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liza Donnelly
- Location
- Rhinebeck, New York, USA
- Birthday
- May 12
- Bio
- New Yorker cartoonist, writer. New ebook soon! Women On Men (21st Books). Recent book: When Do They Serve The Wine? (Chronicle)
whendotheyservethewine.wordpress.com/
lizadonnelly.com
MY RECENT POSTS
- War on Women
April 20, 2012 01:28PM - Gas Station
Attendant/Psychiatrist
April 06, 2012 11:59AM - Bookshelves Are For What,
Again?
March 16, 2012 08:44AM - Dating the Government
March 02, 2012 10:43AM - Palin in the Wings, or, What's
That Noise?
January 19, 2012 09:55AM
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “THank you!”
April 22, 2012 08:49AM - “I may submit it for the
Pulitzer committee...don't
know how
to do that. But you
g…”
April 21, 2012 01:11PM - “Thanks, you
guys!!”
April 21, 2012 01:09PM - “Sorry I posted a cartoon
that is getting us
all
depressed!”
March 17, 2012 11:07AM - “Yes, Jim! Sent you a
message...”
January 25, 2012 04:09AM
Liza Donnelly's Links
Jim Inkgag
tracy davis
Christine Bollerud
Colleen Claes
LostInCheeseland
Judy Berman
Salon.com
Comments
but doesn't 'newyorker' pay more than os?
helen thomas was worth more than the rest of the wh press corps bundled and securitized. i'm kind of glad she went out with a bang, which is the noise of truth popping through a temporary pinprick in the national myth-wall
What Helen said is very true. You don't apologise for having spoken the truth. There's no holocaust going on anywhere in Europe or North America, these Caucasian settlers could easily return to their countries of origin instead of going around killing people with laser-guided missiles. If you move to another part of the world, the least you can do is to not kill the locals.
I know they claim to have biblical title deeds, but that I'd say only applies to the middle eastern/Arab Jews, not to European Jewry.
Anyone who has spoken his or her mind on the subject has been targeted. In politics you sign your political obituary if you say one word against Israel.
What kind of a democracy is it?
Even ordinary citizens are now being questioned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fct4LIODoM
If Helen wants to spout off, so be it.
I aspire to not expire before 89, sane, delusional or otherwise.
good'n
ah Helen you do have a right to be cranky. I'm six years yearger nd getting less and less tolerant of fools and nitwits who proclaim everything they know or hink they know dress in what we called glittering generalitys . . .in high school enlish.
there are many who will miss you. Maybe Rachel Maddow will ask you to guest.
Being old and cranky is not a perpetual free pass for being bigoted. She has, for years, expressed her bias towards the Palestinians in public briefings; it was only when this bias was expressed so crudely that she went over the edge.
Her mortal sin was not bigotry, there are lots of those on both sides that do well in governments and the press, it was being stupid and crude about it while being vulnerable.
Of course none of the Arab countries, while they could easily be called racists, could be accused of having an apartheid regime; they have escaped that title by kicking all the Jews out.
Using that philosophy one could say that Hitler was fighting to stamp out apartheid in Europe.
{Helen Thomas} will never die
Its better to burnout than it is to rust
Hey, hey, my, my..."
This was long long before the new found inseparable love for Israel. Of course we have to listen to the baloney that the U.S entered the war to save the Jews from the holocaust, when it was Churchills machinations more than anything else that drew the Americans into the war.
Suddenly after Hitler is removed from the scene Europe's Caucasian ( not semitic by a long shot ) Jews discover their title deeds to land in the middle east and start killing the natives; now of course we have a Jew living in a huge mansion in Palm Beach or Palm Springs occupying land in the middle east and bulldozing a Palestinian home on the way and if need be crushing a young American woman ( remember Rachel Corrie ) on the way.
This is what one Israel firster had to say : Strangle the Palestinians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBliz7wSCrw
These disgusting people are controlling U.S foreign policy.
"I do not profess to be a historian" - your own statement.
You don't know history, from your post you don't know logic.
"In fact this country turned away a ship of your folks escaping the holocaust and sent them packing to the camps."
And this is something that the US should be proud of? You, with Pakistani origins should know something about the problems of immigrants and yet you have turned that into a hatred of Israelis and a consuming desire to blame England for all things. I bet that doesn't help you to sleep. Consider Buddhism.
"This was long long before the new found inseparable love for Israel."
Not surprisingly, considering that you are not a Zionist or a historian, you don't know the history of the movement, which dates back in the US alone formally before 1900. Since you probably don't speak Hebrew, you may not know that a very popular and recurrent phrase in the Hebrew liturgy (fairly intact for several hundreds of years), when referring to positive events is that it may happen, "next year in Jerusalem."
Jerusalem, where the Hebrews built their synagogues on the Temple mount - and where the Muslims built their mosque to cover it.
@Penrose
"Oh, just for your information, Israel's government is all orthodox Jewish. So we are supporting at $2 Billion a year a patriarchal religion, which is such a blatant violation of our Constitution. "
So you are against the Jews because they are patriarchal and subordinate their women - and you are a strident supporter of teh constitution? Clearly you don't know many Jewish women. And how does that belief square with the Arabs and their treatment of women? Burquas, honor killings, death for hand-holding - clearly enlightened feminism. Is that more soothing to you as a feminist and Constitutional scholar?
"If Israel cannot make nice and get along with their neighbors after 50 years of our support, we need to cut them loose from our beleaguered national budget.?"
So Israel has been the aggressor in the last 50 years? And so teh Arabs countries didn't attack on multiple occasions. And so the printed, distributed literature of the Palestinian parties doesn't require the eradication of Israel and the Jews?
There are 4 possible explanations for your lack of knowledge and misstatements: 1) you are completely ignorant having been kept from any knowledge by your patriarchal spouse 2) you are willfully ignorant because you have hidden, ugly biases and are searching for threads to justify expressing it, 3) you aren't ignorant just a bigot and need no excuse or 4) you are really a complete and total moron.
I request a hidden ballot.
Israel in fact is less of a country, more of a criminal enterprise where I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the booty from Madoff has gone to. No wonder it's a dead issue; billions gone and no one knows where. How convenient!
What right do these Caucasian Jews have to go and murder people in the middle east? How were the Palestinians responsible for the centuries of Europe's Jew bashing?
"Next year in Jerusalem" Wow! So, that's gives the Jews a birth right to Jerusalem? I guess every Christian then has a right to live in Nazareth or Bethlehem and every Muslim a right to live in Mecca or Jerusalem too and every Buddhist, a right to live in India.
I can assure you those Hebrews that you talk about were not occupier Jews from Palm Beach or Poland or Germany; they were the local indigenous Jews who lived alongside their Christian and later Muslim neighbours.
Your consuming hatred of Muslims and those who speak the truth about Israel, obviously makes you uncomfortable. Defending the indefensible is not gonna help.
They killed 1400 Paletinians as against 13 Israelis ( of which I understand only 3 were civilians, the rest IDF ). Obviously the Palestinian katusha rockets must be like the Aussie boomerangs, returning to hit them. But every time you mention the figures, you are told this is not about figures; yet and yet the figure of six million is absolutely sacrosanct.
Penrose is quite right if in over six decades you have not been able to make peace with your neighbours then you certainly don't deserve the hard earned taxpayers dollars. Dehumanising the Palestinians and treating them like dirt. Are you proud of that?
Read for further clarification:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/glass8.1.1.html
"Israel has the right to kill anyone, anytime, for any reason it chooses. This includes those it designates as terrorists or terrorist supporters in Israel itself, in the occupied territories, in Dubai, on airplanes, in cars and on ships."
More to the point: Jews for Helen Thomas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6LtrM8ozFk
PS Re your attempted ad hominem. We are all immigrants. The only people native to the Americas I thought were the Indians
It would be pleasant to have a civil dialogue on the subject but posters are very interested in blaming Israel and Jews for everything and denying that the Palestinian governments and the Arab governments have a big part in this.
If you note that Salmandar started off-topic and then the others followed. Letting what they say go uncommented upon means letting liars and haters go unscathed.
The aboriginals of that paradigm of Anglpo-Saxon world domination, Great Britain, were originally from Phoenicia, now Lebanon and Syria, trading their way around the Atlantic coast looking for e.g. tin, a vital material during the Bronze age. Thus should Britain be returned to its earliest settlers, who happened to be Semitic ?
Peter Crimes
As you say there is no way to settle who owns what using historical precedent but we can say, starting this moment that there will be peace.
Without being an Israeli or ever having been and not even being eligible, I believe that Israel would go back to the 1967 borders, reimburse the Arabs for lost land and leave every piece of land they won in wars if the Arab governments would guarantee their continued right to exist in peace.
That is how much they want peace. If Kurds and Basques and Tibetans have a right to a homeland, so do Jews.
Now, it may or may not have been a good idea to create Israel, as there was a debate about that at the time, but, any attempt to remove the Jews from the entirety of Israel, which is what she called for, would result in a nuclear war, which is reckless, and which I always thought characterized her career that I saw, although, as an Arab descended person in her case, I can understand her lack of enthusiasm about Israel, it being said lack of enthusiasm about the existence of Israel that is the first and single biggest obstacle to peace.
We see now ridiculous attempts to justify it; the biblical title deeds. Overnight, after 3 thousand years all the Jews in the world claim land in the middle east.
The other day I saw a documentary in which an archaeologist/anthropolgist had proven scientifically that all of mankind originated in South Africa; maybe then we should all return there.
"The Jews deserve a country". There are millions of non-Zionist Jews. Be that as it may, how about a place where they don't have to forcefully evict people, bulldoze their homes , destroy their olive orchards, kick them at checkpoints, kill them if they throw stones, kill them if they picnic on the beach, shoot them from the air, cut off their food and medicines, cut off their water and power and then say "God gave me this land, you don't belong here"
After WWII, the great powers re-aligned country boundaries in many places in Europe. They couldn't leave the Jews in DP camps where they had fled. When Jews tried to return to Poland, the source of most of the European Jews, 1200 of them were killed by Poles - after the war.
Since the 20's or 30's the Jews had been buying large amounts of land in Israel just to be able to live there again as their ancestors wanted to. In the late 20's the Grand Mufti declared that Jews were the enemies and he entered into negotiation with the Nazis in the 30's.
In the face of continuous problems from the surrounding Arab countries, who had been allies of Germany and Japan and who had supported Hitler's final solution, the Jewish organizations petitioned the UN for a state so they could have a formal army to protect themselves. In view of their precarious position, and not knowing what else to do with this large number of stateless people, it was decided that the Jews deserved a homeland. It would have been a democratic Jewish state with Jewish and Arab citizens. It may have been a structure with a state religion but so are all the Arab countries and many others around the world - including England, Pakistan, India, etc.
It is debatable why many the Arabs fled but there are enormous amounts that document the reasons for the Arabs leaving from both viewpoints. Before ranting, I suggest that responders read the material.
Directly after the 1967 war, Arabs were 20% of the population. The proportions changed over the years due mainly to an influx of Jews from Russia where they were treated as 3d class citizens and from the Arab countries as those countries forced all their Jews out.
In truth, repression of the Jews in other countries has fueled Israel's growth. If after WWII, their home countries had reabsorbed their refugees, what is Israel now would still be populated mainly by Arabs with a small proportion of Jews who wanted to live in the Holy Land.
The situation deteriorated from there to what you see now.
My new favorite quote!
Another laughable ploy used by Zionists is to blame the Palestinians for the holocaust. The Mufti met Hitler. So?
So did many British and European politicians, Oswald Mosley being one of them. Even King Edward VIII , later Duke of Windsor after abdication was a known Nazi sympathiser
"The Arabs were in favour of the final solution" In fact it was the Morroccon King who when asked to transport the Jews to the camps, said what Jews? We don't have any Jews living in Morrocco; thus saving thousands of Jews.
After the Inquisition, the Jews sought refuge where? Turkey; where they were welcomed by the Sultan.
You can dig up history as much as you like. There may have been a some Jews wishing to live in Palestine, the bulk of migration came after WW2 and the holocaust.
Bottom line. What happened to the Jews in Europe was no fault or responsibility of the starved Gazan kid who is being used now for target practice. And people from across the world who want to go feed him are being shot in the head.
How much more racism will the world tolerate?
The biggest enemies of the Palestinian people now are their leaders, the countries who support them with arms and their own egos. If they had no support and were willing to accept that Israel will exist, they could just have peace today.
So it is countries like Syria and Iran and eventually even haters like you who perpetuate their resolve to continue in what is a useless war.
But you insist on encouraging people to fight a battle they will not win, and suffer casualties when they don't have to, and prolong their own terrible situation when they could declare peace today and start rebuilding tomorrow.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11332.shtml
If someone is at fault, shouldn't they be blamed?
Don't we blame all the scoundrels in history?
Obviously Israel will exist, as will the rest of the world, till God or nature, whatever one believes in, says time's up.
If Canada can be a multi-ethnic state and very soon with the growth of the Hispanics, the U.S too will be, why can't Israel, be multi-ethnic, with equality for all, Jews ( Ashkenazi and local ), Muslims and Christians.
The example of Tibetans and Kurds doesn't fly. They belong to those places, they didn't go there from Palm Springs or Poland.
"A war they can never win". Isn't that a no-brainer? One side has nukes and the other, tiny little pebbles. That is exactly what the Zionist leaders want. The freedom to kill with impunity and no resistance.
Isn't the fundamental confusion over Jewishness about whether it is a race or a religious group ? The Basques, Kurds, Tibetans etc. are all both ethnic groups and cultures, which cannot be said of Jews. They have a common religion, but as others have pointed out, many originated in other lands and do not share genetic commonality. Does it come down to if you believe you are Jewish you are ? I think this is the fundamental issue over Jewish "rights", whether it is exclusive ownership of God or a strip of sand without any oil.
The problem is not the local ethnic Jews but the imported Jews from the West.
We know how the UN Resolution was adopted and how the Zionist lobby played a role to get Truman on board. Isn't it ironic that that is probably the only UN resolution that Israel doesn't have a problem with, naturally; otherwise all other UN resolutions are treated with the utmost contempt, that is the few that do get thru' the net; countless having been vetoed by the U.S.
I do not see how injustices done to a people by the Allies or the Europeans collectively can be redressed by being unjust to others.
Peace and injustice don't go together, which is why Mandela and Desmond Tutu are hated names in Israel.
That being said, Hebrews originated as tribes in that Eastern Mediterranean area. The conceot of being a Jew is passed down matrilinearly i.e. you are a Jew naturally if your mother was Jewish or if you have formally converted in an approved process. But all of these issues are moot because the rest of the world, by their behavior, decides who is Jewish.
Salmander is still blaming, although that is a dead end and only leads to more anger. Believe me there is plenty of blame to go around. Why should Palestinians be living in Gaza. Why did the Jordanians expel them? Why did the Arab nations not adsorb the Palestinian refugees? The situation is the result of lots of anger and lots of hate - much of which is being dogmatically restated here.
Let me ask questions. Assuming that Israel will never go away and that it wants to remain a democratic Jewish state, what purpose does it serve to keep on assigning blame? What good does it do? Will it make the lives of Palestinians one inch better?
If you actually want to improve the life of Palestinians, why aren't you looking for ways to have peace, not fanning the flames of anger?
Moslems and Hindus are still fighting and killing each other 80 years after partition - and what good does that do?
Are you so pigheaded and stubborn that you are willing for people to suffer when they could have peace and prosperity?
Stop yelling, stop blaming.
It is you who are partially to blame for the next child killed.
Theft is theft. Don't try and justify it.
I have no problems with the local Jews whose roots go back thousands of years.
The imported Jews are the problem. Israel will be there but not I assure as a racist, apartheid, expansionist, hate-propelled Zionist entity. Many Jews realize that and are free willingly migrating to other countries. And, I also assure you millions of Jews would disagree with you.
Having elections in a country and calling it a democracy does not give anyone a licence to kill.
One day the Jews themselves will rise and say "Not in our name", which is what holocaust survivors said at the recent protests against the murder on the flotillas, when 30 bullets were pumped into the aid workers.
Unflippinbelievable!
Otherwise you would be dangerous rather than just foolish.
Perhaps the Asian Jews are watching that side of Israel while the nasty illegitimate European Jews from Palm Beach are watching Gaza?
For now, I think a top priroty with the occupiers/settlers should be the free distribution of condoms to the Gazans, because the way these guys are procreating, the demographics in years to come are going to make it more challenging to maintain the Jewish character of Israel.
See, with no TV or theatre or hydro, what are they to do.
I am glad most of the world recognises the inhumanity of the situation, rising above race and religion.
"she called for expelling the Israelis from the Middle East.
Now, it may or may not have been a good idea to create Israel, as there
was a debate about that at the time, but, any attempt to remove the Jews
from the entirety of Israel, which is what she called for, would result
in a nuclear war, which is reckless, and which I always thought
characterized her career that I saw, although, as an Arab descended
person in her case, I can understand her lack of enthusiasm about
Israel, it being said lack of enthusiasm about the existence of Israel
that is the first and single biggest obstacle to peace.
Don Rich
June 12, 2010 11:24 AM"
You are a pathetic lying POS who deserves the disgust and hatred you
bring upon your Righteous Brothers.
She said and undoubtedly meant Jews should get out of PALESTINE, that
is, the filthy scum who steals the Palestinian's Olives, destroys his
orchards, s_hits and P-sses in his wells, burns his homes and cars,
beats and kills with impunity and ultimately steals his land and his all.
Can't you comprehend what disgusting people you justify are and why the decent
people of the World hate them?
And F--k your Nuclear Weapons, one regiment of Marines could wipe up the
floors with your whole cowardly IDF Baby Killers.
No Nuclear Masada for you cowards, you're to fat and happy.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
I am also concerned that in nations built by immigrants, the trend now is to send people somewhere else, unless they are "racially pure" and no one knows what "racially pure" is anymore. It seems to be whatever one group deems it to be but try and find one person who is not mixed with something and that would require a new state or federal agency of "Racial Purity".
It's too late to send Israelis somewhere else. They developed that barren strip of land into a thriving home when no one else wanted them. They've earned the right to be there, if for no other reason. It's not too late to recognize that and for all peoples over there to seriously accept the reality that continuing in the sentiment of Ms Thomas benefits no one. That "solution" is what has kept all of the region from peace and prosperity and independence for over 50 years. Time to try something else.
As for us, given the current tone in our own country these days, we are in no position to judge any other country on how they relate or do not relate to their neighbors, much less to each other; on who belongs and who does not; and on any solutions thereof. It's all very ugly.
Ms. Thomas may well have as said to "drive them into the sea".
They've developed it so they have a right to stay there. So if you occupy someone's land or house in the U.S and develop it, it belongs to you?
From what I know of the culture; about two decades back an innocent Japanese university student who had lost his way in a Texas suburb knocked on a neighbourhood door to ask directions and he was merilessly shot dead by the owner, who said he felt threatened by this guy who wouldn't stop knocking. And, the whole of America applauded.
In the middle east it's the opposite. These guys go from Europe, get the locals to come out of their houses and then kill them when they resist.
As a Jew, I read and surf the interest widely, as well as read publications of every political stripe. I have literally never encountered worst racist-religious hatred, calumny and lies than I have on Salon -- it is absolutely the biggest cesspool of pseudo intellectual anti-Jewish sentiment I have ever encountered, all draped in a sort of lefty political agenda, like our "friend" salamander, with his packs of insane lies and exaggerations.
I'll just address a couple of things:
Helen Thomas is, by your standards salamander, not an American and has no right to "be here". After all, this land THE USA was stolen from the Native Americans -- surely you don't believe that such "rights" disappear after a mere 250 years? Do you? What is the time limit? Sixty years? Two years? 400 years? when do you gain (or lose) the right to be a citizen of a particular place?
Helen isn't a Native American (or First Nations as the Canadians like to say). She is from Lebanon; why doesn't she go back there? I mean, she thinks "all Jews", even Jews who are 3rd or 4th generation Israelis, should "go back to Poland and Germany". SO WHY NOT HER? What is HER exceptionalism?
For what it is worth, Jews are NOT 3% of the US population, but closer to 1.65% (and falling, due to low birth rates). I guess that makes our "takeover" of government even CREEPIER! I suppose you don't think having 3/4 of the Supreme Court being CATHOLIC is a problem though -- do you? Because you hate Jews, but you don't hate Catholics? And Catholics are like 15% of the population. Why are you not scared of Catholic control of the Courts, or Congress?
BTW: Israeli government is not a theocracy, and it is NOT made up of entirely Orthodox Jews legislators. Indeed, most Israelis are secular and non-practicing Jews. There is a powerful Orthodox contingent, but they are no different than our own right wing Christian contingent here in the US.
Most Israelis are NOT from Europe and the US -- 2/3s of all Israelis are from ARAB countries like Iraq, Yemen, Iran, etc. They were THROWN OUT of those nations; they cannot go back. They are semitic in language and appearance...they have never been to Poland or Germany, nor speak Polish or German.
I've never met an Israeli from "Palm Beach" -- that's an obvious anti-semitic flame, aimed at "wealthy Jews". I'd guess no more than a few dozen Israelis (if even that many) come from SPECIFICALLY the city of Palm Beach, Florida (for starters, it is an enclave of elderly retirees, not young IDF soldiers).
Bernie Madoff obviously did not send "all his money" to Israel -- another disgusting lie -- I have never even read that he was particularly religious or outstandingly supportive of Israel. It is well known that his money was blown on a fancy lifestyle, his family and bad, bad, bad investments. There is no "giant Madoff slush fund" in Israel or anyplace.
There is no Jewish conspiracy either. And I don't bake Passover Matzoh with the blood of Christian babies.
You are despicably ignorant of the slightest fact, or true history of ANY PLACE, let alone Israel...twisting in your fanatically hatred of Jews. If every Jew left Israel this afternoon, you'd find something else to hate them over.
"So if you occupy someone's land or house in the U.S and develop it, it belongs to you?"
LET ME REPEAT, assuming you are not an American, so did not study US history. The ENTIRE USA was stolen from Native Americans. ALL OF IT. We put them on reservations, where most live EVEN TODAY. In wartime, we also stole land from Mexico. Then we BOUGHT some places like Alaska and the Lousiana Purchase from other parties...with cold, filthy cash. SO THAT IS OUR COUNTRY...the USA. Stolen....captured in war...bought with cash.
And it is OURS. And we are not giving it up. Period.
And our history is just exactly like Israel's, in that regard (created out of nothing, immigrant nation, stolen, war-acquired, bought with cash) and that why we identify with Israel and support Israel.
If you hate Israel for these things (beyond simple Jew hate, which is obvious in you), then you hate the US too. So -- hopefully you don't live here -- and if you do -- GO HOME to Pakistan. GO! remember -- people can't ever move to anyplace other than where their ancestors lived...even if the natives there are trying to exterminate you.
GO...go....go.
for you guys DON´T GET THAT CRUMPY.... Live and Die young !!
For me: I´m almost over it.... at 90 minus 2 strikes.. I´ll die young !!
From the GripeVine..... & Donah..//
Ellen isn´t even"naughty"... but I´ll miss her too.. honest..
You mentioned any critique on Israel and the Jews is taboo ???
On Stateside sure.. which is Homeland to the Khazars....
Just come to my island, Gran Canaria.... we blast them off the planet !!
From the GripeVine.... & Donah..//
From the GripeVine.... & Donah..//
So there's a certain number of years after you slaughter an indigenous people and take their land that you stop being an occupier? Because everyone in any U.S. state that isn't either Native American, Inuit, or Polynesian is an occupier.
I find it strange that people seem to think the borders we see on a current map have been there forever,just like that, and therefore the only nation we get to say doesn't have a right to exist is Israel.
By that logic, the U.S. doesn't have a right to exist. Iraq was cobbled together in 1918 by the French and British but remained under colonial rule for a couple decades after that.
The nature of our globe is that borders are man made and subject to change. If you're an American, take a look at our own bloody history before condemning Israel.
I don't agree with the militarism, the subjugation, the violence of Israel's government But to tell a nation of people they should go back to two countries who slaughtered them (and Poles slaughtered Jews AFTER the war when they tried to return) is just beyond the pale.
And by the way, whoever said the entire gov't of Israel is orthodox Jews is just misinformed. Israel's government is a representative democracy. It has a parliament. There are Israeli Arabs in parliament - do you think they're orthodox Jews? In fact there are deep divisions within the Israeli parliament. That they currently have an extremely right wing government right now can't be argued.
Kinda like the one we had before Obama was elected.
I don't know the solution but hating either side is not helpful in the least. I must say though, that the 1967 border idea is untenable in IMHO because a multi-national army stood on those borders and promised to wash Israel into the sea. If I were Israel, I wouldn't count on going back to those borders being an end to the strife.
So, the idea is that by including "reprehensible" but making clear she's not "stupid," tribal elder Helen Thomas gets a pass.
As though her venomous, decades-long anti-semitism gets to get a pass under the exemption for kooky-and-perhaps-reprehensible-but-not-stupid 89 year-olds.
What's a little ethnic cleansing among friends? (As long as the cleansing is happening to some ooky people that fall outside the tribal pale.)
Perhaps Gov. Brewer of Arizona, who is--after all--legally dealing with illegal aliens, is wondering whether she'll get the kooky old aunt treatment at Salon and the New Yorker when she's 89...
I maintain that idea has proven hapless and a disservice to the PEOPLE of the mid East, especially to those who suffer the brunt of continued warfare who are denied the opportunity to live a better life. Enough years, wars, strife, and loss of life has proven that it just doesn't work. If for no other reason than the opportunity to provide a better life through shared resources, technologies, institutions, by learning to live with your neighbors. The differences in quality of life are stark. Why must the Palestinians be the scapegoat of their Arab kin and be denied the benefits enjoyed in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Israel, and even Saudi Arabia, in some respects? They have been used by their own kin for over half a century to fight a cause that is unwinnable and they pay the price for it, not Jordan, Syria, Egypt. It is their children who are on the streets fighting instead of in the schools learning; it is they who suffer the consequences in all ways. I understand that Hamas provides much social support to the people but, in my opinion, the best thing they could do is to accept the reality of Israel and learn to live with it. And Israel needs to trust and verify and get busy to make some concessions. I also understand that both Israelis and Palestinian PEOPLE are weary of this continued strife. Leadership must step up and do for their peoples what no one else can.
And that is my beef with the tenured professional, Ms. Thomas. As informed and knowledgable as one would hope a journalist with her years is expected to be, her response was half a century old, clinging to a no win position, strictly knee-jerk, emotional, inflammatory, controversial, disruptive. It may be how she "feels", but "feelings" are what have caused all the problems. She can feel however she feels, but, she is in a position to use her words---which is the core of her work---in a more responsible way. On many levels, I found her remark, not constructive and very offensive.
"Perhaps you could also explain why the West Bank is doing so incredibly well and rebuilding and prospering while Gaza is still a festering pit."
Is that a serious question? You are really that unaware of th e main reason that Gaza is as you put it "still a festering pit?" You don't know why humanitarian organizations are trying to get food and medical supplies to the Gazans or why the Gazan infrastruture has been desvastated or why it has been predicted in UN reports that the current Gazan crop of children will grow to be 30% less in size than their parents?
Never mind. I think I know what you will say. You will say that it is all somehow their own fault. It is how oppression is often
justified, historically speaking.
Back to those hackneyed arguments. Jordan and the other countries you name were not inundated by people escaping the holocausts of Europe. They were all local, indigenous people who belonged there. Not racists from Palm Beach and Palm Springs and all over Europe carrying fictitious biblical title deeds.
Theft is theft, by whatever name you call it.
"The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages."
"..it is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races."
Adolf Hitler? Nope. Teddy Roosevelt! He argued that "the conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race and to the well-being of civilized mankind."
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~landc/html/roosevelt.html
Hitler agreed with Teddy Roosevelt, espusing that `the higher race subjects to itself a lower race ...a right which we see in nature and which can be regarded as the sole conceivable right because it was founded on science."
http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/special.php
Kindred spirits! No wonder they interrupted the Nuremberg War Trials of top-level Nazis to commemorate the anniversary of Roosevelt's passing.
So, to recap: Roosevelt justifies 'removal' of 'inferior peoples from their lands. Then Hitler justifies 'removal' of 'inferior' peoples from their lands using the same paradigm.
Now HERE'S where it gets weird: Winston Churchill used the SAME genocidal and racist argument to justify removing the 'inferior Arabs' from their lands to make room for Israel:
First, Churchill called for airborne chemical assaults on "uncooperative Arabs" (actually Kurds and Afghans, but your great men need not make such petty distinctions). "I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas," he declared. "I am strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes.." (Some years later, a certain Adolf Hitler would apply this gaseous philosophy to another so-called "troublesome tribe.")
http://www.rense.com/general47/thil.htm
THEN, Churchill used the identical argument to justify a Jewish conquest of Palestine, comparing the indigenous Arabs to a dog in a manger in comments before the UK's Palestine Royal Commission:
"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race, has come in and taken their place."
Fancy that! Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler AND Israel! All in the same ideological boat!
Conclusion: Israel was founded on a genocidal and racist theory that espoused the elimination and/or eradication of "inferior people" by the so-called superior people for the 'good of mankind'.
"It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners." Albert Camus
I have admired her over the years. Had the pleasure of appearing on a panel with her about women and the media, so I met her last year. She said on the panel, among other things, "If you want to know what's going on in the news, read the cartoons" (paraphrase)
"When the land we now call Israel was ceded to them, other lands were carved up as well and ceded to others, like Jordan. Perhaps, Jordan, too, is the real Palestine. Israel did not start out as "occupiers". The refusal to recognize their right to that land and to defend it is at the core of the issue for as long as it has existed. Any land occupied by them now, over and above what was given to them, was fought and occupied in their own defense against those who have refused to recognize that they are there."
Interesting. Let's put it in perspective though. In the 1930's the Nazis "carved up" jewish assets in Europe, including land, by forcing jews to sell them cheap under duress, or outright theft. Fortunately for them, in recent years jews have used the courts to recover millions of dollars of assets illegally appropriated by the Nazis, some as far back as 1936.
Israel was founded in 1948. So how can Israel dismiss Palestinian claims to land and property stolen after 1948 as 'too long ago'?
@DulyNoted: I am not well versed in who was where and what it was called, prior to post WWII when other nations decided to carve up that part of the desert and give some to the Jews and install a monarchy and line of succession in Jordan or how they chose that King or on what they based their divvying up. But they did it. I do know that possession in those parts was 9/10 whoever won the last battle of tribes until the next raid and the next battle as recently as the 1920's and early 30's. I don't think there were land titles, formal deeds of occupation, or any kind of centralized government to make decisions.
It has been over 50 years and it is time for people to move on and live with it and make Peace so All of those people can thrive and can have a place to call Home. Chanting the same old refrain and the same old advocacy is a disservice to all, especially to those most in need of a good home.
Anyone who's looking clearly at the issue has to know that when we insist on using the term "anti-Semitic," a certain per cent (choose your number) of American Jews, some making major contributions to American culture, would be so labeled. Surely it's possible to bring into use a more accurate term. In the interest of fairness and reasonable dialogue. Semantic decency.
I've certainly been enlightened about the history of both sides of this debate on this beautiful gift of a summer day.
So, I'll just say: Helen, why don't you and the other Lebanese get off the Native Americans' lands and go back to Lebanon?
As for the nitwits--apparently mostly the ardent readers of Salon--who know nothing of history demonstrating that fact by their breathtakingly idiotic postings in this thread: get an education.
The day after--literally the NEXT DAY--after it declared its independence, Israel was attacked by 5 of its Arab, Muslim neighbors. Since then Israel has been attacked repeatedly by one or more Muslim Arab neighbors, and has been engaged in a decades-long, running battle defending itself against the ravenous, bloodthirsty terror acts of Arabs, Palestinians, and various other Muslim riff-raff.
Israel is a developed nation, a representative democracy, with universal suffrage. All of this, of course, is why Helen Thomas despises Israel & chooses to elevate Palestinians. What a bag of wind. Good riddance.
"It has been over 50 years and it is time for people to move on and live with it..."
I repeat: Jews have used the courts to recover millions of dollars of assets illegally appropriated by the Nazis, some as far back as 1936.
Israel was founded in 1948. So how can jews - or you - dismiss Palestinian claims to land and property stolen by Israel after 1948 as 'water under the bridge'?
Until and unless jews stop pursuing recovery of assets stolen by Nazis before 1948 and seeking compensation from German companies who exploited jewish slave labour before 1948, their assertion that Arabs should just shrug their sholuders over having their land and houses stolen by Israel between 1948 and now will never be ethical, fair, or acceptable.
or fair,stolen assets the property the stiole from Ara
Something which Gen Petraeus confirmed only recently.
It is unbelievable that people would use the fact of Israel's being a democracy or having elections as giving it a right to kill and murder people. Ask the Arab Christians and Muslims how much of a democracy it is for them.
All the other Arab countries created out of the mandates were for the indigenous peoples not people from China or Europe. Israel is the only country in the world built on an unjust foundation; ethnic cleansing and the import of Jews of European not semitic origins.
Now, the least you can do when you move to another part of the world is not to murder the local inhabitants. This Israel has proved over and over again, it is incapable of doing.
What has actually been happening for 60 years now is:
Bulldoze a Palestinian home in the morning; kick and spit on a Palestinian at the check point; destroy his olive gardens; kill him in the afternoon because he was resisting and in the evening put on your dinner jackets for the holocaust memorial fund raiser and get your lawyer to send off retribution claims to Germany, Switzerland, etc etc.
What the rest of the world is saying , barring the 5% in the U.S.; sorry, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaCXuM40wQA
Guaranteed you'll never see this on America's strangled mainstream media.
@ Tramky "Muslim riff-raff, eh?" Well I guess racism is well and alive.