Yeah, that’s what people don’t get about Bibi - under all the polished, thunderous speeches, the man’s a milquetoast who’s exactly as right-wing as he needs to be in order to stay in power. That’s why he’ll never do something radical like annex the Territories or conversely, make peace with the Palestinians. Taking bold, decisive action is anathema to him, which is why after over a decade into his administration, his actual positive achievements - things he’d actually done, as opposed to things he’s claimed he prevented from happening - are basically nonexistent.
You’ll see it in the coming election. He’ll beat the right-wing drum to get votes, but if he wins (which seems likely at this point), he’ll angle sharply to the left and try to put together a center-right coalition, because that will ensure a nice, cozy deadlock in which he won’t have to fulfill any of his campaign promises.
Yes. There is NO WAY those pilots did not recognize an American ship.
This is probably no tthe thread, but may I suggest you look somewhere besides Israel’s statement? Maybe even the website of the USS Liberty’s veterans, some of whom include American Jews?
Right, because if there’s one thing that Israeli pilots receive extensive training in, it’s naval warfare. Because most of Israel’s wars are fought on the high seas.
Seriously, though: if Israel had wanted to sink the Liberty for some nefarious political reason, they would have sent planes armed with anti-ship weapons instead of AT rockets and napalm, or even better, they would have sent a submarine. And they would have found a way to make it look like the Egyptians did it.
Like Israel’s stunning success in the Lavon Affair? :D*
In a WSJ column today by Elliot Kaufman, it’s noted that Omar was interviewed on a podcast by the left-wing Intercept website on Feb. 28, leading to this exchange:
*“Was it a badly worded tweet (on Feb. 11) that you were apologizing for, or was it for being anti-Semitic, wittingly or unwittingly?”
Omar: “Absolutely not. I apologized for the way that my words made people feel.”*
So much for an “unequivocal apology”. :dubious:
*yeah I know, old news, and another example of how difficult it is to run a successful conspiracy.
If only our politicians cared about American citizens as much as they do Israelis. Cynthia McKinney and Ilhan Omar, women of color, are silenced for advocating for Americans.
Nancy Pelosi:
“I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don’t even call it our aid, our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.”
I don’t think she needs “to go,” but I totally agree with the rest of your comments. I got suckered by what seemed like a sincere apology, and unless there’s some additional context here, it’s disgraceful.
I also apologize for my criticism directed at a handful of members on this board, who essentially argued that she didn’t actually regret her remarks. You all were right and I was wrong.
The point is that, speaking as a Jew, Paul Krugman can sniff out the difference between antisemitism and “antisemitism”.
I can’t speak for Krugman, but the right wing in the United States is embracing policies that, over the long term, endanger Israel, favoring policies of aggression and hostilities over that of peace and compromise. Their policies of genocide and apartheid are going to inspire another generation of reprisals.
Explain how an ally can get away with a policy that establishes religious tests for citizenship and essentially debases the citizenship of non-Jews?
See, this is what Zionism has become in practice, regardless of however people here or elsewhere want to define it. Zionism has become an ideology of violent oppression of non-Jews to establish a Jewish homeland, and this homeland exists not just anywhere, but in a so-called holy land, which has also been home to two other major religions. Moreover, it’s an ideology that depends in no small part of the participation of Jewish activists worldwide, many of whom occupy positions of power, economically, socially, and politically. And it’s simply dishonest to believe otherwise.
Yet there’s a lot of truth in what she says. I’m sure that McKinney has her own faults, but this is also the same 'wackjob" who, from the beginning, opposed the invasion of Iraq as an elected member of congress when few others had the spine or integrity to do so.
I think this is the part that is debatable and that most Jews who would consider themselves Zionist (and I am not sure I do) would take issue with.
So let me ask, if we remove the bolded part, is there anything that is wrong with the rest? If it was instead changed from violent oppression to peaceful and safe coexistence would there be anything wrong with that?
To answer the question literally, no, there would be nothing wrong with establishing a Jewish homeland peacefully, assuming there were no displacement of people in developing the territory into a state. In terms of history, however, the truth is more complex than that. The Jewish aliyah and waves of settlements thereafter inevitably displaced the people who called themselves Palestinians. Israel isn’t just an idea of a Jewish homeland; it represents a clash of cultures instigated by mostly European Jewish settlers who were there not to ‘settle’ and integrate but to create a new Jewish state, and thereby establish a completely new culture and set of rules. In other words, Zionism is essentially another form of imperialism. It is impossible to reconcile your question about the establishment of a peaceful Jewish state with the historical record of Zionist Israel.
This is not anti-Jewish, and not even anti-Israel. This is a factual characterization of history, and yet the Zionist lobby has brainwashed Americans into believing that anyone writing or saying the above is an antisemite. Let me assure everyone reading this that I am not. I don’t consider myself an expert of any kind on global Jewry or the Jewish diaspora, but I suppose I know enough to state that I’ve lived in numerous communities in which Jews have contributed greatly to the cultural, social, political, and economic fabric of those communities, and enriched them greatly. And visited and read about many more. I don’t even consider myself anti-Israel, really (for the record I’m a believer in the 2-state approach, however impractical that might seem at times). Moreover, I can absolutely acknowledge that Palestinian activism (Hamas, for instance) and pan-Arab nationalism have hardly helped matters over the years. I don’t have a problem criticizing Israel’s neighbors, particularly those oppressive regimes who’ve simply used Israel as a way to deflect attention from their own political incompetence and oppression. I just wish that we could talk more plainly about Israel without the conversation being always so one-sided and automatically labeling someone like Ilhan Omar an antisemite without accepting that she might have misspoken and giving her a chance to revise and explain more clearly what she really meant.
Clarence Thomas is a judge who happens to be black, and Paul Krugman is an economist who happens to be a Jew. They’re authorities of their domain, but that doesn’t preclude them from offering assessments on matters such as race. I think the burden of proof is on you if you think that Paul Krugman is some kind of self-hating Jewish uncle Tom.
It gets tiresome to see attempts at dismissing the viewpoints and feelings of a large number of people of whatever ethnic or religious minority, on the basis that a token figure (or poster, for that matter) who shares a similar background doesn’t feel offended (or in the case of Paul Krugman, intimates that The Other Side Is Worse so nevermind, nothing to see here).
Paul Krugman or Clarence Thomas are free to offer personal opinions, but that doesn’t make them spokesmen for their ethnicity/race.
I never meant to suggest that Krugman was a spokesman for his race, but neither is Benjamin Netanyahu. There are a lot of Jews who can understand what Omar might have been trying to say, even if her limited background and cultural knowledge might have caused her to unintentionally step in it. People are soooo worried about Omar’s anti-semitism, well here’s the reality: there are many more Jews and Zionists in positions of power in the United States than there are Somali Muslims like Ilhan Omar, so I’d say they’re doing just fine. I’d say that their worldview is being rather well represented. Omar’s? Not so much.
First, it doesn’t at all matter how many Zionists and/or Jews are in positions of power, in terms of whether antisemitism is a problem. That seems like a real non sequitur to me to mention the number of Jews in power in the US, and honestly it (and other things you’ve said) is rubbing me the wrong way, as though Jews have so much power in the US that antisemitism is okay.
That’s a pretty gross thing to say in the first sentence. The second sentence? I mean, c’mon man.
I reject this accusation entirely. Likud !=Zionism.
Now I’ma argue with Jackmanii:
Speaking only for myself, I quoted Waldman’s sentence in which he identifies as Jewish because of the exact opposite of what you said. There are attempts–I don’t remember if it’s in this thread, but it’s absolutely happening–to suggest that non-Jews don’t get to have an opinion on whether something’s antisemitic.
I find that idea reductive and anti-intellectual; but because it’s anti-intellectual, it’s very difficult to argue persuasively against it. One way to argue against it–or, better yet, to prevent it–is to show that not all Jews agree on what’s antisemitic.
That said, the main reason I quoted Waldman is because I think he raised some excellent points about how Omar’s words about pledging loyalty are not at all antisemitic. I’d much rather have folks talk about his points than his ethnicity.
You’ve pretty much demonstrated what as I said, which is that you cannot point out the history of Zionism, and you cannot point out the influence and impact of Zionist lobbying without being called an antisemite. That’s because the pro-Israel causes have been successful in shaping the narrative of Israel as a victim, essentially equating Israel’s victimization with that of the Jews in late 19th Century and early 20th Century Europe.
The reality is that Zionism was not necessarily harmless; it has been a disruptive movement. Zionism uprooted people, caused upheaval in a society that was predominately Muslim and Christian. That is the historical reality, and the Zionists have been trying to sell people around the world on this notion that Zionism was just a bunch of European Jews trying to escape pogroms who then ended up harmlessly and quietly settling in completely abandoned and uninhabited areas and were then inexplicably hated as settlers because they’re Jewish, and that is nothing but simplistic, falsified history. Yes, many of them were escaping horrific antisemitism in Europe - no denying that. But all along, they intended to mass migrate and create a new state and new culture - the feelings of its existing inhabitants be damned.
Is it my use of the words Zionism and Zionist that bother you? Do those words trigger perceptions of antisemitism on my part, because I honestly don’t equate those terms with inherent Jewishness. Someone can be Jewish, even conservative Jewish, and not necessarily all that interested in the fate of Israel as a Jewish state, just as you can have an Israel that is inclusive to more than just Jews (don’t tell that to the Likud, thoguh). If my use of the words “Zionism” and “Zionists” are offensive, I’m sorry but I don’t know what else to call it. Maybe we could call it Jewish nationalism?