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The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, signaled flexibility last month by saying that military attacks on Gaza would stop if its Hamas rulers stopped cross-border rocket salvos.
Israel dismissed a proposal by the Palestinian group Hamas for a six-month truce in the Gaza Strip…
So, let’s get this straight: Olmert says if Hamas stops rocket attacks on Israel that he’ll stop IDF attacks on Gaza; then Hamas offers to do precisely that and Israel refuses. Curiouser and curiouser…
Ah, but Israel can afford to play the tough guy on this one. Its current policy toward Hamas is going so swimmingly. 1.5 million Gazans subsisting on UN food rations. Qassams raining down on Sderot. Israelis killed in cross border infiltrations. Shalit still in his kidnappers’ hands. Hamas holding onto power with no dent made in its popularity by Israel’s tough love approach. Yes, it’s going so well there’s absolutely no need to meet Hamas halfway. Take the high road. They’ll come around. They always do.
And don’t forget those media talking points–Israel is the one who wants peace. Israel is the one open to compromise. It’s just those nasty terrorists who you can’t trust as far as you can throw ‘em.
No doubt tomorrow’s headline in Israeli dailies will trumpet how Hamas is rearming and preparing for all-out war; how Iran is resupplying Hamas with bigger and better rockets. All part of the IDF-intelligence apparatus spin machine trying to spook Israelis into believing they have no recourse but to continue with the same bankrupt policy which has produced no results for so long.
Look at what Israel’s UN ambassador did to Jimmy Carter yesterday. For having the temerity to meet with Hamas, encourage a deputy prime minister to meet with Hamas, and for urging Israel to meet with Hamas–Gillerman took out the long knives and put a shiv in Carter’s gut calling him “a bigot” with “blood on his hands.” Wow. That’s pretty good knife play for a mere diplomat. Maybe he learned to rough his victims up verbally with some prior training in the Israeli Border Police.
Tags: gaza, gilad-shalit, hamas, qassam-rockets
@ Richard-
You misunderstood me. My offer is more generous than any offered yet. I’d give 3/4 of Israel within the green lines as well as 100% of the OT without thinking twice if genuine peace would be achieved. That means all OT and 3/4 of the Israel that existed from 1948-1967. Life is more important than land.
@Einstein:
Now that’s rich. I don’t believe you for a minute. You’d be willing to retreat to 67 borders AND give up, say, all of northern and southern Israel while retaining say, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in return for peace???? As the wonderful Yiddish saying goes: “You can’t piss on my back and tell me it’s rain.”
@Einstein:
You once again mischaracterize my views. I never said that Einstein wasn’t a Zionist. But if he was he was not the kind of Zionist you are. Period. Full stop.
Once again you have flagrantly violated my comment rules by making unsupported claims back up by nothing more than your own paraphrase of other sources which you neither quote nor link to.
You are not a scholar. Yet you have the unmitigated gall to claim that Chomsky is not a legitimate scholar???! Puh-leeze.
You claim this is a “doozy” w/o describing how this is so. Chomsky is of course describing reality here. Israel began the war pre-emptively by attacking Egypt. Do you dispute this?
Finally, I am giving you a final warning. If you continue to make unsupported charges smearing individuals whose politics you dislike, you may be banned from commenting at this site. I have standards. You may not like them. But if you don’t adhere to them you’ll lose yr privileges here.
@Einstein
I must agree with Richard. You are not a scholar. I’ll go even further..your approach to this debate shows signs of an anti-intellectual attitude. Maybe that explains your dislike of Noam Chomsky. Again and again you are stating his guilt by association, throwing holocaust denials ,even neo-nazism-crap in his direction in hope that some of it will stick.
Wright, Quincy (1949). International Law and Guilt by Association
Another sign is your selective reading. All of your quotes/links are from biased sources. I understand the temptation to have your own ideological views confirmed again and again, but the result of this “mental masturbation” is reduction to a state of stupidity.
Maybe a reading of the General Assembly’s record of 19 June 1967-meeting can lift the fog from your eyes.
Or Security council resolutions 228
Back to topic.
I see no reason to remind you of all skirmishes and bombings along the Israeli borders in late-66 -early 67,or the mutual sabre rattling ,.it is much the same as US-Iran of today. but from there to an all-out preemptive attack is a giant leap, legal and moral.
That is what the German generals were found guilt of in Nürnberg 1946 -To instigate an unlawful war. As Bush and Olmert should be. Maybe that’s why we see so few Israeli and American generals on vacation here in Europe ?
:-))
Anyways, stop referring to MEMRI when you write—it’s an insult to every thinking man. A good place to start is wikipedia Remember to check the footnotes (that is how Norman Finkelstein exposed Joan Peters fraudulent book : “From Time Immemorial” )
Looks like this type of debate is hopeless. Here’s why.
1. I realize sources cited by both sides of this debate can be biased. Many articles on both sides of this debate are biased. The problem isn’t bias, however, it’s whether such bias leads to false, omitted, or created facts, superficialities, hyperbole, or outright distortion. Rather than reject a source due to the political affiliation of the author, it’s far more sensible to show how/why the author is disingenuous or wrong and THEN reject their work out of hand. What I’ve noticed here is that whether I quote from Ken Stein, a proIsrael source, or Michael Oren – these guys are rejected wholesale solely on the basis of their presumed political affiliation, not on the content of their works. This is anti-intellectual.
2. I brought up a proIsrael source that proves beyond dispute that Einstein was a zionist, but it’s as if I’ve presented no evidence whatsoever – solely due to the source from which the information comes. Again – if any information from that source is wrong, you have good reason to suspect all other information from that source – but short of that, you’re just in denial. There’s no question Einstein was a zionist. Whether he was like me is another issue entirely. I’d have sided with Ben Gurion against Irgun/Stern just as he and Einstein did, so I’m not certain why it’s assumed I’m not lke Einstein.
3. To say that Israel was not provoked in 1967 is absurd. The casus belli of the 1967 war was Egypt’s blockade of the straits of Tiran, a clear act of war – and the primary cause of the 1956 Egypt/Israel Suez Canal war. If that wasn’t enough, the very fact that this act of war coincided with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon lining their forces and armory along Israel’s borders (similar to 1956 when Egypt’s tripartite agreement put Nassar in charge of Jordan and Syria’s troops) goes to show Israel only had 2 choices. Enjoy the Suez blockade and wait to be attacked and then fight within their own borders – risking massive civilian casualties, or attack. For Chomsky and followers to not only claim that Israel started the 1967 war (as if not provoked) and Jordan and Syria only joined later (like the allies of WW2) is ridiculous – and calls into great question Chomsky’s scholarship.
4. It’s not that Chomsky was buddies with Shahak and Faurisson and therefore toss out Chomsky, it’s that Chomsky trumped up THEIR work as if THAT neo-nazi tripe was credible scholarship. If I or anyone else were to trump up neo-nazi “scholarship”, that would automatically – and for very good cause – put me on the outside looking in in all scholarly circles.
5. As for MEMRI, this is an organization that merely translates arab/muslim media. What’s wrong with this, unless they’re trying to mislead people by falsely translating arab/muslim transmissions?
@Einstein: No. what I object to is your presenting Stein & Oren as if they were unbiased sources w. sterling academic credentials. I’m willing to concede that they might once in a while have something useful to say. But you’ll have to present ea. individual pt. you wish to quote fr. them up on the page for us to examine. Merely telling us that Oren & Stein say something or other isn’t going to cut it.
Albert Einsteins differs fr. you in far more than opposing the Irgun. He certainly would’ve opposed all aggressive Israeli actions such as the Suez war, the 67 attack on Egypt, the settlement venture, the current Occupation. All of it. I am a Zionist. Why would I argue w. you over whether A. Einstein was a Zionist or not? It’s immaterial. What matters is that he would differ from you in every major judgment about Israeli policy toward its Arab neighbors.
Regarding Israel’s 67 pre emptive attack I find it interesting that virtually every time in its history Israel has a choice bet. a belligerent, aggressive act and a more nuanced, less militant one–it virtually always chooses the former. And so it did in 67. Closing the Strait gave Israel an option: to pre-emptively strike or to see how events might play out & test whether the Arabs really intended to go to war. Israel chose not to wait & strike first. The Arabs did NOT fire the first shot.
You are one lazy-ass commenter. I’ve told you 3 times now if you want to claim anything regarding Chomsky you’ll have to quote chapter & verse about it for it to have any credibility. Again, you haven’t done so. Your word alone is worth NOTHING here. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Either provide real evidence or go somewhere where your ripe prejudices will be more welcome.
You don’t have to worry about how your scholarship would be received. Judging by yr contributions here you’d be welcomed w. open arms by David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, Alan Dershowitz, Steven Plaut, maybe Michael Oren & maybe even Ken Stein. Beyond that, I’m afraid you wouldn’t have much in the way of credibility.
Bingo. You hit the nail on the head. They misleadingly & sometimes falsely translate Arab sources. Sometimes they just translate out of context. Sometimes they twist a word or phrase. Sometimes they just plain mess up their translations. At any rate, they cherry pick items that make Arabs look as bad as possible & never translate anything that would have a neutral or positive connotation. Look up my comment rules: MEMRI is a treif source for this site.
II must admit I didn’t know of Michael Oren before his name came up here, but a little googling led me to this article The ‘USS Liberty’: Case Closed
This is simply not true. If anything the debate of what happened ,and the discourse have been suppressed in media. USS Liberty Memorial Main Page :
History is never closed. Classified documents are made available, bones are dug up,new technology makes different roads open for exploration.
Of course I understand Orens motives. He is an apologist for the zionist regime and a whitewasher of their crimes.