The Rag Blog

Since I blogged about the new terrorism protocols in airports, I just got a first look at those backscatter scanners. There might be some controversy there.

You stand up in front of this doo-dad fully clothed and to the person reading the scan you are naked. This is no exaggeration. It pretty much amounts to strip-searching everybody.

Personally, I have no objection to being strip-searched but I would object to being singled out for that treatment.

I got this one grad student who is a very shapely female, and she gets searched every time. As does her husband, who is Puerto Rican but looks Middle Eastern.

I dunno about this.

It seems to me that if strip search becomes the norm, then they will hide the stuff in body cavities. One of the bombs already used (but did not bring down the plane) was hidden in little bottles for contact lens fluid. You could hide those without K-Y.

Steve Russell

Hypothesis: far from being thwarted, the liquid explosive bombers achieved their goals, on their timetable, and their achievement is greater than it would have been had they carried out the bombings. Sound crazy? Consider the following:

Having already demonstrated their ability to wreak havoc in US (9/11), jihadists have no need to do it again; all they have to do is appear to be planning to do it again. Planning to blow up planes was simply a way to cause massive disruption in Britain and the U.S. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. And what different course of action would BushBlair have taken had the planes exploded than they’re taking now? Hard to think of anything, isn’t it?

Now, instead of combusting with their victims, the Bombers will use their trial and its 24/7 worldwide media frenzy to advance their political agenda. Of course, they’ll have to put up with whatever indignities their jailers might conjure. I wonder what those will be, in light of Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, et al? Does world opinion matter anymore to BushBlair? Can they be sure they can keep torture secret anymore?

An assumption in the hypothesis is that the Bombers (shorthand for the cell, their handlers, the masterminds, al Qaeda, whatever) controlled the operation from start to finish: they planned to be caught because they understood the potential for a bigger political payoff, not only in terms of the propaganda opportunities, but also the potential to influence mid-term elections in the U.S. The Vietnamese, of course, were masters at timing their military offensives to achieve maximum political impact in the U.S. (I don’t have to explain why jihadists want Republicans to remain in control, do I?)

“In June, the F.B.I. arrested seven people in Florida on charges of plotting attacks on American landmarks, including the Sears Tower in Chicago, with investigators openly acknowledging that the suspects, described as Al Qaeda sympathizers, had only the most preliminary discussions about an attack.” (NYT 08.13.06)

“Britain Says Two Dozen Major Terrorist Conspiracies Are Under Investigation” NYT headline, 08.14.06.

James Fallows, in a Q&A with the DMN, 08.13.06: “Osama bin Laden has boasted that the $500,000 he spent on that attack (9/11) provoked at least $500 billion in military and security spending by America, for a million-to-one payoff.”

“One, two, many Vietnams.” –Che

John Muir

Perhaps someone else, and not our friendly, street-corner terrorists, achieved an objective. If we’re going to work in conspiracy theories, may as well make it whole hog. That reminds me of a delightful barbeque story from a couple of years ago ….

*****
The idea that high explosive can be made quickly in a plane toilet by mixing at room temperature some nail polish remover, bleach, and Red Bull and giving it a quick stir, is nonsense. Yes, liquid explosives exist and are highly dangerous and yes, airports are ill equipped to detect them at present. Yes, it is true they have been used on planes before by terrorists. But can they be quickly manufactured on the plane? No.

The sinister aspect is not that this is a real new threat. It is that the allegation may have been concocted in order to prepare us for arresting people without any actual bombs.

Let me fess up here. I have just checked, and our flat contains nail polish remover, sports drinks, and a variety of household cleaning products. Also MP3 players and mobile phones. So the authorities could announce – as they have whispered to the media in this case – that potential ingredients of a liquid bomb, and potential timing devices, have been discovered. It rather lowers the bar, doesn’t it?

Full Article
*****

Richard Jehn

A pic from Lebanon (Kevin Frayer, AP).

The American way of burial is pretty confusing. Having tried to make this simple is impossible …

First off once the person is dead, the EMS has to come and see that they are indeed dead. They declare that the person is flat-lined. Then the police come to see if they are indeed dead as suspected by the EMS and that there is no inflicted trauma and they have to check with homicide. Natural causes is easy for them – less forms to fill out.

If there are medications around they count all the pills and write down all the ‘scrip’s and call all the doctors. The doctor of the dead person has to be located to sign the death certificate. If that doesn’t happen then they have to take the body to the morgue instead of loading it in a van to take to the mortuary. And the mortuary has to be called or a mortuary, in this case there was a prepaid policy.

The body had to be taken to another town and the mortuary in the other town called a mortuary in this town and they sent a van with a ghoul driving. He loads the corpse and takes it to the freezer box and then moves it the next day to the other town.

Is this getting complicated or what?

Then you go to the mortuary in the other town and get to see the former “Time Share Salesmen,” and listen to their Schtick. They, of course, are so sorry first off. They all seem to have pale green skin and clammy hands. They are somewhat pissed in this case because the dead person planned ahead and bought a burial policy back in 1965. The costs have risen: a real burial costs $8,000 to $10,000 these days says the creepy guy in the brown suit.

He sort of chuckles. So they try to sell more stuff. A better casket, maybe made of copper or bronze, gold-trimmed with a silk liner or something like that so the dead person will be comfortable. So the casket won’t deteriorate, you will want a weather proof (and worm-proof, I suppose) box to put the casket in.

Then they give you all the legal forms, of course, and try to sell you the flowers; lots and lots of flowers. You must have flowers. The first weasel leaves and the second weasel comes in to talk about grave stones and he has this book of all kinds of grave stones. A Sears catalogue of stones. The ones with digital pictures of the dead person are pretty cool if you are really morbid.

I recall the Mexican cemeteries. Surely the services there are simpler. A wooden cross or a couple of sticks tied together. Whatever happened here is ghoulish.

Then there is the hole digging. They have this contract with Pedro to dig holes. He has a special dead people hole-digging machine.

Oh yes, I forgot the music. There has to be music. This isn’t my idea at all but it was in the script. The cost of music has risen a lot since 1965. Another check for fifteen minutes.

The final plan after the service is the driving to the burial site in the big black limos with police escort. Why police escort? We don’t need police escort. Well that is part of the deal. Why not a pickup truck with the box in the back? No way the weasel lobby has it all locked in. They need the money.

This is really a good grief if there ever was one. No funeral pyres here. If you cremate then that costs a zillion dollars too and you have to buy an urn. And there are tons of urns. I opted for a plastic box for my Mom which I carry around with me and occasionally will misplace it and have to search for it. I found it again amongst the stuff in the garage so everything is cool but I am not sure what to do with it? Take it back to Switzerland? But it might be explosive so maybe it could be considered a bomb?

Anyway I will let you know how it turns out. This funeral thing is getting to be a habit here of late.

My personal favorite of ghoulish rites is the military funeral. I like the playing of taps and the 21 gun salute. I was involved in three or four of them and the taps always brings a tear to the eye. The first time I went to a military funeral was at a battalion level. We all knew the guy who had been killed and there was a band and a pass in review and all the good stuff that makes for grand pomp and circumstance. The 21-gun salute was with canons which is really cool, and a great waste of money as is a passing in review and all the other pomp.

Charlie Loving

Crab and Bean Tamales with Spicy Rice (1 July 2000)

This is excellent, my faithful readers – start with a desire (crab and tamale flavours, in this case) and put your imagination to work.

This menu did take some time to perfect. The rice was great the first time I made this menu, but we could not taste the crab in the tamales because I had proportions wrong. It was still tasty, but not what I wanted. If you’ve seen the original book, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. The version below is perfect – just ask Carolyn, Mom, Deb or Rebecca.

Crab and Bean Tamales

Filling

1/8 cup small, dry red beans (not pinto or kidney beans)
1/8 cup dry black beans
1 dried chipotle chile
1 tablespoon cumin
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon fresh-ground 4-colour peppercorns

The small red beans will take about 2-1/2 hours to become tender, while the black (“turtle”) beans will take about 1-1/2 hours. The way I did this was to start the red beans using the chipotle, half the cumin and pepper, and all of the garlic powder. I covered with water plus an inch, brought to a boil, and reduced the heat. After they had simmered for one hour, I added additional water, the black beans, and the rest of the cumin and pepper. Bring back to a simmer and cook until the beans are tender, about 1-1/2 hours. Remove the chile, drain the beans, place into a bowl and cover.

1 large shallot, minced
1 clove Italian garlic, minced
1/2 to 1 jalapeño chile, deseeded and minced
1 pound fresh crab meat, drained of liquid and shredded
3 to 5 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon fresh lemon thyme (substitute lemon pepper and fresh thyme, but then skip the fresh ground pepper)
1 teaspoon oregano
Fresh ground pepper and sea salt (be cautious!) to taste

Mix above ingredients in a large bowl, then fold in the beans. I used fresh Dungeness crab meat which tends to be slightly drier, so I think I used a larger amount of sour cream. Using King (or deep sea) crab may require less “softening.” Taste for seasoning and make appropriate adjustments. [The filling will taste really good!!! RDJ]

Masa Dough

2 cups masa harina
1/2 cup corn meal
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 eggs
4 to 6 tablespoons heavy cream
3 tablespoons olive oil (or melted butter)
Bottled water to make a heavy dough

Mix dry ingredients thoroughly in a medium bowl, then add the eggs, mixing well. Add the cream and oil, and continue mixing. Gradually add water and mix until you have an extremely thick pancake-style batter (i.e., you could not use it for pancakes unless you pressed it down with a spatula, but it could make fritters). Let rest for at least 10 minutes, then mix again until completely smooth and manageable for tamales.

Building the Tamales

20 to 24 very large corn husks*

Lay each corn husk onto a fair-sized work surface. Spoon 3 tablespoons of masa dough into the center of the husk and use a spatula or the spoon to create an even 4-inch by 4-inch square of dough. Spoon 2 to 3 tablespoons of filling into the centre of the dough and also spread it a little, but not to the edges of the dough. Fold the sides of the husk over so the filling is completely enclosed by the dough, then fold the two ends (the very wide and the tiny ends) toward the middle of the husk. Lay aside seam side down. Complete remaining tamales.

Properly building these things does require some practice. You can make a smaller dough without all the fancy stuff and practice with some leftovers that you don’t want to eat anyway.

In a deep pot with a shallow steamer in it, bring water to a simmer. Place the tamales into the steamer, skinny end of the corn husks pointing toward the centre of the pot, but trying to maintain steaming space between each tamale. Steam for about 40 or 45 minutes, until the dough is not sticky at all. You can test with a toothpick, just as with cornbread. If the tamales on top are cooked, so are the ones just above the steam.

* Note: Using fresh corn husks is wonderful as they do add a flavour to the tamales. However, dried husks are fine, but must be soaked in warm water for awhile before you use them. Dried husks are usually packaged in whole-ear bunches, meaning do not soak 15 of them – you will have 5 dozen or more useable husk pieces. Hint, hint….

When I say “very large husk,” I mean 5 to 6 inches at its base and about 6 inches long. You will understand when you do this. Using smaller corn husks is an error.

Spicy Rice

2 to 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil
1/4 sweet red pepper, diced
1/4 sweet yellow pepper, diced
1/2 jalapeño chile, deseeded and minced
1 medium ripe tomato, diced
Salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup rice (Carolyn used basmati, but I would use a long-grain, non-sticky rice, even Uncle Ben’s)
3/4 cup water

Sauté vegetables in the oil (toss them all in at once) until becoming tender (about 10 to 12 minutes), stirring almost constantly, and add the salt and pepper. Add the rice and stir well to coat rice with oil, about 3 minutes to toast a bit. Add the water, cover tightly, and simmer for 20 minutes until rice absorbs the water. Turn off the heat and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Garnishes

3 scallions, julienned into long pieces
3 leaves Romaine lettuce, coarsely chopped
Sour cream, mixed with chipotle adobo to taste (optional)

Presentation

Three tamales go in one triangle of the plate (remove the corn husks, or leave one for a little “affect,” if you wish?), a spoon of rice in the second, and the lettuce topped with scallion pieces in the third. If you use the chipotle-sour cream, small dollops go on each tamale.

You are right, Paul, that what sticks in my craw is the grunt level.

We expect soldiers to follow the rules. When they don’t, we prosecute them, difficult as that prosecution is. The famous line in Apocalypse Now! puts it well: like giving speeding tickets at the Indy 500.

Val says on another thread that weapons are evil, and the more people they kill the more evil they are. I suppose that’s so until you are in a spot where you need a weapon.

The immorality of war in general is a position with which I tend to agree and so I’m not likely to go after Val about her position that, taken to it’s logical end, she thinks would lead to peace and I think would lead to hand-to-hand combat or flint knives.

You are right that in leadership I think there is moral equivalence.

But we don’t yet call a soldier a criminal for being a soldier. That may be a consummation devoutly to be wish’d, but that’s not the deal.

However, we also don’t reward soldiers for body count without regard to the identity of the bodies. We cling to the fiction that war is only between soldiers, and sometimes fictions are good things. When kids are killed, it better be an accident because if it’s not an accident it’s a crime. Unless you are a terrorist, in which case, for example, that husband and wife team who wore bombs into a wedding celebration in an American owned hotel in Jordan were doing the right thing. Not.

Steve Russell

Israel is a democracy. All citizens have the vote. Way back Arab Israelis used to vote mainly for the Labor party, which was like a Tammany Hall for them in providing some services. The 2 Communist members of the Knesset were Arab. Nowadays Israeli Arabs have their own political parties and are represented in the Knesset. Israeli Arabs lived under martial law until 1966. IA’s are not liable to the 3 year military draft, although Druze serve in the military.

City-dwelling haredim are a large percentage of the population of Israel, around 15%. (IA’s around 17%). They are overrepresented in the Knesset because they massively cheat in every election through multiple voting and voting the graveyard. Like in the US, the election boards consist of locals. So although observers from all paries are permitted to watch the voting, it is impossible for them to prevent black suited men with hats and beards from going from one precinct to the next to vote multiple times, presenting their voting credentials to the vote clerks who are likewise black suited men with hats and beards in on the scam. Like the IA’s, the haredim do not do military service. They are much resented by the Israeli majority as the welfare cheats that they are. Although they have enormous families, there is a considerable continual defection from their ranks by young adults who opt for a secular life.

Democraphics are everything. IA’s were dismayed as 1 million plus Russians poured into the country after the dissolution of the USSR and they saw their percentage of the population drop considerably. As for “the right of return” of the 1948 Arabs, ha ha ha. That is non-negotiable.

To call Israel a theocracy is PREPOSTEROUS. All religions there practice their cults publicly in churches, mosques and synogogues. Unfortunately for Jewish Israelis, legal marriage in Israel for them must fulfill Orthodox Jewish requirements. That is why sometimes secular Jewish Israelis are forced to fly to Cyprus to get married; foreign marriages are eo facto legal in Israel. The law for jews marrying of course does not apply to Christians, Moslems or Druze.

The West Bank settlers number around 300,000 (I am not up on this statistic). That is around 6% of the 5 million Jewish Israelis. A majority of Jewish Israelis are in favor of evacuating most of the West Bank settlements. That is why they voted for Olmert who succeeded Sharon who evacuated the settlements in Gaza.

As I have averred in a previous post, not taking Ben Gurion’s advice in 1967 to return the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan and Egypt which had seized them in 1948 was an egregious error.

I am not trying to do a core dump on the subject. There are many thousands of factoids which would have to come together to form the mosaic of having any kind of informed opinion about Zionism/Israel. With the factoids I have presented here I am merely trying to belie David H’s simplistic and uninformed opinions about Israel. As for Alan P, who has gone deeply, perhaps obsessively into the subject, his opinions about Israel’s perfidy, which he believes are proved by such evidence as Herzl’s diary entry, come from the realm where conspiracies are infallible and explain everything.

Mike Eisenstadt

Let’s not reduce this to a discussion of the meaning of the word “theocracy”. Israel identifies itself to the world as the homeland of the Jews. To establish such a homeland was the core rationale for Zionism. Israel is a nation where Jews have unique privileges. Any Jew can move to Israel and become a citizen. Not so with others. Property rights that produce housing segregation for Jews are recognized in Israeli law. The wall of separation is being built to preserve a Jewish majority within it. What is preposterous is to claim that it is a pure secular democracy where everyone has equal rights. That takes blinders.

Meanwhile, let us return to a few questions I raised earlier:

1. How is your position relative to the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah any different from George Bush’s position?
2. Why is Israel typically isolated with the world’s principal imperialist power in global political conflicts – all those 180 to 2 votes in the UN General Assembly? Didn’t the current war increase that isolation?
3. How do you account for the Israeli history of support for right wing military dictatorships in Latin America?
4. Why should anyone accept the notion that Israel’s illegal nuclear weapons are benign?
5. Should Israel continue to receive billions annually in military aid from the US, but Hezbollah be prohibited from receiving military aid from Iran and Syria?
6. Why are Palestinians being routinely brutalized in the occupied territories? And do you support Palestinians being able to elect their own leaders or is that contingent on them electing someone Zionists approve?

Val hit the essence in one sentence. Your progressive political principals lack universality in regards to Israel. For example, “As for “the right of return” of the 1948 Arabs, ha ha ha. That is non-negotiable.”

David Hamilton

“Let’s not reduce this to a discussion of the meaning of the word “theocracy”. Israel identifies itself to the world as the homeland of the Jews. To establish such a homeland was the core rationale for Zionism. Israel is a nation where Jews have unique privileges. Any Jew can move to Israel and become a citizen. Not so with others. Property rights that produce housing segregation for Jews are recognized in Israeli law.”

Except for the last line which I don’t understand, what you say is absolutely true. Most countries restrict immigration for one reason or another; some do so on racial grounds as for example Germany where German ancestors permit Russian “Germans” and “Germans” from other eastern european countries to immigrate to Germany freely on the government’s nickel; some countries bar immigration entirely. I fail to see why Israel should be expected to receive anyone who might want to immigrate there.

“The wall of separation is being built to preserve a Jewish majority within it.”

WRONG. The wall was proposed by the Laborites to separate Israel from the West Bank and Gaza and prevent infiltration of terrorists. The Likudists and other pro-settlers long opposed it because it would put many settlements on the wrong side of the wall. As the number of suicide bombers increased, killing civilians on buses and in cafes and making public life a dangerous activity, it was finally agreed to by the right-wing government. Now that the wall is in place (most of it), suicide bombers have been virtually eliminated. The wall does not follow the Green Line (as I believe it should) because the Israeli government wants to include as many settlements as they can. If you look at a map of it, it is placed mostly on the Green Line. Palestinian Arab landowners have sued in Israeli courts to change its placement and have won in some cases. How’s that for innate Israeli cruelty? Finally, how would the lack of a wall threaten the Jewish majority as you say? That makes no sense.

“What is preposterous is to claim that it is a pure secular democracy where everyone has equal rights. That takes blinders.”

Arab Israelis who were under martial law from 1948 until 1966 as I pointed out earlier do not have all the rights of Jewish Israelis. I don’t wear blinders. They were after 1948 of course hostile to their new Israeli government and in some (many?) cases provided assistance to the Fedayeen fighters who infiltrated the border and carried out operations from the West Bank and Gaza during those years (the casus belli of the 1956 war). That is why they were under martial law. Fast forwarding to the present, Arab Israelis enjoy free medical care, a state pension when they retire, but do not serve in the military nor can they rent and buy real estate freely, nor with rare exceptions in certain professions such as medicine can they expect to hold managerial positions in the economy. As you must surely know, they can if they wish emigrate elsewhere but virtually none do so.

“Meanwhile, let us return to a few questions I raised earlier:
“1. How is your position relative to the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah any different from George Bush’s position?”

I am surprised to find myself thinking that it is lucky that Bush is in the White House at this time as a Democratic president might have been more diffident in supporting Israel. The debacle in Iraq doesn’t help matters of course.

“2. Why is Israel typically isolated with the world’s principal imperialist power in global political conflicts – all those 180 to 2 votes in the UN General Assembly?”

The answer is either that Israel is in reality a manifestation of the Evil principle and the culmination of a cruel century-old conspiracy (Alan’s position) or it is the long time whipping boy of the Soviet bloc, before its dissolution, Arab countries and other corrupt third-world countries. Take a look at the names of the countries which condemn Israel’s behavior. Quelle galere! Nigeria and Sudan are to be the arbiters of justice. Taking you at your word that you really believe that Israel is “the world’s principle imperialist power,” I am nonplussed as to what one might say.

“Didn’t the current war increase that isolation?”

Probably.

“3. How do you account for the Israeli history of support for right wing military dictatorships in Latin America?”

Happily most of those dictatorships are toast. Israel’s relationships with them was a moral lapse.

“4. Why should anyone accept the notion that Israel’s illegal nuclear weapons are benign?”

Because they are intended as deterrence unlike those of Iran should it get ahold of any.

“5. Should Israel continue to receive billions annually in military aid from the US, but Hezbollah be prohibited from receiving military aid from Iran and Syria?”

Israel prospering as it is economically should not accept US handouts. So say I as do many in Israel. It should be noted that most or all of these monies must be spent by Israel in buying US military hardware so this kind of arrangement is also a way of subsidizing US manufacturers of military hardware by increasing their sales. Iran’s present government as their president himself says holds that Israel should cease to exist. As does Hezbollah. Should I, sympathetic as I am to Israel, be in favor of Hezbollah getting Iranian rockets and shooting them at Israel? Are you in favor of Hezbollah rocketing Israel? Is Alan?

“6. Why are Palestinians being routinely brutalized in the occupied territories?”

They are brutalized because that sort of behavior is a result of a military occupation. The occupied population resists and there ensues a cycle of increasing resistance and increasing repression. Look at American troop behavior in Iraq. You wouldn’t therefore conclude that American troops are innately cruel. Behavior deteriorates due to the circumstances. An inherently unjust situation begets unjust behavior.

“And do you support Palestinians being able to elect their own leaders or is that contingent on them electing someone Zionists approve?”

Why do you keep calling Israelis Zionists? Is Israel for you the “usurping Zionist entity” as Nasrullah of Hezbollah calls them? Israel is prepared to make a deal with Hamas if Hamas wanted to deal. Unfortunately they do not want to deal. Their position is that of Islamic extremism: every land that has ever been under the rule of Islam must be returned to Islamic rule. It is what god wants. I hope it is not what you want.

Val hit the essence in one sentence. Your progressive political principals lack universality in regards to Israel. For example, “As for “the right of return” of the 1948 Arabs, ha ha ha. That is non-negotiable.”

It is a univeral rule. Quoting Montesquieu “all regimes are founded on a crime.” Just as the US or Canada or Australia or New Zealand or Russia or Poland and Hungary or the countries of Latin America will not be giving back the land to those they killed, displaced or expelled (American indians, Australian aborigines, Maori, Siberian natives, ethnic Germans, etc.), the Palestinians expelled from the Israel area of partioned Palestine during the 1948 war will never return. As I explained in a previous post, it is now know from the publication of his papers that Ben Gurion did in fact order the Israeli army to expel as many Palestinians as possible in the course of the 1948 war (but not kill them as Arabs would have done). In the light of the corresponding fact that if Israel lost that war they would all be killed or at best driven out of the country, Ben Gurion acted on the principle of *raison d’etat.* IMO he acted correctly. I regret typing “ha ha ha.” I was getting a bit gaga from writing a long letter. The Israelis have suggested compensation but “the right of return” is non-negotiable just as it is for every other country in the world. It is Israel’s bad fortune to have commenced the colonial project late in history and done it in the wrong part of the world, especially now in light of the rising tide of fundamental Islamic sentiment.

Mike Eisenstadt

But let me see if I’ve got this straight. Cluster bombs – good. Car bombs – bad. F16s – good. Suicide belts – bad. 200+ illegal Israeli nuclear weapons – good. Iran even thinking about one – bad. Religious fundamentalist state in Israel – good. Religious fundamentalist state next to Israel – bad. Am I getting the hang of this moral equivalence thing?

David Hamilton

Close but no cigar.

I agree with what Alan says about war generally.

I do not agree that the steps people have taken to mitigate the cruelties should be ignored because the whole enterprise is immoral.

Cluster bombs, bad but legal.

Car bombs. Depends on the use.

F-16s, bad but legal.

Suicide belts generally bad and always bad when placed on children.

Religious fundamentalist state in Israel, not in existence but whether bad or good would depend on whether inclined to aggression to make the world Jewish. That has not been the case.

Next to Israel, bad you betcha. Willing to die to destroy Israel. Believing the Caliphate is coming back and the Madhi is born is OK. Believing that you have to help the process along with terrorism is not OK.

Israel nukes bad but probably benign.

Iran nukes very bad because “mutual assured destruction” will not deter nuke use, nor will the prospect of slaughtering Palestinians in the process of wiping out Israel. How do we know? Because they tell us so.

A world with no nukes would be best, but the second best is a world where they don’t get used.

Steve Russell

David asks: “I’ve long had the opinion that different Indigenous American groups all shared related religious concepts, for example, concerning humanity’s relationship with nature. Wondering if you agree.”

Yes, there are remarkable similarities. See Vine Deloria, Jr., God is Red, and Kidwell, Tinker and somebody else who slips my mind, American Indian Theology.

Steve Russell

Steve,
I read Deloria’s book long ago and don’t remember what I remember. My own prejudice, partially from reading the Popol Vuh and analysis of it, is that the principal font of Native American theology was the Maya. Got a take on that?

I particularly like the Maya concept of the principal deity not being gender specific. Is that a belief that other Native American groups share? All environmentalists must endorse the Native American religious concept that “man” is part of nature, not above and separate from it. The Western sky god types call that primitive!

David Hamilton

As a Mayanist, I have to take exception to your view that the Maya were the font of Native American theology; you have this impression just because you know more about their tradition than others. Most if not all Mesoamerican religions recognize deities that are multifaceted and have many different representations, male and female, good and bad, young and old, celestial and underworld, etc. There’s a good discussion of this in Eva Hunt’s Transformation of the Hummingbird (an oldie but goodie).

On the integration of man and nature, the Maya belief (not necessarily seen in the Popol Vuj, but part of Maya world view) is that people have three necessary parts: the human body, the soul that inhabits it, and the individual animal that shares the soul with the human (the so-called “nagual,” although this term comes from Nahuatl and is contaminated by the central Mexican sense that only witches have naguals, like witches’ familiars). The three parts are intimately related; if one is hurt or gets sick, the others do too (an explanation for illness of unseen origin). A person gets his or her personality from the animal they share their soul with (ergo powerful people are assumed to have jaguar naguals, etc.). This tripartite nature of man is a concept that is common from the Maya south to northern South America (see the Yanomamo, for instance), and it probably has a South American origin. Anyway, people are related to nature because a part of every person is a wild animal living out in the woods.

The other expression of the man and nature relationship is that the principal folk deity (not the guys the elite stressed) is Earth Owner (Dueño del Cerro, the Earth Lord, Mundo, etc.–everybody uses a different name [also Maximon, by the way]). This character owns all the material world, and has to be petitioned for reasonable use of his property (wood for construction, land for farming, animals to hunt, etc.); he also controls rain, and his celestial avatar is Lightning (see Chac). You petition him for use of his goodies, and enter into a contractual relationship with him; if you violate the contract, he may take your soul to labor in his extensive mines, fields, herds, etc.

These beliefs combine to encourage conservative use of resources. You take what you need (after asking for it) but don’t abuse the privilege. These are beliefs handed down from the ancestors, and the ancestors will protect their offspring (or the souls thereof) as long as they continue to follow the prescibed traditions. The ancestors worked out the way people should live, and as long as people live that way, they will be OK. Unfortunately for the modern Maya, it’s increasingly hard to do.

Nick Hopkins

Nick,
Thank you for your very interesting discussion. But I said “principal font”, not “the font”. That is based on the parallels one sees reading Maya cosmology and, say, “Black Elk Speaks” and assuming those parallel beliefs originated with the Maya. Still want to take exception with that?

David Hamilton

Gavan asserts that John Rawls is a liberal.

I suppose that’s true given the current lay of the land.

I like John Stuart Mill, too. His “harm principle” is for me a touchstone of criminal law, and a big difference between my views and those of, say, Scalia. In other words, in the great law and morality debate between Lord Patrick Devlin and H.L.A. Hart, I stand with Hart. Even if he’s a liberal.

Steve Russell

Steve. My point was simply that your statement: “If I perceive a disadvantage to some group, my attitude toward that disadvantage is formed by the attitude of the persons affected.” is incompatible with Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice,” with which you associated your views.

That Rawls’ difference principle (the part of Rawls’ theory that’s incompatible with your attitude toward disadvantage) shows him to be a liberal theorist was just an aside for the non-liberals among us. They might like to know that his project was legitimation of the bourgeois state. I would agree with you though that, if we are to have a bourgeois state, one based on Rawls’ principles would be more congenial than one based on the available alternatives.

Gavan Duffy

I’m wondering about something re youse guys who think a soldier is a terrorist.

I’m opposed to the death penalty for oh so many reasons, moral and utilitarian.

When I involve myself in a death case, which I have done several times, how can I act?

If the death penalty itself is wrong, and I believe it is, then how can I split hairs over whether a particular defendant is factually innocent or got a fair trial? Is that defendant not the moral equivalent of the person who is factually guilty and got a fair trial? Don’t I unduely dignify a corrupt process by my participation? Aren’t all the choices equally corrupt?

Steve Russell

Bernard Lewis: On the chances “MAD” would deter Iran from using nukes

Source: WSJ (8-8-06)

[Mr. Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author, most recently, of “From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East” (Oxford University Press, 2004).]

… It seems increasingly likely that the Iranians either have or very soon will have nuclear weapons at their disposal, thanks to their own researches (which began some 15 years ago), to some of their obliging neighbors, and to the ever-helpful rulers of North Korea. The language used by Iranian President Ahmadinejad would seem to indicate the reality and indeed the imminence of this threat.

Would the same constraints, the same fear of mutual assured destruction, restrain a nuclear-armed Iran from using such weapons against the U.S. or against Israel?

There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran’s present rulers. This worldview and expectation, vividly expressed in speeches, articles and even schoolbooks, clearly shape the perception and therefore the policies of Ahmadinejad and his disciples.

Even in the past it was clear that terrorists claiming to act in the name of Islam had no compunction in slaughtering large numbers of fellow Muslims. A notable example was the blowing up of the American embassies in East Africa in 1998, killing a few American diplomats and a much larger number of uninvolved local passersby, many of them Muslims. There were numerous other Muslim victims in the various terrorist attacks of the last 15 years.

The phrase “Allah will know his own” is usually used to explain such apparently callous unconcern; it means that while infidel, i.e., non-Muslim, victims will go to a well-deserved punishment in hell, Muslims will be sent straight to heaven. According to this view, the bombers are in fact doing their Muslim victims a favor by giving them a quick pass to heaven and its delights — the rewards without the struggles of martyrdom. School textbooks tell young Iranians to be ready for a final global struggle against an evil enemy, named as the U.S., and to prepare themselves for the privileges of martyrdom.

A direct attack on the U.S., though possible, is less likely in the immediate future. Israel is a nearer and easier target, and Mr. Ahmadinejad has given indication of thinking along these lines. The Western observer would immediately think of two possible deterrents. The first is that an attack that wipes out Israel would almost certainly wipe out the Palestinians too. The second is that such an attack would evoke a devastating reprisal from Israel against Iran, since one may surely assume that the Israelis have made the necessary arrangements for a counterstrike even after a nuclear holocaust in Israel.

The first of these possible deterrents might well be of concern to the Palestinians — but not apparently to their fanatical champions in the Iranian government. The second deterrent — the threat of direct retaliation on Iran — is, as noted, already weakened by the suicide or martyrdom complex that plagues parts of the Islamic world today, without parallel in other religions, or for that matter in the Islamic past. This complex has become even more important at the present day, because of this new apocalyptic vision.

In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time — Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined. Mr. Ahmadinejad and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the U.S. about nuclear development by Aug. 22. This was at first reported as “by the end of August,” but Mr. Ahmadinejad’s statement was more precise.

What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to “the farthest mosque,” usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind….

Posted by Steve Russell

Dear “Moral Coward”,
I was nicer than Michael King. I said “intellectual coward”. May have to resubscribe to your pitiful rag if Chomsky kicking your flacid intellectual ass is to become a regular feature. Please write a rebuttal so we can watch you twist slowly in the wind.

Still willing to bet $100 you’ve never read “Manufacturing Consent”.

David Hamilton

I googled the quote and there are hundreds of citations of your passage but none of them have a volume or a page number. I would suspect that the passage was made up out of the whole cloth by someone who believed that there was/is a jewish plot. You seem to be intimating that you yourself read the passage in situ and as you say just dont have the reference handy.

I say this because I have been following the Zionist enterprise since Nov 1947 and have read ever so many books on the subject. I have read one or two biographies of Herzl and I thought I knew the man. I confess that I never thought to read his published diaries (I didn’t even know there were any). Nor have I read his novel Altneuland but I looked into it one time at the library and it didn’t seem like it would be an interesting read.

As for the quote, if it is really in his diaries, it therefore presumably expresses his real thoughts. But where does he say it? I am guessing that you yourself didn’t really read it in situ.

If you can’t come up with a volume and page number, then aren’t you maybe duty bound to reexamine your views?

I once asked you in the front of the Public Library on 8th street whether you in any way changed your opinions from before you visited the West Bank to after you visited the West Bank. You replied “Certainly not!” I must say that afterwards I thought that your remark was very telling.

Mike the Eisenstadt

If this Zionist loon represents the present state of Israel, how come so many Israeli Arabs are getting nailed by Kaytushas? How come the Hezbollah PooBah is warning Israeli Arab non-combatants to vacate Haifa so only Israeli Jewish non-combatants will get nailed?

While there is some equality of crazy rhetoric, there is no equality of results.

The Arab lands are cleansed of Jews.

The Jewish lands are not cleased of Arabs.

Maybe it’s an efficiency problem.

Granted that dropping bombs when unintended but foreseeable civilian deaths will result is wrong, there is no moral equivalence.

This continual moral equivalence argument on the left, equating soldiers with terrorists, will not now or ever sell to the public nor should it. And it really chaps my ass that we concede the moral high ground to a pig like Bush because we lack the spine to condemn training young kids to blow themselves up in circumstances intended to cause maximum non-combatant deaths.

If Mohammad Atta had been caught, would he have been a POW?

What did your US miltary training teach you about the status of non-combatants, Alan? Given the timing, I expect the same thing that mine did.

Did all American GIs respect what we were taught? Of course not.

Do all American Gis in Iraq respect what they are still teaching? Of course not.

Does that make us the moral equivalent of the dude who pulls a van up to a day labor center, fills it up with job seekers, and then blows it up?

Just because the Repugs abuse the term does not mean there is no such thing as terrorism.

Just because the rules of war are often honored in the breach does not mean that war has no rules.

What’s so hard about calling scum scum and going on to argue that Bush is also scum?

Steve Russell

With due respect the war started when the Jews took Jericho in 1200 BC or there abouts. Since then there have been many scenarios.

You talk about efficient ways of dealing with the enemy. The Nazi’s took civilians and killed them in mass. Stalin did the same. It is quite probable that if the Israelis didn’t have guns and tanks they would face the same scenario they faced in Europe in 1938 through 1945. They are defending themselves and doing a miserable job it seems.

In the book “Why air Forces Fail” the Israeli Air Force is impotent. The book brings out the various reasons. It mentions the Iraqi, Egyptian, Polish and so forth and the American Air Force of which I was a part of in Nam and how all the bombs and chemicals dropped do not make much difference when you are fighting a third world country.

You can cut off their water and power and they will go on. Cut the power and water of an American City or a European City and they would be devastated until the ingenuity of the people took over. To win you need ground troops.

I will say that when I first went to Nam in 1965 I was part of MACV and motivated. The RVN soldiers and rangers were motivated as well. It was the politicians that took away that youthful vigor and elan. We didn’t think we would win, we knew it. We had the biggest and baddest army in the world. The Russians had the other. So we were very young and very brain washed. I went back again to Thailand and then with the 25th AV to spend another tour but by then the writing was on the wall and I had read a book or two and knew that the ants will always eat the elephant.

This war in the Middle East is just a precursor to a bigger war. we are doomed to this mess and whether the Arabs are efficient or not matters little. They will kill as many Jews as they can and likewise the Jews will kill as many Arabs as they can. Collateral damage doesn’t matter much to either side. They just want to blow the shit out of each other and if babies get in the way so be it.

Charlie Loving

“We shall try to spirit away the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. …expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”

I havent checked all 60,500 quotes for a page number nor will I but it seems at least possible that there is no such remark in Herzl’s diary and some dishonest knave made it up.

And look at the statement itself. There are some glaring anachronisms which jump to the eye arguing that it is a forgery.

“across the border” – what border? In Herzl’s time, Palestine and the rest of the Middle East was ruled by the Turks and Palestine, if i remember right, was a district of the empire ruled from Syria.

“transit countries” – what could that mean? there were no Middle Eastern countries at that time, all part of the Turkish empire.

“removal of the poor” – is this a euphemism for Arabs? if he meant Arabs, why wouldnt he say it in his private diaries instead of saying “the poor”?

Will Alan come up with the volume and page number? I mean to check back here frequently to see if he does. I really would like to know one way or the other if this is a genuine quote. If so I will check out that volume so I can weigh the context.
If it does exist it may be being misconstrued by the anti Israel choir.

Mike the Eisenstadt

( 1 ) Theodor Herzl, Handwritten Diary entry 12 June 1895, (CZA H ii B i); The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, trans. Harry Zohn, (New York, 1960), (henceforth Herzl Diaries), vol.1, p.88.

Alan Pogue

Mike,
My remark was telling you that actually seeing how badly the Palestinians were treated by the Israeli government went far beyond anything I had thought from merely reading history and current events. Nothing beats being there. I met Rabbi Arik Ascherman in the home of a Palestinian farm family near Hebron. Rabbi Ascherman was willing to be arrested while resisting the destruction of the Jabber home. Jacob Bahar was also there. He was wearing his Peace Now cap. Later some of the Christian Peacemaker Team arrived. It was obvious that all of “Palestine” is a prison camp. I wish everyone could spend a week with a Palestinian family in the West Bank or Gaza. I also stood with the “Women in Black”, European and Arab Jews, in west Jerusalem during one of their weekly demonstrations against the occupation and home demolitions. I met with Peretz Kidron, the leader of Yesh Gvul- Israeli military veterans against the occupation. www.yesh-gvul.org

Alan Pogue

Thanks, Alan, for explaining your remark at the library. Yes, the West Bank is a prison. We just watched Paradise Now last night.

I am now assuming that anti Israelites have mined early Zionist political thought thoroughly and that this genuine passage (I havent read it yet) is the best index of the plot. It is like the note that Lenny Bruce found in the cellar reading “Yes, we did it,” signed cousin Hymie.

Mike Eisenstadt

When I got to Vietnam in 1967 I saw that we were killing Vietnamese people in a totally wanton, gratuitous fashion. I was disgusted and ashamed. I still am. I had been living in the brainwashed false world also. When I returned to “the world” I spent a lot of library time figuring out “we” are imperialists, and have been since before the ink was dry on the Declaration of Independence. Haiti is a good example of that. Our great leaders of democracy have been beating up on Haiti since day one. “Killing Hope” by William Blum is a good book on U.S. sponsored wars since WW11. Steve seems to still have a foot in the land of Camelot, the City on the Hill and all that happy nonsense about the U.S.. My Lai or Abu Ghraib? White phosphorus bombs, cluster bombs, napalm, killing 2 million Iraqi infants,looks like terrorism to me. Agent Orange is still killing in Vietnam. A little depleted uranium for your cereal? Soldiers are terrorists. My drill instructor had no problem with that. I was a terrorist in Vietnam. I had a problem with that. I corrected my behavior and learned how I had been ill used by leaders with a secret agenda. At least it had been secret to me since our public schools can’t get close to the truth and I hadn’t met the Berrigan bothers.

Both Thomas Jefferson and Reich-Marshall Hermann Goering agree on this, “… the common people do not want war.” They know there is nothing in war for them but suffering. The leaders have to trick, scare, and force the common people into war. War is an industry and the common people are raw material.

Having met many people in the West Bank, Jordan, Iraq and Pakistan I can not use words like “the Arab world” or any generalizations except this one: human beings are not prone to placing their families in danger nor do they want to upset the normal rhythms of their lives over ideology.

Alan Pogue

It is amazing what a little time and education can do to change you. There are times when I still have nightmares about how out and out evil and stupid things can get with just a snap of a finger.

Charlie Loving

ISRAEL ASKS U.S. TO SHIP ROCKETS WITH WIDE BLAST.
Quick Delivery is Sought.

Washington, Au.10. – Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed delivery of short-range anti-personnel rockets armed with cluster munitions, which it could use to strike Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon. The request for M-26 artillery rockets, which are fired in barrages and carry hundreds of grenade-like bomblets that scatter and explode over a broad area, is likely to be approved shortly, along with other arms, a senior official said.

But some State Department officials have sought to delay the approval because of concerns over the likelihood of civilian casualties, and the diplomatic repercussions. The rockets, while they would be very effective against hidden missile launchers, are fired by the dozen and could be expected to cause civilian casualties if used against targets in populated
areas. . . .

Posted by David Hamilton

Are they asking for these munitions out of military need? Or because of their innate cruelty and desire to immolate children?

They leaflet areas to be bombed warning civilians to evacuate. They also phone and send text messages. But for the anti Israelites that counts for nothing.

Mike Eisenstadt

Mike,
You wrote, “Are they asking for these munitions out of military need? Or because of their innate cruelty and desire to immolate children?”

Are there any other options?

You also wrote, “They leaflet areas to be bombed warning civilians to evacuate. They also phone and send text messages. But for the anti Israelites that counts for nothing. “

First, why would you tell people who would doubtless tell Hezbollah that they are about to get bombed? Second, I like the term “anti Israelites” to some I’ve been called lately. Otherwise, that counts for something, but not nearly enough. Sort of like giving an unjustly convicted man on death row whatever he wants for his last meal. It also ignores the many Lebanese civilians killed by the Israeli airforce while trying to flee.

But let me see if I’ve got this straight. Cluster bombs – good. Car bombs – bad. F16s – good. Suicide belts – bad. 200+ illegal Israeli nuclear weapons – good. Iran even thinking about one – bad. Religious fundamentalist state in Israel – good. Religious fundamentalist state next to Israel – bad. Am I getting the hang of this moral equivalency thing?

David Hamilton

Mike,
If this weren’t Israel, would you approve of antipersonnel weapons such as this?

Paz–Val Liveoak

David P. Hamilton wrote:

You also wrote, “They leaflet areas to be bombed warning civilians to evacuate. They also phone and send text messages. But for the anti Israelites that counts for nothing.” First, why would you tell people who would doubtless tell Hezbollah that they are about to get bombed?

Are you suggesting that the Israelis don’t leaflet? If you are, you must not be watching television. On network evening news, I have seen footage shot in Lebanon showing the leaflets falling out of the sky as well as footage of Lebanese individuals tearing them up in contempt.

Of course the leaflets also inform Hezbollah fighters of a forthcoming operation, not that the Hezbollah fighters are not generally aware of what’s coming at them. For special ops, like the recent one in Baalbek where their commandos landed by helicopter, obviously they do not leaflet in advance.

You also wrote:

Second, I like the term “anti Israelites” to some I’ve been called lately.

Thanks. I just made it up.

As for the rest of your letter:

Cluster bombs – good. Car bombs – bad. F16s – good. Suicide belts – bad. 200+ illegal Israeli nuclear weapons – good. Iran even thinking about one – bad. Religious fundamentalist state in Israel – good. Religious fundamentalist state next to Israel – bad.

My version: cluster bombs used against civilians – bad. Cluster bombs used against Hezbollah fighters – good. F16s – bad against civilians, good against enemy combatants, 200+ nuclear weapons – good if by the fact of their existence, they deter enemies. Iran with nuclear weapons – who knows what they plan to do with them? religious fundamentalist state in Israel – PREPOSTEROUS all religions are freely and publicly practiced in Israel – Moslem, all the varieties of Christians, Bahai (temple in Jerusalem), Druze, etc. Majority of Jewish Israelis said to be secular religious fundamentalist, presumably Shia, state in Lebanon – bad for Lebanese Christians, Lebanese Sunni, Lebanese Druze, and Israeli civilians being injured and killed by rockets.

Mike Eisenstadt

An antipersonal weapon used to kill combatants is a weapon like any other. An antipersonal weapon used to kill non-combatants is a war crime. What is your point?

Mike Eisenstadt

My point: war is wrong. Maybe at times somewhat less wrong than some other alternatives, but wrong. There are always other and better alternatives.

Hence weapons are wrong, and the more likely to kill and maim more people the more wrong they are.

Paz–Val Liveoak

The exceedingly obvious point is that using a shotgun in a crowded bank will kill more than the bank robbers. Dropping any kind of bomb in a city will kill many people. Calling the place “an enemy stronghold” does not alter the result but only anesthetizes the moral consciousness of the speaker.

When a prisoner in a Texas prison took some hostages a few years ago the prison officials shot him and the hostages because they cared most about their own sense of absolute power over the prison, the hostages be damned. In war there is often only the desire to conquer, to win. Neither the lives of ones own troops nor civilians on either side can be taken into consideration when “winning”( maintaining ones own sense of power) is the only goal. “We” dropped Agent Orange on our own troops as well as on the Vietnamese. “We” used depleted uranium on the Iraqis and if that killed and harmed many of our own troops then the tactic is just to deny the effects. The morally dead think that way.

Alan Pogue

Thoughts on Israel.

Will all supporters of Zionism please tell us the other theocracies you support? And since theocracy is apparently fine with you, would you also approve the US being an officially Christian nation since over 80% of the citizens claim that “faith”, more than the Jewish portion of Palestine? Do you support the separation of church and state or not – or is it maybe? Is it valued everywhere but Israel? Why would one make such a distinction?

I consider myself a deist, but in my humble opinion, all organized religions have a sordid history of violence against “infidels”, especially the Western patriarchal sky-god types like Christianity, Islam and Judaism, which seem to be in a race to see whose record is the most egregious. I say the Christians are well ahead based on the vast scope and longevity of their historical massacres. All these devoteés of miscellaneous mythologies should ideally be laughed out of public life, but unfortunately “man” ever strives to know the unknowable, be relieved of the angst of mortality and find cosmic justifications for his self-interests.

Loving’s history is a rationalization and justification for what he implicitly acknowledges – that since 1948 the Zionists have occupied land where previously Arabs lived, displacing the Arabs in the process – and they didn’t pay for it. But like all histories, his is selective. He somehow fails to mention a few hundred years of European Christian invasions of “the Holy Land” to free it from the clutches of the Muslim infidels, aka, the “Crusades”. Also that those Muslim infidels practiced the best medieval version of religious toleration, especially for the many resident Jews within their domain. The final solution to the problem of the “Moors” in Spain in 1492 was also the first year of the Spanish Inquisition, not a great moment in Jewish history. Loving also doesn’t mention the present, where Arabs are, by definition, second class citizens in the Zionist state and those unfortunate enough to live in Palestinian occupied territories are routinely brutalized in myriad ways.

I prefer the one state solution. It’s the same system I support here or anywhere else; a secular democratic state. One person, one vote, with religious involvement in politics discouraged. To argue that secular democracy is unacceptable because the Zionists would be overwhelmed by a Muslim “demographic wave” is racist. South Africans said the same thing with much more justification.

The basic issue is more than Zionist occupation of Arab land. It is Zionism itself, the concept of a theocratic state being inserted where diverse people already live. “A people without a land, a land without a people” this was not. If they had created a Jewish state out of part of Germany, Austria and France in 1945, it might have made sense, but that opportunity has passed. With the “Holy Land” alternative finding resurgent post-WWII favor however, Europe cleverly exported the issue. To an ardent German Nazi, the Exodus would make a pretty good Plan B. This historic mistake has been the midwife to its antithesis, Israel hating Islamic fundamentalists seizing state power all around them, a hostility that has only deepened over the past several decades. Given continued Israeli militarism, we can reasonably expect it to get still worse in the future. Secularists confront a growing two headed monster and are tempted to throw up their hands, got no dog in this fight, except that this conflict also brilliantly illuminates how we are a global community.

If one doesn’t support theocracy, that means not supporting church-state unity, therefore no endorsement of a Jewish state (or Christian or Muslim) and therefore no acceptance of the “existence” of Israel as a Jewish state. This is a slippery logical slope leading to being labeled “anti-Semitic”. But when the Iranian president rails against the “Zionist entity”, is he advocating a unified secular state or lining up all Jews on the shoreline and marching them into the Mediterranean Sea or something in between?

Regardless of these hypothetical considerations, in the here and now, the two state solution is the consensus Plan B. That requires the resolution of the issue of a viable Palestinian state. My reading of the history is that while there have been missteps by all parties, the US and Israel have consistently obstructed the resolution of that issue in the interest of Israel gaining an ever greater hold on the land and water and the US gaining a partner in crime in the Middle East. Israel’s “most generous” offer cut the Palestinian state into four isolated parts, the West Bank entirely surrounded by Israel and left Israel in control of the entire shoreline of the Jordan River. (You can see the map in Chomsky’s “Failed States”, p.180.) That’s way too analogous to South Africa’s creation of Bantustans to deal with the issue of apartheid.

The sovereignty and permanence of Israel is a non-issue, ritually resurrected to justify whatever Israel does. Israel has over 200 armed and ready illegal nuclear weapons and supposedly the fourth or fifth most powerful military in the world. It receives billions every year in free US military hardware as a US taxpayer subsidy to the domestic war industry and their own territorial ambitions. This Goliath claiming to be the threatened little David is the bogeyman nonsense concocted by Zionists victimization specialists.. Besides, every Arab political entity, even Hamas, has explicitly or implicitly acknowledged the Israeli state’s legitimacy by accepting the Arab League proposal of 2002 as a basis of negotiation. The supposed threat of being pushed into the sea is propaganda to be sold to the 80% of Americans who never own a passport. That the Occupation is the central issue is routinely and rigorously denied. Bush, at his press conference on Tuesday, hammered away at his central point: “the central issue is a non-state acting as a state within another state” or some other such blather. Our imperialist leaders must have a cover story for their aggressions. We all grew up with the official state religion of anti-communism. The current preferred ideology of delusion is anti-terrorism on which Bush is here doing a variation. Anyone who says that the central issue in the Middle East is something other than the Occupation is blowing smoke with George.

We supposedly value universality, that the rules that apply to you, also apply to me. This is consistently thrown out the window with regards to Israel. One of today’s examples might be the US attacking Iran and Syria for providing Hezbollah with weapons. Or the US seeking an excuse for aggression by making unsubstantiated claims that Iran is breaking the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that the US is violating flagrantly and much more threateningly. Or advocacy of UN resolutions that demand Hezbollah disarm, but ignoring those that demand Israel relinquish the Arab lands conquered in the 1967 war. Or a UN cease fire resolution that authorizes the ” robust international peace keeping force” to fire on Hezbollah transgressors but not Israeli.

There is also something to be said for being known by the company you keep. If the votes in the UN General Assembly a reasonable index, there is a very long history of Israel standing shoulder to shoulder with American imperialism, usually alone or perhaps joined by the Marshall Islands. In Guatemala, when Carter cut off US training and equipment for the Guatemalan military because of its escalating genocidal campaign against Mayans, Israel jumped in to fill the breach, helping the likes of Generals Lucas Garcia and Rios Montt slaughter them with splendid efficiency. Israel has also been involved in advising, training and running intelligence and counter-insurgency operations in the Latin American “dirty war” civil conflicts in Argentina, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, among others.

But now, we are to put all that aside and line up with the war criminal Bush and the protegee of the war criminal Sharon? I don’t think so. This is all tragic for enlightened Jews, among whom I have always found so many of my most seminal influences and greatest inspirations. One was a roommate who recruited me from a Highland Park racist mentality into the civil rights movement in 1962. Another was a girl friend who took me to Latin America for the first time in 1974. Another took me skiing for the first time and was my tennis partner for 25 years. Another, now head of the local Republican Party, hired me to be his graduate student assistant so he could get a check from the FBI. Another is one of my two much loved and admired son-in-laws. At my funeral, they’ll play Gershwin and Dylan and read from Marx and Chomsky. It is a cruel irony that Israel has become the albatross they must carry.

David Hamilton

I think it was Alan who wrote:

There are many forms of delusion, religion being a big one. The idea of the state as an entity is another. Politicians will use whatever delusions that will forward their own.

Yes, more generally, political elites distribute solidary incentives — by appealing to mass constituents’ ethnic, religious, national identity, demonizing their enemies and their enemies’ identities — to overcome the free-rider problem (see here) as they mobilize mass constituents for conflict. They do this because it’s relatively inexpensive, compared to distributing material incentives. Insurgencies typically have no access to material resources, so they almost always distribute solidary incentives. States typically offer a mix of material and solidary incentives.

The big trouble with solidary incentives is that, unlike material incentives, they are difficult to retract. When leaders want to settle conflicts, hardliners in their camps sieze upon their peace overtures as evidence that they have “sold out” or made “a pact with the devil.” Consequently, leaders either refrain from peace-making or they risk losing their incumbency or (like Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin) their lives.

It’s all here: Gavan Duffy and Nicole Lindstrom, “Conflicting Identities: Solidary Incentives in the Serbo-Croatian War.” Journal of Peace Research. 39 (2002): 69-90.

Gavan Duffy

David asks, if I recall, that “supporters of Zionism” state what other theocracies they support. (For some reason, I cannot use the quote function on the website.)

I’m not a supporter of Zionism but I think he probably means me because I do not support the destruction of the Israeli state (although I advocate that the US get some daylight between its foreign policy and Israel’s).

There are about 550 American Indian nations recognized by the US government and over half of them are to some degree theocratic. I support them.

Separation of church and state is important in the US because there is religious pluralism among all three monotheistic patriarchal desert cults. It is, however, a modern idea. If memory serves, nine of the thirteen colonies that ratified the Establishment Clause had established churches. There was no intent to fool with that. The objective was that there be no FEDERAL established religion so people would not be killing each other over which flavor of Christianity should be established. That “wall of separation” quote from Jefferson serves the modern conceit.

What you say about the deadly nature of theocracy is true from the European perspective. However, Native societies did not engage in religious warfare. I know of no Native religion that values converting others except the Ghost Dance, and that is a direct reaction to the colonists.

But the idea that religion lives in one box and government lives in another and art in another and science in another is also a peculiar European conceit. Those are just labels for different ways of looking at the same thing.

I fully support the idea of separation of church and state in the US context, but in the great scheme of things it’s pretty silly that such separation is necessary.

Steve Russell

Steve,
I really did not have you particularly in mind as a supporter of Zionism. I put in the qualification about “patriarchal Western sky god” religions to exclude Buddhism and the Indigenous American religion, my personal favorites, from the critique.

I’ve long had the opinion that different Indigenous American groups all shared related religious concepts, for example, concerning humanity’s relationship with nature. Wondering if you agree.

Perhaps it is a recent arrival in human political evolution, but I think it would be reasonable to argue that separation of church and state will be an essential element in future human survival, given the record of the major dominant cults in inspiring wars.

David Hamilton

— David asks, if I recall, that “supporters of Zionism” state what other theocracies they support. (For some reason, I cannot use the quote function on the website.)

I’m not a supporter of Zionism but I think he probably means me because I do not support the destruction of the Israeli state (although I advocate that the US get some daylight between its foreign policy and Israel’s). —

If you are not a supporter of Zionism then you would support a democratic Israel that would let the demographic chips fall where they may. Palestinians would have the same universal right of return as Kosovans or anyone else displaced by war.

— There are about 550 American Indian nations recognized by the US government and over half of them are to some degree theocratic. I support them. —

Should they all have seats in the U.N.? I support the right of the First Baptist Church to run their place by their own rules. Maybe no human sacrifice.

— Separation of church and state is important in the US because there is religious pluralism among all three monotheistic patriarchal desert cults. It is, however, a modern idea. —

Is it a good idea? Antibiotics are modern also. I like ’em. Such odd rhetorical dodges you use.

— If memory serves, nine of the thirteen colonies that ratified the Establishment Clause had established churches. There was no intent to fool with that. The objective was that there be no FEDERAL established religion so people would not be killing each other over which flavor of Christianity should be established. That “wall of separation” quote from Jefferson serves the modern conceit. —

And one we have grown into and like. I hope there is a “we” here.

— What you say about the deadly nature of theocracy is true from the European perspective. However, Native societies did not engage in religious warfare. I know of no Native religion that values converting others except the Ghost Dance, and that is a direct reaction to the colonists. —

They were not nation states. Religious wars are really about property, as all wars.

— But the idea that religion lives in one box and government lives in another and art in another and science in another is also a peculiar European conceit. Those are just labels for different ways of looking at the same thing. —

There has to something there to be seen in order to look at it. Some “ways” are simply nonsense ( not available to the senses, unknowable, baseless conjecture, anthropomorphism, projections of psychological needs into the “sky”).

— I fully support the idea of separation of church and state in the US context, but in the great scheme of things it’s pretty silly that such separation is necessary. —

“The great scheme of things”, the world we live now or in some other place and time? Theistic religions are silly, and dangerous.

Can you come to decision? In what country in this world at this historical moment do you or do you not support theocracy over democracy? Do you support “one person, one vote” as a universal concept or not?

Alan Pogue

— Can you come to decision? In what country in this world at this historical moment do you or do you not support theocracy over democracy? Do you support “one person, one vote” as a universal concept or not? —

Pardon, but I consider Indian nations to be nations.

And, no, I do not support one person, one vote as a universal. I support it in republican situations where elections are held.

If you want what I would prefer in term of government, see John Rawls, A Theory of Justice. Rawls would support one person, one vote in the context of elections, as I generally do.

If I perceive a disadvantage to some group, my attitude toward that disadvantage is formed by the attitude of the persons affected. For example, I personally despise the patrilineal citizenship standards of the Santa Clara Pueblo, but Santa Clara women, as a group, do not want the Indian Civil Rights Act amended to ban sex discrimination. That would not be my choice but it’s not up to me to value their rights over their sovereignty — neither value “belongs” to me.

In many tribes there is a real government that is a theocracy co-existing with an Indian Reorganization Act government populated by the hang-around-the-fort crowd and recognized by the US. In that instance, I support the real government.

Steve Russell

Steve sez:
If you want what I would prefer in term of government, see John Rawls, A Theory of Justice. Rawls would support one person, one vote in the context of elections, as I generally do.

If I perceive a disadvantage to some group, my attitude toward that disadvantage is formed by the attitude of the persons affected.

This is a defensible position, but it’s not compatible with Rawls. Rawls would sanction only those relative disadvantages that do not disadvantage the worst-off members of society in absolute terms. For instance, he would allow income disparities only insofar as they create incentives that enhance the incomes of the poorest members of society.

The attitude of the poor toward their disadvantage wouldn’t matter for Rawls, although he clearly wants to arrange inequalities this way in order to diminish the likelihood that the least fortunate would revolt against the regime. Rawls, in other words, was a liberal theorist and his project was the justification of the liberal state. He was certainly the most prominent 20th century liberal theorist — up there with Mill in the 19th and Locke in the 18th — but a liberal nonetheless.

Also, one-person one-vote is a fine idea in the abstract, but it doesn’t produce democratic outcomes in certain electoral contexts. In particular, the winner-take-all plurality elections in the US systematically disadvantage third parties and interests that diverge from the center. If you want democracy, you need proportional representation. Supreme Court justices can rail all day about one-person one-vote. Until they’re ready to see that the structure of US elections contradicts this conception, however, all their bluster rings rather hollow.

Gavan Duffy

Steve –
You wrote: “And it really chaps my ass that we concede the moral high ground to a pig like Bush because we lack the spine to condemn training young kids to blow themselves up in circumstances intended to cause maximum non-combatant deaths.”

Granted that this post is old-news by now, I would still like to follow the thread for a bit longer. If I may, I’d like to put aside the “moral equivalence” question for a moment and discuss effect. My position is that there is no difference in effect between that of the suicide bomber and the high-altitude bomber. The effect is bits and pieces of morbid human flesh, songs unsung, potential plowshares wasted, labor lost, and hatred reinvested. Frankly, that’s all that I need to know.

My sense of several of your remarks above is that there is “moral equivalence” at the level of the leaderships of the various factions/nations: Bush and his minions = the trainer/handler/manipulators of the suicide bombers. Am I correct? My guess is that almost no former Rag staffer will disagree with that. I think that the sticking point for you is at the grunt level, and you do seem to want to draw a distinction there. I can’t follow you there, unless you want to proclaim both the suicide bomber and the soldier equally innocent. If so, I’ll help you defend them against anyone who wants to blame the victim – and you and Alan both know that the soldier is a victim.

As you implied, there is a threshold for criminal behavior for soldiers. Of course, it’s damn hard to prove intent in an environment of mass murder. As to the suicide bomber, I agree with you and Mike that this is overt criminal behavior; but I think that you have to agree that most pay the ultimate penalty, even if they think that paradise awaits.

Back to effect for a moment – Mike says of the peace activists in Israel, quoted by David, “Unfortunately the arguments from the few remaining Peace Activists are at this point mere wishful thinking.” No doubt he is correct in the short run. The dogs of war are unleashed, and the excitement of the chase – not to mention the kill – is high. The main point of the peace activists, however, is that, on the day after tomorrow, there will be unpleasant repercussions. Let the circle be unbroken, to quote the old Christian song. And sure enough ….

Mike says that the Jews ruled that area of the world for 2,000 years before the Diaspora. I think that it might be better to say that they populated that part of the world for almost that long. At various times they ruled various parts; at other times they were largely removed to Egypt or to Babylon. Mostly, they were trading land and hostages with the other local (often semitic) peoples as a result of frequent hostilities. At one juncture they split into two rival Hebrew states – which one would you have supported, Mike?

Then they were largely gone from the area for 2,000 years. For an historical homeland, that’s an awfully big gap. And, as was sometimes pointed out in the not-too-distant past, on average a European Jew is about as semitic as an African-American is african. In both cases most are as closely related to you and I, as to any modern-day member of their other ancestry.

For us common folks ends don’t justify means, because means are ends in and of themselves. In the unstoppable dialectical movement of history, ends will propagate more ends. All of our anger, frustration, vengefulness – not to mention hope for the future – should be focussed on disinheriting the true enemies of the peoples of the world, largely made up of those persons who would lead us to war.

Paul Spencer

And I’m a day late, again !! Better luck next week. Many thanks to Charlie Loving for his work. rdj

*TT = Cartoon Tuesday

New York Times article, “Left or Right, Israelis Are Pro-War”

Left or Right, Israelis Are Pro-War

Article by STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: August 9, 2006

For an honest reportage on the Israel homefront, you might be interested to read Steven Erlanger’s article in today’s NYTimes. It is too long to paste in here but you can read it at the address above if you are registered with them by username and password.

Mike Eisenstadt

Does anyone know anything about the red heifer deal? Here’s the excerpt from the piece in the Prospect:

Besides his million-dollar compensation package, Hagee has a portfolio of other ventures, including a cattle ranch in south Texas that may have religious significance. Many evangelicals believe that the arrival of a “perfect red heifer” will signal the end times. In the Old Testament, burning a red heifer and sprinkling its ashes is described as a purification ritual for priests entering the temple. Ultra-orthodox Jews believe that the birth of a modern perfect red heifer will herald the arrival of the messiah, leading to a confrontation with Muslims over the Temple Mount, where Jews believe the Temple will be rebuilt. Some evangelicals likewise regard the red heifer as a harbinger of the ultimate showdown at the Temple Mount, which they believe will be the site of the Second Coming. And they believe that time is near.

To many other observers, the advent of the red heifer threatens to provoke a violent struggle for control of the Temple Mount, with worldwide repercussions. In the late 1990s, a group of unidentified Texas ranchers reportedly bred a perfect red heifer, which generated excitement in evangelical circles until the animal sprouted some black hairs.

Six years ago, the John C. Hagee Royalty Trust paid more than $5.5 million for a 7,600-acre ranch in Brackettville, Texas, where cattle are raised in a venture with the Texas Israel Agricultural Research Foundation, a nonprofit outfit operated by the pastor. (Another part of the property is a resort hunting facility, where guests paying up to $250 for a night’s stay can also land their planes at the ranch’s private airstrip.) Last year, Hagee hired one of the top lobbyists in San Antonio, David Earl, to urge the state Legislature to exempt Hagee’s foundation from water-use regulations. A spokeswoman for the bill’s sponsor, Representative Frank Corte, whose district includes Hagee’s church, said that he introduced it on behalf of a constituent, but added that she was not authorized to divulge the identity of that constituent. (The bill stalled in committee.) Earl said that Hagee wants to “share information” to “improve” the “production of livestock,” particularly cattle, with an Israeli research project, but otherwise claimed to be unsure of the particulars. Dr. Scott Farhart, an obstetrician and trustee of the John C. Hagee Royalty Trust (and an elder at Hagee’s church), did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the director of the ranch.

Here it is.

Charlie Loving

And now let me tell you about the tooth fairy and the little elves that help Santa care for his flying reindeer. Is the point that we are supposed to give credence to these befuddled religious fanatics or that we are supposed to laugh at them?
What is the “Prospect”?

David Hamilton

I will not try to relate Charlie’s point, although I think I understand it a little. I do not believe I should take these religious fanatics lightly, no matter how much I would like to … They are having enormous, unwanted influence in powerful circles these days.

The Prospect is an e-zine:

Prospect article

That is the original article the woman wrote.

Richard Jehn

Richard,

When you mention “religious fanatics”, are you refering to Pat Robinson [sic], Jerry Falwell and George W. Bush? And would it be fair for some to regard Zionism as religious fanaticism? Does one group of fanatics spawn its antithesis?

David Hamilton

David H. wrote:

— And would it be fair for some to regard Zionism as religious fanaticism? —

Historically the Zionists may have been judged fanatics but surely not religious. Zionism is a secular nationalism dedicated to finding jews a new place to live where they were to earn their living in more normal,less parasitical professions than those they often practiced in Europe, this in view of the fact they would never be allowed to assimilate. Religious jews bitterly opposed Zionism and do so to this day. The haredim in present day Israel when sending a letter scratch off the words Eretz Yisrael on the stamp lest it should seem that they accept the notion of a jewish state not founded by Messiah. Nor will they speak Hebrew which for them is the sacred language spoken only when praying.

Subsequent to the 1967 Six Day war “victory”, in addition to the traditional haredim huddled in squalor in city ghettos, a movement arose of orthodox religious settlers who read the 1967 “victory” as God’s sign to literally recreate the Israel of the bible on other folks’ land.

This is a kind of religious Zionism but it is strongly opposed by the secular majority. That is why Sharon removed the settlers from Gaza kicking and screaming and why Olmert ran on a platform promising to do the same thing with some (not all) of the settlements on the West Bank. The settlements contiguous to Jerusalem were not on offer, not the settlements along the Jordan river which are considered militarily indispensable.

However now that Islamic fundamentalism has has apparently been endorsed by the Palestinians by the election of Hamas, so long as Israel exists, one can safely predict that the West Bank will continue to be occupied by the IDF. No rockets are being shot off from there, unlike Gaza. No-one anymore seriously suggests withdrawing from the West Bank even on the left. Peace Now as a mass movement is defunct due to this new reality.

Mike Eisenstadt

The Mess They Made by Steven LaTulippe

Jeffrey Nightbyrd

David H. wrote:

— And would it be fair for some to regard Zionism as religious fanaticism? Historically the Zionists may have been judged fanatics but surely not religious. —

After looking around for a place to take over the secular Zionists chose Palestine because they could manipulate the more religious Jews into going there. Canada, South America and Uganda didn’t have the same caché. The recreation of Zion had been a subject of European Jewish political tracts for decades before Herzl came on the scene. Religion played the major factor in choosing a site. Herzl and Vladimir Jabotinsky were not religious but many other Zionists were and are. There are many forms of delusion, religion being a big one. The idea of the state as an entity is another. Politicians will use whatever delusions that will forward their own.

The tiny group of Hassidic Jews are courted when necessary but they are of no large significance. Kind of like the Amish. Their objections are those of a small minority, their exception highlights the rule of the majority. The rule is Erets Israel, the boundaries some think of as the land given to them by God.

Alan Pogue

It was given to them by God or so they say.

Charlie Loving

Chomsky is this time out to lunch.

The “plight” of the Palestinians is something that it is not in the interests of Arab governments to resolve and they have done nothing to resolve it.

There were any number of schemes on the table during Clinton’s last minute rush to cut a deal that would have resulted in an economically viable Palestinian state. Such a state is in Israel’s best interests and I expect even the right in Israel understands that on some level.

I’m not sure where I would have stood on the creation of the Israeli state, but I probably would have been for it in light of the then-recent horrors in Europe. What an opportunity–the Jews choose to ghettoize themselves in apparently worthless desert!

However that should have gone, it’s now a fait accompli that I can see little point in trying to undo.

From the point of view of my ancestors, that would be exactly like the United States and Canada.

I realize that our post-modern condition is allegedly that “civilization” and “barbarism” represent nothing but contested discourses overlying power relationship.

Fuck postmodernist.

If you dress up teens in C4 and send them into pizza parlors to detonate, you are a barbarian. Your “reasons” for doing so are entirely irrelevant. There is no politics that justifies the cultivation of suicide in pursuit of mass murder of non-combatants.

This is fundamental. Even Bush, twisted idiot that he is, grasps this truth and tries to trade on it politically. Why we let him escapes me.

Steve Russell

— Chomsky is this time out to lunch. —

Where is he going for lunch? Can I join him?

— If you dress up teens in C4 and send them into pizza parlors to detonate, you are a barbarian. Your “reasons” for doing so are entirely irrelevant. There is no politics that justifies the cultivation of suicide in pursuit of mass murder of non-combatants. —

If you dress up 25 year olds in F16s and attack helicopters and have them bomb apartment complexes you are a “barbarian”. Your “reasons” for doing so are entirely specious unless you are totally convinced of your inherent superior being and also convinced of the lack of humanity in your target group. Then your logic is fine but you premises are still bad. There is a politics that justifies the cultivation of a rational for genocide. It has been been driving much of recorded history. Those in power in Israel at the moment are the same as those who were in power in Germany in the 30s and 40s. The same types are in power now in Washington D.C., Moscow, and Beijing.

Theodor Herzl, the Father of Zionism, was very plain spoken. He said, in speaking for the whole group(“The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl”, Rafael Patai edition), that the aim of the Israeli state was to rid the entire area of Arabs. Those who are in charge of Israeli politics wish for only a one state solution. All other talk was/is camouflage. I have been from Haifa to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Ramalah. I have seen Palestinian homes demolished, passive rain collectors destroyed, roads destroyed, cars run over by Israeli tanks, olive orchards destroyed, Israeli highways run through Palestinian vineyards, roads built by USAID in Hebron that only Israelis could travel on, the Israeli condo complexes that are called “settlements” within Palestinian land, and the Klu Klux Klan-like settlers themselves. I have seen a generation of young educated Palestinians languish (HOWL, Alan Ginsburg), without any hope of using their education, within the Bantustans created by the Israeli government with U.S. support. I am only surprised that as few Palestinians have blown themselves up as have done so up to this point. If the Palestinian military had been funded by the U.S. to the same level as the Israeli military then there would be no desire for C4 vests.

There is no country of Palestine. Being a Palestinian is only good for being discriminated against. The Israeli right have seen to this as part of the essential plan to drive them out, as Herzl explicitly stated in his diaries and elsewhere. There was never any plan for a viable Palestinian state. For there to be one Israel would have to repudiate Zionism. Zionism is racism. Being Jewish is not being a Zionist but the Zionists have done a tremendous PR job. There are many shades of Zionism so don’t think every Zionist is a “Sharon” or a “Natanyatu” or “Olmert” but no matter how nice a Zionist is they must cling to some degree of the racial purity syndrome/delusion.

There was a viable Israeli left in the beginning but it was undone by the Capitalist Zionists. A good account of this is in “Zion & State” by Mitchell Cohen, 1992, Columbia University Press.

The essence is the racial, cultural purity thing used as an ideological force to be manipulated by the hollow greed heads. The hollow greed heads always fight to the top because they fail to comprehend any other reason for being. Also the constant striving for power is a distraction from contemplating their own mortality. They wish to think of themselves as indispensable, those benighted bastards.

Nation states are nonsense so It is always good to be explicit when using the word “we”. Check out this for a fine analysis of American media coverage of the Palestine/Israel conflict. Lets you know how and why “we” let Bush portray the conflict the way he does. The entire
corporate media complex is at his disposal on this issue.

Web site

Norman has made a career of debunking Zionist nut cases like Alan Dershowitz. Norman covers many of the misconceptions put forward by Steve as “truths”. Norm was in Austin a few months ago but I’m sure he didn’t get an op-ed in the Statesman or an invite to the Dell Jewish Center.

And, there are many Israeli, Palestinian and Palestinian/Israeli peace groups. They get zero coverage here in the U.S.. They are mentioned only to be disparaged. You may simply Google “Palestine Israel Peace” for a long list of sane people working for peace in the area but being ignored by “our” media. The forces of the military-industrial / corpmedia-theological complex tend to drown out all others. Propaganda works.

Alan the Pogue

What page or pages in the diaries of Theodore Herzl are you referring to?

The 5 volumes of his diaries are in the UT main library.

I want to check this out.

Thanks in advance.

Mike Eisenstadt

Volume 1 of Patai’s edition, but I don’t have it in front of me. There are many editions. The one by Marvin Lowenthal is so highly edited as to be useless. The original was in 16 handwritten copy books, 1895 to 1904.

Here is the quote:

“We shall try to spirit away the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. …expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”

Part of Herzl’s genius was to realize that the European/Russian Jews could not simply buy up the land underneath the feet of the Palestinians, mostly from absentee landlords, because the land prices would go up and the Palestinians would catch on and revolt, which they did. Herzl saw that he needed a political solution. He needed some powerful countries to simply give the land to the Zionists. This would take a lot of money and careful lobbying. Herzl didn’t live to see the completion of his plan but it was his plan that prevailed.

Jordan is a transit country, completely beholden to the U.S.. Egyptian politicians are also bought off, ditto for Saudi Arabian royalty. But they can’t stand by every U.S./Israeli abuse of Arabs and stay in power so they have have to make a few statements for moderation of the destruction. There is one’s bank account and then there is public opinion. One wants to be able to live to spend the money.

Then there is China making better deals.

There is permanent narrow self interest and no permanent allies. People who love power are dealing with others who only love power so there is the realpolitik, Henry Kissinger style. Nation states have no real meaning here. No morality , of course, no greater good, no long term good. There is only the adrenalin rush of being in power now, infantilism powered by lust for power and a high enough I.Q. gives you most of today’s “leaders”. Living in the absolute moment in the absolute negative.

Alan Pogue

It began innocently enough when David Hamilton posted an article titled, “Hatred of the US is Now Universal: Osama Has Won” by Brian Cloughley (it can be found here). The conversation is pretty clearly not yet over, so these postings will go on for some days to come.

Richard J.

David has good taste, but this piece too seems unable to engage the horrors of the Middle East in a principled way.

It is, essentially, an argument for moral equivalence between dropping bombs that kill children as an unintended but foreseeable result and training children to strap on explosives and blow themselves to smithereens.

The public won’t buy it and in this the public is smarter than the intelligencia.

The reason nobody gives a rat’s ass that Israel has nukes is that we know Israel has had nukes for a long time without using or threatening to use them. We trust Israel not to turn nuclear technology over to non-state actors for the purpose of killing non-combatants on purpose, aka terrorism.

Yes, Israel was born in terrorism.

Yes, Israel’s “democracy” is such only for Jews.

Yes, Israel’s attack on the Lebanese infrastructure is indefensible but Bush blindly defends it.

But accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing by murder” in Gaza?

Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally. It has no more interest in occupying Gaza than in occupying Southern Lebanon.

The ethnic cleansing Israel was interested in was complete by 1950.

If this guy wants to argue that the prime Israeli sin is the fact that the state of Israel exists, he should do so out front rather than sleaze along by implication.

The US under Bush has given up any pretense of being an honest broker. This is, folks, a case where if you are not on board with the necessity to destroy the state of Israel then there really is a big BIG difference between Repugs and Dems. Both Carter and Clinton devoted time and energy and twisting Israeli arms to making peace in the Middle East. Bush ridiculed Clinton’s efforts and engaged in no efforts of his own. Now, his idea of policy is whatever the current government in Israel wants. In that sense, yes, Osama has won. He has alleged that the US and Israel are the same and Bush has made it so.

Steve Russell

Steve,
OK, it might not have been my greatest choice. But it got you to write, which ought to count for something.

Allow me to argue against one statement you make, that “The ethnic cleansing Israel was interested in was complete by 1950.”

My reading says this is an on-going process and that is what I see being attempted in southern Lebanon. For example, the following is a quote from Chomsky’s latest, “Failed States”, p.192-3.

“The centerpiece of the Sharon-Bush programs in the occupied territories in 2005 was presented as a ‘disengagement plan’ offering new hopes for peace, but that is highly misleading. It is true that sane US-Israeli rejectionists wanted Israel’s illegal settlements removed from Gaza, which has been turned into a disaster area under occupation, with a few thousand Jewish settlers, protected by a substantial part of the Israeli army, taking much of the land and scarce resources. Far more reasonable for US-Israeli goals is to leave Gaza as ‘the largest and most overcrowded prison in the world’, in which over a million Palestinians can rot, largely cut off from contact with the outside by land and sea, and with few means of sustenance.(50)

“That the Gaza pullout was in reality an expansion plan was hardly concealed. As the plan was made public, Finance Minister Shaul Mofaz ‘met to discuss another matter: bolstering West Bank settlement blocs that are slated to be annexed to Israel in a final agreement.’ Sharon also approved 550 new apartments in Ma’aleh Adumim, informing the ministers that there is no ‘political problem’ despite assurances (with a wink) from Condeleezza Rice. Elliott Abrams, Bush’s Middle East advisor, let Israelis understand that the US was concerned about the ‘media blitz’ – but not about the projects themselves, which may therefore proceed in accord with he principle of ‘building quietly’.”

I see this as one contemporary example (among many) of decades of Zionist encroachment on Palestinian land designed to ultimately divide the West Bank, leaving three separate, economically unviable “bantustans” for the Palestinians.

David Hamilton

This applies not only to this discussion about Israeli tactics and motives, but also to the previous, brief thread titled “www.debka.com gets its scoops from inside the IDF.”

It seems relatively clear, even from some MSM reporting, that Israel has some peculiar rules of engagement. But it seems equally clear that Hezbollah is not all fair play either.

I’m with Steve – since 2000, the US has disengaged from diplomacy. Vinegar instead of honey will ruin the wine.

Richard Jehn

ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM FACTS
1. ISRAEL BECAME A STATE IN 1312 B.C., TWO MILLENNIA BEFORE ISLAM;

2. ARAB REFUGEES FROM ISRAEL BEGAN CALLING THEMSELVES “PALESTINIANS” IN 1967, TWO DECADES AFTER (MODERN) ISRAELI STATEHOOD;

3. AFTER CONQUERING THE LAND IN 1272 B.C., JEWS RULED IT FOR A THOUSAND YEARS AND MAINTAINED A CONTINUOUS PRESENCE THERE FOR 3,300 YEARS;

4. THE ONLY ARAB RULE FOLLOWING CONQUEST IN 633 B.C. LASTED JUST 22 YEARS;

5. FOR OVER 3,300 YEARS, JERUSALEM WAS THE JEWISH CAPITAL. IT WAS NEVER THE CAPITAL OF ANY ARAB OR MUSLIM ENTITY. EVEN UNDER JORDANIAN RULE, (EAST) JERUSALEM WAS NOT MADE THE CAPITAL, AND NO ARAB LEADER CAME TO VISIT IT;

6. JERUSALEM IS MENTIONED OVER 700 TIMES IN THE BIBLE, BUT NOT ONCE IS IT MENTIONED IN THE QUR’AN;

7. KING DAVID FOUNDED JERUSALEM; MOHAMMED NEVER SET FOOT IN IT;

8. JEWS PRAY FACING JERUSALEM; MUSLIMS FACE MECCA. IF THEY ARE BETWEEN THE TWO CITIES, MUSLIMS PRAY FACING MECCA, WITH THEIR BACKS TO JERUSALEM;

9. IN 1948, ARAB LEADERS URGED THEIR PEOPLE TO LEAVE, PROMISING TO CLEANSE THE LAND OF JEWISH PRESENCE. 68% OF THEM FLED WITHOUT EVER SETTING EYES ON AN ISRAELI SOLDIER;

10. VIRTUALLY THE ENTIRE JEWISH POPULATION OF MUSLIM COUNTRIES HAD TO FLEE AS THE RESULT OF VIOLENCE AND POGROMS;

11. SOME 630,000 ARABS LEFT ISRAEL IN 1948, WHILE CLOSE TO A MILLION JEWS WERE FORCED TO LEAVE THE MUSLIM COUNTRIES;

12. IN SPITE OF THE VAST TERRITORIES AT THEIR DISPOSAL, ARAB REFUGESS WERE DELIBERATELY PREVENTED FROM ASSIMILATING INTO THEIR HOST COUNTRIES. OF 100 MILLION REFUGEES FOLLOWING WORLD WAR 2, THEY ARE THE ONLY GROUP TO HAVE NEVER INTEGRATED WITH THEIR CORELIGIONISTS. MOST OF THE JEWISH REFUGEES FROM EUROPE AND ARAB LANDS WERE SETTLED IN ISRAEL, A COUNTRY NO LARGER THAN NEW JERSEY;

13. THERE ARE 22 MUSLIM COUNTRIES, NOT COUNTING PALESTINE. THERE IS ONLY ONE JEWISH STATE. ARABS STARTED ALL FIVE WARS AGAINST ISRAEL, AND LOST EVERY ONE OF THEM;

14. FATAH AND HAMAS CONSTITUTIONS STILL CALL FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL. ISRAEL CEDED MOST OF THE WEST BANK AND ALL OF GAZA TO THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, AND EVEN PROVIDED IT WITH ARMS;

15. DURING THE JORDANIAN OCCUPATION, JEWISH HOLY SITES WERE VANDALIZED AND WERE OFF LIMITS TO JEWS. UNDER ISRAELI RULE, ALL MUSLIM AND CHRISTIAN HOLY SITES ARE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL FAITHS;

16. OUT OF 175 UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS UP TO 1990, 97 WERE AGAINST ISRAEL; OUT OF 690 GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTIONS, 429 WERE AGAINST ISRAEL;

18. THE U.N. WAS SILENT WHEN THE JORDANIANS DESTROYED 58 SYNAGOGUES IN THE OLD CITY OF JERUSALEM. IT REMAINED SILENT WHILE JORDAN SYSTEMATICALLY DESECRATED THE ANCIENT JEWISH CEMETERY ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, AND IT REMAINED SILENT WHEN JORDAN ENFORCED APARTHEID LAWS PREVENTING JEWS FROM ACCESSING THE TEMPLE MOUNT AND WESTERN WALL.

THESE ARE TRYING TIMES. WE MUST ASK OURSELVES WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING, AND WHAT WE WILL TELL OUR GRANDCHILDREN ABOUT OUR

ACTIONS DURING THIS CRISIS, WHEN WE HAD THE CHANCE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Posted by Charlie Loving

Some of the numbered points Charlie just forwarded are misleading although not outright falsehoods. Most so far as I have researched them (as I have done continuously since November 1947) are absolutely true.

9 is the honest guess that only 32% of Arabs in the Israeli part of the partition were forced to leave by the Israelis. This fact has only recently been examined by Israeli historians in published books. Ben Gurion did in fact order the Israeli army to run off as many as possible (but not kill them as Arabs would do in this circumstance) in the course of the war which the Israelis call the war of independance and the Arabs call the Naqba (the catastrophe). In light of the corresponding fact that if the Israelis lost this war, all of them would die or be forced to leave, Ben Gurion acted on the justification of *raison d’etat*. Looking back at this from 58 years later IMO Ben Gurion was justified in so doing. As Arnold would say Ben Gurion was not a girly-man.

10 and 11 need to be precised. 1 million Arab Jews left of their own free will from Iraq, Iran, Morocco. As regards Yemen, not. There apparently the Mossad created some incidents and stampeded the Yemeni Jews to get on DC-3s and fly away. These were humble craftsmen for the most part and were DDTed on arrival and put in tents. Likewise the Moroccan jews were shuffled off to “development towns” in less interesting parts of the country and their resentment lasts to this day.

Mike Eisenstadt

End This Tragedy Now
Israel Must Be Made to Respect International Law

By Fouad Siniora
Wednesday, August 9, 2006; Page A17

BEIRUT

A military solution to Israel’s savage war on Lebanon and the Lebanese people is both morally unacceptable and totally unrealistic. We in Lebanon call upon the international community and citizens everywhere to support my country’s sovereignty and end this folly now. We also insist that Israel be made to respect international humanitarian law, including the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, which it has repeatedly and willfully violated.

This is the first paragraph of Mr. Siniora’s recent statement. Mr. Siniora is Prime Minister of Lebanon. His statement is 2 Web pages long (top page of nytimes.com). Hezbollah is not even mentioned once.

As the anti-Straussians at the University of Chicago used to ask, “Why is Allen Bloom the most important person in Plato’s Republic? Because he’s not even mentioned once.” Bob Charles told me that one.

Mike Eisenstadt

The Real Estate War by Gideon Levy
The Junkies of War By Uri Avnery
Another IDF Refusenik Jailed By Dimi Reider
The Tortured Language of War: Whitewashing Atrocities By Shamai Leibowitz

David Hamilton

The articles published in Haaretz from the Left or Peace Now viewpoint used to be convincing. Now no longer.

It may be noted that Ben Gurion, right after the 1967 Six Day war, he then in retirement and out of the government, recommended that the captured areas (the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and the Sinai) be returned forthwith. His advice alas was not followedThe Peace Now position (as you read in the articles David H. forwarded) was that if the land expropriated in the West Bank and the Golan Heights were returned, an agreement could be reached that would leave Israel at peace. I personally had long held this view.

That viewpoint is no longer tenable due to the rise of Islamist fundamentalism. Their bottom line unnegotiable position is that all lands once under Islamic rule must be returned to Islamic rule (that includes Spain by the way). Please note: it isn’t what the jews do, it is that the jews rule over what the jews call Israel (=most of historical Palestine). That this is indeed their view is always claimed by Islamic fundamentalist spokesmen (Nasbullah for example) and proved in hard fact by the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza last summer which was followed by rocket attacks (home made rockets these) on Sderot near the border with Gaza by the jihadists which continue to this day.

Olmert and Amir Peretz may be indeed by clueless but that does not mean that Israel does not face an existential threat to its continued existence. The Islamicist threat is not going away no matter what the government of Israel might do to propreciate them. Unfortunately the arguments from the few remaining Peace Activists are at this point mere wishful thinking. These were convincing arguments once but now no longer in the face of the new Islamic fundamentalism. It is impossible to believe that Nasrullah and the rest of fundamentalist Islam will ever agree to anything short of extirpating the “usurping Zionist entity” as N. so charmingly puts it.

Mike Eisenstadt

(Note: I acknowledge being an unrepentant Chomskyista. DH)

ZNet Commentary
Apocalypse Near August 08, 2006
By Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Merav Yudilovitch

Last week, a group of renowned intellectuals published an open letter blaming Israel for escalating the conflict in the Middle East. The letter, which mainly referred to the alignment of forces between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, caused a lot of anger among Ynet and Ynetnews readers, particularly due to its claim that the Israeli policy’s political aim is to eliminate the Palestinian nation.

The letter was formulated by art critic and author John Berger and among its signatories were Nobel Prize winner, playwright Harold Pinter, linguist and theoretician Noam Chomsly, Nobel Prize laureate José Saramago, Booker Prize laureate Arundhati Roy, American author Russell Banks, author and playwright Gore Vidal, and historian Howard Zinn.

Prof. Chomsky, you claimed that the provocation and counter-provocation all serve as a distraction from the real issue. What does it mean?

“I assume you are referring to John Berger’s letter (which I signed, among others). The “real issue” that is being ignored is the systematic destruction of any prospects for a viable Palestinian existence as Israel annexes valuable land and major resources, leaving the shrinking territories assigned to Palestinians as unviable cantons, largely separated from one another and from whatever little bit of Jerusalem is to be left to Palestinians, and completely imprisoned as Israel takes over the Jordan valley.

“This program of realignment cynically disguised as “withdrawal,” is of course completely illegal, in violation of Security Council resolutions and the unanimous decision of the World Court (including the dissenting statement of US Justice Buergenthal). If it is implemented as planned, it spells the end of the very broad international consensus on a two-state settlement that the US and Israel have unilaterally blocked for 30 years – matters that are so well documented that I do not have to review them here.

“To turn to your specific question, even a casual look at the Western press reveals that the crucial developments in the occupied territories are marginalized even more by the war in Lebanon. The ongoing destruction in Gaza – which was rarely seriously reported in the first place – has largely faded into the background, and the systematic takeover of the West Bank has virtually disappeared.

“However, I would not go as far as the implication in your question that this was a purpose of the war, though it clearly is the effect. We should recall that Gaza and the West Bank are recognized to be a unit, so that if resistance to Israel’s destructive and illegal programs is legitimate within the West Bank (and it would be interesting to see a rational argument to the contrary), then it is legitimate in Gaza as well.”

You claim that the world media refuses to link between what’s going on in the occupied territories and in Lebanon?

“Yes, but that is the least of the charges that should be leveled against the world media, and the intellectual communities generally. One of many far more severe charges is brought up in the opening paragraph of the Berger letter.

“Recall the facts. On June 25, Cpl. Gilad Shalit was captured, eliciting huge cries of outrage worldwide, continuing daily at a high pitch, and a sharp escalation in Israeli attacks in Gaza, supported on the grounds that capture of a soldier is a grave crime for which the population must be punished.

One day before, on June 24, Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians, Osama and Mustafa Muamar, by any standards a far more severe crime than capture of a soldier. The Muamar kidnappings were certainly known to the major world media. They were reported at once in the English-language Israeli press, basically IDF handouts. And there were a few brief, scattered and dismissive reports in several newspapers around the US.

Very revealingly, there was no comment, no follow-up, and no call for military or terrorist attacks against Israel. A Google search will quickly reveal the relative significance in the West of the kidnapping of civilians by the IDF and the capture of an Israeli soldier a day later.

“The paired events, a day apart, demonstrate with harsh clarity that the show of outrage over the Shalit kidnapping was cynical fraud. They reveal that by Western moral standards, kidnapping of civilians is just fine if it is done by “our side,” but capture of a soldier on “our side” a day later is a despicable crime that requires severe punishment of the population.

“As Gideon Levy accurately wrote in Ha’aretz, the IDF kidnapping of civilians the day before the capture of Cpl. Shalit strips away any “legitimate basis for the IDF’s operation,” and, we may add, any legitimate basis for support for these operations.

The same elementary moral principles carry over to the July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers near the Lebanon border, heightened, in this case, by the regular Israeli practice for many years of abducting Lebanese and holding many as hostages for long periods.

Truly disgraceful

“Over the many years in which Israel carried out these practices regularly, even kidnapping on the high seas, no one ever argued that these crimes justified bombing and shelling of Israel, invasion and destruction of much of the country, or terrorist actions within it. The conclusions are stark, clear, and entirely unambiguous – hence suppressed.

“All of this is, obviously, of extraordinary importance in the present case, particularly given the dramatic timing. That is, I suppose, why the major media chose to avoid the crucial facts, apart from a very few scattered and dismissive phrases, revealing that they consider kidnapping a matter of no significance when carried by US-supported Israeli forces.

“Apologists for state crimes claim that the kidnapping of the Gaza civilians is justified by IDF claims that they are ‘Hamas militants’ or were planning crimes. By their logic, they should therefore be lauding the capture of Gilad Shalit, a soldier in an army that was shelling and bombing Gaza. These performances are truly disgraceful.”

You are talking first and foremost about acknowledging the Palestinian nation, but will it solve the “Iranian threat”? Will it push Hizbullah from the Israeli border?

“Virtually all informed observers agree that a fair and equitable resolution of the plight of the Palestinians would considerably weaken the anger and hatred of Israel and the US in the Arab and Muslim worlds – and far beyond, as international polls reveal. Such an agreement is surely within reach, if the US and Israel depart from their long-standing rejectionism.

“On Iran and Hizbullah, there is, of course, much more to say, and I can only mention a few central points here.

“Let us begin with Iran. In 2003, Iran offered to negotiate all outstanding issues with the US, including nuclear issues and a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The offer was made by the moderate Khatami government, with the support of the hard-line “supreme leader” Ayatollah Khamenei. The Bush administration response was to censure the Swiss
diplomat who brought the offer.

“In June 2006, Ayatollah Khamenei issued an official declaration stating that Iran agrees with the Arab countries on the issue of Palestine, meaning that it accepts the 2002 Arab League call for full normalization of relations with Israel in a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus. The timing suggests that this might have been a reprimand to his subordinate Ahmadenijad, whose inflammatory statements are given wide publicity in the West, unlike the far more important declaration by his superior Khamenei.

“Of course, the PLO has officially backed a two-state solution for many years, and backed the 2002 Arab League proposal. Hamas has also indicated its willingness to negotiate a two-state settlement, as is surely well-known in Israel. Kharazzi is reported to be the author of the 2003 proposal of Khatami and Khamanei.

“The US and Israel do not want to hear any of this. They also do not want to hear that Iran appears to be the only country to have accepted the proposal by IAEA director Mohammed ElBaradei that all weapons-usable fissile materials be placed under international control, a step towards a verifiable Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty.

“ElBaradei’s proposal, if implemented, would not only end the Iranian nuclear crisis but would also deal with a vastly more serious crisis: The growing threat of nuclear war, which leads prominent strategic analysts to warn of ‘apocalypse soon’ (Robert McNamara) if policies continue on their current course.

“The US strongly opposes a verifiable FMCT, but over US objections, the treaty came to a vote at the United Nations, where it passed 147-1, with two abstentions: Israel, which cannot oppose its patron, and more interestingly, Blair’s Britain, which retains a degree of sovereignty. The British ambassador stated that Britain supports the treaty, but it “divides the international community”. These again are matters that are virtually suppressed outside of specialist circles, and are matters of literal survival of the species, extending far beyond Iran.

“It is commonly said that the ‘international community’ has called on Iran to abandon its legal right to enrich uranium. That is true, if we define the “international community” as Washington and whoever happens to go along with it. It is surely not true of the world. The non-aligned countries have forcefully endorsed Iran’s “inalienable right” to enrich uranium. And, rather remarkably, in Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, a majority of the population favor accepting a nuclear-armed Iran over any American military action, international polls reveal.

“The non-aligned countries also called for a nuclear-free Middle East, a longstanding demand of the authentic international community, again blocked by the US and Israel. It should be recognized that the threat of Israeli nuclear weapons is taken very seriously in the world.

“As explained by the former Commander-in-Chief of the US Strategic Command, General Lee Butler, “it is dangerous in the extreme that in the cauldron of animosities that we call the Middle East, one nation has armed itself, ostensibly, with stockpiles of nuclear weapons, perhaps numbering in the hundreds, and that inspires other nations to do so.” Israel is doing itself no favors if it ignores these concerns.

“It is also of some interest that when Iran was ruled by the tyrant installed by a US-UK military coup, the United States – including Rumsfeld, Cheney, Kissinger, Wolfowitz and others – strongly supported the Iranian nuclear programs they now condemn and helped provide Iran with the means to pursue them. These facts are surely not lost on the Iranians, just as they have not forgotten the very strong support of the US and its allies for Saddam Hussein during his murderous aggression, including help in developing the chemical weapons that killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians.

Peaceful means

“There is a great deal more to say, but it appears that the “Iranian threat” to which you refer can be approached by peaceful means, if the US and Israel would agree. We cannot know whether the Iranian proposals are serious, unless they are explored. The US-Israel refusal to explore them, and the silence of the US (and, to my knowledge, European) media, suggests that the governments fear that they may be serious.

“I should add that to the outside world, it sounds a bit odd, to put it mildly, for the US and Israel to be warning of the “Iranian threat” when they and they alone are issuing threats to launch an attack, threats that are immediate and credible, and in serious violation of international law, and are preparing very openly for such an attack. Whatever one thinks of Iran, no such charge can be made in their case. It is also apparent to the world, if not to the US and Israel, that Iran has not invaded any other countries, something that the US and Israel do regularly.

“On Hizbullah too, there are hard and serious questions. As well-known, Hizbullah was formed in reaction to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and its harsh and brutal occupation in violation of Security Council orders. It won considerable prestige by playing the leading role in driving out the aggressors.

“The 1982 invasion was carried out after a year in which Israel regularly bombed Lebanon, trying desperately to elicit some PLO violation of the 1981 truce, and when it failed, attacked anyway, on the ludicrous pretext that Ambassador Argov had been wounded (by Abu Nidal, who was at war with the PLO). The invasion was clearly intended, as virtually conceded, to end the embarrassing PLO initiatives for negotiation, a “veritable catastrophe” for Israel as Yehoshua Porat pointed out.

Shameful pretexts

“It was, as described at the time, a “war for the West Bank.” The later invasions also had shameful pretexts. In 1993, Hizbullah had violated “the rules of the game,” Yitzhak Rabin announced: these Israeli rules permitted Israel to carry out terrorist attacks north of its illegally-held “security zone,” but did not permit retaliation within Israel. Peres’s 1996 invasion had similar pretexts. It is convenient to forget all of this, or to concoct tales about shelling of the Galilee in 1981, but it is not an attractive practice, nor a wise one.

“The problem of Hezbollah’s arms is quite serious, no doubt. Resolution 1559 calls for disarming of all Lebanese militias, but Lebanon has not enacted that provision. Sunni Prime Minister Fuad Siniora describes Hizbullah’s military wing as “resistance rather than as a militia, and thus exempt from” Resolution 1559.

“A National Dialogue in June 2006 failed to resolve the problem. Its main purpose was to formulate a “national defense strategy” (vis-Ã -vis Israel), but it remained deadlocked over Hizbullah’s call for “a defense strategy that allowed the Islamic Resistance to keep its weapons as a deterrent to possible Israeli aggression,” in the absence of any credible alternative. The US could, if it chose, provide a credible guarantee against an invasion by its client state, but that would require a sharp change in long-standing policy.

“In the background are crucial facts emphasized by several veteran Middle East correspondents. Rami Khouri, now an editor of Lebanon’s Daily Star, writes that “the Lebanese and Palestinians have responded to Israel’s persistent and increasingly savage attacks against entire civilian populations by creating parallel or alternative leaderships that can protect them and deliver essential services.”

You are not referring in your letter to the Israeli casualties. Is there differentiation in your opinion between Israeli civic casualties of war and Lebanese or Palestinian casualties?

“That is not accurate. John Berger’s letter is very explicit about making no distinction between Israeli and other casualties. As his letter states: “Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly – who but field commanders can forget this for a moment.”

“You claimed that the world is cooperating with the Israeli invasion to Lebanon and is not interfering in the events Gaza and Jenin. What purpose does this silence serve?

“The great majority of the world can do nothing but protest, though it is fully expected that the intense anger and resentment caused by US-Israeli violence will – as in the past – prove to be a gift for the most extremist and violent elements, mobilizing new recruits to their cause.

“The US-backed Arab tyrannies did condemn Hizbullah, but are being forced to back down out of fear of their own populations. Even King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Washington’s most loyal (and most important) ally, was compelled to say that “If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance, then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire.”

“As for Europe, it is unwilling to take a stand against the US administration, which has made it clear that it supports the destruction of Palestine and Israeli violence. With regard to Palestine, while Bush’s stand is extreme, it has its roots in earlier policies. The week in Taba in January 2001 is the only real break in US rejectionism in 30 years.

“The US also strongly supported earlier Israeli invasions of Lebanon, though in 1982 and 1996, it compelled Israel to terminate its aggression when atrocities were reaching a point that harmed US interests.

“Unfortunately, one can generalize a comment of Uri Avnery’s about Dan Halutz, who “views the world below through a bombsight.” Much the same is true of Rumsfeld-Cheney-Rice, and other top Bush administration planners, despite occasional soothing rhetoric. As history reveals, that view of the world is not uncommon among those who hold a virtual monopoly of the means of violence, with consequences that we need not review.”

What is the next chapter in this middle-eastern conflict as you see it?

“I do not know of anyone foolhardy enough to predict. The US and Israel are stirring up popular forces that are very ominous, and which will only gain in power and become more extremist if the US and Israel persist in demolishing any hope of realization of Palestinian national rights, and destroying Lebanon. It should also be recognized that Washington’s primary concern, as in the past, is not Israel and Lebanon, but the vast energy resources of the Middle East, recognized 60 years ago to be a “stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”

“We can expect with confidence that the US will continue to do what it can to control this unparalleled source of strategic power. That may not be easy. The remarkable incompetence of Bush planners has created a catastrophe in Iraq, for their own interests as well. They are even facing the possibility of the ultimate nightmare: a loose Shi’a alliance controlling the world’s major energy supplies, and independent of Washington – or even worse, establishing closer links with the China-based Asian Energy Security Grid and Shanghai Cooperation Council.

“The results could be truly apocalyptic. And even in tiny Lebanon, the leading Lebanese academic scholar of Hizbullah, and a harsh critic of the organization, describes the current conflict in “apocalyptic terms,” warning that possibly “All hell would be let loose” if the outcome of the US-Israel campaign leaves a situation in which “the Shiite community is seething with resentment at Israel, the United States and the government that it perceives as its betrayer.

“It is no secret that in past years, Israel has helped to destroy secular Arab nationalism and to create Hizbullah and Hamas, just as US violence has expedited the rise of extremist Islamic fundamentalism and jihad terror. The reasons are understood. There are constant warnings about it by Western intelligence agencies, and by the leading specialists on these topics.

“One can bury one’s head in the sand and take comfort in a “wall-to-wall consensus” that what we do is “just and moral” (Maoz), ignoring the lessons of recent history, or simple rationality. Or one can face the facts, and approach dilemmas which are very serious by peaceful means. They are available. Their success can never be guaranteed. But we can be reasonably confident that viewing the world through a bombsight will bring further misery and suffering, perhaps even ‘apocalypse soon.'”

Posted by David Hamilton

While we’re looking to the Mideast, there’s a new uprising going on down South, with so far, a few disappearances, one assasination, and lots of excited and so far, successful folks taking over parts of the government.

I’ve been getting news via someone I don’t know who’s sent out info from there for quite a while. He recommends The OSAG website is at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oaxacastudyactiongroup/

To subscribe write to

oaxacastudyactiongroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

I subscribed today, and will monitor it, but if you want your own, then you can also do that. I hesitate to forward things to you.

Another recommended source of info (which may duplicate the OSAG) www.narconews.com

This column comes in the immediate aftermath of the news that Britain and the U.S. just escaped a major terrorist scrape. Therefore, it is necessary to qualify it with “if things are as they currently appear.” When the Brits shot down a man for nothing more than being scared of pistol-waving loons, they showed themselves capable of The Big Lie. And of course The Big Lie by the Bush Administration put us in the middle of the (allegedly nonexistent) Iraqi civil war. So relying on first impressions from these governments is always chancy.

While no airplanes have been blown out of the sky, the convenience of air travel has taken another major hit, as have airline stocks. Such is the terror value of close calls. In my life experience, the convenience of air travel is fairly new, so I have a long term view.

I grew up in rural Oklahoma, where travel was Tulsa in one direction and Oklahoma City in the other and the most common method was hitch-hiking, a means of transport that remained a habit for me until it dies of interstate highways and crime paranoia.

Naturally, I traveled by air when in the Air Force, but there was no bureaucracy involved. A superior pointed at which plane and I got on. I remained ignorant of commercial air travel.

When I graduated from UT and became a judge, I started an offensive against domestic violence in the Austin criminal justice system, bringing in the women who had put together one of the first women’s shelters in the country to advise on the many places where the system was failing battered women. When the changes in Austin got media notice, I began to get invitations to speak around the state. These came with plane tickets, and I began to learn the drill of flying.

In the nineties, my wife got a job with Southwest Airlines and one of my daughters got a job with Delta. I had free flying privileges on two airlines, and I became an expert at navigating the “non-rev” (non-revenue=empty seats) universe. There are many tricks to predicting which flights will have empty seats and, of course, when you are non-reving you are not bound by published itineraries and you can get somewhere with splendidly roundabout flights. I wonder how that is done now, when you can no longer just walk up to the gate, flash a pass, and get on? You can’t even get to the gate without a ticket, and flying with no luggage gets you the hairy eyeball.

My wife quit Southwest on September 10, 2001. I consider us lucky the FBI never came to ask about that. On September 11, my daughter who worked for Delta was in Finland. It took her quite a while to get home and she got her corkscrew confiscated, something she carried only for her flight attendant duties. Non-reving on Delta got more complicated, as you had to make a reservation, understanding that if all the seats sold you would not get on. Standing around the airport waiting for an empty seat became pretty impractical, given the bureaucracy.

I’ve come the full circle now. I avoid flying whenever I can. When I can’t, I need a Valium. Not for fear of flying, but for having to silently endure all the indignities that go with flying these days. You don’t dare call the idiots idiots. They will bury you under the jail. Which brings me to the new (as of yesterday) protocols.

Nothing liquid, because the terrorists finally figured out that you can make boom with a chemical reaction and it does not take much boom to depressurize an airplane.

Comment from my mother-in-law: “They took all the expensive stuff and left the cheap stuff!” This from an elderly Republican woman.

Comment from a CNN reporter who does travel news: “I lost $125 worth of stuff.”

Comment from a terrorism consultant: “They are looking for things, not threats.”

The protocol is akin to the assembly line. Students of labor history will recall how production became efficient by breaking the process down into tiny tasks that required little training. It no longer took a craftsman to make a serviceable automobile. Medical protocols are designed to avoid obvious mistakes even if they sometimes result in wasted motion. On my last visit to the Veteran’s Administration Clinic, I was asked whether I had sexual relationships with other service members when I was on active duty and whether any of those relationships were traumatic? “I was seventeen years old. What do you think?”

The terrorism protocols at airports are designed to be used by minimally educated people, who are all Homeland Insecurity will get for what they are paying. To avoid claims of racial profiling, the people on the ground have little discretion and elderly Republican women lose their cosmetics. To avoid public condemnation when the next strike hits, protocols get redesigned to take in what is publicly known about prior attempts. Therefore, we get to take off our shoes in honor of Richard Reid.

El Al, the Israeli airline that would be a highly prized terrorism target, takes a more specialized approach. You practically have to have your head shrunk to get on, given the depth of the interview, but once you get on you can cut your meat with a knife. I don’t know which is more surprising—that El Al allows knives or that they still serve food.

The Brits, in addition to banning all liquids in the hope of avoiding the reactants, are also aiming at ignition sources. Therefore, no ipods, cell phones or other electronic devices. In one previous attack, the ignition source was a Casio watch, but I am not informed whether they are banning watches.

The downside to these protocols, besides mass inconvenience to people highly unlikely to pose any threat, is that terrorists can learn over time to game the protocols. Overtly profile Arabs and the next strike will be by non-Arabs. Train the dogs to sniff nitrates and the task becomes to identify non-nitrate explosives.

The safer method is the one El Al uses, but U.S. and British carriers have a lot more flights than El Al. There has been some experimentation with allegedly foolproof identification for frequent flyers, but that has yet to catch on. There is somebody named Steve Russell on the terror watch list, making flying even more of an adventure for me. A quick Google search will demonstrate that there are many Steve Russells inconvenienced by one of us. While my views are anti-government, they are also non-violent and quite public for my entire life. Since I have to fly a couple of times a year and I can demonstrate to anybody with a brain that I pose no terrorism threat, there ought to be some way for me to just get on and off the damn airplane. There isn’t.

I have sworn off flying short of dire necessity. So have many others. Flying is just too much trouble and likely to remain so as long as our government puts the public relations of random stops over the practicality of, for example, screening cargo. The purpose of the protocols is currently not to identify threats but to show the public that the government is on the ball in terms of known threats. Therefore, the terrorists can continue to ratchet up the inconvenience factor at will and harm the airline industry at very little cost. If things are as they currently appear.

Steve Russell

A Greek-Style Menu (29 May 2004)

This was a try at something interesting to celebrate a visit from Mom over the weekend. It turned out very well !!

For timing the meal: (1) prepare the lamb chop marinate to get the process going; (2) start cooking the beans; (3) while the beans cook, prepare the roasted feta dish, cover and refrigerate; (4) have a rest, then finish chopping other vegetables for the salad and set up the baking dish for the roasted tomatoes; (5) complete the menu by preheating the oven to 375° F. and roasting the lamb chops, tomatoes and feta while you mix the bean salad.

A Salad of White Beans and Vegetables

1/2 cup dried cannellini (or white navy) beans, rinsed
2 bay leaves and a teaspoon of oregano
Water

Cover the beans with 2 inches water, add the herbs, and bring to a simmer. The beans will require 2-1/2 to 3 hours to become tender. Ensure the water never entirely evaporates in this process.

1/2 cup fresh Italian parsley, chopped
1/2 a large red onion, finely chopped
1 medium red pepper, chopped
1/4 medium poblano chile, finely chopped
1 tablespoon Coleman’s mustard powder
Juice of 1 to 1-1/2 lemons, strained
4 tablespoons capers
1/2 teaspoon cayenne chile powder
Salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste
Extra virgin olive oil

When the beans are tender, drain them well removing the bay leaves, place in a bowl and add the parsley, red onion, and two chopped peppers. Briefly toss. Emulsify the mustard powder in the lemon juice, then add all remaining ingredients excepting oil. Toss again to mix, then add just enough olive oil for your personal taste, tossing carefully once more. Serve with Kalamata olives and Daktyla on the side.

Marinated, Roasted Lamb Chops and Balsamic Tomatoes

Juice of 1 lemon, strained
1/3 cup olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon each, dried marjoram and oregano
1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary
2 thick-cut lamb chops

Whisk first 5 ingredients in a bowl large enough to accommodate chops, add chops, cover and refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours. When you’re ready, roast the chops for about 20 to 25 minutes at 375° F. to desired doneness.

2 large, ripe tomatoes, halved
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Lightly oil a small baking dish and add the tomatoes, cut side up. Just before you will roast them, drizzle a little balsamic vinegar on them, then season to taste. They should be roasted with the feta and chops for about 20 to 25 minutes at 375° F.

Spicy Roasted Feta

4 to 5 ounce block of feta cheese, sliced 1/4-inch thick
Olive oil to coat baking dish, plus a bit to drizzle
1/4 teaspoon cayenne chile powder
1/2 teaspoon pasilla chile powder
Dried oregano to taste
2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley, chopped

Coat a small baking dish lightly with oil and lay cheese slices in it, then drizzle a bit more onto the cheese, followed by all the spices and herbs. Bake for 15 or 20 minutes at 375° F. until cheese is just beginning to melt.

Longtime friendships are the most important thing you have that makes your life worthwhile, excepting your Family. Value them as you would your life and the love of your life.

* FF = Foodie Friday