This is from the New York Times, published in the Times magazine yesterday. This is the takeaways from the original article, which I am reading and will present material from over the weekend: Radical forces in Israeli society have moved from the fringes to the mainstream and put Israel’s democracy in peril. Here are the takeaways from our investigation.
What is the saying? Failure when good men look aside - or something like that. Yetanyahu has run Israel on and off since 1996. There is nothing good in Netanyahu. His chief motivator is greed, both personal and for his country. I have known for years of the Israeli illegal occupation of the West Bank. But American leaders look aside - as do European leaders. Wrong!!!!! I still think the good Jewish people, which happens to be the majority, are entitled to their own country in which to live peacefully and prosper.
One lesson for America: this is what happens when religious zealots are allowed to control a nation. Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim - no different. Trying to shove a religious belief down other throats causes death.
That was one of the scariest articles I've read in ages. It's the rule the Christian Nationalists want for us. Justice only if you have the right pastor. Priest? Fuggedaboutit it. We are heading for the wars of religion once religion in the abstract becomes religion in the concrete--and those various sects have their own pet beliefs set firmly in cement and won't abide any deviations.
And it explains so much about what is going on right now in Israel. Israel itself, like any nation, has a right to defend itself. But what is waging this war is not Israel the Nation. It is Israel the captive government, captive to a belief--even an apocalyptic belief-- that no one else in the world will support. The real fanatics don't even seem to realize that the Messiah they are hoping to bring to birth isn't the same Messiah as the one in the world of Putin, Orban, or the American Evangelicals--not to mention the holy ones of Islam.
People talk about politics in American yearning for some golden age, mid-century modern for many, feudalism for the rich. They seriously need to think whether they are going to end up in something more like the 30 years war or the Crusades, including the Albigensian.
I cited the NY times article in a comment on a story in Haaretz. Israel is going to have to come to terms with its position which is EXACTLY what went on here during Jim Crow, just a different shade of brown. From shooting itself in the foot it is going to shoot itself square in the heart if this isn't dealt with. The story of those in the government who tried to resist, who tried to warn, is heartbreaking.
Another useful analogy: Israel's position is much like that of the United States in its expulsion of the Native tribes of this continent. This continent is far bigger than the Levant, so the Native peoples could be pushed "out of sight, out of mind", and the North American continent was isolated enough from the rest of the world that other world powers didn't care what happened to the Natives -- in fact, several of them were actively pursuing similar policies in other places.
It has occurred to me that if Israel wanted to get its dirty laundry out there for all to see, pursuing this war was the way to go. Of course, the fanatics don't think it is dirty.
This is true: Fanatics tend to think that whatever they do is justified. But there's something "cart pulling the horse" about all this. Netanyahu's legal and political troubles alone don't explain it. The Likud apparently mistaking itself for the vengeful Old Testament god alone doesn't explain it. I suspect chronic PTSD has something to do with it. Whatever the ultimate outcome here, historians, political scientists, humanitarians, theologians, and many others are going to be seeking the root causes in years to come.
My gut understands the call for vengeance -- I've never been physically assaulted, but some non-physical assaults have a half-life of years and, in a couple of cases, decades. That's an interesting observation about the "they" -- "without even considering who the 'they' is." Because in the case of Israel, Holocaust survivors and their descendants couldn't get back at the perpetrators, e.g., the Germans and every country, including the U.S., that stood by and watched. (Some justice was done at Nürnberg but Nürnberg didn't give them land they could live safely on.) So they did it to the Palestinians instead. And the cycle continues . . .
This is depressing. I've gotten the impression that the West Bank settlers are just usurping Palestinians who've lived there for a long time, tossing them out of their houses and the like.
I've seen this mentioned before, that most settlers are Americans, but I have never seen any hard numbers. They must exist since in situations like this everyone is kept track of, I wonder exactly how many are "crazy American Jews".
Yeah, I am certain it spread, but you have the example of Dr Baruch Goldman, a Kach Krazy follower of Meir Kahane, who commited the Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre. A doctor from NYC.
They havent been doing this under a bushel basket! Granted, its not the top news here but theres been quite a bit written about the destruction & harm the "settlers" in the West Bank are responsible for. I dont watch a lot of the news programs, and I'm not Jewish. But this has been obvious for some time on top of all the other ways the Palestinians have been treated - the numbers of them - many children - in the Israeli prisons.
And after seeing an interview of an American dr & nurse working in Gaza - THEIR descriptions of what they see & are unable to treat in many cases - the nurse gave a number of ICU cases & NONE of them lived. Without meds etc? Then the pictures of children - one little girl lost her arm - another showing a child covered completely with bandages - CHILDREN whose lives are just shattered.
So nope, not surprise at all at this post.
I dont completely agree with the college protesters actions but protesting against the IDF? I understand that.
Boy do I disagree with the US sending military help to Israel! Whatever excuse there is - that is WRONG.
The official actions and policies of the Israeli government can always be seen as understandable if one assumes that the ultimate goal for the state of Israel is a Jewish state, encompassing the West Bank and Gaza (as well as other areas that have been incorporated, including the entirety of Jerusalem), with so few remaining Palestinians that they have no power or influence and pose no threat of any kind. The two-tier system of law and policing (or the lack thereof) in the West Bank, descrxibed in this post, which favors the Jewish settlers, also makes sense under this formulation. It is more obvious now that the most extreme elements have entered mainstream politics, which resulted from the fact that in order to remain as Prime Minister, Netanyahu was forced to embrace them in his coalition, which is why Smotrich and Ben Gvir are where they are and have the power and influence they have. The organized hijacking by settlers of trucks carrying food destined for Gaza to feed literally starving children (reported at Democracy Now!, with video documentation), which is allowed to happen without police pushback or arrests being made, is possibly the most abhorrent current example of explicitly deadly settler violence. Sadly, I fear that the U.S. is no longer in a position of negotiating strength, and U.S. efforts to alter the trajectory in Gaza, no matter how aggressive, may still fail. After all, Netanyahu is protecting his power and, potentially, his own freedom, by continuing this military action in Gaza, even if it continues to be not only horrifically cruel and deadly, but ineffective (as his own military is telling him it is - they are having re-take areas again and again - echoes of the U.S. failure in Vietnam).
If one reviews the policies and actions of the Zionist authorities and paramilitaries before Israel was established as a state, it's not hard to see both the settlers and the Likud's support of them as a culmination, not an aberration. They were actively engaged in expelling Palestinians from the land they had lived on for generations. And this was happening months *before* the Arab states invaded after May 14, 1948. Israel's real "war of independence" was fought not against the Arab armies but against the native Palestinians.
It seems perhaps you have read Ilan Pappe's "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", which explains in great detail exactly what you are speaking of. Even the Balfour Declaration reflected the relative lack of concern about the existing residents of Palestine vis-a-vis the announcement of support for the establishment of a Jewish state (a "national home").
The phrase "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" was not part of the original declaration. It was added at the last minute at the insistence of Lord Curzon, who was knowledgeable about the region, and opposed the declaration itself.
According to a letter from the British author of "Britain in Palestine", published on 10/13/2017 in The Guardian, under the heading "Israel, Palestine and what a Curzon declaration might have looked like", Lord Curzon wrote to Balfour at the time of the Declaration's writing, "I do not myself recognize that the connection of the Jews with Palestine, which terminated 1,200 years ago, gives them any claims whatsoever. On this principle we have a stronger claim to France.”
There is additional documentation of this in the publication by Verso Books of an essay by Avi Schlaim, "The Balfour Declaration and its Consequences." Here, Schlaim quotes Curzon's objection to the Declaration: "What is to become of the people of the country? . . . [The Arabs] and their forefathers have occupied the country for the best part of 1,500 years, and they own the soil . . . They profess the Mohammedan faith. They will not be content either to be expropriated for Jewish immigrants or to act merely as hewers of wood and drawers of water for the latter."
Schlaim then notes that it was not until the final meeting of 10/31/2017, when the wording of the Declaration was finalized, that, "Largely in deference to his [Lord Curzon's] anxieties, the final version of the Declaration contained the caveat about protecting the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine." Clearly the Declaration was in fact what Arthur Koestler said it was - "one nation promising another nation the land of a third nation."
Avi Schlaim's 2009 book, "Israel and Palestine", is full of this kind of well-documented detail. The book ends with a chapter about free speech, which is very timely. He calls out the "propagandistic ploy of equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism" (which has persisted and now extends deeply into American society and government. Schlaim writes, "Here, America is in a league of its own, with institutions such as Campus Watch, which 'monitors' Middle East studies on campus. As its mission suggests, this organization is incompatible with the core values of higher education, such as tolerance, free speech and the dignity of difference."
The British released the Balfour Declaration in 1917 because they were in desperate need of the Rothschild Banks underwriting a national war loan to keep the British armed forces intact in the worst year of the war.
I have read about the reliance of many governments on Rothschild money to finance their military activities (e.g., Napoleonic Wars - both sides, and the Boer War), but I have not come across explicit discussion of a quid pro quo of the Balfour Declaration in exchange for Rothschild loans to the British treasury. Wouldn't surprise me in the least, however.
Given that the senior Rothschild in the family at that period in England was an early supporter of the Zionist movement, it's likely there didn't need to be a written agreement or any sort of formal quid pro quo. It would have been, as the English say, "understood."
Undoubtedly. Ben-Gurion gave no consideration to the Palestinians' interests, either, although he did admit in his diary that there was no way the Jewish immigrants would be able to establish the country they planned without marginalizing them. Balfour must have had that awareness, and, frankly, the Zionist movement at the time never exhibited any formal planning to make arrangements for any sort of peaceful co-existence. In my understanding no such plan has ever been presented to the present. All the "peace" deals offered the Palestinians dating to the Mandate Plan were nothing any self-respecting Palestinian representative or negotiator could possibly agree to.
Thanks for your clear-eyed and knowledgeable posts on this latest horrendous violence and mayhem.
That was a factor for sure. Also playing a role were the Christian evangelicals among the aristocracy who believed that supporting a "home" for the Jews in Palestine would fulfill prophecy and hasten the Second Coming. And now Christian evangelicals in the U.S. unequivocally support Israel (and, I'm pretty sure, AIPAC) for the same reason.
I haven't read Pappe, but I've been interested in the Middle East since I was in junior high -- my speech on the Sykes-Picot agreement won me a finalist slot in a high school speaking competition. <g> For an excellent introduction to the history, I recommend Alex McDonald's HOW I LEARNED TO SPEAK ISRAEL. It's indie published but getting easier to find. More info here: https://speakisrael.info/about/.
Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out. I recently counted up the number of books I have read about Middle East history generally or Israel-Palestine, in particular, and it was about a dozen or so. Surprisingly, I still come across some pretty major aspect of what has occurred that is totally new to me. Typically, such insights are even worse than what I knew about already. TC's mention that there was a totally cynical financing availability element as a part of what generated the Balfour Declaration. I hadn't heard about that, and it's even worse than the several reasons I knew about already. Good meeting you, Susanna. I send out a newsletter to friends and colleagues several times a week called Random Guy Noticing Stuff - if you want to check one out and see if you'd be interested in being added to the email list, let me know at bertrandbartok@gmail.com. Best regards. Gary
The settlers bear an uncanny resemblance to our very own White Christian Nationalists. And both are led by wannabe autocrats. I suspect Putin, Tump, Netanyahu, Orban, Iran, China, and many others are in bed together. All it takes is money and guns to stay out of jail or to be tried for crimes against humanity. It makes the MAGA three way in Florida look like child’s play. Dear Humanity, Mental note: try not to elect or support narcissistic sociopaths even for a day.
Nothing uncanny about that! Both are religious extremists. In fact, united, they are the ones prompting Trump and Netanyahu to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem—thus provoking the latest war. It was a huge provocation, violating treaties and decades of diplomacy . And just to top it off, Netanyahu had soldiers firing on unarmed Palestinians during the ceremonies. Meanwhile, rubber stamping this move, Putin personally drove in the convoy that formally invaded Crimea that same morning.
Now, picture this. There is an actual picture—Fascist Barbie Ivanka in smiles before the new embassy, highlighting plaques like a game show hostess.
Religious extremism has not conscience; they follow blindly and they are as vicious as fire ants.
One can’t help but feel the inevitable is coming to pass. Israel’s original sin is catching up to it. The general public in Israel needs to wake up before it’s too late. And I certainly hope Blinkin is quietly talking with some country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Israel on the topic of taking in ol’ Bibi someday-for an aid package in exchange. We need to give that nitwit yahoo an exit strategy.
They brought Netanyahu back to power. That’s like the US putting tRump in the WH again. These men are both traitors to their country; they are both corrupt. Trump has voracious greed; Netanyahu is on the ultimate “Power High,” fueled by his intense radicalization. Neither is fit to lead a nation. And do you know who funds these pricks? Who has the ultimate interest in destabilizing democracies? Russian and Saudi oligarchs in league with US Libertarian Fascists running the RNC as an organized crime syndicate.
It's that inevitable cycle of violence in which the abused become the abusers. Breaking it is hard, but I think the young people in Israel were trying as they took to the streets back in 2022-23 as they saw Daddy going for the belt; that is, Bibi and the zealots attempting to sabotage the peacemaking and justice meting of the Israeli court and taking the power/belt into their own hands. Control freaks using religion as a slapjack of enforcement because religion neatly divides the we from the they.
Reads like a critique of the right wing zealots and domestic terrorists trying to extinguish our experiment in democracy here in the United States! Seems like regardless of the country, the right wing domestic terrorists are working from the same game plan!
"In the West Bank, a new generation of ultranationalists has taken an even more radical turn against the very notion of a democratic Israeli state. Their objective is to tear down Israel’s institutions and to establish “Jewish rule”: anointing a king, building a temple in place of the Jerusalem mosques sacred to Muslims worldwide, imposing a religious regime on all Jews." — This is in effect exactly the agenda of Christian nationalists in the US: Just substitute "Christian" for "Jewish." And the CNs will be happy to impose their theocracy on everyone, not just other Christians.
An outside entity needs to administer the disputed territory (?). Neither the Israeli government nor Hamas can be trusted to behave in a responsible, fair way. It is a crime of the utmost magnitude that Israeli Jews are doing to others what has historically been done to them. Netanyahu and his cronies have to go. Is there a coalition of sanity anywhere in that part of the world?
57 years in contravention of UN Security Council resolution 242, happily taking USA Daddy Warbucks billions along the way. Sad that only now when so many observers are witnessing and voicing is there some notice being taken
The state of Israel is producing monsters very similar the one that led to its establishment. The Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht did not bomb and shell the ghettos to kill the women and children, at least.
What is the saying? Failure when good men look aside - or something like that. Yetanyahu has run Israel on and off since 1996. There is nothing good in Netanyahu. His chief motivator is greed, both personal and for his country. I have known for years of the Israeli illegal occupation of the West Bank. But American leaders look aside - as do European leaders. Wrong!!!!! I still think the good Jewish people, which happens to be the majority, are entitled to their own country in which to live peacefully and prosper.
One lesson for America: this is what happens when religious zealots are allowed to control a nation. Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim - no different. Trying to shove a religious belief down other throats causes death.
Wisdom. I'd only add that Netanyahu is Israel's Trump.
Spot on Fay 👍👍🙏
Thank you
Couldn’t be more right.
That was one of the scariest articles I've read in ages. It's the rule the Christian Nationalists want for us. Justice only if you have the right pastor. Priest? Fuggedaboutit it. We are heading for the wars of religion once religion in the abstract becomes religion in the concrete--and those various sects have their own pet beliefs set firmly in cement and won't abide any deviations.
And it explains so much about what is going on right now in Israel. Israel itself, like any nation, has a right to defend itself. But what is waging this war is not Israel the Nation. It is Israel the captive government, captive to a belief--even an apocalyptic belief-- that no one else in the world will support. The real fanatics don't even seem to realize that the Messiah they are hoping to bring to birth isn't the same Messiah as the one in the world of Putin, Orban, or the American Evangelicals--not to mention the holy ones of Islam.
People talk about politics in American yearning for some golden age, mid-century modern for many, feudalism for the rich. They seriously need to think whether they are going to end up in something more like the 30 years war or the Crusades, including the Albigensian.
I cited the NY times article in a comment on a story in Haaretz. Israel is going to have to come to terms with its position which is EXACTLY what went on here during Jim Crow, just a different shade of brown. From shooting itself in the foot it is going to shoot itself square in the heart if this isn't dealt with. The story of those in the government who tried to resist, who tried to warn, is heartbreaking.
Another useful analogy: Israel's position is much like that of the United States in its expulsion of the Native tribes of this continent. This continent is far bigger than the Levant, so the Native peoples could be pushed "out of sight, out of mind", and the North American continent was isolated enough from the rest of the world that other world powers didn't care what happened to the Natives -- in fact, several of them were actively pursuing similar policies in other places.
It has occurred to me that if Israel wanted to get its dirty laundry out there for all to see, pursuing this war was the way to go. Of course, the fanatics don't think it is dirty.
This is true: Fanatics tend to think that whatever they do is justified. But there's something "cart pulling the horse" about all this. Netanyahu's legal and political troubles alone don't explain it. The Likud apparently mistaking itself for the vengeful Old Testament god alone doesn't explain it. I suspect chronic PTSD has something to do with it. Whatever the ultimate outcome here, historians, political scientists, humanitarians, theologians, and many others are going to be seeking the root causes in years to come.
Chronic PTSD devolving into a lust for vengeance. “They did it to us, by god we can do it to them.” Without even considering who the “they” is.
Someone close to me has chronic PTSD from an assault, and 15 years later the cry for vengeance comes out—in anguished cries, not deeds, thank god.
My gut understands the call for vengeance -- I've never been physically assaulted, but some non-physical assaults have a half-life of years and, in a couple of cases, decades. That's an interesting observation about the "they" -- "without even considering who the 'they' is." Because in the case of Israel, Holocaust survivors and their descendants couldn't get back at the perpetrators, e.g., the Germans and every country, including the U.S., that stood by and watched. (Some justice was done at Nürnberg but Nürnberg didn't give them land they could live safely on.) So they did it to the Palestinians instead. And the cycle continues . . .
it seems to be an endless human cycle. The lesser/lowest angels of our nature.
This is depressing. I've gotten the impression that the West Bank settlers are just usurping Palestinians who've lived there for a long time, tossing them out of their houses and the like.
Yes, and they are almost all crazy American Jews.
I've seen this mentioned before, that most settlers are Americans, but I have never seen any hard numbers. They must exist since in situations like this everyone is kept track of, I wonder exactly how many are "crazy American Jews".
Yeah, I am certain it spread, but you have the example of Dr Baruch Goldman, a Kach Krazy follower of Meir Kahane, who commited the Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre. A doctor from NYC.
They havent been doing this under a bushel basket! Granted, its not the top news here but theres been quite a bit written about the destruction & harm the "settlers" in the West Bank are responsible for. I dont watch a lot of the news programs, and I'm not Jewish. But this has been obvious for some time on top of all the other ways the Palestinians have been treated - the numbers of them - many children - in the Israeli prisons.
And after seeing an interview of an American dr & nurse working in Gaza - THEIR descriptions of what they see & are unable to treat in many cases - the nurse gave a number of ICU cases & NONE of them lived. Without meds etc? Then the pictures of children - one little girl lost her arm - another showing a child covered completely with bandages - CHILDREN whose lives are just shattered.
So nope, not surprise at all at this post.
I dont completely agree with the college protesters actions but protesting against the IDF? I understand that.
Boy do I disagree with the US sending military help to Israel! Whatever excuse there is - that is WRONG.
The official actions and policies of the Israeli government can always be seen as understandable if one assumes that the ultimate goal for the state of Israel is a Jewish state, encompassing the West Bank and Gaza (as well as other areas that have been incorporated, including the entirety of Jerusalem), with so few remaining Palestinians that they have no power or influence and pose no threat of any kind. The two-tier system of law and policing (or the lack thereof) in the West Bank, descrxibed in this post, which favors the Jewish settlers, also makes sense under this formulation. It is more obvious now that the most extreme elements have entered mainstream politics, which resulted from the fact that in order to remain as Prime Minister, Netanyahu was forced to embrace them in his coalition, which is why Smotrich and Ben Gvir are where they are and have the power and influence they have. The organized hijacking by settlers of trucks carrying food destined for Gaza to feed literally starving children (reported at Democracy Now!, with video documentation), which is allowed to happen without police pushback or arrests being made, is possibly the most abhorrent current example of explicitly deadly settler violence. Sadly, I fear that the U.S. is no longer in a position of negotiating strength, and U.S. efforts to alter the trajectory in Gaza, no matter how aggressive, may still fail. After all, Netanyahu is protecting his power and, potentially, his own freedom, by continuing this military action in Gaza, even if it continues to be not only horrifically cruel and deadly, but ineffective (as his own military is telling him it is - they are having re-take areas again and again - echoes of the U.S. failure in Vietnam).
If one reviews the policies and actions of the Zionist authorities and paramilitaries before Israel was established as a state, it's not hard to see both the settlers and the Likud's support of them as a culmination, not an aberration. They were actively engaged in expelling Palestinians from the land they had lived on for generations. And this was happening months *before* the Arab states invaded after May 14, 1948. Israel's real "war of independence" was fought not against the Arab armies but against the native Palestinians.
You are so right, Susanna.
It seems perhaps you have read Ilan Pappe's "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", which explains in great detail exactly what you are speaking of. Even the Balfour Declaration reflected the relative lack of concern about the existing residents of Palestine vis-a-vis the announcement of support for the establishment of a Jewish state (a "national home").
The phrase "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" was not part of the original declaration. It was added at the last minute at the insistence of Lord Curzon, who was knowledgeable about the region, and opposed the declaration itself.
According to a letter from the British author of "Britain in Palestine", published on 10/13/2017 in The Guardian, under the heading "Israel, Palestine and what a Curzon declaration might have looked like", Lord Curzon wrote to Balfour at the time of the Declaration's writing, "I do not myself recognize that the connection of the Jews with Palestine, which terminated 1,200 years ago, gives them any claims whatsoever. On this principle we have a stronger claim to France.”
There is additional documentation of this in the publication by Verso Books of an essay by Avi Schlaim, "The Balfour Declaration and its Consequences." Here, Schlaim quotes Curzon's objection to the Declaration: "What is to become of the people of the country? . . . [The Arabs] and their forefathers have occupied the country for the best part of 1,500 years, and they own the soil . . . They profess the Mohammedan faith. They will not be content either to be expropriated for Jewish immigrants or to act merely as hewers of wood and drawers of water for the latter."
Schlaim then notes that it was not until the final meeting of 10/31/2017, when the wording of the Declaration was finalized, that, "Largely in deference to his [Lord Curzon's] anxieties, the final version of the Declaration contained the caveat about protecting the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine." Clearly the Declaration was in fact what Arthur Koestler said it was - "one nation promising another nation the land of a third nation."
Avi Schlaim's 2009 book, "Israel and Palestine", is full of this kind of well-documented detail. The book ends with a chapter about free speech, which is very timely. He calls out the "propagandistic ploy of equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism" (which has persisted and now extends deeply into American society and government. Schlaim writes, "Here, America is in a league of its own, with institutions such as Campus Watch, which 'monitors' Middle East studies on campus. As its mission suggests, this organization is incompatible with the core values of higher education, such as tolerance, free speech and the dignity of difference."
The British released the Balfour Declaration in 1917 because they were in desperate need of the Rothschild Banks underwriting a national war loan to keep the British armed forces intact in the worst year of the war.
I have read about the reliance of many governments on Rothschild money to finance their military activities (e.g., Napoleonic Wars - both sides, and the Boer War), but I have not come across explicit discussion of a quid pro quo of the Balfour Declaration in exchange for Rothschild loans to the British treasury. Wouldn't surprise me in the least, however.
Given that the senior Rothschild in the family at that period in England was an early supporter of the Zionist movement, it's likely there didn't need to be a written agreement or any sort of formal quid pro quo. It would have been, as the English say, "understood."
Undoubtedly. Ben-Gurion gave no consideration to the Palestinians' interests, either, although he did admit in his diary that there was no way the Jewish immigrants would be able to establish the country they planned without marginalizing them. Balfour must have had that awareness, and, frankly, the Zionist movement at the time never exhibited any formal planning to make arrangements for any sort of peaceful co-existence. In my understanding no such plan has ever been presented to the present. All the "peace" deals offered the Palestinians dating to the Mandate Plan were nothing any self-respecting Palestinian representative or negotiator could possibly agree to.
Thanks for your clear-eyed and knowledgeable posts on this latest horrendous violence and mayhem.
That was a factor for sure. Also playing a role were the Christian evangelicals among the aristocracy who believed that supporting a "home" for the Jews in Palestine would fulfill prophecy and hasten the Second Coming. And now Christian evangelicals in the U.S. unequivocally support Israel (and, I'm pretty sure, AIPAC) for the same reason.
I haven't read Pappe, but I've been interested in the Middle East since I was in junior high -- my speech on the Sykes-Picot agreement won me a finalist slot in a high school speaking competition. <g> For an excellent introduction to the history, I recommend Alex McDonald's HOW I LEARNED TO SPEAK ISRAEL. It's indie published but getting easier to find. More info here: https://speakisrael.info/about/.
Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out. I recently counted up the number of books I have read about Middle East history generally or Israel-Palestine, in particular, and it was about a dozen or so. Surprisingly, I still come across some pretty major aspect of what has occurred that is totally new to me. Typically, such insights are even worse than what I knew about already. TC's mention that there was a totally cynical financing availability element as a part of what generated the Balfour Declaration. I hadn't heard about that, and it's even worse than the several reasons I knew about already. Good meeting you, Susanna. I send out a newsletter to friends and colleagues several times a week called Random Guy Noticing Stuff - if you want to check one out and see if you'd be interested in being added to the email list, let me know at bertrandbartok@gmail.com. Best regards. Gary
The settlers bear an uncanny resemblance to our very own White Christian Nationalists. And both are led by wannabe autocrats. I suspect Putin, Tump, Netanyahu, Orban, Iran, China, and many others are in bed together. All it takes is money and guns to stay out of jail or to be tried for crimes against humanity. It makes the MAGA three way in Florida look like child’s play. Dear Humanity, Mental note: try not to elect or support narcissistic sociopaths even for a day.
Nothing uncanny about that! Both are religious extremists. In fact, united, they are the ones prompting Trump and Netanyahu to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem—thus provoking the latest war. It was a huge provocation, violating treaties and decades of diplomacy . And just to top it off, Netanyahu had soldiers firing on unarmed Palestinians during the ceremonies. Meanwhile, rubber stamping this move, Putin personally drove in the convoy that formally invaded Crimea that same morning.
Now, picture this. There is an actual picture—Fascist Barbie Ivanka in smiles before the new embassy, highlighting plaques like a game show hostess.
Religious extremism has not conscience; they follow blindly and they are as vicious as fire ants.
One can’t help but feel the inevitable is coming to pass. Israel’s original sin is catching up to it. The general public in Israel needs to wake up before it’s too late. And I certainly hope Blinkin is quietly talking with some country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Israel on the topic of taking in ol’ Bibi someday-for an aid package in exchange. We need to give that nitwit yahoo an exit strategy.
They brought Netanyahu back to power. That’s like the US putting tRump in the WH again. These men are both traitors to their country; they are both corrupt. Trump has voracious greed; Netanyahu is on the ultimate “Power High,” fueled by his intense radicalization. Neither is fit to lead a nation. And do you know who funds these pricks? Who has the ultimate interest in destabilizing democracies? Russian and Saudi oligarchs in league with US Libertarian Fascists running the RNC as an organized crime syndicate.
Not good.
Yes indeed. The big article is even worse.
It's that inevitable cycle of violence in which the abused become the abusers. Breaking it is hard, but I think the young people in Israel were trying as they took to the streets back in 2022-23 as they saw Daddy going for the belt; that is, Bibi and the zealots attempting to sabotage the peacemaking and justice meting of the Israeli court and taking the power/belt into their own hands. Control freaks using religion as a slapjack of enforcement because religion neatly divides the we from the they.
The we from the they, yep…
Reads like a critique of the right wing zealots and domestic terrorists trying to extinguish our experiment in democracy here in the United States! Seems like regardless of the country, the right wing domestic terrorists are working from the same game plan!
"In the West Bank, a new generation of ultranationalists has taken an even more radical turn against the very notion of a democratic Israeli state. Their objective is to tear down Israel’s institutions and to establish “Jewish rule”: anointing a king, building a temple in place of the Jerusalem mosques sacred to Muslims worldwide, imposing a religious regime on all Jews." — This is in effect exactly the agenda of Christian nationalists in the US: Just substitute "Christian" for "Jewish." And the CNs will be happy to impose their theocracy on everyone, not just other Christians.
An outside entity needs to administer the disputed territory (?). Neither the Israeli government nor Hamas can be trusted to behave in a responsible, fair way. It is a crime of the utmost magnitude that Israeli Jews are doing to others what has historically been done to them. Netanyahu and his cronies have to go. Is there a coalition of sanity anywhere in that part of the world?
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Mark 8:36
57 years in contravention of UN Security Council resolution 242, happily taking USA Daddy Warbucks billions along the way. Sad that only now when so many observers are witnessing and voicing is there some notice being taken
The state of Israel is producing monsters very similar the one that led to its establishment. The Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht did not bomb and shell the ghettos to kill the women and children, at least.
So much for "Never again."
Just attempting to report from a neighboring country can be fatal.... https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-LEBANON/JOURNALIST/akveabxrzvr/
Our local, FL Jewish extremist. It will be interesting to see any GOP response.
https://www.wuft.org/fresh-take-florida/2024-05-17/mystery-visitor-meets-undercover-with-muslim-professors-at-uf-invites-criticism-of-israel-turns-out-to-be-jewish-activist
Quelle surprise (not)