although 'destruction' is rather evocative of violence. I'd prefer it to whither away, shunned and sanctioned, until they provide restitution and reparations.

And the 'declaration' is just a god damned piece of paper meaning that the flowery packaging doesn't contain the smell of death.
As if israel even attempted to live up to its own words. Lying is endemic to its existence.

and if not, why is this pertinent,

Why aren't people clamoring about the right of the Jewish refugees to return to their homes?
Why the double standard?
Why do Jews have LESS rights than other people?

What are you yammering about?
Really.
Show us a source. Then I can analyze, package and return.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands

"Many, but by no means all, writers on the topic regard the Jewish exodus from Arab lands as a historical parallel to the Palestinian exodus during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Six-Day War. Jews in Arab lands have been reduced by more than 99% since 1948 while the Arab population of Israel has grown larger than its 1948 base"


Yep. talk about ethnic cleansing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands

"Many, but by no means all, writers on the topic regard the Jewish exodus from Arab lands as a historical parallel to the Palestinian exodus during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Six-Day War. Jews in Arab lands have been reduced by more than 99% since 1948 while the Arab population of Israel has grown larger than its 1948 base"

sounds to me as if they were subjected to the results of bad PR due to the zionist invasion of Palestine. Another example of blow back, unless this was the intent ( like the Vietnam exodus of Catholics from the north ) to populate these seized lands of Palestine.
And as I asked before, what does this have to do with the people of Palestine, except as a parallel set of victims.
It isn't any excuse.

you're only reaffirming my hypothesis.
The zionist invasion and bloodbath of Palestine produced this reaction.
It's called 'Blowback' unless, of course it WAS intended to produce the anti- Judaic sentiment.
And accelerate immigration into Palestine.

People clamoring about the right of the Jewish refugees to return to their homes.

People are also clamoring about the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

The issues are inextricably linked. Until there is justice in Palestine, Jews are not going to be welcome to return to Arab lands. Neither will there be peace. If the Zionists cared more for the well being of Jews than they do for their own position, they would stop doing everything in their power to make Arabs hate Jews. Before Zionism, Jews had no more trouble living at peace with their Arab neighbors than did any other minority. Conflict was rare. Zionism changed all that. Zionists robbed and murdered hundreds of thousand of Arabs in Palestine. Jews in general get the blame. It's exactly what happened when millions of people came to hate Germans, not because they had come up with Beethoven, Santa Claus, and much of modern science and engineering, but because they backed Nazism. Some were merely passive, i.e., patriotic, about it. Others were enthusiastic. The whole people took the blame. That's human nature.

Remember that scene in *Saving Private Ryan* where the captain turns to his men and says, "Get up that hill and kill Germans."? That was a totally realistic portrayal of the zeitgeist. The script writer didn't have him say, "Get up that hill and kill Nazis," because it would not have been believable. It was Germans that people hated. It was Germans that people killed, guilty and innocent alike. Is this a racist analysis? Of course it is. Does that mean the Allies should have refrained from "unhousing" the German civilian work force in a series of heinous war crimes that rival those of the Nazis themselves?

Ask a Zionist.

Never mind. I'll do it myself. This question is for the Zionists who infect this otherwise admirable website:

Should the Allies have avoided targeting German civilians living in the Third Reich?

Yes or no?

And it;s called PR.
Invading a country and slaughtering its people can cause major PR problems.
World wide. Which also supports my thesis.

The elves of the IDF were so misunderstood.
And when israel invades , it's a good thing.
And when they kidnap it's also a good thing.
Because it's israel.

-So is it your position that israel can invade Lebanon but Lebanon is not permited to respond?-
Amazing hypocrisy.
What can one expect from a spaming zionist except more of the same.

...of Ms. BJ's World™complete w/denial and the usual blustering lies. israel can never do wrong

you just have to keep at it don't you?.
1.israel can do no wrong
2.israel didn't do it ( or when the lies are brought into the light )
3.israel was justified
there, that about covers it.

No that's not what I wrote.
Pay attention here.

israel can do no wrong
israel didn't do it.
israel was justified.
It's what you are always trying to prove, even if you aren't openly advocating this absurdity.

Too complex for you?

"...have fired people for HAVING a pro-Israel viewpoint in their private lives... I speak from personal experience here."

FRSC threw Becky out on her fat ass over two write-ups on Santa Cruzans that appeared in David Horowitz' McCarthyesque blacklist site www.discoverthenetworks.org

http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1569

http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1578

These were undoubtedly compiled by either Becky or (more likely) her full-blown fascist lunatic trombone-buddy Lee Kaplan. FRSC therefore deemed Becky to be a direct conduit to the post-'67 Jabotinskyite faction of zionist extremists, probably the most sinister pack of right-wing psychotics America has ever seen (includes Perle, Wolfowitz, Rummy, Cheney, etc.). Call them 'the Closet Kach.' If they could, these creeps would lock down totalitarian rule over the American "stupid cattle" in about two seconds, and you can bet your ass they're working on it. Whatever Momma Izzie needs...

A year and a half earlier Becky was caught red-handed smearing FRSC's George Cadman in a Jabotinskyite "journalism" site

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/153104.php

which corroborates the charge that she had something to do with Cadman's write-up in Horowitz' site. She's obviously out to paint a bullseye on Cadman's chest, which in turn qualifies Cadman as the premier person to explain why Becky should be exiled from the Santa Cruz leftist community, and you can hear Cadman's own words to this effect right here:

http://santacruz.indymedia.org/mod/comments/display/19197/index.php

Here's related audio of FRSC members telling Becky to slap a "WIDE LOAD" sign on her ass and hit the highway. One of her interrogators, a guy by the name of 'Vinny,' sounds like he's holding himself back from punching her lights out. Admirable discipline.

http://santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/17903/index.php

Becky will fly into denials over every bit of this, of course. That's okay: like any inveterate liar, Becky sticks to her lies / denials like glue. The main thing she lies about is her status as a MOTHERFUCKING **SPY** collaborating with assholes who would fit into any totalitarian government you've ever heard of like a hand in a fucking iron gauntlet.

Now she's reaped the whirlwind of these activities, so now she can't schmooz with Santa Cruz leftists one minute and then run right over to the nearest computer and write an entry for them in the pending dictatorship's Master Death List.

Well boo-fukkin-hoo, Beck-O! Yeah, it's so unfair that you don't get to be a scramble-brained political double-agent no more! On the contrary, it's exactly what you deserve.

As for the contempt and abuse you rate from me and others here, you signed that warrant yourself, also

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/169468_comment.php#175163

A few words about Becky's cherished map (see http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/153104_comment.php#153140 ) "exposing" 13-year-old unarmed IDF murder victim Iman al-Hams as a "terrorist":

1) To this day Becky still has not divulged her source for this document. It obviously appeared in an Israeli publication, but Becky "honest journalist" Johnson won't cite the article

2) The map shows the girl approaching the Girit outpost to within less than half the distance reported by various media sources (70 meters). The arrowhead graphically implies she was on a *trajectory* like a missile. These are both subliminal graphic lies

3) There is no indication that anyone knows exactly how Iman al-Hams wound up where she was on that day. She could have roamed all over town first, for reasons only she could possibly know -- which leaves a nice vacuum of the sort zionist bullshitters find irresistible. This map of "her route" is the obvious end-result of some Tel Aviv hasbara scumbag taking an off-the-shelf satellite image and then scrawling his/her personal fantasy all over it with a crayon, and yet Becky persists in pretending it carries legal weight.

Ask yourself: why would she cling so frantically to "evidence" this flimsy to defend an incident so utterly indefensible? What does this reveal to you about her?

if Hamas had a modren military, the suicide bombers, children or otherwise would no longer be a problem. If the zionist had not provided an atmosphere of hate and terror and desperation they wouldn't need a well equipped modern military.
Solution, disarm israel.

And this is how do you rationalize using 11 year olds?
Would you send your child on a suicide mission?

So then its conceeded that she was fired over her thought and opinions? How Fascist!

If I were to defend a rapist or murder or a child molester I would not expect a warm reception. Unless my fellow workesr were also rapists and murders and child molesters.

selling NAMBLA material?

Would you condemn him and his collective for that, or is that covered under the guise of free speech?

and why he's such an asshole.
Change the subject as is your usual scutteling position,
Like a roach revealed when the light comes on.
I suspected this for some time.
You can't forgive nessie for writing an obit about a gay man.

ܒܝܪܚ ܐܕܪ ܫܢܬ

ܐܢܐ ܙܪܒܝܢ ܒܪ ܐܒ‍?‍‍[‍ܓܪ‍]‍ ܫܠܝܛܐ ܕܒܝܪܬܐ

ܡܪܒܝܢܐ ܕܥܘܝܕܢܬ ‍[‍ܒܪ‍]‍ ܡ‍?‍ܥܢܘ ܒܪ ܡܥܢܘ

ܥܒܕܬ ܒܝܬ ܩܒܘ‍[‍ܪܐ ܗܢܐ ܠܢܦ‍]‍ܫܝ ܘܠܚܘܝܐ

ܡܪܬ ܒܝܬܝ ܘܠܒܢ‍[‍ܝ ………‍]‍ ܝܕ ܟܠ

ܐܢܫ ܕܝܐܬܐ ܒ‍[‍ܒܝܬ ܩܒܘܪܐ‍]‍ ܗ‍?‍ܢܐ

ܘܝܚܙܐ ܘܝܫܒܚ ܝ‍[‍ܒܪܟܘܢܗ ܐܠܗܐ ܟ‍]‍ܠ‍?‍ܗܘܢ

ܚܫܝ ܓܠܦܐ ܘܣܠܘ‍[‍ܟ ………ܿܿ‍]‍ܒܘܛ

ܬܢ‍?‍ܘ ܥܕ‍?‍ܘܗ

Who's rationalizing using 11-year-olds? You mean an 11-year-old "got used" for something? When was that?

Becky got FIRED? from, like, a PAID position? Or was she a "volunteer" hanging out spying on everybody? If you ran a minority advocacy program and everyone in the office found out one of the "volunteers" was a white nationalist, what would you do?

Personal politics is one of the few things volunteers ever DO get "fired" for. Gawd knows mere incompetence won't do it. Paid help you can't fire for such a reason -- you'd get your ass sued off -- but volunteers you can. It's one of the ways voluntary work is most different from the paid kind.

But of course the zionists will ignore obvious context so they can play their politically crazed rhetorical games

I luv it when an enemy vessel explodes.
So Smashy why don't you go and srcew yourself?

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

Sure it's covered, you're free to do it, but there's this little question of morality. Think about it like economic decisions...you have the right to buy anything you want, but you refrain from buying some things for personal moral reasons. Do you not feel your stomach turning when you sell the latest article about how to convince 8 year olds to get in bed with you? Just because what you're doing is legal doesn't make it any less disgusting and despicable.

In the wake of Sept. 11, thousands of Arab and Muslim-Americans volunteered to serve in the U.S. armed services or in law enforcement. They are protecting us. And they should be thanked, not feared or scapegoated.


The Silent Victims of Sept. 11:
Untold stories of brave American Arabs and Muslims

By Aladdin Elaasar

Monterey, CA, Sept. 6, 2006 // Permission granted to reprint


The anniversary of Sept. 11 will be painful for Arab and Muslim-Americans - as it will be for all Americans.

After the terrorist strikes, Arab and Muslim-Americans became targets for random hate and violence. They became the latest ethnic group to be singled out in an American time of crisis.

During World War I, German immigrants were suspect.

During World War II, Americans of Japanese backgrounds bore the brunt of that conflict.

About 3 million Arab-Americans and 7 million Muslim-Americans live in the United States. Sept. 11 has had a negative effect on many of them. Some have paid a hefty price, dealing with discrimination at schools and at the workplace, and even facing senseless and brutal hate crimes that have led to injury and death.

According to government statistics, hate crimes and discriminatory acts against Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans or those perceived to be of Middle Eastern origins in the United States rose dramatically after Sept. 11.

Some in position of influence in the media or in the religious sector fanned these acts of hatred. On Sept. 13, 2001, columnist Ann Coulter, on National Review Online, said: "We should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Televangelist Pat Robertson called Muslims "worse than Nazis." The Rev. Jerry Falwell labeled the Prophet Muhammad a "terrorist." The Rev. Franklin Graham called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion."

Fear spread through the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities.

The USA Patriot Act diminished the rights of immigrants and allowed the government to round up people by the hundreds and keep them, in secret, from their families.

The special registration of Arab and Muslim males in America terrified communities and broke up families, as some fathers were deported on the most minor technicalities.

Fear still pervades the Muslim-American and Arab-American communities. The horrific acts of terrorism by the Sept. 11 fanatics should not impugn the patriotism of these communities.

In the wake of Sept. 11, thousands of Arab and Muslim-Americans volunteered to serve in the U.S. armed services or in law enforcement. They are protecting us. And they should be thanked, not feared or scapegoated.

Five years later, we must not let fear cripple us as a nation.

-END

Aladdin Elaasar is author of "Silent Victims: The Plight of Arab & Muslim Americans in Post 9/11 America". http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=24704


For more info, please contact:
Aladdin Elaasar
1042 Forest Ave., Apt. # 6
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
Email: omaraladin [at] aol.com
Call 847 668-4206
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=24704





http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemD...

"How odd / Of God / To choose / The Jews." Thus the British journalist (and communist) William Norman Ewer, in the early part of the last century. The reply came from Cecil Browne: "But not so odd / As those who choose / A Jewish God / But spurn the Jews."
Browne's riposte may have won the poetic exchange. But Ewer's anti-Judaism prevailed in the next decades in Europe.

Buried there after World War II, hatred of the Jews
flourished for the rest of the 20th century in the Middle
East. Is anti-Judaism now enjoying a broader revival? It
would seem so.

University of Chicago political science professor John
Mearsheimer came to Washington late last month along with
his sidekick, Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government. Speaking to the Council on American-Islamic
Relations, they attacked the "Israel Lobby" (of which they
claim I am a part) for its pernicious deeds, and singled out
several Jews who served or serve in the Bush administration.
These Jews, they explained, have special "attachments" in
the Middle East. The attachment? Their religious belief --
Judaism. Bigotry now has an academic cachet.

Some of the activists at Moveon.org, the political
organization that raises millions for Democratic candidates
and generates support for left-wing policies, had a curious
reason for cheering the Democratic primary defeat of Sen.
Joe Lieberman. As Robert Goldberg reported in the Washington
Times, after one Moveon member celebrated the defeat of "Jew
Lieberman," 95% of those who responded to the post on the
Moveon Web site expressed their approval.

Meanwhile, over in Europe, Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder,
author of "Sophie's World," announced in Norway's leading
newspaper, the Aftenposten, the end of Israel: "There is no
turning back. It is time to learn a new lesson: We do no
longer recognize the state of Israel . . . We must now get
used to the idea: The state of Israel in its current form is
history . . . Fear not! The time of trouble shall soon be
over. The state of Israel has seen its Soweto . . . May
spirit and word sweep away the apartheid walls of Israel.
The state of Israel does not exist. It is now without
defense, without skin. May the world therefore have mercy on
the civilian population."
Mr. Gaarder's distaste for Israel seemed to be based on his
dislike of Israel's policies, his revulsion against the God
of Israel ("an insatiable sadist"), and his anger that, "for
two thousand years, we have rehearsed the syllabus of
humanism, but Israel does not listen." It's not clear who
that "we" has been for 2,000 years. But since Israel has
only existed since 1948, it is presumably the Jews, not
merely, Israel, who have not listened. (It was, however,
generous of Mr. Gaarder to call for mercy for the Jewish
civilian population.)

And then there's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- bidding fair to be
the most powerful leader in the Islamic world. Mr.
Ahmadinejad has called, of course, for the "the elimination
of the Zionist regime" and "the destruction of Israel." He
wants Israel eliminated because he wants Judaism eliminated
(Christianity will take longer). Javier Solana of the EU and
Kofi Annan of the U.N. are eagerly paying him court. Will
Mr. Solana or Mr. Annan stand up in the presence of Mr.
Ahmadinejad and denounce Jew-hatred? No.

Jews are under attack. And no one seems very concerned.
Liberal Jews are more concerned about Mel Gibson than Mr.
Ahmadinejad. The mainstream Jewish organizations have played
the "anti-Semitism" card so often that it has been devalued.
Much of the world is in denial about the jihadist threat. No
one wants to be alarmist. This is, in a way, understandable.
There are two large Jewish communities in the world. The
Jews of America prosper in comfort and security. The Jews of
Israel have been able to defend themselves. It's not 1938
again.

But the jihadists are on the move. Recently in Gaza,
kidnapped journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig were
forced to "convert" to Islam before being released. What
would have happened to them if they had been Jewish? And,
incidentally -- if they had refused to "convert," as some
Jews and Christians have in the past -- what would have
happened then?

"Anti-Semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jew by the Jewish group.The Jewish group has thrived on oppression and
on the antagonism it has forever met in the world... the root cause is their use of enemies they create in order to keep solidarity..."

Its no surprise that this end up on places like "whitefreespeech.com", rense, etc. Thats where you first read it, eh TW?
So, of course the first thing I'm going to do is find whats missing where those three dots are.


Having read the Collier's article, I can tell you that you've been feeding me another false quote. You knew that, didn't you, you naughty, naughty boy? What Einstein said was "The formation of groups has an invigorating effect in all spheres of humabn striving, perhaps mostly due to the struggle between the convictions and aims represented by different groups. The Jews too form such a group with a definite character of its own, and anti-semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jews by the Jewish group "

He goes on to say what unites the Jewish people:

"The bond that unites the Jews for thousands of years and unites them today is, above all, the democractic ideal of social justice, coupled with the idea of mutual aid and tolerance among all men. ..."

Do you want me to continue?

I didn't think so.

I'd like to point out to the loyal indymedia readers (all 6 of them)- that the false quote TW's been goading me with for months is all over the web- on hundreds of websites. When you see something repeated so often, you assume it is true. It isn't always the case. Going to the original source is always a good policy- plus, it provides all important CONTEXT and meaning.

The article translates a lovely prayer from hebrew " Be thou with the afflicted who flee away from the cruelty of the oppressor. Quench the passions of fanatacism and hatred. Plant in their stead the feelings of love and brotherhood"

Yep. Thats what we say about our enemies when they aren't around.

Well worth the read. Maybe next time a few excerpts and a link?
Thank you.

Now I'll go read the article too to see what you omitted. We already knew what you would emphasize. Yawn. Snore.

If zionist Jews really want me to believe they embody "the democractic ideal of social justice, coupled with the idea of mutual aid and tolerance among all men," then they should stop demolishing these principles in their relations with Palestinians, other Arabs, and the Middle East as a whole.

I'm not holding my breath

What Einstein's talking about is the worthy ideal called 'Tikkun Olam,' which zionists have specifically forsaken.

why don't you come back to
http://la.indymedia.org/comment.php?top_id=176775
after swapping spit w/ Ms. BJ?

First i swap genetic material w/TW, now I do the same with BJ? I'm one busy gal....
No thanks, sweetheart....I won't take the bait.
Go ahead and ad hominim me all you'd like.
Its standard operating procedure among misogynists to discredit a woman by attacking her sexuality... I don't need to dignify it by responding

does being a tool produce this confusion all by itself?
Or are you really BECKY, Tia?
Now when I told TW to quit swapping spit w/BECKY I didn't know you would take it so *personally*.
I love women. Real women.

"Becky is a real [ dumb ] journalist. She signs her name on everything she produces. She has deep [ if you use a micrometer for comparative metrics ]personal integrity- she's funny[ I guess that means amusing in a numb repetitive way] that way. She always meticulously [ or maliciously ]documents [ please we should distinguish C & P from Frontpage or some other Israel 1st zionazi blog] her posts. She has a standard of professionalism that [ thankfully ] most of us [ you mean everyone but you zionazi weasels] do not. [ that's enough about Ms. BJ for now ]

I am not a real journalist. [ yes know you aren't] I have neither professionalism nor standards. You can tell because of my blatant disregard for the rules of spelling [comprehension, fondness for truth and fairness for all people ] and grammer. I decided signing my name attracts undo attention to myself, and haven't been doing it much lately . I'd prefer attention be paid to the actual issues, rather than who I am swapping genetic material with at any given time.
[ don't make me toss my lunch]

And here's Part II

Becky would never engage in a pointless post of simple mean spirited name calling, but I certainly would.

Have I mentioned lately that you are an egotistic, misogynistic moral coward? I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course.

You just started that nasty nasty rumor because you knew it would infuriate both TW and myself, and he just happens to be whomping you good in the 9/11 thread.

If you can't win with facts, go for the personal attacks.

And why the hell would "they" waste two perfectly good planes if "they" already had the building wired for controlled demolition?

"And why the hell would "they" waste two perfectly good planes if "they" already had the building wired for controlled demolition?"

Now that would be just a bit obvious if the WTC came down w/o the distraction of '19 savage arabs' to blame it on despite the FBI involvement in the 1993 bombing, wouldn't it?

They coulda faked the Rider trucks in the parking lot again, or done any of a number of things. The use of the planes devasted the American economy, especially travel and tourism. Doesn't make sense to waste planes and to destroy the economy if the building was wired anyway.

You are only looking at one small facet of the event. 9-11 provided the excuse for many pre existing agendas.
And the economy was gone before 9- 11
Like the report of 2.2 TRILLION missing from the pentagon inventory.
reported on 10 sept '01
Also the effects of NAFTA were already pulling the economy down for the majority of the manufacturing jobs.
Look around.

Why don't you go here:

http://la.indymedia.org/news/hidden.php?id=176705#179531

Thanks for the view into your fevered mind. Just to know what to avoid.

We hear the pro-jizrael right wing anti-Muslim perspective all the time in the mainstream media

That's hilarious, Yid the basket case strikes again with his one line spam attack, calling everyone else spammers....
Priceless zionazi behavior.

No Toady,I'm calling you a LIAR and a spammer. I'm saying that you simply can't manage to tell the truth. And I'm calling you a porn spamer and a deviant. And I'm using you as an example of the typical deeply disturbed "anti-zionist" race baiter. Is that clearer, idiot?

You are an irrelevant trolling idiot. No wonder you are ignored, deleted and laughed at.
What a dumbass.

No Toady,I'm calling you a LIAR and a spammer. I'm saying that you simply can't manage to tell the truth. And I'm calling you a porn spamer and a deviant. And I'm using you as an example of the typical deeply disturbed "anti-zionist" race baiter. Is that clearer, idiot?

Here's some examples of schtarker yid's lunacy and threats on IMC's:
SchtarkerYid
by Good Choice! Monday, May. 01, 2006 at 2:12 PM
right there by Superior Granite and the St.Paul mission? Only two ways in or out? San Pablo or MLK? Lots of people, lots of cover? Good choice! We'll see you there.
Hows this?
by Tia Monday, May. 01, 2006 at 3:40 PM
Come on Yid- now you are getting weird, even by my very loose standards.
The only way to do something that has any intergrity is to do it open and notoriously.
The sneaky thing just doesn't fly. Most times. The threatening thing just doesn't fly. Ever.
Thursday, Nov. 17, 2005 at 10:05 AM

Hey, I was there last night where were you? I was the guy in the plaid shirt and black knit watch cap standing across the street by Quiznos. Watching. Waiting.


Also, in regards to spamming, this whack job posts hundreds of one-line comments--most deleted due to their threats or general stupidity....

What a hypocritical buffoon.

yawn...
Poor Yiddy-poops. Can't address his own idiot behavior, instead more 6th grade buffonery. i.e. "You're scared of a girl...oooohhh"
LMFAO!
Well, if I was fanatic enough about what's said on a website enough to consider "meeting" someone over it (which I'm not, don't have the time for the playground shit)...I would certainly be more scared of a strong woman than a coward keyboard warrior bully like you schtarker yid....LOL!

Luckily, We have some that is grown local and organic--but we had to throw out a bag from Trader Joe's.
Yes, I would fear you before Schtarker any day. I know his type.
Once again, though, wouldn't get worked up enough to take this that seriously--that is truly diagnostic that he would.
I figure I'll use "Matt" as a consistent nym for awhile--even though it's not my name--I kinda like it.

well, Salinas. Thats kinda local.

I suspect Yid is a bit of a cream puff, too.

Francois Leotard found guilty of money-laundering in a party finance scandal.

Leotard, 61, got a 10-month suspended jail term for using a fake bank scheme to fund his former Republican Party.

Leotard was also convicted of a second charge of illegal party funding.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3493197.stm

Leotard-looks like another right wing sleazebag.

So what if he had a great letter and a checkered past? Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.

Check it out:
http://www.infoshop.org/focus/rightwingnuts.php

> (even)looks like another right wing sleazebag

and that's one of his best mug shots :)

do you ever get the impression that some non-progressive elements are attempting to slip non-progressive rhetoric and propaganda in, to taint this newswire - to make it into just another everyday run-of-the-mill reactionary regressive biased-like-all-the-rest so we don't even have any place to express alternative views, waste of time ?

to blot out each and every possible alternative source and keep us totally surrounded only with THEIR take on things ?

I know I do

HEX WRITES: "do you ever get the impression that some non-progressive elements are attempting to slip non-progressive rhetoric and propaganda in, to taint this newswire.....so we don't even have any place to express alternative views?"

BECKY: So when you can't refute an argument, you plead with Indymedia readers to characterize those arguments as "non-progressive propaganda" and dismiss it wholesale without critical examination?

How is my posting preventing YOU or any other LA.IMC reader from expressing their point of view?

It seems the only ones who aren't allowed "to express alternative points of view" are those who speak favorably about Israel. We are the ones who are repeatedly censored!

If LA.IMC WANTS to be like any other newswire, all they have to do is DROP OPEN PUBLISHING and edit everything that goes on the wire here. Then they will be like any other publication---reflecting ONLY the views of the editors.

Isn't that really what you are advocating for?

> If LA.IMC WANTS to be like any other newswire, all they have to do is DROP OPEN PUBLISHING and edit everything / reflecting ONLY the views of the editors

rhetorical

patron based voting would eliminate the problem of pro-zionist propaganda flooding very nicely

you attempt to pigeonhole and frame the options in order to manipulate the process and outcome

IMC (this) in it'self and the other patrons nor the open publishing model isn't the problem - the attempted flooding, disruption, distraction and discrediting of it IS

Since you and your partners are the single source of that problem there's no way your advice could ever be a solution

We know you want to eliminate the ability of everyday people to safely and anonymously post anti-zionist facts & data because they are a threat to the lies zionism requires to survive on

You wish to disrupt this ability in any way possible - from covertly feeding zionist propaganda to radio programming as a mole, to openly willfully defying the wishes of both the staff and other patrons, and failing that shut it down entirely

Kaplan/FCC style...

patron based voting would eliminate the problem of pro-zionist propaganda flooding very nicely

Not necessarily. At this point there are as many pro-Israel supporters contributing here as not.

you attempt to pigeonhole and frame the options in order to manipulate the process and outcome

"If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise you're not in favor of freedom of speech."
Chomsky

IMC (this) in it'self and the other patrons nor the open publishing model isn't the problem - the attempted flooding, disruption, distraction and discrediting of it IS

Just making sure the uninformed that wander in know there are alternate opinions, and other ways to view the news. We are protecting the innocent.

Since you and your partners are the single source of that problem there's no way your advice could ever be a solution

Oh? And Toady/Matt with his porn and spam is a valued contributer?

We know you want to eliminate the ability of everyday people to safely and anonymously post anti-zionist facts & data because they are a threat to the lies zionism requires to survive on

Nope. We want to insure that open publishing remains a reality. Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis. The buffet theory of information distribution. Expose people to all the facts. Let them separate the wheat from the chaff. Let them decide what rings true to them. Why are you afraid of this?

re: a registration based patron voting system

> Not necessarily

well that model is working and more & more IMC's are implimenting it all the time


this is simply FUD..




re: flooding every possible channel of information with pro-zionist propaganda

> Just making sure

that no news source can exist anywhere that's not tainted by pro-zionist propaganda



> We are protecting the innocent.

pro-zionists are "innocent"



re: problems

> Oh? And Toady/Matt with his porn and spam is a valued contributer?

well again it's not my place to determine or pass judgement about - it's an internal issue

- since it's not yours either this represents a *diversionary tactic*


re: truth verses propaganda, and having alternative news sources

> We want to insure that open publishing remains a reality. Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis. The buffet theory of information distribution. Expose people to all the facts. Let them separate the wheat from the chaff. Let them decide what rings true to them. Why are you afraid of this?


by calling for it's abolishment ? (see above)

doublespeak

"all the facts" - propaganda isn't factual - it's lies packaged as facts calculated to fool people into believing it's factual, and again we're already surrounded by it


"Ringing" true (perceptions) and actually BEING true are two entirely different things

it doesn't matter how many time you repeat the un-truths - people here are a bit more on their toes than the usual person who relies on a steady diet of pro-zionist propaganda is

We've witnessed repeated pasting of pro-zionist propaganda presented as "fact" here from this call for "grazing all the spectrum of so-called facts"

the fear lies with the liars - turning the tables by demonizing the rejection of lies & lairs isn't going to wash either

tell us how Israel is OCCUPYING Palestine - show us your honesty :)

re: a registration based patron voting system

> Not necessarily

well that model is working and more & more IMC's are implimenting it all the time

Many people, including your new best friend, TW, don't go anywhere that requires registration. Too paranoid.

this is simply FUD..

I don't know this acronym


> Just making sure

that no news source can exist anywhere that's not tainted by pro-zionist propaganda

Speaking truth to power. There are alternate sides to every story. With open broadcasting, the assumption is that someone would post something stupid ie: controlled demolition, and people would dispute it or support it. The interchange of ideas would give readers a change to hear all sides of the story and form their own opinions. Of course, this requires a certain amount of faith in the intelligence of the IMC users. Its not just about Israel- under your system will all issues have a political correctness litmus test they will need to conform to?


> We are protecting the innocent.

pro-zionists are "innocent"

Google picks up the IMC's. People can stumble into this not realizing its a truth optional website.


doublespeak

"all the facts" - propaganda isn't factual - it's lies packaged as facts calculated to fool people into believing it's factual, and again we're already surrounded by it


One mans propaganda is another mans news. At least by LA IMC standards. But apparently, thats "internal"


tell us how Israel is OCCUPYING Palestine - show us your honesty :)

.Israel is not "occupying" Palestine. There was no independent nation of Palestine. Ever. In 1967 Israel acquired Gaza and Sinai from Egypt, and the West Bank from Jordan. Israel returned Sinai to Egypt (and attempted to return Gaza- egypt refused, btw) in exchange for peace. I will post an article from an international law journal on the legal definition of occupation, if you'd like.
In the meanwhile, those of us who understand the issues call these the "disputed" territories.

> your new best friend, TW,

rhetorical, more FUD, hyperbole


fear, uncertainty, doubt

a smearing tactic...



> controlled demolition / Its not just about Israel

strawman, diversionary tactic, as far as the pro-zionist propaganda issue and participants are concerned it IS just about zionism



> One mans propaganda is another mans news.

rhetorical - the issue is TRUTH not "news" - news is a perception - propaganda relies on (mis-)perceptions to be successful - to sell lies by shaping perceptions

this can happen when people confuse perceptions with facts

propaganda can't exist in a setting of facts - it can only exist in the absence of them



> At least by LA IMC standards.

strawman - ad hominem



> But apparently, thats "internal"

none of my concern and *none of yours* :)



> Israel is not "occupying" Palestine


never fail to please :)

strawman, diversionary tactic, as far as the pro-zionist propaganda issue and participants are concerned it IS just about zionism

Many of the "progressive" Zionists have contributed to non-Zionist posts. Megafauna, Becky and I certainly have.
One of my earliest interactions with TW in fact, was when I posted a list of animals that went extinct in this century- he blasted me for it....a move that still baffles me. Clearly my views on Israel's right to exist affected my opinions on mass extinctions.

> One mans propaganda is another mans news.

rhetorical - the issue is TRUTH not "news" - news is a perception - propaganda relies on (mis-)perceptions to be successful - to sell lies by shaping perceptions

Interesting, the Arabic word for "news" is the same as the one for public relations.

> But apparently, thats "internal"

none of my concern and *none of yours* :)

It is my concern when it involves porn posted under my name.

any that have been were spoofed - I have been the *victim* of a porn spoof myself and I now have a very good idea of who it was that did it
http://la.indymedia.org/news/hidden.php?id=152074#152408

yes - that one

below rated X means no genitalia, orfices or (womens)nipples

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/151186_comment.php#152165

underwear is not rated X - this guy is a bigot troll from Houston IMC who was using sexual hate speech while other Houston IMC members exposed him being a hypocrite - playing both sides of the fence and he DID go to prison for hate speech and terroristic threatening



http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/150156_comment.php#152011

more underwear - not even showing anything - not even rated R

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/01/145635_comment.php#148968

again only rated R - nothing showing



http://la.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/132729_comment.php#132731

blurred out - as a NEWS ITEM too - this "example" is completely out of context

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/132025_comment.php#132304

and this is blurred out too - *as posted the world over on news sites* but somehow it's bad when I do it


so sheepdog - you've found another way to grind that axe...

you're the only person who would *even think* about intentionally taking *those* out of context just to have something to grind

"factor" sheepdog as yet another sock puppet

dang, wow, b, a, x, factor

even the *only text* of 'fresca's genitals' will do just fine as long as it's something to grind an axe with

well the question begs once more sheepaxe

besides the rated X porn post SPOOF that I *requested* hidden how many of those "examples" you just dug up are hidden ?

none you say ?

well isn't that a shocker !

and how many of your's ?

80 and counting ?

I see

A truly disgusting jerkoff

Hating Jews, on racial as well as religious grounds, is as old as the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Later in Europe, pogroms and the Holocaust were the natural devolution of that elemental venom.

Anti-Semitism, after World War II, often avoided the burning crosses and Nazi ranting. It often appeared as a more subtle animosity, fueled by envy of successful Jews in the West. "The good people, the nice people" often were the culprits, according to a character in the 1947 film "Gentleman's Agreement," which dealt with the American aristocracy's social shunning of Jews.

A recent third type of anti-Jewish odium is something different. It is a strange mixture of violent hatred by radical Islamists and the more or less indifference to it by Westerners.

Those who randomly shoot Jews for being Jews — whether at a Jewish center in Seattle or at synagogues in Istanbul — are for the large part Muslim zealots. Most in the West explain away the violence. They chalk it up to anger over the endless tit-for-tat in the Middle East. Yet privately they know that we do not see violent Jews shooting Muslims in the United States or Europe.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promises to wipe Israel "off the map." He seems eager for the requisite nuclear weapons to finish off what an Iranian mullah has called a "one-bomb state" — meaning Israel's destruction would only require one nuclear weapon. Iran's theocracy intends to turn the idea of a Jewish state on its head. Instead of Israel being a safe haven for Jews in their historical birthplace, the Iranians apparently find that concentration only too convenient for their own final nuclear solution.


In response, here at home the Council on Foreign Relations rewards the Iranian president with an invitation to speak to its membership. At the podium of that hallowed chamber, Ahmadinejad, who questions whether the Holocaust ever took place, basically dismissed a firsthand witness of Dachau by asking whether he really could be that old.


The state-run, and thus government-authorized, newspapers of the Middle East, slander Jews in barbaric fashion. "Mein Kampf" (translated, of course, as "Jihadi") sells briskly in the region. Hamas and Hezbollah militias on parade emulate the style of brownshirts. In response, much of the Western public snoozes. They are far more worried over whether a Danish cartoonist has caricatured Islam, or if the pope has been rude to Muslims when quoting an obscure 600-year-old Byzantine dialogue.


In the last two decades, radical Islamic terrorists have bombed and murdered thousands inside Europe and the United States. Their state supporters in the Middle East have raked in billions in petro-windfall profits from energy-hungry Western economies. For many in Europe and the United States, supporting Israel — the Middle East's only stable democracy — or even its allies in the West has become viewed as both dangerous and costly.


In addition, Israel is no longer weak but proud and ready to defend itself. So when its terrorist enemies like Hezbollah and Hamas brilliantly married their own fascist creed with popular leftwing multiculturalism in the West, there was an eerie union: yet another supposed third-world victim of a Western oppressor thinking it could earn a pass for its murderous agenda.


We're accustomed to associating hatred of Jews with the ridiculed Neanderthal Right of those in sheets and jackboots. But this new venom, at least in its Western form, is mostly a leftwing, and often an academic, enterprise. It's also far more insidious, given the left's moral pretensions and its influence in the prestigious media and universities. We see the unfortunate results in frequent anti-Israeli demonstrations on campuses that conflate Israel with Nazis, while the media have published fraudulent pictures and slanted events in southern Lebanon.


The renewed hatred of Jews in the Middle East — and the indifference to it in the West — is a sort of "post anti-Semitism." Islamic zealots supply the old venomous hatred, while affluent and timid Westerners provide the new necessary indifference — if punctuated by the occasional off-the-cuff Amen in the manner of a Louis Farrakhan or Mel Gibson outburst.


The dangers of this post anti-Semitism is not just that Jews are shot in Europe and the United States — or that a drunken celebrity or demagogue mouths off. Instead, ever so insidiously, radical Islam's hatred of Jews is becoming normalized.


The result is that the world's politicians and media are talking seriously with those who not merely want back the West Bank, but rather want an end to Israel altogether and everyone inside it.

Always wear your raincoat. Safe is better than sorry.
Unless you're by yourself, then it's OK.
Kinda like the previous 'reposted infotainment' for a legion of 'Martyr Bobs'.

'Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promises to wipe Israel "off the map'

Actually, he SAID, the israeli terror state must be de-solved, not " wiped off the map". Funny how most of the world agrees w/him. Don't think he was referring to Jews in general. It was more like 'these weasels next to us are fucking dangerous' or something like that. IMOHO

Funny how most of the world agrees w/him.

Argumentum Ad Populum

1and a quarter billion Muslims in the world. 14 million Jews. Why'd you expect a different result? I'll let you in on a secret. The majority isn't always right.

Don't think he was referring to Jews in general. It was more like 'these weasels next to us are fucking dangerous' or something like that. IMOHO

Just wondering: When Nassrallah said this, what do you think he meant? IYHO, of course?

"If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli. "

'1and a quarter billion Muslims in the world. 14 million Jews'
and your solution is...a final one, for the 1,25 billion, perhaps?

and this
'When Nassrallah said this, what do you think he meant?'

You see what being a colony [ fuck your 'legal' interpretations 'cause you select only very specific law, not international law as is evidenced by the Many UN violations ] murderous assholes does to the general reputation of Jews world wide? Your asshole policies are endangering the 14 Million Jews. Stop it, you fuckers.

And with 56 Muslim nations voting as a block, its very slanted.

Now here's an interpretation of international law:

FROM "OCCUPIED TERRITORIES" TO "DISPUTED TERRITORIES"
Dore Gold


"Occupation" as an Accusation / The Terminology of Other Territorial Disputes / No Previously-Recognized Sovereignty in the Territories / Aggression vs. Self-Defense / Israeli Rights in the Territories / After Oslo, Can the Territories be Characterized as "Occupied"?




"Occupation" as an Accusation

At the heart of the Palestinian diplomatic struggle against Israel is the repeated assertion that the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are resisting "occupation." Speaking recently on CNN's Larry King Weekend, Hanan Ashrawi hoped that the U.S. war on terrorism would lead to new diplomatic initiatives to address its root "causes." She then went on to specifically identify "the occupation which has gone on too long" as an example of one of terrorism's sources.1 In other words, according to Ashrawi, the violence of the intifada emanates from the "occupation."

Mustafa Barghouti, president of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees and a frequent guest on CNN as well, similarly asserted that: "the root of the problem is Israeli occupation."2 Writing in the Washington Post on January 16, 2002, Marwan Barghouti, head of Arafat's Fatah PLO faction in the West Bank, continued this theme with an article entitled: "Want Security? End the Occupation." This has become the most ubiquitous line of argument today among Palestinian spokesmen, who have to contend with the growing international consensus against terrorism as a political instrument.

This language and logic have also penetrated the diplomatic struggles in the United Nations. During August 2001, a Palestinian draft resolution at the UN Security Council repeated the commonly used Palestinian reference to the West Bank and Gaza Strip as "occupied Palestinian territories." References to Israel's "foreign occupation" also appeared in the Durban Draft Declaration of the UN World Conference Against Racism. The Libyan ambassador to the United Nations, in the name of the Arab Group Caucus, reiterated on October 1, 2001, what Palestinian spokesmen had been saying on network television: "The Arab Group stresses its determination to confront any attempt to classify resistance to occupation as an act of terrorism."3

Three clear purposes seem to be served by the repeated references to "occupation" or "occupied Palestinian territories." First, Palestinian spokesmen hope to create a political context to explain and even justify the Palestinians' adoption of violence and terrorism during the current intifada. Second, the Palestinian demand of Israel to "end the occupation" does not leave any room for territorial compromise in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as suggested by the original language of UN Security Council Resolution 242 (see below).

Third, the use of "occupied Palestinian territories" denies any Israeli claim to the land: had the more neutral language of "disputed territories" been used, then the Palestinians and Israel would be on an even playing field with equal rights. Additionally, by presenting Israel as a "foreign occupier," advocates of the Palestinian cause can delegitimize the Jewish historical attachment to Israel. This has become a focal point of Palestinian diplomatic efforts since the failed 2000 Camp David Summit, but particularly since the UN Durban Conference in 2001. Indeed, at Durban, the delegitimization campaign against Israel exploited the language of "occupation" in order to invoke the memories of Nazi-occupied Europe during the Second World War and link them to Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.4



The Terminology of Other Territorial Disputes
The politically-loaded term "occupied territories" or "occupation" seems to apply only to Israel and is hardly ever used when other territorial disputes are discussed, especially by interested third parties. For example, the U.S. Department of State refers to Kashmir as "disputed areas."5 Similarly in its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the State Department describes the patch of Azerbaijan claimed as an independent republic by indigenous Armenian separatists as "the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh."6

Despite the 1975 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice establishing that Western Sahara was not under Moroccan territorial sovereignty, it is not commonly accepted to describe the Moroccan military incursion in the former Spanish colony as an act of "occupation." In a more recent decision of the International Court of Justice from March 2001, the Persian Gulf island of Zubarah, claimed by both Qatar and Bahrain, was described by the Court as "disputed territory," until it was finally allocated to Qatar.7

Of course each situation has its own unique history, but in a variety of other territorial disputes from northern Cyprus, to the Kurile Islands, to Abu Musa in the Persian Gulf -- which have involved some degree of armed conflict -- the term "occupied territories" is not commonly used in international discourse.8

Thus, the case of the West Bank and Gaza Strip appears to be a special exception in recent history, for in many other territorial disputes since the Second World War, in which the land in question was under the previous sovereignty of another state, the term "occupied territory" has not been applied to the territory that had come under one side's military control as a result of armed conflict.



No Previously-Recognized Sovereignty in the Territories
Israel entered the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israeli legal experts traditionally resisted efforts to define the West Bank and Gaza Strip as "occupied" or falling under the main international treaties dealing with military occupation. Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Meir Shamgar wrote in the 1970s that there is no de jure applicability of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention regarding occupied territories to the case of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the Convention "is based on the assumption that there had been a sovereign who was ousted and that he had been a legitimate sovereign."

In fact, prior to 1967, Jordan had occupied the West Bank and Egypt had occupied the Gaza Strip; their presence in those territories was the result of their illegal invasion in 1948, in defiance of the UN Security Council. Jordan's 1950 annexation of the West Bank was recognized only by Great Britain (excluding the annexation of Jerusalem) and Pakistan, and rejected by the vast majority of the international community, including the Arab states.

At Jordan's insistence, the 1949 Armistice Line, that constituted the Israeli-Jordanian boundary until 1967, was not a recognized international border but only a line separating armies. The Armistice Agreement specifically stated: "no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims, and positions of either Party hereto in the peaceful settlement of the Palestine questions, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations" (emphasis added) (Article II.2).

As noted above, in many other cases in recent history in which recognized international borders were crossed in armed conflicts and sovereign territory seized, the language of "occupation" was not used -- even in clear-cut cases of aggression. Yet in the case of the West Bank and Gaza, where no internationally recognized sovereign control previously existed, the stigma of Israel as an "occupier" has gained currency.



Aggression vs. Self-Defense
International jurists generally draw a distinction between situations of "aggressive conquest" and territorial disputes that arise after a war of self-defense. Former State Department Legal Advisor Stephen Schwebel, who later headed the International Court of Justice in the Hague, wrote in 1970 regarding Israel's case: "Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title."9

Here the historical sequence of events on June 5, 1967, is critical, for Israel only entered the West Bank after repeated Jordanian artillery fire and ground movements across the previous armistice lines. Jordanian attacks began at 10:00 a.m.; an Israeli warning to Jordan was passed through the UN at 11:00 a.m.; Jordanian attacks nonetheless persisted, so that Israeli military action only began at 12:45 p.m. Additionally, Iraqi forces had crossed Jordanian territory and were poised to enter the West Bank. Under such circumstances, the temporary armistice boundaries of 1949 lost all validity the moment Jordanian forces revoked the armistice and attacked. Israel thus took control of the West Bank as a result of a defensive war.

The language of "occupation" has allowed Palestinian spokesmen to obfuscate this history. By repeatedly pointing to "occupation," they manage to reverse the causality of the conflict, especially in front of Western audiences. Thus, the current territorial dispute is allegedly the result of an Israeli decision "to occupy," rather than a result of a war imposed on Israel by a coalition of Arab states in 1967.



Israeli Rights in the Territories
Under UN Security Council Resolution 242 from November 22, 1967 -- that has served as the basis of the 1991 Madrid Conference and the 1993 Declaration of Principles -- Israel is only expected to withdraw "from territories" to "secure and recognized boundaries" and not from "the territories" or "all the territories" captured in the Six-Day War. This deliberate language resulted from months of painstaking diplomacy. For example, the Soviet Union attempted to introduce the word "all" before the word "territories" in the British draft resolution that became Resolution 242. Lord Caradon, the British UN ambassador, resisted these efforts.10 Since the Soviets tried to add the language of full withdrawal but failed, there is no ambiguity about the meaning of the withdrawal clause contained in Resolution 242, which was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council.

Thus, the UN Security Council recognized that Israel was entitled to part of these territories for new defensible borders. Britain's foreign secretary in 1967, George Brown, stated three years later that the meaning of Resolution 242 was "that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories."11 Taken together with UN Security Council Resolution 338, it became clear that only negotiations would determine which portion of these territories would eventually become "Israeli territories" or territories to be retained by Israel's Arab counterpart.

Actually, the last international legal allocation of territory that includes what is today the West Bank and Gaza Strip occurred with the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which recognized Jewish national rights in the whole of the Mandated territory: "recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." The members of the League of Nations did not create the rights of the Jewish people, but rather recognized a pre-existing right, that had been expressed by the 2,000-year-old quest of the Jewish people to re-establish their homeland.

Moreover, Israel's rights were preserved under the United Nations as well, according to Article 80 of the UN Charter, despite the termination of the League of Nations in 1946. Article 80 established that nothing in the UN Charter should be "construed to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments." These rights were unaffected by UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 1947 -- the Partition Plan -- which was a non-binding recommendation that was rejected, in any case, by the Palestinians and the Arab states.

Given these fundamental sources of international legality, Israel possesses legal rights with respect to the West Bank and Gaza Strip that appear to be ignored by those international observers who repeat the term "occupied territories" without any awareness of Israeli territorial claims. Even if Israel only seeks "secure boundaries" that cover part of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, there is a world of difference between a situation in which Israel approaches the international community as a "foreign occupier" with no territorial rights, and one in which Israel has strong historical rights to the land that were recognized by the main bodies serving as the source of international legitimacy in the previous century.



After Oslo, Can the Territories be Classified as "Occupied"?
In the 1980s, President Carter's State Department legal advisor, Herbert Hansell, sought to shift the argument over occupation from the land to the Palestinians who live there. He determined that the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention governing military occupation applied to the West Bank and Gaza Strip since its paramount purpose was "protecting the civilian population of an occupied territory."12 Hansell's legal analysis was dropped by the Reagan and Bush administrations; nonetheless, he had somewhat shifted the focus from the territory to its populace. Yet here, too, the standard definitions of what constitutes an occupied population do not easily fit, especially since the implementation of the 1993 Oslo Agreements.

Under Oslo, Israel transferred specific powers from its military government in the West Bank and Gaza to the newly created Palestinian Authority. Already in 1994, the legal advisor to the International Red Cross, Dr. Hans-Peter Gasser, concluded that his organization had no reason to monitor Israeli compliance with the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Gaza Strip and Jericho area, since the Convention no longer applied with the advent of Palestinian administration in those areas.13

Upon concluding the Oslo II Interim Agreement in September 1995, which extended Palestinian administration to the rest of the West Bank cities, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres declared: "once the agreement will be implemented, no longer will the Palestinians reside under our domination. They will gain self-rule and we shall return to our heritage."14

Since that time, 98 percent of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has come under Palestinian jurisdiction.15 Israel transferred 40 spheres of civilian authority, as well as responsibility for security and public order, to the Palestinian Authority, while retaining powers for Israel's external security and the security of Israeli citizens.

The 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 6) states that the Occupying Power would only be bound to its terms "to the extent that such Power exercises the functions of government in such territory." Under the earlier 1907 Hague Regulations, as well, a territory can only be considered occupied when it is under the effective and actual control of the occupier. Thus, according to the main international agreements dealing with military occupation, Israel's transfer of powers to the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Agreements has made it difficult to continue to characterize the West Bank and Gaza as occupied territories.

Israel has been forced to exercise its residual powers in recent months only in response to the escalation of violence and armed attacks instigated by the Palestinian Authority.16 Thus, any increase in defensive Israeli military deployments today around Palestinian cities is the direct consequence of a Palestinian decision to escalate the military confrontation against Israel, and not an expression of a continuing Israeli occupation, as the Palestinians contend. For once the Palestinian leadership takes the strategic decision to put an end to the current wave of violence, there is no reason why the Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza cannot return to its pre-September 2000 deployment, which minimally affected the Palestinians.

Describing the territories as "Palestinian" may serve the political agenda of one side in the dispute, but it prejudges the outcome of future territorial negotiations that were envisioned under UN Security Council Resolution 242. It also represents a total denial of Israel's fundamental rights. Furthermore, reference to "resisting occupation" has simply become a ploy advanced by Palestinian and Arab spokesmen to justify an ongoing terrorist campaign against Israel, despite the new global consensus against terrorism that has been formed since September 11, 2001.

It would be far more accurate to describe the West Bank and Gaza Strip as "disputed territories" to which both Israelis and Palestinians have claims. As U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright stated in March 1994: "We simply do not support the description of the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 War as occupied Palestinian territory."


* * *

Notes
1. CNN Larry King Weekend, "America Recovers: Can the Fight Against Terrorism be Won?," November 10, 2001 (CNN.com/transcripts).

2. Mustafa Barghouti, "Occupation is the Problem," Al-Ahram Weekly Outline, December 6-12, 2001.

3. Anne F. Bayefsky, "Terrorism and Racism: The Aftermath of Durban," Jerusalem Viewpoints, no. 468, December 16, 2001.

4. See Bayefsky, op. cit. U.S. and European officials may use the term "occupation" out of a concern for the humanitarian needs of the Palestinians, without identifying with the PLO political agenda at Durban or at the UN.

5. U.S. Department of State, Consular Information Sheet: India (http://travel.state.gov/india.html) November 23, 2001.

6. 1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Azerbaijan, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, February 25, 2000.

7. Case Concerning Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain, March 15, 2001, Judgment on the Merits, International Court of Justice, March 16, 2000, paragraph 100.

8. The Japanese Foreign Ministry does not use the language of "ending the Russian occupation of the Kurile Islands," but rather resolving "the Northern Territory Issue." (www.mofa.go.jp/region/europe/russia/territory). U.S. Department of State "Background Notes" describe the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus as the island's "northern part [which is] under an autonomous Turkish-Cypriot administration supported by the presence of Turkish troops" -- not under Turkish occupation.

9. Stephen Schwebel, "What Weight to Conquest," American Journal of International Law, 64 (1970):345-347.

10. Vernon Turner, "The Intent of UNSC 242 -- The View of Regional Actors," in UN Security Council Resolution 242: The Building Block of Peacemaking (Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1993), p. 27.

11. Meir Rosenne, "Legal Interpretations of UNSC242," in UN Security Council Resolution 242: The Building Block of Peacemaking, op. cit., p. 31.

12. Under the Carter administration, Hansell's distinction led, for the first time, to a U.S. determination that Israeli settlement activity was illegal since it purportedly contravened Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which stated that "the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it is occupying." Subsequently, the Reagan and Bush administrations altered the legal determination of the Carter period, changed the U.S. voting pattern at the UN, and refused to describe Israeli settlements as illegal, even if American political objections to settlement activity continued to be expressed. One reason was that the Fourth Geneva Convention applied to situations like that of Nazi-occupied Europe, which involved "forcible transfer, deportation or resettlement of large numbers of people." This view was formally stated by the U.S. Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Morris Abram, on February 1, 1990, who had served on the U.S. staff at the Nuremberg trials and, hence, was familiar with the legal intent behind the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention.

13. Dr. Hans-Peter Gasser, Legal Adviser, International Committee of the Red Cross, "On the Applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention After the Declaration of Principles and the Cairo Agreement," paper presented at the International Colloquium on Human Rights, Gaza, September 10-12, 1994. Gasser did not state that in his view the territories were no longer "occupied," but he did point out the legal complexities that had arisen with Oslo's implementation.

14. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres's Address at the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement Signing Ceremony, Washington, D.C., September 28, 1995.

15. Ehud Barak, "Israel Needs a True Partner for Peace," New York Times, July 30, 2001.

16. The present intifada violence resulted from a strategic decision taken by Yasser Arafat, as admitted by numerous Palestinian spokesmen:

"Whoever thinks the intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong....This intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David Negotiations," admitted Palestinian Communications Minister 'Imad Al-Faluji (Al-Safir, March 3, 2001, trans. MEMRI). Even earlier, Al-Faluji had explained that the intifada was initiated as the result of a strategic decision made by the Palestinians (Al-Ayyam, December 6, 2000).

Arafat began to call for a new intifada in the first few months of the year 2000. Speaking before Fatah youth in Ramallah, Arafat "hinted that the Palestinian people are likely to turn to the intifada option" (Al-Mujahid, April 3, 2000).

Marwan Barghouti, the head of Fatah in the West Bank, explained in early March 2000: "We must wage a battle in the field alongside of the negotiating battle...I mean confrontation" (Ahbar Al-Halil, March 8, 2000). During the summer of 2000, Fatah trained Palestinian youths for the upcoming violence in 40 training camps.

The July 2000 edition of Al-Shuhada monthly, distributed among the Palestinian Security Services, states: "From the negotiating delegation led by the commander and symbol, Abu Amar (Yasser Arafat) to the brave Palestinian people, be ready. The Battle for Jerusalem has begun." One month later, the commander of the Palestinian police told the official Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida: "The Palestinian police will lead together with the noble sons of the Palestinian people, when the hour of confrontation arrives." Freih Abu Middein, the PA Justice Minister, warned that same month: "Violence is near and the Palestinian people are willing to sacrifice even 5,000 casualties" (Al-Hayut al-Jadida, August 24, 2000 -- MEMRI).

Another official publication of the Palestinian Authority, Al-Sabah, dated September 11, 2000 -- more than two weeks before the Sharon visit -- declared: "We will advance and declare a general intifada for Jerusalem. The time for the intifada has arrived, the time for intifada has arrived, the time for Jihad has arrived."

Arafat advisor Mamduh Nufal told the French Nouvel Observateur (March 1, 2001): "A few days before the Sharon visit to the Mosque, when Arafat requested that we be ready to initiate a clash, I supported mass demonstrations and opposed the use of firearms." Of course, Arafat ultimately adopted the use of firearms and bomb attacks against Israeli civilians and military personnel. On September 30, 2001, Nufal detailed in al-Ayyam that Arafat actually issued orders to field commanders for violent confrontations with Israel on September 28, 2000.


* * *

damn I hate to get into it with weasel attorneys.
always there is equivocate, select and generate a huge meandering excuse for being an asshole.
It's hard enough to get a general assembly resolution from these elite nose pickers anyway and when they do pass ANOTHER resolution,it isn't over minutia.
please bite me.

weasel attorneys.....
asshole....elite nose pickers anyway.....

An ad hominim is NOT a rebuttal

please bite me.

Only if you beg.

Hey, it's like wading through tanglefoot in the woods attempting to decipher the huge equivocation offered in the name of zionist colonization.
That is why terms such as 'Assholes' and 'nose pickers' are a refreshing break into the clearing. Now tell me again why invading someone else's land and pushing the inhabitants into nazi-like ghettos behind razor wire and 10 meter high concrete and steel 'security fences' is okay?

Or do we receive even more distractions, equivocations selective 'legal' definitions and general quibbling?

Now tell me again why invading someone else's land...

There has been a continual Jewish presence in Israel for 3,000 years. Its Jewish land. That, of course, hasn't prevented Israel from sharing. 20 % of Israel is non-Jewish.

and pushing the inhabitants into nazi-like ghettos....

The fence is to prevent murders. Its working. Attacks on Israels are down 85% according to some reports.

Objection your honor, the court is out of order, the jury is rigged, the judge is corrupt, the defense attorney is the love toy of the procurer, I mean the prosecutor.
There is no justice for the weak.


Sometimes I get annoyed with the legal system, you understand.

Is Israel committing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the west Bank?

Israel has supplied food, water, medicine, paid health care, sewer services, electricity, schools, health clinics, hospitals, Universities, and a sports stadium to the Palestinians.
Israel built 166 medical clinics for the Palestinians and provided universal health insurance for the Palestinians until 1994 when civil authority was transferred to the PA. (source: <http://www.hrw.org/wr2k>)

The birth rate in Gaza (ranked 26 in the world)
39.45 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
<http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gz.html>

The birth rate in the West Bank (ranked 51 in the world)
31.67 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
<http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/we.html>

Life expectancy at Birth in Gaza: (ranked 117)
total population: 71.97 years

Life expectancy at Birth in the West Bank: (ranked 98)
total population: 73.27 years
(for reference- the US is ranked 48)

The infant mortality rate among the Palestinians was 8.3 per 1,000 live births in 2004. (source: <http://www.palestinemonitor.org>)

The infant mortality rate in 1967, when Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza was 170 per 1,000 live births. (source: <http://www.middleeastfacts.com>)

The infant mortality rate has drastically dropped!!

cia.gov/ and others of this source are like believing the SS as they ran the camps.

this link you gave from a pro Palestine source
http://www.middleeastfacts.com/
I'm still looking.

REPLY TO SHOW ME:

http://www.middleeastfacts.com/middle-east-statistics2.php

"During the next 20 years of Israeli rule Palestinian infant mortality rate decreased from 170 per thousand to 60 per thousand."

> this link you gave from a pro Palestine source - http://www.middleeastfacts.com/

BEWARE ! - they are attempting to gatekeep both sides of the issue with FAKE "pro-Palestinian" sites - this site is just one example of many

and you noticed not a peep out of her either about this - she would *love* for you to accept such sources in order to SHAPE YOUR PERCEPTIONS

the hallmark of a propagandest - truth doesn't mean shit to them - it's all about "winning minds"

here's a whole list of such sites - REMEMBER THESE when you see her citing sources...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAFKA
Dhimmitude.org
EXIST (Right to Exist)
Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)
FaithFreedom.org
Faiths for Fairness
GAMLA
HinduUnity.org
Internet Haganah
Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation
Middle-East-Info.org (formerly Israel Action Center)
IRIS
www.Israel.prodos.org
israel-wat.com
Israpundit
Jewish Internet Association
Kafir Nation (Kafirnation.com)
Librarians for Fairness
The Maccabean/ Freeman.org
Masada2000.org (hmmm left off the SHIT LIST part)
MidEastTruth.com
Middle East Facts (middleeastfacts.com)
New York Coalition Against Terrorism (nycat.org)
ourenemies.org
PalestineFacts.org
ProtestWarrior.com
Stand With Us A pro Israel advocacy organization advocates for a secure future for Israel
Stop the International Solidarity Movement.
Symbolic Truth Middle East Graphics Site
The United American Committee
Wildjew.com
Women In Green (womeningreen.org)
Zionist Organization of America (zoa.org)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

notice how many of them have deceptive looking names that you would *think* are pro-Palestinian or Islamic sites...

FROM ABOVE: " Three clear purposes seem to be served by the repeated references to "occupation" or "occupied Palestinian territories." First, Palestinian spokesmen hope to create a political context to explain and even justify the Palestinians' adoption of violence and terrorism during the current intifada. Second, the Palestinian demand of Israel to "end the occupation" does not leave any room for territorial compromise in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as suggested by the original language of UN Security Council Resolution 242.

Third, the use of "occupied Palestinian territories" denies any Israeli claim to the land: had the more neutral language of "disputed territories" been used, then the Palestinians and Israel would be on an even playing field with equal rights. Additionally, by presenting Israel as a "foreign occupier," advocates of the Palestinian cause can delegitimize the Jewish historical attachment to Israel. This has become a focal point of Palestinian diplomatic efforts since the failed 2000 Camp David Summit, but particularly since the UN Durban Conference in 2001. Indeed, at Durban, the delegitimization campaign against Israel exploited the language of "occupation" in order to invoke the memories of Nazi-occupied Europe during the Second World War ...."

---- FROM "OCCUPIED TERRITORIES" TO "DISPUTED TERRITORIES"
Dore Gold

BECKY: People who don't know any better insist that Israel's security barrier cuts into "Palestinian land." Nevermind that property owners are compensated and retain ownership of the land under Israel's emminent domain laws.

They put up signs to "End the Occupation" without knowing historically and legally what they are talking about.

The fact is, the West Bank is currently Israeli territory under Palestinian Administration. Gaza is ACTUAL Palestinian territory, but only since Sept 2005 when Israel withdrew any claims on the former Egyptian-occupied territory.

All claims of a country called "Palestine" are in the future.
UN resolution 242 passed in 1967 left stewardship to Israel until a resolution could be reached with "all parties." In 1967 there was no Palestinian faction considered. There was no struggle for liberation from the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank or the Egyptian occupation of Gaza. Israel has since made peace treaties with BOTH Egypt and Jordan. Oslo in 1993 was an attempt to negotiate a peace with the resident Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza.

Palestinian Arabs within the pre-1967 Israeli borders had long before been granted citizenship, were unharmed, and were prospering and expanding their populations, currently 20% of Israel.

At no point was any of this land (other than post Sept.2005 Gaza) "Palestinian" land.

This is a house of cards without foundation, repeated umpteen times in the hopes it will stick.

http://www.meimad.org/default.asp?id=8&ACT=5&content=128&mnu=8
otherwise it is nothing.
Show a real source.

HEX WRITES: "notice how many of them have deceptive looking names that you would *think* are pro-Palestinian or Islamic sites... "

BECKY: Check out the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs or WRMEA.

http://www.washington-report.org/

Its a slick, glossy magazine that looks like a "Time" or "Newsweek" magazine. Almost all the writers have Anglo names too. You would never know its published by Saudi Arabia, would you?

I think its the perfect example of what you warned us about, except, of course, this is a REAL "fake" site, unlike the list you posted which are much more open about who they are and what their editorial policy is.

give me a source for this statement.

The infant mortality rate among the Palestinians was 8.3 per 1,000 live births in 2004. (source: <http://www.palestinemonitor.org>) which you said sourced to
http://www.middleeastfacts.com/middle-east-statistics2.php
then I asked

this is a source? Sunday, Oct. 01, 2006 at 5:16 PM
http://www.meimad.org/default.asp?id=8&ACT=5&content=128&mnu=8
This is nothing


Unless you call a tremendous amount of side issues, rude behavior and silly disproved propaganda a source.

well the monkeys are really jumping & screaming now

almost all their fake propaganda sites in one dandy list exposed

this greatly cuts down on the number of propaganda sites they can spam here without anyone noticing..

all that work down the tube...

takes time money & effort you know to set those up :)

see what a little googling can do :)

ah well - back to the drawing board I guess

HEX WRITES: "almost all their fake propaganda sites in one dandy list exposed "

BECKY: You have not exposed ONE "fake" thing

Your list is simply a list of sites you personally disagree with, and nothing more. Some are more known for accuracy than others.

Here are a few you should add to your list. I'm sure you won't like these any better.

HonestReporting.com
(maybe you WON"T like this one. they have a raft of lawyers who are super accurate in checking every fact.)
MEMRI.org
(I love this one!! Its English translations of Arab newspapers/television shows. check out the ones from the Palestinian Authority! Note how they say different things in Arabic than they do to English-speaking reporters)
debkafile.org
(these guys really dig and claim they have a network of inside information gathering)
kol-israel.com --a multi-purpose link to all Israeli media

Oh and you definitely DON"T want to see
this piece written by Rabbi Meir Kahane
I look forward to you refuting ANY of the facts in it. That is,
if you can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN_LxmkTSX4&mode=related&search

> if you can.


oooh a challenge.

I challenge thee - put up your dukes and let's rumble

damn men servants - it always comes down to fuck it, kill it or grill it

whoops - this implies violence so now I'm a misogynist again - I mean misandrist

but wait - I'm a zionist shill, so it's misanthrist - yeah there we go !

The "Four Claims on Israel by the Jewish People" quoted by Becky here:
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/176775_comment.php#180780

Were last quoted by Tia here:
http://la.indymedia.org/news/hidden.php?id=169468#177662
(notice how they became flaming wreckage in the next post; apply this to Becky's version as well)

Well, well, well. It appears you gals are reading the same hasbarah handbook! Didn't you say you "aren't a zionist," Becky? It sure is funny how you're such a connoisseur of their talking points.

You're so fulla SHITT

> reading the same hasbarah handbook!

I have an eye for that sort of thing - {where have I seen this before} ?

and I keep seeing the same "talking points" being re-gurgitated over & over (and over and over and over)

and likewise re-hidden over & over...

this pre-digest they spew is strikingly lacking in originality, uniqueness and freshness

insted it's an old, stale moldy broken record stuck in a groove that repeats repeats repeats over & over

the intention is obvious - to flood, spam and drown out the news, data and info with their wet blanket mind numbing "opinion"

You keep seeing the same "talking points" again and again because they are the truth. The "truth" doesn't change just so you can win an argument (like calling a legal, permitted, peaceful protest outside a mosque "a racist lynch mob")

MATT WRITES: "It's the same as saying, when the whites enslaved the blacks, "they really treated 'em good!" So what are they complaining about!!!
What crap. Good night sleazy BJ. In fact, I think your new nickname will be 'sleazy-B'."

BECKY: It is NOT the same as when the whites enslaved the blacks. Israel took control over the Palestinian Arabs of the WEst Bank and Gaza in a DEFENSIVE WAR.

The whites went out of their way to Africa to purchase blacks to import to America.

Israel extended the protections of Israeli law to the Palestinians who can and do win court decisions all the time.

Blacks in slavery America had no such option.

Any sociologist knows that the infant mortality rate in any area is a symptom of the general health of that society.
When the infant mortality rate drops as precipitously as it did for the Palestinians under Israeli rule (from 170 deaths per 1,000 births in 1967 to 8.3 deaths per 1,000 births in 2004 ), we can conclude that the standard of living had substantially improved--with better nutrition, health care, and general stability.

The truth remains, that after 1967, Israel built 166 health clinics for the Palestinians and paid for universal health care. They put in water and sewer systems and electrified the West Bank greatly improving the lives of the Palestinians. In 1994, when the Palestinian Authority was formed, the unemployment rate among the Palestinians was only 5%.

These "talking points" won't change even if the monitors choose to delete them.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/2/133127/1815

the Luntz Playbook


Hasbara Campus Manual. The Hasbara Handbook

http://www.middle-east-info.org/take/wujshasbara.pdf



Every Word Matters: Using 'Keywords' as a Political Tactic

"paint a vivid, brilliant word picture."

a positive word list to use in describing themselves and a negative keyword list to describe the opposition


positive words for us (try not to laugh or retch)

"Active, activist, building, candid(ly), care(ing), challenge, change, children, choice/choose, citizen, commitment, common sense, compete, confident, conflict, control, courage, crusade, debate dream, duty, eliminate good time in prison, empower(ment), fair, family, freedom, hard work, help, humane, inventive, initiative, lead, learn, legacy, liberty, light, listen, mobilize, moral, movement, opportunity, passionate, peace, pioneer, precious, premise, preserve, principle(d), pristine, pro-flag, pro-children, pro-environment, prosperity, protect, proud/pride, provide, reform, sights, share, strength, success, tough, truth, unique, vision, we/us/our, workfare"




negative words for progressive activists

"Anti-flag, anti-family, anti-child, anti-jobs, betray, coercion, collapse, consequences, corruption, crises, decay, deeper, destroy, destructive, devour, endanger, failure, greed, hypocrisy, ideological, impose, incompetent, insecure, liberal, lie, limit(s), pathetic, permissive attitude, radical, self-serving, sensationalists, shallow, sick, they/them, threaten, traitors, unionized bureaucracy, urgent, waste"






~ Refer to the Iraq situation as an "invasion" or a "preemptive strike", not as "war". It is not war. Psychologically, "war" is more acceptable to people than either an invasion or a preemptive strike

or occupation





when the speaker uses a Luntz phase or frame, just call out the page and paragraph like quoting the bible.




Speak in threes. Every fact and example must tie into the big picture, but too many can obscure the message. Fewer than three facts or examples are insufficient; more than three are confusing."



"three points and a joke" and it's VERY effective, especially when added with a little ridicule once in a while--there are often jokes about how it's always three, never two or four.

It just works--it's not too much or too little, it's just right.





Words with a 'k' in it are funny. Alkaseltzer is funny. Chicken is funny. Pickle is funny. All with a 'k'. 'L's are not funny. 'M's are not funny. Cupcake is funny. Tomatoes is not funny. Lettuce is not funny. Cucumber's funny. Cab is funny. Cockroach is funny -- not if you get 'em, only if you say 'em.


Hold the Pickle hold the Lettuce - special orders don't upset us

my version ;

Lettuce hold your Pickle

"Say apartheid wall" not fence.
say "economic pressure" not divestment
Say "occupied territories" not Judea nad Samaria or disputed territories
Say "IOF" not "IDF"

And they had role playing workshops in how to use this language

I doubt the 11 million dollars Israel directly spends on PR (not even counting all the "free" plugging they get from hollywood just to name one other example) compares to the OPPRESSED AND OCCUPIED trying to fight this giant American Taxpayer funded war machine

but don't let that bother you

-The excuse of "oppression" and "occupation" you had before Aug '05 is no longer valid-

Why is it not valid? Has it ceased?

Sloppy: "You keep seeing the same "talking points" again and again because they are the truth."

"Jews have a right to Israel because G-d says so" is the TRUTH??

I thought your position was that violent religious psychos are a BAD thing. That's what you always say about the Islamists

C'mon, Sloppy, where'd ya get the "four points" from? You been pinned down this time, caught red-handed. 'Fess up.

Do you know why you both follow that hasbarah handbook word for word, Tia and Sloppy? It's cuz YOU DON'T THINK FOR YOURSELVES. You're just marching political morons following orders. A person with a soul would reject being such a tool

A film destined for cult-classic status will be released to DVD soon

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/movies/45815,CST-FTR-idio06.article

You should make a point of seeing it -- since it's about YOU

It'll make your eyes go *boing*. It's aimed specifically at reporters, TV producers, other media professionals. Goebbels must have circulated guidelines very much like this

http://tinyurl.com/hrxs7

"just wondering / Cite the URL/s. Be specific"

Planet of the Arabs 10 min.

Official Selection at the 2005 SUNDANCE Film Festival

Hollywood's relentless vilification and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims

out of 1000 films

about 20 were positive, ~ 50 were neutral and the rest - over 900 of them were negative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJe8CjLrnaU


checking now TW

I even transcribed it to HTML and posted it here a few years ago :)

(I've been collecting dirt on Israel for years)

hahahaa

thousands of pictures of the occupation, the murders, the massacres, the attacks on doctors, nurses, paramedics, closeups of the bullets, videos, documentries, newspaper articles - some of which is hard to find these days

I have previously argued that Israel’s 10 million dollar annual information budget...


http://www.prwatch.org/index.html?from=110


"Propaganda is a part of war," writes Matthias Gebauer from Israel. "Vast armies of public relations workers develop an emotionally charged image meant to provide media and public support for the conflict's architects." And, "it's hard to criticize Israel for wanting to see victims of Hezbollah rockets ... in the media. ... Still, Israel's support and supervision of foreign journalists seems downright excessive. ... When covering other crisis regions, German reporters often have to make an effort to be extra nice and polite and have to search out interviewees and contacts themselves. Not here. In Israel, reporters are on an all-inclusive package trip -- and are well looked after." One of many recent emails to reporters from the Israeli government's press office offered interviewees on 11 topics related to military operations in Lebanon. "There's no need to go anywhere," Gebauer adds, quoting an Israeli press officer as saying, "The contacts can be reached by phone. It's better to do it that way, especially for the radio."

And now your link and quote are nowhere near proving your allegation. Just yet another attempt to distract from having to substantiate allegations you toss absent-mindedly. Typical anti-Zionist disingenuous conduct.

Don't you ever tire from wasting bandwidth? Have you no consideration or courtesy toward the people who allow your sojourn here even after you arrogantly boasted this is your home (in so many words)?

10 point something million (almost 11 million)

cited and linked...



> Have you no consideration or courtesy toward the people who allow your sojourn here

no

and I'm sure you can tell too by all the hidden articles & comments I have

anymore questions troll bait ;)

I'll overcome my initial urge to deck you. You're more profficient at how radio transmitters/ relayers/whatever operate, so I'll now tip you off about websites: some websites shove older items into archives and the item previously found on the webpage you link to may not be there anymore, which is the case here. I'm hoping you've got the smarts to grasp this and aren't on a self-clowning rampage which has no bearing on my own credibility.

Iran says Israel will 'vanish' as nuclear diplomacy heats up

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned on Thursday that Israel will "one day vanish", ramping up the stakes in the midst of frantic international diplomacy over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

> some websites shove older items into archives and the item previously found on the webpage you link to may not be there anymore, which is the case here.

google it - I did

Your'e toying with me but the joke is on you. Your being cowardly and evasive.

If you furnish a link it must be... the right one. Surprise!

You'll have to meet the standard you demand from me and my likes. Until then your claim is unsubstantiated and there's no compelling reason to take your word for it. You've wasted enough of my time as is.

Debating the Lobby in Manhattan
Israel Sends in the Clowns

By MICHAEL J. SMITH

Does it seem implausible that one might actually feel sympathy for a professor at the University of Chicago? So I would have thought; but as John Mearsheimer got the waterboard treatment from Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross last night at New York's Cooper Union, there was something undeniably poignant in his situation. Mearsheimer, an earnest, polite, owlish gent, had the bemused air of a man trying to reason with a pair of rabid Dobermans.

The occasion was a "debate," hosted by the London Review of Books, on the question, "The Israel Lobby: Does it have too much influence on US foreign policy?"

Noam Chomsky observes somewhere that "debates are one of the most irrational institutions that humans have devised," because they "demand irrationality" on the part of the combatants. He neglected to add that they also often bring out the worst in the spectators. And when the subject is Israel, and the debate takes place in New York, where this topic usually evokes irrationality on a titanic scale -- well, the ensuing spectacle is likely to delight a misanthrope's heart.

My high misanthropic hopes were greatly reinforced, while we waited for the program to start, by my immediate neighbors, who were solemnly, and approvingly, discussing the ideas of that mighty thinker, Thomas Friedman. Aha, I thought, mentally rubbing my hands, this is going to be good.

The prosecution team consisted of professors Mearsheimer, Rashid Khalidi from Columbia, and Tony Judt, from NYU. Appearing for the defense were Israel lobbyists Indyk and Ross, both of whom also served Israel's cause as prominent members of the Clinton administration. They were joined by redundant Israeli labor party politician Shlomo Ben-Ami. (Why, you ask, was a former Israeli cabinet minister invited to discuss a question of American politics? That's a very good question, and I wish you had been there to ask it at the time.)

The debate was "moderated" by Ann-Marie Slaughter, who is dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs at Princeton. (The name of this institution always makes me laugh -- as who should say, the Henry VIII School of Women's Studies, or the Lester Maddox Institute for Racial Amity.)

The beleaguered Mearsheimer, of course, is one of the authors, with Stephen Walt, of the succès-de-scandale paper "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy," which created quite a stir when it appeared last spring. The sound of carpet-chewing from Alan Dershowitz's Cambridge house reportedly gave many Harvard faculty a week's worth of sleepless nights.

What became known as the "Mearsheimer-Walt thesis" is, to paraphrase bluntly the authors' careful formulations, that the Israel lobby has been successful in "distorting" American foreign policy in Israel's interest. In particular, Mearsheimer and Walt argue, we would not have had an Iraq war without the Lobby's contribution. These are, to say the least, fighting words.

Indyk and Ross showed up in fighting trim, and Slaughter threw them a slow soft one in her first question: Was the Mearsheimer-Walt paper anti-Semitic?

Well, more or less, yes, was the predictable answer from Israel's defense bench. Mearsheimer, said the imposing, silver-maned Indyk, postulates a sinister "cabal" (he must have used this word a hundred times over the next two hours) that includes "anyone who has a good word to say about Israel." With regard to the Iraq war, Indyk's trump card was that the Israel lobby couldn't have made that happen, since the Israel lobby really wanted to go after -- Iran! Mearsheimer, who has presumably heard this sort of thing quite a lot lately, watched Indyk with an unblinking, curious, naturalist's gaze, as though he had discovered a new subspecies of E. Coli.

But there was a slightly tired, perfunctory, pro-forma quality about Indyk's obligatory insults and falsehoods. None of the defenders seemed to have his heart in it, really -- and the audience, to their credit and my surprise, wasn't buying it, either. The defense team had to say these things -- that's how the game is played -- but their threadbare invective evoked groans and hisses from the groundlings, and in any case, the trio had other, more important, fish to fry.

The other fish in question, it appears, is that all these guys would very much like to be back in office. And on this point, sadly, they seemed to have much of the audience with them.

Judt, and Mearsheimer, and Khalidi, don't have this problem. They all have tenure at good universities -- or, in Khalidi's case, at a university that suburban parents still think is a good one. They get published, and people cite them. They're at the pinnacle of their profession, and only death or Alzheimer's can knock them off it. But Indyk, and Ross, and the Woody-Allenish Ben-Ami, wielded state power once, and now they don't. They're on the outside looking in, and would love to have their helicopter rides, and their bodyguards, and their sense of importance back again.

So the burden of their song, last night, was that the Lobby is not the problem. Rather -- they sang, in close three-part harmony -- rather, the problem is that we have these awful Republicans in power here in the US, and the awful Likudniks -- now wearing a centrist smiley-face -- in power back in the Promised Land. Want to make things better? Throw the rascals out, and put us back in.

The rodentine Ross put it most crassly: "If Al Gore had been president, we would not have had an Iraq war." The crowd, I'm sorry to say, loved it. Ben-Ami took up the same tune and modulated into a slightly different key: "One thing that doesn't exist in your analysis," he thundered, "is Israel!" -- a line which, depressingly, may have nudged the applause-meter up to its maximum for the evening. "Israel's behavior is the responsibility of its elected leaders!" More applause, and sage murmurs of "he's very intelligent!" from my neighbors in the peanut gallery.

The defense team indignantly rejected the idea that a US administration should ever "force" Israel to do anything -- while strenously claiming, in the next breath, that Bill Clinton, to his everlasting credit, had put the screws to Israel in a way that made Torquemada look like a bleeding-heart. So... if you have a problem with the Israel lobby, then your best bet is to elect a Democrat. Now there is an original idea.

If you've read Clayton Swisher's remarkable book, The Truth About Camp David, then the picture that Indyk and Ross and Ben-Ami were painting of an assertive Clinton holding Israel's feet to the fire will look a little strange. In fact, last night was something of a reunion for Indyk and Ross and Ben-Ami, who were all participants in the Clinton "peace process" -- and all working for the same side, though Indyk and Ross held US passports and Ben-Ami an Israeli one. As Aaron Miller, Ross' former deputy from that period, famously observed later, "far too often, we functioned in this process, for want of a better word, as Israel's lawyer."

But the rewriting of history, and the retrospective rose-tinting of Democratic and Labor administrations, is a favorite liberal game, and the Manhattan congregation largely approved. Indyk, Ross and Ben-Ami were able to put over the virtuoso turn of denying, in one breath, that the Israel lobby has any power, and promising, in the next breath, to neutralize that power if they could only get back into their helicopters.

They have a point, of course. Neither Israel nor its Lobby are monoliths. The Likudniks are now in the ascendant in both, and our tuneful trio are, relatively speaking, sidelined. There are different ideas about tactics and strategy, priorities and alliances, among different elements at both ends of the Washington-Jerusalem axis.

But of course -- as Mearsheimer came close to saying, at one point -- the best proof of the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis was sitting in front of us all night, in the form of Ross and Indyk themselves. These two have spent their careers alternating between organizations like AIPAC and WINEP on the one hand, and guarding the Middle East henhouse in government on the other. The twists and turns of tactics and diplomacy, as one faction replaces another, don't conceal an underlying, essential continuity.

If I weren't such a misanthrope, I might be tempted to say that nevertheless, the glass is half full. Twenty years ago, such a discussion, in this venue, would have been unthinkable; any attempt to raise the topic at all would have been shouted down by a coalition of JDL thugs from Brooklyn, and tough little old ex-Communist ladies from the Upper West Side. Twenty years ago, you would not have seen Establishment figures like Mearsheimer and Walt saying such things. Twenty years ago, a New York audience would have received Indyk's cheap demagogy with thunderous applause rather than groans and boos.

So the times they are a-changin'. But we still have a ways to go. If I correctly assessed the temper of last night's crowd, they mostly still want to find a way to divide the baby -- to support and vindicate Israel, but without all these awful wars and walls. They would like to cajole the Palestinians into playing nice -- without giving them anything that Israel might want. They would like to bring Iran to heel, without putting any boots on the ground, if I may borrow the buzzword-du-jour.

In other words, I fear most of them want Bill Clinton back. And when I contemplate that idea, the glass looks a lot more than half empty.

Michael J. Smith lives in New York City. When his busy social schedule permits, he works at undermining the Democratic Party on his blog, stopmebeforeivoteagain.org.

Thanks for posting that. Didn't hear about that debate in the Mainstream pro-war pro-israel right wing media.