There is nothing wrong with criticizing many of the policies of the current Israeli government -- and those of the previous ones. And it is completely uncalled for to try to tar such critics as anti-Semites. Indeed, many Israeli citizens are more critical of their government than their American counterparts.
However, such criticisms do turn into a prejudice when they are completely one-sided. Thus, very little was heard recently from the critics of Israel, including many progressive American Jews, when Hamas killed four Israeli civilians, including a couple with six children and another on the way.
Note that Hamas kept to the ceasefire despite the continued blockade and did not raise its arms to support those who tried to break the blockade or against Israeli settlers -- until the Israelis and Palestinians sat down to try to negotiate a peace settlement. Thus, Hamas openly set out to kill these negotiations.
For those who hoped to draw Hamas into these negotiations, it one more time articulated what it is seeking: Hamas official Ismail Ashqar deemed the whole of Israel and the Palestinian territories "an Islamic endowment for all Muslims," adding that the Palestinian Authority and negotiators "cannot give up any single piece of dust of its soil." Yet none of this seems to particularly trouble those who chastise Israel whenever it needs to be chastised and sometimes when it needs not.
More astonishing is that we have heard nothing -- not even simple news reports -- in the progressive media, from NPR and New York Times to Huffington Post about the following, revealed by a Washington Post editorial: Palestinian police "rounded up scores of Hamas operatives last week [after the shooting of the settlers] but quickly released them - reminding some of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's duplicitous response to acts of terrorism." The editorial urges Mr. Abbas to "match intentions with actions."
A fair-minded critic does not jump on one side and turn a blind eye to the other.
PS : and did you learn from any of these publications that the growth rate so far in 2010 was 16% for Gaza and 9% for the West Bank?
Having sympathy for the suffering of Palestinian-Arabs is humanitarian. Displaying sympathy ONLY for those Palestinian-Arabs who are suffering at the perceived hands of Jews, while ignoring similar or worse suffering resulting from Arab on Arab abuses is not only anti-Semitic but is ultimately detrimental to the Palestinian Arabs.
Lastly, expecting the Israelis to be the only true Christian in this world is intrinsically anti-Semitic.
And, the definition of "Semite" has not been changed, at all.
I have rarely read a criticism of "Israeli Policies" that wasn't one sided. Ever. Have you? Those two-sided arguments are probably published in Hebrew and not translated into English for us following from outside of Israel. I believe the whole "it's legitimate to criticize Israel's policies" is a canard we are supposed to assume happens - it doesn't.
The lens is now on Palestinians and their bad faith...and they are going to get all the criticism now. I am not worried about ANY Israeli policies...and I am focused on ALL PA policies instead - and those related to Islam. Those are the two subjects that DESERVE ALL the criticism for the NEXT 60 years.
"If the Left acknowledged sin, hypocrisy would be one of the most unforgiveable. But that’s exactly what hundreds of university faculty members – many in women’s and gender studies departments – were found guilty of during a recent experiment devised by a University of Illinois economics professor.
Prof. Fred Gottheil told Front Page Magazine that he compiled a list of 675 email addresses from 900 signatures on a 2009 petition authored by Dr. David Lloyd, professor of English at the University of Southern California, urging the U.S. to abandon its ally, Israel. Prof. Gottheil discovered that six of the signers, who hailed from more than 150 college campuses, were members of his own faculty.
“Would these same 900 sign onto a statement expressing concern about human rights violations in the Muslim Middle East, such as honor killing, wife beating, female genital mutilation, and violence against gays and lesbians?†he wondered. “I felt it was worth a try.â€
The results? “Almost non existent,†he told Front Page editor Jamie Glazov. Only 27 of the 675 “self-described social-justice seeking academics†agreed to sign Gottheil’s Statement of Concern – less than 5 percent of the total who had publicly called for the censure of Israel for human rights violations...."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/prof-calls-fellow-academics-sanctimonious-bigots-103207814.html#ixzz10825YypK
True science in action!
And as long as you all enjoy each other you can continue point scoring over bodies and continue the rampant bigotry on both sides.
They can have their preconceived notions about Jews and you can have your 'every Muslim is a terrorist' 'picky eaters' comments and the like... all of which have been on here in the last few weeks.
There is a new video clip that hamas released of Shalit, but do you see it anywhere here?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOe5reGIlRk&feature=player_embedded
Are violent settlers EVER arrested?
What would the Palestinain people agree to?
Leaders and representatives are all fine and good, but it is niave to believe that the Palestinain people, while I'm sure exhasted by decades of struggle, are going to just blindly accept whatever agreement the PA (or Hamas for that matter) might agree to.
Does anyone have that link to any relevant (and fairly recent) opinion polls covering the feelings of the Palestinain populace regarding any of the fundamental final status issues?
They've made it VERY clear.
Jerusalem Post - Sept. 20/10
"Hamas: We agreed in the past to state within '67 borders"
"Group's Gaza leadership says it passed messages to Washington requesting dialogue with US, supporting 2 state solution.
"Hamas sent messages to the US government in the past stating that the movement does not oppose the formation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, Israel Radio reported on Monday, quoting the group's Gaza leadership.
"According to the report, Hamas's Gaza leadership also requested to begin a dialogue with the United States.
"In the organization's biannual report, it was stated that these messages were relayed to officials in Washington through American political figures and academics that visited in Gaza.
The organization's Gaza leadership also asked the US to relax its restrictions preventing reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah."
Why the 1967 borders are so holy as compared to any other years?
"The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river."
http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/knesset15/elikud_m.htm
So who, exactly, is being felonious?
The US behaves the same way. We lose a couple of thousand people and still claim to be the victim after we've killed hundreds of thousands in response. It is this violent soulless superior attitude that we fail to recognize in ourselves.
That said, there is no justification for terrorism, whether it is bombing populations, killing captured soldiers, or killing innocent Israeli or palestinian civilians, which both sides have done. Though I have a question, during the Israeli bombing of Lebanon the TV news showed a man digging his dead wife and four children from the rubble. If he were to attack Israeli civilians in retaliation would he be a terrorist, or just be continuing the blood feud? Would an Israeli civilian who suffered an attack by Hamas be a terrorist too? I state this because I believe that even if all the necessary issues are settled it will be at least a generation before the urge for revenge on both sides will subside. All governments will need to appoach these acts as police matters rather than continuing the feud.
Now we have "peace talks" where the single state solution is not even on the table, there will be no discussion of it's merits, or demerits. The talks will only discuss a two state solution, and does not include the majority views of the Pals, and the minority views of the Israelis.
folks, this is not racism, nor anti semitism, it is futile.
http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2010/p35ejoint.html
There has been over 70 years of discussion about the merits or demerits. Time to move on.
Since you know this...I assume you are making an underlying political statement and I would love to hear what it is.
many Israeli's who are not jewish, and many religious Jewish israelis favour a single state solution. They certainly are in the minority.
I myself favout a two state solution, but with the right of return. (I can get back to this later.)
I am not sure what you mean by me making a political statement.
I believe that all issues and concerns, and all the players, need to begin to discuss, and hear out each others views, fears, hopes, dreams, etc, before true compromise can be aproached, and a just and lasting oeace be fashioned out of the bloody ground of hatred.
I do not think that those who support a singele payer solution will ever accept Obama's health insurance plan, any more that those opposed to government control of health care will. That is because there was no real discussion among those who care. The discussion was among the power brokers, not among the players, so this issue is still unresolved, and will result, no doubt, in many Dems taking a fall this Nov.
So too, peace talks that brush aside the grievences, and dreams of those directly affected in Israel/Palestine will never succeed. I also believe that the door to a two state solution will not be open forever, and therefore it is imperitive to stop josteling for advantage, and get to the heart of it.
Unfortunately, we have people in the U.S. who treat Israel like a precocious child, intervening on its behalf, sending money, rationalizing everything it does, caring more about the people of that nation than they do about their own neighbors here at home. And we have others who see Israel as the seat of all that is wrong in the world, ignoring the aggressive military intervention by the U.S. in so many other countries.
It's time to cut the ties. Let Israel make its own way in the world. Stop hovering and scrutinizing, and stop paying the bill. Israel demands the right to be an independent nation: let them do it. Now.
Israel has fended off attacks on its own, with no assistance from any other nation. The results of those battles resulted in the former Soviet Union aligning itself with certain Arab nations and providing assistance. As the U.S. recognized those actions as a spread of Soviet influence, during the so-called Cold War, it took a more active role in the Middle East. At one time, the U.S. had more to do with Iran than with Israel.
The ebb of the Soviet Union saw its influence replaced by radical forces in the Middle East, such as the Taliban and other factions which had been trained and armed by the Soviets and the U.S..
I think most people are unaware that all aid to Israel is military and 80% of that must be spent on US weapons. A better stimulus program for the economy than most other stuff.
Not only that but because of the many high tech joint programs, such as advanced missile defense the US benefits from the technology, and gets a say in whom Israel sells its weapons to.
Google is your FRIEND.
For example, the idea Israel and the US can arrange peace talks without the main player, hamas, makes no sense to me. I have come to this conclusion, not due to the race or religion of the israeli's or the pals, but in order to achieve a meaningful peace treaty, all the main players must be a part of the deal.
http://shoe08.blogspot.com/2010/09/peace-without-hamas.html
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Hamas is not invited to the discussions.
Israel refuses to discuss all issues that all sides care about.
both sides accuse the other side of killing civilians. The idea of a just and lasting peace is to resolve the issue of killing civilians, as well as other issues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MpWPQcDNi4&feature=channel_page
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It reminds me of the US position that the gov't will not negotiate with terror groups, even though those terror groups talked with the US gov't all the time until their CIA training ended.
They're circle jerk arguments, always allowing the other side to say, "Yeah, but..."
It's like gang wars or the Hatfields and McCoys- - they've been going so long I'm not sure they know how it all started. If you ask either side who's to blame, they will tell you it's the other side, but that just isn't possible. And the truely sad shame is that "the people" on both sides just want to live in peace, but their elected officials just keep on warring.