The Jerusalem Post held its endlessly-flacked pro-Israel conference in New York, this weekend, and attendees got much more than they bargained for. A junior cabinet member who no one’s ever heard of, took it upon himself to dress down one of Israel’s most decorated IDF officers and security officials, Meir Dagan. The latter, not a man to suffer fools gladly, tore him to pieces (rhetorically) and accused him of being a liar:
Dagan was asked about statements made by former head of the Shin Bet security service Yuval Diskin. Diskin criticized Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Friday over their bellicose stance on Iran, as well as what he called the premier’s unwillingness to advance peace talks with the Palestinian Authority.
Dagan said that Diskin was his friend, and added that he “spoke his own truth.” “Diskin is a very serious man, a very talented man, he has a lot of experience in countering terrorism,” he said, adding that he “talked about a matter that is close to his heart.” Dagan also dismissed criticism of Diskin for not voicing his opinion to Netanyahu and Barak earlier. According to Dagan, Diskin had done so “in close quarters and on many occasions.”
Ehud Olmert also attended the conference and spoke up in defense of both Dagan and Diskin, both of whom served him as intelligence chiefs while he was PM.
I wasn’t even aware that there is a proposed bill, “Dagan’s Law,” specifically designed to prohibit the former Mossad chief from continuing his political crusade against an Israeli strike on Iran. Dagan’s warning to the Netanyahu minister was chilling and prophetic:
“As in Germany, you know where you begin but you don’t know where you end.”
I’ve reported here before that Dagan’s grandfather was murdered by the Nazis, so such statements contain both political and personal emotional elements. Imagine a democracy that tells its former intelligence officials that they may not speak on matters of policy for a year after they exit their position. What do they take Dagan for? A cipher? Or a citizen? Does someone who serves his country at such a high level lose his rights as a citizen when he leaves office?
In Dearborn, MI today there was a different sort of conference, this one hosted by Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. The subject ostensibly was Muslim honor killings and the event was named in memory of an American Muslim woman who was not, in fact, killed in an honor killing. Eli Clifton attempted to cover the conference but was escorted off the premises by Dearborn police and given no reason for his ejection. Similarly, actual Muslim woman attempted to attend and they too were thrown out.
This begins to remind me of the provocations by Baruch Marzel and his Jewish settler thugs who try to march through Israeli Palestinian villages in order to provoke violent responses. Dearborn is the American city with the largest Muslim population in the country. Holding a conference that is so insulting toward Islam is Geller’s deliberate attempt to provoke and deride American Muslims. It’s also reminiscent of American Nazis marching through the largely Jewish suburb of Skokie, IL in the the 1970s.
Ahh poor Eli Clifton, like Max Blumenthal at the CUFI conference where he made a video of Hagee’s underhanded missionising techniques, he was ‘escorted off’.
The insiduous nature of Pamela Geller’s and SIOA’s Islamophobic ’cause’ is evident in that they always try to censor the truth. Their moronic low IQ readers, are stupid enough to swallow what she and Spencer say.
Is it true that Geller and Spencer are ‘romantically’ involved? I cannot think of a better matched pair. I bet they have orgasms over Islamophobia rather than the normal ones 🙂
That said, the Eli Clifton’s always win out and every cloud has a silver lining. In my opinion American Muslims although wealthy and well educated on the whole, are too comfortable. A threat will wake them up, and make them become more active in activism, politics, media and the judiciary.
I am wondering, Richard, why you didn’t name the Israeli minister, Gilad Erdan. It’s unusual for you not to be up front with names.
It is hardly surprising that Bibi’s boy, Erdan, would attack Dagan and Diskin. As you reported in Nov.2011, Bibi was investigating these two for criminal activity. This war has been going on for some time.
Someone, and it may have been Chompsky, observed years ago that if the Palestinians would just leave the Jews alone sooner rather than later they’ll tear themselves apart.
Is that precisely what we’re seeing here, or is this a choreographed faux-fight intended to lull Iran into a reduced state of readiness prior to an attack? It seems almost scripted to me.
When Israel rattles the sword loudly, there’s no problem. When they are dead quiet or when they send signals that no attack is likely, head for your bomb-shelter.
As for Geller’s conference in Dearborn. Good on her. Disgusting as she is, she’s not as disgusting as the Muslims and Hindus who butcher their own children because they date the wrong person. I don’t care what her motive or ulterior motive is, anyone taking steps to expose and criticize the whole honor killing mindset gets my support.
“I don’t care what her motive or ulterior motive is, anyone taking steps to expose and criticize the whole honor killing mindset gets my support.”
Well, hmmm! Would you react the same way to attacks on Jews (all Jews, mind) for Israel’s barbarisms (in the name of all Jews, mind)? I would hope not.
My guess (just a guess) is that Geller and Co. are not acting merely to expose what they and you perceive as bad practices. After all, in France Islamophobes have acted against hijab or veil which is not the same thing at all as honor killing but is definitely part of what the hijab-or-veil-wearers consider being a good Muslim.
Frankly, I think Erdan is a nameless cipher. I’d never even heard of him till now. I preferred he remain that way & didn’t even want to give him the respect of having a name.
Your comment about Muslims is blatantly racist & just plain stupid, and if you post anything here again remotely like it you will be moderated or banned. This is a first warning.
Are you seriously arguing that there are no honor killings by Muslims or Hindus?
No dip shit, you are the one that is stupid and you can take your first warning and stick it up your ass. I’ll respond to your idiocy on my own site.
You’re banned & good riddance to bad rubbish you Islamophobic p($*k. I’ll send you an invitation to Pam Geller’s next Muslim hate fest. If you’re lucky she’ll invite you to keynote.
Jeez, these zealous Zionists are far weaker than I thought. This is just the beginning and they are already cracking up and losing it. Going to be a far easier job of sweeping these losers into the dustbins of history than I imagined.
Netanyahu’s Iranian war scares were to bury the Palestinian issue and drive up the price of oil in hopes of defeating Obama November next, due to a stalled or recessionary economy.
The fool is not going to get his war, the Palestinian issue will roar back into focus should Iran and the global community compromise, and the oil price is heading south as the war & sanctions premiums evaporate and spare a struggling global recovery, at least until after the US election.
Netanyahu, currently the stupidest man in the universe, is learning for a second time that its not wise to humiliate and bite the hand of your master. Especially ‘no drama Obama’ who doesn’t get mad, he gets even.
The Illinois Nazi’s never actually did march in Skokie – they “chickened out”. I live in Skokie currently, and grew up next door in Evanston. I was attending University of Illinois downstate in 1980 when they last threatened to march – and was planning on coming up to counter-demonstrate if they went through with it…
So in some respect these Geller and Spencer are “Worse” than Illinois Nazis…
In fact, the Chicago Nazis had never intended to march through Skokie. They had always rallied in Marquette Park, near heir headquarters -until that was prevented by the city, who asked for an unpayable insurance fee. Then they wrote to different suburbs,asking for to rally in one of their parks. Only after Skokie answered and repeated the trick with the insurance fee, the Nazis threatened in retaliation to parade through Skokie (which wouldn’t require an insurance fee). In the end they got what they had wanted from the beginning – the rally in Marquette Park.
I never heard that they tried to repeat their Skokie stunt in the eighties; their leader was imprisoned 1979-82, and I’d assumed that this petty splinter group had dissolved then.