My argument was precisely based on this. Now, the fact that you took what I said to mean 'friendship' as in personal relations, only confirms the propaganda problem I refer to. The propaganda is meant, among other purposes, precisely to portray the US as Israel's 'only friend.' And this is not something I am inventing. Pres. Bush himself is always using the word 'friends' when referring to allies (actually what the US ruling elite understands by the word 'ally,' which is very different from the Webster's definition).
So, unless you believe that the president of the US uses words at random in his public discourses (rather than carefully picking the words that best fit his purposes), it should be very clear to anyone minimally used to political maneuvers that Pres. Bush uses the word 'friend' to have his audience believe precisely what you, Bill, already know to be inexistent, as you wrote above. The word 'friend' is used precisely to arouse a comfortable emotion, as in a true personal friendship. Since this is a lie, as you correctly pointed out (as if I were falling for the propaganda instead of denouncing it!), it should be clear then that the US ruling elite DOES use deception as a legitimate political tool (this is by the way a political tool everywhere, not only in the US).
Now, I could only agree with your (in fact, the US propaganda's) 'US-special-relation-with-Israel theory' IF its premises were Israel-specific. But they are not. The US has the same kind of relationship with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, South Korea, Bosnia, Poland, etc. All of these countries receive or have received US political, military and economic assistance, which vary according to local needs. Israel is by no means special. In fact, the US has only begun assisting Israel when it realized the then USSR would do it (the US stepped in to avoid it). Israel's nuclear capabilities, for example, resulted from an agreement with France back in the 1960s. So, would you call that old France-Israel relationship 'special'? Who has provided Pakistan and India with their nuclear capabilities? In our time, only a few countries have become 'unbeatable' by acquiring nuclear weapons. By your logic, all these countries have 'special' relationships with their nuclear providers.
Second problem: well, assuming my argument above is enough to disprove the 'special relationship' theory, I'll try to be clear as to why this theory is 100% antisemitic. The US - just like the ex-USSR and, earlier, France, Britain and Germany - has a huge intelligence apparatus working full time everywhere on the planet. One of the zillion tasks assigned to that apparatus is to produce propaganda that will serve the US's interests (that is, its elite's interests) at home and abroad. Now, why don't we hear of the US's 'special relationship' with Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, whereas we do hear of a US-Israel 'special relationship'? Because powerful people have invested in forging such non-existent relationship. And it must be powerful people, because only powerful people are capable of buying intellectuals, journalists and business people into producing 'knowledge' to serve THEIR interests. This is how you get stupid 'intellectuals' of the likes of Benny Morris to sudden international prominence (how could an otherwise totally unknown Israeli historian become a NYT star overnight?).
Now, since there is no 'special relationship' whatsoever between the US and Israel, why on earth would the US forge that idea? Why Israel, and not Saudi Arabia (which has received more US military assistance than Israel)? The answer is in history: because the West has been scapegoating Jews for all its filth for 2000 years. And the scapegoating of Jews has been proven very effective, since you can hardly point to a single century within the last 2000 years in which Jews have not been massacred by the West (including Eastern Europe, which shares so-called Western values with the West) for having supposedly committed the crimes that the Western elites committed. This is a VERY stable pattern, so why would Western elites give it up? They obviously don't. This is why the West has been helping Islam to destroy the State of Israel since its inception. The countries that control the UN came up with and approved the partition of the Holy Land for purely political interests (the more you divide, the better you dominate). If you happen to wonder whether I am a paranoid conspiracist, just take advantage of the US's democratic side and check this unclassified US document, available at the National Security Archive at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB78/propaganda%20120.pdf . The following is an article based on it: http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/usis.htm
Unfortunately, a lot of diaspora Jews and Israelis have fallen for the propaganda. They have been set up for slaughter, as reality has been showing us everyday.
I read briefly read portions of Prof. Gil-White's article that you referred me to. Gil-White's conclusion that there is and has always been an anti-Semitic American ruling elite that conspires behind the scenes to manipulate American policy against Israel's interests, has been shaped by his analytical approach and frames of reference that he sets for himself as he weighs through the evidence he finds material to supporting his conclusion.
What's wrong with this procedure? This is the way of science, isn't it?
Gil-White's approach is to measure American policies and actions against traditional definitions of friend and ally in personal situation, which does not hold completely on the world stage.
I have already commented on this issue above.
In so doing, he references periods in American history when public sentiments and American policy have been unquestionably influenced by anti-Semitism. He further limits his analysis to defining America's relationship and interaction with Israel as friend or foe, more in the context of that relationship alone.
This is not true. First off Gil-White never mentions antisemitic 'public sentiments.' He always refers to the antisemitism of the American ruling elite only. Differently from the Europeans, the overwhelming majority of ordinary Americans are not antisemitic. Neither is it true that Gil-White takes the US-Israel relationship out of context. On the contrary, he shows how consistent American foreign policy has been over the years by giving examples of events that took place in other countries which also involved Israel. His description of the Achille Lauro incident and the details of how the Italian authorities dealt with it plainly disprove your comment. Same thing when he describes Britain's behavior under Churchill and the US's hiring of thousands of European Nazis after WW2. These are facts which are not specific about US-Israel relations.
Now, what you said (or implied) is that Gil-White has an 'idée fixe' and set about collecting disjunct materials to prove his idea. This can only be true when you deliberately distort the original meaning of the texts from which you quote; or when your sources are not self-evident (unlike the unclassified document I linked to above, which speaks for itself). But most of Gil-White's sources are self-evident. They are mostly quotes from newspapers, TV-program transcriptions and official governmental documents. These sources are less prone to distortion than books because they are simpler, meant to be direct (it's easier to find lies in simpler than in complex materials, and it's also simpler to distinguish what makes sense from what doesn't). Moreover, Gil-White did not start by researching US-Israel relations, but rather the Yugoslavia war in the 1990s. It was only when he found striking similarities between the way the media covered the two conflicts that he began to research the Israel case. So he departed from a foreign policy pattern he found in other cases and checked the Israel case against those. And the facts confirmed the pattern. So if you read the whole article carefully AND consult all the sources he provides, you'll perhaps change your mind. The problem, as I see it as a non-American, is an emotional one. It seems to be very hurtful for Americans to accept the possibility that they have been lied to by their own government in a most immoral fashion. Am I wrong?
Those policies that advance America's self interest will always take priority and more often than many would like to see, come in conflict with Israel's best interests.
Well, this is clearly an understatement. So, if the US's interests require (or might have it as a consequence) that country X be destroyed, then be it! Is it what you're saying? Bill, leaving aside the issue of how undemocratic it is to justify anything the US ruling elite does for its interests all over, we are not dealing with "Israel's best interests." We are discussing Israel's (and its people's) very survival; whether there will be Israel tomorrow or not!!
As a Jew, I don't care about the US's interests. If the US's interests (its ruling elite's, that is) pose an existential threat to Israel, they must be fought. And the only way to fight it is to make the American people aware of its government's crazy policies abroad, with which they would openly disagree and protest against. The US spends about 50 billion dollars a year with intelligence operations of which its government tells nothing to its taxpayers! How democratic is that?
Eliminating from his analysis other American considerations and self interest policies in furtherance of that self interest, results in Gil-White's failing to address factors that are very relevant to his analysis and which if taken into account, may well have led him to a different conclusion.
No, sir. It is precisely out of his awareness of this state of affairs that Gil-White concludes what he concludes. And I can't see how justifiable it could possibly be to 'understand' catastrophic anti-Israel policies by the US just by pointing to the US's self interests!! This makes me wonder if we have the same moral expectations for human societies…
You have misunderstood my comment regarding Hamas and the PA. I am saying that the PA, Fatah, and all the Palestinian splinter terrorist organizations are all facets of the same Islamic radicalism that Hamas represents. Hamas, unlike the others is honest and makes no pretence about what it is about and what it stands for.
Again we disagree. Hamas is NOT unlike the others. This is a Western media myth. Hamas is not honest (since when open antisemitic discourse is synonymous with honesty?). The PLO (or PA) openly preached the destruction of Israel until the US and its European allies told them they could not rule a new country keeping that external attitude in the 20th century. So they changed the clothes. Hamas will most probably do the same. What's the difference?
Bush and others who have declared Hamas as a terrorist organization are still reeling from Hamas' electoral victory. They are still mouthing the same nonsense that the majority of Palestinians want peace with Israel and that the rejection of the PA was a rejection of their corruption and not an endorsement of Hama's terrorist and destroy Israel policies. Reality bumps up against such wishful thinking. Wishful thinking however in past has far too often carried the day. Hopefully the Hamas victory will inject reality into the debate and the understanding of what was and what is when it comes to Palestinian aspirations being an anathema to peace.
Perhaps. I am less optimistic. What Bush and his aides are voicing is not wishful thinking, in my view. The leaders of the most powerful country in the world would not just go about saying naïve things in public. It is a temporary strategy until US intelligence devises how to adjust their propaganda to the current situation. If the US was capable of resurrecting the PLO (the worst terrorist group in the 20th century) from its ashes in Lebanon in 1982, escorting it to Tunis and then forcing it down Israel's throat through Oslo, while the big Western media accused Israel of its own misfortune, why should it be different now with Hamas?
I am not unaware of or untroubled by the success of pro-Palestinian propaganda as you suggest. That appears to be due to the double standard the world applies when it comes to Israel and it is not unique to America. In fact it is far more of a concern in European nations where anti-semitism has risen to the fore and appears responsible for shaping governmental policy and for the media to shape or incite anti-semitic views.
Why do you say "it is far more of a concern in European nations where anti-semitism has risen to the fore…"? Because in a country like the US, whose population is NOT fundamentally antisemitic as ordinary Europeans are, the ruling elite cannot just publicly assume its anti-Israel stance. But actions speak louder than words. The major US media have been feeding Americans and the world with anti-Israel ideology, so they can accept the US's anti-Israel actions more 'naturally' (as a supposed result of Israel's own supposed oppression of Palestinian Arabs). Obviously though, this requires much secretive policies. For example, do most Americans know that the most extreme Islamist school books used in Afghanistan for about 20 years have been made in the US with USAID money? Of course not (look at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm#1 ). This type of thing has to be hidden just as the US's anti-Israel policies have. THIS is why you and many people still believe that Europe is more of a problem for Israel than the US.
I have no doubt that Sharon foresaw this as a consequence of implementing unilateral disengagement, but weighed that downside against the upside of freeing up troops, resources and money as well as seeking to contain Palestinians within Gaza and improve Israeli security by that action along with the benefits of the security fence.
Really? So let's put the following imaginary situation: imagine that Mexico is ruled by fascistic terrorists and the US is pressured by the international community to hand Texas over to Mexico. Suppose the US is not a superpower and other powers have effective means to pressure the US into giving up Texas. Suppose Mexican rulers preach the utter destruction of the US and have been constantly attacking the US not only from the Mexican border but also from Canada and by means of terrorist attacks inside the US. Then the US president came up with the fantastic idea that handing over Texas to the terrorists would make the defense of the US easier if just the government built a fence isolating Texas from the rest of the US, even considering that the Mexican terrorists have rockets that can be launched over the fence. What would the American people tell their president?? Would Americans really think that giving Texas away to the terrorists would improve American security? Of course not. Either the president would be impeached, or killed (as Kennedy was for much less than that).
It takes a Jew to be so compassionate towards his most awful enemy (out of a mix of hope and self-destruction). This is precisely why Christianity has always (since at least Paul!) gone out of its way to present Jesus' attitudes as opposed to those of his fellow Jews. You must repeat every single minute that only Jesus and his followers were able to 'turn the other cheek' whereas Judaism remained in the 'eye for an eye,' because the one minute in which Christians did not hear that, they would realize that it was exactly 'the Jews' they were constantly slaughtering who were dying like Jesus and turning the other cheek. If this is a difference between a Christian and a Jew, then Israeli Jews are the most Christian of all populations on this planet!
Doubtless Sharon also had in mind what he anticipated of the Bush administration's attitude and how it might win Israel greater support from America by unilateral disengagement than hanging tough with the status quo.
Sure. The problem though is that you don't bother questioning why it is on earth that Sharon must have American approval to every single decision about the future of his own people… Can you imagine the opposite? Would an American president allow his decisions about the future of the American people be determined by another country? Hardly, isn't it? You don't question this because you were probably raised to believe this is normal. It's a moral disaster from the Jewish point of view, I must say.
In spite of that, your descriptive language describing Sharon as deliberately seeking to have Israel commit suicide, that his policies are treasonous, that he and Olmert should be impeached and now accusing Sharon of engaging in a policy of ethnic cleansing is far too extreme to be remotely fair minded. Your words however do reveal your own very extreme views.
I'm sorry, Bill. I didn't say Sharon was deliberately committing national suicide. What I said was that a leader who gives in to international pressure against the security of its own people is a traitor. And I said this amounts to committing national suicide. I am not at all concerned about being politically correct, Bill. I'm just telling the obvious, which most Israpundit readers already know. My views are by no means extreme. I simply don't buy anti-Israel propaganda. That's all.
What you've shown with your comments is that 'fairmindedness' to you means considering the US interests sacrosanct. This is just as fair-minded as the Romans were when they called every people who reacted to their atrocities 'barbarians.' The US has not come yet to equal the Romans in their craze, but the more ordinary Americans are indoctrinated to believe that 'the US interests' are untouchable whereas their government keeps its most important policies out of public reach, the closer will the US get to a fascistic system. Think about it…
Is US elite out to get Israel
Alex Eisenberg responds to Bill Narvey
My comment that America has supported Israel politically, economically and militarily is true. That is not to say that America stands by Israel in all respects and has always demonstrated by its policies and actions the indicia of friendship that we in our personal lives understand the definition of friend to mean such as being one who stands by a declared friend through thick and thin.
Two problems here. First I insist in my view that I find no evidence of any 'special' US's support to Israel. The US does to Israel basically the same it does to some other countries which the US ruling elite considers they should invest in for strategic reasons (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and South Korea, for example).
My argument was precisely based on this. Now, the fact that you took what I said to mean 'friendship' as in personal relations, only confirms the propaganda problem I refer to. The propaganda is meant, among other purposes, precisely to portray the US as Israel's 'only friend.' And this is not something I am inventing. Pres. Bush himself is always using the word 'friends' when referring to allies (actually what the US ruling elite understands by the word 'ally,' which is very different from the Webster's definition).
So, unless you believe that the president of the US uses words at random in his public discourses (rather than carefully picking the words that best fit his purposes), it should be very clear to anyone minimally used to political maneuvers that Pres. Bush uses the word 'friend' to have his audience believe precisely what you, Bill, already know to be inexistent, as you wrote above. The word 'friend' is used precisely to arouse a comfortable emotion, as in a true personal friendship. Since this is a lie, as you correctly pointed out (as if I were falling for the propaganda instead of denouncing it!), it should be clear then that the US ruling elite DOES use deception as a legitimate political tool (this is by the way a political tool everywhere, not only in the US).
Now, I could only agree with your (in fact, the US propaganda's) 'US-special-relation-with-Israel theory' IF its premises were Israel-specific. But they are not. The US has the same kind of relationship with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, South Korea, Bosnia, Poland, etc. All of these countries receive or have received US political, military and economic assistance, which vary according to local needs. Israel is by no means special. In fact, the US has only begun assisting Israel when it realized the then USSR would do it (the US stepped in to avoid it). Israel's nuclear capabilities, for example, resulted from an agreement with France back in the 1960s. So, would you call that old France-Israel relationship 'special'? Who has provided Pakistan and India with their nuclear capabilities? In our time, only a few countries have become 'unbeatable' by acquiring nuclear weapons. By your logic, all these countries have 'special' relationships with their nuclear providers.
Second problem: well, assuming my argument above is enough to disprove the 'special relationship' theory, I'll try to be clear as to why this theory is 100% antisemitic. The US - just like the ex-USSR and, earlier, France, Britain and Germany - has a huge intelligence apparatus working full time everywhere on the planet. One of the zillion tasks assigned to that apparatus is to produce propaganda that will serve the US's interests (that is, its elite's interests) at home and abroad. Now, why don't we hear of the US's 'special relationship' with Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, whereas we do hear of a US-Israel 'special relationship'? Because powerful people have invested in forging such non-existent relationship. And it must be powerful people, because only powerful people are capable of buying intellectuals, journalists and business people into producing 'knowledge' to serve THEIR interests. This is how you get stupid 'intellectuals' of the likes of Benny Morris to sudden international prominence (how could an otherwise totally unknown Israeli historian become a NYT star overnight?).
Now, since there is no 'special relationship' whatsoever between the US and Israel, why on earth would the US forge that idea? Why Israel, and not Saudi Arabia (which has received more US military assistance than Israel)? The answer is in history: because the West has been scapegoating Jews for all its filth for 2000 years. And the scapegoating of Jews has been proven very effective, since you can hardly point to a single century within the last 2000 years in which Jews have not been massacred by the West (including Eastern Europe, which shares so-called Western values with the West) for having supposedly committed the crimes that the Western elites committed. This is a VERY stable pattern, so why would Western elites give it up? They obviously don't. This is why the West has been helping Islam to destroy the State of Israel since its inception. The countries that control the UN came up with and approved the partition of the Holy Land for purely political interests (the more you divide, the better you dominate). If you happen to wonder whether I am a paranoid conspiracist, just take advantage of the US's democratic side and check this unclassified US document, available at the National Security Archive at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB78/propaganda%20120.pdf . The following is an article based on it: http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/usis.htm
Unfortunately, a lot of diaspora Jews and Israelis have fallen for the propaganda. They have been set up for slaughter, as reality has been showing us everyday.
I read briefly read portions of Prof. Gil-White's article that you referred me to. Gil-White's conclusion that there is and has always been an anti-Semitic American ruling elite that conspires behind the scenes to manipulate American policy against Israel's interests, has been shaped by his analytical approach and frames of reference that he sets for himself as he weighs through the evidence he finds material to supporting his conclusion.
What's wrong with this procedure? This is the way of science, isn't it?
Gil-White's approach is to measure American policies and actions against traditional definitions of friend and ally in personal situation, which does not hold completely on the world stage.
I have already commented on this issue above.
In so doing, he references periods in American history when public sentiments and American policy have been unquestionably influenced by anti-Semitism. He further limits his analysis to defining America's relationship and interaction with Israel as friend or foe, more in the context of that relationship alone.
This is not true. First off Gil-White never mentions antisemitic 'public sentiments.' He always refers to the antisemitism of the American ruling elite only. Differently from the Europeans, the overwhelming majority of ordinary Americans are not antisemitic. Neither is it true that Gil-White takes the US-Israel relationship out of context. On the contrary, he shows how consistent American foreign policy has been over the years by giving examples of events that took place in other countries which also involved Israel. His description of the Achille Lauro incident and the details of how the Italian authorities dealt with it plainly disprove your comment. Same thing when he describes Britain's behavior under Churchill and the US's hiring of thousands of European Nazis after WW2. These are facts which are not specific about US-Israel relations.
Now, what you said (or implied) is that Gil-White has an 'idée fixe' and set about collecting disjunct materials to prove his idea. This can only be true when you deliberately distort the original meaning of the texts from which you quote; or when your sources are not self-evident (unlike the unclassified document I linked to above, which speaks for itself). But most of Gil-White's sources are self-evident. They are mostly quotes from newspapers, TV-program transcriptions and official governmental documents. These sources are less prone to distortion than books because they are simpler, meant to be direct (it's easier to find lies in simpler than in complex materials, and it's also simpler to distinguish what makes sense from what doesn't). Moreover, Gil-White did not start by researching US-Israel relations, but rather the Yugoslavia war in the 1990s. It was only when he found striking similarities between the way the media covered the two conflicts that he began to research the Israel case. So he departed from a foreign policy pattern he found in other cases and checked the Israel case against those. And the facts confirmed the pattern. So if you read the whole article carefully AND consult all the sources he provides, you'll perhaps change your mind. The problem, as I see it as a non-American, is an emotional one. It seems to be very hurtful for Americans to accept the possibility that they have been lied to by their own government in a most immoral fashion. Am I wrong?
Those policies that advance America's self interest will always take priority and more often than many would like to see, come in conflict with Israel's best interests.
Well, this is clearly an understatement. So, if the US's interests require (or might have it as a consequence) that country X be destroyed, then be it! Is it what you're saying? Bill, leaving aside the issue of how undemocratic it is to justify anything the US ruling elite does for its interests all over, we are not dealing with "Israel's best interests." We are discussing Israel's (and its people's) very survival; whether there will be Israel tomorrow or not!!
As a Jew, I don't care about the US's interests. If the US's interests (its ruling elite's, that is) pose an existential threat to Israel, they must be fought. And the only way to fight it is to make the American people aware of its government's crazy policies abroad, with which they would openly disagree and protest against. The US spends about 50 billion dollars a year with intelligence operations of which its government tells nothing to its taxpayers! How democratic is that?
Eliminating from his analysis other American considerations and self interest policies in furtherance of that self interest, results in Gil-White's failing to address factors that are very relevant to his analysis and which if taken into account, may well have led him to a different conclusion.
No, sir. It is precisely out of his awareness of this state of affairs that Gil-White concludes what he concludes. And I can't see how justifiable it could possibly be to 'understand' catastrophic anti-Israel policies by the US just by pointing to the US's self interests!! This makes me wonder if we have the same moral expectations for human societies…
You have misunderstood my comment regarding Hamas and the PA. I am saying that the PA, Fatah, and all the Palestinian splinter terrorist organizations are all facets of the same Islamic radicalism that Hamas represents. Hamas, unlike the others is honest and makes no pretence about what it is about and what it stands for.
Again we disagree. Hamas is NOT unlike the others. This is a Western media myth. Hamas is not honest (since when open antisemitic discourse is synonymous with honesty?). The PLO (or PA) openly preached the destruction of Israel until the US and its European allies told them they could not rule a new country keeping that external attitude in the 20th century. So they changed the clothes. Hamas will most probably do the same. What's the difference?
Bush and others who have declared Hamas as a terrorist organization are still reeling from Hamas' electoral victory. They are still mouthing the same nonsense that the majority of Palestinians want peace with Israel and that the rejection of the PA was a rejection of their corruption and not an endorsement of Hama's terrorist and destroy Israel policies. Reality bumps up against such wishful thinking. Wishful thinking however in past has far too often carried the day. Hopefully the Hamas victory will inject reality into the debate and the understanding of what was and what is when it comes to Palestinian aspirations being an anathema to peace.
Perhaps. I am less optimistic. What Bush and his aides are voicing is not wishful thinking, in my view. The leaders of the most powerful country in the world would not just go about saying naïve things in public. It is a temporary strategy until US intelligence devises how to adjust their propaganda to the current situation. If the US was capable of resurrecting the PLO (the worst terrorist group in the 20th century) from its ashes in Lebanon in 1982, escorting it to Tunis and then forcing it down Israel's throat through Oslo, while the big Western media accused Israel of its own misfortune, why should it be different now with Hamas?
I am not unaware of or untroubled by the success of pro-Palestinian propaganda as you suggest. That appears to be due to the double standard the world applies when it comes to Israel and it is not unique to America. In fact it is far more of a concern in European nations where anti-semitism has risen to the fore and appears responsible for shaping governmental policy and for the media to shape or incite anti-semitic views.
Why do you say "it is far more of a concern in European nations where anti-semitism has risen to the fore…"? Because in a country like the US, whose population is NOT fundamentally antisemitic as ordinary Europeans are, the ruling elite cannot just publicly assume its anti-Israel stance. But actions speak louder than words. The major US media have been feeding Americans and the world with anti-Israel ideology, so they can accept the US's anti-Israel actions more 'naturally' (as a supposed result of Israel's own supposed oppression of Palestinian Arabs). Obviously though, this requires much secretive policies. For example, do most Americans know that the most extreme Islamist school books used in Afghanistan for about 20 years have been made in the US with USAID money? Of course not (look at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm#1 ). This type of thing has to be hidden just as the US's anti-Israel policies have. THIS is why you and many people still believe that Europe is more of a problem for Israel than the US.
I have no doubt that Sharon foresaw this as a consequence of implementing unilateral disengagement, but weighed that downside against the upside of freeing up troops, resources and money as well as seeking to contain Palestinians within Gaza and improve Israeli security by that action along with the benefits of the security fence.
Really? So let's put the following imaginary situation: imagine that Mexico is ruled by fascistic terrorists and the US is pressured by the international community to hand Texas over to Mexico. Suppose the US is not a superpower and other powers have effective means to pressure the US into giving up Texas. Suppose Mexican rulers preach the utter destruction of the US and have been constantly attacking the US not only from the Mexican border but also from Canada and by means of terrorist attacks inside the US. Then the US president came up with the fantastic idea that handing over Texas to the terrorists would make the defense of the US easier if just the government built a fence isolating Texas from the rest of the US, even considering that the Mexican terrorists have rockets that can be launched over the fence. What would the American people tell their president?? Would Americans really think that giving Texas away to the terrorists would improve American security? Of course not. Either the president would be impeached, or killed (as Kennedy was for much less than that).
It takes a Jew to be so compassionate towards his most awful enemy (out of a mix of hope and self-destruction). This is precisely why Christianity has always (since at least Paul!) gone out of its way to present Jesus' attitudes as opposed to those of his fellow Jews. You must repeat every single minute that only Jesus and his followers were able to 'turn the other cheek' whereas Judaism remained in the 'eye for an eye,' because the one minute in which Christians did not hear that, they would realize that it was exactly 'the Jews' they were constantly slaughtering who were dying like Jesus and turning the other cheek. If this is a difference between a Christian and a Jew, then Israeli Jews are the most Christian of all populations on this planet!
Doubtless Sharon also had in mind what he anticipated of the Bush administration's attitude and how it might win Israel greater support from America by unilateral disengagement than hanging tough with the status quo.
Sure. The problem though is that you don't bother questioning why it is on earth that Sharon must have American approval to every single decision about the future of his own people… Can you imagine the opposite? Would an American president allow his decisions about the future of the American people be determined by another country? Hardly, isn't it? You don't question this because you were probably raised to believe this is normal. It's a moral disaster from the Jewish point of view, I must say.
In spite of that, your descriptive language describing Sharon as deliberately seeking to have Israel commit suicide, that his policies are treasonous, that he and Olmert should be impeached and now accusing Sharon of engaging in a policy of ethnic cleansing is far too extreme to be remotely fair minded. Your words however do reveal your own very extreme views.
I'm sorry, Bill. I didn't say Sharon was deliberately committing national suicide. What I said was that a leader who gives in to international pressure against the security of its own people is a traitor. And I said this amounts to committing national suicide. I am not at all concerned about being politically correct, Bill. I'm just telling the obvious, which most Israpundit readers already know. My views are by no means extreme. I simply don't buy anti-Israel propaganda. That's all.
What you've shown with your comments is that 'fairmindedness' to you means considering the US interests sacrosanct. This is just as fair-minded as the Romans were when they called every people who reacted to their atrocities 'barbarians.' The US has not come yet to equal the Romans in their craze, but the more ordinary Americans are indoctrinated to believe that 'the US interests' are untouchable whereas their government keeps its most important policies out of public reach, the closer will the US get to a fascistic system. Think about it…
Posted by Ted Belman at January 30, 2006 03:08 PM