Benny Morris Justifies Israel's Coming Attack on Iran

On Friday July 18 the New York Times published an op-ed by the Israeli historian Benny Morris. It is entitled "Using Bombs to Stave Off War." Morris chose this American venue to announce that Israel would "almost surely" attack Iran some time in the next few months. And he indicated that America would be well advised to support the attack.

The reputation of Benny Morris is founded on unquestioned scholarly achievement and a far more dubious political stance. As one of Israel's "new historians," he recovered the record of harassment, murder, and expulsion of the Palestinians in the war of independence -- a finding that largely discredits the Israeli myth that the inhabitants fled from their own timidity, or because they were told to flee by Arab governments.

But speaking as an Israeli citizen, more recently, Morris has declared his view that the mistake of Ben-Gurion and the leadership of 1948 was that they did not carry the expulsion of the Palestinians all the way. Morris sees Israel in 2008 as a state under perpetual siege and the focus of a clash of civilizations; he sees Palestinians -- and to a degree, all Arabs; and Iranians, too -- as a species of animals not yet inducted into full humanity. Thus in a well-known interview
with Ari Shavit, published in Haaretz on January 5, 2004, Morris described the Israeli problem with the Palestinians:

"Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another."

In the years since Benny Morris spoke those words, the construction of the Israeli wall in the West Bank, and the blockade of Gaza by land, sea, and air have created the cage he believed was necessary.

Now, writing from Israel for the American newspaper of record, Morris offers his advice concerning the proper treatment of Iran and Iranians. Since Iran is five years from being able to make a nuclear bomb (Morris says one-to-four years), Israel is compelled to bomb Iran "in the next four to seven months."

One may notice that the Israeli attack goes on a much faster schedule than the Iranian pace of research and discovery. Why the haste for destruction? Could it have something to do with the American presidential election of 2008 (which comes at Morris's four-month lower limit), or something to do with the inauguration of a new president in 2009 (thirty days before his upper limit of seven months)? Morris does not say. He writes, he says, because people need to realize that the success of Israel's coming "conventional assault" on Iran will be good for Israel, for the United States, and even for Iran. If, on the other hand, this conventional assault fails, Israel will some day launch a nuclear attack; and that will be less good.

The choice, Morris concludes, lies with the rest of the world, and especially with the United States. If Iran does not submit rapidly to the next round of international pressure, the world had better support Israel and hope for the success of its first aerial assault against Iran.

Morris confesses, or implies, one reservation. It would better if the United States could launch the attack. But, being realistic, he remarks the lack of enthusiasm among Americans "for wars in the Islamic lands."

"Which leaves," says Morris, "only Israel."

There is an irritant driving this article, a motive more deeply lodged than Morris is willing to avow. For he suspects Israel alone cannot do the job well enough. So having first dismissed the U.S. and the American public as faint-hearted and unequipped for "wars in Islamic lands," and having then come half way to ask again, Morris at last accuses the United States. If we do not soon intervene, and attack Iran as he counsels, the result will be further nuclear progress by Iran. This will be terminated eventually with a nuclear attack by Israel against Iran.

A nuclear attack on a nation of seventy million people (a great many of them innocent of the desire to wipe Israel off the map) is morally indefensible. How can Morris defend it? He can because he knows -- not believes but metaphysically knows -- that the moment that Iran comes into possession of its first weapon, the leaders of Iran will commit national suicide in order to obtain the pleasure of destroying Israel.

Morris alludes to his ulterior knowledge in two sentences so full of blandness, abstract jargon, and bureaucratic euphemism that their meaning is not initially clear; but if one reads with care, one sees that the message is never in doubt:

"Given the fundamentalist, self-sacrificing mindset of the mullahs who run Iran, Israel knows that deterrence may not work as well as it did with the comparatively rational men who ran the Kremlin and the White House during the cold war. They are likely to use any bomb they build."

Iran will use a nuclear bomb, Morris is sure, as soon as it has one, even knowing that to do so means the destruction of Iran. The Mullahs will do it because that is the kind of people they are.

Here then is the way around the charge that Israel, in attacking Iran some time before March 2009, will be committing a crime. By Morris's logic the attack by Israel will be an act of self-defense. Indeed, it will be preemptive -- hardly more than common sense -- given the knowledge that Benny Morris possesses of the "fundamentalist, self-sacrificing" nature of the leaders of Iran. No evidence for his intuition is ever offered -- evidence from (say) the history of Iranian foreign policy over the past fifty years, or 200; evidence founded on actions rather than words. What if Iran's words since 1979 have been wilder than its deeds? What if Israel's actions since 2002 have been wilder than its words (wilder, even, than Benny Morris's words of 2004)? These findings could not possibly touch the argument. Morris writes as a man in possession of a racial and religious knowledge that is superior to evidence.

Of course, he hopes that Israel will not be forced to go all the way (though he has deplored Ben-Gurion's failure to go all the way with expulsion of the Palestinians). He imagines most Iranians would prefer not to see "Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland." Morris has thus given the readers of the New York Times a vision of a hellish future, but then atoned for the extravagance by suggesting that, if things fall out so, it will be the fault of Iran and the United States. Israel will have done the best it could with a monstrous and implacable enemy and a reluctant ally.

All circumstances taken together, this New York Times op-ed by Benny Morris is at once the most overt and the most peculiar intervention we Americans have witnessed thus far, by an Israeli attempting to influence U.S. policy in the Middle East. The article is weakly founded on partial facts and conjectural truths. It passes without transition from mock-prudential calculations to a tyrannical threat to destroy a civilization for the good of the world. Yet, though unpersuasive, it acquires significance when published between a recent visit to the U.S. by the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and the current visit by the defense minister Ehud Barak. Morris's article is meant to be read in the context of such recent assurances as Olmert's, for example, that President Bush "understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and
intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House."

But let us return for a last look at Benny Morris.

No person into whose mind had entered the idea that an Iranian may be a human being--and that there are millions of innocent Iranians -- could have generated with such casual facility the image of Iran as a "nuclear wasteland." Yet this was the image of Iran that the Israeli Benny Morris decided to conjure up for American readers in the New York Times.

In the Haaretz interview of January 5, 2004, the following exchange occurred between the interviewer Ari Shavit and Benny Morris:

"Would you describe yourself as an apocalyptic person?"

"The whole Zionist project is apocalyptic. It exists within hostile surroundings and in a certain sense its existence is unreasonable. It wasn't reasonable for it to succeed in 1881 and it wasn't reasonable for it to succeed in 1948 and it's not reasonable that it will succeed now. Nevertheless, it has come this far. In a certain way it is miraculous. I live the events of 1948, and 1948 projects itself on what could happen here. Yes, I think of Armageddon. It's possible. Within the next 20 years there could be an atomic war here."

This apocalyptic danger Morris may conceive himself to have put off a few more years by writing an editorial on behalf of Israel's coming attack. But whether the attack on Iran comes sooner or later, whether it is executed by Israel or the U.S. or both, and whether carried out with conventional or nuclear weapons, Morris has no doubt of one thing. It will have served the "apocalyptic" vision of the "whole Zionist project," and it will coincide with the highest values of
humanity properly defined.

Comments

[MagisterLudi]

If Arabs chose to use the term Zionist as an insult and a code word for "Jew" let them.... THEY are the failed civilization in an advanced state of decay. Jews have built an economic and socialist powerhouse based on freedom, education and hard work. These values unfortunately are incompatible with the values of most Muslim communities. When they are, perhaps Jews and Arabs can live together in one country.

[syllepsis]

I have to add that while I share this hope, the Muslim nations' societies have been warped by two primary factors :
Colonialism (in Israel the non-endogeneous Israelis were themselves the Colonialists, until attaining their own State in 1948; they are still seen as such by their Arab opponents); and:
Oil economies, which continue to warp the societies of many nations in the region.

[Huffyfan]

Ludi
when Arabs talk about zionists , they mean Just that . they Know some Jews are not zionists and those decent compassionate jews support Justice for Palestinians , and they are many groups . i walked and talked with many during my latest demonstration .
Neturei Karta is one of them , they re just and are against zionism . Alan Hart is a jew and he wrote : zionism , the real enemy of Jews

[who38]

Zionist is not an insult and code word for "Jew"; it is a code word for "land grabber", "extremist" and "short-sighted egoist".

[liz]

Just like Blacks and Whites in the US.

[holeybuybull]

MagisterLudi, if not for american taxpayer aid, the Israeli economy would be as bad as ours. Come to think of it, the money we spend on "foreign aid" is a contributing factor to our budget problems.

[Precisionist]

When it comes to Israel and its policies, a distinction needs to be made between right leaning policies (Likudites) and the vast majority of American Jews who are more dovish in their viewpoints. As an American citizen, I strongly support the right of Israelis to live as free people and free of threats from their neighbors. However, Israel has an equal obligation to not threaten its neighbors (whether explicit or implicit).

Progress will be made when in matters relating to wars, the journalistic media does not repeat untruths. While Ahmadenijad may not be a likeable fellow to many, he has never called for "wiping Israel off the map". Factually, he was simply referring to a quote from his Imam (Ayatollah Khomeni) in which the Imam said that the Zionist regime would eventually disappear from the pages of time. This is no different than Americans wishing for the neocons to disappear from the pages of time. We do not want mass genocide of the neocons. We simply wish for the movement to be over, or at the very least, no longer enjoying significant political support of the ruling elite.

I do not wish to debate whether Iran has the capacity to make nuclear bombs. Frankly, the world will be a better place if there were no nukes in any country. However, what moral ground does one country possess to deny nukes for another country, when they are perfectly willing to use their own nukes on the other country?

(contd.)

[MagisterLudi]

There are plenty of people brainwashed by Arab media into thinking that Zionism is some kind of a version of Muslim Jihadism. It is not.
Zionism is the idea that Jews, who have been stateless and persecuted for 2000 years, needed a NATIONAL state of their own.
Many Arab are states fiercely protective of their Arab identity and religion and practice incredible
discrimination against Non-Arabs and Non-Muslims.
Whereas Israel has 20% Arabs and has considerable percentage of Christians, Africans, Druze, Christians, even Rastafarians.

In fact most of Zionists were socialists and communists and built a socialist state which endures until today.
Israel is successful state now where Jews don't need to look over their shoulder at the Jew haters to make sure its OK to look to behave "Jewish" or put up with racists who shout “ world conspiracy” every time Jewish people become successful due to hard work and study.

This is what Zionism is all about and all of its goals have been fulfilled: a small country with Jewish identity. It only took 1900 years. But it’s done, like it or not. And the Jew haters, whoever you are can now pi$$ off.

[Elliott32]

Every ethnic group on Earth has been persecuted at one time or another. Armenians, Kurds, Irish, Native Americans, Africans, Chinese, Kosovars, Vietnamese, look at these...before you decide that your victimhood is superior to others who suffered historical injustices as well. We are all humans with EQUAL RIGHTS, and no one has special rights.

Heed the words of Michael Scheuer. America first!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF4_oaTIH8g

[who38]

Yes, it's done....for now. But please don't call it a democracy. As for your initial statment regarding Zionism as some kind of version of Muslim Jihadism, I hadn't thought of it that way. Thanks for pointing out the similarity of their absurd positions.

[Precisionist]

(contd. part 2)

For the unenlightened, Benny Morris is just as much off base as Hillary Clinton with her "obliterate Iran" comment. There is no evidence that Iran has in the last 200 years, now, or in the future been or will be the aggressor in any conflict. An interesting fact not talked about much is that there are 25,000 Jews living quite peacefully and contentedly in Iran, who would also be “obliterated” with any massive strike on Iran. So Benny Morris would not mind killing 25,000 Jews to “save” Israel!

Please do not feed us the drivel about Iran waging a proxy war by supporting terrorists like Hizbollah and Hamas. One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. The day a lasting peace can be negotiated between Israel and her neighbors, these organizations will cease to exist as a threat to anyone. Their own people will make sure of that.

My fondest wish is that some day, nations can resolve their conflicts peacefully rather than resort to the use of military power to settle arguments. Innocent civilians are ALWAYS the true casualties.

[eyesopenwide]

What an intelligent, knowledgeable, and insightful comment--thank you.

"My fondest wish is that some day, nations can resolve their conflicts peacefully rather than resort to the use of military power to settle arguments." My wish too.

For all of our 21st Century technology, the best evidence that measures a civilization's evolutionary progress is determined by how the people resolve their differences. As long as people continue to "think" as cavemen, we will continue to "act" as cavemen in our approach to resolving our differences
--it's just our weapons of primitive clubs are now bigger and far more dangerous to the continued existence of mankind. This primitive thinking that violence is the end all and be all "solution" to settling our differences has only lead to bigger and more lethal weapons of mass destruction, which can only ultimately lead to the total annihilation of our species--not a very survivable trait for the continuation of the human race.

We should end the concept of violence as a means to resolving anything, and a good place to begin would be to end the profitability of war by illegalizing "war" as a solution to anything.

[RasAlula]

Here, here! It is true that Iran has not been an aggressor. It is true that Israel has. It is also true that no nation should have any nuclear weapons, and certainly no nation that does have one should assume to tell another that it cannot.

On the one hand the West and Israel says look at how violent Iran is and look how much we love peace. But it is the West and Israel making all the wars! Its sooooo ironic and hard to fathom - up is down, left is right and green is blue. Its utterly strange the way the world works today.

[Caniculus]

Isn't the root problem the fact that Israel already has nuclear weapons and has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty? Isn't that what has destabilized the region and caused Iraq and Iran to pursue development of their own WMDs? Couldn't Israel significantly reduce mid-eastern tensions through nuclear disarmament?

Israeli nuclear disarmament is the pea Benny Morris is hiding in the shell game of his slight-of-hand arguments.

[wmbear]

Yes. Likely given to them by us on the sly, which is why Israel is so secretive about its nuclear program....

[GZLives]

"Yes. Likely given to them by us on the sly, which is why Israel is so secretive about its nuclear program...."

No, that isn't why Israel has been secretive about its nukes at all.

It was a policy decision courtesy of the Nixon Administration once they discovered that Israel had already developed nukes back in 1969.

It was believed that maintaining an ambiguous position regarding its program would discourage a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The Soviets were making inroads with Egypt and Syria and it was thought that if the Israelis went public, the Arabs would request nukes from the Soviets. They never did and for the most part the policy was effective.

[tinkaboutit]

and Morris-reprinter David Bromwich hides it as well.

[creationwaits]

No, that doesn't make sense. I think Israel just wants to be left alone. Instead they face daily attacks inside their own borders, and have faced full scale invasions. If Iran left Israel alone, Israel would leave Iran alone. Instead, Iran attacks Israel through proxies like Hezbollah, and issues weekly threats to the effect that Israel will disappear in a "ball of fire." I highly doubt Israel wants a war with Iran - but if it is that, or complete annihilation, they'll take the war.

[Huffyfan]

I dont think so .
Israel thrives on provocation and it has been their tactics since israel was created . they had to provoke the syrians to they can take over the golan Heights (that they planned to take in 1919 in conference in Paris ) Moshe dayan explains how they Provoked and enjoyed provoking the syrians , until they got the Golan heights .

Tanya Reinhart (in her book the israeli and palestinian conflict and how to end the 1948 war ) gives a detailed list of Attacks by Israel on Palestinians top Leaders when they were very close to Peace , to expect retaliation . she wondered who gave the order . she gave names , precise dates , sometimes when Sharon is on his way to the US , the israelis will target a Leader in the westbank or Gaza , but ONLy the retaliation will make it to the breaking news on CNN and fox to show poor victim israel but they will never find out what has happened 2 or 3 days earlier (crime started by Israel )
the Late Reinhart was jewish and israeli too .

[HansB]

Actually, the root problem is that BushCo wants higher oil prices, and the Iranians want higher oil prices, and so neither of them has any interest in reducing tension in the Gulf. In my view, nukes are just an excuse. Why some Israelis are getting mixed up in this cynical and dangerous game beats me. Probably for internal political reasons - the Palestinian bogeyman isn't as scary as he once was, and the far right needs a new enemy to justify its bigotry.

I'll bet my house on this: after Obama is elected but before he takes office, Bush will attack Iran just a teensy weensy bit, on some flimsy pretext. Oil at 300 $ a barrel would be quite a parting gift to his cronies, family, and Saudi friends.

[creationwaits]

HansB, your Bush hatred doesn't match reality. My salary is paid by a grant from an executive agency that is promoting research into hydrogen vehicles. Bush has promoted renewable energy many times, and has and is trying to open more lands for oil drilling. If he is trying to raise oil prices, he sure is going about it in a funny way.

[who38]

I think that your statements are frightenly correct.

[EspressoAtNoon]

Zionist ideology scares me to death. It is illogical, bigotted, fear-based, and for some reason not allowed to be discussed publicly in America.

It's like we all have to sit with a muzzle on and silently watch our country get mislead into another war, and we're not allowed to talk about the ideology driving us there. It's REALLY frightening.

[pkafin]

Aren't you discussing it right here and right now? Isn't this very article about Zionism and whether it is a sustainable ideology. Isn't Benny Morris known for publicly challenging, in published books and articles some of the myths behind Zionism.

Does anyone else find it ironic how often people publicly proclaim that they cannot publicly discuss this topic. It seems to me that it is one of the most easily and frequently discussed topics around.

[LanosIceland]

It's not allowed to be discussed publicly in any part of the world: Israel is above the law. Look what happened to Jimmy Carter when he spoke the truth! I fear for the future.

[pkafin]

"Look what happened to Jimmy Carter when he spoke the truth!"

Yes, look at it. He sold millions of books, toured the US and Israel, and enjoyed the right to freely write about what he thought.

The fact that those who disagreed with him were also free to voice that in no way impinged upon his ability to state what he thought was the truth.

Do you disagree?

[GZLives]

"It is illogical, bigotted, fear-based, and for some reason not allowed to be discussed publicly in America. "

Excuse me but Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people are entitled to live in their historical homeland which was and will always be Israel.

What is bigoted or fear based about this and from what do you conclude that it cannot be discussed in America? Its discussed all the time and openly and publicly.

My friend, it seems you are under some odd misconception about what Zionism is ....

[liz]

What is the Zionist belief about the people ( human beings with thoughts, feelings, values, opinions, families, neighbors, homes etc). who also live in the same historic homeland?
What is the Zionist belief about peaceful coexistance?

[jmad]

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the NYT published an op-ed by Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak exclaiming why WE needed to remove Saadam. This sounds like the same horse whisper.
Will our country yet again be talked into doing some one else's dirty work!

[SpectCon]

Let's just imagine an attack on Iran 1) Worked - destroying all nuke science there. That's unlikely, but let's say they do it. Then you have two problems. Problem A) Iran probably isn't going to sit back and just take it - you risk a conventional war you may not win and Problem B) No matter what, you make Iran to be a victim and make them insanely wealthy - oil would shoot up to probably 300-500 dollars a barrel and you there will be sympathetic nations to start buying from them (and they'll even take promises of future oil if the Israelis knocked out ALL of their current oil production, unlikely as that is). Oh and what would the Iranians like to by or trade with their new found wealth and victimhood? Oh, I don't know, the best military technology their money can buy, more nuclear crap....maybe even a bomb. And it's a good deal for their military as the more war there means the more the oil they're sitting on is worth.

Talk about insanity. Not only does an attack on Iran not accomplish anything....it puts Iran in a far more powerful position. Anyone wonder why they aren't acting too terribly afraid? A war really doesn't hurt Iran.

This isn't happening. These are mad ravings people too close to the situation to really see the implications.

[GZLives]

But its OK for Iran to hand off a nuke to Hezbollah which sends a suicide bomber into Israel and takes out a few million people in Tel Aviv and then claims they had nothing to do with it?

What then?

Israel will make Tehran into a parking lot?

If the West cannot stop Iran, Israel will and we will all suffer the consequences.

[SpectCon]

No it's not alright, but why would they? If Israel were nuked no more Iran. There are 70 million Iranians, how many of them become suicide bombers? Not many. Oh, but wait, you say, there are still some who would like to do it, what if they got their hands on it? Well who's going to have control of the bomb? The people with the most to lose and happiest with the status quo.

What stops an Israeli from doing the same to Tehran....today, since Israel already has nukes??? Are Israelis just a special type of human with magic DNA that makes them nicer than others? Hell no. They're just like the people of Iran. They're pissed off and scared, but they don't want to lose everything.

Your fear is completely irrational. The longer you deny legitimate governmental structures which are stable from having the bomb, the more incentive for nutjobs to try and get them. The safest thing is for established nation-states to have control over the technology. The safest way to do that is for the US to sell them with preconditions on use and monitoring and MAD covenants.

Of course, irrational people are winning the day so far. The whole of Iran is apparently bent on suicide...lets forget they won't even take in the refugees.

[mikeyfil]

Not only that, our military in Iraq would be in terrbile danger if the US did nothing to stop Israel. This op-ed scared the s... out of me--but I think the bulk of US citizens wouldn't stand for this--Morris seems to take it for granted that we would just sit back and keep giving them our tax dollars.

[wsb25]

Perhaps China and Russia had better warn Israel that any attack on Iran will be followed by an attack on Israel's nuclear and defense facilities... Clearly there needs to be a counterweight to the dangerous zionist/neocon fantasies...

[leftionthenews]

You write: "What if Iran's words since 1979 have been wilder than its deeds?"

I'm not sure what "words" you're talking about. Since Morris is referring to the "mullahs," let's consider what the Supreme Leader of Iran had to say on the subject:

"The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons."

Of course the elected President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been equally vocal about renouncing the possession and use of nuclear weapons.

Not only is there no evidence of Iran's intention to use (or even develop) nuclear weapons, there is ample evidence to the contrary.

[CharlieMarlowe]

Reading through this I couldn't help but think of the attack on Pearl Harbour. It too, was a first strike intended to knock out a potential threat and enemy. The lesson to be learned (I am being sarcastic humanity NEVER learns) is that there is no way to control outcomes and actions done for your own benefit can lead to your own destruction.

[strick9]

I was alive when we created Israel and have watched as they continue to expand their borders with no compassion for those who already lived there. If we gave it to them because of abuses of Germany in WW2, Then shouldn't we have given them part of Germany? Because it was the center of the origin of their religon, what about the Christian and the Muslum, they share a common origin. After they realized that we would support them unconditionally with arms and support they became what they were fighting. They are now political prisoners, not consentration camps. Iran is no threat to Israel, we have given them enough WMD to destroy the world. What damage could Iran do? Not Much, but what if the war were to take out their oil production, Then Exon etc. could start drilling on the they hold leases on government land, and if we also include off shore etc. What would happen to the price of oil.

[Baryshnikov]

Pt. 1: I agree with your overall point, but I have a very big problem with the general idea of "righting historical wrongs" via territorial exchanges-- this could lead to all kinds of chaos. For example, we could use the same reasoning to give the Irish territorial rights to a section of Britain and allow expulsion of the English people there, as a response to Britain's centuries' worth of slaughter and brutality in Ireland. In fact I've had friends from India offer up this kind of argument (many not at all in jest) as well-- following the 1857 rebellion, England slaughtered 1.5 million Indians and civilians as a reprisal, then proceeded to burn down farmland en masse and send young Indians out to contemporary precursors of gulag/concentration camps on outlying islands, while exporting foodstuffs away so that 30 million more people in India died. If anything, much worse than the Holocaust in Europe-- when you also consider the amount of imperialist looting that was done, all of the UK should be depopulated and replaced by Indians. For that matter, all of Europe has contributed to genocidal killings and expulsions of Jews in the past-- Italy, England, France, Russia, lots of guilty hands there.

[Baryshnikov]

Pt. 2: (Germany, ironically, was the most philo-Semitic nation in Europe until Hitler and the Nazis-- who, by the way, never actually won an election, but weaseled their way into power much like someone else we know and love today close to home. Especially in the 19th century, Germany and Austria/Hungary constituted the only region in the Western World where Jews could flourish and achieve, which is why e.g. people like Freud, Einstein and others published their great works in German.) Canada and Australia would cease to exist entirely-- they'd have to be returned to the displaced aborigines. Again, where do you stop with this?

It's why I have a problem with these specious arguments being used for big territorial claims, especially when that territory just happens to have a lot of oil or other resources. That includes us today (the USA) and Israel, for that matter.

[GZLives]

"they continue to expand their borders with no compassion for those who already lived there"

Is this a joke?

Via the United Nations, Israel came into being in 1948 and immediately had war declared on it from its neighbors. Miraculously Israel won. Its neighbors attacked again in 1967 and Israel again was victorious. And finally in 1972 the neighboring Arabs attacked again and each time with the goal of exterminating the Jews and ending Israel.

Where in earth have you seen Israel "expand" her borders other then from land she acquired by virtue of winning defensive wars that were waged against her?

[3rdCitizen]

In 2001, at a Thanksgiving gathering with my sister & her rightwing friends, I listened to a group of educated, middle-class Americans calmly discuss the probable necessity of wiping out most of the men, women & children in the Middle East because they were "being raised to hate us." They obviously regarded their conclusions as the rational, adult way of looking at things, & their mild regret over the idea as proof of their morality. When I suggested that most of the people in Arab countries probably just wanted to live their lives in peace & see their children grow up happy, they looked at me as if I were suffering from some pathetic form of dementia.
Fear, anger, prejudice, the desire to impose one's will on a distressing situation -- they distort people's perceptions of reality. Collectively, they can become a kind of cultural madness. We've had our share of it in this country; the Israelis, the Arabs & the Iranians have been living through theirs. Each culture sees itself as the virtuous victim of an implacable, inhuman evil that can only be defeated by ruthless force. Challenging that madness is seen as naive & disloyal.
"The evil that is in the world always comes from ignorance... The most incorrigible vice is that of an ignorance which fancies that it knows everything and therefore takes for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind, and there can be no true good... without the utmost clear-sightedness."

[john456]

Your opening paragraph is absolutely frightening.

[BarryChamplain]

The mainstream media has spent a week, instructing me that some highbrow snark on the cover of The New Yorker is going to convince America's Stupids that Barack Obama is a stealth terrorist, married to Angela Davis.

Therefore, by the same logic, won't the publication of Morris' war criminal screed serve as an imprimatur on such action, by the Paper of Record (whose record? And who the hell ever decided this, officially? Some ad geek on Mad Avenue, in the Fifties?)

The Times uses the right wing "liberal" epithet as fire cover for what they do: they are the p.r. asset of the neocons (further exploration of their, shall we say, publishing heritage would get anyone banned from any blog forum run by anyone larger than a guy in his bathrobe and a computer).

I ask you:

Do you really think it possible that Judith Miller could have been the conduit she was for the PNAC warmongers, for as long as she was... and the ownership of the Times could NOT have been part and parcel of that agenda?

The publication of this garbage was irresponsible and inconceivable.

[guajiro]

I couldn't help but notice this observation from the New Left Review :

" Within Israel too, hubbub over such remarks has allowed attention to be deflected from the central issue raised by Morris’s outspoken intervention. For what it does is strike at the heart of the self-serving recipes for peace harboured by the overwhelming majority of Israeli opponents of Likud and Labour alike: the idea that a ‘final settlement’ which gives the Palestinians 18 per cent or less of the land they once inhabited is morally or politically defensible. Only on the cynically pragmatic grounds that the Jewish population of Israel will never yield a square metre of what it has taken, so the Palestinians should accept whatever remnant they can get, could such a solution be justified. But there is always a realism colder even than this one. On the same premises, the logic of Morris’s position is impregnable. If the Palestinians can be battered down to a point where they are made to crouch helplessly within less than a fifth of the country, why not finish them off and expel the residue altogether? The merit of Morris’s candour is to make it plain that the ‘peace process’ in all its guises—as multifarious as they are monotonous: Oslo, Camp David, Taba, Road Map or Geneva—is little more than war against the Palestinians by other means."
What then to expect from Israel of this meeting between Iran and the U.S.? It's pretty clear.

[GZLives]

Whoa there Bunky

"the idea that a "final settlement" which gives the Palestinians 18 per cent or less of the land they once inhabited is morally or politically defensible."

Plus, its also not true.

Most of the original British Mandated Palestine went to Jordan. Nearly 80% and this had been originally promised to the Jews. The majority of those living in Brit Mandated Palestine now reside in Jordan.
What remained was partitioned between the Jews and the Arabs. The Jews accepted what they were given in 1948 while the Arabs decided to go to war. They lost.

And even after three more wars which the Arabs waged against Israel and lost, the Palestinians were still offered during the Clinton Administration more then 90% of the land they were originally given back in 1948.

Arafat rejected it and called for yet another intifada

Your other conclusions are also either untrue or pretty much lie.

The majority of Palestinians only recently elected Hamas who have vowed not only to wage an endless war against Israel but to kill Jews.