Israel: An outpost of empire

[IndianaGreen]

Israel: An outpost of empire

Israel's sense of impunity knows no limits, writes Michael Fiorentino, who recently returned from a two-month stay in the occupied West Bank.

April 16, 2010

"JERUSALEM IS not a settlement," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the March 22 meeting of the American Israeli Political Action Committee. "It is our capital."

These were confident words, especially in light of the "strained" diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Israel after it was announced that Israel would construct 1,600 new housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo.

The announcement, which coincided with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visit to the country on March 9, was an act of defiance in the face of the Obama administration's earlier call for Israel to halt settlement construction as a precondition for restarting "peace negotiations" with the Palestinian Authority.

"I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units," said Biden. " substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I've had here in Israel."

Mainstream commentators, such as the New York Times' Thomas Friedman and Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria, have spilled much ink decrying the "crisis" in U.S.-Israeli relations.

But the supposed tension in the "special relationship" between the U.S. and Israel is largely to please domestic constituencies. Netanyahu is anxious to demonstrate his commitment to the maximum program of Israel's colonial expansion in the face of criticism from his right, and Obama is eager to show the skeptics that he is an unflinching Israel booster who can be "tough on the Arabs."

http://socialistworker.org/2010/04/16/israel-outpost-of-empire

[Jim Sagle]

1. I remember when socialists were prosemitic.

Some still are.

[LeftishBrit]

2. What an utterly bizarre site!

I *cannot* work out whether Quigley is a far-right-winger cynically masquerading as a socialist to gain socialist support for collaboration with the Right; or whether he's simply a nut who does consider himself as some sort of splinter leftist. However, he is certainly virulently Islamophobic, and this is reflected in vicious anti-Palestinian sentiments, as well as sympathy for Geert Wilders and even to some degree for the BNP ('The dogmatists on the so called Left are condemning the BNP. Yet the BNP is the only party I know of which supported the right of Israel to defend its country against Islam and Hamas in the war at the turn of the year!') and most consistently in support for Karadzic and other RW Serbs against Bosnia and Kosovo. He has articles referring to the 'Srebrenica hoax'.

Interestingly, the virulent anti-Bosnian sentiment is one thing that he has in common with another pseudo-progressive, with very different views on Israel: Alexander Cockburn.

No, I don't go for the SWP sites either - they are mostly nuts.

[Violet_Crumble]

4. That's one way of describing a site that calls Obama and Clinton Nazis....

I held my nose and read for as long as I could, but I still hadn't spotted anything of a socialist nature before I gave up.

I saw a 'supporter' of Israel on a comment thread at Ha'aretz a few days ago who was double-barrelling with the pro-Israel/pro-Serb stuff, and was wondering what drives views like that. I got the impression from the language being used by the comment thread person that it was driven out of a very strong Islamophobia, but am still wondering if there's anything else that drives that sort of denial of what was done by the Serbs...

[ProgressiveMuslim]

5. "Hamas and the extermination of the Jews" How utterly divorced from reality.

Say what you want about Palestinians. They are clear-eyed. How does one every negotiate with people who suffer these kinds of delusions?
Are there people in the Israeli gov't who think this way? How utterly frightening.

[shira]

6. Recently, from Hamas TV

Title of Video: Blood Libel on Hamas TV -
President of the American Center for Islamic Research Dr. Sallah Sultan: Jews Murder Non-Jews and Use Their Blood to Knead Passover Matzos
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/2443.htm

Following are excerpts from an address by Dr. Sallah Sultan, president of the American Center for Islamic Research, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 31, 2010.

Dr. Sallah Sultan: I want our brothers, and the whole world, to know what's going on these days, during Passover. Read Dr. Naghuib Al-Kilani's book, Blood for the Matzos of Zion. Every year, at this time, the Zionists kidnap several non-Muslims – Christians and others... By the way, this happened in a Jewish neighborhood in Damascus. They killed the French doctor, Toma, who used to treat the Jews and others for free, in order to spread Christianity. Even though he was their friend and they benefited from him the most, they took him on one of these holidays and slaughtered him, along with the nurse. Then they kneaded the matzos with the blood of Dr. Toma and his nurse. They do this every year.

The world must know these facts about the Zionist entity and its terrible corrupt creed. The world should know this.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

7. Saying that Hamas "exterminates Jews" is as insane as the OP.

What's said is that you don't see that.

[shira]

8. It's sad you don't see how demonising Jews leads to actions against those 'evil' Jews

Actions based on words like these:

Hamas Spokesman: Genocide of Jews remains Hamas goal
http://pmw.org.il/bulletins_apr2007.htm#b030507

[ProgressiveMuslim]

9. 300 murdered kids in Gaza last winter says it all. Who is exterminating whom?

[oberliner]

10. No one is exterminating anyone

It's interesting how the term "extermination" comes up in this context in spite of the clear reality that no such thing is taking place.

[LeftishBrit]

11. Exactly!

[shira]

12. Hamas: “The extermination of the Jews is good for the inhabitants of the worlds.”

Near the bottom of the page:
http://www.pmw.org.il/bulletins_may2007.htm

Maybe they don't mean it.

Or maybe they shouldn't be held responsible for making these claims.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

14. Not according to the site being discussed, which accuses Hamas of exterminating Jews.

My point is only to say if there is a case to be made for extermination, it certainly isn't against Jews.

[Violet_Crumble]

17. What context do you mean? n/t

[oberliner]

18. The context of the I/P conflict nt

[Violet_Crumble]

38. I think you need to read PM's post in the context of the post it was replying to n/t

[shira]

13. It's blood libel to accuse the IDF of murdering hundreds of kids during OCL

"There are different accounts of the numbers of civilian deaths in Gaza, and of the ratio between civilian and militant deaths. B’Tselem, the reliable Israeli human rights organization, carefully examined names and lists of people who were killed and came up with the following ratio: Out of the 1,387 people killed in Gaza, for every militant that was killed, three civilians were killed. This ratio--1:3--holds if you include the police force among the civilians; but if you consider the police force as combatants, the ratio comes out to 2:3. There are 1.5 million people in Gaza and around 10,000 Hamas militants, so the ratio of militants to civilians is 1:150. If Israel targeted civilians intentionally, how on earth did it reduce such a ratio to 1:3 or 2:3?"

http://www.tnr.com/article/world/the-goldstone-illusion?page=0,0

[ProgressiveMuslim]

15. FCOL Shira. Now you deny hundreds of civilian youths were killed in OCL? OK.

[shira]

16. BIG difference between killed and murdered.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

19. When the "double kills" of pregnant women are immortalized on T-Shirts? RU kidding?

It's not only murder, it's slaughter.

[shira]

21. Evidence of your claims is severely lacking. Israel's performance in OCL was no worse than any...

....western nation's wartime performance in modern history.

Not one child had to die if Hamas hadn't persisted in lobbing hundreds of rockets deliberately at Israel's civilians in the days leading up to OCL.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

24. Two words for you: WHITE PHOSPHORUS.

You need your moral compass recalibrated.

[shira]

25. No evidence of that in burn victims either

http://www.irct.org/Files/Filer/TortureJournal/20_01_2010/Detecting%20phosphorus.pdf

"...we were unable to differentiate birefringent particles from the background signals, so phosphorus could not be detected."

Even the Danish study from which that came was lame, as this shows:
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?176487-No-evidence-for-white-phosphorus-found-in-Cast-Lead-burn-victims

[ProgressiveMuslim]

26. I imagine you have all this crap taped on your frig, and you have to chant it before you go to sleep

at night, so you can get some shut eye...

[shira]

28. Demonising, false, hateful accusations don't belong on a liberal website

[azurnoir]

40. shira once again you edit so as to chage the meaning

complete statement

We believe that the inconclusive results
of Raman Spectroscopy in the detection
of phosphorus were due to the processing
and subsequent staining and mounting of
the tissue, which might interfere with the
measurement. The birefringent material is
likely to be a phosphorus compound, supported
by the clinical observation of very
deep and very slowly healing burn wounds.
White phosphorus may be used in war as a
smoke screen. Its use against individuals is
prohibited.

[shira]

42. and that snippet you CP'd magically proves evidence of WP in Gaza burn victims.......how?

[azurnoir]

47. shira you have ventured in the ludicrous

eta let us take a look here shall we

your cut and paste

We believe that the inconclusive results
of Raman Spectroscopy in the detection
of phosphorus were due to the processing
and subsequent staining and mounting of
the tissue, which might interfere with the
measurement.

and here is the omitted part

The birefringent material is
likely to be a phosphorus compound, supported
by the clinical observation of very
deep and very slowly healing burn wounds.
White phosphorus may be used in war as a
smoke screen. Its use against individuals is
prohibited.

why did you leave that out then?

[proteus_lives]

3. I remember the distant past too.

[shaayecanaan]

27. Do you think that socialists should be pro-semitic?

and what do you think being pro-semitic means?

[Ken Burch]

33. In this case, it apparently means defending the AIPAC/Hasbara line unquestioningly

:eyes:

[Ken Burch]

32. It was never socialist to say that Israel had the right to subjugate Palestinians

And the consequences of the Six-Day war were totally right-wing and antisocialist. That war gave Menachem Begin his big break in show business, since Levi Eshkol decided to form a national unity government before fighting the war(and no good whatsoever came from Likud dominating the next four decades of Israeli politics, not that Mapai were saints of course), and it turned the IDF from simply a sometime necessity to a fetishized institution, held after 1967 to be more important in many respects than the civilian democratic government that Israel was supposed to be about. Worst of all, it put Palestinians into an unjustified position of collective oppression and persecution, a situation that couldn't help but create an armed struggle response to Israeli dominance.
Anything remotely socialist about Israel died when the Dome of the Rock was taken.

Socialism is about universalism and human equality, not nationalist particularism. Every time socialism mixes with nationalism, it ends up ceasing to be socialism.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

20. Why is this crap allowed and I can't post a piece from a Columbia University professor?

Would someone explain the standard, please?

[Douglas Carpenter]

22. you are absolutely right PM...the double-standard is as blatant as it is intellectually dishonest

[ProgressiveMuslim]

23. It's OUTRAGEOUS that justified criticism of Salam Fayyad can't be posted. I/P should be renamed

"zionist salon."

[shira]

29. Joseph Massad is a homophobic, hateful bigot who calls for the destruction of Israel

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/122832.html

http://hnn.us/articles/5003.html

[ProgressiveMuslim]

34. That's how I feel about people like Dershowitz. But I don't think he should be banned from the DU.

[Douglas Carpenter]

30. as you know Joseph Massad was a victim of outside racist hate groups who were trying to intimidate,

silence or get rid of Arab Professors who teach at Columbia University in New York.

Professor Massad wrote a response to this blatantly racist smear campaign directed against him and other Arab professors at Columbia:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3282.shtml

here is another article by one of Professor Massad's students:

In the Spring of 2001, I took Professor Joseph Massad’s class on Israeli-Palestinian Politics and Societies. It was a class that exposed me for the first time to a history and critique of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. As most people in this country I had never been exposed to any deep history or analysis of what seemed to me to be a complicated and age-old conflict. Professor Massad’s engaging lectures but just as importantly, his openness to discussion and disagreement in the classroom opened my eyes to an entirely new realm of debate. I took the class with Noah Lieben, one of the foremost critics of Massad and MEALAC. I am deeply disturbed by accusations put forward by Lieben in Columbia Unbecoming, and would have been happy to express them in the film if asked. Lieben’s interventions and aggressive disagreements in class helped deepen my understanding of Zionism, and create a stimulating environment for debate. Professor Massad always respectfully fielded Lieben’s and others’ questions and points. At times the debate took over to the detriment of keeping up with the syllabus. But it was an invaluable part of the process and made it one of the best and most rigorous classes in my four years at Columbia University.

....

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3296.shtml

[Violet_Crumble]

41. I'm with you on this, Douglas.

I thought the other OP was locked because of the source, but apparently that's not the case. I've got no problem with posting in a forum where there's clear bias in applying rules as long as there's no pretense that the rules are applied evenly..

I'd ask why Joseph Massad is barred from being posted in this forum, but what's the point? It's not like anyone who's got control of the steering wheel's going to try to explain...

[ProgressiveMuslim]

44. He passes muster at Columbia University, but not on DU's I/P? Sorry, that's laughable!

[Ken Burch]

31. Pointing out that Israel has imperial/colonial aspects isn't antisemitic

A lot of Jews do that(a growing number in fact).

No serious-minded person really believes that Israel's survival depends on keeping the Occupation in place until Palestinians unilaterally disarm and achieve pacifist sainthood.

And, if you don't like it, the best way to stop them doing that is for you to speak out against the Occupation and the continued settlement project. You know both are morally wrong anyway.

[shaayecanaan]

35. I see there is quite a glowing endorsement of the British National Party

on Jim Sagle's favourite site:-

http://4international.wordpress.com/category/british-national-party/

"Judaism gets its progressive character because it is an expression of Jewish nationalism, the nation state and the Jewish Homeland, in secular as well as religious terms Zion.

That is the issue. THE KEY ISSUE.

And that is why the BNP was alone in Britain in giving support to the right of Israel to wage a war just some months ago to defend its nation state against Hamas."

Still can't say I like the BNP much, though. I guess I'm just not that good a socialist.

[Jim Sagle]

36. Quigley doesn't like it that much either.

He's merely pointing out some on the "other" side are even worse.

[shaayecanaan]

37. I am truly intrigued...

The BNP emphasis on the English nation and nation state finds itself in the same camp, despite other contradictory things.

Trotsky made distinctions in his writings. For example he saw Rivera in Spain as an aristocrat, not a Fascist, (Many were getting this wrong, especially dogmatists were) because Rivera did not have a plebeian mass base, the central component of Fascism.

In Germany and Italy it was different. Mussolini did have a mass base and both he and Hitler used socialist demagogy in great amounts in their propaganda.

Islam on the other hand is a Fascist movement and ideology.

So are those in Britain who opposed Israel and its right to defend its citizens in the Gaza war. Those atacking the BNP on Question Time are actually closer to Fascism and to a last man are antisemites. Strange but true.

Goldstone is much closer to Fascism, state and world dictatorship Fascism than is the BNP.
This is the true Trotskyist analysis.

So when you say that people on the "other side" are worse than the BNP, you have people like Goldstone in mind?

[LeftishBrit]

43. He says 'Those attacking the BNP on Question Time' are worse

Well, I watched that Question Time debate, where Nick Griffin was one of the panel. His opponents on the panel were mostly MPs from the three main British parties - so Quigley is implying that Labour, LibDems and Tories are worse than the BNP. There were a variety of members of the audience who spoke against the BNP; and one of the most eloquent speakers, as I remember, was Jewish, and this entered into his strong opposition to neo-Nazis and their xenophobia. So the BNP's opponents on Question Time were 'antisemites to a man'? - this allegation is revolting!!!

Quigley attacks Olmert as a 'traitor' for not being hawkish enough; and rants against sane pro-Israel people and sites such as Harry's Place. He is obviously not sane.

Just because someone says that he's left-wing doesn't mean that he is.

[Jim Sagle]

45. I think you're right. I didn't check this guy out very well.

Nor is his site even remotely a "favorite" site as another DUer stated - just a site I ran across and didn't check out very well.

I won't be be using him as a reference again. And thanks for the eyewitness feedback.

[ConsAreLiars]

39. You are the one who is making the bizarre claim that that bizarre site is "socialist." Why?

Maybe you share the belief system of those who get a lot of play in the corporate media whe believe that Hitler and Stalin were "socialists" or "leftists" or "liberals" ot "progressives."

That would be my best way of explaining how you could actually believe that what you posted was even partially rational or reasonable or had some basis in your peculiar "reality."

[Jim Sagle]

46. He made the claim and I pretty much took it at face value. I was wrong.

[FarrenH]

48. Sooner or later

You're gonna have to realise that you are on the side of the most right-wing government in Israeli history, you are on the side of batshit-crazy Evangelicals who want all the Jews back in the holy land so that the end times can begin. You are on the side of people who are incapable of conceding that such a thing as moderate Islam exists (as an open atheist who has lived, worked with and dated Islams I know that to be idiocy on its face), but instead associate the entire religion with the most genocidal non-Muslim political movements of the last century. You are on the side of religious Zionists who's rabid nationalism can accurately be called both virulently racist or race-supremist. If you are liberal or left in all other ways except where Palestinian human rights are concerned, then you are what Stalin might have called a useful idiot. But that, for the most part, is the ideological company you keep. Own it.

[shaayecanaan]

49. The last time someone endorsed a neo-fascist far right-wing website on this forum

it was an Israel supporter as well, as I recall.

In this case, a poster has said that they erred in endorsing a website 48 hours after the event, notwithstanding that questionable passages were brought to their attention on several occasions during that time. OTOH it took me about 15 seconds to recognise that particular website for what it was. To not do so would have required a degree of political naivete bordering on the extreme.

I also note that while this site was roundly condemned by the left-leaning participants on this board, the usual right-wing posters either obliquely defended its contents, or confined themselves to taking issue with specific statements made by its detractors.

[ConsAreLiars]

50. Not sure who your "he" is, but you were the one who first mentioned and linked that rightwing trash

No idea how you found that obscure, nearly zero traffic site, but it probably was because you wanted some "evidence to back your delusional tea-party-ish view of what leftist/progressive/socialist's believe and their/our values.

If "he" (whoever that might be - one of your voices?) made you believe that site represented leftist/socialist views in any way, then it seems you are as gullible and easily misled on that issue as you are on many others, including I/P. Toss a few of your blinders aside. See the real world instead of being jerked around by dumbass label mongering bigots.