Many readers will have already come across Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece in The Atlantic about the possibility of Israel resorting to force against Iran. Though it’s received a lot of attention, I don’t think it’s that interesting; it’s long on personal anecdote (by the way, for a seriously unflattering view of the Netanyahu family you ought to read Chapter 12 of this book) and the views of unnamed sources and short on analysis. People seriously interested in this matter still need to read Tira.
Israel is so extraordinarily beyond the pale that its behavior does not even merit comparison with states like China, which brutally occupies Tibet, or India, which occupies Kashmir, or Poland, which stands on parts of what used to be eastern Germany, or Sri Lanka, which recently extirpated the secessionist Tamil Tiger movement after a brutal three-decades long civil war, or the United States of America, which annihilated the Native American peoples. Indeed, the only states that resemble Israel are Nazi Germany and South Africa’s apartheid regime, neither of which exists any longer. Get it?
A small taste of Lee Smith’s brilliant response to his critics, which you can read here.
So here’s the deal. Give Israel some U.S. support in exchange for modest steps that the administration hopes accomplishes its goals. Israel will give some things that don’t appreciably hurt its interests in order to maintain good relations with the United States.
Barry Rubin’s take on the Netanyahu-Obama talks in Washington today.
These tuneless hippies giving their support to the elimination of Israel should give pause and listen to the words of Tiran Halabi.
But they probably won’t. And one reason lies in this helpful explanation emailed by a reader on the political context around the Oakland picket: “The west coast longshoremen are part of an independent union that was expelled from its parent union and from the AFL-CIO for being completely controlled by the Communist Party. Its leader, Harry Bridges, now deceased, was in fact a high-ranking member of the CPUSA. A key reason why the California “bay area” (SF-Oakland-Berkeley) has long been a bastion of all manner of Leftist causes (e.g., Black Panther Party) is because of the steady backing that the Commie-dominated Longshoreman gave to them.”
UPDATE: As pointed out in the comments, Tiran’s original video has disappeared, but there’s a new one which I’ve posted above.
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost authority over Gaza three years ago this month in the very bloody Hamas coup, is suddenly asserting responsibility for the 1.5 million Palestinians living there. His nemesis, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, already was way ahead in feeling the world love as European governments, in the wake of the May 31 flotilla clash, joined with the ranks of traditional Hamas backers in the Arab and Islamic worlds in calling for lifting the blockade of Gaza. President Obama, meeting with Abbas, put icing on the Hamas cake by calling the situation in Gaza “unsustainable.”
This is a guest post by Winston Pickett.
For media watchers familiar with the White House Press Corps, the saga of Helen Thomas is has served up a pungent lesson on how antisemitic ideas can pollute and ultimately force a 58-year career to crash, burn and splutter to an inglorious conclusion.
Something else to furrow the brows of the “Israel Lobby” Theorists.
Forty-nine percent (49%) of U.S. voters believe pro-Palestinian activists on the Gaza-bound aid ships raided by Israeli forces are to blame for the deaths that resulted in the high-profile incident.
The signs sum it up nicely. More here.
Jeffrey Goldberg has a revealing interview with Marcy Winograd, who is challenging Jane Harman in California’s Democratic primary on June 8th.
Here’s a collection of Winograd’s thoughts as shared with Goldberg:
Awful. Just awful.
But here’s a question for J-Street. According to this puff piece about Winograd, one of her enthusiastic backers is Lila Garrett, a J-Street Board Member. Is supporting a candidate who, in her own words, reveals herself to be a Soviet apologist, an advocate of Israel’s elimination, a believer in the thesis that the US brought 9/11 on itself, a supporter of the equation of Zionism with racism, and an optimist on the Taliban’s attitude toward the rights of women compatible with the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” branding?
The recent draconian legislation in Arizona aimed at cracking down on illegal immigrants has generated a firestorm of debate in the United States. While some criticism of the law - most obviously that of President Barack Obama - has been measured, others out there have been all too keen to reach for the nearest outrageous analogy. China and the Soviet Union have been invoked by some American activists, whose rhetoric enabled the Cuban regime to take a break from locking up dissidents in order to gleefuly denounce a “racist and xenophobic” law.
Inevitably in this atmosphere, Nazi Germany has been held up as a comparison too. Earlier this afternoon, NPR gave me the opportunity to explain why this is such a grotesque use of history. The same point was forcefully made by Clarissa Martinez of the National Council of La Raza, who appeared alongside me, and who proved that principled opposition to the Arizona law is possible without sinking into the depths of the Nazi analogy. Do listen here; scroll down to the item in the right-hand menu entitled “Connection Between Arizona and Nazi Germany Fair?”
Following Rand Paul’s victory in the Kentucky Senate Primary, this post by Daniel Greenfield from last February is worth re-reading, not least because it demonstrates that on matters of US foreign policy, Rand would appear to have identical views to his father.
Those views were laid out in an interview with 9/11 conspiracy-monger Alex Jones, who has also conducted a similarly simpering one-on-one with George Galloway. Here’s Rand Paul’s money quote:
“…here are people on the left who acknowledge the vast expenditures of the military industrial complex, and there are people on the right who are beginning to understand that. There’s a sort of left-right paradigm that you bring these groups together in order to try to win an election. I think it’s coming.”
And sooner than we think? In any case, this is a salutary reminder that when we discuss the alliance of interests between the far left and the Islamists, we shouldn’t leave out the isolationist right.
UPDATE: I should have mentioned that the superb Adam Holland has written extensively on Rand Paul. Find Adam’s articles here.
Bravo to Philip Klein for giving General David Petraeus the opportunity to clarify the following: one, he never requested that the West Bank and Gaza be added to his remit as Commander of CENTCOM, which includes Afghanistan and Iraq. Two, the perceived pro-Israel slant of US Middle East policy is just one of many strategic factors, and not the only one, which he has to take into consideration (the other factors include, Petraeus said, “a whole bunch of extremist organizations, some of which by the way deny Israel’s right to exist. There’s a country that has a nuclear program who denies that the Holocaust took place.”) Three, that he never made the statement, widely attributed to him, that US policy endangers the lives of American soldiers under his command (“There is no mention of lives anywhere in there. I actually reread the statement. It doesn’t say that at all.”)
Even if the Ramat Shlomo announcement and its aftermath is a salutary reminder of the old Yiddish proverb about not spitting in the well you drink from, that should not be the only lesson we draw from this week’s events.
Continue reading ‘Meanwhile, in Ramallah…’
This is a guest post by Kenneth Bandler of AJC.
The propensity of some Israeli political leaders to speak publicly or take action before thinking clearly of the consequences hit a new low this week during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit.
If Israelis were looking for reassurance that the United States is genuinely the Jewish state’s number one ally, the vice president couldn’t have been clearer. “The bond between the U.S. and Israel has been and will remain unshakable,” declared Biden. “Progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel.” But, alas, there is a significant gap, on settlements, and it was an Israeli Cabinet Minister who decided to remind all with international media focused on every step of Biden’s visit.
After a week in which the Israeli government displayed its exquisite sense of timing, Vice-President Biden delivered a major speech at Tel Aviv University today. For those who don’t have time to watch the video, here are the bullet points.
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