The New Republic has a long and tawdry history of supporting the Israeli subjugation of the Palestinian people. It is certainly in no position to be questioning the morality of others - especially not those who refuse to internalize the bigotry and racism that infuses the magazine.

In the history of this conflict, the number of Israelis killed is dwarfed by the number of Palestinians killed - yet this magazine remains an unstinting supporter of the side responsible for the overwhelming majority of the butchery. Indeed, the magazine at least semi-officially gloats over the killing of the Palestinian people. Consequently, The New Republic is in no position to question the morality of others.

I will remind the anonymous author of this Plank post that the State of Israel has occupied the Palestinian Territories for more than four decades - an occupation which has made war criminals of almost 5% of the Israeli people and shown the Israeli state to be a racist, war criminal state. The New Republic institutionally supports these war crimes and the evil that is their inevitable consequence.

First off, why does this piece not bear the author's name? I mean, honestly, we all know who wrote this, so withholding the author's name doesn't actually help in any potential "what if we published on of X's pieces but didn't say that X wrote it" experiment.

Second, this is all just an overly verbose, muddled-past-obscurity restatement of a recent Krauthammer column, that happened to be perhaps the best Krauthammer column in more than a decade. Should have just posted the link to Krauthammer for those who haven't read it, rather than attempting the restatement.

Third, a simple rule for any opinion writer should be that if you need to use the word "embolden" to make your point, you need to stop writing right there, delete the file you're working on, and start over with an entirely new and unrelated subject. Hamas will not be "emboldened" to kill more Israelis if Israel does not take sufficient action against Hamas. I think the people of Sderot would agree with me that Hamas has displayed more than sufficient "boldness" in the "trying-to-kill-Israelis" department for a great many years now already. The point for Israel, as with any civilized state defending itself from terrorists, must never be a consideration of whether this or that action or inaction will "embolden" the enemy. The enemy will do what he will do; one must therefore do what one must do in pursuit of one's own best interests, not in pursuit of some childish regard for the enemy's boldness or morale.

Deus ex NATO http://tinyurl.com/9c3hsb

Sahil Mahtani  -

The most reasonable course for Israel would be for it to ask the internatinal community to assist it in ending its ocupation of ALL the Occupied Palestinian Territories within a reasonable timetable.

Such an end would require the assistance of the International community in rebuilding palestinian infrastructure and society damaged through decades of subjugation. But it would also require international security forces capable of enforcing a ceasefire on BOTH SIDES including ending Hamas rocket attacks and the far more brutal and effective Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people.

The most reasonable course would, of course, require the ending of Israel's (and this magazine's) infatuation with the Zionazism that is the core ideology of the so-called "settlers."  Let's see if The New Republic can see the light this year in the way it finally saw the light with the carnage in Iraq a few years ago.

Oh, one more thing. Mahtani writes:

-- There is something else that is morally evasive about the proportionality argument.

OK., Sahil, give me a number of Palestinian fatalities between 0 and 6,000,000 at which even you would agree there is nothing "morally evasive about the proportionality argument."

That link doesn't work tep.

What, mackenzie?  Cannot even muster a coherent thought beyond the standard imprecations?

The territories will remain occupied until such time as there is a non-belligerent Arab civil authority to whom control can be surrendered.  No such exists and the Palestinians have scarcely devoted any effort in the past 40 years to creating one, despite the urging of the world that they do so.  There was, for a brief time, something that was beginning to fill that role prior to the failure of the last Camp David talks.  But Yassir Arafat, not satisfied with what he was offered, got up from the table and began the Second Intifada, trashing the nascent civil administration of the West Bank.  Due to the absence of any non-belligerent civil authority to whom Israel can surrender control, there is nothing illegal about the continued occupation.  Just the reverse.  You make up whatever suits your fancy at the moment to try and give a veneer of legitimacy to your hatred of the Jews.  Go to Palestine.  Take up arms.  With luck, you can die defending your "moral" principles.  

The Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, under conditions vastly more oppressive, trying, and threatening to life than anything that a Palestinian (let alone a moral cipher like you), were able to maintain a civil administration and indeed only rebelled against their Nazi masters as they were about to be shipped off to death camps.  With the exception of that brief window before the Second Intifada, the Palestinians have never been able to conduct themselves with even a veneer of civilization and YOU mackenzie are culpable.  It is because people like you who continue to seduce the Palestinians into believing that they are anything other than criminals that they continue to immolate themselves to satisfy your bloodlust.'

Given the imbalance of casualties that you cite, why don't you advise the Palestinians to abandon violence and pursue their goals by non-violent means?  You don't because you adore this violence.  It gives you vicarious thrills and feelings of power and efficacy that you plainly cannot achieve any other way.  No one in Israel enjoys war or the deaths of Arabs.  You must as you are so eager to encourage more of them.

As ever, mackenzie, you cannot bring yourself quite to state what you plainly urge:  That the Palestinians are entitled to engage in whatever violence they want unless and until Israel agrees to the borders that they and you think proper.  This is criminal behavior and the only reason you do not unambiguously state that you prefer and urge continued Palestinian violence to any borders other than the armistice lines of 1948 (which were not borders) is because you know perfectly well that it is criminal, not sanctioned by the law of war or of occupation.

And you have the nerve to lecture others about morality.  You would have been right at home as a propagandist for Lenin or the Third Reich.  That is indeed what you are.

Israel can't end this war or create order in Gaza, the Arabs won't, the US is aligned with Israel, so that leaves NATO as the only force that can occupy and disarm Gaza, on the Bosnian model.

Sarko wants a big role. Vas-y, mon brave. Put your army where your mouth is, along with the Brits, Dutch, Canadians, Czechs, maybe the Poles or Aussies.

Citing Iraq and Japan as examples of the nastiness that goes along with any war does not really counter the point many doubter have. They were, at the time at least, first time interventions by the Americans. Thing is, I've scene this Gaza invasion movie before many many times. Boy that whole invasion of Lebanon to smash Hezbollah sure worked? Assassinating the the leader of Hamas, the first six times you did it, sure fixed them? A little glib, sure, but I still can't figure out how in the long term these actions in Gaza helps the cause of Israel.

roidubouloi writes:

-- As ever, mackenzie, you cannot bring yourself quite to state what you plainly urge:  That the Palestinians are entitled to engage in whatever violence they want unless and until Israel agrees to the borders that they and you think proper.

The reason I "cannot bring [myself] quite to state what [I] plainly urge" is that I neither believe or urge the fantasy you accuse me of. I realise, of course, that your claim is merely a device to avoid the reality presented by what I did actually write that the "most reasonable course for Israel would be for it to ask the internatinal community to assist it in ending its ocupation of ALL the Occupied Palestinian Territories within a reasonable timetable."

Your throwing around of words like "Lenin" and phrases like "Third Reich," unfortunately all too frequent on TNR message boards, is nothing more than the chanting of a playground dunce - lacking intelligence for more effective response. I reserve my use of words and phrases like Nazism for its actual expression - as in the militarized racism that is the lifeblood of the Israeli "settler" movement and those who uncritically support them.

The charges of a disproportionate response are completely blown up by the fact that there is still a threat of rockets in Gaza. How can the response be disproportionate to the threat if the threat is still there? Israel is entitled to whatever military action is needed to remove the threat of rockets.

I've no criticism of Israel for this action, but that doesn't mean they have a right to put up/keep those settlements in the West Bank and Barrack Obama would be perfectly in his rights to pressure them to unilaterally withdraw them, as they are a true violation of international law.

What's really needed is the U.S. to lead NATO with Russia and China chiming in and simply come up with and impose a settlement and force all sides to take it.  Otherwise the technology is going to outrace the politics and those bombs from gaza are going to carry biological or other WMD's.

ndmckenzie:  "Indeed, the magazine at least semi-officially gloats over the killing of the Palestinian people."

Indeed.  But in what way does a magazine, assuming it's not an organ of a one-party dictatorship, act "semi-officially"?  Given that a journal like TNR either publishes something or doesn't, publishes an authored piece or a collective editorial piece, provides space for readers' letters and electronic posts, or doesn't, it isn't all that difficult to identify the source and authority of any comment, whether expressed by an editorial collective, staff journalist, guest writer, or reader/subscriber.  There is no such thing as a "semi-official" posture.

Moreover, "gloats" is the kind of highly subjective and deliberately lurid term that is entirely in the eye of the beholder.  If I suggest that the Israeli response to Hamas is legitimate and not out of proportion to the threat, then I can be accused of grossly misjudging the situation, or of being apparently unconcerned about Palestinian as opposed to Israeli casualties, but not of "gloating."  "Gloating" clearly implies a kind of maniacal pleasure.  But, even allowing for some major differences in perspective, I'd be interested in some concrete evidence for the "gloating" charge.

One might rephrase ndmckenzie's original statement to avoid such tendentious assertions, and say something like "there is a range of opinions at TNR, some of which are strikingly favorable to the Israeli position, and some of which -- especially from outside posters on the discussion boards -- are very much not."

Mackenzie, at last attempting to do more than spew propaganda, says this:

"most reasonable course for Israel would be for it to ask the international community to assist it in ending its occupation of ALL the Occupied Palestinian Territories within a reasonable timetable."

The international community has not volunteered to provide for Palestine the non-belligerent civil administration that is the necessary condition for the end of occupation.  The Palestinians are both unable and unwilling to create the non-belligerent civil administration that is the necessary condition for the end of occupation.  Hence, your "reasonable course" is not the "reality presented" but a fantasy the sole purpose of which is to give cover for your vile imprecations of criminality, illegality, war criminality.

Further, the boundaries of what is occupied are disputed.  Resolution 242 does not declare the 1948 lines to be the borders of Israel.  The proceedings make clear that the intention was explicitly not to do so.  There is no more legal basis for considering the 1948 armistice lines the boundaries of Israel than for considering the 1947 partition lines.  All of the land of Israel is claimed as of right by the Jews and by the Palestinians.  It is quite clearly your position that, so long as there is an occupation, whether or not illegal, and so long as there is no settled border, Palestinians are entitled to be as savage and bestial as they wish in pursuit of their political agenda.  You applaud the savagery under the thinnest veneer of propaganda which makes you nothing more than the Leninist/Fascist propagandist I accuse you of being.  You don't get off the hook by the sudden resort to childish imprecations in place of your normal propagandizing.

In the absence of the possibility of realizing your "reasonable course" you advocate not that the Palestinians explicitly abandon the violent pursuit of their political goals -- they have no right to settle their border claims violently nor any right violently to resist occupation so long as they have the option, as they emphatically do, of themselves being free from violence by establishing civil control of themselves.

I don't support the settler movement outside of territory that Israel is prepared fully to incorporate together with all of its inhabitants, according them full political rights.  Ironically, however, you do.  It is just that you support it as an Arab movement violently to expel all of the Jewish inhabitants of the West Bank.  It is a fact that it is Arabs who moved in to occupy Jewish Judaea and Samaria, not Jews who moved to the Arabian peninsula or Syria or Mesopotamia.  Were the Arabs ever to confess that Jews therefore have as much claim of right to live in Arab Palestine as Arabs do to live in Jewish Palestine, and to back that with appropriate deeds, the border could likely be settled in no time.  That would not, however, satisfy you and anything that does not satisfy you is grounds for violence -- at least until the millenarian event when your fantasies become reality.  

In the meantime, the Jews will exercise their inherent and inalienable right to defend themselves against Arabs who come to kill them, and you will continue to do everything possible to encourage more bloodletting in which, admittedly, the Arabs pay the higher price, as well they should.  Your bloodlust is chilling.  There are far worse things I could say about you than that you would be at home as a propagandist for Lenin or the Third Reich.

ironyroad -

My use of the word "semi-offiically" was an allusion to the fact that the Editor-in-Chief routinely gloats about the killing of Palestinian and he is almost never criticized by anyone at the magazine. John Judis is a wise and notable exception - and he was rewarded with a post about him titled "To the ovens." Indeed, on several occasions Jonathan Chait has put up posts defending the Editor-in-Chief from justified criticism.

I am tired of writers at this magazine writing some excecrable apology for some Israeli transgression and then being given a pass because they work for Crazy Marty. At some point we have to accept that writers must bear some responsibility for what they write. (In an interesting comment on his blog a couple of weeks ago Spencer Ackerman acknowledged that TNR writers appreciate the freedom (and the little money) sufficiently that they don't want to rock the boat. He admitted to that appreciation.)

ironyroad writes:

-- One might rephrase ndmckenzie's original statement to avoid such tendentious assertions, and say something like "there is a range of opinions at TNR, some of which are strikingly favorable to the Israeli position, and some of which -- especially from outside posters on the discussion boards -- are very much not."

One might but one would be wrong. A more accurate phrasing would be:

-- There is almost no difference of opinion at TNR with regard to Israel - all of which adheres by rote to a maximilist Likudnik position regardless of how good that position is for Israel or Jews everywhere. A few brave souls, understanding the desctructive effect of this maximilist Likudnik souls venture to bring a conclusion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will be far better for Israel and Jews than continuing the current course is ever likely to.

roidubouloi writes:

-- In the meantime, the Jews will exercise their inherent and inalienable right to defend themselves against Arabs who come to kill them, and you will continue to do everything possible to encourage more bloodletting in which, admittedly, the Arabs pay the higher price, as well they should.  Your bloodlust is chilling.

My bloodlust? Your mouth is dripping, dracula.

I criticize Peretz, often and quite savagely, for being your döppelganger, mackenzie, and advocating violence, not on the basis of prudence and necessity, but on his estimation of the moral worth of the targets of that violence.  But, even I will admit that, of the two of you, you are far, far worse.  He does far less violence to the truth than you do.

ndmckenzie says: "the Editor-in-Chief routinely gloats about the killing of Palestinian and he is almost never criticized by anyone at the magazine."

Hm.  It's interesting:  I asked for some concrete evidence of "gloating" (a few pasted quotes would do) and your response is to simply repeat the assertion with a slightly different word-choice.

Do you find that a useful technique generally?  I mean, if you can't find anything to support your claim and it's too embarrassing to back off?

Just wondered.

Martin Peretz writes:

-- So at 11:30 on Saturday morning, according to both the Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz, as well as the New York Times, 50 fighter jets and attack helicopters demolished some 40 to 50 sites in just about three minutes, maybe five. Message: do not fuck with the Jews. At roughly noon, another 60 air-attack vehicles went after other Hamas strategic positions. Israeli intelligence reported 225 people dead, mostly Hamas military leaders with some functionaries, besides, and perhaps 400 wounded.  The Palestinians announced 300 dead, probably as a reflex in order to begin their whining about disproportionate Israeli acts of war. And 600 wounded.

-- Within hours, Nicolas Sarkozy was already taking up the cudgel of French righteousness and pronouncing the actually quite sober Israeli response to the continuous war on its borders "disproportionate."  

-- The current warfare will go on a bit longer. If there is a pause and if I were giving advice to the Israelis, this is what I would say to Hamas and to the people of Gaza: "If a rocket or missile is launched against us, if you take captive one of our soldiers (as you have held one for two and a half years), if you raise a new Intifada against us, there will be an immediate response. And it will be very disproportionate. Proportion does not work."

Ah, yes, "do not fuck with the Jews" or else - because "proportion does not work." There is the voice of one who thrills at the sound of 50 fighte jets and 60 air attack vehicles - there is the voice of a man who thrills at the announcement of 300 dead Palestinians. The rest of Martin Peretz's posts on the current Gaza conflict are of the same ilk. (Of course, that will not be enough gloating for ironyroad.)

Anyway, this is as good a time as any to remind ourselves that the man who remains Editor-in-Chief of the New Republic years after he sold it is widely recognized as a crazy racist.

Eric Alterman on Martin Peretz:

-- I have gotten this far and not even gotten to the topic that usually comes up in discussions of Peretz of late, which is his obsessive and unapologetic hatred of Arabs, the evidence of which is visible nearly every day on Peretz's "The Spine." Here are just a few of the choice descriptions Peretz has had occasion to employ in his magazine about assorted Arabs, whether Palestinian, Iraqi, or of the generic variety: They are "violent, fratricidal, unreliable, primitive and crazed - barbarian"; they have created a "wretched society" and are "cruel, belligerent, intolerant, fearing"; they are "murderous and grotesque" and "can't even run a post office"; their societies "have gone bonkers over jihad" and they are "feigning outrage when they protest what they call American (or Israeli) atrocities"; they "behave like lemmings," and "are not shocked at all by what in truth must seem to them not atrocious at all"; and to top it all off, their rugs are not as "subtle" and are more "glimmery" than those of the Berbers.

www.prospect.org/.../articles

Glenn Greenwald on Martin Peretz:

-- Marty Peretz's new blog, "Spine," is basically a museum for every anti-Arab/Muslim stereotype and caricature that exists. Each day, one can read about how primitive, violent, deceitful and generally horrible Arab Muslims are. Peretz's blog has revealed that he is basically a glorified (though otherwise quite standard) LGF commenter who happens to own a magazine.

glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/.../marty-peretz-and-anti-muslim.html

Glenn Greenwald again:

--In reality, one could write a post like that almost every day about Peretz. His blog, and apparently his political worldview, are devoted primarily to one argument -- that Arabs and Muslims are primitive savages and barbarians, and that the notion of a "moderate Muslim" or even a civilized Arab is all but a myth. The majority of Peretz's posts, with varying degrees of explicitness, is devoted to bolstering that claim.

glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/.../meaning-of-marty-peretz.html

Yes, your bloodlust, mackenzie.  It is you who advocates that Arabs continue to immolate themselves, and as many Jews as they can, in order to achieve political goals that they could substantially achieve without violence.  That they have no right to such violence matters not at all to you.  That many who suffer will be children and other innocents matters not at all to you.  That the violence will not succeed even in achieving the political goals and is in fact counter-productive matters not at all to you.

If that isn't bloodlust, what is?  You are the worse sort of parasite, mackenzie, provoking others to their deaths merely for your own emotional gratification.  With views like yours, you should at least have the courage to go and fight rather than content yourself with vicarious pleasure from the deaths and suffering of others.

When Peretz "hopes" that Israel will prosecute a ground war in Gaza, I criticize him for being so eager to send Israeli children to their deaths for his emotional gratification.  But he, at least, wants a sensible outcome that could be achieved, even if the price is high.  You just like the violence for its own sake, for its symbolic value, and care not whether it might lead to anything other than more violence.  

sahil writes:

War is terrible, but it is also complicated, and its legitimacy cannot be judged by a simple death tally. There are other questions that weigh in. For example, one of Israel's goals in attacking Hamas is to impair the supply chain that transports smuggled arms. Should they succeed, how many future deaths would be prevented? Or, if Israel does not invade Gaza, how many more lives will it embolden Hamas to kill? Continuing with this macabre arithmetic, say we could measure these hypothetical gains, is it "proportional" when 280 Israeli lives are saved, or does it just have to be a ballpark figure? These are necessarily subjective questions of great moral complexity, and the false standard of "proportionality" evades tough issues.

George responds:

What do you know personally about the terrible reality of war? Ever been in one? I was in one about 37 years ago. And the one thing I will take to the grave with me are the terrible memories of the children caught up in the middle of a hell war can be for civilians. Not being able to explain why the suffering was inflicted on them is the toughest part.

And if these tunnels have been used to transport in smuggled arms, how come Hamas is not armed to the teeth with the sort of military wherewithal that could inflict serious damage on the IDF?

As for the macabre arithmetic of this particular war, is your assessment in any way biased by your own sympathies for the side augmenting the numbers? Would you say that a reasonably impartial group of outside observers woulkd come to the same conclusion?

Alas, your arguments bear all the trappings of propaganda. And propaganda revolves around sticking any empirical facts and figures you happen upon into a conclusion you have already decided is the right one even before you went looking for evidence.

Almost sverybody does this regarding wars though. So it's nothing personal.

george walton

roidubouloi has such a penchant for invention he should apply for a patent.

I disagree with Peretz's take on a lot of things, but I haven't a clue who Eric Alterman is and why his opinion on Peretz is so important to you.

I'd also point out, if I may, that "thrilling to the sound of fighter jets" is not gloating.  It may involve a boyish excitement at speed and firepower that can reveal a certain immaturity (see GWB), but I don't see the "gloating" part.  "Don't fuck with the Jews" may be macho posturing, but again -- but, hey, just choose a word and throw it in, any word, it doesn't matter, all language is equal, right?

Let's cut out the bs, ndmack.  My basic argument is (although we both know what you mean, so why am I bothering?) that "gloating" was consciously deployed by you to suggest not only approval of a war measure but also a pathology, a kind of psychotic pleasure in death and killing, and thus to imply that anyone who has a different take on events from yours is deranged, not within the normal range of human sensibility.  I don't see that in Peretz's stuff, although I see a lot of other thoughtless and wild generalizations, e.g. the crap about American muslim disloyalty that I challeged in the other post on The Spine.

My simple advice to you:  if you keep using sensational and lurid language (rather like Marty Peretz's own at times, curiously enough) you will find that you have run out of language escalation potential when really bad stuff happens.  You will find your own derangement much worse that what you previously ascribed to others.

george:  "What do you know personally about the terrible reality of war? Ever been in one? I was in one about 37 years ago. And the one thing I will take to the grave with me are the terrible memories of the children caught up in the middle of a hell war can be for civilians. Not being able to explain why the suffering was inflicted on them is the toughest part."

The presence or absence of personal experience of war does not strengthen or weaken arguments about the legitimacy of the one or the other conlfict, although it can give some indication of why an individual takes a particular position, or why they are more or less vehement about it.  No normal person wishes injury or suffering on others, especially children.  Your argument has the effect of making anyone who disagrees with you appear as if they are outside the range of normal human reactions, and that therefore any position they hold is per se unacceptable.

To put it another way:  your argument bears all the trappings of propaganda, because it seeks to morally disenfranchize the discussion partner in such a way as to invalidate anything coming from that source before it can be assessed.  You don't deal with sahil's argument, you merely consign him to a pre-labled category and dismiss the argument because of the category to which its presenter has been consigned.

ironyroad  writes:

-- I haven't a clue who Eric Alterman is and why his opinion on Peretz is so important to you.

You should read a lot more Alterman and a lot less Peretz. Unfortunately, Alterman's blog is currently on hiatus until January 8th when it will be at:

www.thenation.com/.../altercation

And, frankly, if you find "gloating" to be "sensational and lurid" I suggest you buy a bigger dictionary. I think even I can find a lot of potential above and beyond gloating for "language escalation potential when really bad stuff happens." Although I don't understand why most of the writers at The New Republic would care about language given their evident lack of concern for carnage.

I find "gloating" not only sensational and lurid in the context (and I'm happy to hear you out on definitions) but also -- as I said in the part of my comment you naturally chose to overlook -- designed to delegitimze the individual who has an opposing position to yours, so that his/her argument is conveniently neutralized before you need to deal with it.

It's a lot easier, I know.

Very funny, mackenzie;  You not only don't care about carnage, you affirmatively advocate it as a means of achieving political goals.  Have you ever once thought to suggest that Hamas, to spare its people from carnage, it to stop its rocket attacks on Israel?  Not hardly, because you approve of them.  The blood drips from you, mackenzie, with all of your faux moral outrage.

Here is an article that explains antisemites like mackensick

“Gaza: Counterpunching the Jews”   Published by Ben Cohen

www.hurryupharry.org/.../gaza-counterpunching-the-jews

“Before today, I hadn’t come across the name of Brian Cloughley. But he’s writing for online rag Counterpunch  - which stubbornly insists upon its leftist credentials despite being a fount of antisemitism - in terms that are indistinguishable from Klansman David Duke.

In defending his nationalist friends in Serbia, Duke has written of “the cadre of Jewish globalists who control American foreign policy.” Spurred to anger by the voice of a British rabbi, whom he doesn’t name but who defended Israel’s operation in Gaza in a BBC interview, Cloughley sounds just like Duke when he declares: “There are thousands like him in the UK and the US. They unconditionally promote Tel Aviv’s plans and policy and wield amazing influence over politicians and businesses. Killing Palestinians is Israeli policy, and these people spare no effort to justify it.”

That final flourish - “these people” - could have been written just as easily by someone satirizing antisemitism as by someone promoting it. At any rate, Cloughley couldn’t be clearer: the US and the UK are littered with wealthy Jews peddling influence on behalf of Israel.

These rootless cosmopolitans cannot be expected to be loyal citizens of the motherland. The offending rabbi, says Cloughley, “isn’t really British. He is an Israeli religious propagandist of British citizenship whose main allegiance is to Israel.” Just as the Soviet Communist newspaper Pravda, in 1949, railed against “profiteers with no roots and no conscience…non-indigenous nationals without a motherland.”

Soviet propagandists became experts in conjuring up euphemisms for the term “Jew.” So, in its own modest way, has Counterpunch. With both, the point is the same: Jews aren’t really like other people. They are disloyal, slippery and much too powerful.

When it comes to their own history, Jews are forever learning the wrong lessons. Elsewhere on Counterpunch, the musician and producer Brian Eno asserts: “By creating a Middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they’ve forgotten it.”

The “Jews-should-know-better” line is one we come across frequently. In terms of the tropes available to anti-Zionists, it is becoming more unoriginal with every passing day. Which is why it’s a shame to see someone like Eno, who has created music of stunning originality, sounding tiresomely like your average concerned celeb. And doing so in a journal that hates Jews to boot.”

Mackensick has spent the last four years stalking Peretz and posting the same cliches day after day. He thinks he saying something when he quotes from blogs and people who also hate Peretz.

There is nothing that he says which hasn't been borrowed from some other web site.

Here are some of the people Mackenzic supports:

Nizar Rayyan of Hamas on God's Hatred of Jews by Jeffrey Goldberg

jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/.../nizar_rayyan_of_hamas_on_gods.php

"Nizzar Rayyan, the Hamas leader who was killed, along with two of his wives and several of his children, in an Israeli bombing raid earlier this week, was one of the more bellicose Hamas leaders I have known. I saw him last in Gaza two years ago, at a mosque in the Jabalya Refugee Camp, where I spent quite a lot of time (my book Prisoners explains why).

He was one of the more Islamically-learned Hamas leaders I've met (Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was learned as well, I think, but he was very hard to understand; Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was the least pleasant of all the Hamas leaders I've known, was not very learned at all). In particular, Rayyan was interested in the hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, with a special interest in hadith that painted Jews in a negative light.  Rayyan and I discussed the writing of Ibn Taymiyya, the Muslim scholar who lived seven hundred years ago, and who is the intellectual forefather of Sunni radicalism today (it was Ibn Taymiyya who elevated jihad to a kind-of sixth pillar of Islam). Like Ibn Taymiyya, Rayyan was preoccupied with Muslim apostasy. He never quite said so, but I could sense that he thought of Abu Mazen and the other leaders of the Palestinian Authority as traitors not only to the cause of Palestine, but to Islam itself. "You cannot be loyal to Allah and to the CIA at the same time," he said of his P.A. enemies.

There are things I didn't know about Rayyan, such as that he had four wives - a fact that tells you something about the culture of Hamas - but I knew that he was sincere in his devotion to the cause of Israel's annhilation. The question I wrestle with constantly is whether Hamas is truly, theologically implacable. That is to say, whether the organization can remain true to its understanding of Islamic law and God's word and yet enter into a long-term non-aggression treaty with Israel.  I tend to think not, though I've noticed over the years a certain plasticity of belief among some Hamas ideologues. Also, this is the Middle East, so anything is possible.

There was no flexibility with Rayyan. This is what he said when I asked him if he could envision a 50-year hudna (or cease-fire) with Israel: "The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself for the final battle. We don't need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel." There is no chance, he said, that true Islam would ever allow a Jewish state to survive in the Muslim Middle East. "Israel is an impossibility. It is an offense against God."

I asked him if he believed, as some Hamas theologians do (and certainly as many Hezbollah leaders do) that Jews are the "sons of pigs and apes." He gave me an interesting answer that reflects a myopic reading of the Koran. "Allah changed disobedient Jews into apes and pigs, it is true, but he specifically said these apes and pigs did not have the ability to reproduce. So it is not literally true that Jews today are descended from pigs and apes, but it is true that some of the ancestors of Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, and it is true that Allah continually makes the Jews pay for their crimes in many different ways. They are a cursed people."

What are our crimes? I asked Rayyan. "You are murderers of the prophets and you have closed your ears to the Messenger of Allah," he said. "Jews tried to kill the Prophet, peace be unto him. All throughout history, you have stood in opposition to the word of God.""

Irony writes:

The presence or absence of personal experience of war does not strengthen or weaken arguments about the legitimacy of the one or the other conlfict, although it can give some indication of why an individual takes a particular position, or why they are more or less vehement about it. No normal person wishes injury or suffering on others, especially children. Your argument has the effect of making anyone who disagrees with you appear as if they are outside the range of normal human reactions, and that therefore any position they hold is per se unacceptable.

George responds:

Quite true. In fact, there will always be those who experience war and crave it all the more. I met a bunch of them. Just as I met a bunch of folks like me who viewed the war only [or mostly] in terms of how it shreds the lives of people who want nothing other then to live their lives as they always had.

I befriended a special forces lieutenant in a base outside our MACV in Song Be. I was a teletype operator in the signal corps. And that put me in contact with ARVNs and the special forces unit at Base 34.  

He was a medic. And through him I saw civillians wounded in terrible ways in a makeshift hospital in Song Be South. Mostly by friendly ARVN mortars. But some from white phospherous burns as well. Another kind of friendly fire. It is the suffering children you never forget.

He once took me down into a valley where a community of Montagnards lived. Montagnards in South Vietnam [at least back then] were analogous to Aboriginals in Australia. They were often looked down on or seen as ferel, uncivilized by other Vietnamese. And sometinmes they were attacked by VC [or even the NVA] because they were perceived as allies of America. The best I remember is that they were sort of like the Kurds are in Iraq. Anyway, the suffering they had just endured in an attack [by who? I don't know] was nothing less than....shocking. Again, especially the children. Then and there I discovered just how much rage at the way the world works a human being could feel.

Ever since I have despised war....not just for what it can do to innocent peoiple, but the way in which it is almost always pursued by those who profit the most from arming and supplying those who fight them. And the people powerful enough to start them almost never have to fight them. The bullshit about God and freedom and democracy is almost always just the cover story. Although when it's not, the results can be just as horrific

The thing is though, when push comes to shove, there really isn't a god damned thing I can do to efface this particular prejudice.

george walton

"Quite true. In fact, there will always be those who experience war and crave it all the more."

Who the fuck are you talking about.

I have never met any veteran (and I was in the service) who craved for more war.  It's possible that some veterans are nostalgic for their youth and since these people spent it in the military and not in college that's what they are nostalgic for.  Modern warfare is not something any one craves. War is tedious,it's loud and its grimy. Not to mention the losess one experiences.

I did meet a lot of civilians who had never been in the militiary who project a lot of nonsense and untruth on most veterans.

"Quite true. In fact, there will always be those who experience war and crave it all the more."

I have yet to meet one IDF veteran who had experience of war and craves it all the more. This is one of those idiotic georgian fantasies about Jewish soldiers, I daresay. Some of the strongest friendships are forged during military service, the shared experience of facing the unpronounceable, of camaraderie and loss of friends on the battlefield.  When these friends meet, even decades later, they remember what they ate, how their tent was flooded at night, how bizarre some of the training exercises were. Never do they speak of the carnage, or how they lost their friends.

I know a pilot who was a POW in an Arab ountry. He never once mentions it.  He has had much better things to do with his life than repeat shocking and graphic scenes he went through.

george's dirty slip of obscene hatred to Israelis shows through with these statements. An ignorant, frustrated mind looking for something by which to alleviate his own sense of worthlessness.

"Ever since I have despised war...."

Good for george. Israelis do not have similar luxury. They have to be ready to do war, or they will be annihilated. Does anyone here even doubt it?

What is better for an 18 year old boy, go to boot camp and get ready to risk his life or body, or go to the beach to look at pretty girls, and continue to study and have a normal life, like other teenagers do, in  Washington, in Moscow, and in Peking, in Paris and in Rome, in Oslo, in Stockholm and in Copenhagen??

It takes a certain malicious mind to suggest otherwise.

george:  I am confused, to say the least, about why you responded to my comment about the lack of logical connection between the experience of war and the validity of arguments with "Quite true" -- and then summarized the exact opposite of what I said.  Do you read posts before responding?

I'm not a veteran, but I have heard of veterans craving more tours of duty.  Last year some time the NY Times magazine had a story about an Iraq veteran who along with his brother jacked a car and died by cop.  He unraveled state side, but craved the action in Iraq and wanted tours of duty.  I don't know how prevalent this is, and I imagine it's more the exception than the rule.

jacksondyer writes:

"Quite true. In fact, there will always be those who experience war and crave it all the more."

Who the fuck are you talking about.

I have never met any veteran (and I was in the service) who craved for more war. It's possible that some veterans are nostalgic for their youth and since these people spent it in the military and not in college that's what they are nostalgic for. Modern warfare is not something any one craves. War is tedious,it's loud and its grimy. Not to mention the losess one experiences.

I did meet a lot of civilians who had never been in the militiary who project a lot of nonsense and untruth on most veterans.

George responds:

I am of course talking about various soldiers I met and interacted with at the MACVs, the SF base and people I met on Air America flights running crypto equipment to and from another MACV.

Where and when were you a veteran? In a combat zone? In Vietnam almost every base I had on been on [from Cam Ranh Bay, Phou Loi, Lam Son and Song Be] there were invariably two camps---those in the juicer hootches and those in the head hooches. It was like being in two other worlds. And things back then were very different from the military today. Lots of sodiers were drafted against their will and their feelings about being a soldier and being in Vietnam often conflicted dramatically from those we called "the lifers". Oliver Stone captured the two camps brilliantly in Platoon. Kubrick less so in Full Metal Jacket; but Kubrick's film revolved more around Marines, what Joker called [to the best of my recollection] "the phoney tough and the crazy brave".

george walton

noga writes:

I have yet to meet one IDF veteran who had experience of war and craves it all the more

George responds:

Well, good for you. But I really don't recall any comments I ever made on any TNR posts in which I either implicitly or explicitly suggested that IDF soldiers craved war. I can only speak from my own experiences, not yours. Or is that concept beyond which you can grasp?

As for this:

"george's dirty slip of obscene hatred to Israelis shows through with these statements. An ignorant, frustrated mind looking for something by which to alleviate his own sense of worthlessness."

Now, I am also not a psychologists....but the emotional and psychological connotation that inflects in some of your more rancid retorts, leaves me to suspect my arguments are becoming increasingly more effective in parrying yours.

I'm curious the: Is this as close as you have ever been to combat?

He said, ironically.

george walton

noga1 writes:

"Ever since I have despised war...."

Good for george. Israelis do not have similar luxury. They have to be ready to do war, or they will be annihilated. Does anyone here even doubt it?

George responds:

There are bascially three ways in which one can react to war and combat:

First, they can actually have been IN a war or IN combat.

Secondly, they can befriend or be related to someone who has.

Thirdly, they can read about it in books or watch it on televison.

Now, no matter how someone gets connected existentially to a war, it doesn't [as irony rightly pointed out] make their point of view any more relevant, any more accurate, or any more prescient [about future wars] than another who does not. There are just too many hundreds and hundreds of additional variables and vantage points that need to be factored in.

But here's thing: If your narrative ABOUT war comes in large part from intense experiences IN war there is no way in hell you can tamp that down and think, "gee, how can I be more objective about this?"

george walton

george, I knew your style and substance reminded me of some literary character but i nly just realized who it is:

"MR. COLLINS was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society;... and though he belonged to one of the universities, he had merely kept the necessary terms, without forming at it any useful acquaintance. The subjection in which his father had brought him up had given him originally great humility of manner, but it was now a good deal counteracted by the self-conceit of a weak head, living in retirement, and the consequential feelings of early and unexpected prosperity. A fortunate chance ... made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility."

"``He must be an oddity, I think,'' said she. ``I cannot make him out. -- There is something very pompous in his stile. -- ... Can he be a sensible man, sir?''

``No, my dear; I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the reverse. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter, which promises well. I am impatient to see him.''

ironyroad writes

:

george: I am confused, to say the least, about why you responded to my comment about the lack of logical connection between the experience of war and the validity of arguments with "Quite true" -- and then summarized the exact opposite of what I said. Do you read posts before responding?

George responds:

I would say you are more conflicted than confused.

You were pointing out how any particular experience any particular person has regarding any particular war is not wholely irrelevant regarding how he or she reacts to any furture war; but in and of itself it means nothing [inherently] about the moral, political, emotional, psychological etc  narratives that will be broached by many different people with many different experiences in many different wars about a brand new war plastered in brand new headlines in the media.

So, what first popped into my head was the absurdity of trying to integrate logic or epistemology into all the conflicting and contradictory assessments, evaluations or judgments that will inevitably be stacked up regarding what is RIGHT or what is WRONG about the conflict in Gaza.

That then took me back to the final weeks I spent in Song Be. And that was rather extraordinary because a sapper attack had resulted in blowing up all the armaments in the ARVN compound [again] which virtually destroyed our MACV. I was the teletype guy there and received a teletype transcription of a newpaper article in the Washington Post [from a teletype buddy in Lam Son]  about the destruction of the MACV.

Anyway, we were forced to move to a new compound that was being built for the ARVNs. This was rather traumatic because in the old MACV the juicers and the heads had their own separate hooches; in the new place we all had to share the same space. And that resulted in lots shouting matches and [actual fistfights] about the war, whether we should be there, the lifers' racism etc.

Those were the guys who popped into my head when thinking about the relationship between logic and experience and war.

And the rest of my post was not an attempt to contradict that, but to flesh out my own personal mental, emotional and psychological sojourn to the opposite reaction. You have to remember that when I went into the Army I was a religious fanatic and [like my father] a stauch anti-communist conservsative. All "logic" would have suggested I would NOT return "to the world" a radical atheist.

Logic then is only relevant in war when you are discussing who did what when and where. And sometimes "why?" can pretty straightforward too. But when it comes discussing war ethically, honorably, conscientiously, virtuously, righteously...in a serious of value judgments laden down with emotional and psychological baggage that is existential to the bone...notheing ever gets resolved LOGICALLY.

george walton

noga writes about Mr Collins:

George responds:

First, I want to point out that over and again, I respond to posts from you and you respond by mentioning virtually nothing about the points I raised or the questions I ask.

Yes, it's true, I do this as well. Most of us do from time to tme. But your non sequiturs are starting to approach the level of a Twilight Zone segment.

Now, for the matter at hand: I have absolutely no idea why Mr Collins is nailing me to a cross.

So, let's make a deal:

I promise not to ask.....if you promise not to answer.

george walton