She says she hears health-care horror stories and “it is personal for me.” That was John Edwards’s mantra. (He is the son of a mill worker, in case you didn’t know.)
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no. one thing israelis can’t seem to get through their brains is this:
BLOWBACK
we don’t care if israel defends itself we just want to be LEFT ALONE.
and israel constantly seeks OUR INVOLVEMENT.
america is not next to any muslm countries. they are YOUR problem not OURS.
I did not choose to live in the middl east, I do not wish to be defending those who do.
it has absolutely nothign to do with who is right or wrong or human rights or any of that.
I am not pro islam or pro israel. my ancestors came to america to escape war.
All Europeans? All dumb Europeans who don’t know better? Makes you wonder why all Europeans are so dumb and you so intelligent.
“It’s not clear why they actually believe this”
Because Palestinian terrorists committed all sorts of atrocities in Europe during the 1970s, Europeans are weak, and terrorism has great effect when used on the weak. Any more questions?
“Makes you wonder why all Europeans are so dumb and you are so intelligent”.
Europeans are not dumb Alejcaro; they’re frightened. Their great terror is that they might have to do something, like send peacekeepers to Gaza, for example.
Al ale baratito: keep on wondering, pls, and stop trying to impress all with your own stupidity.
“Any armed strugge,” or this armed struggle?
Drones, jets, missiles, mortars, etc. against a caged population and a ragtag militia. Telephone warnings to flee, when there’ s nowhere to flee to. The whole killing apparatus of the world’s fifth most powerful army, armed by the world’s hegemonic power.
All with no plausible strategic goal.
Ralph Peters has speculated that sooner or later Europe’s genocidal instincts will probably reassert themselves and the US Navy may have to evacuate the continent’s Muslims en masse. I’m not sure about that but it may be premature to write off Europe’s future as a white Christian polity. Anyway, they managed to slaughter around 75 million of their own kind in the first half of the last century. So they do have a pretty impressive record when push comes to shove.
That, I think, is the point. Europe was so devastated by “the first half of the last century” that classical virtue was burned out of them and they have no stomach to defend themselves and their culture until the wolf is at the door, if then. They, along with Lester above, want to be left alone. But in a world of instant communications and weapons of mass destruction there is no such thing as being left alone. You “did not choose to live in the Middle East,” but neither did 3000 people who worked in the World Trade Center. The only successful cure, historically, for war, plague and famine has been the extension of the liberal order. Israel represents that order, and the enemies of Israel are its enemies.
#8 Mahon
I’m not certain what the commenter means by “liberal order,” but assuming it starts with the French Revoluttion, we have the Napoleonic Wars, The War Between the States, the Boer War, and WWI, plus innumberable small conflicts that are the products of the “liberal order.”
Assuming for a moment that Israel is in fact part of the “liberal order” and not a social-democratic theo-kleptocracy, it has initiated its share of wars, which are, to be sure, always described as defensive.
Some cure.
#9: “[Israel] has initiated its share of wars, which are, to be sure, always described as defensive.”
The description is accurate: they were all of them defensive –
none of them were initiated by Israel. E.g., the current Gaza
war was initiated by prolonged rocketing of Israel
from Gaza.
As for “liberal order”, “democratic order” would be more
relevant in this context.
Reasonably liberal, constitutional, rule-of-law countries have fought
each other – e.g. WWI.
But democratic countries somehow
never fight wars against each other. It seems that signals sent by each
of them to the populace of the other are interpreted
in such a way that the war is averted.
But when a democratic country faces
a dictatorship, the signals are misinterpreted on both sides. The democratic
government tries concessions, accommodation, appeasement, because its population
won’t approve of war until all else has been tried. The dictatorship
reads it as a sign of moral weakness, and an invitation to more bullying.
At some point, the democratic patience
snaps, to the dictator’s surprise – why, so he reasons, make concessions
from a position of strength but stop making them when you have got
weaker? By then it may be too late to avert the war.
Between two democratic countries the conciliatory
signals are interpreted in the same sense in which they are sent,
and so the war is averted.
It can be hoped therefore that when all, or almost all, countries become
democratic, wars will end. But not before…
I essentially agree with lester. I regard Israel as a bunch of genocidal neo-Nazis and the Arabs as genocidal fanatics, and as an American I thoroughly disrespect them both. I think the extent of U.S. involvement should be in the realm of offering so-called “diplomatic good offices,” from a position of neutrality.
In the real world, the Bund has gotten its hooks deep into both political parties, the financial system, and the “news” media, and in doing so has turned the U.S. military into a de facto Isreali asset. At this very moment, the U.S. military is supplying critical logistical support and munitions for Israel’s latest genocidal war, and went so far as paying for the entire 2006 campaign.
So, like it or not, the U.S. is on the hook here. Our neutrality has been shredded by the Bund and its fellow-traveling traitors, and I don’t see any real change in the offing.
I’m afraid the mold was broken early for Lester and Grumpy Old Man, when American marines were dispatched to deal with the Barbary pirates that the European powers were prepared to abide. Sigh–and it could have been such an idyll, without all those nasty, foreign entanglements.
I do wonder what Grumpy Old Man would have the US do if it were assaulted, regularly, by a “ragtag militia.” How many free kills does a “ragtag militia” get? Of course, it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that Israel has employed its “whole killing apparatus” against the “caged population” of Gaza (caged, one might add, because Egypt is no more eager to have an open border with these people than is Israel). Israel’s “whole killing apparatus” would make short work of the “ragtag militia” and the “caged population”: it is solely Israel’s restraint that has allowed this vermin to continue its murderous and self-destructive ways.
Israel’s restraint that has allowed this vermin to continue its murderous and self-destructive ways
Vermin, you say. Is that you, Lena Riefenstahl?
I’ve been reading Commentary for about 8 months. Suddenly members of the 4th Reich have started commenting here. What does this mean? Why are the embarrassed apologists for the people who want to kill Jews commenting on this blog? Why now?
Europe better get some backbone and make plans for deporting large numbers of Muslims back from where they came.
Sooner or later, that’s what it will come to.
What I mean by the liberal order is the way of life characterized by personal liberty, pluralist democracy, market capitalism and an open society and culture. This did certainly not start with the French Revolution, which was if anything the opposite. The liberal order is The Wealth of Nations, the Federalist Papers, and Reflections on the Revolution in France. Its enemies have been Napoleon, Prussian militarism, 20th Century totalitarianism (Facist/Communist/Socialist), and now Islamic extremism.
So John Hartland’s too fastidious to use “vermin” to describe people who launch rockets from schoolyards, trying to hit schoolyards, in the hope that any retaliation will score a few more dead children to aid their cause? An indelicate way to refer to those who chose these monsters to govern them? Strikes me as understatement but hey–celebrate diversity. No such thing as a bad goy and all that, eh?
It’s Leni Riefenstahl, not “Lena.”
Jack, the 4th Reich has always been here. They only muster the energy to comment when it concerns a particular subject. Odd that.
g, I notice that Commentary, the chronicler of Jewish culture in America, has yet to breathe a single staff-written word about the largest single financial fraud in American history, the $50 billion swindle perpetrated by Bernie Madoff. Odd that.
I haven’t noticed much embarrassment. It gets in the way of the sadomasochistic thrill derived from giving voice to “forbidden” thoughts. Take the troll Hartland, for instance. He pretends to be paying attention and speaks with great pretention of authority – as though he really believes that anyone takes his opinions about anything – what he believes, with whom he agrees, what he claims to have noticed – seriously. He’s back on his little Madoff hobby horse and his silly claim that Madoff has never been noticed or discussed here: A simple Google search reveals numerous posts and relatively extensive discussion at Contentions concerning Madoff – http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+site:www.commentarymagazine.com+commentary+contentions+madoff – but Hartland has no interest in and probably no workable concept of an adult discussion on Madoff or any other issue. He would find such a discussion tiresome, and would either seek to sabotage it or would move to some other scene where he could more easily satisfy his cravings to cause psychic pain and annoyance, and to be corrected or at least attended to.
Hartland, I am Bernie Madoff. We’re all Bernie, now. Here’s your opportunity–have at it. And Shabbat shalom.
I know lots of European papers that have been doing this for years.
Jack Hyde
You ask:
Why are the embarrassed apologists for the people who want to kill Jews commenting on this blog? Why now?
I’m not sure that they can ever be embarrassed.
In any event, they’re hoping, as do all trolls, that a Gresham’s Law of blogging applies & that their bad comments will drive good commenters away.
Or maybe they’re just trying to show that a majority of commenters on this Blog think Israelis = baddies. It’s their triumph of the will, shall we say, over reason.
Maynard
“Lena Riefenstahl” is a Freudian slip combining Leorna Helmsley & Leni Riefenstahl. Or, maybe Lotte Lenya & Leni Riefenstahl. Or it’s a Triumph of The Will over spellcheck.
It is really in the best interest of the EU nations to have their various Feral Whatevers rush off to Gaza for the Israelis to effectively neutralize while military actions are effectively underway. The various jihadists otherwise inclined to focus on areas of US engagement have to expect that the BHO-CIC policy of kinder follow-up quizzes of enemy combatants really means there will be few selected to participate. Burial will be more appropriate.
#13: “Vermin, you say. Is that you, Lena Riefenstahl?”
I doubt Leni Riefenstahl has ever used the word “vermin”
in her propaganda: this was not her style.
She did, however, use her talent to glorify the Nazi vermin…
the jihadist vermin in Gaza could use someone like that.
She did, however, use her talent to glorify the Nazi vermin…the jihadist vermin in Gaza could use someone like that.
But who will glorify the Israeli vermin?
John Hartland, you do not need anybody to describe you as vermin, your posts do a great job to show that even a vermin is a too good word to describe you, lice probably would be better.
I do not know if John is a real name, but if it is, the Great Islamic Warriors will get rid of you much faster than they defeat Israel. You are in their crossfire as any infidel, even if he half braindead as you are.
# 12 Maynard
The Barbary Pirates operations were limited in scope and responded directly to attacks on American commerce. They were not part of a world-wide dispersion of US troops and resources, buttressed by permanent treaties. We largely avoided major or long-term foreign commitments (not including territorial expansion, but that’s another story) until the late 1800′s with the Spanish War. Then McKinley prayed and decided we needed to convert the (already Catholic) Philippines and Katie bar the door . . .
As for Gaza, it’s true enough, Israel could kill the whole population, but it hasn’t. Have things gone so far that we are awarding “You aren’t Rwanda” medals, or t-shirts that say, “Kiss me, I’m a thug, not an exterminator”? The temptation to invoke Hitler, whether you’re Zionist and you call your opponents Nazis, or anti-Zionist and you hyperbolically call Gaza a new Warsaw Ghetto. These analogies are forced and unconvincing, even if emotionally powerful. I do my best to avoid them because Zionists invoke the misnamed Holocaust and the fear, guilt and emotion it invokes, to justify Israel’s existence. The Germans killed Grandma, so I have a right to expel Arabs from their own country, and bring in Caroline from Chicago, and Sasha, a quarter-Jew, from Kiev.
From what “country” were the Arabs “expelled”? Given the number of populations that have been “expelled” in just the last century, it’s revealing that people like Grumpy Old Man muster umbrage for only one, whose “expulsion” is largely a myth anyway. One would have more respect for the like of Grumpy Old Man and Lester if they had the courage to proclaim their affiliation with the long line of skinheads and idiots with whom they identify, but Jew-hatred has always attracted cowards, moral and physical.
We could discuss whether banning trolls would be a disproportionate response. It would certainly punish them since they have an obvious addiction to Zionists which their compulsive denunciations not only fail to exorcise but evidently aggravate. On the other hand, there would be definitional and free speech problems.
# 29 maynard
There have been numerous expulsions of populations, not to say genocides, in the last 100 years. There are always explanations, if not excuses, but expulsions and population exchanges are nasty things.
Generally people live with them and get on with life–Sudeten Germans, the East Indians of Uganda, Pontic Greeks, etc. Arguably the Palestinians should do so, too, if they wanted a state and the Israelis were inclined to give them one (neither is true). Generally one can’t go home again. These are not live issues at the moment.
What sticks in the craw is the self-righteous Israeli response–lies, donning the mantle of victimhood when they were the victimizers, expressing outrage at the predictable Palestinian irredentism, killing the people they expelled with alacrity, etc. Further, the US has spent billions of dollars and uncounted quantities of prestige to support the Zionist enterprise when it’s really not our problem and not in our interest to make it our problem.
As for banning “trolls”–simply regular posters whose views annoy you–that’s the owners’ privilege. I think, though, you’d find the comboxes duller. What will be left? Competing diatribes against J-Street? Encomiums to Dershowitz and Melanie Phillips? Paeans to democracy? Hand-wringing about the One? Sounds as dull as a UJA dinner.
again, israel can do whatever it wants.
just don’t get america involved.
why are people talking around this? it’s so obvious.
israels wars should be israels alone. not americas. THAT is the problem
The “Palestinians” have a state: Jordan, formed of 80% of Mandatory Palestine. The residual Arab population also had Gaza and the West Bank, which Egypt and Jordan, respectively, could have turned into “Palestinian” states any time during their 19 year occupation. Oddly, they chose not to. Unlike the “Palestinian” Arab’s brethren (always quotes, since it’s a bogus label), Israel has demonstrated its willingness to see Gaza and the West Bank become independent Arab states. Alas, the Arabs don’t appear to be up to the task.
I wouldn’t dream of banning Jew-baiting cretins; much too much perverse pleasure in looking into the cesspool of their minds–rather like a visit to a carnival freak show. Keep ‘em coming!
Maynard
Site won’t takje my comment, basically agreeing with you.
Try again
Executive Summary of my comment.
Hhard to get others to look at this site when these trolls turn it into a “carnival freak show”, which is their intent. Gresham’s Law of blogging.
Staff Blog submissions always thoughtful & helpful in understanding the issues, few of the “anti” comments are
Not just “Jew Baiting”. includes me, an Irish-American RC who won’t join my parish Kumbaya peace & joy ministry because it ritualistically condemns Israel’s responses & always understands root causes of Bomber Left, tho not Bomber Eric Rudolph.
With all due respect, I’like these threads to provide forum for intelligent disagreements on things with participants treating each other civilly. So I move on when I see certain names ‘cause it’s, yawn, just inappropriate, irrelevant, uncivil personal attacks, just “Manny being Manny” .
Peace, as my Kumbaya parishioners & various relatives always say, as they try to pick a fight with me.
Inwood
PS: One of my in-laws told me that “Peace” in Gaelic is “Sith”. I told her that was a typo for the word for poo poo. She did not respond peacefully.
Ah, it took my summary in run-on sentence fragments rather than my longer literary version. Maybe it’s because I changed the word for excrement to “poo poo” in my PS
I don’t know if “grumpy old man” is the same person as “old grouch” who posts on tpmcafe, but the Jew- hating sounds the same. I personally think it’s instructive to hear from people like this; it should remind us all why we support Israel: because the opposition is so vile.
as for Lester, who doesn’t want to be part of the world and just wants to be left alone to play tetris in his mom’s basement: I hate to break it to you, but one of the things civilized countries do is support our allies. Israel is our ally, so we support them.
if you’d like a nice quiet place to pretend you’re not part of the world, may I suggest one of the white supremacist camps in Idaho?
Grumpy, do you know who most of the Israelis are? The majoriy of Jews in Israel are descended from Jews who lived in the middle east before WWII. Israel took in about as many Jewish refugees from Arab countries as there were Palestinian refugees from Israel.
Why is it “self-righteous” to demand that these refugees, as well the refugees from Europe after WWII, be allowed to live in peace in their own country?
I don’t see the point in leading strange discussions with anti-semites.
Instead, I’d like to argue against Robs analysis from a European perspective. Europeans don’t think armed struggle “is ultimately self-defeating”. They even don’t think in these terms of confrontation because they can’t imagine there is somebody out there with whom you really can’t talk. And they can’t imagine there is a regime which is totally evil. Funny, because they had the NS experience.
They think discrimination experiences are the foundation of all hate ideologies. Accordingly, jihadis and anti-semites and nazis need our help and care. Yes, it’s true!
One example I just stumbled upon: Mrs. Wetzel from Berlin’s “Center for Research on Anti-Semitism”, a largely state-financed think tank, said one of the reasons for the wide-spread anti-semitism among Muslims in Europe is the feeling of being at a disadvantage with the integrated jews! This envy, she said, fuels the prejudice. In addition, the parent’s colonial experience is neglected in public discourse compared to the holocaust, she added.
(yes, we Germans are proud of our scientists!)
Concerning the reasons here only one aspect: I think in Europe the dominant role of the state is to blame. Europeans don’t know personal responsibility as you do in America. If you are down here it must be society’s fault. If you hate people it must be someone else’s fault and you must be a good guy.
37- no actually we do exactly what we want when we want. it’s our country
I don’t see the point in leading strange discussions with anti-semites.
Commentary’s definition of an “antisemite” is anyone who isn’t a neocon Nazi who gives a stiff-armed salute to everything Israel does.
Maynard
Why trolls comment on sites with which they disagree.
Of the previous 39 comments (counting my technologically-caused three as one) there were 13 contrary, so that one could say “even in a neo-con site, at least 1/3 of the comments were contra Israel’s war on Gaza.”
Maybe I should say “The world is eyeless in Gaza” in 10 new repetitive entries so that the ratio declines to 3-1!
Inwood
No, actually a Jew-hater–call it by its right name–is anyone whose denunciations are confined to the conduct of a Jewish state, while giving a pass to vastly more opprobrious conduct by non-Jewish actors, though tossing in otherwise irrelevant swipes at random Jews sort of ices it, no?
What’s strange to me is why Jew-haters hanging around here deny their animus; their intellectual kin, plain-spoken fellows like the late Julius Streicher, boasted of it. One has more respect for that. The whinging, “I’m not one,” is contemptible; a Streicher would have said it’s Jewish behavior.
maynard’s definition of a “Jew hater” is: Anyone who does not bow to the master race.
I can only imagine what Hartland’s definition of an anti-semite must be. That would actually be educational. Such a morbid obsession.