While U.S. politicians pay endless lip service to how much Americans are struggling, the Obama administration prepares to increase taxpayer money to Israel, which enjoys universal health care and full employment.
For all the chatter about animosity between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Washington Post reports that “a senior Israeli official will arrive in Washington next week for a final round of negotiations involving the largest military aid package the United States has ever given any country and that will last more than a decade after President Obama leaves office.” The U.S. already transfers $3.1 billion in taxpayer money every year to Israel — more than any other country by far — but the new agreement Obama is set to sign “significantly raises” that amount, and guarantees it for 10 years.
In response to this massive windfall, Netanyahu is angry that he is not getting even more. For some time, “Netanyahu was holding out for as much as $5 billion a year.” Also, Israel has been opposed to efforts to direct more of that aid to U.S. military contractors rather than Israeli ones (so this “aid” package is as much a transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to weapons manufacturers in both countries as it is to Israel itself). Moreover, “Israelis are also said to be displeased with a U.S. position that whatever amount of money they agree on will be final and that Israel will not go to Congress requesting more money.”
Usually, when someone hands you billions of dollars in aid, you’re not in much of a position to demand more. But the rules for Israel when it comes to U.S. policy, as is so often the case, are simply different. Even as Israel has aggressively expanded settlements of the West Bank (often in a way designed to most humiliate the U.S.) and slaughtered civilians in Gaza, U.S. aid simply increases more and more. What’s particularly fascinating about all of this is that Netanyahu originally intended to wait until the “next administration” to finalize the deal — because, assuming that would be Hillary Clinton, he believed (with good reason) he would get an even better deal — but is now worried about an “unpredictable” Donald Trump, who has spouted standard pro-Israel rhetoric before AIPAC (and worse) but had previously espoused the need for “neutrality” on the Israel/Palestine question and has made “America First” the rhetorical centerpiece of his campaign.
All of this means that the U.S. generally, and Democrats specifically, bear direct responsibility for the hideous brutality and oppression imposed by Israel on Palestinians through decades of occupation. That’s because, as a 2012 Congressional Resources Service report documented, “Almost all U.S. aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance. U.S. military aid has helped transform Israel’s armed forces into one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world. U.S. military aid for Israel has been designed to maintain Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge’ over neighboring militaries.” And, of course, Clinton herself vowed in a letter to Democratic Party billionaire funder Haim Saban and her speech to AIPAC to do everything possible to oppose a boycott of Israel in order to end the occupation.
What’s perhaps most shocking of all is how little attention or debate any of this receives. Would Americans really be supportive of transferring billions of dollars every year to Israel, and then entering into a new agreement to significantly increase that amount and guaranteeing it — placing it beyond debate — for 10 more years? That seems doubtful. To begin with, Israel enjoys universal health care coverage, while “33 million Americans, 10.4 percent of the U.S. population,” remain without health insurance. That disparity is captured in headlines such as this one:
As The Forward put it in 2012: “Israeli citizens appear to be getting better care [than Americans] for their lower expenditures.” Fortunately for Israel, the people of that country enjoy a much higher life expectancy than the citizens of the country that transfers billions to them every year. According to the most recent CIA statistics, Israelis can expect to live 82.27 years — 11th best in the world — while Americans can expect only 79.68 years, which is 43rd in the world.
Israeli infants also fare much better than American infants. Israel has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world (3.55 deaths for every 1,000 births), while 5.87 American babies die for every 1,000 births. Just last month, unemployment in Israel fell to the lowest level in decades (4.8 percent, which “is not only low historically but low by international standards, and by conventional economic definitions there’s no unemployment at all in Israel”), while U.S. workers, despite declining unemployment rates, continue to struggle when “the underemployed and the discouraged” are counted.
In sum, U.S. politicians in both parties endlessly pay lip service to how much Americans are struggling while the Obama administration prepares to transfer more and more billions of their money to Israel. The U.S. does so even as Israel pursues with more aggression than ever the very policies that the U.S. claims to find so objectionable and destructive (just two days ago, the State Department said Israel “is systematically undermining the prospects for a two-state solution” by continuing to expand illegal settlements).
Just compare (a) the rhetoric Democrats love to spout about themselves to (b) their treatment of Palestinians to see how empty the former is. And just imagine what would happen if this policy of transferring even more billions of American taxpayer money to Israel were widely debated instead of ignored as Bipartisan Consensus.
I have to wonder what dirt the Israelis have on US politicians that keeps them sending billions of dollars and military equipment to support a terrorist state when they want to destroy other terrorist states. Oh I forgot war is big business
It would be great to also see The Intercept do an investigation into UNRWA and other aid organisations funding of Hamas. As reported here, here and here.
No, what would actually be great to also see, is The Intercept do an investigation into your precious zio apartheid terrorist state exploring how and why your freeloading criminal gang of zio terrorists, fascists, colonizers and murderers in Ha-Yishuv created and nurtured Hamas in the first place, as reported here.
Jews of Color Caucus Statement in Solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives
There’s much more and all are encouraged to read the entire thing.
Israel’s greedy annexation of American paychecks and blackmailing of our politicians down from the local level all the way up to the federal level has rendered American citizens powerless in what is supposed to be a constitutional democracy for the people and by the people (the American people). It is time we Americans revolt against our foreign oppressors, that are pursuing a radical racial agenda, in which over 97% of us are being coerced into subjugated servants. We need to reclaim a political system that is controlled by Americans and serves the interests and will of the American people, not Israel.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/05/02/israel-wants-more-from-us/
Israel is not annexing American paychecks. We Americans are voluntarily helping Israel. I’m proud of my country, the USA, for helping countries like Israel that are the victim of aggression.
You are a lying and deceitful hasbara troll — who spews the same debunked crap here in thread after thread — one who has been shown vast amounts of historical evidence that Israel is the oppressor and aggressor, while Palestinians are the oppressed victims of Zionist ethnic cleansing, land theft and apartheid. You ignore all of the copious facts that many have set before you and simply recycle the same debunked talking points, over and over.
It’s time again to repost some of the material describing for readers what you hasbara trolls are. So, here goes.
As one can see from comments here — especially from Jack Green — there are always a number of accounts who make it their mission to post vacuous, misleading and disruptive Zionist bullshit. Often, they are following talking points issued by both formal and informal “hasbara” projects. (Hasbara means “explaining” in Hebrew; in practice it means “propaganda.”)
Max Blumenthal has described these annoying pests and their programs thus:
They are also assigned to comments sections, such as at the Guardian, and also here. Jack Green is one of this site’s shrill and relentless hasbara troll nuisances.
“Israel” annexed your stupid fucking brain.
The Israeli lobby and its agents coherse local governments in America to forfeit the pension funds of hardworking American employees to Israel for high risk, low return and internationally recognized illegal activities. Instead our retirement funds being managed prudently in safer, higher yield, and more productive investment in the USA, like repairing electricity producing dams, updating water aquifers and transportation systems, ect., Israeli duplicity and greed time and again screws over America!
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/27/why-using-pension-money-to-fund-israeli-bonds-is-both-wrong-and-illegal/
If we stop giving money to Israel, that money will be used by the Republicans for tax breaks for the rich.
You are a hasbara troll who has spewed that specific inanity, verbatim, in thread after thread.
Israel has a perfect record of paying back bonds.
I so seldom do this, but: LOL.
If you’re claiming that Israel does not have a perfect record paying back bonds, please present your evidence.
Hasbara Jack states that “American aid can only be used for military”
Well you conviently ignored the funds are fungible. If your double speak Israeli/English classes didn’t teach you what the last word in the previous sentence means, then look it up in a dictionary.
Does military include the Ministry of Public Diplomacy led by anti-Arab bigot Yuli Edelstein? Who knows how Israel organizes that department, and would the U.S. even monitor or object of we taxpayers were also paying for formal hasbara programs?
Gaza is excruciatingly blockaded so our humanitarian aid to them can’t be meaningfully diverted to military use. Israel, however, is completely able to exploit the fungibility of funds factor even if Edlestein’s hasbara programs are not considered military expenses.
Evidence that aid to Israel is fungible?
It’s self-evident. Except to a hasbara troll like you who is paid (tho some of you do volunteer) not to get it.
If it were self-evident, I wouldn’t have asked.
You are extremely likely to ask: it’s part of what hasbara trolls do.
If you weren’t such a comprehension challenged zio window licker, you wouldn’t have asked.
Thank you for providing TI readers with further evidence confirming that you are, in fact, a comprehension challenged zio window licker.
To the The Intercept IT staff: adding an option to organize the comments section of this article from oldest to newest would partially negate the propaganda technique of drowning other comment in a sea of repetitive lies, as executed by Hasbara Jack.
You’ve raised many good ideas for the commenting system, but please know that these have all been suggested before. Since the inception of this site the powers that be have been promising that improved commenting software is coming “soon.”
Hasn’t happened. It’s great that many resources have clearly gone into putting out an excellent journalistic product, but the commenting software remains heinous.
We need an “ignore” feature. If we had one, I’d continue to engage the hasbara trolls and regularly post advisories to other readers to weed them out. We also need a tool bar for formatting and buttons for preview and edit functions. I’ve been begging for over two years. pffft
“Jack Green” will never be persuaded by any arguments critical of Israel, because hasbara “Jack” is a professional propagandist working on behalf of Israel. Did you know that Israel pays their college students to go online and spread propaganda in the commentary section of news websites, Facebook, Twitter, ect? Israel’s military has also allocated additional tens of millions of dollars, essentially American tax payer money as the funds are fungible, to intensify the dissemination of their deceptive stories. Thanks for ruining the comments section of this article Hasbara Jack, you probably earned your quarterly bonus of Israeli controlled American tax dollars.
American aid can only be used for military.
As I allude to below, Zionists and hasbara-ists can be extremely vicious. Setting aside for now what one of them did to try to harm me, they have established some formal projects to harm pro-Palestinian activists.
McCarthyite blacklisting is a rather recent and odious Zionist weapon. In the U.S. perhaps the premier such project is “Canary Mission.” The Jewish magazine, Tablet, describes the project and its site thus:
Part of the purposes is to list pro-Palestinian activists so they can be harassed online. But the more worrisome purpose is that these Zionists intend to silence pro-Palestinian student activists and faculty with threats of destroying their careers.
As MintPressNews reported:
I say this often, but that’s because when focusing on Zionism and Zionists the idea occurs so often: Zionism kills Palestinian bodies and Jewish souls.
Why are you against this project, but in favor of BDS.
Is it simply that one is pro-Israel & the other is anti-Israel
or do you find this method worse than BDS?
Becasue McCarthyism is disgusting. Attempts to silence political activists by threatening their jobs is the essence of McCarthysim. But then, you are an ignorant hasbara troll who either doesn’t know or care about that.
BDS is not an attmpt to silence. It’s peaceful pressure to end the slaughter, oppression, daily violence and humiliations, and land theft all committed by an oppressive country against its victims, the Palestinians. But no one is trying to pressure Israel or any Israeli from speaking their minds.
So you are against interrupting pro-Israel speakers?
http://www.amchainitiative.org/sjp-disruption-of-jewish-events/
When you just said “…regularly post advisories to other readers to weed them out…” Isn’t that silencing ?
When I’ve proposed to determine your real name and sought to have you left unemployable for spamming an Internet site with hasbara, come back and talk to me about “silencing” people. Interrupting speakers is rude, but doesn’t silence them. It certainly is nothing like formal, McCarthyite programs to cost people their careers.
575,000 Iraqi children died from sanctions & yet you support sanctions.
You are a hasbara troll who’s spewed that talking point repeatedly. It’s bullshit, you know it’s bullshit. You are here to muck up the conversation with hasbara bullshit.
Making it impossible for an audience to hear a speaker is equivalent to silencing the speaker.
Again: When I’ve proposed to determine your real name and sought to have you left unemployable for spamming an Internet site with hasbara, come back and talk to me about “silencing” people.
In 1949, the CIA issued a report on the crimes committed by Zionists and the new State of Israel, and the dire situation facing the Palestinians:
Read the whole thing. Zionist terrorists murdered the UN mediator and would not reveal the names of the murderers. The Zionist terrorists would not abide by most UN requirements, and treated the ethnically cleansed Palestinians worse than animals.
Israel was founded in Zionist terror and criminality. It is maintained that way.
Zionist terrorism was in response to Arab terrorism.
I condemn both.
Do you?
Oh please. They assassinated Count Bernadotte, and Jews who disagreed with them, because of Arab terrorism? pffft
If you condemn all this, do you think it appalling that Israel elected two terrorists as prime minister and names dozens of streets after their terrorists? Why does Israel venerate terrorists?
Irgun was founded to stop Arab terrorism because the British & the Haganah were unable to. Count Bernadotte wasn’t assassinated until 17 years later.
No. Irgun was a Jabotinsky-inspired terrorist group, dedicated to the idea that the British were occupying Jewish land. That’s why they slaughtered so many Brits. As well as politically “wrong” Jews who were appalled by them.
It’s irrelevant when they slaughtered Bernadotte — they did it.
“When” is totally relevant.
“The policy of the new organization was based squarely on Jabotinsky’s teachings: every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state”.[2]
There were over 20 attacks on Arabs before Irgun turned its attention to the British.
To repeat: It’s irrelevant when they slaughtered Bernadotte — they did it.
It sounds like you’re saying that Irgun was founded to get rid of the British.
If that were the main reason for the creation of Irgun, then it’s very strange that Irgun was attacking Arabs & only later attacked the British.
Do you condemn Arab terrorism?
Asked and answered.
I’m asking because I didn’t see the answer.
Why won’t you just answer “Yes” or “No?”
Asked and answered.
J.J. Goldberg:
Zionist have zero — ZERO — moral standing to object to terrorism.
Do people who support Palestinians have zero — ZERO — moral standing to object to terrorism?
Are they naming their streets after Palestinian terrorists and venerating them as Israel and Zionists do? If so, then no.
Palestinians Honor Fatah Terrorist, Despite Israel’s Protests – Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com › Israel News
Haaretz
Palestinians from President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction named a town square on Sunday after the leader of a 1978 bus hijacking in which 35 Israelis were …
Palestinian town names street for killer of 2 Israelis | The Times of Israel
http://www.timesofisrael.com › Israel & the Region
The Times of Israel
Muhannad Halabi, 19, the terrorist who stabbed two Israelis to death in Jerusalem, … Halabi, a 19-year-old law student, was shot dead by Israeli police on October 3 after … A Palestinian family in the Gaza Strip honored Halabi by naming their …
One Day After Slaughter of Fogel Family, Palestinians Name Square …
http://www.worldjewishdaily.com/PA-square.php
One Day After Slaughter of Fogel Family, Palestinians Name Square After Terrorist … One day after an Israeli family of five was brutally murdered in their home, …
I knew there’d be something like that (if you wonder why it took so long for this post to appear it’s because you put more than one link in it). So here’s the deal: You tell every Zionist in these threads who says a word about Muslim violence and/or terrorism that they have no moral standing to object to terrorism, and I won’t raise the issue of Zionist terrorism again.
No!
Everyone should speak out against all terrorism.
I think that people on each side are unwilling to compromise because they think that their side is perfect & the other side is evil. So it would be good for the leaders of each side to go on TV & take turns expressing regret for the bad things that their side has done.
The Palestinians are.
There are lots of things in the USA named after former presidents who had slaves. Do you think that we should change the names?
Yes, for those who are mainly known for owning slaves. People known primarily for defending slavery, or for owning slaves, should not be celebrated. But in Israel, people who are terrorists get elected prime minister, and streets are named after them. This happens in a period when the terrorism is still widely known among Israelis.
Israel is very new, and all of this evil — including the foundational terrorism — is still entirely salient.
It’s important to make sure ever-increasing numbers of Americans and Europeans understand the truth of the Zionist terrorism that was essential to founding Israel. Far too many have no idea, which is why discussions like this are important.
A discussion about whether Israel’s naming their streets after their terrorists — about whether it’s like streets named after slave-holding U.S. presidents — is a win for the truth. So frankly, I don’t care about “winning” a rhetorical point about the president v. terrorist street names.
Evidence that Zionist terrorism was essential to founding Israel?
Truman was a terrorist. He could have destroyed the military targets in Hiroshima & Nagasaki with smaller bombs which would not have killed so many civilians. He used the atom bomb to terrorize the Japanese.
You’ve seen it, many times. You’ll see it again in the next thread where hasbara-ists inundate us. Because you are a hasbara troll and will show up again and again in the threads here touching on Israel. You’ll spew the same talking points for the umpteenth time, I and others will debunk them, and then you will again go on as if the facts that contradict you did not exist.
I haven’t see any evidence.
Ah, more lies from the hasbara troll. Don’t worry, you’ll see it yet again in the next thread touching on Israel.
You haven’t ever seen anything beyond the end of your stupid nose.
Should Washington, Jefferson & Franklin be taken off money?
The Palestinians are an indigenous population who are defending themselves, their families and their homeland against invasion, occupation and colonization by foreign terrorists, ethnic cleansers and murderers, which is their right and is not “terrorism”—but thank you for confirming (once again) that your precious foreign Zionist invaders, occupiers, colonizers, ethnic cleansers and murderers were and are filthy terrorists too.
You condemned both of your remaining brain cells to oblivion when you ingested all that Zionism.
Really, that’s the critical thing. The rest of this sparring with him and other hasbara trolls is just screwing around (and I have a novel to get back to).
There likely are not many readers left here, but such as there are, they learn that Zionists were rabid terrorists and still are — it’s now just state-conducted. The state their terrorism achieved.
I had not remotely known that when I was a Zionist — it absolutely floored me when I encountered the fact. In real life I find that almost no one over 40 in the general population realizes Israel was born in terror. (But some youngers do.)
Getting that mere fact out goes a long way to debunking the entire Zionist narrative.
In the 1920’s, Palestinians were shouting “The Jews are our dogs!” & “Islam was spread by the sword.” as they murdered innocent Jews.
How could Palestinians be defending themselves against Jews when Jews weren’t attacking them?
Yes, in the 1920s Palestinians were very angry at Zionists. There was a reason for that having entirely to do with what Zionists were doing to them, and explicitly and publicly planned to keep doing. Jabotinsky entirely understood that the Arabs were not going to passively accept the Zionists taking over their villages, cities and economy. As he correctly observed, no “colonised” (his word) people would.
There were white people who were angry when black people moved into their lily-white towns. That doesn’t mean that the white people were justified in murdering the black people.
Fucked-up analogy: Zionists are the white people — the ones who exploited and stole labor from the blacks. Palestinians are the black people, the exploited ones.
My analogy was good.
Zionists come in all colors.
Not all white people are the same.
Not all black people are the same.
Not all Zionists are the same.
Not all Palestinians are the same.
Your “analogy” was retarded.
What. A. Vapid. Window. Licker.
Haaretz: Black Lives Matter Endorses BDS: Israel Is ‘Apartheid State’
This can’t be stopped. The Palestinian cause grows more popular and high profile in the U.S. every day. It’s just a matter of time. The question is whether enough Israelis face reality soon enough to make the extreme course corrections necessary — to give restitution and some justice to Palestinians — to avoid complete implosion.
MIDDLE EAST EPHRAIM MIRVIS
24 FEBRUARY 2016
I grew up in South Africa, so believe me when I say: Israel is not an apartheid state
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2016/02/i-grew-south-africa-so-believe-me-when-i-say-israel-not-apartheid-state
Well of course. He’s the Chief Rabbi of the UK, Orthodox. And a militant Zionist. Israel’s victims, and fellow oppressed people in solidarity with them, all call it: apartheid. Because it is.
I’d say the African National Congress, and Desmond Tutu, know apartheid when they see it. And now Black Lives Matter does as well. They all call Israel an apartheid state.
You can’t stop this, Mr. Hasbara Troll. A pro-Palestinians steamroller is driving fast over the West. Comments sections — spewing crap in them — won’t stop it.
If you want to save the reputation of the people in Israel you’d do better to beg them to offer restitution and justice to the Palestinians — the world is going to shun and ostracize them until they do. In 10-12 years, pro-Palestinian will be a firmly mainstream position.
How does Black Lives Matter know more about whether or not Israel is apartheid than a man who has lived in both South Africa & Israel?
Black activists make it something of a point to understand apartheid and also know when it applies. If you think about why that might be so, it might come to you. (Many of them have been to Palestine and Israel, as have Desmond Tutu and some ANC members.)
You are losing. You cannot stop this. Hasbara crap absolutely cannot stop this. It’s grown too big, and the growth is exponential.
The only option Zionists have is to make restitution and give justice to Palestinians, or Israel is going to implode. Its secular young are leaving in droves, while the far-right religious fanatics are having lots of kids and taking over. What remains of the country is going to be a hideous nightmare and pariah of the world, including the Western one.
That’s untenable. To waste your time — even if Israel or a Zionist group pays you — posting drivel at an Internet comments section is sadly impotent and ignores the burning building.
Why Israel rather than Lebanon, Syria, or Iraq?
At least 300,000 Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon in what Human Rights Watch calls”appalling social and economic conditions.” They’re blocked from working in a variety of professions, and the Lebanese government has largely resisted granting them broader property rights.
… what I saw in the camps in Lebanon is far worse and far more hopeless. The conditions are unspeakable, but for over 400,000 of our fellow human beings this is their life: today, tomorrow and for a future that cannot even be foreseen. At least in Gaza, frightful though the situation is, the people are free within the confines of their blockaded prison. In the camps of Lebanon they are not free.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/11/30/palestinians-israel-settlements-arab-countries-refugees/
Which Black Lives Matter activist has lived in both South Africa & Israel?
A hasbara troll engages in…,whataboutery. It’s only the favorite hasbara fallacy. (Ad hominem and straw man are also extremely popular.)
Why not Israel?
Well, as black people they are not likely to want to live in Israel, or to be allowed to. It’s extraordinarily difficult for a non-Jew to gain permission to live there. BLM is, however, active in Israel by Ethiopian Jews whom Israel grossly discriminates against.
Because Israel is not apartheid.
Why not a country that actually is apartheid e.g. Lebanon, Syria or Iraq?
Israel is an apartheid state, and was predicted to become one by Yitzhak Rabin. In a recently discovered 1976 interview, Israel’s soon-to-be prime minister declared that the then-nascent (now robust and entrenched) West Bank settlement movement “comparable to a cancer,” and warned that Israel would become an “apartheid” state if it annexed the West Bank’s Arab population.
That has happened, and is why many, including Haaretz, say apartheid has manifested in Israel.
As a U.S. taxpayer, I pay for this apartheid and ongoing oppression of Palestinians. I do it with my money in direct subsidy to Israel, and my government gives Israel diplomatic cover, including at the UN.
Israel has not annexed the West Bank.
Yes it has. Almost completely. The WB is nothing now like it was in 1976.
Evidence that Israel has annexed the West Bank?
You’ve seen the maps.
In the map at the top of this article, the West Bank is clearly distinct from Israel proper.
You need to go tell those terribly precious foreign Zionist terrorists, occupiers, colonizers, ethnic cleansers, child murderers and land thieves of yours to get the fuck out of Palestine then—and pronto.
Evidence that these terribly precious foreign Zionist terrorists, occupiers, colonizers, ethnic cleansers and child murderers of yours have “annexed” even a square inch of territory outside the self-declared and explicitly defined 1948 borders of their ethnically cleansed Zionist apartheid colony?
The letter doesn’t say that Israel annexed the West Bank.
So you need to go tell those terribly precious foreign Zionist terrorists, occupiers, colonizers, ethnic cleansers, child murderers and land thieves of yours to get the fuck out of Palestine then—and pronto.
Your terribly precious foreign Zionist terrorists, occupiers, colonizers, ethnic cleansers and child murderers have not “annexed” a square inch of territory outside of the self-declared and explicitly defined 1948 borders of their ethnically cleansed Zionist apartheid colony.
Because Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are not apartheid.
Unlike your terribly precious ethnically cleansed Zionist apartheid colony in Palestine, which actually is apartheid.
The Palestinian community does not have Lebanese citizenship and therefore does not have Lebanese identity cards, is legally barred from owning property or legally barred form entering a list of desirable occupations.[3] Employment requires a government-issued work permit, and, according to the New York Times, although “Lebanon hands out and renews hundreds of thousands of work permits every year to people from Africa, Asia and other Arab countries… until now, only a handful have been given” to Palestinians.[1] Palestinians in Lebanon also have to heavily rely on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for basic services such as health care and education, because they are not granted much access to the social services the Lebanese government provides.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians_in_Lebanon
Thank you for your using your inane copypasta vomiting madskillz to highlight the plight of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and to affirm that Lebanon does not practice apartheid, unlike your precious ethnically cleansed Zionist apartheid colony in Palestine.
Are you new here? You spend quite a long time arguing with Greenwald’s sock puppets and lapdogs. Their arguments are usually illogical as their intent is simply to defend Greenwald and expose their anti Semite views.
This is how irrational their arguments can be:
1) Those lapdogs and sock puppets always refer to a Jewish conspiracy bla bla bla but If you put all US military aids to foreign countries together, then the predominantly Muslim nations (some of which are officially the enemy of Israel) receive way more aids than Israel. Some of those nations provide cash to Hamas openly!!
2) Those sock puppets and lapdogs are against US military support to Israel because Israel is responsible for human rights violations against the Palestinians. Although most of the US military aids (missile defense, Air Force hardware…) are designed for the defense of the state of Israel. Most of the weapons used against Palestinians are manufactured by Israelis themselves.
However,
3) The same people who are against the military aid to Israel are
“comforted to know some small amount is also given to Palestinians to support families of those who commit acts of resistance, even violent ones.”
“Acts of resistance” mean blowing up pizzerias, night clubs, buses packed with civilians.
Even when the Palestinians (Hamas) commit crimes against their own people those lapdogs and sock puppets would still blame the Israelis!
What exactly do they want? The US to stop aiding ALL human rights violators or just the human rights violators they do not like (the Jews)?
Pay attention and you shall notice the same commentators providing similar views: US imperialism, Israel apartheid…It is more entertainment than an intelligent discussion. Greenwald is a millionaire living in Rio. Like Noam Chomsky and many others they make millions by targeting a specific market of unsophisticated thinkers who comfort themselves by blaming the US for everything. I do not blame Greenwald. I congratulate him for his abilities to take advantage of simple minded individuals while relying on the US economic system to enrich himself.
We have such a “special” relationship with Israel that, alone of all countries to whom we give military aid, we let them spend out money on their own defense industry. Sweet deal for them at our expense.
Glenn Grenwald, by the way, is probably not a millionaire. He did make some money on the book rights to his Snowden work, but he’s never been wealthy. Indeed, he so hated working for Goldman Sachs’ favorite law firm that he resigned, abandoning a career trajectory that absolutely would have made him a multi-millionaire a long time ago.
I know all this because I’m his former law partner. As well as someone highly knowledgeable about the history of Zionism and Israel. Should you offer any arguments about that history — as opposed to your extended name-calling rant — I’ll address them.
You are not knowledgeable about anything. You are a crazy cat lady
Thanks for the info.
You are welcome!
Have you noticed how the lapdog quickly answered to defend her master?
“Greenwald is probably not a millionaire”
Greenwald must be praised for his ability to gather so many lapdogs behind him. Again, this is pure entertainment and the winner is Greenwald.
When Greenwald calls a company (Sony Corporation) a Nazi type propaganda arm of the US government the lapdogs quickly follows, attacking US media corporations, but when Greenwald is “very happy …to be working with Sony Entertainment” after he receives the paycheck the same lapdogs struggle to congratulate him.
This is just a comedy show. Check this argument
“Atrocities against the oppressor do not render a just cause unjust”
Are you really going to reason with somebody who believes that teenagers going to a night club, or even tourists visiting Jerusalem are “oppressors”? About citizens who live peacefully in other countries that have absolutely nothing to do with the Middle East? The Israelis are oppressing me, so I am going to kill the Argentinians!
Enjoy the show and laugh!
They’re not attacking them because they are kids in a pizzeria, any more than rebelling slaves killed white infants because they were babies. It has to do with who they are and their relationship to the political entities oppressing them. But you know this.
And again, your name-calling about Glenn Greenwald, me and various others is irrelevant to the vast amount of history I and others here post. But I do understand that you cannot address that — hand-waving about those of us who hold such knowledge is preferable than addressing it, from a Zionist perspective.
Thanks It has to do with who they are and their relationship to the political entities oppressing them for the entertainment. You should think about stand up comedy.
” It has to do with who they are and their relationship to the political entities oppressing them”
Yes, Hezbollah targets and kill civilians on the streets of Beirut because of those civilians relationship to Israel. You sound like an ISIS recruit: Damn the UK!! They are at war with Muslims! Well, I am going to Syria and Iraq to kill Muslims.
I am not sure whether you notice I have absolutely no interest in arguing with lapdogs. I laugh at them.
I repeat:
I know exactly who you are. Multiple of your accounts showed up at the same time. You’ve been banned many times. Should you continue, I will explain to readers the viciousness, real world-based attempt to harm, in which you have engaged and which has gotten you banned at more than one site.
Thanks again for the entertainment!
Do you really believe that teenagers going to a night club, or even tourists visiting Jerusalem are “oppressors”?
In the same way the infants slaves rebelling considered white infants to be their oppressors. I assure you, they reach their oppressors committing such acts.
White infants weren’t their oppressors.
Thank you.
Have you noticed how quickly one obtuse and comprehension challenged bigot and lapdog for israel answers the barks and whines of another obtuse and comprehension challenged bigot and lapdog for israel, and how quickly these obtuse and comprehension challenged bigots and lapdogs for israel are then able to resume the reflexive barking and whining with which they hope to “defend” their precious master?
Zionism must be condemned for its ability to turn so many brains into mush. Again, Zionism is pure ideological poison and there won’t be any winners until Zionism is seen for what it is, and neutered like Nazism was.
Are you really going to project your own delusional beliefs onto others and then claim that your delusional beliefs are somehow their beliefs? Are you really that psychotic?
Nah! This delusional shit show of yours really isn’t funny.
You did stumble upon a truth:
Virtually all severely oppressed people commit atrocities. The IRA did, the ANC did, yesteryear’s slave revolts were not pretty.
Palestinians are extremely and severely oppressed. All human groups have some members who, under such circumstances, and if able, resort to atrocities against their oppressor.
Those who commit this violent often have families. It’s entirely proper for their group to make sure their families are taken care of financially when they are incarcerated. It’s also entirely properer for the United States — which spends $billions helping to oppress them — to provide a tiny fraction of that amount to care for these families.
Atrocities against the oppressor do not render a just cause unjust. That was true for the ANC, the IRA and it’s true for the Palestinians.
The USA doesn’t spend any money to oppress anyone.
Better, more intelligent hasbara, please. Even many rightwingers reading that would know better.
Do you condone attacks targeting innocents?
Why does the Palestinian Authority give money to families of Palestinians who have murdered Jews, but not to families of Palestinians who have murdered other Palestinians? Why does it give more money if more Jews were murdered? The number of Jews murdered does not affect the needs of the family.
Ah, more lying again. Your own sources do not support most of that.
Please be specific.
By the way, I’ve found some Zionist sources on the Irgun and its history. So let’s make your claim clear: Are you claiming that Irgun was founded to commit terrorism against Arabs, and for no other reason? That it was founded only to kill innocent Arabs? (That’d be heinous, but let’s be sure that’s your position.)
I’ve found some, shall we say, interesting material to share, if that is what you claim. I’ll be back in several hours to see.
Irgun’s goal was to defend Jews from Arab attacks.
Their method was “active retaliation” which doesn’t have to mean terrorism, but in their case I think it did mean terrorism. By terrorism I mean attacks on innocents.
More child enemies of Israel.
I’m tired of Haaretz too, lets check out the other papers and see how lovely life is in the Jewish areas……
A bike path for everyone…everyone except eight year old non Jews…how lovely!!!
So an Israeli did something wrong & was punished by the Israeli government.
“When a Palestinian is convicted of an act of terror against…innocent civilians, such as a bombing or a murder, that convicted terrorist automatically receives a generous salary from the Palestinian Authority…incentivizing murder and terror against innocent civilians. ”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/british-american-aid-subsidises-palestinian-terrorism
So an armed and uniformed foreign Zionist occupier, colonizer and terrorist who was operating illegally in belligerently occupied Palestinian territory proceeds to abuse and terrorize an eight year old Palestinian child; so your precious zio-fascist occupier, colonizer and terrorist can thank his lucky stars that he isn’t worm food right now.
The occupation is not belligerent because it was the result of the aggressive Jordanian/Palestinian attack against Israel in 1967.
Why do you use the words “your precious?”
The occupation is belligerent because your precious zio-fascist colonizer terrorists and murderers are belligerently occupying Palestinian territory.
https://www.amazon.com/Mommy-Teach-Me-Preparing-Preschool/dp/0805444769
Americans need to know what they are paying for.
Americans need to know that aid given to the Palestinian Authority subsidizes
Palestinian terrorism.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/british-american-aid-subsidises-palestinian-terrorism
Well, no. U.S. aid to Palestinians is part of the “fungible” funds the Palestinian Authority controls, a fraction of which they use to pay those incarcerated for resistance actions and support their families. And yes, some of this resistance would meet most definitions of terrorism.
I’m grateful to you for finally bringing something to my attention that I had not known and which I’m glad to learn. Given the vast amounts we give Israel to oppress and slaughter Palestinians this is the very least we could do.
We give money to Israel to defend itself, not to oppress and slaughter.
Palestinians’ first priority is money to terrorists. They are encouraging people to murder innocents.
We give money to Israel to oppress and slaughter, which they do exceptionally enthusiastically and well. Israeli soldiers have used Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields more than 1200 times. We Americans help pay for that. We help pay for the protection that allows settlers to terrorize West Bank Palestinians and continue stealing their homes.
I’m comforted to know some small amount is also given to Palestinians to support families of those who commit acts of resistance, even violent ones. It’s the very least we could do.
We don’t give money to Israel to oppress and slaughter.
We give money to Israel to oppress and slaughter. Why I’d say it’s a formula! Steal some more land, bombard Gaza some more! Step it up, ladies and gentleman! Because as Israel gets worse and more heinous in its atrocities visited on Palestinians we pay them larger amounts of money in military aid.
Why, Palestinians just might have a hunch we don’t mean it when we occasionally grumble about settlements — all that happens is we write Israel bigger checks!
Do you ever even read any of the articles you feel compelled to vomit your inane zio copypasta under? Nah, of course you don’t. From the article:
So, yea, we do “give money to Israel to oppress and slaughter”; we give your precious Zionist terrorist state billions of dollars in military aid every year in fact, along with full and (near) unconditional diplomatic protection at the UN, and we do this precisely so that your precious zio terrorists in Ha-Yishuv can continue to invade, occupy, colonize, ethnically cleanse, dispossess, oppress and slaughter their way across the Middle East with impunity—i.e., continue what they started over a century ago, when Judaism was co-opted and Palestine was targeted for Zionist colonization.
Jeffrey Goldberg shooting (one of the few English language) messengers in Israel.
Gideon Levy hits the crux of the matter: “Behind this lies the greatest boorishness of all: the rather primitive idea that Israel’s critics are the ones giving it a bad name, not its actions and policies.”
That’s the same issue Max Blumenthal ran into regarding his book, Goliath. Eric Alterman had a temper tantrum about it in the Nation, dismissing it as the “I hate Israel handbook.” He conceded it was accurate, but still despised the work.
Telling the truth about Israel is “antisemtic” only if the truth is.
Now this is a good question: “How could Israel be the antidote to genocide when it was the product of imperialism and ethnic cleansing? “
Imperialism?
Which empire? Which is the mother country?
It’s a mother continent: Europe. Theodor Herzl wrote to Cecil Rhodes saying he had in mind for Jews what Rhodes was doing for Englishmen and that Zionists, as with “Rhodesia” would also be a European colonial project.
You know this. You’ve seen quotes from the letter many times.
A mother country is a country, not a continent.
Which empire?
Asked and answered.
I don’t see it.
Why not just answer again? It’s just 2 short answers.
Asked and answered.
Makes sense. What is the point of trying to achieve justice on your street, while you are sending billions of dollars to another country that will be used to destroy justice.
Benjamin Pogrund
“…during 26 years as a journalist in South Africa I investigated and reported the evil that was apartheid. I saw Nelson Mandela secretly when he was underground, then popularly known as the Black Pimpernel, and I was the first non-family member to visit him in prison.
I have now lived in Israel for 17 years, doing what I can to promote dialogue across lines of division. To an extent that I believe is rare, I straddle both societies. I know Israel today – and I knew apartheid up close. And put simply, there is no comparison between Israel and apartheid.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/22/israel-injustices-not-apartheid-state
He doesn’t grapple with the situation in the West Bank and Gaza. THAT is apartheid. His dismissing the word as “emotive” is not an argument.
There’s a reason the African National Congress calls Israel an apartheid state, as does Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and many, many international legal scholars. You are a hasbara troll who has seen copious documentation of facts and reasoning demonstrating why these people are right. You’ve been shown it here many, many times.
You can continue to post your drivel here, but it isn’t going to make the slightest dent to stop BDS and the growing world-wide understanding that Israel is an apartheid state. The primary thing your commenting does here is provide me and others fodder for posting vast amounts of fact that can only harm the Zionist cause. More than once I’ve been thanked for this information. They should thank you.
How is the situation in Gaza apartheid?
Gaza, like the West Bank, is essentially a Bantustan. The blockade Israel imposers harms the economy and political autonomy of the Palestinians living there. Gaza has been under an Israeli sea and air blockade since 2007, which has reduced Gaza’s GDP by 50%. Nearly 2 million Palestinians in Gaza are ‘locked in’, denied access to the rest of occupied Palestinian territory as well as the greater, outside world. Indeed, they are barred from leaving Gaza even to attend their own wedding.
There wouldn’t be a blockade if Gazans had not been murdering innocent Israelis. Israel has the right to defend itself by preventing the import of weapons.
This is hilarious. An official of the Christian charity World Vision has “confessed” under Israeli interrogation to diverting cash and being a Hamas member.
I see now why Israel has to bomb children, build walls around children, and torture children, there are enemies everywhere, …not just child enemies, but also the Christian charities that help children.
Which is the more challenging assignment, defending climate change denial, or defending Israeli apartheid?
Defending Israeli apartheid is easy and logical, as long as one starts from the premise that Palestinians are inherently bloodthirsty savages with an implacable and entirely irrational hatred of Jews. I’ve heard many such defenses, from friends, loved ones and even rabbis, and that’s always the premise, whether spoken or (more typically) implied.
According to the Anti-defamation League Survey,
93% of Palestinians are antisemitic.
http://global100.adl.org/public/ADL-Global-100-Executive-Summary.pdf
Go. Fucking. Figure.
(Actually the 93% figure refers not to Palestinians generally but specifically to residents of the West Bank and Gaza, 7 percent of whom are apparently either settlers or saints.)
It’s pretty amazing there are any Palestinians who speak out against antisemitism given the horror imposed on Palestinians by the self-described “Jewish State.” But as it happens, Ali Abunimah, Steven Salita, and many other Palestinian-American activists, have made it it clear they will not tolerate anti-Jewish hatred. The former has written denunciations of nutjobs like actual self-hating Jew, Gilad Atzmon.
It sounds like Ali Abunimah has a different definition of antisemitism.
http://brandeiscenter.com/blog/ali-abunimahs-orwellian-definition-of-anti-semitism/
Gator90 – “What abject nonsense. “
Mona – “We’ve certainly been infested with them at this site “
One’s tempted to be annoyed….but I find it a sign of hope that the only thing that Israeli government backers have… is easily refuted nonsense.
In the past, way back in the Salon days of these comment threads, I put out the call for anyone to give me their best honest defence of Israeli policy. One or two did, and that was refreshing. It’s been a long time since anyone of good will, and sanity has attempted to make the case for Israeli apartheid.
They have the centralized, monopolized control that corrupts. “3 M” – Money, Media and Military.
Hasbara trolls afflict Wikipedia
We’ve certainly been infested with them at this site, but we aren’t alone. Naturally Israel and it’s allied private Zionist propagandists would want to distort Wikipedia entries touching on Israel. Unfortunately for them, The Electronic Intifada busted the trolls by obtaining their secret emails.
The Boston Globe then reported about these Zionist hacks from, in this case, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA):
After EI broke the story, Wikipedia suspended these trolls: “That got Wikipedia’s attention. A panel of three administrators sanctioned or indefinitely blocked and banned five members of Ini’s group.”
Any online venue considered at all influential will attract these pests. So while this site is special, it’s not that special.
The Jews were the only people who benefited from WWII and they still are, wake up people you are being made a fool of.
Six million Jews were murdered during WWII.
Israel is an apartheid state, Part 6,903
Video: Israeli soldier assaults child playing on Jews-only road
Israel should be given a deadline in which to sign the Memo of Understanding. After that decrease the amount offered substantially for an extra month and then rescind the MOU entirely. That would put a stop to all this nonsense.
As for Shillary – she wants to take the U.S.-Israel relationship “to the next level.” Does she think the present level—the highest amount of foreign aid to a nation the U.S. provides annually, despite Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land that the U.S. and the rest of the world officially oppose—inadequate?
Please tell us Shillary – Please define exactly what the US “national interest” is with Israel.
Why is ineffectual resistance to brutal occupation considered terrorism, yet the occupation itself, which takes a horrific toll on all Palestinians on a daily basis, considered acceptable?
By totally erasing any nod, any mention, any compassion toward the slaughter of Palestinian children, women and men in their homes, schools and hospitals, you make a mockery of your touted Methodist upbringing by declaring concern for children everywhere, that is, of course, except Palestinian children.
What matters is that all the foolishness clustering around the Clinton candidacy must end. Clearing out the sewage and the stink is a daunting task because so much of it is so deeply entrenched. But, yes, we can.
Glenn Greenwald you’re the best…Also, US is giving ‘free money’ to Israel. This time it is going to be 50 billions or more…US is giving ‘free money’ to Israel, and Israel wants more. US taxpayers are clueless.
https://truenewswebsite.wordpress.com/
The Palestinian Lawsuit Against the Balfour Declaration http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/07/abbas-balfour-declaration-lawsuit/493424/
“Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian National Authority president, said the Palestinian Authority would sue Britain for its support of the Balfour Declaration, a document which in 1917 laid the groundwork for Israel’s founding, according to Haaretz. ”
Hope this lawsuit gets filed, it will at least help clear the flawed ideas of Israel/ Palestine history that Zionists use to support their illegal occupation of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of Arab Palestinians.
The occupation of the West Bank was the result of the Jordanian/Palestinian attack against Israel in 1967. (In 1948, instead of declaring independence, the Palestinians of the West Bank asked for union with Jordan.) The Jordanian/Palestinian attack against Israel was a land grab.
So the occupation is legal.
No one would have been displaced if Palestinians had not been murdering innocent Jews.
“No one would have been displaced if Palestinians had not been murdering innocent Jews.”
What abject nonsense. We, the Jews, premeditatedly displaced Palestinians as necessary to secure our precious Jewish majority. How could we have a “Jewish state” without a durable Jewish majority? So a large number of Arabs had to go. It’s just simple arithmetic. Many Jewish Zionists acknowledge this. (Some sleep soundly at night; some don’t.) But then others, like you, just lie and lie and lie. You make me sick.
Herzl, the father of Zionism, did want the Arabs to leave. But he never advocated Jews expelling Arabs by force. It was Arabs who began violence against the Jews. By 1947, before any Arabs fled, Jews were already a majority in the area assigned by the United Nations for the Jewish State. In addition, there were hundreds of thousands of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in displaced persons camps in Europe who were eager to come to Palestine giving the Jewish state a strong majority of Jews.
After the war, Israel could have expelled all gentiles as Arabs expelled all Jews from East Jerusalem, the West Bank & Gaza, but it didn’t. Israel today has 1.6 million Arabs.
And as you are well aware, the Second Father of Zionism — of the political Zionism that prevailed — explicitly advocated force in the 1920s. Israel ethnically cleansed 80% of the indigenous Arabs and locked them up in Gaza and in the West Bank. Some fled to Jordan.
The UN had no right or authority to “assign” Arab land to anyone. Moreover, when the Zionist terrorists ethnically cleansed the Arabs they greatly exceeded the territory of the UN proposal.
The UN had gotten involved because the British were withdrawing due to Zionist terrorism. Zionist terrorists achieved their goal. The State of Israel exists as a fruit of terrorism.
Why would the Jews fight & die for land when they could just buy it?
They did that, too. As you are aware, they also took it by terrorism. This is not disputed by anyone serious.
Jewish terrorism was in response to Palestinian terrorism.
Nope. It was to get rid of the British and to kill and oppress fellow Jews who didn’t want to oppress and kill Palestinians. It did make the British leave, and thus made terrorism successful.
Zionists have no standing to object to Palestinian terrorism. Not unless they repudiate their own founding and the myriad Israeli streets named after Zionist terrorists. Not to mention Israeli two prime minsters who had been terrorists as identified on Palestinian Police wanted posters.
Palestinian terrorism began in 1920.
I condemn all terrrorism. Do you?
No. You don’t. You defend a state founded in terrorism, and have never uttered a word of condemnation of that terrorism. Moreover, you are aware that Israel elected 2 terrorists as prime minister, and that it has dozens of streets named for Zionist terrorists.
You condemn none of that. Nor do any other Zionists to speak of. Becasue Zionists approve of their terrorism, and only oppose it for Arabs. A former director of Shin Bet has even recently strongly implied that Jewish terrorism is ok in certain circumstances (he meant before Israel existed).
No Zionist has any moral authority to condemn terrorism.
So the father of Zionism wanted the Arabs to leave, and in the late 1940s hundreds of thousands of Arabs obligingly “fled.” How convenient. From what or whom were they fleeing, exactly?
In 1947, Palestinians started a war against the Jews. War creates refugees.
You didn’t answer my question. From what or whom were they fleeing, exactly? (Please be more specific than “war.”)
Palestinians were fleeing from Jewish fighters & Jews were fleeing from Arab fighters.
You mean Arabs were fleeing from Jewish terrorists who were stealing their land. Albert Einstein, among many others, condemned the Zionist terrorism.
Israel (and their lackeys) accusing the Palestinians of what Israel did is a classic tactic.
In psychology it’s called projection.
Israel attacked in 1967 in a massive land grab.
International law was changed after WWII to make territorial acquisition through aggression a war crime. Israel is in blatant violation of the law.
The occupation is illegal, in addition to being immoral… and 50 years later unjustifiable.
It should be noted that even Israel’s closest allies and the UN state that the settlements are illegal, so Israel is alone in the wilderness when claiming otherwise.
Furthermore, the ongoing settlement and annexations of Palestinian land and oppression of the legal Palestinian residents is compounding their criminality.
Your hasbara lies are disgusting.
Israel withdrew from the Sinai in 1956 with the proviso that the Straits of Tiran remain open to Israel.
Nasser closed the Straits violating the cease fire. If Israel had sent a ship through the Straits, Egypt would have fired on the ship. Israel would then have attacked Egyptian artillery. War.
Israel was not the aggressor. Occupation is NOT territorial acquisition.
Nearly everything you write is either a lie or deception from half-truths. The above is no exception. You almost never link to a source, and there is a reason for that.
Here are the outlines of Plan Dalet, approved by Ben Gurion, to drive the Palestinians from their homes:
1. Kill the Palestinian political leadership.
2. Kill the Palestinian incites and their financial supporters.
3. Kill the Palestinians who acted against Jews.
4. Kill senior Palestinian officers and officials.
5. Damage Palestinian transportation.
6. Damage the sources of Palestinian livelihoods: water wells, mills, etc.
7. Attack nearby Palestinian villages likely to assist in future attacks.
8. Attack Palestinian clubs, coffee houses, meeting places, etc.
All of the above is very well documented in Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.”
There are those than deny that the Holocaust ever happened. You, Green, are no different from the Holocaust deniers.
Plan Dalet was in response to Arab attacks.
In other word, Plan Dalet was self-defense.
You are a lying hasbara troll. You quote-mine and lie constantly, and unrepentantly. And you are lying now.
Even if that were the truth, Plan Dalek constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Arab attacks against Jews were war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Do you condemn them?
“Arab attacks against” foreign zio-Jew invaders, colonizers, ethnic cleansers and murderers aren’t “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
You condemned your useless brain when you ingested all that Zionism.
Right after you condemn Plan Dalek, Operation Protective Edge, the Nakba, and the myriad other war crimes and crimes against humanity the powerful Zionist oppressor commits and has committed against the victim, the Palestinians. Condemning victims isn’t as important as condemning a powerful and ongoing oppressor.
I condemn any terrorism associated with Plan Dalek, Operation Protective Edge, the Nakba.
Your turn.
This is shameful. Why are we sending a well fed person more food? Why is the media silent on this? Surely the news that the top recipient of US aid is going to get EVEN more not covered and discussed? We have children starving here in the US, and I am sure there are many Americans who would be interested in this important news item? Now would be an ideal time for the US to demand that Israel end the occupation, stop the illegal settlements, and give the Palestinians their freedom, as the conditions for getting that aid. To not act on that simply shows the US is complicit in Israel’s crimes. To think the Obama administration was able to lay down conditions before agreeing to the Iran deal, and not be able to make demands or lay down conditions when it comes to Israel is unbelievable.
The Occupation is a matter of life & death for the Israelis. Because Israel pulled out of Gaza, the Palestinians were able to launch thousands of rockets & mortars killing or wounding 2,000 Israelis. If Israel pulls out of the West Bank, even more Israelis will be killed or wounded.
If you want to end the occupation, encourage Palestinians to accept a 2-state solution. Right now, most Palestinians don’t want a 2-state solution. They want Palestine from the river to the sea. They want Israel destroyed. They’ve always wanted Israel destroyed. They don’t care about independence. If they cared about independence, they would have declared independence in 1948. Instead, they asked for union with Jordan.
A mishmash of lies, half-truths and bullshit, from our persistent hasbara troll. Israel is morally obligated to make restitution to the Palestinians and to stop occupying them.
As Moshe Dayan said, Zionists created the reasons Palestinians seek to harm them. Israel is obligated to moot them.
The first black president supports a corrupt, genocidal and evil government. Th
We give money to the Palestinian Authority which uses that money to reward Palestinians who kill Jews. The more Jews they kill, the more money they get.
That is a lie.
How British and American aid subsidises Palestinian terrorism
“…the more serious the act of terrorism, the longer the prison sentence, and consequently, the higher the salary…”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/british-american-aid-subsidises-palestinian-terrorism
Once again, your own source does not support your lie. You described it as a virtual bounty: “The more Jews they kill, the more money they get.” That said, and to my enormous surprise, there is a basis in reality for what you claimed. (That is very rare.)
This is a program for taking care of Palestinians and their families when they’ve been convicted for resistance. Rather obviously, their families must be cared for. I have no objection to this whatsoever. It’s the very least we can do. Altho, it’s only because of the “fungibility” of funds that it can be said “we” pay for this.
Why should what their families get depend on how many innocent Jews they’ve killed?
I agree. Their families should get more whenever one of the many non-innocent Jews who are rewarded for maiming and murdering innocent Palestinians with impunity is killed.
Ir doesn’t — no source you’ve provided says otherwise. This isn’t a bounty.
The U.S. and Europe run around closing mosques and blaming imams for “radicalizing” those that have committed “terrorist” acts. One cause of radicalization is precisely the actions of the U.S. funding the apartheid, terrorist Zionist project. So why are we surprised when civilians in the US and Europe are attacked, when the U.S. funds attacks against civilians in the Zionist project?
South African MP Rev. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe wrote in the San Francisco Examiner, “As a black South African who lived under apartheid, this system was implemented in South Africa to subjugate people of color and deny them a variety of their rights. In my view, Israel cannot be compared to apartheid in South Africa. Those who make the accusation expose their ignorance of what apartheid really is.”
Yes, the hasbara troll actually gets a quote correct. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe is a fundamentalist Christian who supports Israel due to the End Times beliefs of many such Christians. He’s not well-regarded in South Africa because of his religious intolerance.
The African National Congress is strongly supportive of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and has declared that Israel is an apartheid state. Archbishop Desmond Tutu also is firm in his position that Israel practices apartheid.
Desmond Tutu said: “Whether Jews like it or not, they are a peculiar people. They can’t ever hope to be judged by the same standards which are used for other people.”
That means that we should not accept as Gospel anything Desmond Tutu says if it concerns the Jews because he’s biased.
You are a lying and deceptive hasbara troll. As you’ve been repeatedly told, there is no sourcing for that claimed Tutu quote. Zionists lie, and this is a lie. No one cites the time and place Tutu supposedly said this, because it did not happen. You know this. You’ve been told it.
And how fucking hilarious that you would claim anyone’s judgment on Israel is unacceptable because they are “biased?” Do you have any capacity for self-awareness?
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/1742/bishop-tutu-is-no-saint-when-it-comes-to-jews
Religion News Service, 28 November 1984 as quoted in
The Jewish Wars, Edward Alexander, page 67
https://books.google.com/books?id=cORN_jFRjSMC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=Whether+Jews+like+it+or+not,+they+are+a+peculiar+people.&source=bl&ots=uasAedsztI&sig=7btf5nw5VIc6N2q_ch6ELDJ6DqI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNjazfxIzOAhVj7YMKHfLjAq0Q6AEIPTAE#v=onepage&q=Whether%20Jews%20like%20it%20or%20not%2C%20they%20are%20a%20peculiar%20people.&f=false
Tutu apparently said that to a friendly audience at a Jewish Theological Seminary. You and your sources are almost certainly taking it out of context. He was almost certainly commiserating with Jewish people about their historical treatment.
But at least you sourced it. I’m quite certain this is quote-mining, i.e., taking something out of context to make it mean the opposite of what the man was saying. Which you and other Zionists do only because Desmond Tutu calls Israel’s apartheid apartheid.
Come back on this when you can provide the entire text of his remarks to that Jewish audience.
The US does not fund attacks against civilians.
Not only does it fund them, it commits them.
Israel boomig economy is a sham it works only with US tax payer money, no wonder this guys in the middle East laugh.
Everyone should read this argument by Israeli Professor Efraim Inbar titled “The Destruction of Islamic State is a Strategic Mistake”.
http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=7e381afc91d1b09aec08b492b&id=820a5c6db6
What does this tell us about real Israeli and US interests in the middle-east and in the so-called war on terror. And it also shows us how the West thinks about human lives which matter and human lives which do not matter.
Though discussions such as this are taking place in the context of US Presidential elections, the responsibility of American people does not simply end at voting. As the Bushes, Clinton and Obama administrations showed, it really does not matter if the Republicans win or the Democrats. Decisions on US foreign policy including on US policy towards Palestine/ Israel emanate from a structure larger than the POTUS.
So what can then bring change, is a continued conversation among Americans and their Government occurring all the time, not just around elections on US foreign policy. And of course this conversation should be informed by facts and knowledge, it should include political organization and agitation if necessary. The US Government will not change course until the American people force them to. And only the American people (who are really in the present day, the most privileged human beings on Earth) can do this.
Many times I envision a HUGE electronic BILLBOARD along highways spotlighting the tallies of BILLIONS of US TAX DOLLARS being consistently sent to Israel. Like the ones you see telling us the climate of the air we breath.
Oh how I relish the idea…
Then underneath that a HUGE picture of the Palestinian oppression.
Then post underneath that…
Netanyahu: “Once we squeeze all we can out of the United States, it can dry up and blow away”
What about a HUGE electronic BILLBOARD along highways spotlighting the tallies of BILLIONS of US TAX DOLLARS being consistently sent to Palestinians, Egyptians, Chinese, etc.?
We benefit from Israel. How do we benefit from tax dollars sent to Palestinians, Egyptians, Chinese, etc.?
But not military aid. That’s specifically precluded. The humanitarian aid we provide is the very least we can do because we pay for their ongoing oppression and impoverished situation. Israel purposely keeps them impoverished.
1,700 millionaires in Gaza.
That is another obscene lie. Only low-rent cesspools such as FrontPage magazine report that, and the sourcing is to some claimed Fatah operative. It all comes from this:
Did you see that? One of the poorest places in the world.”Fatah claimed.” Fatah and Hamas are enemy Arab parties, and to believe any extraordinary negative claims one makes about the other without documentation is preposterous.
But you are a hasbara troll, simply spewing bullshit. It’s what you do. It’s all you do.
So we don’t benefit from Palestinians?
These Hasbarists really do drown out insightful commentary with their repetitive propaganda. Mona you’re doing a good job of challenging them, yet there is an unintended consequence of overwhelming an enlightening commentary section with a drawn-out argument on repeat. A potential solution for the IT team in charge of the comment section at TI would be to makes comments that are repeated by the same user collapsable. That may reduce the chaos without “censoring.” Yet the open conversation is so valuable that steps moving towards censorship should be avoided. I get the feeling that a necessary national debate is occurring here, of historical importance, in which all can participate, and the truth prevails.
Jack Green is a hasbara troll. My comment here explains, with citation to journalist Max Blumenthal, who these pests are and why they do what they do. Nothing they post can or should be believed.
Where in the Constitution is the authority for the US gvt to STEAL from Americans “via taxation” and then take those stolen monies and give it to any foreign country? I dare anyone to point it out!
Steal?
Sixteenth amendment
What Apartheid?, Part 4,856
Rest here.
Discrimination is not apartheid.
Apartheid means separation.
You are a hasbara troll who has, many times, seen copious documentation that Israel is an apartheid state. Apartheid means both separation and discrimination. In Israel proper, Jews generally discriminate to keep Arabs in separate housing and neighborhoods.
So the US is apartheid because we discriminate based on race, ethnicity & gender?
The U.S. does not adopt laws and policies to enforce apartheid. Israel does.
Are you denying the US practices Affirmative Action.
To repeat: The U.S. does not adopt laws and policies to enforce apartheid. Israel does
Again:
Are you denying the US practices Affirmative Action.?
Gator90’s position with regards to who they vote for and why really isn’t any more complicated than that; and it’s the largest form of uninformed voting in America.
It’s what’s given us neoliberalism and the vastly unequal society we live in today.
This argument boils down to “Gator90’s potential discomfort later trumps my actual discomfort now.”
This is why taking the position that whatever your group decides is OK with you isn’t OK with me, especially when you disavow others votes on the disingenuous trope that “but you’re vote will lead us all to disaster!”
I’ve heard this same claim for over 30 years. One of my favorites: “We can’t give the instructional aides (or any other low pay, part time person) health insurance, too! It’ll bankrupt us!”
This, despite the fact that it’s the employees that already have health insurance who were making this unsupportable claim.
Fuck that. I’ve pushed back against this nonsense all my life.
This position is the height of selfishness and hypocrisy, especially as those making this claim are almost always making the same claim that they are a Democrat, and therefore liberal and progressive, too.
This “not in my back yard” mentality is the primary driver behind why we’re where we are today: progressively and liberally and democratically and hypocritically providing a generation and more with unequal pay, uninsured and under-insured fellow citizens, a crumbling infrastructure, and wars without end. The list goes on.
I’ll join the disgusted, here, in agreeing that Gator90’s position is clearly a selfish, fearful vote for them staying the same (or at least not being harmed much), while the “others,” the rest of us second-class progressives can continue the slow and inevitable descent into hell.
Life’s too short to try to decipher all your ramblings, but apparently you believe people who vote Democrat are responsible for all the nation’s ills because they don’t want instructional aides getting insurance in their backyard. Or something.
I do recall hearing vaguely similar (though generally more coherent) rants from Nader voters in 2000. And the dead of Iraq stare up from the ground.
Hillary defenders bringing up the war she helped sell and voted for to justify their support?
As Jill Stein recently said-
Supporters of the Democratic Party are required to have selective amnesia.
BTW, how many registered Dems in Florida voted for Bush again?
Well instead of insinuating that Nader was to blame for Iraq, maybe you’d be persuaded by facts (although I doubt it given our history), and blame the correct group for Gore losing to Bush–registered Democratic Party members.
Because the simple truth of the matter is only 24,000 (former) Democrats voted for Ralph Nader in Florida whereas 308,000 (registered) Democrats voted for Bush. The vote total difference in the state of Florida was about 537 votes.
Presumably you are smart enough to do the simple math of who is really to blame for Gore’s loss to Bush? Here’s a hint (Gore and at least 538 of 308,000 Democratic Party members in the state of Florida who voted for Bush).
Like I said, I’m always shocked some people get a decent score on the LSAT, graduate from law school, and can pass the bar exam given they can’t grasp basic logic or basic math.
Gole also lost his home state of TN. It’s most definitely Gore’s fault that he didn’t get more votes. If you can’t win your home state, don’t blame Nader for losses elsewhere.
Well, in fairness, how many Democrats have carried Tennessee in recent decades? But sure, there were lots of ways Gore could have won. One of them was by winning Tennessee. Another was by self-identified liberals, progressives and lefties who voted for Nader in Florida (based on the profound delusion that there was no significant difference between Bush and Gore) voting for Gore instead.
You then list almost nothing that puts the responsibility of being electable onto those seeking to be our representatives. The bizarre thinking you exhibit has this responsibility thing ass-backwards: the voters are somehow beholding to the candidates?
Gore had the responsibility to earn the voters support. He didn’t do it. The same with Hillary in 2008.
Preemptively blaming individual voters with “if not Hillary, we get Trump!” is nothing more than blaming the victims – and those victims, pro-Trump supporters and anti-Hillary folks alike are a direct result of yours and other voters poor decision making in the past.
The Bush voters and the Nader voters collaborated to defeat Gore. Some of the people who helped defeat Gore are now repentant, and some are not. The repentant Bush voters are currently known as “Democrats.” The unrepentant Bush voters are Republicans. The repentant Nader voters are Democrats. The unrepentant Nader voters are now Jill Stein voters. Hopefully there will not be enough Stein voters to help throw the election to Trump as the Nader voters did for Bush.
This is bullshit:
Your whole comment is unadulterated crap.
Moreover, Gore’s VP pick was Joe fucking Lieberman. If you really think that ticket would not also have invaded a Muslim country in addition to Afghanistan, you are on drugs.
Above is from the article Mona cited.
Tellingly, by not asking for a full recount (as was his right) Gore’s partial recount (which ended recounting altogether) and thus his implicit distrust of democracy cost the election, not any of the voters.
Democrats as an institution didn’t trust democracy then or now – and Gator90’s displacement of the blame is simply another coping mechanism used by those that don’t accept responsibility for their (and/or their party’s or groups) actions.
“The Bush voters and the Nader voters collaborated to defeat Gore”
Registered Democrats voting for Bush in Florida are the “Bush voters” to whom you are referring?
Or are just ignoring the culpability of the members of your own party and trying to change the subject, the same way you are ignoring Hillary’s culpability for the Iraq war?
Talk about ramblings needing deciphering.
Please do clarify.
That’s the lazy, selfish reply that I’ve been getting for decades from Democrats that have abdicated their responsibilities to vote responsibly by simply voting for the party rather than thinking critically and voting for policies that truly will benefit most of us most of the time, and not just some of us most of the time.
It’s nothing short of an off-shoot of the magical thinking inherent in any ideology where group-think supplants critical thinking, whether that’s found in the Democratic party, the GOP, or in Israel worship or religion.
What’s truly disturbing is that although you’ve kicked the lazy habit of group think in the case of Israel and its blatant violations of human dignity with regards to the Palestinians, that same realization hasn’t yet made you see that making those same blank-check endorsements that have demonstrably harmed your fellow citizens over the years with regards to Democratic neoliberal policies is exactly the same bad behavior.
Not sort of. The same.
You still choose a group (Israel, Democrats) over your fellow citizens (or Palestinians) with far too much ease for me.
I could care less if what you did and do doesn’t affect me and mine but it does, has, and will continue to do so so long as such lazy-ass thinking prevails.
For heavens sake, Gator90 – at least examine your self-delusion.
If people have been telling you for decades that life’s too short to try to decipher your ramblings, you might want to consider the possibility that you do tend to ramble a bit.
With that said, you make an interesting point with regard to the connection between my former longstanding loyalty to Israel and my current longstanding loyalty to the Democratic Party. Maybe I’m the sort of person who needs to be on a team. Team Israel ultimately proved untenable. We’ll see how it goes with Team Donkey. In any event, I’ll think about it.
What I’ve been told by (mostly) Democrats over the years is exactly what I stated here: that change that negatively affects them is always too much change because it hurts their interests.
As I said in a previous comment:
What I tried to do, and what progressive social movements try to do, is shift that discomfort back to those who already hold power. For example, the argument I and others made in attempts to convince other (mostly) Democrats that providing teacher-aides with health care fell on deaf ears because they were convinced that it would bankrupt the school district.
Guess what? After a decade and a half of pushing back against that still unproven notion, enough progressive members were finally elected to the school board to actually study the claim of teacher aides + health care = insolvency and found it to be bullshit. They opted to change the policy, and lo and behold, fifteen years have passed with no insolvency as a result – only a better cared for workforce with a much improved retention rate.
No. You’re the sort of person that objects to you being uncomfortable later moreso than you object to others being uncomfortable now.
In this case you and the Democrats call that teamwork – I call it selfish – and Trumps rise in power is a direct result of allowing that thinking and the public policies it creates to continue.
Now that I understand a little better what you’re saying about me, I can tell you how wrong you are. I don’t expect to be made personally uncomfortable as a result of any future political trends, barring some massive violent revolution and resulting dystopia which I doubt will occur. I’m not rich but my job is pretty much recession-proof and my family and I will likely be fine regardless of who is running things now or in the future. It is precisely the “others” that I care about. I vote Democrat because I think the Democrats are a lot better for the “others” than the Republicans are. That may make me any number of things, but the notion that I am motivated by selfishness is not well taken.
Then your argument that you are not “motivated by selfishness” is even more indefensible than I thought, given your position in life.
You are the “comfortable type” of Democrat that I was speaking of before; those that actually have much of the safety-net already, so that what they should be pushing for is real progressive change for others, but instead continue to mindlessly vote for policies that don’t actually allow these others to join them.
This, despite all of the evidence, including the rise of Trump, etc., to the contrary?
Those, like me, who left the Democratic party years ago, and those just now beginning to join in voting for progressive causes are, remarkably but predictably are being joined by Trump fans in upsetting this applecart; not because Trump is a great orator, but because the two party system is morally bankrupt and innefective at addressing the needs of far too many.
It never is by those who are being called out for being willfully ignorant.
I don’t mind being called ignorant — perhaps I am — but “selfish” is an unwarranted slander.
There are a number of adjectives one might use to describe a self-styled progressive who thinks the “rise of Trump” is a positive development that redeems the GOP, but I don’t feel like being mean.
None of which impove your argument for placing the Democratic party above individual voters one iota.
You persist in making these passive-aggressive comments that allude to me somehow attacking you as a person, while it’s your position on voting that I’m addressing. Let’s stick to the latter formula.
Speak plainly. I try to. What I said was Trump and the millions of disaffected voters, conservative and liberal alike, have arisen as a direct result of Democratic/GOP/neoliberal policies.
The GOP has been unredeemable for quite some time; the Democrats, because of their (and your) advocating an incrementalist/neoliberal shift to the right is not far behind.
Nor I. I also feel like not getting run over again by this dysfunctional, two-party system.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Apologies – the URL above went AWOL. The link is here.
Forgetting for the moment if what I say to an anonymous person on the internet can legally be considered slanderous in the first place – is what I and others have been saying truly “unwarranted?”
“What I and others have been saying” is a broad and vague topic. I’m sure some things said to or about me in this thread have been warranted and some not. I objected specifically to being called selfish, which I think is very much unwarranted, and slanderous not in the legal sense but in the commonly understood sense of being maliciously false. In plainer terms, it’s fucking bullshit and you know it’s fucking bullshit.
No, it’s not; what I and others have been saying are within the 800+ comments here and those are easily searchable.
By the way – that means that what you just said is another example of you being willfully ignorant.
Your actions, specifically with regards to how you abdicate your individual responsibility of voting by giving it to the Democratic party carte blanche is one issue I object to (for the easily searchable reasons I have already mentioned) as is your suggestion that others, by not doing as you do, are somehow aiding and abetting a Trump presidency.
You methodology of democracy and it’s undertones of American exceptionalism and the associated group-think (what those in my party or group or race say is good enough for me!) has led to our democracy’s decline, and aided in Trumps ascendancy.
Aligned with those sentiments is a question asked by Glenn Greenwald on Twitter:
Your willful ignorance and deflection is astounding. I never said or implied any such thing.
I said and implied that when people from whatever party or group choose, as you do, to abdicate their personal responsibility to think for themselves and hand over their vote to a party to do their bidding for them then they (you) are the problem, not a solution.
I’ll give another example of this astonishingly lazy, “follow the leader” mindset that has plagued attempts at progressive change from within the Democratic party for decades.
This while discussing who we’ll vote for, from a young black woman (@Mamas_Spot) on Twitter:
Unthinking Democrats are the problem in this case – as I stated clearly and repeatedly all along.
Voters may think the following ways:
Jill Stein/Gary Johnson 1: I’m a progressive and I align myself with her policies. I’m not interested in whether she’s going to win or lose. My vote is sacred and I’m voting my conscience.
Jill Stein/Gary Johnson 2: I hate both of those other candidates and I’m voting for Jilll or Gary.
Hillary 1: I like her because she’s a woman, and I believe women are better leaders than men.
Hillary 2: I like her because of all her experience (despite the fact that she’s never demonstrated good judgment in her life). I want things to remain the same.
Hillary 3: I’m scare shitless of what might happen under a Trump presidency and I’ll vote for whomever has the greatest chance of beating him despite all the flaws of that other candidate.
Trump 1: I hate Muslims. I think they should be banned. I also don’t like Mexicans. America for Europeans. I’m voting for Trump.
Trump 2: I’m too busy with my two jobs to follow politics. But I like the fact that Trump is a successful White Male WASP. Finally I’ll have my country back.
The above are all reasons people can rationally have, regardless of whether the positions are correct or incorrect. The fault is not with the voter, who has limited time in a day. The fault lies with the media more than anything else. Until people stop watching CNN and Fox and MSNBC, things are not going to change. I don’t see how it’s the fault of the voter for being uninformed or unaware. It’s totally the fault of the media.
I think you missed a big one–Hillary: I will feel so warm and fuzzy and “liberal” helping elect our first woman president that I will probably wet my pants.
(That’s not me talking. I’m not voting for her. But I hear enough of these types of inane comments to think that these voters will have an impact.)
Its’ precisely because that’s wholly inapplicable to Gator that I am so appalled. As you know, he’s been a regular Glenn reader for years and so knows all the reasons why Hillary Clinton is corrupt and immoral. He voted for her in the Florida primary, and in this thread has carried on like a teen girl does over the latest heart throb over meeting and (gag) touching the woman.
That’s completely inane. Willful ignorance is still ignorance, and folks, especially those that peruse sites like the Intercept and writers like Glenn simply have no good reason to excuse such behaviors.
The voters are responsible for their own votes, and the candidate is responsible for gaining those votes.
That voters like Gator90 abdicate that responsibility and give it to those they vote for is the most irresponsible thing of all when it comes to democracy, and remains the reason for our collective lack of progress, whatever excuses that Gator90 or others try to convince us with otherwise.
It’s not an abdication of responsibility. Even when armed with all the information, people are able to rationalize themselves into voting for different people. One may not one to vote for Hillary, but how can one blame somebody for wanting to vote for Hillary, to keep out Trump, given all the same information?
Look, I’m not American, but I love US politics, and I am “entertained” by it, and can decided that I really like Jill Stein. But it’s really academic for me. My brother, on the other hand, is an American, and an Atheist Muslim, like myself, and raising his kids as Atheists. He hates Trump so much, he voted in the GOP primary, just to vote against Trump. While I may sing songs about Jill Stein, he has no patience for her. He just wants “no Trump.” People can have the same political/religious backgrounds, read The Intercept, and still come to different conclusions.
It is if you claim, as I do, that voters are responsible for their own vote – and implicit in that is the responsibility of making an educated one.
Fobbing the individual responsibilities of critical thinking off onto any party, ethnicity, race, gender, or ideology is irresponsible.
The given record isn’t up to date. The gap between both expectancies of live is still widening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
To say that Israel is slaughtering innocent people, is a gross over simplification of the situation and any honest or knowledgeable person would know that.
In war innocent people always suffer. This has been true since the first recorded histories of mankind. Now who started the last war by killing innocent people is the question that needs to be asked before other questions. Yes, the people of Gaza suffer, but this is by design by their own government to turn them into their own population into their future martyrs.
Living in peace is hard, particular with unsustainable population growth. One child per family would solve all their problems and most of the world’s, for that matter, but the religious fanatics would never agree to this.
This is a lie, one that is beyond disgusting. In point of fact, It is Israel that uses Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields — it has done that at least 1200 times according to its Supreme Court.
Those four Palestinian boys playing soccer on a Gazan beach during the summer of ’14 were blown up and killed by an Israeli military that knows no morality. International press had just been playing with these kids and saw it happen. The pictures they took — at least one of them helped carry the bodies back to a hotel — are deeply horrifying.
There are simply too many well-informed participants in these comments for pro-Israel apologetics to succeed here.
A little bit of digging on this reveals xman might have a point. For a military “that knows no morality” I’m surprised to learn they drop pamphlets in advance warning of bombing. Also Roof Knocking which was invented by, again, a military “that knows no morality”.
xman is lying. As for the “roof knocking,” that’s a disgusting excuse for a grossly immoral bombardment of the sealed-off Gaza, that killed 2,000 people, including more than 500 children. It injured some ten thousand and destroyed entire neighborhoods and medical facilities.
Virtually all severely oppressed people include some who make declarations along the lines of: “We’ll die before we submit.” The hideous claim that Palestinian mothers and fathers gladly offer up their children as “martyrs” is repugnant.
What kind of monstrous “morality” do you adhere to that promotes lies about victims? You should be ashamed.
Um Nidal is filmed with her son, Muhammad, who is armed and ready to carry out a terror attack:
“By Allah, today is the best day of my life. I feel that our Lord is pleased with me, because I am offering something [my son] for Him. I wish to sacrifice more [sons] for Allah’s forgiveness, and for the flag [of Islam], ‘There is no god but Allah’, to fly over Palestine…. It’s true that there’s nothing more precious than children, but for the sake of Allah – what is precious becomes cheap.
Nidal’s sons were all military, members of the Al-Qassam Brigades. It’s not at all unusual for parents to carry on like that when their sons die in wars. To take that and claim all the thousands of grieving parents in Gaza are happy Israel slaughtered their children — many of them infants and toddlers — is obscene and sick.
But you are a hasbara troll, and they tend toward depravity.
I made no such claim.
I was responding to your statement:
The hideous claim that Palestinian mothers and fathers gladly offer up their children as “martyrs” is repugnant.
which sounded like you thought that zero Palestinian mothers and fathers gladly offer up their children as “martyrs.”
That’s the thing, I’m sure those mothers and fathers don’t gladly offer themselves or their children as martyrs but Hamas is notorious for intentionally putting citizens in harms way in order to maximise body counts and portray Israel as an aggressor.
Er, no, Zionists are notorious for claiming that about Hamas. The reality is, as I’ve set forth, Israel is the one using human shields, Israel is the one slaughtering countless civilians including, two summers ago, over 500 children. Israel is the one that ethically cleansed the Palestinians and locked them up in the open air prison of Gaza.
Israel is the aggressor; Palestinians are the victims. Victimized doubly by Israel apologists like you who connive and contrive to blame the victim.
The depravity of your and xman’s assertions is well-demonstrated by a photograph array of those boys killed on the beach. I assure you, their parents and families were grief-stricken and not happy about these children being “martyrs.”
The commentary from both of you is indecent.
Some more graphics for you showing the destruction and death The Most Moral Army™ rained down on the people of Gaza.
The Israeli paper, Haaretz: ‘IDF Troops Used 11-year-old Boy as Human Shield in Gaza’
The IDF routinely does this even tho it is a war crime — Israel’s Supreme Court found it had done so at least 1200 times, and ordered it to stop. It has not. And nothing will be done about it. The IDF’s former chief rabbi has said a non-Jew’s life isn’t worth a Jew’s fingernail and proposed Palestinians could be used for medical experiments. (And yes I can document it — just ask.)
It’s curious how easily you’re swayed by the benevolence of Israel for dropping leaflets before they bomb Palestinians, the leaflets which so kindly tell them to leave their homes (and go where? what part of their fucking cage they’re supposed to flee like rats to, they unfortunately do not say), but you’re not so affected by all the bombs it drops on multi storied homes. I wonder if Israel bombs any building for any military purpose other than “effect.”
But one day Israel will have bombed all the buildings, with their “invention” of roof knocking and what not, and Gaza will be target less. What will this moral army do then? Children who play in the sand will never be bad targets though. And who can blame Israel. There’s nothing more dangerous in this world than a Palestinian child.
It genuinely puzzles me that Israel apologists and/or hasbara-ists keep showing up here. Altho, there are fewer of them than once there were, and many have quit.
As the departed apologists have learned, posting apologetics for Israel only invites the many knowledgeable commenters here to post massive amounts of documentation showing Israel’s depravity. They’d truly be better off ignoring this site.
If you walk 400 yards from your building, you’ll be safe.
I suggest that you look at photos of the destruction in Gaza. No one in those buildings could have survived. 250,000 Palestinians were left homeless, but alive because they had been warned that their homes would be bombed & they should leave. Around 2,000 died. Most of the dead were men of fighting age who were killed in gun fights with the Israelis.
That is a lie.
The Times analysis, looking at 1,431 names, shows that the population most likely to be militants, men ages 20 to 29, is also the most overrepresented in the death toll
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/world/middleeast/civilian-or-not-new-fight-in-tallying-the-dead-from-the-gaza-conflict.html?_r=0
Your own source debunks your claim that: “Most of the dead were men of fighting age who were killed in gun fights with the Israelis.” 34 % of the dead being males between the ages of 20-29 does not constitute “men killed in gunfights.” Nor is it “most” of the dead.
You are such a liar. Or stupid. Or both.
No one would have been killed if Palestinians had not been launching thousands of rockets at innocent Israelis.
The hasbara troll tells another lie.
“To say that Israel is slaughtering innocent people, is a gross over simplification of the situation and any honest or knowledgeable person would know that.”
Well how about a more detailed analysis by a more knowledgeable expert:
https://youtu.be/N7eht7ZeCKA
Somehow I continue to be shocked at the extent of Israel’s lying. Lying to cover it’s war crimes. That interview and report should not astonish me at this point, but it did.
lets invite the people from israel to move to europe for a while to take care of the muslim problem , a token of appreciation for all the money they receive freely
Various people below claim that Israel would be unable to defend itself without the $3.1B from the US. Nonsense. The Israeli annual military budget is about $18B (no. 15 in the world). I think it is perfectly clear that it could defend itself just fine on less than $15B per year. Why take all that US aid? Because it can.
Why does Congress always get behind Israeli aid packages?
This serves as a healthy subsidy for defense contractors, although purchases by the Saudis have been far more important to their bottom line. Of course, their future economic health relies heavily on Clinton’s “Cold War with Russia” and “Cold War with China” agenda; Israel is just one small piece of the picture.
Nevertheless, it’s pathetic that the U.S. government won’t force Israel to take basic steps as a condition of aid; full disclosure of the Israeli nuclear arsenal and a push for IAEA inspections could be one such step, and a complete end to the “settler movement” could be another.
Why full disclosure of the Israeli nuclear arsenal and a push for IAEA inspections?
THE FLEECING OF AMERICANS OVER AND OVER…
The US-EU trade treaty that could let corporations sue governments May 27, 2015 5:00AM ET
by Danielle Mackey @DanielleMackey
[…”ISDS, a relatively obscure system of for-profit arbitration courts that has long been controversial in legal, corporate and policy circles, is catching public attention as it’s poised to become a lot more powerful. In these courts, such as the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington, D.C., foreign corporations sue governments over investment disagreements.
Proponents of ISDS argue that it helps establish the necessary conditions for successful investment, thus increasing global investment flows and the profit that accompanies them. Critics say it violates democracy and equality before the law and leads to a situation in which “corporate rights take precedence over human and environmental rights,” said Manuel Perez Rocha of the Institute on Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., a network of justice scholars and activists.
Many free trade agreements — including one that the U.S. is negotiating with the EU, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) — include clauses that require governments to accept the jurisdiction of ISDS courts. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement being negotiated among 12 Pacific Rim nations, also includes ISDS. The Office of the United States Trade Representative is pro-ISDS, describing it as a “neutral procedure” that “seeks to provide a law-based approach to resolve conflicts.” The deputy assistant U.S. trade representative for media and public affairs, Trevor Kincaid, declined to comment. Although governments can negotiate to exclude ISDS from trade agreements, high-level European officials, including EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht have said that the U.S. has signaled it will abandon TTIP negotiations if the EU does not accept ISDS….”]
Read more here: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/5/27/a-eu-us-trade-agreement-could-allow.html
Proudly racist, anti-democracy, Zionist Joe writes below:
But not just any Israelis. Ultra-Orthodox, racist, insanely nationalist ones, the terrorists and thieves who are settling the West Bank. This dynamic is cause for great concern to Yuval Diksin, a former director of Israel’ version of the FBI, the Shin Bet. Diskin refers to the West Bank as “Judea” and writes:
Diskin sees that Israel cannot survive as adherents of this vile ideology continue to grow:
Diskin’s “Zionist enterprise” cannot be saved. Increasingly, Israel is regarded as the pariah of the Western world. (Acknowledging some objections to elevating the West above the rest, but also understanding that Israel has always insisted it is a Western democracy.) That’s a very, very unpleasant place to be, and young Israelis who are not deranged are leaving the country in record numbers.
The nation is in a downward spiral to something so incredibly ugly it will not be possible for the United States, or anyone else, to ignore it.
Do we ever hear Mona condemn the neonazis in Ukraine,Pussy Riot propaganda,the Iraq war,the Libya disaster,the Afghan war,Syria etc etc?
No,she wears her Palestinian hairshirt as a soul massaging emblem ,all the while behind all the other horsecrap,a hypocrite.
You are an unhinged, racist, antisemitic, affirmative supporter of Donald Trump. If you approved of me and my views I’d have cause to be extremely concerned.
Why are you wasting your time on this false assertion crap?
Regulars here know damn well it isn’t true.
The article under which you are commenting is about Israel.
Should we be asking you why you aren’t saying anything about the plight of polar bears?
Take the blue pill… reality awaits.
(that’s a Matrix reference to be clear, not a comment on your mental health)
Whatabutery is a favorite ploy of the hasbara-ists, but dahoit holds to a similarly immoral ideology and seems to also like the same fallacies.
dahoit, your whatabotery is Talking Point No. 2 in the Hasbara Hanbook. Does Ukraine receive billions in US taxpayer assistance?
And by mentioning “Pussy Riot propaganda” you align yourself with Putin’s Russia. For those who may not remember, Pussy Riot (four girls) sang anti-Putin songs, for which they were imprisoned for years. Dangerous stuff, entirely comparable with billions of dollars in aid to the Zionist project.
To a Lawyer with Conscience I ask this question on behalf of this article provided below…
“Can an American Taxpayer sue an American company, in this case Caterpillar, on the grounds of “Extra Judicial Killing” by an American Company on a defenseless population?”
Video is included in the article.
Israel uses Caterpillar equipment in apparent extrajudicial killing
[….”Caterpillar, based in Peoria, Illinois, has long been the focus of boycott and divestment campaigns for selling equipment Israel uses in human rights abuses and war crimes, including the demolitions of homes and construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
Late on Tuesday night, Israeli forces massed in the town of Surif, near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, and launched an assault on a house in which they besieged Muhammad al-Faqih. The Israelis eventually demolished most of the house with al-Faqih still inside.
Israel’s internal intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, claims that al-Faqih, from the nearby village of Dura, carried out a shooting near Hebron earlier this month that caused the crash of a car, killing an Israeli settler and injuring his wife.
According to the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz, the Shin Bet, whose use of torture is systematic, accused al-Faqih of the killing after obtaining confessions from two other Palestinians who allegedly assisted him, including al-Faqih’s brother.
As the journalist and close observer of Israel’s occupation Marian Houk noted, Israeli media reproduced the Shin Bet’s allegations as fact “without an ounce [or] gram of doubt” and without the need for any judicial process….”]
The rest of the story here…https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-uses-caterpillar-equipment-apparent-extrajudicial-killing
TO ALL AMERICAN TAXPAYERS…
Israel murders and kills with impunity IN YOUR NAMES because of TAXES PAID BY YOU are being used TO MAIM, MURDER, KILL, AND DESTROY Palestinian lives, homes and existence.
TAKE YOUR POWER BACK…..AND DEMAND THIS TO STOP….BY TAKING IT TO AMERICAN COURTS AND SUING THESE CORRUPT AND DESPICABLE BUSINESSES, LEADERS IN GOVERNMENT AND CONGRESS CONTROLLED BY AIPAC …WHICH IS AGAINST THE 1st AMENDMENT IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE USA.
If Israel really kills with impunity, why would it warn the people of Gaza before bombing their houses?
Optics. Israel does kill with impunity. You are a hasbara troll who has seen overwhelming evidence that this is so.
@ Jack
Jack I really don’t have time for you except to say…to you and your fellow killers…
you can’t wipe the blood off of your hands…nor can Americans who volunteer for the Military…or to vote for known killers controlled by Israel bribes and extortion.
Make this clear that you will reap what you sow…and there will be no HERO metal worth a dime.
Get a life…
The first act of terrorism in Palestine was by a militant Zionist organization.
From wikipedia “Escalating violence culminated with the 1946 King David Hotel bombing which Bruce Hoffman characterized as one of the “most lethal terrorist incidents of the twentieth century”
And
“The King David Hotel bombing was a terrorist[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] attack carried out on Monday July 22, 1946 by the militant Zionist underground organization Irgun on the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, which was housed in the southern wing[9] of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.[10][11][12] 91 people of various nationalities were killed and 46 were injured.[13″
A proudly racist, anti-democracy Zionist — Joe — below makes another error of fact:
Zionist depravity was inherent in its founding. If Theodor Herzl is the Father of Zionism, Vladimir Jabotonsky is the Second. Writing in Palestine throughout the 1920s, Jabotinsky was adamant that ethnic cleansing of the “savage” indigenous Arabs was crucial to political Zionism. In his Iron Wall speech he wrote about ethnically cleansing the indigenous Arabs of Palestine:
And we’ve been seeing Zionist notions of a “civilized world” ever since. It includes murder and apartheid. It includes maintaining its victims in an open air prison and regularly bombing them. It includes burning their homes down and murdering an Arab infant in the fire, and leaving his 4-year-old brother an orphan, and severely burned.
Prominent Zionist terrorists were Jabotisnky disciples, including Benjamin Netanyahu’s father. They made sure the ethnic cleansing did take place, and along the way got their pictures posted on Palestine Police wanted posters (wanted for terrorism).
It would happen that Israel elected two men on these wanted posters as Prime Minister: Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.
Terrorism was just fine with many Zionists — until their victims turned to it in response.
Palestinians started the terrorism.
You are a hasbara troll who has spewed that falsehood many times, and seen it debunked just as often.
Haaretz: We’re American Jewish Historians. This Is Why We’ve Left Zionism Behind
(Jeffrey Goldberg just tweeted that Haaretz — an Israeli, predominantly Jewish paper — “grates” on him when it is “antisemitic,” because of course he did.)
Uncoupling Jewish identity from Zionism. That is the great moral and spiritual challenge placed before all us humans who consider ourselves Jewish. Tragically, a lot more Palestinians are going to have to suffer and die before enough of us pass the test.
I have great sympathy for American Jews who’ve been indoctrinated, from the cradle, to see Israel as core to their identity. Deprogramming from that could not be easy.
It only took me about four decades of life, about 8 years of reading GG and his commenters, and about 500 dead kids in Gaza in order to do it.
And, I should add, my own deprogramming process is not yet complete. (But I’m working on it.)
Israeli Jews are, however, even worse off. The brainwashing they are subjected to from childhood is horrifying. If you haven’t seen Israeli documentarian Yoav Shamir’s 2009 film, Defamation, it’s a must.
It’s been a few years since I watched it, and what I most recall was the Jewish, Israeli teens being taken to the site of a Polish concentration/death camp and being ranted at by their chaperones to understand that the world still wants to kill them, including some of the other tourists there. It’s just sickening.
No wonder these kids post vile and vicious hatred of Muslims all over Facebook and other social media. What they’ve constantly been told — and what they are shielded from — makes it virtually inevitable.
I suspect that every Israeli’s having a friend or relative who was murdered or injured by an Arab has a much stronger effect than anything anyone tells them.
Israelis need to learn a basic truth uttered by Moshe Dayan. Carrying on as if they have no clue why a reasonable Palestinian would wage war against them is, to understate, counter-productive.
Hamas teaches children to kill all Jews.
That is a lie. You are a hasbara troll who lies constantly.
Obviously.
Maybe in 10 years you’ll realize voting for Hillary was actually against your beliefs and interests?
Are you willing to consider that as a possibility?
Sure, anything’s possible. Some people, like rrheard, are born knowing everything. Others have to work stuff out for themselves at their own pace.
Cool.
I applaud you for coming this far.
But doesn’t Hillary’s kowtowing for Bibi give you pause?
Her warmongering?
Her war crimes?
Her Wall Street coddling?
Her support for fracking?
What is there to like?
Actually… you know what… don’t answer that.
I’ll just want to babyshake you… and that’s not productive.
I’d rather remain perplexed and dismayed and ignorant of the pathetic justifications.
But I will offer to buy you a beer when you cross the finish line into civilization… though picking up the pace would be nice… so another 500 Palestinian babies don’t have to die.
Doesn’t sound to me like “bad programming” sounds to me like you weren’t raised to have a healthy level of empathy for other human beings. Because that’s really all it takes to understand why Israeli policy vis a vis the Palestinians is wrong.
In my experience it doesn’t take a well adjusted emotionally fully developed human being “500 dead kids” and “8 years of reading” to possess something your average 12 year old possesses–insight and the capacity for empathy.
Then again I wasn’t raised to believe I was part of a tribe that thinks it is definitively the “chosen people” of God amongst the billions of other human beings on the planet that were presumably created by exactly that same God.
That is not to say I am any less uncomfortable about any other “fundamentalist” type religious folks be they Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Catholic, Evangelical Christian et al . They all suffer from exactly the same level and lack of empathy, and sense of superiority based on their ridiculous “belief” that “God has chosen them or their group” as something special and apart from the rest of his/her/its human creation.
It’s a sad and self-destructive worldview that is all too prevalent in this world.
I don’t know, rr. How much did Gator really know about the history of Israel and its founding before he changed mind? Speaking for myself, I had a completely false picture of history — resulting from the Exodus-ification of America — that had to be undone before my empathy could be directed toward the deserving Palestinians.
@ Mona
Out of curiosity what “false picture of history” would ever refute my point about only needing simple human empathy to understand that Israeli policy vis a vis Palestinians has always been morally indefensible?
Did you have some perception of history, or at any time present facts, that suggested Palestinians were somehow logically or morally culpable in their treatment, and if so please describe that “false history” so I can understand where you were coming from. Thanks in advance.
I mean I’m pretty sure I’ve never met anyone with any sense of “history”, false or otherwise, that didn’t understand intuitively and as a function of simple human empathy that Apartheid South Africa was morally repellent. So why would I hold anyone else to any different standard when it comes to Israel. I honestly don’t believe it is rocket science nor is there any argument that I’ve ever heard that could even theoretically provide justification for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
And given that you, me and Gator90 are/were attorneys with a minimum of 7 years of higher education (and presumably an excellent high school education) I’m generally not very sympathetic to the excuse of “ignorance of history” as a defense or mitigation for holding facially repugnant views about an entire people and their treatment. Only people I give a pass to on that basis are those among us with double digit IQs or other developmental disabilities. Anybody who doesn’t know why Apartheid South Africa was morally wrong, or Israeli policies vis a vis Palestinians equally so, didn’t care enough to even do some superficial reading on either topic is my take on that.
Just sayin’.
And to be precise, I’m not holding it against anyone who is wholly “uninformed” or lacks any exposure or knowledge about a given situation whether it be the I/P problem or Apartheid South Africa. I am sure there are millions of people all over the world who had/have no idea that either took place or are taking place.
I really didn’t know much at all about the truth of how Israel treated Palestinians. My understanding of the history basically went like this: During the period of Nazi Germany the worlds Jews began pouring into this empty desert now called Israel. Jew-hating Arabs took offense for insane reasons. Israel was beleaguered by these primitive Arabs who kept attacking her just because they hated Jews and wanted the land Jew-free. Plucky Zionists valiantly fought invading Arab hordes to protect the desert that they had made bloom.
I know that’s ridiculous, but I didn’t know much about the Middle East and had no particular interest in it. My views of the whole matter were fed by popular culture.
JEWS IN JERUSALEM.
New York Times December 29, 1878
Crowded together in the worst lodgings, or in the dark cellars under a synagogue building, without food, fuel, or water –even water at Jerusalem being a commodity of price – numbers died of starvation and various diseases, while others went raving mad. Those who could labor were denied employment by the bigotry of the Mussulmans and of the Oriental Christians.
Notice the date. This was before the first Zionists arrived. Notice the word “bigotry.”
Hasbara trolls lie and deceive. And you are doing it here. That’s not from The New York Times, it’s from London’s The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, Art, and Finance. That report details that those Jews were Sephardim, and the wealthy Ashkenazim would not share with them funds sent by Jews around the world for all the Jews in Jerusalem. To this day, there is a caste system in Israel in which the Ashkenazim lord it over other Jews.
Of course, I’m not willing to rely much on that piece. I know nothing about that publication and it’s not referenced.
Mona: “During the period of Nazi Germany the worlds Jews began pouring into this empty desert now called Israel. Jew-hating Arabs took offense for insane reasons. Israel was beleaguered by these primitive Arabs who kept attacking her just because they hated Jews and wanted the land Jew-free. Plucky Zionists valiantly fought invading Arab hordes to protect the desert that they had made bloom.”
Yes, that is basically what I was taught. Eventually I unlearned it. I’m sure I would have done so with lightning speed if only I were more like this Earth’s paragon of moral and intellectual perfection, rrheard.
This BS is exactly like Joe’s version of Palestinian history.
You write:
“That is not to say I am any less uncomfortable about any other “fundamentalist” type religious folks be they Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Catholic, Evangelical Christian et al . They all suffer from exactly the same level and lack of empathy, and sense of superiority based on their ridiculous “belief” that “God has chosen them or their group” as something special and apart from the rest of his/her/its human creation.”
Actually, Hindus don’t really believe this, that they are chosen in any way or are special in any way. Hinduism is polytheistic. Hindus actually believe that all paths to God are valid. That is also why, there are no special rules to being a Hindu or to practicing Hinduism. You can basically be what you want. Hinduism is different from other religions in this way.
And in Buddhism (which developed as a reform to Hinduism) there is no concept of God.
How long would it take if it was 1 dead Gator…in order to do it? Seems that your rose colored glasses only see your own. Seems that a hard rock is in place of a heart. Funny you don’t know the blessings that come to one when you have compassion on another.
What needs to happen to you is a Palestinian hand that has reached out to you while your drowning in the sea…lifts you up…and gives you another chance at life. And how that shame would soften your heart.
No one would have been displaced if Palestinians had not been murdering innocent Jews.
There was no need to expel any Arabs because there were hundreds of thousands of Jews in displaced persons camps in Europe who were eager to come to Israel & would have given Jews a majority even if Zero Arabs had left.
Your justifications are lies and your numbers are wrong.
You really suck at your job.
Honestly, I’m no longer sure this one is a typical hasbara troll. He’s more like one of those less intelligent sad cases who have an obsession on some topic and keep arguing it against much smarter people with no understanding how badly they are being undermined. (It reminds me of some uneducated, none-too-bright creationist debating a group of secularist possessed of ample scientific knowledge. Those spectacles used to flourish online.) I mean, he really doesn’t seem to get how awful his performance is.
Would “they” really assign someone this poor?
I agree.
But informed people like you know better, so who are they left with to choose from?
I think you pointed out that the younger generations here with the English skills are no longer gung ho… and I’m sure you’ve noticed how ineffective the ESOL Israelis are…
… they’re throwing a party and nobody is showing up.
Didn’t you also recently post a bit about how their ministry has budgeted millions for the purpose?
So, maybe it’s like DHS… if they don’t spend the money their budget will be cut next year.
Presumably, the soldiers that Clinton will use to attack Syria with, are drawn from the same pool of morons carrying assault weapons on American streets.
Muslim lickspittle?Moronic to the extreme,and illuminating on their corrupt tendencies to embrace their enemies for pieces of silver,or some quid pro quo.
Yankee come home,quick.
It is funny, American media bend over backwards to be respectful of the military, beginning their interviews with “We thank you for your service” and ending with naive credulity when the military spokespeople lie to them.
But on the drop of a hat, someone who did everything that the warmongers asked, died fighting to control oil fields far away from America….gets thrown under the bus the moment its useful to the rich and powerful.
Don’t disrespect the soldiers, Clinton is going to need them for the next war, and the one after that.
Hmmmm.
Again, hmmm. Trump appears random in his habit of breaking taboos. This week he shows how easily the pampered elites such as he can turn on a “fallen hero” such as Captain Khan, and lump his Muslim family in with terrorists. One thing I’ll say Trump has done is break some traditional American taboos…he’s even gone off script on Israel, which is something that has been sacrilege for so long.
So let me get this straight, anyone in the USA can be classified by the USA government as a terrorist, however why is it that our government is allowed to sell arms to a country that uses the weapons against the Palestinians? Israel has got to be as large of a terrorist state as the USA, if not larger and we support their illegal activities. Can we stone our government in front of the country and still stay in power? Why not? They do it in Israel and never get criticized for it, so why can’t we if you are going to take our money we should have the right to recoup our losses for the worthless wars that are taking food out of normal peoples mouths.
Why do the people of the USA keep letting our government be the gun runners of the world? What is the difference in what Qaddafi did as opposed to what the USA is doing everyday? Guess it is okay though since we have American Exceptionalism, LMAO
Israel uses weapons against Palestinians because Palestinians are attacking Israelis. Israelis have the right to defend themselves.
Palestinians use weapons against Israel because Israelis are attacking Palestinians. Palestinians have the right to defend themselves.
Two can play your game, Little Zionist Pig.
Palestinians started the violence.
If someone attacks you, you don’t go to jail. Your attacker goes to jail.
There’s a difference between the aggressor & the victim.
Zionists started the violence – that is called historical fact.
Jack Green is a hasbara troll who spews this same bullshit here, often verbatim. It’s been repeatedly debunked by me and others, but he spews still.
Ok, let Israel “defend itself” without American taxpayer money. ZERO!
Well to be fair, the USA should give as much developmental and military aid to Palestinians over about 5 decades and then let the Palestinians and Israeli’s engage in a fair fight via conventional weapons and see who is the last people standing on those shitty strips of arid land. I mean the least America can do is enable a far fight given it has done everything in its power to ensure Palestinians can’t fight back except with rocks and homemade rockets and mortar shells that are about as accurate as your average Chinese made fireworks.
I mean fair is fair, amirite?
Hey Gator90,
Out of curiosity what are your thoughts on the Samson Option? Do you think it would be “moral” for Israeli politicians, in the event of an overwhelming conventional weapons defeat at the hands of an enemy to go ahead and self-immolate and take as many of the planet’s human beings along with them?
What do you think Yahweh/Jehovah would think about that “option” morally speaking?
And just to pre-answer the question should it arise, I don’t believe America (or any nation for that matter) has the moral “right” to employ nuclear weapons against any other nation or people under any circumstances. Because if there is something more “immoral” than incinerating hundreds of thousands or millions of human lives in an instant because your “nation-state” is going down (for whatever reason particularly conventional military defeat) then really it makes you no better than a “suicide bomber” who takes out civilians or non-combatants–morally speaking.
That’s got to be the dumbest question I’ve ever been asked. I can’t believe you passed the bar yada yada yada….
Two degrees, Mr. Glenn; questioning aid for Israel helps Assad/Syria and that means you love Putin. :^)
(This old guy only wishes he looked that good without a shirt.)
To Joe, the proud Zio:
Those Ultra Zios may be pumping out children, but why is the Zionist project not doing well by them, even given the handouts it receives from the American taxpayer?
A recent UNICEF report revealed that Israeli children are the poorest children in the Western countries, those Western countries that the Zio project likes to include itself among.
In education Israeli children ranked 33 out of 37 countries. One third of Israeli children complained of physical ailments. And the list goes on.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4792206,00.html
Do you, Joe, still have a USA passport in your back pocket? I bet you do. So why do you treat the Zio project like summer camp? An interesting place to visit, but heaven forbid that you would stick around when the real shooting starts. Then it’s back to Brooklyn for you. If you ever left.
The nation of USA needs to strike as a whole…to stop this beast. Stop all activity. Stop all exchange of money and taxes. Stop it all to cast out the occupied government full of terrorist judas that suck every working family dry. Barter what we need to help our neighbor which will bring help to us. Stop it all to stop them. Do we have the courage to do it? Or is our lip service only good until we stop writing? It takes a nation of millions to hold us back…(quote by Public Enemy).
I wander what the Israel economy will looks like when this transfer of money stops.?
Do Netanyahu and the Israelis think this will last forever ?
The day will come that either they let Israel go or we go with them.
And is coming soon.
The US and Israel are connected by an u blical chord of history, culture, economy and religion.Israel will get what is wants. Jews are prosperous in America and their creativity drives the US economy in IT and media , reaearch, entertainment-which generate millions of jobs for Americans.Surely, is guaranteed economic support too much to ask?Finally, as long as the Mideast is a harbor for Islamic terrorism, Israel is the only true ally the US and the west have there.its presence gives them a leverage over the Islamic states there.So, quit whining and get the Israelis what they come shopping for, its their right!
A Zionist below — Joe — says of Palestinians:
He also concedes that Israel isn’t really a democracy, and approves.
I ardently wish many more Israel apologists would display the same candor.
Oh, that’s absolutely right sister, I am a Zionist through and through. While European culture dwindles and stifles under low birth-rates and shrinking territory, Zionist culture is experiencing high birth-rates, an expanding (and extremely productive) culture, expanding territory, and far more security than its continental counterparts.
The fact is, it is better to live in Israel today than it is to live in Europe. It’s no wonder the Europeans condemn Israel left and right – Israel is thriving, Europe is whittling away. So cling to your lofty notions of democracy and egalitarianism, and slowly die while Israel survives by doing what has to be done.
“Doing what has to be done”, i.e. violently subjugating an entire people for eternity. Showing your true colors indeed.
Joe just begin making plans of what yo will do when your prostitute die.
It’s nice to finally come across a zionist proud of his racism. At least you’re not hiding behind bullshit. Take pride in your expansion, while you can.
And make sure to let everyone know when your brilliant military wins a war when the other side has a bullet.
Yeah, thanks to the generous welfare program involuntarily provided by the American people…
Suckle-up, Zionist Pig.
Jesus, Mary and Joe?
The USA is technically broke and running deficits, current and foreign; American programs for the poor are being cut and you incur more debt supporting Israel; what am I missing here? Conservatives wanna cut SS and Medicare, wow, are you nuts, are are you puppets of this mini country? These guys have hundreds of Nukes, most Thermonuclear; many mounted on ICBMs and you worry about Iran? They see themselves as facing an existential threat and they may be right and if WWIII starts, it is likely to start here. We need to get rid of Nukes before they get rid of us.
lot of reading and watching lately, paying attention to the goings on about the world, trying to get a pulse and what do i see?
china cant stand US
russia thinks US is nuts
muslims dont trust US
europe is beginning to really hate US
most hate israel
those who hate israel thereby hate the US
the commonwealth wont have much to do with US, dont trust US
The picture i see is the US has pretty much cause war, chaos, and hell and nobody but nobody is US friend and it feels like they would rather israel and the US just sink.
or, maybe all i am seeing is the negativity about the planet.
” Also, Israel has been opposed to efforts to direct more of that aid to U.S. military contractors rather than Israeli ones (so this “aid” package is as much a transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to weapons manufacturers in both countries as it is to Israel itself). ”
In 20+ years, the US government has never reported the results of any audit of Israel’s actual use of its annual $3 billion in US “foreign military financing” grants. Each year, the total gets transferred in a lump sum from the Treasury to Israel’s account at the NY Fed, where it puts the money in T bills–the same debt that the Treasury issues to fund the $3.1 billion in the first place. Sweet. But it gets better: Although each annual gift purports to “limit” the amount that Israel can spend on “in country” (i.e., Israeli) procurement, the language in the annual appropriations legislation that makes these grants has always had a rather strange way of expressing this “limit”–to wit, that, of the total amount of the gift, “not less than $XXXXXX shall be available for the procurement in Israel of defense articles and defense services, including research and development”. That’s a floor, not a ceiling. More importantly, Israel can through which all other FMF grantees must make procurement. This eliminates a critical USG control over actual use of the funds.
All this, coupled with the utter absence of any reported audit, creates a very reasonable possibility that Israel is doing whatever the hell it wants with the cash. And if Israel can, it will.
There’s every reason to believe that the idea that the FMF grants to Israel “benefits the US because Israel has to spend 75% of it with US defense contractors is a myth. I’d like to see Greenwald and company bring their resources to bear investigating that issue.
check this out –
the whores in congress voted a little while back to allow a special h1b something to permit israelis to come to the US and buy our munitions factories. This means, if the population of the US ever rise up against zionista rule,
upon further review, it’s the E2 & EB5 visa programs i was meaning here (and elsewhere in the distant past)
What “zionista rule?”
We Americans are voluntarily helping a country that’s the victim of aggression. I’m proud of my country for doing a good thing.
You are a hasbara troll. You lie and rely on lying (literally) sources.
U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the ‘Strategic Relationship”‘
by Stephen Zunes
[…”Although Israel is an “advanced, industrialized, technologically sophisticated country,” it “receives more U.S. aid per capita annually than the total annual [Gross Domestic Product] per capita of several Arab states.” Approximately a third of the entire U.S. foreign aid budget goes to Israel, “even though Israel comprises just…one-thousandth of the world’s total population, and already has one of the world’s higher per capita incomes.”…”]
http://www.wrmea.org/congress-u.s.-aid-to-israel/u.s.-financial-aid-to-israel-figures-facts-and-impact.html#Taxpayer
After Americans were robbed by the thieves of wallstreet, Americans decided it was OK to be robbed more and more and soon they may even enjoy being robbed at which time their intimate habits may start with simple spankings then graduate to whips and chains (moreso than now). Who knows, maybe miniature Gutanamos will be the the rage in home improvements.
U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know
by Tom Malthaner
[“…Most Americans are not aware how much of their tax revenue our government sends to Israel. For the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, the U.S. has given Israel $6.72 billion: $6.194 billion falls under Israel’s foreign aid allotment and $526 million comes from agencies such as the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Information Agency and the Pentagon. The $6.72 billion figure does not include loan guarantees and annual compound interest totalling $3.122 billion the U.S. pays on money borrowed to give to Israel. It does not include the cost to U.S. taxpayers of IRS tax exemptions that donors can claim when they donate money to Israeli charities. (Donors claim approximately $1 billion in Federal tax deductions annually. This ultimately costs other U.S. tax payers $280 million to $390 million.)
When grant, loans, interest and tax deductions are added together for the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, our special relationship with Israel cost U.S. taxpayers over $10 billion.
Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion. The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen….”]
Read more here: http://www.wrmea.org/congress-u.s.-aid-to-israel/u.s.-financial-aid-to-israel-figures-facts-and-impact.html#Taxpayer
Conspicuous by His Absence: Who’s Not
Getting Money From Pro-Israel PACs
TOP TEN 2014 AND CAREER RECIPIENTS OF
PRO-ISRAEL PAC FUNDS
Compiled by Hugh Galford
http://www.wrmea.org/pdf/2014augpactopten.pdf
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs current estimate of cumulative total U.S. direct aid to Israel is $130.212 billion, updating the estimate in the November 2011 issue.
It is an estimate because arriving at an exact amount is not possible, since parts of U.S. aid to Israel are buried in the budgets of various U.S. agencies or in a form not easily quantified, such as the early disbursement of aid, resulting in a direct benefit of interest income to Israel and a corresponding loss to the U.S. Treasury.
As a conservative, defensible accounting of U.S. direct aid to Israel, this estimate does not include the indirect benefits to Israel resulting from U.S. aid, nor the substantial indirect or consequential cost to the U.S. as a result of its blind support for Israel. Especially, this estimate does not include the costs resulting from the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq—hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of American and allied casualties, and untold tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties—which is widely believed in the Arab world, and by many non-Arabs as well, to have been undertaken for the benefit of Israel.
http://www.wrmea.org/2013-october-november/congress-watch-a-conservative-estimate-of-total-u.s.-direct-aid-to-israel-more-than-$130-billion.html
You are so correct, Sparrow. It is widely believed in the Arab world – a credible source, no doubt – that these Middle Eastern wars were undertaken for the sole benefit of Israel. It’s really too bad we Americans are so dumb that even we don’t realize that we are sending our soldiers to die for Israel’s behalf. Israel is so smart, and we are so dumb (the Arabs though, they’re smart, they know what’s going on, unlike us!) that we have no idea how we are being played like a fiddle by a country the size of New Jersey. We’re so stupid.
We’re Israel’s pawns. We’re Israel’s little bitches. It’s too bad. Let’s all start learning Hebrew.
I “picked the wrong person to reply to”? This has gotten pretty hostile. I’m not making threats against anybody, I’m just speaking my mind. I know I’m making assertions ya’ll aren’t used to hearing made openly, and Mona even thanked me for my candor, if sarcastically or not notwithstanding. I am being candid. I’m not threatening anybody, though.
But this is uncalled for.
And I’m not Jewish, man. Like I said, I like in California, and I support Israel. Not all Zionists are Jews.
Later.
[“Loan Guarantees
Another benefit to Israel is the loan guarantees that the U.S. has extended to Israel since 1972. While these have not yet been a cost to the U.S., they have enabled Israel to borrow from commercial sources at more favorable terms and lower interest rates, since the U.S. guarantees payment of the loans should Israel default.”]
http://www.wrmea.org/2013-october-november/congress-watch-a-conservative-estimate-of-total-u.s.-direct-aid-to-israel-more-than-$130-billion.html
That damn Israel outwits us again!
A Conservative Estimate of Total U.S. Direct Aid to Israel: More Than $130 Billion
By Shirl McArthur
http://www.wrmea.org/2013-october-november/congress-watch-a-conservative-estimate-of-total-u.s.-direct-aid-to-israel-more-than-$130-billion.html
[“…Among the real benefits to Israel that are not a direct cost to the U.S. taxpayer is the provision allowing Israel to spend 26.3 percent of each year’s military aid ($815.3 million in FY ’13) in Israel rather than solely in the U.S. No other recipient of U.S. military aid gets this benefit, which has resulted in an increasingly sophisticated—and competitive—Israeli defense industry. As a result, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported that between 2004 and 2011 Israel was the eighth-largest arms exporter to the world, with sales worth a total of $12.9 billion. Also, in contrast with other countries receiving U.S. military aid, who must purchase through the Department of Defense (DOD), Israel deals directly with U.S. companies, and is exempt from DOD review…”]
Mona- the Native American hypocrisy hasbara is actually really old… but it sucks so bad few use it. Richard Pierce and I would tag team it on HP back in the days before the sellout to FB.
Kitt- thanks for the link. You are correct, it’s an impressive interview. I would encourage all to watch it.
Gator- sorry, but you will have to scroll down to see my response.
Huh. I’ve only seen it in the last few months. Maybe I haven’t read the online hasbara manuals carefully enough. Or, this is the crap they only pitch/direct by email rather than publicly.
It’s really a wretched argument. It reduces to: “You guys had your ethnic cleansing and genocide, now it’s our turn!”
It is ugly, but I responded to it a lot in comments over at HP for a while… roughly 6-10 years ago.
I probably would have ignored that Jerry idiot if he hadn’t gone there.
But it really bothers me.
BTW, it may be Pearce not Pierce… he posts good comments here occasionally but I am crazy tired right now. Sorry if I got it wrong Richard!
I’m pretty sure it’s “Pearce.” Thanks for providing his hasbara-debunking history. He’s extremely knowledgeable.
Ten years ago I was still, more or less, a Zionist. Certainly I didn’t know even half of what I do now. At some point I encountered Max Blumenthal, I think on Twitter about six years ago. I’d started reevaluating before then, but Max really opened my eyes.
Mona,
I should have thought that you would have been familiar with Edward Said’s writings 15-30 years ago.
I’d heard of Said, of course, but am ashamed to say I had dismissed him as just this “out there” radical. I did that because all the right-thinking people I’d encountered thought that. Or such was my sense of things.
It really took the Internet to deprogram me.
How could any rational intelligent person not see in say,1958? with the attempt at stealing the Sinai from Egypt,in collusion with France and GB,that Israel was just another aggressive imperialist pos nation hiding behind total BS?
Or the 67 war,where they stole Jerusalem in preemptive action,along with 73 and their next phony BS war of grabbing more of whats not theirs?How about the 80s where they laid waste to Lebanon,and murdered thousands more?
It took one that long?
Does this mean in 30 years Mona will realize Trump was best for America in 16?
Nah.
You are an antisemite, and a moron. I was 2-years-old in 1958. You support Donald Trump because you are a racist and a moron.
No,asshole,you are the moron,as everything I post is verifiable truth,and an alleged intelligent person couldn’t recognize the malignancy of Israel before 10 years ago illuminates your propensity to believe total BS.
I was 7 in 1958.and no,I didn’t comment on the Sinai of 58 till 67,when i matured enough to see the BS.
And you have the unattractive habit of responding with hatred towards rational posters who don’t believe any of your horsehockey.net monitoring and your ignorance of reality.
Another feminazi.
I saw at another post that someone said on entering some European country they went directly to the holocaust museum.
Don’t we have enough here to sway the feebleminded?
Very illuminating,as who the hell would go to Europe to see a holocaust museum,other than Jews and Zionists.
It’s very simple: You. Are. An. Antisemite. Antisemites were and are predisposed to reject Zionism. Not being an antisemite, I was not.
I had to encounter facts and reasoned arguments. Had I encountered many like you, I might be a Zionist still.
God,your arrogance and contempt for the unwashed masses is noted.
You’ll love this one;A person dear to me who works slave retail said all she saw out of the 2 Muslim lickspittle was 2 people returning a worn smelly suit.
Great thinking;Anything that happened before you were old enough to grasp it,is irrelevant?
The hubris of some amazes.
It’s hardly my fault if you write idiocy:
I was 2. Observing cookies, not international affairs.
Moreover, I had no particular interest in the Middle East, did not study it in college, or read about it on my own. (In general, I’ve been primarily interesting in civil liberties at home — especially gay rights and the heinous drug war — and not foreign policy.) That began to change when and as I’ve described above.
Yeah, well, getting there is more important than when we set out and which path we take.
The internet opened a lot of eyes.
Personally, I had one grandfather on either side in WWII, so I had cultural taboos and er, um, genetic guilt keeping me on the sidelines for quite a while despite being an activist on other issues.
The content at HuffPost… mainly the comments and links in them, but also news and opinion pieces that triggered the discussions… kicked me in the ass.
When HP started, the first few years were really pleasant… no hasbara or anti-Semitic crap.
But growth drew in both, followed shortly by more comment moderation and blocking.
Anti-hasbara efforts there were a challenge… the words hasbara, troll, anti-Semitism and a bunch of others would trigger the automatic filters and comments would be delayed for hours or days.
But the effort is draining… they are such lying, repetitive idiots… I was pleased you and others here were on the ball when I arrived.
BTW, I don’t want to speak for Richard Pearce, but I wouldn’t necessarily pigeonhole him as having a “hasbara-debunking history”. I would say that is true, but I think he is just a well informed guy who knows right from wrong, with a dislike for the factually challenged and a desire to teach the ignorant. I learned a lot from him.
why are we borrowing money from China to give to other countries–this is Insane–
Israel is an apartheid state as can be seen in its land and immigration laws; Saudi Arabia is a theocratic dictatorship with an even worse human rights record than Israel has; yet these are “America’s strongest allies” in the region.
See something wrong with this picture?
Israel is not apartheid.
You are a hasbara troll, one who has been shown overwhelming and ample evidence that Israel is an apartheid regime. You’ve been shown this repeatedly.
But, you are a hasbara troll. And those pests just spew the same shit endlessly, in each new thread.
Hasbara trolls suck.
For the sake of argument let’s assume that Israel is an apartheid state. In that case, Europe and the U.S are still being terrorized by Jihadists in attacks very much akin – almost striking in their similarity, actually – to previous attacks perpetrated by Jihadists in Israel. If Jihadist attacks in Israel are justified on the basis of Israeli apartheid policies, are the Europeans and Americans also engaging in apartheid?
Or let’s look at it from another angle. If the basic idea of apartheid is to keep certain races apart – one of the races being particularly prone to violent and deadly Jihadism – doesn’t it make SENSE to keep your race apart from a violent and deadly race?
Israel is not an apartheid state. But it has every right to be an apartheid state. You all just have such a fetish with “democracy” that you’re unable to face reality, or at least understand someone else’s reality. Is Israel’s democracy dying? Perhaps it is – but democracy isn’t the ultimate goal. Living in peace and freedom from harassment, violence, and Jihadism amount to much loftier goals than Democracy; if this can be achieved with Democracy, all the better. If not, then to hell with Democracy.
Yes, it is.
Israeli holds de facto control of Palestinian lands, and the Palestinians in those territories were ethnically cleansed and are forcibly segregated from what is considered Israel proper. That’s the same sort of exclusion, appropriation and marginalization as existed in South Africa’s defunct apartheid regime; a smaller ethnic group rules over a larger ethnic group across a variety of factors, a rule enforced with a military occupation designed to protect this institutionalized system of domination.
Even within Israel the fear is found that the country has become an illiberal democracy, or an ethnocracy. In October of 2015, Netanyahu presented his policy views to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and stated about the occupied territories: “Israel “must control the entire area for the foreseeable future.” Haaretz editorialized that Netanyahu had:
In a recently discovered 1976 interview, Israel’s soon-to-be prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, declared the then-nascent (now robust and entrenched) West Bank settlement movement “comparable to a cancer,” and warned that Israel would become an “apartheid” state if it annexed the West Bank’s Arab population.
That has happened.
Israel is an apartheid state.
Call it what you will, Mona, apartheid or not apartheid, it still amounts to common sense and logic. Israel does hold de facto control of “Palestinian” lands, and soon it will amount to de jure control. Why? Because Israel will annex it. Let’s call a spade a spade. Giving up the West Bank – that area which was occupied by Jordan from 1948 and 1967, a period during which no Palestinian National movement of any sort existed (except the one that sought to annihilate pre-1967 Israel, that is) – would render Israel’s borders much, much more vulnerable. Would it render Israel indefensible? Maybe, maybe not – but it would put Israel worse off, without a doubt. And in a region where there is tumult and bloodshed north, south, and east of Israel – the same violence perpetrated by the very same people with whom the Palestinians are so closely linked to – then Israel would have to be mighty stupid to cede control of a territory which is not only beneficial for its defensible borders, but is also beneficial in precluding its infiltration by Jihadist barbarians from across the borders.
As far as why Palestinians are “segregated” – that is, aside from all those Palestinians who work in Israel every day (when they aren’t stabbing people and having their work permits revoked, and then crying about it) – then I’ll give you a very simple explanation: they don’t want to live side by side with Jews, and if you don’t segregate them, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to attack by them, violent attack. It’s easier to think of them as wild animals in a zoo. If you let them out of your cage, they are very likely to try to kill you.
If you deem this racist, then shiver me timbers, I’m racist. I also like living. I completely understand a people that wants to live, and not die, and I understand their segregation of an ethnic minority if that segregation is based on a legitimate, sound fear of that ethnic minority’s desire to annihilate them.
Grow up and smell the music. Look at Europe for Christ’s sake. They’ve had a few attacks in Germany and France and they’re already just pressing to elect those far right fascist parties. Look how many attacks they’ve had in Israel – Netanyahu is as “fascist” as they’ve gotten. Look at us here in America! We’ve had a few scares, an attack here and there, and we’re ready to vote Trump in, or at least come close to it. And yet neither we or the Europeans have even come close to experiencing what Israel has experienced.
So let’s reserve judgment on the nature of Israel’s democracy until the circumstances are ripe for a proper democracy to flourish in Israel.
This deserves a reply, but also a history lesson. This is where propaganda gets us to, a complete denial of the historical basis for the Palestinian issue, a complete denial of the reason for violence in Israel/ Palestine, describing the Palestinians as jihadist barbarians, like wild animals in a zoo, really!
This deserves a response from Jewish people, a people who faced genocide themselves, is this how a modern State should look at human beings in the 21st century.
This kind of vicious propaganda is enabled by the complicity of the main stream media and its one-sided narrative on Israel, the middle-east, and the war on terror.
Well, where’s the history lesson then? Tell me about the historical basis for the Palestinian issue, please! I’m waiting. And what’s the reason for the violence in Israel/Palestine? You talk a lot of talk, but don’t back it up with actual reasoning. I do.
Give me a counter-argument instead of just pretty rhetoric – “propaganda.” I state my positions, and you dismiss them as the by product of propaganda. If that is the case, so be it – but at least defend your assertions.
Well, your goading has inspired me to give you this history lesson, which is very simple. There were Palestinians, presumably an Arab majority, living in Palestine, before the imperial powers of Europe and the USA, decided to purge their collective guilt over the holocaust by handing over the occupied land of Palestine to European Jews as the new Israeli State.
So the Palestinians had prior claim to Palestine. So the Palestinians fought back against this forced occupation of their land.
The US decided to take advantage of this conflict in its coups and wars of aggression in the middle-east mainly to control natural resources like oil and in the process by its one-sided support of Israeli hawks has converted the Israeli State into an apartheid State. The State of Israel could have taken a different route through history in the last 75 years. It could have worked on living in peace with its Arab Muslim neighbors and could have played a big role in transforming the middle-east into a prosperous, modern, progressive region. Israel could have chosen to become a State where the Palestinians would have happily wanted to live.
Thanks for the attempt, but your history is flawed. There were, as you say, Palestinians – an Arab majority – living in Palestine. This is where you get into trouble. “Before the imperial powers of Europe and the USA decided to purge their collective guilt over the Holocaust…” – Seema, Europe and the US should indeed feel the burden of their guilt for the Holocaust, but Israel was not created in three years, but in a process that had transpired since at least the first Aliyah in 1882. Palestine was not transformed into an economically viable land overnight, and it was not transformed into an economically viable land by the enterprise of Arab nationalism. On the contrary, Palestine became a beacon for immigrants by the enterprise and labor, for the vast majority of the case, by Jews immigrating to the land of Palestine, in large part financed by Jewish philanthropists abroad, and defended themselves by spilling Jewish blood with the help of weapons bought on the black market with Jewish money.
The Palestinians may have had prior claim to Palestine, insofar as they were in Palestine prior to the Jews as a majority. It just so happens, again, that irrespective of their majority and the prior claim this entitles them to, they did absolutely nothing to take advantage of this entitlement. They watched as Jews infiltrated the land, made it prosperous and economically viable, and attractive for Arab immigration as well, and now they want to reap the dividends of Jewish sweat and labor.
“The forced occupation of their land.” There was nothing forced about it. Starting in 1882 Jews came to Palestine by long migrations, bought land however they could, established villages – many of them failed – but continued and continued. At some point they started having significant success and at that point the Arabs perked up and noticed what was happening.
Onto the second part – how could Israel have taken a different route? What exactly could Israel have possibly done to live in peace with its Arab Muslim neighbors and played a big role in transforming the Middle East into a prosperous, modern, progressive region? Lay out for me exactly what Israel could have done to make the Middle East a prosperous, modern, progressive region – that is, in all those areas OUTSIDE of Israel, which is the only modern, prosperous, and progressive region in the entire Middle East. The only region the Arabs are so intent on wiping out, too. Please give me the steps.
Your version of the history of Palestine is flawed. But before I point out the flaws, lets agree on the historical facts, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Let us start with the ancient period:
“The Roman Empire invaded the region in 63 BCE, first taking control of Syria, and then intervening in the Hasmonean civil war. The struggle between pro-Roman and pro-Parthian factions in Judea eventually led to the installation of Herod the Great and consolidation of the Herodian Kingdom as a vassal Judean state of Rome.
With the decline of Herodians, Judea, transformed into a Roman province, became the site of a violent struggle of Jews against Greco-Romans, culminating in the Jewish-Roman Wars, ending in wide-scale destruction, expulsions, and genocide. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE.[78] Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence and Galilee became its religious center.[79][80] The Mishnah and part of the Talmud, central Jewish texts, were composed during the 2nd to 4th centuries CE in Tiberias and Jerusalem.[81] The region came to be populated predominantly by Greco-Romans on the coast and Samaritans in the hill-country. Christianity was gradually evolving over Roman paganism, when the area stood under Byzantine rule. Through the 5th and 6th centuries, the dramatic events of the repeated Samaritan revolts reshaped the land, with massive destruction to Byzantine Christian and Samaritan societies and a resulting decrease of the population. After the Persian conquest and the installation of a short-lived Jewish Commonwealth in 614 CE, the Byzantine Empire reconquered the country in 628.”
Now the Middle ages in Palestine – source Wikipedia
“In 634–641 CE, the region, including Jerusalem, was conquered by the Arabs who had just recently adopted Islam. It remained under Muslim control for the next 1,300 years under various dynasties.[83] Control of the region transferred between the Rashidun Caliphs, Umayyads,[83] Abbasids,[83] Fatimids, Seljuks, Crusaders, and Ayyubids throughout the next six centuries,[83] before the area was conquered in 1260 by the Mamluk Sultanate.[84]”
And
“In 1516, the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire; it remained under Turkish rule until the end of the First World War, when Britain defeated the Ottoman forces and set up a military administration across the former Ottoman Syria. In 1920 the territory was divided between Britain and France under the mandate system, and the British-administered area which included modern day Israel was named Mandatory Palestine.”
Now what are the historical facts about Jewish migration to Palestine in the middle and early modern ages? According to Wikipediia –
“After the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, some communities settled in Palestine.[107] During the 16th century, Jewish communities struck roots in the Four Holy Cities—Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron, and Safed—and in 1697, Rabbi Yehuda Hachasid led a group of 1,500 Jews to Jerusalem.[108] In the second half of the 18th century, Eastern European opponents of Hasidism, known as the Perushim, settled in Palestine.”
Now what are the facts about the modern waves of Jewish migration to Palestine? According to Wikipedia –
“The first wave of modern Jewish migration to Ottoman-ruled Palestine, known as the First Aliyah, began in 1881, as Jews fled pogroms in Eastern Europe.[113] Although the Zionist movement already existed in practice, Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl is credited with founding political Zionism,[114] a movement which sought to establish a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, thus offering a solution to the so-called Jewish Question of the European states, in conformity with the goals and achievements of other national projects of the time.[115] In 1896, Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), offering his vision of a future Jewish state; the following year he presided over the first Zionist Congress.[116]
The Second Aliyah (1904–14), began after the Kishinev pogrom; some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine, although nearly half of them left eventually.[113] Both the first and second waves of migrants were mainly Orthodox Jews,[117] although the Second Aliyah included socialist groups who established the kibbutz movement.[118] During World War I, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to Baron Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, that stated that Britain intended for the creation of a Jewish “national home” within the Palestinian Mandate.[119][120]
The Jewish Legion, a group primarily of Zionist volunteers, assisted, in 1918, in the British conquest of Palestine.[121] Arab opposition to British rule and Jewish immigration led to the 1920 Palestine riots and the formation of a Jewish militia known as the Haganah (meaning “The Defense” in Hebrew), from which the Irgun and Lehi, or Stern Gang, paramilitary groups later split off.[122] In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine under terms which included the Balfour Declaration with its promise to the Jews, and with similar provisions regarding the Arab Palestinians.[123] The population of the area at this time was predominantly Arab and Muslim, with Jews accounting for about 11%,[124] and Arab Christians at about 9.5% of the population.[125]
The Third (1919–23) and Fourth Aliyahs (1924–29) brought an additional 100,000 Jews to Palestine.[113] Finally, the rise of Nazism and the increasing persecution of Jews in 1930s Europe led to the Fifth Aliyah, with an influx of a quarter of a million Jews. This was a major cause of the Arab revolt of 1936–39 during which the British Mandate authorities alongside the Zionist militias of Haganah and Irgun killed 5,032 Arabs and wounded 14,760,[126][127] resulting in over ten percent of the adult male Palestinian Arab population killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled.[128] The British introduced restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine with the White Paper of 1939. With countries around the world turning away Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, a clandestine movement known as Aliyah Bet was organized to bring Jews to Palestine.[113] By the end of World War II, the Jewish population of Palestine had increased to 33% of the total population.[129] On July 22, 1946, Irgun attacked the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, which was housed in the southern wing[130] of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.[131][132][133] 91 people of various nationalities were killed and 46 were injured.[134] The hotel was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, principally the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Armed Forces in Palestine and Transjordan.[134][135] The attack initially had the approval of the Haganah (the principal Jewish paramilitary group in Palestine). It was conceived as a response to Operation Agatha (a series of widespread raids, including one on the Jewish Agency, conducted by the British authorities) and was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era (1920–1948).[134][135]”
Never argue with an asshole serial liar.
You can’t win over evil corrupt scum.
Now let me point out your flawed version of history.
Flaw no. 1 – you write ““The forced occupation of their land.” There was nothing forced about it. Starting in 1882 Jews came to Palestine by long migrations, bought land however they could, established villages – many of them failed – but continued and continued. At some point they started having significant success and at that point the Arabs perked up and noticed what was happening.”
Really, you suggest that the Arabs never objected to the Jews occupying their lands. This is false. Even the Wikipedia version of history which I am sure is heavily biased towards the Israeli State, shows that from 1919 onward, Palestine was under British occupation. What could the Arabs have done? And in fact the Arabs actively and violently opposed both British rule and Jewish immigration from 1920 onward.
Flaw no. 2 – before 1920, Palestine was part of the Ottoman empire. Jewish immigration then to Palestine was in small numbers. Lets note a few things about this phase. This was a time in history when border controls were non-existent. People migrated at free will. Jewish migration to Palestine at this time and even later was driven by the persecution of Jews in Europe.
I am not expert on Islam, Christianity and Judaism, but it appears as if Judaism and Islam have less theological conflicts than either of the two have with Christianity. Jews and Muslims have coexisted in Palestine to some extent for centuries.
Coming to flaw no. 2 in your version of Palestinian history.
You write:
“Palestine was not transformed into an economically viable land overnight, and it was not transformed into an economically viable land by the enterprise of Arab nationalism. On the contrary, Palestine became a beacon for immigrants by the enterprise and labor, for the vast majority of the case, by Jews immigrating to the land of Palestine, in large part financed by Jewish philanthropists abroad, and defended themselves by spilling Jewish blood with the help of weapons bought on the black market with Jewish money.
The Palestinians may have had prior claim to Palestine, insofar as they were in Palestine prior to the Jews as a majority. It just so happens, again, that irrespective of their majority and the prior claim this entitles them to, they did absolutely nothing to take advantage of this entitlement. They watched as Jews infiltrated the land, made it prosperous and economically viable, and attractive for Arab immigration as well, and now they want to reap the dividends of Jewish sweat and labor.”
I don’t understand your point here. What period of Palestinian history are you referring to here? Before 1920? Between 1920 and 1948? Or after 1948? Your version of history does not fit any of these periods, though the exact nature of the flaw can only be described after you clarify which period of Palestinian history you describe here.
The United Nations did NOT hand over land to European Jews. It simply drew a border. On one side of the border, the people were mostly Jews. That side became Israel. On he other side of the border, the people were mostly non-Jews.
No private property was handed over.
Do they not teach world history to children or adults in the United States of America? Or at least Palestinian/ Israeli history?
No,the UN called for a plebiscite which was soundly rejected democratically,and the Zionist just started a war in response,and with Western equipment and political cover from the nascent zionist media it succeeded in seizing what was not theirs by right.
And according to Wikipedia, “Although the Zionist movement already existed in practice, Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl is credited with founding political Zionism,[114] a movement which sought to establish a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, thus offering a solution to the so-called Jewish Question of the European states, in conformity with the goals and achievements of other national projects of the time.[115] In 1896, Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews), offering his vision of a future Jewish state; the following year he presided over the first Zionist Congress.[116]”
So it seems as if the first European conception of the State of Israel was as a possible solution to the Jewish question or how to get rid of the Jews from Christian Europe.
I’m not exactly sure what you’re driving at. I’ll just say that the immigration of Jews to Palestine had begun, at least significantly enough, in 1882, more than a decade before Herzl published his book.
No one would have been displaced if Palestinians had not been murdering innocent Jews.
The occupation of the West Bank was the result of the Jordanian/Palestinian attack against Israel in 1967. (In 1948, instead of declaring independence, the Palestinians of the West Bank asked for union with Jordan.)
Every time Israel offers to end the occupation, the Palestinians say “No!”
Even Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia (certainly not a Zionist) said that Arafat’s refusal to accept the January 2001 offer was a crime. Thousands of people would die because of Arafat’s decision & not one of those deaths could be justified.
Abbas could have said “Yes” to Olmert’s offer, but he didn’t.
Israel is NOT apartheid.
Israel has 1.6 million Arabs.
It’s Palestinians who did the forcible segregation.
Jews lived for centuries in the West Bank, Gaza & East Jerusalem.
At the beginning of 1967, the total number of Jews in the West Bank was ZERO!
At the beginning of 1967, the total number of Jews in the Gaza was ZERO!
At the beginning of 1967, the total number of Jews in East Jerusalem was ZERO!
You are a lying hasbara troll, recycling the same crap in thread after thread. I’ll debunk it AGAIN if anyone in good faith asks for it.
What refreshing candor. Most Israel apologists insist it’s The Only Democracy™. It’s not. It’s an ethno-religious, supremacist apartheid state.
The long overdue debate about the U.S., Israel and the plight of the Palestinians can only be assisted if more Israel apologists would make your admissions.
Sure, I agree on this point. I’m sick of pro-Israelis going to the lengths they go to in order to suck up to the exalted vision of liberal democracy standard the world demands Israel live up to. Pro-Israelis need to take a long, hard look in the mirror…and then, when pressed with calls for BDS, for example, respond as such: “oh, you wish to boycott us? Well, OK, we’ll keep all our breakthrough medical innovations, our cancer-curing treatments, our this and that, our technological marvels which help save lives and raise your standard of living and bla this and bla that…we’ll keep all that!”
Israel is an ethno-religious, supremacist apartheid state? FINE. Then admit, at least, that it’s an extremely IMPRESSIVE and well-accomplished ethno-religious, supremacist apartheid state.
That isn’t an option. Israeli businesses cannot survive either a voluntary or involuntary end of doing business with the world. The Israeli people cannot survive it either economically or — perhaps more importantly — psychologically.
Younger Israelis are leaving in record numbers, including for Berlin. Living as the pariah of the Western world is deeply, deeply unpleasant. You may accept and even welcome it. But many or most eventually won’t and it cannot be tolerated forever.
Israel will implode if it doesn’t reach a just resolution with its victims, the Palestinians.
I agree. many Israelis are deeply uncomfortable with what the Israeli State has become. They are very defensive when they describe Israel even casually as a tourist, this exposes their discomfort with the nature of the Israeli State.
Off topic but I find this sentence “Living as the pariah of the Western world is deeply, deeply unpleasant.” stands out for me.
Why does the world only revolve around the Western world even in 2016? Do the opinions of Asians, Africans, Latin Americans on Israel and everything else not matter?
It’s just a reality that Israel considers itself in the tradition of Western, liberal democracies. It wants to be a member of that club — or at least thought to be.
Also, there’s some mild controversy as to which nations are included in the Western world. Many include Latin America, certainly Brazil. Probably because they’re historically Christian.
Even then, this exposes a deep-seated and unjustified (in 2016) insularity among those who continue to use the “Western world” as a collective today, and it is amazing that this insularity is so obviously based upon racial and religious identities, and yet it never gets called out.
The Western world has never held a monopoly on “good” values, morals and thinking. Some of the most oppressive acts and regimes of history (imperialism and even the holocaust) are a part of the Western world’s heritage. And why does one have to be Christian for one’s views to matter?
People continue to create this dichotomy between the Western world and everyone else by using such language and in my view they do not get challenged enough for it. I feel offended at some level, every time I am excluded from the civilized world by the use of this phrase “the Western world” in the present-day context.
This is nothing but global racism and religious smugness.
The Western World certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on good values, morals, and thinking. Yet, the Western world, its indiscretions notwithstanding, does in general subscribe to good values, morals, and thinking. Moreover, the Western world, as opposed to all the other “worlds” which also subscribe to good values, morals, and thinking, happens – just happens, by whatever accident of history – to be the predominant “world” in the global arena. It just happens to be the “world” which most people outside of this “world” which to either immigrate to or see adopted in their own homelands.
So, yes, the Western World has committed, and still commits, and will commit, atrocities. It just so happens that I prefer our atrocities to their atrocities.
before I reply to the rest of this comment of yours, you say at the end “It just so happens that I prefer our atrocities to their atrocities”, so is it the case that you see yourself, a citizen of Israel I presume, as part of the Western world?
Huh? No, I’m an American citizen, I live in Northern California. I see myself as part of the Western World, and I consider Israel a part of the Western World and our ally. What difference does it make, anyhow? You’d be better off responding to the rest of the post than trying to categorize me.
Sure, Israelis are leaving in record numbers. Israelis are also giving birth in record numbers. The Israeli economy has seen more venture capital investment than ever before. Israel is also being increasingly isolated – so it seems – by the Western world.
Therefore, Israel is looking towards Africa, towards the Arab world (which is conveniently forgetting the Palestinian cause), to Russia, to China, to Indochina, India, and so on. Israel would prefer to be friends with more civilized countries, but it recognizes that those civilized countries behave very uncivilized towards it, and it also recognizes that those civilized countries are slowly being drowned by their civility and it is better to look elsewhere. Which is what Israel is doing – it is looking elsewhere. So while the “Jew of the group,” the group of Western civilized countries, that is, is the only one that seems to be doing what it needs to be doing to stave off the looming crisis, the non-Jews of the group are naturally quite upset by this turn of events. After all, they had a hell of a time persecuting the Jews for millennia, always resentful of the Jews’ success in the European continent and elsewhere, and now they’re resentful of the Jews’ success in their own country, a country no less situated in the armpit of the shitty Middle East.
In any case, Israel will reach a solution with the Palestinians. It will likely be a unilateral solution. And there’s nothing anybody can do about it. Just accept it and drink your Teva-produced pharmaceuticals and get over it.
This sentiment “one of the races being particularly prone to violent and deadly Jihadism ” would be funny if it were not so often expressed (though in more politically correct words) by US war analysts on mouthpieces like CNN. Some very respectable folks in the US and Europe, i.e., in the West, actually believe this shit.
Do you think it is an accident that overseas terrorism by Jihadists for so long (until the recent turn of attention to the Europeans) indiscriminately sought out Jews, and Jews alone, as the victims of terrorism? When Arabs attack Israelis, do you think they attack Jewish Israelis, or Arab Israelis? When Arab Israelis do in fact die as a result of Arab terrorism, do you think, honestly, that the Arab Israelis were the intended targets? And if Arab Israelis were the intended targets of terrorism, do you think it was for any other reason than some form of “punishment” for “aiding and abetting” the enemy Jews?
You wouldn’t know peace it it slapped you upside the head. The transparency of your projected zionist jihadism is clear. The foundation of a treacherous zionist is their projection of guilt…then it’s all so simple to see it for what it is. Your sadistic parasitic soul won’t last much longer. You condemn the Democracy that YOU have hijacked to fill your coffers full…but there is a noose that’s waiting for you. You even scoff and mock American Orthodox Jews who are also against you. May their righteousness be heard loud and clear.
Also…there is a difference between true Jews and Judas. Their actions are quite clear even without lip garbage.
Israel and all of its manipulations, lies, murder, oppression, and cancerous sickness speaks for itself. The numbers speak for themselves. So if America wants a cure to cancer…it needs to know what causes it…and here it is in this comment FOR FREE.
after all this time thinking your posts were from a real human and now you reveal yourself to be a talking ken doll…. conrats
mondoweiss.net/2015/05/ethiopian-brutality-jerusalem
Well, OK, let’s say that it’s neo-fascist.
Jack Green: The same Alexander Haig who declared he was in charge when Raygun was shot?
I can’t wrap my head around the fact that we send Israel billions of our tax dollars, while the Israeli citizens enjoy free healthcare and college, as a right. Then they complain that it still is not enough, they demand more of our tax dollars. All the while our politicians tell us we can’t afford free healthcare and college like every other country, including Israel, so our kids drown in debt and our seniors can’t afford medication… but hey, they have no problem giving their good buddies in Israel 450 billion dollars a year. Of course, our weaponry corporations (that don’t even provide jobs in our own country), are making out pretty well on the deal. Unbelievable, we are a dumb lot here in the USA.
Fuck me once, shame on me.
Fuck me twice, shame on you.
Dumb is only when we commit the same error after realizing it was a mistake to begin with.
Now we need to act…
Does anybody have the numbers for the cost to the US Treasury for the tax deductible donations made by Americans to Israeli groups including the settler movement?
I’ve never seen it tabulated.
And it’s a figure that isn’t counted in US military or economic aid.
Thanks in advance.
I haven’t read everything…but good to know info.
U.S. Financial Aid To Israel: Figures, Facts, and Impact
http://www.wrmea.org/congress-u.s.-aid-to-israel/u.s.-financial-aid-to-israel-figures-facts-and-impact.html
US Financial Aid To Israel –
Figures, Facts And Impact
Washington Report On Middle East Affairs
RMEA.com
http://www.rense.com/general31/rege.htm
How US “charities” break tax laws to fund Israeli settlements
https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-us-charities-break-tax-laws-fund-israeli-settlements/10342
The Cost of Israel to the American People
by Richard Curtiss
http://www.alhewar.com/Curtiss.html
I also used to receive that publication,but when they started attacking Shia I said,you’ve got to be kidding me.
Divide and conquer propagandists,and dupes,with 16th century religious stupidity.(30 years war)
[“I also used to receive that publication,but when they started attacking Shia I said,you’ve got to be kidding me.”]
Didn’t know about this…
I just found it looking up stats to alert the fed up sheep. Thanks for letting me know.
We are left with an impossible situation this year. The US debt grows, wars are fought, and regular Americans are left wondering WTF is wrong with this picture. Why do we give money to a place that lives so much better than we do? At least for the Israelis, not so much for the Palestinians anyway. Just when I think it can’t get worse I read this and now understand what Biden was talking about when he said that’s all they get. It had to do with the insane amount of money given to them. Maybe enough people will vote green or libertarian this fall to make someone take notice at least I hope it will.
They have free healthcare and College in Israel!!!! Of course, we can’t afford such luxuries, or so they tell us.
Former Supreme Commander of NATO and U.S. Secretary of State Gen. Alexander Haig (deceased) described Israel as “the largest US aircraft carrier, which does not require even one US soldier, cannot be sunk, is the most cost-effective and battle-tested, located in a region which is critical to vital US interests. If there would not be an Israel, the US would have to deploy real aircraft carriers, along with tens of thousands of US soldiers, which would cost tens of billions of dollars annually, dragging the US unnecessarily into local, regional and global conflicts.”[6]
The problem with that bullshit is that none of Israel’s neighbors pose an actual threat to our national security.
The liars claiming otherwise have ulterior motives and loyalties.
It’s hilarious that the hasbara troll thinks Alexander Haig is a reputable source among any decent people. No matter what the hasbara trolls contrive, there’s no getting around that the U.S. taxpayer is giving welfare — $40 billion in the next ten years — to a rich, foreign country. An ethno-religious supremacist state that justly infuriates Muslims. A small fraction of them turn to terrorism against us and routinely cite our unconscionable participation in oppression of Palestinians as a large reason for targeting us.
There’s no getting around any of that.
Ah,but that aircraft carrier is steered by Zion,not US.
Name a productive thing our ally Israel has done for US?
Don’t include brainwashing the American people,making the whole Muslim religion hate US,making every citizen in every nation around Israel victims of their own leaders supplication to USzion bribes,and the USS Liberty,where about 200 Americans were wounded or killed in an hours long assault ion a clearly marked non combatant ship.
Who the Muslim Father’s DNC Speech Really Pandered To
Peter Van Buren Posted on July 31, 2016
[“Last Thursday night, speaking at the Democratic National Convention, Khizr Khan paid tribute to his son, U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who died in Iraq on June 8, 2004, after he tried to stop a suicide bomber.
As for every parent, husband, wife, brother, sister and friend who lost someone any war, I grieve with them. I am sorry for the Khan’s loss. I am a parent and can all too easily be sent to thinking about the loss of a child.
So go ahead and hate on me. But of the almost 7,000 American families who lost sons and daughters in the last 15 years of American war of terror, why did the Democrats choose a single Muslim family to highlight?
No one knows how many hundreds of thousands (millions?) of non-American Muslims were killed as collateral damage along the way in those wars. Who spoke for them at the Convention?”]
Read the rest here: https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2016/07/31/who-the-muslim-fathers-dnc-speech-really-pandered-to/
Much talk here about the “choice” offered by the duopoly. Here’s a cheery message from some guy named Edward Snowden: Snowden and the NYT
——————————————
Dear Glenn Greenwald, one word: SUPERB!!
That’s ‘quality journalism’.
Thank you mate, for giving us the opportunity to read such a great, captivating,
engaging,and interesting article.
——————————————
What a fascinating topic.
This needs to continue…Such an interesting topic
and fascinating writing is a perfect combination for a book?!
This needs to proceed, shall we?!
——————————————
The US – Federal Reserve is totally and completely
controlled by individuals with a profound desire to
transfer wealth to Israel.
This is fascinating: the US population currently is:
323,995,528 (third in the world). However, for the last
30 years, that’s right “THIRTY (30)”, years looking at
the list of The Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
(the most powerful in the world) we find: Alan Greenspan (Jewish), Ben Bernanke
(Jewish), and Janet Yellen (Jewish).
——————————————-
It is not a coincidence.
Everything starts there.
——————————————-
Looking at the number of comments i believe
that you’ve just ‘hit the jackpot.’
——————————————-
Israel is not the victim, period.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org
How does this show that Israel is not the victim?
Aren’t dead or wounded Israelis victims?
When someone attacks someone, we call the attacker the aggressor & we call the one who is attacked the victim. Palestinians began the violence so Palestinians are the attackers & Israelis are the victims.
Germany attacked Poland in world war 2. Who was the victim? Six million Poles were killed & 7 million Germans were killed.
You are lying. Again. You’ve told this lie about Palestinians many times before here, and it’s been debunked repeatedly.
you’re so full of dogmess their isnt enuf toilet paper on the planet to clean your head out, but who would really want to?
Here is the deal, i will neither pay for your pain, nor your insanity. And by the way, having robbed Americans of billions, you owe it back….. PLUS INTEREST.
How do you propose to pay U.S. back? you know – to show your gratitude….
This is how Rome fell, they overspent on the military and the US will fall too
——————————————
Dear Glenn Greenwald, one word: SUPERB!!
That’s ‘quality journalism’.
Thank you mate, for giving us the opportunity to read such a great, captivating,
engaging,and interesting article.
——————————————
Blue-swayed Jews.
Dear Glenn Greenwald, one word: SUPERB!!
That’s ‘quality journalism’.
Thank you mate, for giving us the opportunity to read such a great, captivating, engaging,and interesting article.
——————————————
What a fascinating topic.
This needs to continue…Such an interesting topic
and fascinating writing is a perfect combination for a book?!
This needs to proceed, shall we?!
——————————————
The US – Federal Reserve is totally and completely
controlled by individuals with a profound desire to
transfer wealth to Israel.
This is fascinating: the US population currently is:
323,995,528 (third in the world). However, for the last
30 years, that’s right “THIRTY (30)”, years looking at
the list of The Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
(the most powerful in the world) we find: Alan Greenspan (Jewish), Ben Bernanke
(Jewish), and Janet Yellen (Jewish).
——————————————-
It is not a coincidence.
Everything starts there.
——————————————-
Looking at the number of comments i believe
that you’ve just ‘hit the jackpot.’
I wonder where the life expectancy of Palestinians falls into number wise? Really sad and despicable how manipulated we all are by war mongers posing as leaders of humanity.
— R.T.
Writer
There is a great awakening on the horizon. It’s an awakening that has been slow in coming, but coming it is. There will be no stopping it. There are millions of American voices being drowned out. Good, fair-minded voices that say, we don’t care who started what. We don’t care that Israel believes that a supposed supernatural being gave them something.
These voices say that we don’t place a higher value on the lives of Israelis than we do on the lives of Palestinians. We don’t believe that, as Americans, we must take the position that Israel is inherently right, and Palestine inherently wrong, and if we don’t take that position, we are Jew-hating, anti-Semites, as the mainstream media would have the world believe. We don’t believe that, because it is not true. These voices will begin to ask why Israel never thanks us for our contributions, but simply keeps its hand out, waiting for even more financial aid from a people whose own hard-earned money, resources and patience are being exhausted by ingratitude, belligerence and arrogance from a nation chronically at war with its own neighbors. We are sick and tired of this, and we are going to, finally, force an awakening–perhaps a painful awakening–in the minds of those who don’t appreciate us beyond what resources they can manipulate from our national leaders, who are themselves in line for a great awakening.
This may not happen until even more billions are taken from our treasury and given to Israel, but, happen it will. The final straw will be when our probable next president, Hillary Clinton, commits U.S. troops to fight alongside Israeli solders, shedding American blood in defense of this unholy alliance, and the horrible reality of what we allowed to happen sets in. Then, it will happen. The awakening will happen when the good American people say enough is enough, we are changing this horrifically deadly, unconscionably unfair game, right now.
Be forewarned, yet again: A sleeping American giant–this of a kind other than that blown our of its slumber by Japan in the last century–is about to be awakened. It will not go back to sleep.
no words….
thank you
While I agree that this sea change is coming, it won’t be sudden. The under-35s are already headed there and with each election more younger voters exposed to the truth will be on board.
But the entrenched, blindly pro-Israel bias in our federal officials is going to take time to erode. There’s money in it for them and the Israel Lobby isn’t going anywhere.
It’s going to be heated, contentious, and ugly. But not that fast.
I don’t believe it will happen quickly, either, at least not as quickly as it needs to. Average Americans don’t have giant media conglomerates megaphoning propaganda for them, or wealthy lobbyists depositing massive amounts of cash into their bank accounts to buy legislation.
However, the blank check that Clinton will hand to Netanyahu in her first 100 days in office (if not her first day) despite any deal already struck by Obama forbidding more cash following this latest deposit, and the near-certain attempts she will make to water down the Iran nuclear deal, may help strike up the band a few minutes earlier. We can only hope. And keep writing…
True, but the under-35s get almost all their news online. Cable “news” increasingly serves a grey-haired audience only. In ten-fifteen years “Meet the Press” either won’t be airing, or it will be broadcast to almost no one.
Which is why Israel is increasingly desperate to censor social media. “Out here” Max Blumenthal and others are actually heard. Not to mention all the articles about — and pictures of — brutalized and murdered Palestinians and the evidence out of Israel that the country is suffused with racist and hateful sentiments.
Unless the Israel Lobby can undo the First Amendment, there’s no stopping this. Even getting Facebook, Twitter etc. on board to censor for them could not stop it.
True. Unfortunately, the youngsters as a group can’t begin to match the old money. Even though the great boomer die-off has begun, major changes may not occur until the extinction’s in full swing, a few years down the road. I have one foot in the tar pit, myself, so I personally hope I can see how this thing plays out over the next few years.
Yeah, I’m a boomer myself. However, my mother’s generation is still kicking and they’re also really pro-Israel. As they go, and are replaced by the youngers, we can expect some more rapid change in the political climate.
Criticizing Hillary Clinton is not going to elect Donald Trump and usher in fascism
Relatedly, this is why voting for Hillary Clitnon, and her becoming POTUS, is also dangerous. Very possibly more dangerous that POTUS Trump. Every rancid thing President Hillary Clinton would do would be absurdly defended by throngs of Democratic apparatchiks who will insist they are “progressives.”
However appalling Trump’s hate-spewing is, he does in fact seem to be less dangerous than Hillary when it comes to global aggression. As people have been saying, the things we are afraid Trump will do, Hillary has already done.
Also, if Trump should win, he will face strong opposition every day. If Hillary wins, everyone will go back to sleep as they did with Obama, letting him create policies that are as heinous as any Bush came up with.
If anyone says they are voting for Trump as a tactical move for these kinds of reasons, I don’t blame them.
“If anyone says they are voting for Trump as a tactical move for these kinds of reasons, I don’t blame them.” I am not as generous.
Apparently, the two-party system is the one untouchable truth in American life, to the point where the only way to reject one party is to vote for the other party, and the only way to reject both is to not vote at all?
Well, that’ll show ’em, geniuses.
I blame alleged grown-ups, who demonstrate that they can see more than 2 options all over their world in so many other endeavors. When it comes to politics, they live in a Coke or Pepsi world.
I really can’t figure out what is in this political worldview for the average person who so slavishly lives it.
But I don’t know one African-American or Muslim who takes that position. There are quite a few who will not vote for Hillary, but a vote for Trump is just out of the question.
The reasons for that are why I could also never vote for Donald Trump.
If you believe that, then you have no idea what Trump could do.
I don’t know what you are trying to say. Clinton *has* done or pushed or strongly supported any number of heinous things. People are afraid Trump might do heinous things. It is not a matter of “belief.” And no one has any idea of what Trump might do or be allowed to do. But as I said, in the realm if international relations, he has uttered some ideas that are much less insane than those of Clinton.
It is not irrational to think we are probably in less danger of WW3 from Trump.
Exactly correct Mona. Thanks for the emphasis.
You hit upon why election fearmongering by both major parties has become irrelevant to me. When weighing the disasters for OUR world of 4 years of Trump vs. 8 years of Clinton presidency, a valid “tip the table” question might be which would more quickly force the establishment’s and the pendulum’s direction – to actually change.
The only real comfort I find in this insane election cycle is my certainty I’ll vote for my granddaughter, OUR planet’s future and the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein.
I am voting for Stein because I want more parties in the mix. But if anyone fears Hillary more than Trump, I understand. I fear Clinton more than any candidate. Fracking is not reversible. WW3 is the worse danger the earth may ever face.
and everything Hillary has said makes it certain that she is planning actions that will bring us to the brink. She is a sociopath.
And how many of those dollars will come back to America as BRIBES?
Americans are only allowed a few years on welfare . Israel has been a WELFARE QUEEN for over SIXTY YEARS. Americans have to prove they have no “assets” to get welfare. Israel has over SEVENTY BILLION DOLLARS in savings, but STILL collects American CHARITY CHECKS. Americans just got their FOOD STAMPS cut, Israel got an INCREASE while Americans go hungry.
Israel has a population of approximately 7.7 million, or a million fewer than the state of New Jersey. It is among the world’s most AFFLUENT nations, with a per capita income similar to that of the European Union.[1] Israel’s unemployment rate of 6.8% is better than America’s 7.3%,[2] and Israel’s net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 30th in the world while the US sits at a dismal 193rd.[3] http://ifamericansknew.org https://alethonews.wordpress.com/2016/02/23/the-staggering-cost-of-israel-to-americans/
While Americans argue about medical care and how much it will cost, Israel has a much more generous medical care program for its citizens and does not need to worry about the costs because it’s paid for by tax-paying American citizens in the aid we give to Israel.
MEANWHILE America’s infrastructure is collapsing and AMERICAN CHILDREN go to bed HUNGRY & SICK while YOUR TAXES pay for Universal Healthcare for Israel.
This is a Canadian but it applies https://youtu.be/mdWzLwNOlaA
We give Israel $3 billion a year in military aid. For example, we gave Israel F-15’s. Israel made 700 improvements so now thanks to Israel we have better planes. We give Egypt $2 billion a year. What do we get from Egypt?
What do we get from the $43 billion we give to other countries?
We hear this all the time–but… but… it’s MILITARY aid.
Sure, it’s military aid, but every dollar that we give them in military aid is a dollar they don’t have to take from somewhere else in their own budget. So our military aid allows them to spend more on healthcare, welfare, unemployment, infrastructure, etc. etc. While our citizens have to suffer with healthcare cuts, welfare cuts, unemployment cuts, and crumbling infrastructure.
Our relationship with Israel is not reciprocal, it is toxic.
Do you actually think people believe this bullshit?
Here’s my source. Where’s yours?
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/friends-with-benefits-why-the-u.s.-israeli-alliance-is-good-for-america
Hey Jack. I also have an “Institute,” and it says this article is pure bullshit. I’m not going to finish reading this bullshit “article.”
By the way, if support for Israel stems from the idea that “voters know best,” why does Israel need a lobby?
Why don’t you link me to some Daniel Pipes web pages, while you’re at it?
Jack Green is about the fifth writer that came up on comments page. I see his name often and always He is pro Israel leading me to believe that Jack rather than offering his two cents for nothing is actually on someones payroll with the job of trolling places such as this one to offer a counterpoint to these mostly antiIsraili comments. Either way American tax dollars pays for this guy ,Jack to bastardize data or public opinion and Israel with the help of others created the nine eleven debacle that put the world where we are now.
Boycott all Jewish establishments in your area…to include liquor stores,restaurants,etc
You obviously prefer the military interests of Israel, because you are obviously trying to make ANY AND ALL opposition to Israel look like merely an act of bigotry against Jews.
Clever move troll, but we are on to your kind. When somebody says the Intercept is anti-Semitic, and they point to your stupid post, they can be directed to my unmasking of you as an obvious plant. Kind of an ugly plant at that, with yellowing leaves, too ugly to water….
You may commence fucking off now.
+++++
He’s a hasbara troll who’s infested this site for months. Everything he posts is recycled and has been debunked many, many times. He has also totally lied and relied on a lying source. (When I proved that he went silent and I’ve not seen that particular inanity from him again.)
He just ignores the copious facts posted that counter his garbage and pastes the same bullshit in the next thread that touches on Israel.
What does a Jewish establishment in my area have to do with Israel? I believe Vic Perry is right. You can fuck off.
Ha! I missed that that person wrote that.
Someone really, really does not understand BDS.
Our tax dollars are going to the Palestinian Authority. The PA uses this money to pay “salaries” to Palestinians in Israeli prisons. The more Jews they’ve murdered, the more money they get. Abbas gives them medals, too.
Why boycott JEWISH establishments?
There is currently an outbreak of the Zika virus in Florida:
“The CDC said that it expects to see more cases of locally transmitted Zika infections in the continental United States…President Barak Obama has asked Congress to appropriate $1.9 billion to fight the virus, but the Republican-controlled Congress adjourned for the summer without passing any sort of funding bill.”
I guess cutting the size of government has translated into forced taxation of American pay checks, giving that money to Israel to commit genocide and allowing pandemics to sweep through America thus destroying our citizens who make up America’s tax base. Even the most ardent advocates of limited government, like Milton Friedman, recognized that public health was an ESSENTIAL ROLE OF GOVERNMENT.
If we stopped all foreign aid, what would we do with the $3 billion we give Israel & the $45 billion we give everyone else? The Republicans would give tax breaks to the rich.
On June 7, 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, the first of two “Bush tax cuts.” That measure reduced the top income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, and reduced capital gains and estate taxes?
Mona was right, all you do is cut and paste the same crap repetitively. You already recycled this hasbara from the comments section of titled:
“Critics Fear Crackdown on Palestinian Free Speech as Israel Takes Aim at Facebook.” So I will give you the same response I did then:
It is factual correct that President Bush 2.0 did reduce the marginal tax rate for Americans in general and in the highest income brackets. I didn’t fact check the date you provided as your point is awkwardly irrelevant, especially since I haven’t written anything about any individual presidential tax bills. Although in the past I have written about the Zionist funded think tank, the Brookings Institute (BI), and how nearly every director appointed to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has come from the BI. I elaborated by explaining the BI policy recommendations radically pushing for the elimination of the mortgage interest tax deduction, which the majority of Americans profoundly benefit from. This tax deduction makes home ownership possible for tens of millions of Americans. This and other popular and beneficial New Deal programs have been under assault by the Zionist funded BI and subsequently the CBO. I should also mention that both Presidents GW Bush & Obama balked at this un-American proposals that would hurt a broad group of Americans by eliminating this deduction from our tax code. Zionists probably lust for more American tax payer money in order to carry out genocide against the Palestinians.
Kudos to you for finally including a factual point in your post (i.e. Bush 2.0 cut taxes). You deserve a sticker on your laptop to encourage truth telling as such occurrences are eerily rare among Israeli Hasbarists. Ironically it seems such honesty is much easier for you when that tidbit of truth is unrelated to Israel (whose wanton disregard for human life and American sovereignty compels you to lie to propagandize our electorate). Although I did gather that your uncharacteristic use of the truth was less than noble and more in line with your desire to associate me with former President GW Bush, who is generally unpopular on this website, as a broad defame, divide, and conquer strategy. I have noted Hasbarists also using this same strategy on conservative leaning news websites; hence associating objective or critical commentators, mentioning Israel, with Obama, in an attempt at character assignations in view of a targeted audience. I’m sure your Prime Minister would be proud of the part you play in fostering identity politics in the United States, thus thwarting the attempts of my fellow citizens from constructively working together towards mutually beneficial goals.
I wish they would use the same ‘over 10 years’ or ‘over 20 years’ trick they do when politicians brag about tax cuts or complain about tax increases.
How does it sound: “we are going to be giving the Jewish State $100 billion of our dollars over the next 20 years, a $60 billion dollar increase.” It don’t sound too good, does it?
Seems like one issue is being missed here and that is the way the US transfers the funds. As I understand it, a lot of this “aid” transfers as funds dedicated to purchase US arms and military equipment. So it ends up funneling through to military contractors who intern fund the politicians who make this all happen on the backs of us taxpayers. Of course, Israel ends up well armed so that can carry out their persecution of the Palestinians or others they feel deemed to eradicate. Moreover, any support for Israel draws further contributions from wealthy Jews, which there are no shortage of, for these same corrupt Politicians. Then you have absurdities like Bloomberg the Anti-gun czar, who greatly supports Israel, the most heavily armed population on the planet.
Israeli civilians are under attack.
American civilians are NOT under attack.
“American civilians are NOT under attack.”
That is how you rationalize stealing our tax dollars. Thanks Israel! Next time your Prime Minister punks our president and you steal our wallets, just don’t claim that you are the victim in all of this. It adds insult to injury.
steal – to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force:
Israel is NOT stealing.
I’m proud of my country, the USA, for helping countries like Israel that are the victim of aggression.
This is an anger-provoking story, Mr Greenwald.
I wonder what Mr Netanyahu thinks about the fact that the Religious Right support him because they (the Israelis, not the RR) will all be dead when Christ returns (or some such nonsense).
Is Jewish gelt the answer for everybody else?
I think this is Mr Obama’s MO in certain cases. In order to prove his trustworthiness on Immigration Reform, he deports millions of undocumented people. In order for Americans to understand that he supports our #1 ally in the ME and that his personal animus towards Mr Netanyahu doesn’t hurt our Israeli friends, he shells out more money than any other US administration.
It’s disgusting. We have blood on our hands from scores of countries around the globe. The thing that pisses me off is that the people inside the Beltway are more conservative than the rest of the country (in broad general terms) and more out of touch than people who read and follow the news.
If we stop invading countries and cease killing and maiming its citizens, we would undoubtedly be safer from terrorists and other people committed to fighting wars against us.
There’s no doubt we would be a wealthier nation. That doesn’t mean our Congress would write laws that share our prosperity more evenly.
Some people like our imperialistic tendencies and appreciate us sowing power, fear, and strength abroad.
PUT AMERICA FIRST….end foreign aid which is fraud. It does not aid them and hurts US
end foreign aid.
You don’t see hillary doing photo ops with Palestinians. Why not? Because truly she is neither a problem solver nor a unifier, she is a racist.
And she’s a Neocon-Zionist.
Glenn you nailed it earlier in the week when you retweeted “Rachel Maddow notes that Chelsea and Ivanka are friends IRL–as are their husbands. It’s almost like there’s a ruling class in this country.” Lets face it we all know who that ruling class is and why they love Israel. If they aren’t part of the tribe they’re definitely trying to marry into it.
What’s galling is that Haim and Sheldon could personally make up the US foreign aid budget to Israel, but they’d rather tie the nation to by buying up a few corrupt politicians.
as are their husbands
Some people hijack trucks for a living.
Others hijack daughters.
Lucky for America, Kanye got to KK before the others did.
You have a long record here as a Democratic troll who opposes Glenn Greenwald’s every word. Presumably, you are now posing as an antisemite to make what you think is such a good point.
As you can see from my earlier comment above, the “troll” fooled me. Now how do you spot trolls? Is it a job, like being a ghostbuster? Do you do anything else besides monitor sites for the occasional pro-Israel or faux anti-Israel comment? How does one get into your business? How much does it pay?
Yeah you’ve called me a Zionist because I suggested that Israel wasn’t conducting a genocidal campaign against the Arabs, now I’m an anti-Semite for agreeing with Glenn, that there is a ruling class and that they are subverting the national interest to support Israel.
Nope, didn’t happen. I don’t believe that Israel is committing genocide — tho many Israelis, including many in government, wish to.
You have a record here and are simply playing a game of some sort.
I just call them like I see them. It is possible to have opinions about Israel without being a Zionist, an anti-Semite or an ultra-leftist.
You are a troll and post trollish “opinions.” I make these observations for the benefit of newer readers.
You have a self-serving definition of “trolling”. I definitely don’t respond to everything you write, nor do I call you names.
Identifying your role is to be accurate. If that constitutes “name-calling,” so be it.
Speaking as a ‘newer’ reader, spare me your opinionated translations and assumptions..
If you stick around, you will come to appreciate Mona very much. She is astute and articulate.
Good for her – and you.
Personally, I don’t need no ‘Mona-splaining’ to understand commenters intentions and draw my own conclusions, thank you very much…
We all don’t know why the ruling class loves Israel. Can you back up your assertion? Something to do with the Jewish “tribe”? Are you working for Trump?
I wish I was working for Trump’s son-in-law, the Kushner’s have a lot more money than the Trumps.
we? who’s we?
What are the names of the corrupt politicians?
It’s fashionable to bash Israel and Jews, as long as there’s a thin veneer of anti-Zionism to cover this hateful act.
There is no cure for the disease called anti-Semitism, but in the end, the disease will consume the afflicted. Happens every time.
I assure you I am not anti-Semitic in the least. I don’t dislike Jewish people or even the State of Israel.
But we must acknowledge that the creation of the State of Israel by the Americans and the Europeans did injustice to the people who were living in Palestine at that point. Israel must recognize this, and help find a solution to the Palestine problem which is just and humane. Israel must work for peace and prosperity in the whole of the middle-east.
Criticizing Israeli repression of Palestinians is not anti-Semitic.
Why was the creation of the State of Israel an injustice to the people who were living in Palestine at that point?
Why was the creation of the state of Israel an injustice to the people of Palestine? Uhhh, because we took their land away from them?
There is a cure for anti-Americanism. Pick 2 flags, burn 1.
And there is a cure for anti-zionism. You’re fired.
You should take much more care. While it is true that antisemites are anti-Zionist — and a few of them participate in comments here — the vast majority of us are vehemently opposed to antisemtism. Indeed, I’ve lobbied to get a few of the worst offenders banned — as I do for the worst of the anti-Muslim bigots who are always Zionists.
In the U.S. antisemitism is very muted and rare, except for the usual suspects with the neo-Nazi affiliations. A large part of that is because rightwing Christians have become absurdly Zionist due to their End Times beliefs.
That could turn on a dime, as Americans become aware of the extent to which the self-described “Jewish State” and its domestic lobby here fleeces us and has helped put terrorist targets on our collective back. Increasingly, however, the voices raised against the crimes of Israel are American Jewish ones, and that can be expected to grow. Myself, I point them out frequently as a prophylactic against a resurgence of antisemitism, which I fear.
Your bargain is a dangerous one.
There are all kinds of apples. It is my hope that the good jewish people in the U.S. and israel find a way to remove the zionists from their positions so that the good jewish people dont take the heat if things turn. The israelis demand it of the Palestinians. Americans are demanding it of the police. Getting the apples to remove the bad apples, not easy, but the best thing to do. Life should be nice.
Scott, it’s just as fashionable for Jews to bash Arabs, Palestinians, and Christians in general. Just make up a false term like “anti-semitism” and fling it around at every chance you get in a futile attempt to force people into censorship.
Especially easy since the definition of anti-semitism is always changing and expanding to cover ALL criticism of Israel and its policies.
“It’s fashionable to bash Israel and Jews, as long as there’s a thin veneer of anti-Zionism to cover this hateful act.”
The disregard for human life and the destructive wrath of Israel creates hatred. At times it leads to reactive anti-Semitism. Yet when it doesn’t and the criticism is accurately levied at Israel and Zionists, propagandist like yourself use fear mongering statements like the one above to gain the support of decent and innocent Jews who have nothing to do with your madness.
What does the term negotiate mean in this case?
Israel refuses to become an aly of the USA because it does not want the obligations.
So what is it that Israel has to persuade the USA to transfer these enormous sums without any apparent conditions?
Does it have something to do with 9/11?
israel steals money from America. They then use this money to buy politicians to steal more money. All they want to do is rule the planet using the US as their proxy in a “they did it” fashion, the leaders treating Americans as their goy soldiers for their GLOBAL DOMINATION INITIATIVE.
What separates israelis however from typical americans is whorism. Jewish persons do not whore themselves out like americans. The currency operating environment may be the cause of that but i cannot really tell. Jewish persons are very faithful to their faith and other jews. Americans are all over the place and their lack of worship and adherence to good ideals and constitutional fundamentals is a real problem. Israel is just taking advantage of the opportunity which is blatantly obvious. It is difficult and easy to condemn others for playing the cards which are dealt given that humans require food and comfort in a competitive operating environment. And “it is the depravity of this realism that eventually produces situations like 911.”
Yes, indeed, Israel steals from America, and they use this stolen money to buy politicians to steal more. They’re never satisfied with aid from the West (the US, mainly) and “reparatiions” from Germany. Now, Bibi Satanyahu’s demanding $40 BILLION in military aid .. His vaunted IDF isn’t so vaunted anymore, apparently.
The US is around $20 BILLION in debt, due to wasteful spending, and only a minute portion of spending goes to repairing its crumbling infrastructure which, btw, is borne mostly by the 50 states themselves. The vast majority of the wasteful spending goes to endless wars of aggression, maintaining scores of military bases worldwide, and the development/manufacture of weaponry and military aircraft/vessels that are either flawed or downright disastrous (the F-35 fighter jet, for example). I could go on, but it would take too long.
Proof that Israel steals from America?
Which politicians did they buy?
Some of AIPAC’s political contributions in 2015
Clinton, Hillary (D) $443,897
Schumer, Charles E (D-NY) Senate $341,318
Cruz, Ted (R-TX) Senate $289,401
Kirk, Mark (R-IL) Senate $214,801
Feingold, Russ (D-WI) $214,554
Evidence that Israel steals money from America?
Which politicians have they bought?
always glad to help relieve ignorance.
it’s what Jesus instructed me to do.
Here your go.
http://www.wrmea.org/pdf/2014augpactopten.pdf
happy reading.
ps… please dont come back with the creative accounting sham defence.
for that, take a course in accounting.
We were giving Israel money before 9/11.
We used to give both military aid & economic aid.
Now we give only military aid & most must be spent in the US.
Israel’s hydro-apartheid keeps West Bank thirsty
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/israels-hydro-apartheid-keeps-west-bank-thirsty
Water shortages are not new for Palestinians. Whether in the occupied Gaza Strip or the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the supply of water flowing into Palestinian homes is strictly capped or obstructed by Israel.
As temperatures climb during the summer, taps run dry. Clemens Messerschmid, a German hydrologist who has worked with Palestinians on their water supply for two decades, calls the situation “hydro-apartheid.”
This year, Israeli journalist Amira Hass published data proving that the Israeli Water Authority had reduced the amount of water delivered to West Bank villages.
In some places, the supply was slashed by half. Her records contradict official denials that water supplies to Palestinian cities and villages are cut during the summer, even though that too is not new.
Cities and small villages have gone as long as 40 days without running water this summer, forcing those who can afford it to haul in water tanks.
Read the rest of the story….
There are many ways to commit murder and genocide. Israel is very creative at killing people. Evil too.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-starvation-diet-gaza/11810
@ barabbas
@nfjtakfa
I hang my head in shame to be American…
my sympathies.
Water shortages in the Palestinian Authority are the result of Palestinian policies that deliberately waste water and destroy the regional water ecology. The Palestinians refuse to develop their own significant underground water resources, build a seawater desalination plant, fix massive leakage from their municipal water pipes, build sewage treatment plants, irrigate land with treated sewage effluents or modern water-saving devices, or bill their own citizens for consumer water usage, leading to enormous waste…In short, the Palestinian Authority is using water as a weapon against the State of Israel. It is not interested in practical solutions to solve the Palestinian people’s water shortages, but rather perpetuation of the shortages and the besmirching of Israel.
Jack I’m going to say this just once….So HEAR THIS.
There is coming a day, a day very soon when the tables will be turned on Israel and her lies that you spew. You will waste away in a desert without water because of what you have done to Palestinians. YOUR LIES ARE MOCKING THE VERY OPPRESSION BEING DEALT OUT TO YOUR NEIGHBORS THIS VERY MINUTE. SO IT ADDS DOUBLE TO THEIR MISERY. I have NOTHING good to say to you….do not say anything to me. GOOD BYE
sure. Is that before or after the genocidal maniacal issies destroyed their infrastructure?
never mind, i will look it up…..
presto!
english.al-akhbar.com/node/20777
Health crisis looms in Gaza after Israel bombs water infrastructure …. Water Utility near its well located to the west of Rafah in southern Gaza.
presto 2!
mondoweiss*dot*net/2015/02/hundreds-thousands-palestinians/
presto3!
electronicintifada*dot*net/content/israel-may-have-deliberately-attacked-sewage-infrastructure/8159
tell you what, after you recover from your brain damage at having suffered from… was it concussions from your having pulled the trigger on the rockets? or was it falling to the pavement chasing ambulances removing wounded children? or maybe was it you got hit by a rock throwing kid and you werent wearing your hellmet? Anyway, after you regain your senses do a little reading or better yet, GO INSPECT THE DAMAGE DONE TO THE PALESTINE UTILITIES.
simple question. How much sense does it make to give billions of dollars to a paranoid society chock full of haters and thieves for GENERATIONS whose next target is Jerusalem and next partner is crazy hillary clinton!?
is it me or does this seem somewhat like supporting a gang seriel killers?
An enemy we can all unite against. The very real threat of Pokemon Go.
Is there a lesson there? If Judith Miller at the NYT can get American soldiers killed looking for phantom nuclear weapons in Iraq….is it any wonder Pokemon Go can make people almost drown fishing for monsters. Both the Pokemon and the NYT are just pixels on a screen…now that we are in the “post factual age” perhaps the next US president will blame the next war on flawed Pokemon intel.
…”But EVERYONE, from the CIA to the FBI thought there was a giant Pokemon in Tehran!!!!”
well shiver me timbers.
next thing you know, the zionists will be telling the Palestinians in Jerusalem (the capital of the world, not israel) to play pokemon for the food while leading them into the desert to die.
Netanyahu: “Once we squeeze all we can out of the United States, it can dry up and blow away.”
https://middleeastatemporal.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/netanyahu-once-we-squeeze-all-we-can-out-of-the-united-states-it-can-dry-up-and-blow-away/
the solution is simple, not easy.
the solution requires “you’re fired” to the current system and their occupiers with a NEW CURRENCY owned and operated by the citizens of the United States of America and grounded in gold or silver.
btw- the reason for grounding a currency is
1. it prevents printing for the sake of printing
2. it ties the population to the earth’s resources, which places a virtual limit on population growth
this must be done.
Entrenched racism in The Only Democracy™
Rest here.
My dear god. What kind of society allows somebody to say that? It’s like a movie about the 50s in the US.
Hate to say it, but there are plenty of Americans in 2016 who would much prefer not to have blacks, hispanics, arabs, or even jews in their swimming pools.
And what about your swimming pool Gator?
Or how about those pearly gates you live behind while kissing a grotesque Jezebel and prostrating at her feet smiling at all those pale children trying to get a drink from a trickle of water because your Israel has stolen it. Don’t tell me it ain’t the money while you spew anti semitism. You are the one that’s out of the closet. And frankly you make me sick.
@ Gator
Look in the mirror hypocrite.
I don’t have a swimming pool or an Israel. I don’t know WTF you’re talking about, honestly.
Really?
Your smug admiration of Clinton not to mention the worship of her and her clan AIPAC that you are so smitten with. So much so that you seem to know all about racism especially the form she supports concerning Israel and the constant theft of BASIC resources as DRINKING WATER, FOOD, AND HOUSING from the Palestinians. You almost had me thinking that you were oh, so, supportive of Palestinians when you blew open the closet door and just like Clintion…say one thing but do another.
For a lawyer your sure don’t get it. Hypocrisy blinds your eyes. That’s WTF I’m talking about.
He’s Jewish with family connections to Israel. According to a Max Blumenthal Joke, out of millions of people in Israel, there are about 700 people in the Israeli left that believe in Palestinian rights. So Gator is part of a rare minority, so give him some credit. Most people are not able to see beyond their own immediate politics, and he definitely has changed.
If you only want purists in your struggle, you’re never going to attract all the people you need to build your struggle into a movement. I’d embrace Gator. I’d welcome him. I’d talk to him to show him the truth of your argument. You don’t have to sell me anything. I’m already sold. What you want to do is reach more people like Gator. Calling people like gator a hypocrite is retarded. It’s stupid. It’s counterproductive, and no help to anybody.
@AIC
thanks…
First off when I see hypocrisy…I call it what it is. No apologies for that and if you think that is “retarded” or “stupid”, I feel sorry for you. I call out hypocrisy because even with a hasbarist I at least know where they stand. I am not good when someone uses words for all of the readers here including myself to believe that they are engaging in some kind of support for a severely oppressed nation…in this case Palestinians. Which by all standards should mean that that support should be backed up with actions going in the right direction to end this heinous activity of the AIPAC controlled USA with Israel. Voting for a well known WAR mongering killing machine as Clinton…let alone drooling at the sick attempt to meet or worse, shake hands with a war criminal SHOCKED me. And in that shock, for me a traitor was in the midst. I loath a traitor when it comes to cozying up with enemies of humanity. That is how it is and that is why the USA is OCCUPIED BY TRAITORS.
It also disgusted me. Gator, however, has always been a bit politically schizophrenic. I don’t share AiC’s tender approach to Gator’s actions, but I also know he’s not a hypocrite. It’s more of a, well, as I said, it’s a kind of ideological schizophrenia.
@ Mona
It’s off my chest…I may let it go but I will remember where it stands. Trust and faithfulness are the most valuable things anyone could have, receive, and give. What I admire about you are those very things. Thanks…
I must respectfully disagree with your schizophrenia diagnosis. I’m very simple politically (and otherwise, according to some). I’m a yellow dog Democrat and always have been. I was a Zionist for a long time and now I’m not. That’s about it, really.
ambivalence
[am-biv-uh-luh ns]
Spell Syllables
Examples Word Origin
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
noun
1.
uncertainty or fluctuation, especially when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things.
2.
Psychology. the coexistence within an individual of positive and negative feelings toward the same person, object, or action, simultaneously drawing him or her in opposite directions.
You are a Zionist when you support them. You can not hide behind a veil so thread bare and pretend it is covering you. You live with a divided heart sitting on a fence with one foot able to touch the side that is favorable…in comfort, without a threat of violence touching you, with a faucet of flowing clean water, and an abundance of food at your local grocery store. So comfortable that you can boast about it. This is why America is full of traitors who deem their comfort over anyone else. Staggering is the thought of the judgement that will befall these traitors.
I’m smitten with AIPAC? How do you figure?
I think America’s support of Israel, in all the forms it takes, is deeply wrong. However it is and has long been bipartisan, and HRC is hardly unique in that respect. I’m not a one-issue voter, but if there were a viable presidential candidate who proposed to fundamentally alter the structure of the US-Israel relationship in a way that would benefit Palestinians, I would certainly give that candidate serious consideration.
I do find qualities to admire in HRC; I know many here disagree and that’s fine. Meeting her was cool as shit, though. It just was. Sorry.