More Than It Appears
Submitted by Sandy on August 1, 2006 - 6:26pm.
When I saw that the first bombings by the Israelis were all stratigic targets . . . runways, roads and highways, ..I thought that there was more to this whole thing that what it appeared to be superficially. Well, , , somebody else, far more informed that I'll ever be shares a similar view. From the Times Online
This is just the start of a showdown between the West and The Rest Amir Taheri
MANY IN THE WEST see the mini-war between Israel and Hezbollah, now in its fourth week, as another episode in a tedious saga of an Arab-Jewish conflict that began with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, a political version of the “original sin”. The conventional wisdom in the West is that the whole tale would end if Israel were to return the occupied territories to the Palestinians, allowing them to create a state of their own. But that analysis does not reflect the Middle East’s new realities. All the wars in that region of the past century, including the one between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s, revolved around secular issues — border disputes, the control of territory and water resources, security and diplomatic relations. Although fought in the name of nationalism or pan-Arab aspirations, none had a messianic dimension. The first two wars of the new century in the Middle East, however, were ideological ones. The United States toppled the Taleban in Afghanistan and the Saddamites in Iraq not in pursuit of territory but in the name of an idea: democracy. Since 2001 the region has been turned into an ideological battleground between two rival camps with global ambitions. One camp, led by the United States, claims to represent the modern global system of open markets, free elections, religious freedoms and sexual equality. The other camp is represented by radical Islam, which regards the Western model as not only decadent but dangerous for the future of mankind. It hopes to unite the world under the banner of Islam, which it holds to be “ The Only True Faith”. In the Lebanese conflict, Israel and Hezbollah are the junior proxies for the rival camps. Israel is not fighting to hold or win more land; nor is Hezbollah. But both realise that they cannot live in security and prosper as long as the other is in a position to threaten their existence. A Middle East dominated by Islamism could, in time, spell the death of Israel as a nation-state. A westernised, democratic Lebanon, on the other hand, could become the graveyard of Hezbollah and its messianic ideology. And if the US succeeds in fulfilling George W. Bush’s promise of a “new Middle East” there will be no place for regimes such as the Islamic Republic in Iran and Syria’s Baathist dictatorship. The present rupture in Lebanon has much to do with who will lead the fightback against the West. For almost a quarter of a century there has been intense competition within the Islamist camp over who could claim leadership. For much of that period Sunni Salafist movements, backed by oil money, were in the ascendancy. They began to decline after the 9/11 attacks that deprived them of much of the support they received from Arab governments and charities. In the past five years Tehran has tried to seize the opportunity to advance its own leadership claims. The problem, however, is that Iran is a Shia power and thus regarded by Sunni Salafists as “heretical”. To compensate for that weakness, Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made the destruction of Israel a priority for his regime. The war triggered by Hezbollah is in part designed to show that President Ahmadinejad is not bluffing when he promises to wipe Israel off the map as the first step towards defeating the “infidel” West. The broader aspects of the Lebanon crisis are better understood in the Middle East than in the West. For the first time, Israel is under attack from Islamist and Arab secular radicals as “an American proxy”. Writing in Asharq Alawsat, a pan-Arab daily, a Syrian Cabinet minister, makes it clear that the war in Lebanon today is between “the forces of Islam and America, with Israel acting as an American proxy”. Iran’s “supreme guide”, Ali Khamenei, expressed a similar view this week during an audience he granted in Tehran to Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan President. “What we see in Lebanon today represents the revolt of Muslim nations against America,” he said. “Hezbollah is backed (by Iran and others) because it is fighting America.” President Chávez endorsed that analysis by calling on Muslims and non-Muslim revolutionaries to unite to “save the human race by finishing the US Empire”. Iran’s state-controlled media has said that Lebanon would become “the graveyard of the Bush plan for a new Middle East”. Tehran believes that a victory for Hezbollah in Lebanon will strengthen President Ahmadinejad’s bid for the leadership of radical Islam. A number of recent events have made his attempt to wrest control more likely. This week several leading Sunni theologians at the Al-Azhar seminary in Cairo issued fatwas that allow Sunnis to fight alongside and under the command of Shia Muslims. The fatwas came in response to a Saudi fatwa that had declared any association with and support for Hezbollah to be haram (forbidden). More significant was a message from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two. The Salafist radical tried to get hold of Hezbollah’s tailcoats in the hope of winning a share of the expected spoils of victory. He endorsed the idea of a global campaign against the “infidel”, thus abandoning his previous strategy of focusing the jihad on countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. More significantly, he dropped the al-Qaeda claim of fighting a defensive war against the infidel by designating a vast area of jihad from Spain to India. All that is good news for President Ahmadinejad, who claims that Sunni radicalism has reached the limits of its capabilities in the fight against the global system led by the US and that it is now the turn of the Shia, led by Iran, to be in the driving seat. “Hezbollah has fought Israel longer than all the major Arab armies combined ever did,” President Ahmadinejad told a crowd in Tehran this week. He also promised that Muslims would soon hear “very good news” about the jihad against the United States. The idea of Shia leadership for the jihad was further boosted this year when Iran took Hamas under its wings. As a branch of the global Muslim Brotherhood movement, a Sunni outfit, Hamas has exerted its influence to win wider support for Iranian leadership at least as a tactical choice. Many in the Middle East are alarmed by these shifts of power and dread the prospect of the region entering a new dark age under radical Islamist regimes. For this reason, there seems to be much less hostility towards Israel in the wider Arab world than we might expect in the West. There may be no sympathy for Israel as such but many Arabs realise that the current war is over something bigger than a Jewish state with a tiny territory of 10,000 square miles, less than 1 per cent of Saudi Arabia’s land mass. This war is one of many battles to be fought between those who wish to join the modern world, warts and all, and those who think they have an alternative. This is a war between the West and what one might describe as “The Rest”, this time represented by radical Islamism. All the talk of a ceasefire, all the diplomatic gesticulations may ultimately mean little in what is an existential conflict.
Thanks LJM . . I don't like to post here much. You are one of the few people who made me feel welcome. Its interesting just to read what people think. I don't really have a lot to say most of the time.

http://pabloonpolitics.com/index.htm
Wes Clark Teaches Barnstorming 101 in Texas
the middle east is not an area that I comment about - I haven't done my homework on it... I am interested in domestic issues.... people will say welcome but often dialog other than a very narrow point of view attracts ... snipping... but remember that if you are writing in a blog one reason you are doing it is to further the democratic dialog which is what should happen and often times Kos and CCN and all the other blogs on blog roll are delivering news that is censored by the corporate media..... if you have something to say or something to add... just keep posting... don't let anyone foul moods stop you ....
It's about much more than the subliminal antisemitism we've been seeing here at CCN. Question is, do they realize what's wrong with them? I doubt it. We can just call them the "Gibson Girls" LOL
er, not to be rude, SyD, but you're kinda new around here to be making such presumptions about the collective subliminal minds of the many. What qualifies you to make such a broad judgment?
I've only seen you posting quite recently, or have you been around awhile and do we know you by another name perhaps?
well in either case, welcome to CCN
What would you do for a Klondike Bar?
I agree with Sybil that I have not seen any examples of what I might even suspect of being anti-Semitism--subliminal or explicit. The charge of anti-Semitism is a charge that one knows and/or has tangible evidence to infer, the state of someone else's mind--their real intent and hatreds perhaps being masked. This is a common charge those totally uncritical of Israel make: that any supposed "anti-Zionists" or even some critical of Israel, are either self-hating Jews if Jewish, or anti-Semites if not.
Now it is true that anti-Semitism is sadly alive and well (e.g Mel Gibson) and it is true that modern anti-Semites are much more careful about the masks they wear to hide their true mens rea, but there are others, who, paradoxically perhaps, for the same reasons they hate nazis and anti-Semites, also take serious exception to some Israel policies and attitudes as well.
For purposes of discussion check this out:
The "Spirit" of "Dr." Josef Mengele Alive and Well in Israel
The Spirit of "Dr." Josef Mengele Alive and Well in Israel
From: "The Other Side of Deception" by Victor Ostrovsky (former Mossad), Harper Collins, N.Y. 1994
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" That was where I would come in as a military police officer; my job was to take the prisoners to a holding facility in Nes Ziyyona, a small town south of Tel Aviv. I'd always assumed that it was an interrogation facility for the Shaback. We all knew that a prisoner brought there would probably never get out alive, but the brainwashing we'd gone through in our short lifetimes had convinced us that it was them or us; there was no gray area.
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It was Uri who enlightened me regarding the Nes Ziyyona facility. It was, he said, an ABC warfare laboratory--ABC standing for atomic, bacteriological, and chemical. It was where our top epidemiological scientists were developing various doomsday machines. Because we were so vulnerable and would not have a second chance should there be an all-out war in which this type of weapon would be needed, there was no room for error. The Palestinian infiltrators came in handy in this regard. As human guinea pigs, they could make sure the weapons the scientists were developing worked properly and could verify how fast they worked and make them even more efficient. What scares me today, looking back at that revelation, is not the fact that it was taking place but rather the calmness and understanding with which I accepted it.
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Years later, I met Uri again. This time he was in the Mossad, a veteran 'katsa' in the Al department, and I was a rookie. He had come back from an assignment in South Africa. I was then a temporary desk man in the Dardasim department in liaison helping him prepare for a large shipment of medication to South Africa to accompany several Israeli doctors who were headed for some humanitarian work in Soweto, a black township outside Johannesburg. The doctors were to assist in treating patients at an outpatient clinic for the Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, a few blocks away from the houses of Winnie Mandela and bishop Desmond Tutu. The hospital and clinic were supported by a hospital in Baltimore, which served as a cut-out for the Mossad. Uri was on a cooling-off period from the United States.
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'What is the Mossad doing giving humanitarian assistance to blacks in Soweto?' I remember asking him. There was no logic to it; no short-term political gain (which was the way the Mossad operated) or any visible monetary advantage.
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'Do you remember Nes Ziyyona?' His question sent shivers up my spine. I nodded.
' This is very much the same. We're testing both new infectious diseases and new medication that can't be tested on humans in Israel, for several of the Israeli medicine manufacturers. This will tell them whether they're on the right track, saving them millions in research.'
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' What do you think about all of this?' I had to ask.
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' It's not my job to think about it.'
--(pp. 188-89)
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The Ringworm Children: How the Israeli Government Irradiated 100,000 Israeli Kids
Israel Insider
October 28 2005
By Barry Chamish
On August 14, at 9 PM, Israel's Channel Ten television screened a documentary film which exposes the ugliest secret of Israel's Labor party founders: the deliberate mass radiation poisoning of nearly all Sephardi youths of a generation.
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"The Ringworm Children" (translated in Hebrew as "100,000 Rays"), directed by David Belhassen and Asher Hemias, recently won the prize for "best documentary" at the Haifa International film festival, and in the past year has made the rounds of Jewish and Israeli film festivals around the world. But it had yet to come to Israeli television screens. The subject is the mass irradiation of hundreds of thousands of young Israeli immigrants from Middle Eastern countries -- Sephardim, as they are called today. The story goes like this:
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In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba, flew to America and returned with seven x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.
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They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300 million Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60 million liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today.
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To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on "school trips" and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, while many of the rest developed cancers that killed thousands over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.
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That is the subject of the documentary in cold terms. It is another matter to see the victims on the screen.
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To watch the Moroccan lady describe what getting 35,000 times the dose of allowable x-rays in her head feels like. "I screamed make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. But it never went away."
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To watch the bearded man walk hunched down the street. "I'm in my fifties and everyone thinks I'm in my seventies. I have to stoop when I walk so I won't fall over. They took my youth away with those x-rays."
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To watch the old lady who administered the doses to thousands of children: "They brought them in lines. First their heads were shaved and smeared in burning gel. Then a ball was put between their legs and the children were ordered not to drop it, so they wouldn't move. The children weren't protected over the rest of their bodies. There were no lead vests for them. I was told I was doing good by helping to remove ringworm. If I knew what dangers the children were facing, I would never have cooperated. Never!"
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Because the whole body was exposed to the rays, the genetic makeup of the children was often altered, affecting the next generation. We watch the woman with the distorted face explain, "All three of my children have the same cancers my family suffered. Are you going to tell me that's a coincidence?"
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The majority of the victims were Moroccan because they were the most numerous of the Sephardi immigrants. The generation that was poisoned became the country's perpetual poor and criminal class. It didn't make sense. The Moroccans who fled to France became prosperous and highly educated. The common explanation was that France got the rich, thus smart ones. The real explanation is that every French Moroccan child didn't have his brain cells fried with gamma rays.
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The film made it perfectly plain that this operation was no accident. The dangers of x-rays had been known for over forty years. We read the official guidelines for x-ray treatment in 1952. The maximum dose to be given a child in Israel was .5 rad. There was no mistake made. The children were deliberately poisoned.
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David Deri makes the point that only Sephardi children received the x-rays: "I was in class and the men came to take us on a tour. They asked our names. The Ashkenazi children were told to return to their seats. The dark children were put on the bus."
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The film presents a historian who first gives a potted history of the eugenics movement. In a later sound bite, he declares that the ringworm operation was a eugenics program aimed at weeding out the perceived weak strains of society. The Moroccan lady is back on the screen. "It was a Holocaust, a Sephardi Holocaust. And what I want to know is why no one stood up to stop it."
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David Deri, on film and then as a panel member, relates the frustration he encountered when trying to find his childhood medical records. "All I wanted to know was what they did to me. I wanted to know who authorized it. I wanted to trace the chain of command. But the Health Ministry told me my records were missing." Boaz Lev, the Health Ministry's spokesman chimes in: "Almost all the records were burned in a fire."
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We are told that a US law in the late '40s put a stop to the human radiation experiments conducted on prisoners, the mentally feeble and the like. The American atomic program needed a new source of human lab rats and the Israeli government supplied it. Here was the government cabinet at the time of the ringworm atrocities:
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Prime Minister - David Ben Gurion; Finance Minister - Eliezer Kaplan; Settlement Minister - Levi Eshkol; Foreign Minister - Moshe Sharrett; Health Minister - Yosef Burg; Labor Minister - Golda Meir; Police Minister - Amos Ben Gurion.
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The highest ranking non-cabinet post belonged to the Director General of the Defence Ministry, Shimon Peres.
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That a program involving the equivalent of billions of dollars of American government funds should be unknown to the Prime Minister of cash-strapped Israel is ridiculous. Ben Gurion had to have been in on the horrors and undoubtedly chose his son to be Police Minister in case anyone interfered with them.
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Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan was rewarded for eternity with a hospital named after him near Rehovot. But he's not alone in this honor. Chaim Sheba, who ran Ringworm Incorporated, had a whole medical complex named after him. Needless to say, if there is an ounce of decency in the local medical profession, those hospital names will have to change.
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After the film ended, there was a panel discussion which included a Moroccan singer, David Edri, head of the Compensation Committee for Ringworm X-Ray Victims, and Boaz Lev, a spokesman for the Ministry Of Health.
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TV host Dan Margalit tried to put a better face on what he'd witnessed. He explained meekly that "the state was poor. It was a matter of day to day survival." Then he stopped. He knew there was no excusing the atrocities which the Sephardi children endured.
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But it was the Moroccan singer who summed up the experience best. "It's going to hurt, but the truth has to be told. If not, the wounds will never heal."
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There is one person alive who knows the truth: Shimon Peres. The only way to get to the truth and start the healing is to investigate him for his role in the mass poisoning of over 100,000 Sephardi children and youth.
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But here is why that won't happen. The film was aired at the same time as the highest-rated TV show of the year, the finale of Israel's talent-hunt show: "A Star Is Born." The next day, the newly-born star's photo took up half the front pages. There was not a word about "The Ringworm Children" in any paper, nor on the Internet. Until now.
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Zionism and Anti-Semitism
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From Tom Segev, "The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust" Hill and Wang, NY, 1993
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" On January 31, 1933, the day after Hitler became chancellor, the independent liberal daily 'Haaretz' decried this 'hugely negative historical event'. Ten days later it ran a headline that read, 'BLACK DAYS IN GERMANY.' The paper followed the ongoing 'anti-Semitic horror', but during those first weeks it, like the British press, generally aimed at reassuring its readers: 'One must suppose that Hitlerism will now renounce terrorist methods: government brings responsibility.' the right-wing 'Doar Hayom' agreed: 'There can be no doubt that Hitler the chancellor will be different from the Hitler of the public rallies.' But from the start, 'Davar'--the left-wing daily published by the Histadrut (Labor Federation)--was more pessimistic: 'It was a bitter and ill-fated day when the New Vandal came to power', the newspaper wrote the day after the change of government in Germany. It described Hitler as a man of hate and demagoguery who would 'tear Jews out by their roots.' " (p 17)
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"More than anything else, though, the rise of the Nazis was seen as confirming the historical prognosis of Zionist ideology. 'Hapoel Hatsair' described the nazi persecution of the Jews as 'punishment for their having tried to integrate into German society instead of leaving for Palestine while it was still possible to do so.' Now they would have to run in a panic 'like mice in flight', the paper said. 'The Jews of Germany are being persecuted now not despite their efforts to be part of their country but because of those efforts.' The holocaust would later be the primary argument fro the establishment of the State of Israel and for its wars of survival." (p. 18)
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"Ben-Gurion hoped that the Nazis victory would become 'a fertile force' for Zionism." (p. 18)
"The 'haavara' ('transfer') agreement--the Hebrew term was used in the Nazi documents as well--was based on the complementary interests of the German government and the Zionist movement: the Nazis wanted the Jews out of Germany; the Zionists wanted them to come to Palestine. But there was no such mutuality of interests between the Zionists and German Jewry. Most German Jews would have preferred to stay in their country. The tension between the interests of the 'yishuv' [Jewish community in Palestine] (and, in time, the State of Israel) and those of world Jewry was to become a central motif in the story of the Israelis' attitude to the Holocaust." (p.20)
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"The revisionist right, by contrast, had long been sympathetic to Benito Mussolini's Fascism and now and then even to Adolf Hitler's Naziism--except, of course, his anti-Semitism. Betar, Jabotinsky's youth movement, fostered classic Fascist ideas and forms. In 1928, Abba Ahimeir, a well-known Revisionist journalist, had a regular column, 'From the Notebook of a Fascist', in the newspaper 'Doar Hayom'. In anticipation of Jabotinsky's arrival in Palestine, he wrote an article titled 'On the Arrival of Our Duce' " (p. 23)
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"Four years later, in early 1932, Ahimeir was among those brought to trial for disrupting a public lecvture at Hebrew University. The incident and the resulting trial are worthy of note only because of a declaration by defense attorney Zvi Eliahu Cohen in response to a speech by the prosecutor comparing the disruption of the lecture with the Nazi disturbances in Germany. 'The comment on the Nazis', Cohen said, 'went too far. Were it not for Hitler's anti-Semitism, we would not oppose his ideology. Hitler saved Germany.' This was not an unconsidered outburst; the REvisionist paper 'Hazit Haam' praised Cohen's 'brilliant speech.' " (p. 23)
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"...[from Hazit Haam] 'Social Democrats of all stripes believe that Hitler's movement is an empty shell.', the newspaper explained, but 'we believe that there is both a shell and a kernel. The anti-Semitic shell is to be discarded, but not the anti-Marxist kernel. The Revisionists, the newspaper wrote, would fight the Nazis only to the extent that they were anti-Semites." (p. 23)
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"The haavara agreement was a central issue in the elections in the summer of 1933 for representatives to the Eighteenth Zionist Congress. The Revisionists rejected [in a turnabout] any contact with Nazi Germany. It was inconsistent with the honor of the Jewish people, they said; Jabotinsky declared it 'ignoble, disgraceful and contemptible'. The Revisionist press now castigated the Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency as 'Hitler's allies', people 'who have trampled roughshod on Jewish honor, on Jewish conscience, and on Jewish ethics...dark characters who have come to trade on the troubles of the Jews and on the land of Israel...low types who have accepted the role of Hitler's agents in Palestine and in the entire Near East...traitors...deceivers who lust after Hitler's government.' " (p. 24)
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"After reading the Nazi Party newspaper, Ben-Gurion wrote, it seemed to him that he was reading the words of Zeev Jabotinsky in Doar Hayom: 'the same thing, the same style, and the same spirit.' " (p. 24)
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"In his impassioned speech, Ben-Gurion called for the rescue of German Jewry, 'a tribe of Israel', and their transfer to Palestine, rather than action against Hitler. ' I do not believe that we can oust him and I am not interested in anything other than saving these 500,000 Jews,' he said. Ben-Gurion saw the debate between rescue and boycott as a debate between Zionism and assimilation, between the nationalist interests of Jewish settlement in Palestine and the international war against anti-Semitism. The assumption imnplicit in his words was that the war against anti-Semitism was not a part of the Zionist mission." (pp. 24-25)
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"To make his point, Ben-Gurion used harsh language that would in time be employed by anti-Zionists: 'If I knew that it was possible to save all the children in Germany by transporting them to England, but only half of them by transporting them to Palestine, I would choose the second--because we face not only the reckoning of those children, but the historical reckoning of the Jewish people.' In the wake of the Kristallnacht pogroms, Ben-Gurion commented that the 'human conscience' might bring various countries to open their doors to Jewish refugees from Germany. He saw this as a threat and warned: 'Zionism is in danger.' " (p 28)
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"Nevertheless, the pragmatists were convinced that the boycott of Germany could not advance the interests of Palestine, that their ends could best be accomplished through contact with the Nazis. Thus the leaders sought to keep relations with Nazi Germany as normal as possible: Two months after Hitler came to power the Jewish Agency executive in Jerusalem had sent a telegram straight to the Fuhrer in Berlin, assuring him that the yishuv had not declared a boycott against his country; the telegram was sent at the request of German Jewry in the hope of halting their persecution, but it reflected the Jewish Agency's inclination to maintain correct relations with the Nazi Government. Many years later, Menachem Begin revealed that the Zionist Organization had sent hitler a cable of condolence on the death of President Hindenburg." (p. 29)
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"Traveling on to Cairo, he [Eichmann] summoned a Jew from Jerusalem, one Fiebl Folkes. A report from Eichmann wrote of his trip and the record of his interrogation by the Israeli police decades later indicate[s] that Folkes was a member of the Haganah--the clandestine Jewish defense force--and a Nazi agent. On one occasion he even met with Eichmann in Berlin. The Nazis paid him for his information, mostly rather general political and economic evaluations. Among other things, Eichmann quoted Folkes to the effect that Zionist leaders were pleased by the persecution of German Jewry, since it would encourage immigration to Palestine." (p. 30)
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"Ironically the Revisionists also had fairly wide-ranging links with the Nazis. The Betar youth movement was active in Berlin and several other German cities. About half a year before the Nazis came to power, the movement's leadership distributed a memorandum to its members that was both commonsensical and cautious. The Nazis should be treated politely and with reserve, the memorandum instructed. Whenever Betar members were in public, they should remain quiet and refrain from vocal debates and critical comments. Under no circumstances should anyone say anything that could be interpreted as an insult to the German people, to its institutions, or to its prevailing ideology.
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The Nazis allowed Betar to continue its activities--meetings, conventions, summer camps hikes, sports, sailing, and agricultural training. Members were allowed to wear their uniforms, which included brown shirts, and they were allowed to publish mimeographed pamphlets, including Zionist articles in a nationalistic, para-Fascist tone, in the spirit of the times. The German Betar pamphlets focused on events in Palestine, and their exuberant nationalism targeted the British, the Arabs, and the Zionist left. The contained no references to the political situation in Germany. With this exception, they were similar to the nationalist German youth publications, including those published by the Nazis. Jabotinsky decried the influence Hitlerism was having on the members of Betar." (pp. 32)
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In the second half of 1940, a few members of the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization)--the anti-British terrorist group sponsored by the Revisionists and known by its acronym Etzel, and to the British simply as the Irgun--made contact with representatives of Fascist Italy, offering to cooperate against the British. Soon the Etzel split, and the group headed by Avraham "Yair" Stern formed itself into the Lehi (from the initials of its Hebrew name, Lohamei Herut Yisrael--Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), also known as the Stern Gang. A representative of this group met with a German foreign ministry official and offered to help Nazi Germany in its war against the British. The Germans understood that the group aimed to establish an independent state based on the totalitarian principles of the Fascist and Nazi regimes. Many years after he tried to forge this lik with Nazis, a former Lehi leader explained what had guided his men at the time: 'Our obligation was to fight the enemy. We were justified in taking aid from the Nazi oppressor, who was in this case the enemy of our enemy--the British.' " (p. 33)
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"The question was what to do with those refugees who were neither Zionist nor fit to help build the new society in Palestine. 'Only God knows how the poor little land of Israel can take in this stream of people and emerge with a healthy social structure', Chaim Weizmann wrote. The German Immigrants Association complained that the Jewish Agency's representatives in Berlin were giving immigration certificates to invalids. ' The human material [direct quote and their words] coming from Germany is getting worse and worse', the association charged after almost a year of Nazi rule. 'They are not able and not willing to work, and they need social assistance.' A year later the association sent to Berlin a list of names of people who should not have been sent. Henrietta Szold, who headed the Jewish Agency's social-work division, also frequently protested about the sick and needy among the immigrants. From time to time Szold demanded that certain of such 'cases' be returned to Nazi Germany so that they would not be a burden on the yishuv." (p. 43)
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"In 1937 the Joint Distribution Committee, an American organization that assisted needy Jews, negotiated with the German authorities for the release of 120 Jewish prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp. 'I am not so sure that from a political point of view it is desirable that all those released come to Palestine', a Jewish Agency official wrote to one of his colleagues. Most were not Zionists; and there may even have been Communists among them." (pp 43-44)
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"Senator [Werner Senator of the Jewish Agency] who was active in bringing German Jews to Palestine, warned the Jewish Agency office in Berlin that if it did not improve the quality of the 'human material' it was sending, the agency was liable to cut back the number of certificates set aside for the German capital. The immigrants from Germany enjoyed all sorts of special benefits, Senator wrote. They received immigration certificates after only six months of agricultural training, while in other countries up to two years was required. Requests for family reunification from Germans with relatives in Palestine were also quickly approved. All this required special attention to the quality of immigrants, who should be true pioneers. Senator was not referring to occasional errors in judgment, he assured his colleagues; he was talking about a trend. More and more ' welfare cases' were arriving from Germany, as well as too many 'businessmen with children' rather than single men and women. At one point it was decided that candidates above the age of thirty-five would receive immigration certificates 'only if there is no reason to believe that they might become a burden here.' Accordingly they had to have a profession. 'Anyone who was a merchant', the decision stated, or of similar employment, will not receive a certificate under any circumstances, except in the case of veteran Zionists.' This was in 1935. ' In days of plenty, it was possible to handle this material [emphasis added]' , explained Yitzhak Gruenbaum. 'In days of shortages and unemployment, this material [emphasis added] will cause us many problems...We must be allowed to choose from among the refugees those worthy of immigration and not accept them all.' " (p. 44)
Footnote: "In 1939 the world press followed the drama of the St Louis, a boat carrying several hundred Jewish refugees from Germany. No country would give them asylum. The Joint Distribution Committee asked the Jewish Agency to allot the passengers several hundred immigration certificates from the quota. The Jewish Agency refused. In the end the refugees were allowed into Antwerp. [note where many were exterminated after the takeover of Belgium by the Nazis.]. (p. 44)
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" German Jews who were given immigration permits 'merely as refugees' were also considered 'undesirable human material' by Eliahu Dobkin, a Mapai member of the Jewish Agency executive. 'I understand very well the special situation in which the overseas institutions dealing with German refugees find themselves, but I would like to believe that you would agree with me that we must approach this question not from a philanthropic point of view but from the point of view of the country's needs', Dobkin wrote to one of his colleagues. 'My opinion is that from among the refugees we must bring only those who meet this condition.' Leaders of the German immigrants agreed. 'As I see it, 90 percent of them are not indispensible here', one of them wrote to another." (pp 44-45)
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"It was an incomparably cruel reality: every Jew who received an immigration certificate during those years lived in Palestine knowing that some other Jew who had not received that certificate had been murdered. This was the basis for the sense of guilt that would later trouble so many Israelis who escaped the Holocaust." (p 45)
--
From Zionism in the Age of the Dictators by Lenni Brenner:
--
In June of 1895, the first entry into his new journal on Zionism, Theodor Hertzl wrote:
"In Paris, as I have said, I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism."
--
To be a Good Zionist one must be Somewhat of an Anti-Semite:
Although blut was a recurrent theme in pre-Holocaust Zionist literature, it was not as central to its message as boden. As long as America's shores remained open, Europe's Jews asked: if anti-Semitism could not be fought on its home ground, why should they not just follow the crowd to America? The Zionist response was double-barrelled: anti-Semitism would accompany the Jews wherever they went and, what was more, it was the Jews who had created anti-Semitism by their own characteristics. The root cause of anti-Semitism, Zionists insisted, was the Jews' exile existence. Jews lived parasitically off their 'hosts'...
--
These tenets combined were known as 'shelilat ha'galut (the Negation of the Diaspora), and were held by the entire spectrum of Zionists who varied only on matters of detail. They were argued vigorously in the Zionist press, where the distinctive quality of many articles was their hostility to the entire Jewish people. Anyone reading these pieces without knowing their source would have automatically assumed that they came from the Anti-Semitic press. The Weltanschauung of the youth organization Hashomer Hatzair (Young Watchmen), originally composed in 1917, but republished again as late as 1936, was typical of these effusions: The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both pysically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligations, knows no order nor discipline. (pp22-23)
--
Similarly, in 1935 an American Ben Frommer, a writer for the ultra-right Zionist-Revisionists, could declare of no less than 16 million of his fellow Jews that:
The fact is undeniable that the Jews collectively are unhealthy and neurotic. Those professional Jews who, wounded to the quick, igdignantly deny this truth are the greatest enemies of their race, for they thereby lead them to search for false solutions, or at most palliatives." (p. 23)
--
And:
In 1925 the most vehement protagonist of total abstentionism, Jcob Klatzkin, the co-editor of the massive "Encyclopedia Judaica", laid down the full implications of the Zionist approach to anti-Semitism:
"If we do not admit the rightfulness of antisemitism, we deny the rightfulness of our own nationalism. If our people is deserving and willing to live its own national life, then it is an alien body thrust into the nations among whom it lives, an alien body that insists on its own distinctive identity, reducing the domain of their life. It is right therefore, that they should fight against us for their national integrity...Instead of establishing societies for defense against antisemites, who want to reduce our rights, we should establish societies for defense against our friends who desire to defend our rights." (p. 30)
--
where everyone can see that it belongs to you. Why don't you do that? It really belongs there you know.
You really are a piece of work. Syd was a lurker before we moved to this horror. He/She went over to Nathaniels blog with us.
* Sandy <-
* clairtx
* Barry_NJ
* early-bird
* Stan4Clark
* Raleighite
* mgm
* rob
* Kat
* CarolNYC
* justcallmeOHIO
* Camille
* Mitch Dworkin
* Sybil Liberty
* jen
* Nelsons
* Ruth
* Arky Sue
* Phyl
* Judy from NJ
* Ellen
* Bluemoon
* Jdrake1776
* Syd <-
* Okie Clarkie
* mpolley
* jsainio
* donjo
I didn't make the move to Nathaniel's blog.
I would have to say tho, that he/she is quite a piece of work him/herself to make such a broad sweeping indictment of ccn'ers
y'know, after having been a lurker...
(not that there's anything wrong with that)
It really was rather stunnning to read...gosh,I do hope you understand Sandy...no hard feelings or anything
What would YOU do for a Klondike Bar?
a post Syd put on his blog. I think I was the only one who did. But go ahead. You can have the last word as usual. . .I usually have the last laugh though everytime you do. . . especially when you try to correct me or snak me. Be my guest. I get a kick out of your "attacks"
(:
well that's very strange isn't it? because at the time of my initial reply to Syd, he had posted two comments...no one but Syd.
I was hardly attacking you Sandy, I was addressing Syd. (I thought)...and I wasn't attacking Syd in any case, I was just askin'
I'm glad you're having fun tho
What would you do for a Klondike Bar?

Certainly don't want to pick on you, just wanted to say that I've seen the same things Sandy and Syd are talking about here. It's been difficult for me to read and I know you all after all these years. Meanwhile, there are groups monitoring the web for anti-semtic comments. I don't know if Syd is doing that, but I've seen it discussed at DKos and HP had a graph done by google that showed what people are discussing there regarding the ME. If the CCN is coming up on their radar, that's a problem. Groups like the So. Poverty Law Center, among others would be concerned about this and according to what I've read at DKos, volunteers from the various groups are making posts on this topic. I'm not saying Syd is one of those people, but even if he was, he's doing us a favor by letting us know. I actually wondered if people weren't reading the E-CSI latest entries, because they are POd with me for being supportive of Israel.
none - well maybe with one possible exception, about which I personally complained to staff myself (for whatever that may be worth to you LJM)
(If CCN came up on the radar, then maybe we ought to thank Syd.)
With that exception, I have only seen criticisms of Israeli policy here, just as I have seen and made criticisms of U.S. policy and will continue to do so.
Syd made an accusation of anti-semitism which I was not able to ignore, he/she made it drolly and threw in a little name-calling to boot. I confronted the accusation and would do so again I assure you.
What would you do for a Klondike Bar?
I guess it's anti-semetic to criticize the Israeli government these days.
Come on LJM. Do you think it's anti-American when we criticize the U.S. Government?

I don't think it's anti-American to criticize the US government. Then there aren't factions firing rockets into the US who want to drive us into the sea. I read a good point someone made on the subject in that Pakistan was created and displaced millions of Hindus when it was carved out of India. You don't hear people complaining about the poor Hindus who lost their homes their or had to convert to Islam to be able to live there without fear. The point the author made is that the reason Israel is singled out to be "wiped off the face of the earth" is because Jews live there. That's where people get the strong feeling that statements that are hateful to Israel are anti-semitic. Ahmadinejad has written to the Chancellor of Germany saying they should give a couple of counties to move the Jews from Israel there. These are people in a fight for their lives. Why is that so hard to get? Beyond that, you'd have to understand the more orthodox forms of Judaism to understand the relationship between belief in G-D, Torah and Israel. The people ARE Israel. It's like how the Dalai Lama feels about Tibet.
The people may be Israel LJM, you're right, I don't claim to understand orthodox Judaism...but it's still the government who makes policy, and I will not hold my tongue or my criticism of that policy because "someone might be policing the board". Just like I won't hold my tongue or my criticism of U.S. policy because someone IS policing the board.
hi NSA guys (or is it gals tonight) I desipise the people running the U.S. at the present time...just in case you hadn't guessed. :-)

I'm not just talking about the last 60 years, but when has the "nation of Israel" meaning the people in the diaspora and all the times before going back to Abraham known peace? If there were peace, I doubt you'd have much to critcize with the government in Israel.
for longer than a nanosecond in the annals of time?
I would love it if there were no reason to criticize any government...but I don't see it happening in my lifetime.
I've had enough. I had the same impression that Syd got from reading some of the conversatiions. I guess it's necessary to be on the receiving end to recognize it when we see it.
Pleasant dreams. . .

http://pabloonpolitics.com/index.htm
Wes Clark Teaches Barnstorming 101 in Texas
you are getting the CCN welcome... I am familar with it....
the only reason I stick around is because WKC news and because even as it is haugg..g.g.g.g.g.g he has to have a blog.....ocassionally take out a big stick and wack back on the block heads that bother you... it is a good exercise ...... you must draw blood when you bite back or they will smother you with snipping..... I mean it don't take any crap from anyone
it is always a good lesson in life.....
My father was antizionist as far back as I can remember. He was also a devout man who practiced his religion in the manner in which he chose to live. No one suffered pain just because they were broke. He treated people, relieved their suffering and never expected anything in return. As a result, people in the town literally doft their caps and bowed their heads when he walked down the street. I saw it or I would never have believed it.
His reason for being against zionism was as follows. He believed that like every other religious group Protestants, Catholics, Greek and Russion Orthodox, Buddists, Moslems and all who emigrated to this country, Jewish people had also chosen to be American. He was concerned that Jews would be looked upon as Israelis. In a way he was right. Mel Gibson's remark that "Jews cause all the wars in the world" reflects that association. Just a few days before Gibson's unfortunate statement, a man said those same words to me.
I find that kind of thinking puzzling. How could Jews have been seen to be responsible for the Korean War, Vietnam, World War I, the Crusades? You see, antisemitism is very easy to recognize when one has been on the receiving end of it. When Mel Gibson asked the Jewish Community for forgiveness, I couldn't help thinking that people like Gibson and his illk have taught many of us not to turn the other cheek. Never again!
Who among us has not been either directly on the receiving end of persecution, or has not at the very least, 'roots' in an ancestry that has been?
...and despite that Sandy, or perhaps because of it, you have not witnessed it here.
You're inventing it. And if inflicting pain was your intent, it has been achieved.
What would you do for a Klondike Bar?

People have been trying to tell you, like Sandy, Syd, me and others that they have experienced pain with what they've read. You can't be the judge telling them they haven't seen or felt what they (we) have. If someone feels they've been wronged, they get to say so.
once wronged, whether real or percieved, (which this is), it's acceptable to take a pound of flesh apparently. Wars are made of this.
Like it or not, I too have experienced pain reading here LJM. All topics discussed on the General's Board are not "comfortable" for at least some of the people all of the time. But we still call this place America, not inclined to sit down and shut up..
But enuf about that, I'm not about to get into a contest with you about who's the greater victim...not my thing.
...unless you Syd and Sandy think with one brain there is no possible way you could know her intent, nor do I. Why not let Sandy speak for herself?
What would you do for a Klondike Bar?
who would no doubt fit in with the KKK or the skin heads.
His Passion of Christ movie proved where he's coming from and it ain't the garden of eden.
He is not an ordained rabbi. He is a self appointed preacher of a message that he knows the uninformed and anti semetic want to hear and he does it for his own financial gain. As a matter of fact, a couple of "Gibson Girls" right here fell for it and donated to his cause --- himself.
To the Gibson Girl who said, "Shalom" to me several days ago, believing that all it meant was "peace." To her I say, "Avasholom".... Let Lerner explain that. Chances are he won't know the REAL meaning.
That's all folks............I'm outta here~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
aren't you Sandy.
Name calling (which seems to be your intent with the "Gibson Girl" reference) is totally childish.
Troll rating.
walking into a black hole, the wisest thing is just to let him go when one knows that saying something won't do one bit of good.
Speaking of black holes . . . How can some of the people be here constantly? Don't they have anything else happening in their lives?
I don't have a problem scrolling. It's usually the same names whether I'm reading morning, afternoon or night. That's fine! Everyone needs a purpose.
clearly you spend an awful lot of your precious time here...scrolling
What would YOU do for a Klondike Bar?
is what we fell into when bu$h decided to implement his war agenda in Iraq and even tho we knew it was wrong, insisted it was wrong, our congress abetted that agenda and led us into a criminal war. As a nation perhaps, if more of us had spoken louder and longer before the fact...
similarly had more German civilians spoken loud and long in voices of outrage...before the fact.
And yet Sandy, you would have us STFU because criticism of Israeli policy somehow causes you personal grief and now you dare speak about a crusade against facism led single-handedly by you?!?
Even now, having vengefully branded this community, "subliminal anti-semitic Gibson Girls", for speaking out against a policy that even General Clark has criticized, you're the injured party?
What would you do for a Klondike Bar?

Haven't been able to spend much time here of late but I'm surprised & disappointed at the tenor of this thread to say the least.
For my part, I'd like to point out how entirely ridiculous it is for anyone here - resident, guest, passerby - to infer in the LEAST that there's some kind of unchecked anti-semitism here at CCN. You'll find plenty of anti this or that but one thing you simply will not find here is an anti-democratic spirit or an anti-intellectual bent, and I'm afraid that yes, that may include criticism of Israel's behavior. Lone voice in the wilderness? Hardly.
As for boards being watched- WTF is that supposed to mean? You mean other than the fact that they're either always "watched" or hello reality check no one really cares what the peanut gallery has to say. Didn't Wes Jr. say that the people who really follow politics this hard are a little.. unbalanced?!! hahahhaaaaa
The only incident I've ever known that actually veered off this board into back channels that could conceivably have caused anyone any trouble was well over a year and a half ago-if not longer- and that has long been sorted out. And worthy projects & ideas that certainly challenge the conventional wisdom are pretty much expected to find a comfortable roost here.
I seriously resent such a sweeping charge and moreover, I actually DON'T even want to know what is so vaguely is supposed to point to. The old stray comment mode of attack. Remember when only Wes would defend Michael Moore's right to express himself?!!!
I will tell you this, though.
Blood is red. On both sides of the border. And there is far, far, far, far, far, far too much of it being spilled while supposedly "advanced" "civilized" "first world" "superpower" people look on - to the utter degradation of our own souls- and the lives of so many hang in the balance as well as the quality of life for literally millions of people.
So if you don't mind, please- stop playing games with semantics & shadowy charges, some sicko game of perverted identity politics, at growing divisiveness. Both sides are simply wrong- whether one side is wrong-ER seems a bit off the point, considering the bloodshed and especially considering that not only do we have people's who are more or less siblings fighting each other to death- but indeed, in a sense, they are being allowed to hold the entire rest of the world hostage like incredibly small minded selfish children who are failing their own children while they're at it. It is extremely clear that militant wings of each society that are probably in the minority in terms of population hold their hatred closer to their hearts than they do their children. Otherwise they would (and we would be assisting) realize once in for all that there is ONLY PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH. War IS failure.
I don't know about you, but I'm SICK OF WAR.
I've rarely seen anything here as odd and illegitimate as this thread- aside from a scuffle or two about "the (ex) ticket unit" & miscellaneous troll invasions filled with invectives- but I must say, that's one hell of a charge.

you speak for me. Thank you for this post.
Other than that... :x
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right. - Hunter/Garcia

You always put it so well. I'm sick of war too.
This thread has, frankly, brought me close to tears.
There's alot of high feelings about this particular mess. This keeps me from any comment from any viewpoint, objective or otherwise, for it seems that any comment at all is simply is bringing out the worst in people.
I don't like what's happening, and I see wrong wrong wrong on both sides - but good lord, this thread is absolutely offensive in it's name calling - 'subliminal' or otherwise...
This thread is beginning to strike me funny. It's the usual gaggle of geese. Methinks there is a bit too much protestation of innocence. Could it be that those protesting the loudest and nastiest actually do have a sense of guilt? Naah. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.
Sybil,
Did you mean Shylock or Sherlock.. ... let's see. What was it I was attacked about during the presidential primary? Oh yeah. . . I was the conspiracy theorist . . .. I posted the hacked Debold files and warned about the tabulators. I was mocked. . . but look how that turned out. I talked about the rise of facism and was ridiculed. The widows lawsuit was another conspiracy theory and voila. . . There is the 911 question that has become of major interest. This time, I'm trying to get through to those same thick skulls that there is more to this Israel vs. Hezbollah than appears on the surface. I don't believe (and I could be wrong) that the author of the original post of mine in my blog here has the total and clear answer, but as Syd put it, it does have some merit and is worth thinking about. But no one chose to discuss that. Brilliant bunch
Snipe on. That's going to accomplish a lot! Right?

What unites most people here is a wish for a better world, the willingness to work towards that realizable goal, & grave concern over the direction this one is headed in.
Whether one was inititally brought here about concern over your local elementary school sneaking de-volution into science education, or the fact that our failure in Iraq was viewable on the books as they marched not enough troops in as noted by Wes in the opening moves of the war...
Hey, wait. Wes Clark? Yeah. THAT'S what THIS is about, leadership- not some penny ante game of my ego is bigger or smaller or more tender or more vocal than yours.
Why be so condescending? Personally I've been fairly open to some of the "fringe" theories.
And believe it or not, most (in my book, sane & sober, NOT that I am suggesting YOU personally are not) people are concerned, upset, tense, angry & deeply sickened by the actions of both sides. You can intellectually understand it, you can blindly reject it- but the bottom line is, you should feel sick.
Because that's what sane & sober & civilized people think when killing becomes an acceptable, if not downright preferred, method of "resolving" a conflict- especially in light of and in full view of so many parties worldwide, states, regions, religious groups, economic blocks, power brokers, alliances- who could exert themselves here, but do not. Because obviously- sentiments such as Condi's position that we're not insisting on a cease-fire because it "wouldn't be a real one" - is a filthy lie & only escalates the conflict(s). Which oddly gives some cover to Bu$shco elsewhere in their dark activities in the Middle East.
Is it a shadow war by proxy? Of course it is. Since when is any conflict 100% about what it looks like it is? From when we were little "He started it!!!!" from when we were big "Country X started it!" - power struggles are never just about who rides shotgun or who plants the oil pipeline, controls the water supply or gets the no-bid contract to rebuild the infrastructure. A sadly familiar pattern.
Too many parties want to see this conflict broaden for their own dark reasons.

Your thread wasn't hijacked by sniping. It was hijacked by name calling - thank Syd. His juvenile, passive-aggresive assault on the folks on this board was beyond the pale and indecent.
I am disgusted by all of this.
If we can't be respectful to each other, we just can't hope for anything to get better anywhere.
and thanks for another fine piece of writing based on rational and compassionate thought.
You're my hero!

Just read a news report that Iran has releases one of Bin Laden's sons from house arrest in Tehran to go to the border of Syria and Lebanon to organize terror cells to support Hizbullah. Seems, since Al Zawahiri did his tape calling on all muslims to go fight Israel, Iran has decided "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and joining forces with AQ on this, according to German Intel sources cited in the article.
Good point by Sandy to have been talking about the wider implications her blog is about and blaming Syd for making a joke (which, I agree was harsh) with Sandy is a sideshow. Syd clearly has a different sense of humor that he thought Sandy would understand, but nobody else here thinks is funny. Gotta be careful hurling invectives as Wes would say. Nobody thinks anybody here is a "gibson girl." Personally, I think Mel has issues he needs to understand, because he seems to be pretty miserable as a person.


appears to be a bit slanted. I can see that in general, the basic idea might just have merit. At any rate, I also have a feeling that this time, the conflict is about much more that what it seems to be superficially. Thanks. I probably would have dismissed it in passing.