But dang it, the Nation promised us Agents of Influence and Fellow Travelers!
Those links are most unsatisfying. One is speculation about how the Franklin investigation might affect Karl Rove in the Plame case. The others are just more rehashing of Franklin and his two supposed AIPAC buddies, plus various airy speculations. I don’t want vague mumblings about the “AIPAC tyranny of fear”, I want hot conspiracies. Let’s have those stunning revelations the Nation has been hinting at all this time - Israeli moles, sexy Mossad agents, Ariel Sharon hiding in Dick Cheney’s closet* to receive secret documents from the corridors of power!
What’s actually come out is a big disappointment.
*had to have been a walk-in closet, don’t you think?
From here [the UK] it looks as if the justification for that perception is there in abundance. How many times has the USA used its veto to protect Israel from sanction?
Putting aside the eminently reliable nature of the website you linked to, and even assuming that all of those vetos mentioned are accurate, why not? Maybe the other members of the Security Council are/were biased toward the Palestinians. Or is the US the only nation that’s biased toward one side or another.
Of course not, but I believe in this case that America IS right about Israel, and that much of the world IS unfairly biased against Israel, due to a combination of anti-Semitism and a kind of knee-jerk anti-colonialist attitude which sees the formation of the Israeli state as European colonialsm of the worst kind and the Palestinians as oppressed victims of European/Israeli colonialism.
…much of the world is unfairly biased against Israel 'cause their anti-Semitic and knee-jerk reactionary anti-colonialist??? Extraordinary accusation: I think its only fair you provide some extraordinary proof.
To some extent, they probably are, but so are the Piscataway, and I don’t plan on moving. The problem isn’t saying that the Palestinians got a raw deal. Obviously, in a lot of ways, they did. The problem comes when you set it up as some sort of morality play…and when you say “The Israelis are oppressors” and “The Palestinians are their victims”, because that has all sorts of bad effects:
[list]First, it renders the Palestinians powerless. Victims are people that things happen to. Both Palestinian and Israeli actions have led to the current situation, and any sort of practical analysis needs to look at both sides’ actions and the choices both sides made and make (as well as the role of outside factors, and other actors), and how both sides respond to each other.
Secondly, it legitimizes Palestinian actions. We don’t hold a victim’s actions against his or her oppressor to the same standards that we hold other actions. Whatever the victim does to strike back against his oppressor is valid. Too often people are willing to excuse Palestinian bad behavior
Thirdly, it delegitimizes Israeli actions. However Israel treats the Palestinians, they’re still “the oppressor”, and so whatever they do is wrong, by definition, almost.
Fourthly, it’s just not true. Palestine had, for most of recent history, been controlled not by Western Europeans, but by Turks. The British only got it after WWI. And then, the Israeli independence movement was an anti-colonial, nationalist movement that rebelled against the British. Plus, a large percentage of Israeli Jews don’t have European backgrounds. They come from, or are descended from people who come from Arab countries.
The above is the fallacy of undesirable consequences, namely: the Israeli/Palestinian power imbalance and apportionment of responsibility for a just solution; the legitimacy of Palestinian actions and; the illegitimacy of Israeli actions. It’s not a valid basis to argue the proposition.
The substance of the above paragraph doesn’t support the opening proposition: which concerns Israeli colonialist oppressors/Palestinian indigenous victims.
This is really Captain Amazing’s question to answer as my previous reply merely pointed out how the statements addressed to this point did not support the argument advanced. That said, I’m curious how Palestinians could be described as colonialists?
Well, truthfully, the original ones in the area were, apparently, tenant farmers on Ottoman lands, while the incoming Jews were buying the land. (Not that there weren’t jews to start with)
And, of course, a large portion of the immigrant jews were from other arabic countries, who got forced out as things polarized. But, then again, jews living in the area at the time are Palestinians. (Palestinian National Covenant of 1968). On the other hand, the Palestinan terror organizations are funded from outside the country, by and large. Syria, formerly Iraq, and so on.
But what I was thinking of was an inaccurate description, and yes, slightly knowingly inaccurate, of the '48-53 era when the Palestians were stuffed out of other countries back into Israel, over Israel’s objections. It’s more accurate to say that they are tools of the arabic colonialists.
Is it wrong to state that, say, Iran or Iraq or Egypt or Syria believed their mores were superior to the Jews, that they tried to extend their sovereignty over territory outside their own boundaries?
Extraordinary accusation: I think its only fair you provide some extraordinary proof.