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Post by RocDoc on Aug 12, 2006 15:00:46 GMT -5
That is what I found to be a very good article and doesn't mean you are some sort of Anti-Semite for supporting Lebanon.
You CAN support Lebanon without supporting Hezbollah's shit. They are NOT part and parcel...but they're also pretty effing hard to separate, especially at this point which is what the Israelis are having to admit.
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Post by RocDoc on Aug 12, 2006 15:04:31 GMT -5
And I totally agree with Krauthammer's assessment here re Hezbollah:
....Iran is on the march. It is intervening through proxies throughout the Arab world -- Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Iraq -- to subvert modernizing, Western-oriented Arab governments and bring these territories under Iranian hegemony. Its nuclear ambitions would secure these advances and give it an overwhelming preponderance of power over the Arabs and an absolute deterrent against serious counteractions by the United States, Israel or any other rival.
Portray as one might Hezbollah as grassroots and strictly 'for Lebanon and the Lebanese'...that's plainly false.
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Post by Nepenthe on Aug 12, 2006 16:34:08 GMT -5
Just contrasting Mel Gibson and his father, ( how everyone was yapping up a storm because he doesn't denounce him) with Yasser praising his blessed uncle that not only collaberated with Hitler to annihilate all the Jews in Europe and Palestine, but killed Jews himself and peaceful Palestinian Arabs, and had the King of Jordan assasinated. I know your reading comprehension skills are lacking, I didn't expect you to understand the significance of it. Instead you interpret the reason for the article was to equate all Arabs with Yasser Arafat's Nazi Uncle.  |
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Post by Nepenthe on Aug 12, 2006 17:14:27 GMT -5
Not too mention just how very interesting that history and that article is, having the discussion not too very long ago about why they hate the Jews.
You are so stupid sometimes I wonder how you even function in your daily life.
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Aug 12, 2006 18:34:00 GMT -5
Right.
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Post by Mary on Aug 12, 2006 19:11:23 GMT -5
It wasn't really the part of the article about Iran that bothered me so much, although as usual I do think Krauthammer is vastly vastly oversimplifying complex relations in the Middle East for the sake of his personal crusade against "Islamofascists" or whatever the term-du-jour is. Even so, Iran obviously does exert influence on Shi'ite groups like Hezbollah, and Iran's current leadership at least is obviously cause for concern. However, that said, Krauthammer needs to do his research more carefully, being as Hamas is a Sunni group which could not possibly be lumped into the category of Shi'ite Iranian proxies in the Middle East. That's really an embarrassing gaffe for a columnist pretending to have a good grasp of the Middle East, but even so, it's a factual mistake and not necessarily morally objectionable.
What I thought was downright disgusting about the article was exactly what shin's blogger identified - Krauthammer figures the relationship between the U.S. and Israel as if Israel is just an alternate wing of the U.S. military, and our allegiance to Israel is rooted solely on their utility to us in furthering our military campaigns against, well, Arabs. Really, this should be incredibly offensive not so much to liberals who are critical of Israel's current policies, though it should be offensive to them, but to friends of Israel who believe that the U.S.'s relationship to Israel is based on moral principles, not mere strategic calculations. The implication of the editorial is that America's friendships with other countries is entirely contingent upon the effective millitary might of those countries, and that we should sever all ties to countries who inadequately "defend" themselves - or inadequately bomb Middle Eastern countries to smithereens, whichever is your preferred description. "What have you done for us lately?" - that's Krauthammer's question of Israel - as though Israel should make its foreign policy decisions based upon how it can best serve the interests of the U.S.! C'mon, this is the most flagrant and disgusting sort of imperialism imaginary. For Krauthammer, it's a grave moral failing if another country fails to serve the interests of the U.S. Even if that country is as unflaggingly loyal as Israel, but they're just stuck in a military quagmire. It's one thing to be a realist on international relations and to object to moral criticisms of a country by arguing that all countries ultimately have to serve their own self-interest - it's another thing entirely to expect all countries to serve the self-interest of America.
I mean, it's fucking mind-blowing that Krauthammer presents this situation as "Israel's rare opportunity to demonstrate what it can do for its great American patron" - what the fuck?? Supposedly, from the perspective of most Israel defenders, what Israel is doing is defending itself - in an epic life-and-death struggle, if you're particularly melodramatic about it, against reborn Nazis who want to wipe Jews off the face of the earth. But for Krauthammer, this is not a tragic and desperate situation - it's a fucking OPPORTUNITY - oh, how lucky for Israel! How wonderful! They've been blessed with a lovely OPPORTUNITY..... to help America!
The mind reels at how any human being could have such a despicable view of the tragic conflict between Israel and Lebanon.
M
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Post by kmc on Aug 12, 2006 19:48:22 GMT -5
Just contrasting Mel Gibson and his father, ( how everyone was yapping up a storm because he doesn't denounce him) with Yasser praising his blessed uncle that not only collaberated with Hitler to annihilate all the Jews in Europe and Palestine, but killed Jews himself and peaceful Palestinian Arabs, and had the King of Jordan assasinated. I know your reading comprehension skills are lacking, I didn't expect you to understand the significance of it. Instead you interpret the reason for the article was to equate all Arabs with Yasser Arafat's Nazi Uncle. You do understand that comparing Yasser and Mel Gibson wins Mel Gibson no points, right? The question becomes, do you think the world is being too hard on Mel Gibson? |
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Post by Nepenthe on Aug 12, 2006 22:32:06 GMT -5
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Post by Nepenthe on Aug 12, 2006 23:01:10 GMT -5
And one more ZOA Press Release - September 10, 1999 - Contact: (212) 481-1500 ADOLF HITLER'S MEIN KAMPF IS BEST-SELLER AMONG THE PALESTINIAN ARABS NEW YORK- Adolf Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf, in which he explains his virulent hatred of Jews, has made it to the best-seller list in the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories. The French news agency, Agence France Presse, reports that Mein Kampf is presently at number six on the PA best-seller list. It noted that Mein Kampf was banned from the territories during the years of Israeli administration of the region, but was recently allowed in by the PA. Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), said: "The Palestinian Arabs' apparent fascination with Mein Kampf is a deeply troubling phenomenon. When Israeli forces overran Arafat's bases in southern Lebanon in 1982, they found many copies of Mein Kampf, in Arabic, among the PLO terrorists' belongings. Nor we can we forget that the most popular Palestinian Arab leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, spent the Holocaust years in Berlin, where he was an active Nazi collaborator; he is still revered as a hero among the Palestinian Arabs today." The ZOA president noted that Arafat's number two man and the architect of the Oslo accords, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), is the author of a book (The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement) which claims that Hitler killed less than one million, not six million, Jews, and that (Jerusalem Post , Jan.26, 1995); the official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida has called the Holocaust "a deceitful myth" (July 2, 1998); PA Television has said "the Jews exaggerate what the Nazis did to them" (Aug.25, 1997); and PA Communications Minister Imad al-Falouji and PA general-secretary Ahmed Abdel-Rahman led a rally in support of Holocaust-denier Roger Garaudy. (Reuters, Jan.19, 1998) MORE DETAILS ON ARABIC "MEIN KAMPF" Middle East Media and Research Institute <www.memri.org> has just released more details on the sale of Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf in eastern Jerusalem and the Palestinian autonomy. The Arabic translation is being distributed by Al-Shurouq, a Ramallah-based book distributor, and is now in 6th place on the Palestinian best-seller list. The cover of the book shows a picture of Hitler, a swastika, and the title in both German and Arabic. Following are some excerpts of the introduction by translator Luis Al-Haj: "Hitler was a man of ideology who bequeathed an ideological heritage whose decay is inconceivable. This ideological heritage includes politics, society, science, culture, and war as science and culture... "The National Socialism that Hitler preached for and whose characteristics were presented in his book My Struggle [Mein Kampf]... this National Socialism did not die with the death of its herald. Rather, its seeds multiplied under each star... "This translation of the book My Struggle has never been presented to Arab speakers. It is taken from the original text of the author, Adolf Hitler. The text was untouched by the censor. We made a point to deliver Hitler's opinions and theories on nationalism, regimes, and ethnicity without any changes because they are not yet outmoded and because we, in the Arab world, still proceed haphazardly in all three fields..." www.freeman.org/m_online/oct99/meinkampf.htm |
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Post by RocDoc on Aug 12, 2006 23:43:14 GMT -5
Mary, I think your hatred for Krauthammer causes you to take his writing WAY to literally re 'opportunity'.
The US and Israel are inseparable. Fact.
And yes, regarding Hezbollah's function in furthering Iran's ambitions, BOTH have a large stake and interests in seeing Hezbollah defanged for (obviously Israel's own safety and then for) the safety and stability of the Mid-East in general, the West-embracing countries there AND for the stability of Europe.
IF those interests coincide, who gives a fuck what Krauthammer decides to call it? I think he's actually just being a bit of a shit-stirrer regarding what the U.S. sacrifices in being such a strong supporter of a country in such a seemingly untenable inhospitable part of the world.
And Krauthamer actually calls Hamas a Shiite organization?
....or is the implication in here:
America finds itself at war with radical Islam, a two-churched monster: Sunni al-Qaeda is now being challenged by Shiite Iran for primacy in its epic confrontation with the infidel West. With al-Qaeda in decline, Iran is on the march. It is intervening through proxies throughout the Arab world -- Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Iraq -- to subvert modernizing, Western-oriented Arab governments and bring these territories under Iranian hegemony. Its nuclear ambitions would secure these advances and give it an overwhelming preponderance of power over the Arabs and an absolute deterrent against serious counteractions by the United States, Israel or any other rival.
..that Shiite Iran would have absolutely never ever ever have anything to do with Sunni Hamas?
'The enemy of my enemy....' so which of the two factions really believes that little bit of Koran double talk?
And how selective might that be in the LARGE scope of RE-establishing Islamic primacy in the West, eh?
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Post by Mary on Aug 13, 2006 10:21:37 GMT -5
Mary, I think your hatred for Krauthammer causes you to take his writing WAY to literally re 'opportunity'. Sorry, but the entire argument of the essay concerns Israel's missed opportunity to help its great patron! It's not just a one-off line with a poorly chosen word - it's the logical summation of his argument. Can you possibly deny that the article is a condemnation of Israel for insufficiently serving America's interests with its thus far "inadequate" campaign in Lebanon? Then I didn't take him too literally at all. Come on rocdoc. Krauthammer doesn't say that Iran "has something to do" with Hamas. He says that Hamas is a PROXY for Iran. That is, quite simply, preposterous, and anyone who knows any fucking thing about the Middle East or about the highly nationalist Hamas knows it. It's laughable to imagine that Iran thinks a Hamas victory in Palestine could give it "hegemony" there. Huge gaffe for Krauthammer, there's no possible way to vindicate him on this. M |
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Post by chrisfan on Aug 13, 2006 10:29:10 GMT -5
Mary, there is no question that with the kind of operation that Hamas runs, the funding and weaponry they have is coming from somewhere big. If it is preposterous to believe that Iran is not the one playing such a heavy hand in Hamas, then where is it coming from?
The connection that RocDoc made earlier - the enemy of my enemy CANNOT be discounted in this region.
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Aug 13, 2006 10:49:38 GMT -5
Do any of you remember the Reagan administration giving a shit-load of weapons to Hezbollah in the mid 80s? It was one of the things that came out during Iran-Contra affair. Do we just discount that or are we being slightly hypocritical towards Hezbollah?
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Post by Mary on Aug 13, 2006 11:09:27 GMT -5
Of course a lot of the money comes from Iran.... and from wealthy private benefactors in places like Saudi Arabia. My understanding is that the money coming from Saudi Arabian benefactors is by far the most significant source of funding for Hamas. The fact that Iran provides funds for Hamas does not make Hamas an Iranian proxy, however - Iran is one of many sources of funding for Hamas, and Hamas is an organization with a strong nationalist agenda, which makes it especially anathema to doing the bidding of a foreign government. I am not remotely denying a relationship between Iran and Hamas - obvoiusly such a relationship exists. The Hamas leadership went to Iran to meet with Ahmadinejad after being elected. What I am pointing out is that a relationship does not make a proxy, and Hamas is particularly ill-suited to be anyone's proxy anything.
M
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Aug 13, 2006 12:19:36 GMT -5
For Mary:
The land of the free - but free speech is a rare commodity
You can say what you like in the US, just as long as you don't ask awkward questions about America's role in the Middle East
Henry Porter
Sunday August 13, 2006
The Observer
It used to be said that academic rows were vicious because the stakes were so small. That's no longer true in America, where a battle is underway on campuses over what can be said about the Middle East and US foreign policy.
Douglas Giles is a recent casualty. He used to teach a class on world religions at Roosevelt University, Chicago, founded in memory of FDR and his liberal-inclined wife, Eleanor. Last year, Giles was ordered by his head of department, art historian Susan Weininger, not to allow students to ask questions about Palestine and Israel; in fact, nothing was to be mentioned in class, textbooks and examinations that could possibly open Judaism to criticism.
Students, being what they are, did not go along with the ban. A young woman, originally from Pakistan, asked a question about Palestinian rights. Someone complained and Professor Giles was promptly fired.
Leaving aside his boss's doubtful qualifications to set limits on a class of comparative religion - her speciality is early 20th-century Midwestern artists such as Tunis Ponsen (nor have I) - the point to grasp is that Professor Giles did not make inflammatory statements himself: he merely refused to limit debate among the young minds in front of him.
This might be seen as a troubling one-off like the story involving the president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, who suggested that innate differences between the minds of men and women could be one reason why fewer women succeed in science and maths careers and was then ousted. But Giles's sacking is far more important because it is part of the movement to suppress criticism of Israel on the grounds that it is anti-semitic. A mild man, Giles seems astonished to find the battle for free speech in his own lecture theatre.
'It may be sexy to get on a bus and go to DC and march against war,' he said to me last week. 'It is much less sexy to fight in your own university for the right of free speech. But that is where it begins. That is because they are taking away what you can talk about.' He feels there is a pattern of intolerance in his sacking that has been encouraged by websites such as FrontPageMag.com and Campus Watch.
Joel Beinin of Stanford University is regularly attacked by both. Beinin is a Jew who speaks both Hebrew and Arabic. He worked in Israel and on an assembly line in the US, where he helped Arab workers understand their rights. Now, he holds seminars at Stanford in which all views are expressed. For this reason, no doubt, his photograph recently appeared on the front of a booklet entitled 'Campus Support for Terrorism'.
It was published by David Horovitz, the founder of FrontPageMag.com who has both composed a bill of rights for universities, designed to take politics (for which read liberal influence and plurality) out of the curriculum and a list of the 100 most dangerous academics in America, which includes Noam Chomsky and many other distinguished thinkers and teachers.
The demented, bullying tone of the websites is another symptom of the descent of public discourse in America and, frankly, one can easily see the attractions of self-censorship on the question of Middle East and Israel. Read David Horovitz for longer than five minutes and you begin to hear Senator Joseph McCarthy accusing someone of un-American activities.
At Harvard, a few weeks after what was called Summers's 'mis-step', a much greater row ensued when John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard published a paper called 'The Israel Lobby'. Brave because the alleged distortion of US pro-Israel foreign policy is unmentionable in American public life.
Their paper was printed only in the UK, in the London Review of Books. In America, there then followed what has been described as the massive 'Shhhhhhhhh!' Apart from the mud-slinging from sites such as Campus Watch and FrontPageMag, it has had little mainstream circulation and there has been no real debate.
I have read it several times and cannot disagree with an early point made by the authors. 'There is a strong moral case for supporting Israel's existence, but that is not in jeopardy. Viewed objectively, its past and present conduct offers no moral basis for privileging it over the Palestinians.' That is the crux. All Americans, to say little of the British who have been reluctantly welded to US policy, surely deserve the chance to know about the influence that lobbies such as the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) exert at times like these.
'The bottom line,' say Mearsheimer and Walt, 'is that AIPAC is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress, with the result that US policy is not debated there, even though the policy has important consequences for the entire world. In other words, one of the three main branches of the government is firmly committed to supporting Israel.'
Later they say: 'The lobby's influence causes trouble on several fronts. It increases the terrorist danger that all states face, including America's European allies. It has made it impossible to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a situation that gives extremists a powerful recruiting tool, increases the pool of potential terrorist and sympathisers and contributes to Islamic radicalism in Europe and Asia.'
You could add that the lobby's influence may, in the long run, be very much against Israel's interests.
That is my belief, but these things are rarely discussed in America. People look vaguely queasy when you raise the subject of the Israeli lobby, as though the only concern in American discourse is not to appear anti-semitic, a fear which, I suggest, is sometimes shamelessly played upon.
The right of people like Mearsheimer, Walt, Beinin, Giles and even Summers to say what they think must remain inviolate if we are not to lose the values the West insists its fighting for. A little boldness is called for on both sides of the Atlantic to question the pressure coming from both Jewish and Muslim quarters not to discuss issues openly because of various sensibilities.
In Britain, we should deplore with equal vehemence the temptation to give into special pleading from, for instance, the Muslim businessmen who do not want the film of Monica Ali's Brick Lane made in their area. They have no right to dictate to this ancient democracy of ours - now theirs - and so stifle free expression.
Last week, during Jon Snow's fascinating Channel 4 documentary about Muslim attitudes in this country, a woman said that British society was too decadent for her to allow her children to integrate completely. A moment's thought suggested that British democracy had much to offer over the appalling civic values found in most Muslim countries, the oppression of women in Islam, the untold domestic abuse and the tens of thousands of children sold into bonded labour in Pakistan - her husband's country of origin. Her prim separatism fails to grasp the value of our democratic institutions when set against societies run by Sharia law and so undermines them.
My view is that in America and Britain, we should think of free speech as an article of faith, as one of the ways that we define our civilisation against the forces that were to be unleashed on us this week, as well as the influences that stifle criticism of Israel and so enable the disgraceful actions in south Lebanon.
The interests of extreme proponents of Muslim and Jewish faiths combine in one way or another to assault our ancient democratic traditions and we must resist them.
Let the students like those in Douglas Giles's class ask whatever they like.
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