Mondoweiss: "Israel, Your Brand is Tanking"

[Comrade Grumpy]

About Mondoweiss

Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective.

It has four principal aims:

To publish important developments touching on Israel/Palestine, the American Jewish community and the shifting debate over US foreign policy in a timely fashion.
To publish a diversity of voices to promote dialogue on these important issues.
To foster the movement for greater fairness and justice for Palestinians in American foreign policy.
To offer alternatives to pro-Zionist ideology as a basis for American Jewish identity.

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/israel-brand-tanking.html

Over the last day or so there have been more and more signs that Israel’s image is tanking due its latest massacres in Gaza. Ordinary Americans see Palestinians being “annihilated,” and they’re angry about it.

The Gallup poll that shows 2-to-1 opposition to Israel’s war among the young and the non-white is getting a lot of pickup:

<snip>

The realist blogger Pat Lang says Israel’s support is disintegrating around the world– as the Israelis have made clear that genocide is one of their options.

t can be seen at this point that while Israel has triumphed politically and militarily at the tactical level, it is defeated at the strategic level. Hamas yet lives and continues to resist the fire storm of air strikes, artillery bombardment and ground action. That very steadfastness places Israel in the position of eventually having to make a choice with regard to the Palestinians between actual, serious, bargaining or extermination. The Israeli government and populace have chosen to believe that sufficient brutal force, if widely applied, would separate the resistance from the people. That has failed no matter how much the Israelis would like to believe otherwise. At the same time, political support for Israel is disintegrating across the world. This is defeat.

<snip>

Much more at Mondoweiss

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[cilla4progress]

2. I've been looking for a good objective site,

this looks like one. I especially like that it's progressive, probably more in sync with my views. Thanks - sharing.

[closeupready]

3. I think so, and it's sad, really, because I remember a time when

they really DID seem to have been a functioning democracy in a region with nothing but dictatorships.

I'm always hoping that there can be a reconciliation and an agreeable settlement, however, as naive as that may sound.

[seveneyes]

4. Some may also blame these facts about Gaza on Israel too...

[Marrah_G]

5. So they are saving the Palestinians from Hamas? by killing them?

[JDPriestly]

14. What a mess!

Whew! I was glad when that was over. It's even worse than I thought. The buildings look good.

The Palestinians really need help, but they would not take the help they need if you brought it to them on a gold platter. What a mess!

[truebluegreen]

6. I wonder who taught them this:

"The Israeli government and populace have chosen to believe that sufficient brutal force, if widely applied, would separate the resistance from the people."

[hifiguy]

7. There are always some people who

learn the exact opposite of the lessons history has to teach.

Kicked and rec'd.

[QuestForSense]

9. Until conscienceness changes, the oppressed become the oppressor.

It swings back and forth.

[JDPriestly]

8. This is unfortunate. Israel has not stated its case well.

I did the research.

Israel was victim of suicide bombers and other Palestinian violence during the Second Intifada. Palestinians justify the Second Intifada as a response to Sharon's marching around the Temple Mount. With the other side of their mouths, they criticize Israel for being a Jewish State and for religious intolerance. They ignore the fact that non-Jewish citizens of Israel have equal voting and other rights.

In response to the suicide bomber, Israel built a wall. That was a nonviolent response to the Palestinian violence. The Palestinians complained about apartheid. The wall was a peaceful means to solve a problem. Israel got no credit for its peaceful solution.

Palestinians shot rockets over the wall to no possible purpose other than to kill or injure or frighten Israelis.

Israel responded -- peacefully -- by building a missile shield. The Palestinians still sent missiles and then reduced the number of missiles in 2014. Strangely.

But Israel got no credit for having found a peaceful solution to Palestinian violence. The missile shield went pretty much unnoticed.

Completely frustrated in their effort to goad Israel into a violent response, Palestinians built complex tunnels that exited into the kibbutzes and possibly other areas of Israel.

Israel could not build a wall or a shield against the tunnels, so it recently went in to destroy the tunnels.

A wall, a shield -- sizable investments in order to save lives and have peace. But Israel gets all the blame.

Do both sides need to work for peace. Yes. But Israel is not the only one to blame. I would like to see what Palestinians have done to try to forge peace with Israel.

Some of course would like to simply evacuate Jewish people from Israel. But then I have to ask, would you move all of the WWII refugees out of the countries and homes in which they were relocated -- or just the Jews.

Because ultimately that is what it boils down to. The ISIS is killing people all over Syria and Iraq. But they are not Jewish so what they are doing does not get into the news. The Palestinians shot rockets into Israel, but most people paid no attention. Didn't even know that Israel had built a shield.

But when Israel goes into Gaza to destroy the tunnels that pose a threat to Israelis living peacefully within their own country, everyone goes bananas. Palestinians are their own worst enemies. They did not have to send suicide bombers, rockets or militants emerging from tunnels into Israel.

There is blame on both sides, but Israel's bad press is just that -- bad press. I am not Jewish. I just did a bit of Googling about the facts. Most DUers just read the emotional babble on DU and assume it is correct. The dispute between Palestine and Israel goes back a long way. The only thing that will satisfy Palestinians is to destroy Israel. Just read the reports with that fact in mind. Palestinians have tried to destroy the Israelis who came there as immigrants since the UN partitioned the area there when it was under British governance after WWII.

They can have peace in the area but it is going to take work and sacrifice on both sides.

[CJCRANE]

10. The spotlight is on them right now. The whole world is watching.

They have the chance to state their case right now.

[libodem]

11. I predict

They will stomp Gaza and make a launch into Iran, right after. They have gone power mad.

[Little Star]

13. Netan-yahoo and John McCain make good bed fellows......

This whole thing is fucking over kill, imho. Enough is enough.