And let’s lv. “shame” out of it shall we? Those who have a weak hand & weak argument resort to “shame calling.” If you had evidence or a strong hand you’d argue the merits of the case.

“It seems this incident did occur…” Oh really, were you there? Do you have a video or audio recording? Do you know anyone who does? So how can you know that it happened as Ziman says it did? Provide us w. evidence then yr perspective will have credibility. Till then, zip, nada, zilch.

Rev. Lee later “apologized for the misunderstanding” but did not retract his words. (google it)

It seems this incident did occur, and you stand there bash this fantastic philanthropist instead of attacking the anti-semite.

shame on you.

RS - “Evicting Arabs serves the interest of settlers. That does not constitute ‘the greater good.’”
I - and millions of other people - don’t believe that the removal of Jews from Gaza was for the greater good, but it happened. Yes, evicting certain Arabs from certain places would serve the interest of certain settlers, but you didn’t answer my question (even though you felt obliged to say something). So, rather than repeat my question, I’ll just assume that you can conceive of no possible scenario in which the eviction of Arabs would be as acceptable to you as the eviction of Jews.

RS - “If a state entirely controls the affairs of another through blockade then it is responsible for that state & considered its occupier. Israel controls everything that goes in & out of Gaza. It prevents Gaza from functioning as any sort of entity. It enters militarily Gazan territory at will. To say Israel isn’t occupying Gaza is to bury one’s head in the sand. Even Israeli analysts & journalist concede what you refuse to concede.”

I don’t think I’m burying my head in the sand. I honestly don’t understand how Israel can control everything that goes in and out of Gaza if there is a Gazan border with Egypt. Surely the people who say that Israel controls Gaza’s borders are burying their heads in the sand with regard to Egypt. On the other hand, if they buried their heads more thoroughly they might discover tunnels through which Gazans smuggle in from Egypt a formidable supply of weaponry but not, as far as I’ve read, the food, fuel or medical supplies that Israel attempts to supply. The fact that many Israeli - and foreign! - journalists and analysts assert something doesn’t invalidate my opinion or my beliefs any more than the claims of opposing authorities invalidate yours.

RS - “Evicting Arabs serves the interest of settlers. That does not constitute ‘the greater good.’”
I - and millions of other people - don’t believe that the removal of Jews from Gaza was for the greater good, but it happened. Yes, evicting certain Arabs from certain places would serve the interest of certain settlers, but you didn’t answer my question (even though you felt obliged to say something). So, rather than repeat my question, I’ll just assume that you can conceive of no possible scenario in which the eviction of Arabs would be as acceptable to you as the eviction of Jews – which is your prerogative; or that you do in fact agree that it may be appropriate to evict Arabs, but you refuse to admit it for some reason which I cannot imagine, which is also your prerogative.

RS - “The UN says that 80% of Gazans are eating only because of UN relief supplies & you have the unmitigated gall to tell us that Gazans have it far better now than they did under Egypt? By what right do you make such an idiotic claim? What facts support it? I’d be interested to see what you can come up with short of yr own biased & unfounded judgment.”

Let me tell you about the very first time the question of the relative difference between life under Egyptian and under Israeli rule ever even occurred to me. A few years ago in the Jonathan Edwards church in Northampton, Massachusetts I listened to someone read a moving poem written by a resident of a refugee camp in Gaza. I remember mention of the sound of soldiers’ boots; the poet conjured up the sense of uncertainty, of having no sense of privacy, of feeling hopeless, impotent, vulnerable. I was quite upset: my image of Israel as the good guy was beginning to waver. (I do try to keep an open mind, you see.) My illusions were being shattered… In the discussion following the reading it was pointed out that the poem was written long before 1967. That was what was in my head when I made my assertion about conditions under Egyptian rule being dreadful: the plight of the persona in the poem.

Of course I don’t expect you to be swayed by my sentimental recollections - especially since you seem ready to assume I’m the kind of person who has biased judgment and who makes idiotic claims. Making my task of backing up my claim was made quite difficult because I was aware that I could not cite ources that you might dismiss as biased. So the first evidence I submit is from a study of PUBLIC UTILITIES IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP prepared by Dr. Sameer A. Abu-Eisheh, UN Conference on Trade and Develoment consultant, 21 October 1994.

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/85255e950050831085255e95004fa9c3/371db8e567f212b6802563fe00620111!OpenDocument

(The study discusses water, electricity, sewage, refuse collection, slaughterhouses…
I don’t do this kind of thing for a living, so I apologize for the lack of elegance in my excerpting. I’ll quote a few paragraphs about electricity and water. I gained the impression from skimming this long, impersonal report that things have improved since the Israelis took over. I guess you can check the original and see for yourself.)

“Water utilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip before 1967 were limited to some municipalities, which in most cases were only partially served. Few villages had tapped water supply before 1967…..
“Groundwater is the main water resource in the Gaza Strip…. In 1967 the number of groundwater wells for all uses was about 1,000, the vast majority of which were agricultural wells. Only 14 wells supplied the urban areas in the Gaza Strip for domestic use…. No data are available regarding water demand for Gaza Strip or for individual urban and rural areas.
“Until 1967, the city of Gaza was supplied with water through 11 wells with a capacity of 8,000 to 9,000 m3/day…. The wells were mostly drilled manually. Two water reservoirs were in operation with a capacity of 2,500 m3. Water was pumped to the reservoirs using diesel-motor driven pumps….
“The number of wells has increased to 16 in 1990 with a total capacity of 45,000 m3/day. Of these, 31,500 m3/day were used for domestic and 13,500 m3/day for industrial purposes. The number of subscribers increased to 35,000 including those of Al-Shati’ refugee camp. Old wells have been redrilled and most wells have been equipped with electric pumps operating 22 hours daily….
“Electricity reached Gaza Strip in 1935…..In 1948, owing to the war, electricity links with Israel were disconnected. Private companies began generating electricity after the purchase and operation of the first unit which had a total nominal capacity of 80 kilowatts. The private Gaza Electric Company founded in 1950 administered the electricity project and purchased a number of extra generating units. .
“By 1967, these units were generating a total of around 1,000 kilowatts. Extra generating units were imported and utilized. Other large communities such as Deir Al-Balah, Rafah, Khan Yunis and Jabalia had separate generating units. Before 1967, each of these communities was supplied by a single generator of around 300 kilowatts. Less than 10 per cent of the total number of households had some kind of electricity services. All the electricity generated by these municipalities was for domestic use and street lighting purposes. Industrial projects generated their own required electricity using diesel units.
“…..After the 1967 war, the municipalities of the Gaza Strip were linked with the national Israeli grid, owing to the inability of the old generators to produce the required electric power. The municipalities were neither allowed nor able to import the required spare parts or new generating units. In Gaza city just before occupation, there were three old units supplying a total of 850 kilowatts. Now, the total annual electricity consumption for the whole Gaza Strip is estimated at 220 million kilowatt hours.”

The second document I offer is HEALTH CONDITIONS AND SERVICES IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP, a study prepared by Dr. Rita Giacaman, UNCTAD consultant, dated 28 September, 1994. http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/85255e950050831085255e95004fa9c3/0566e391072a3a4d8525621b00754aca!OpenDocument

She seems to say that there was very little modern health care before Israel took over.

“Modern medical services became accessible to refugees and to rural areas only as of the late 1950s, when the Jordanian and Egyptian service infrastructures, notably in health and education, reached the countryside in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, respectively. But as in Jordan and Egypt, these services were rudimentary, restricted largely to the biomedical and curative variety. However, the population continued to rely on the traditional medical system as well. Therefore, by 1967 most Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip exhibited poor health status, characterized by relatively high infant mortality rates and malnutrition among children. The population lacked many basic medical services with uneven access to services between regions. While the Jordanian and Egyptian Governments did take steps to build a network of clinics in the areas, those which did exist could only provide limited services unable to reach many of those in need, necessitating the continued use of traditional healers and practitioners….
“In 1967, approximately 1.3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip came under Israeli military rule. Since then, the conditions of occupation began to impose deeply rooted changes on every aspect of life in the occupied Palestinian territory, including health status and health services.
“During the first two decades of Israeli rule, the policy and regulatory environment in the occupied territory was transformed, with significant effects on the health status of the population. The first 10 years of military rule carried with them a slowly rising consciousness among Palestinians of these changes and what they implied. The medical and allied health establishment that had been part of the Jordanian and Egyptian medical care systems found themselves outside the system of Israeli military rule which became the new purveyor of medical care.”

There was a trade-off:

“Since 1967, Palestinian society in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has experienced significant social transformations concomitant with changes in the general political and economic context. Of importance in terms of its impact on health status has been changing patterns of employment, from agricultural work and some wage work before 1968 to wage work in Israel and the West Bank as well as abroad, mostly in the Arab countries. Since 1967, individual and family incomes rose, but at the cost of systemic impoverishment. A move away from agriculture, coupled with improved incomes, meant a rise in the standard of living and a move towards ‘commercialization’ in general. At the same time, educational levels also rose.”

SO PERHAPS THERE CAN BE NO DEFINITIVE ANSWER AS TO WHETHER OR NOT THINGS ARE BETTER NOW! Is it better to be a poor independent farmer or the (sometimes unemployed) worker in some other commercial enterprise? But she does remark that there has been progress in education. This is borne out by the report submitted to the UN by the Acting Permanent Representative of Israel on July 2, 1986. http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/eed216406b50bf6485256ce10072f637/a77dab273134269485256bc0004e1021!OpenDocument

“Since 1967, the school system in the administered territories has experienced unprecedented growth. While the population in these areas increased by about 28 per cent in the years from 1967 to 1986, the total number of pupils receiving schooling in governmental, UNRWA, and private educational networks during the same period has increased by 105 per cent. Similarly, the number of classes run solely by the Government has increased by over 100 per cent.
“This remarkable growth is due mainly to the development in the governmental education network during the years of Israel’s administration…In the Gaza District during [1967-1986], the number of pupils increased by over 120 per cent and the number of classes by over 200 per cent.
“The significant growth in the number of those attending school since 1967 also reflects a remarkable decline in the total rate of illiteracy. In 1970, the percentage of those with zero years of schooling was…of the total population aged 14 and over…51.1 per cent in the Gaza District. Since 1985, the illiteracy rate has dropped to…26.5 [per cent]in the Gaza District.
So, Richard, I’ve attempted, by offering some data (regrettably not really up-to-date and much too long, but that’s all I have time for – and I doubt that anyone would really want to read more if I knocked myself out searching), about the Health, Education and Welfare of the Gazans to legitimate my assertion that things are better now, under the Israelis, than they were under the Egyptians. In all honesty I must conclude that there can be no indisputable proof either way – but I feel my claim doesn’t deserve to be described as idiotic or without merit. Furthermore, Gaza has received billions of dollars of aid since 1967, far more than it received while under Egyptian rule - but I discount this funding in my response, because it didn’t come out of Israel’s budget, and I was, after all, trying to argue in favor of Israel’s treatment of its inconvenient wards.

most visitors to this blog focus only on Israel’s faults in the Middle East conflict

This is untrue & I’ve pointed out to you before that the majority of commenters are critical of my view &, like you, defenders of Israeli policy.

you (and Ellen) appear not to bother judging, for example, the daily rocket attacks on Israel.

I would appreciate yr judging Ellen’s & my views separately as they are not the same. Furthermore, you are again absolutely wrong regarding my views toward rocket attacks. Not only have I condemned them multiple times but I’ve told you & numerous other commenters who tediously make the same arguments saying that I have not done so–that I indeed have.

The are indeed acts of resistance to Occupation. That doesn’t make them legitimate acts morally. But they are resistance.

Israel is NOT occupying Gaza

Under international law Israel IS occupying Gaza. If a state entirely controls the affairs of another through blockade then it is responsible for that state & considered its occupier. Israel controls everything that goes in & out of Gaza. It prevents Gaza from functioning as any sort of entity. It enters militarily Gazan territory at will. To say Israel isn’t occupying Gaza is to bury one’s head in the sand. Even Israeli analysts & journalist concede what you refuse to concede.

Israel withdrew from there a few years ago, after ethnically cleansing the area of Jews.

Use of the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe the Gaza withdrawal is extremist settler propaganda which is forbidden in my comment threads. Use the term again & you’re history. Those settlers were removed by an act of a democratically elected Israeli government pursuing state policy. That is NOT ethnic cleansing.

Are you among those who are horrified, outraged at the prospect of Arabs being evicted even when it might serve the greater good, but nod approvingly when Jews are uprooted?

Evicting Arabs serves the interest of settlers. That does not constitute “the greater good.”

Gaza’s occupation by Egypt from 1948 to 1967? There were a few complaints about the dreadful conditions - conditions much worse, by the way, than what exists now

The UN says that 80% of Gazans are eating only because of UN relief supplies & you have the unmitigated gall to tell us that Gazans have it far better now than they did under Egypt? By what right do you make such an idiotic claim? What facts support it? I’d be interested to see what you can come up with short of yr own biased & unfounded judgment.

You laud a moral system that judges each act on its own, yet you (and Ellen) appear not to bother judging, for example, the daily rocket attacks on Israel.
In fact, when you are obliged to admit these attacks occur, you refer to them as being acts of resistance to Occupation - in other words, YOU persist in connecting the shelling to something else, to “the Occupation.” You write of “Israel’s actions in subjugating & terrorizing the Occupied” as though subjugating and terrorizing are goals in and of themselves, thus enabling you to judge Israel according to your beautiful and rigorous system, which you couldn’t have done if you’d written,”Israel’s actions in subjugating and terrorizing those who oppose it.” Perhaps you didn’t consciously plan to distinguish between Israeli and Gazan offenses, but it seems to me your phrasing does create the distinction.
Incidentally, I guess now you’re going to have to categorize me as an “Occupation denier.” (Or maybe it’s more accurate to describe me as someone who believes that Arabs are occupying parts of Israel.) Certainly, Israel is NOT occupying Gaza. Israel withdrew from there a few years ago, after ethnically cleansing the area of Jews. (Are you among those who are horrified, outraged at the prospect of Arabs being evicted even when it might serve the greater good, but nod approvingly when Jews are uprooted?) And as the Israelis withdrew, they were fired upon. With the exception of those who are convinced that Gaza is part of the Holy Land of Israel, Israelis would like nothing better than to be rid of Gaza - to not have to provide electricity to those who shell the power plant at Ashkelon; to not have supply fuel or food to people who attack the crossing points; to not have to provide medical care to… Yes, you’ve heard it all before; but you still write about Israel “subjugating and terrorizing the Occupied.” (Where, by the way, were all the protests about Gaza’s occupation by Egypt from 1948 to 1967? There were a few complaints about the dreadful conditions - conditions much worse, by the way, than what exists now - but the protests were nothing like the commotion once Israel inherited the problem. Maybe coincidence, maybe the evolution of humanity and global awareness, maybe another case of blaming Israel whenever possible. Not that I’m faulting you for the absence of concern for those almost twenty years: I know you weren’t active then)

I don’t deny that I am bent on minimizing Israel’s culpability when it is accused - and you are welcome to try to minimize the culpability of whoever you want to - especially since it’s your blog. But I repeat my observation that your tendency to continually bring charges against Israel and seldom if ever against its enemies is not the best way to achieve justice and to repair the world.

Want a slogan? “End the pre-occupation with Israel!”

If you know of a movie that was not racist toward Blacks from that time period, then please name it.

I am not a film historian nor are you. But before you make the claims you are making you should do more research in exploring the history about which you are making judgements. There were many movies, songs and books which portray African Americans in a sympathetic light (many of them written by Jews). I am certainly not saying that sympathy was the prevailing attitude. Racism was the prevailing attitude. But making sweeping generalizations often does a disservice to history, which is what you have done.

And there is absolutely no way you can claim that Jews were responsible for oppressing Blacks simply because prejudicial films were made. That is the height of unfairness. Don’t forget that one of the most racist & earliest films portraying Blacks unfavorably was Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith, not a member of the tribe. You have also forgotten the Hollywood Ten, Jews blacklisted because of their film work which was sympathetic to progressive social & political views including African Americans.

If we only condemned acts that were 100% morally indefensible then we would condemn almost no act as immoral. Just as you can find justifications for Israeli immorality so can Palestinian supporters find justification for Palestinian immorality. It leads to moral bankruptcy & an inability to judge collective acts of nations.

We can also say that the thoughts & actions of Ben Gurion were careless & heartless or even criminal regarding the saving of European Jewry. But the Holocaust era was one of the greatest crises to face the Jewish people in its entire existence. The fact that some responded in such a bizarre & wrong-headed way does not mean that there were evil or Nazi collaborators. It merely means that given the limitations of their philosophical views about Zionism and the information that they knew at the time, they responded in ways that were woefully inadequate.

I find Lenny Brenner to be a hopelessly biased & ideologically impaired resource on any issues related to Zionism. He is about as extreme an anti-Zionist as Meir Kahane was a Zionist. The same goes for Gilad Atzmon.