One of the standard arguments currently being employed against supporters of the State of Israel is that the true friends of the Jewish state are those who are doing their best to undermine its democratically-elected government and force it to submit to foreign pressure to make concessions to the Palestinians. It is an old and somewhat disingenuous ploy that is, at best, an effort by supporters of the losing side in Israeli elections to win back what their friends have lost in the ballot box. There are times when those who like the right-of-center parties in Israel have played this game. However, since the evisceration of the Israeli left by the refusal of the Palestinians to make peace, it is the sole consolation of those who despise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies. But the anger and frustration of the Jewish left is such these days that some have expanded this tactic and taken to using anti-Semitic tropes about “Israel-firsters” which are straight out of the Walt-Mearsheimer Israel lobby thesis. To listen to people like Media Matters scribbler M.J. Rosenberg these days, it is hard to distinguish the bile he spews at AIPAC and liberal supporters of Israel (forget about what he says about conservatives) from that of out-and-out anti-Zionists.
Rosenberg’s old friend J.J. Goldberg writes in the Forward this week to defend his buddy. It is an unconvincing piece marred not so much by the frame of reference of friendship as it is by a refusal to come to grips with the way Rosenberg’s anger at his former employers at AIPAC and everyone who doesn’t share his opinion has distorted this debate. According to J.J., M.J. is still pro-Israel at heart but just doesn’t like the policies of its government and those Americans who back it. But Rosenberg’s willingness to adopt the rhetoric of Israel-haters undermines his defenders. That this apologia for Rosenberg ran in the same issue of the paper that also contained a flattering profile of Ali Abunimah, one of the leading advocates of the campaign to boycott Israel in the United States, only reinforces the impression that some on the Jewish left are so deeply invested in the effort to undermine backers of the pro-Israel consensus that they are seeking to erase any boundary between mere criticism of the government in Jerusalem and activity whose aims are clearly more sinister.
Given the viciousness of his rhetoric, it is not surprising that Rosenberg has become a lightening rod. Liberal icon Alan Dershowitz has called on the White House to disassociate itself from his current employer, the prominent liberal group Media Matters, due to Rosenberg’s conduct. That is a matter for the left to hash out. I am more interested in the attempts by people like Goldberg to defend Rosenberg on the grounds that he is just a garden-variety critic of Netanyahu. Indeed, Goldberg claims the whole dustup is the fault of Netanyahu and his anti-peace policies. This is an absurd distortion of Netanyahu’s record, but its main fault is that he ignores the fact that it is the Palestinians who have conclusively rejected peace. Goldberg and Rosenberg’s positions on the peace process have been rendered not so much incorrect but irrelevant by the ruthless dynamics of Palestinian politics that has made peace unlikely for the foreseeable future. But rather than acknowledge this reality, they prefer to keep up their fight against the Jewish right. In the case of Rosenberg, his position is now so extreme that he is not only unable to put forward his opinions in a reasonable manner unmarred by hate speech, he also seems unwilling to recognize any distinction between attacks on supporters of Israel’s current government and the right of its people to have their democratic verdict respected abroad and the violent rhetoric employed by those who literally wish to see the state destroyed.
Many on the left these days lack the humility that ought to always be part of American Jewish attempts to diagnose Israel’s problems. Even worse, some like Rosenberg are so frustrated by the way their assumptions about how to make peace have been overtaken by events that they have come to see any attack on Israel’s leaders or the vast majority of Americans who have stepped forward to support that government as being fair comment. In doing so, he has resorted to the lowest sort of smear that had heretofore been the province of Israel-haters. Though Goldberg assures us M.J. is the same lover of Israel he was in his youth, that only goes to show how politics can distort a man’s vision and his moral compass so as to allow him to try to destroy that which he once held dear in the name of preserving that same thing.
As the decision by the Forward’s editors to publish a puff piece on Abunimah shows, Rosenberg is not alone in having stepped over the line from honest Zionist criticism to that shadowy no man’s land in which those who are neutral about Israel’s existence live. Abunimah’s Electronic Intifada website is the source of a non-stop flow of hatred at the Jewish state and Zionism. For a Jewish newspaper that considers itself to uphold the liberal end of the pro-Zionist spectrum to have made such a decision calls into question not only the judgment of the editors but also whether they believe there is any line across which Jews may not stray before their conduct can be properly termed “anti-Israel.”
There is no one definition of the term pro-Israel. It does not require anyone to be a cheerleader for Netanyahu or any other Israeli leader or party. One need not be pro-settlements or anti-settlements or espouse any particular position on Iran or any other issue that divides Israelis and American Jews. But there are some things one cannot do and still claim to be within the pro-Israel camp. One of them is to adopt rhetoric that apes the efforts of Israel-haters to delegitimize supporters of Israel and which adopts the classic themes of anti-Semitism. The other is to espouse neutrality about attempts to wage economic warfare on Israel via the BDS movement that calls for Americans to boycott, divest and sanction the Jewish state.
What is needed now is not so much ideological conformity within the pro-Israel camp as some soul-searching by a Jewish left that appears to have lost its way. Let us pray they come to their senses and recognize that however frustrated they may be by the current state of Israeli and Palestinian politics, there are some things they may not do and still be included under the rubric of “pro-Israel.”
Rosenberg prefers the imaginary Jewish playhouse between his two ears to a live Jewish state. For him "pro-Israel" advocacy is advocating the perfect harmony of the graveyard. Except nowadays that graveyard will be desecrated by Rosenberg's anime eyed Palestinians as well. We're being too delicate here. That a large segment of American Judaism has drifted off the map into irrelevant anti-Semitic self-loathing and superciliously irrelevant yofi nefesh self-righteous self-abnegation was, after all, anticipated by Zionism itself, which diagnosed the hopelessly compromised continuous crises of the Diaspora, notwithstanding periodic bouts of economic and cultural flourishing.
OK, but then how do you explain the exact same attitudes MJ Rosenberg has within Israel, by Israelis, even sabras?? n nAlso, you have interesting things to say and I generally agree with you, but may I humbly suggest you say them in somewhat clearer language and shorter sentences? I struggled through Hegel once already.
Gosh, I don't think there are endless digressions or self-swallowing ruminations a la those drunks Hegel or Heidiggahitler–some serial adjective qualifiers and a few "that"'s but harmless. n nBut, well, no, I don't get the impression that the general "post Zionist "we'd rather play paddle ball at the beach" anti-ideological mindset of the secular Israeli knowledge class is the same thing as the anti-Zionist "we'd rather pretend we aren't in the MIddle East at all" mindset of the academicians or the NGO-based drive for moral purity embraced by the rump remnants of Meretz and the various semi-permanent agitators for Palestinian rights. n nAnd, in turn, the moral purity of the academic-Meretz set is a creature of its own cultural games. The Meretz crowd, on its own, is only an asterisk in Israel's political scene electorally. Maybe they liase with J-Street and the American know nothings here. I could be wrong. Still I think there's a stench of hucksterism unique to the celebrity dynamic Stateside of the (nominally) Jewish Huffpo-Daily Beast-Media Matters-Brat Pack Juice Box tantrum set. n nBut here's my thing. I think Judaism is like cabinet making. It isn't the sum total of everything cabinet makers do or care about or wish to espouse. It is about the cabinets. If a Jew starts making sofas, or love seats or armchairs or dinner sets or hot rod automobiles I don't understand their claim that these endeavors, for better or worse, are somehow naturally about cabinet making because Jews are involved or because commode seats and cabinets can be argued as sharing this or that quality. Supporting Israel is about as Jewish a thing as there is. Not the only thing. But to assert that standing up for those who make cabinets is un-Jewish but finding good things to say for meth driven ax wielders who find joy in smashing cabinets to pieces–this old pooch just tunes it all out.
The US has the same type of leftists that hate America as well. Their existence proves nothing. n nHere is my minimum requirement to be pro-Israel. You can't only criticize Israel and blame it completely for every problem that Israel and the Palestinians have. Rosenberg does not pass this test.
In bringing “Hegel or Heidiggahitler” to the fore isn’t it rather coincidental that Hitler had his Rosenberg and Soros has his?
it just proves that Israelis are Jews, not some distant offshoot over there in that arid dusty non-place called Eretz Yisrael by some, and other names (southern Syria) by others. Some Jews feel they are morally unfit for the job of sovereignty, which is a dirty job best handled by the Goyim. A Brit is sovereign, and American can be, certainly an Arab, but not a Jew, whose pure moral values cannot be sullied by self- defense. Unfortunately, Jews who cut themselves off from Eretz Israel, from Zion, in exchange for a virtual Zion, die off, because their children, should they have any, don't see why they should attach themselves to a virtual non-entity.
In the end, does it matter if someone actually lobs the missiles and bombs at Physical Israel, themselves, or merely pays salaries of the bombers while claiming they do it for the Jews' own good. nThe Lord God in Heaven isn't likely to count them as His allies, rather than as those who spit in the Apple of His Eye who have incurred His Greatest Wrath upon themselves, and will share in the rewards of His enemies in the Book of Obadiah and in Ezekial 38 and 39. n nThese allies of the anti-Zionists are not likely to find themselves with a hole left to hide in, in all Creation. n Er – ah, Except that of Korah, in Numbers 16. nThey are the reason God said He would keep for Himself a REMNANT.
I read the Abunimah piece. It struck me as a neutral capsule biography of the fellow and description of his views. r nr nFairly typical, I guess. The Zionists react with intimidation and invective (“anti-semite,” “self-hater,” “kapo,” etc.) rather than anything approaching reasoned argument. r nr nIf the current hysterical campaign for war with Iran, which a majority of American Jews do not support, succeeds, the ensuing disaster may well discredit Zionism not only in American politics generally, but among Jews here as well. A dangerous game.
"the current hystercal campaign for war against Iran…"? Apparently it goes unnoticed by these reasonable men that Iran is in a state of war against Israel already. n nIran pledges itself to wipe Israel off the map. Iran declares Israel to be a "poisonous cancer." Iran funds attacks against Israel by proxy terrorist groups. And Iran is rapidly developing doomsday weapons to use against…somebody. n nGentlemem may cry "Peace, Peace"; but there is no peace. Iran's leaders are self-declared zealots and genocidal Jew-haters, and they believe Islam to be at permanent war with Israel. n nThe only question to be pondered by reasonable men is this: What would the 12th Iman do with a stockpile of nuclear weapons? n
Well, the 12th Iman promotion was in part Ahmadinnerjacket's tool to gain power on the account of the religious orthodoxocrats in charge in Iran–and that may be dialed back as they try to clip his wings. AFIK the danger to that theory is the belief that MEN have to initiate apocalypse to hurry along the coming of Mr. 12 Steps to Armageddon.
So Iran's leaders say they believe they can help the advent if the 12th Imam by destroying Israel, but we are all to ignore that because it is just a political gambit? n nWhere does one come by such insight?
No, we come by insight by actually reading what other people write. You might try it before responding to what wasn't said in the first place. I made a distinction between the President's circle and the leadership which has just routed his faction in Parliamentary elections. I actually wrote that apocalyptic 12th Imamism was not the creed of the Iranian ayatollahs generally but of Ahmadenijad and his circle specifically–it is a limited gambit of a minority faction–and that the cult of the 12 Imam's imminent arrival will probably be suppressed as the Iranian mullahcroacy moves to limit his activities. I noted that the danger in the theory was that it encouraged apocalyptic action to bring the 12th imman–whatever degree its promotion is influenced by internal politics–and not in the belief that the 12th imam himself is a warrior, obviously no consolation to Israel if it determined Iranian state action. Again, the mullahs don't buy it as far as reports from Iran go. That doesn't mean they wouldn't preemptively nuke the Jews, but that they wouldn't do so in the happy knowledge that this would bring into manifestation the hidden Shiite messiah. Perhaps the little post was too succinct. Hopefully it is more easily understood.
Fact is, UNBELIEVING MEN who are in fact quite antagonistic to Israel and to God Jehovah, the God of the House of Abraham Isaac and Jacob – these men are indeed vital to the steps to Armageddon. n nAnd they are performing to Script. n nFact is there is NOTHING in all the Biblical Prophecies that a Believer in the God of the House of Abraham CAN do to hurry along Armageddon – but the UNBELIEVERS can and ARE lining the setting of the World up PERFECTLY as foretold up to AT LEAST 3,000 years in advance. n nIF THEY REFUSED to line up with the settings for Biblical Prophecy, the prophecies could NEVER be fulfilled. n nIf BELIEVERS waged every kind of mounted endeavor they could think of, it would not progress the prophecies one step. But the Fact is that the Bible describes the activities of the unbelievers as UNJUST AND UNPROVOKED ATTACKS – and amounts to one of the fulfillments of the story Jesus told about renters who killed the son of the owner, thinking that would ensure they would come to possess the vineyard – but that the Vineyard Owner would come and kill the murderers, instead of giving them his land. n nAnd the fact is that Arab and Marxist attempts to enable the "fictitious" 12th Imam will indeed bring about the revealing of the Antichrist. n nI say "fictitious" in quotation marks because while the fantasies of Islam about the 12th imam ARE IN FACT FICTITIOUS, they clearly were born of the stories of the Bible regarding the Antichrist, and are less than 1500 years old – so clearly their foundation is a sort of mirror image of the Bible Prophecies – "from the other side's POV"…
The fact that you find nothing remarkable about a favorable presentation of a man who wishes to have Israel dissolved doesn't tell us that a "neutral" description of his politicide campaign to liquidate the Jewish state is somehow an indication of a healthy Jewish state of affairs. (Even a "neutral" description in measured tones of a neighbor's proposal to take involuntary custody of your children and your wife while locking you in the garage would, on refection, be somehow less than "neutral"–as it is the article is sympathetic and positive) You are still unable to resist prophesying the discrediting of a "Zionism" of which you have less than superficial knowledge, the understanding a flea gets of time by walking on the surface of a chronometer. And no, there is no hysterical campaign for war with Iran since everyone understands that it is only an even bet that Obama would respond to a direct attack by Iran on the homeland. He is not going to attack Iran. Though, AFIK, poll show a greater willingness among American *Christians* for a unilateral Israeli attack than is currently showing up in Israeli domestic polls. Life is funny that way. And Bibi, if they even have a workable plan for an Israeli-alone attack has already said it isn't imminent. Don't fret. Wait until word leaks out that the Iranians are actually starting to put some of their components together–as workable components (triggers; explosive shells, warheads, etc.).
Your skepticism about the imminence of war against Iran, for what it's worth, is reassuring. But we have the likes of Santorum verbally throwing bombs around, and Obama kissing AIPAC's ring, even if he walks some of it back two days later. The retired editor of this magazine published a book a while back advocating war against Iran, while neocons and Sen. McCain call for "humanitarian" intervention against Syria, something the Israelis have by no means urged. n nThus I see organized Zionism in America, which overlaps with the neoconnery, as a threat to the national interest and to peace. I don't care for Israel or Israelis, but if she and her backers did not presume upon American resources, I'd advocate benign neglect of the conflict, and leave you folks to fret about whether M&Ms are kosher and why your sons are marrying shiksas.
GOM, your last name is Epstein. Most people with that last name age 50+ are Jewish. When the American Nazis come for Jews, they are going to come for you too. Anti-semites, with whom you share your viewpoints, don't consider you a "real American". n nThe most common type of idol worship today, I believe, is the worship of ones own intellect. GOM, don't trust your brain. Get down to Chabad and pray to Hashem, man. Return to who you are.
When someone advocates for the end of the State of Israel and its replacement by a majority Palestinian state, most Jews are extremely and emotionally opposed, even if the writer doesn't spew anti-Jewish hatred and makes his arguments using calm, reasoned language. I consider it anti-semitic to propose or to favor the end of the Jewish state and I don't need to entertain the proposal as though it was reasonable. n nAs far as Americans oppostion to war, American's have always opposed war – think about how many propaganda films the USA had to make during WW2 to keep public support up for the war. There were Americans in December 1943 advocating that the US should offer peace terms to Nazi Germany if the alternative was the thousands of deaths that resulted from the invasion of Europe in June 1944. n nActually, the arguments for using force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons don't seem very hysterical to me. Zionism is already discredited among Jews who don't identify as being members of the people of Israel.
The question you have to ask yourself is why has every single Rosenberg since the creation of Israel said essentially the same nonsense regardless of how far left or how far right the government of Israel happened to be at any particular moment. The answer, at least in the real world is quite simple. They don't hate 'the policies' they hate that there's a nation state that has policies. If Meretz took over Israel tomorrow the Rosenbergs and Walt-Measheimers would accuse the Israelis of "World Wide counter revolutionary Zionism that the freedom fighters Lenin and Trotsky knew were a danger to the free world…" or some such twaddle as that. Instead of claims that Jews run the US government they simply claim that Jews run the world. n nThis is nothing new. This is classic antisemitism. This is the same nonsense that the Rosenbergs et al have babbled for 150 years. Rosenberg isn't stupid; he knows what he says. But he's mystified why anyone else recognizes it for what he knows it is. That's what irritates him. Because at their core, you can do whatever you want, you say whatever you want to a virulent antisemite such as him. They don't care. The cardinal sin though, the one unforgivable thing is for you to fail to take them as seriously as they do. That is worthy of your death, in their eyes. That's how paranoia works.
Neutrality on the subject of Israel requires, at a minimum:
* Recognition of Israel’s land rights under international law including the West Bank minus parts given to the PLO
* Recognition of the Palestinians’ land rights, specifically that they had none until Israel gave them land in the 1990s
* Recognition that the Palestinians are an Arab terrorist organization, not a race
* Recognition that Israel is Palestine and the Palestinians dug an unused name out of the wastebasket of history when they founded themselves
* Recognition that both Jews and Arabs have human rights, that killing the Jews is not a human right, and that forcing the Arabs to be ruled by fascists is not a human right
* Skepticism of any claims by either side
To be pro-Israel would require a degree of nationalism, pride, and bias beyond the ideological support for liberal democracies, freedom, peace, and equality that makes liberals support Israel because it follows these values and its current enemies do not. To simply tell the truth about Israel is not to be pro-Israel, it is only an exercise in neutrality.
So what is it to be pro-Israel? How about judging the words, actions and intentions of the Jewish state by the same standards applied to all the other countries in the world. Within the boundaries of what is true in contrast with what is false, what would universally be agreed to be good in contrast to what would be considered bad, evaluating the actions and policies pursued by the government, it seems to be pro-Israel should be quite easy. How many other countries can say they came into existence by international consensus as did Israel beginning with the embrace and endorsement of Zionism by the League of Nations and culminating with the UN Partition Agreement in 1947 approving the formation of the Jewish state? How many other countries have attempted to establish borders through negotiation with their neighbors? How many other countries in the world with the military capablity to dictate peace have tolerated for decades the attacks of hostile neighbors and resulting thousands of casualties in patient hope that co-existence can come by non-violent means?
I think that world would love Israel back in 1947 borders, which League of Nations endorsed. All the other expansion including 1967 borders, were grabbed by Israel by force. n
What the world would love is not relevant. That is because the Arab neighbors with whom Israel has had to contend rejected the partition plan. The Arabs have continued to reject the idea of sharing even as much as a city block with the Jewish state. The Arabs have repeatedly rejected offers of a Palestinian state in exchange for peaceful co-existance with Israel. The wars between Arabs and Israelis have all been started by Arabs with the stated intent of driving the Jewish population completely out of the Mideast and into the Mediterranean Sea. That they have not mustered the competency to acheive their stated and desired goals of creating another holocaust should not make them a cause for sympathy.
To be pro-Israel is to recognize, appreciate and admire Israel for being an exceptional country in a world that has much more been defined by how far the army can go and how much they can take from those they vanquish.
… And no, there is no hysterical campaign for war with Iran since everyone understands that it is only an even bet that Obama would respond to a direct attack by Iran on the homeland… n nHow do you come to this–I take it by homeland you mean America?
It was the United Nations, not the League of Nations, at the request of Great Britian, that put forth the partition plan that was approved by the General Assembly in November 1947. When the Arabs didn't accept it, Great Britian didn't pursue it anymore. Of course, Israel was attacked by five Arab nations on May 15, 1948 and ended up with more territory; Jordan attacked Israel on the second or third day of the Six Day War and Israel conquered the West Bank. n nThe only land that Israel has captured that could be characterized as a "grab by Israel by force" and not captured in defensive war is the Golan Heights, and Syria used the heights for years to shell Israeli towns in the valley below the heights. n nGet your facts straight.
Pro Israel could be defined as the status quo. There is absolutely no danger of America abandoning Israel. Israel and it's most vocal supporters get nervous when any administration does not comply with it's wishes as soon as they are presented. Things move slowly in America. We are a big country. There are a lot of people to convince. No one can act unilaterally all the time. Calling the president an anti semite is probably not helpful and a little annoying, but he still acts in Israels best interest.
You live in another America than the one I reside in. Things move slowly? Really? Things move slowly when the ruling elites wish to gain a goal: complete anniliation of Israel…that way our President doesn't have to be bothered by dealing "with Bebe" so often.
I live in the America where we are not obsessed with Israel the way you are. Your Bebe’s needs are not the first thing I want the president of the United States to think about when he wakes up in the morning. I am not advocating the destruction of Israel. I am advocating Israel quit playing the pathetic martyr and solve it’s own problems and stop whining how everybody is at fault for not giving them another hand out, solving their problems or saving them from the meanies in the world.
Most of today's left, especially that in the United States, seems blissfully unaware of the simple fact that the irreducible 'reason for the existence' of the entity known as "Israel," whether it be a nation-state or in truth some other sort of political entity– is as ultimate protection and refuge for the Jewish people. n nEspecially in the United States, this comes from a false sense of security, and a sort of forgetting of the lessons of the castrophe of the mid-twentieth century. Many Jewish people living in the US, as the commenter 'Scrumptlous' just pointed out, view the US as their homeland a feel secure there, today. n nThree-quarters a century ago, my grandfather's store was burned in a small town, and his family scattered. This happened not in Germany, but in the United States, a nation which at the time had a fascination with fascism and little problem with anti-semitism. The recently released taped of Nixon, declaring that the US would not care if the USSR exterminated "its Jews," says much about the moral stance of the US. n nIt has become fashionable to adopt so-called moral and humanist stances, which not only bemoan the terrible tragedy of the Palestinian territories, but act as if the status of Israel as final refuge for the Jewish people might be easily and facily traded for the establishment of "a Palestinian State" or some other political solution. n nSuch suggestions ignore history and, moreover, place the burdens of a political solution upon Israel and the Jewish people, and not squarely upon the community of nations, and more particularly, upon the European Community and the United States. The final two entities, of course, are those who bear the most responsibility for the Holocaust and the state of Y'ishrael, and who have the most power to effect a political solution, should they choose. n nThe lesson of history and the attempt at the systematic extermination of the Jewish people, cannot be wiped away with a swipe of cloth on a chalkboard. It is the center of this problem, and the irreducable reason for the existence of Israel. n n"Pro-Israel?" There is no 'pro-Israel' that does not defend the existence of Israel, and thus of the Jewish people, at any cost — in the face of any other tragedy or hardship. I thus have no qualm, in regularly using the term "anti-semitic," for any position which would risk the existence of the Jewish people, in order to acheive some other, weaker, imagined, theoretical, or otherwise less tangible goals.
MJ Rosenberg is that odd and incomprehensible creature, an anti Semitic Jew who tries to hide his despicable bigotry by masquerading as having a problem with Israeli government policy. Yes there are Israelis, not many, who mimic the same party line as the JStreet and Media Matters MJ Rosenberg, and so what? In a free society, anyone can espouse almost any line they want, but the ultra Israeli Left has very little influence in the country, just like reptiles like MJ Rosenberg has almost no influence in the US. Indeed, the only reason anyone even notices Rosenberg is due to his wild, shallow, and utterly marginal rants villifying Israel.
Two problems with knee-jerk support of however many Palestinians the Israelis decide to kill and no matter how much Palestinian land they take. Very practical problems. a) What is in the best interests of Israel and Jews in the long run. Peace I think, because if your count, there are 1.3 billion (and 2 billion by 2050) Muslims and what, about 5 million Israelis. At some point military solutions are not going to work, so working a little harder for peace is not soft-headed, but rather realistic. And, by the way, I should point out that the Zionist project is not an unmitigated success–Jews have been displaced from countries where they lived for over a thousand years. Muslim countries, historically, treated Jews with more acceptance and tolerance than Christian countries. Until Isreal was founded. b) I am very confused by the lack of attention to American interests in these defenses of Israel. I think an attack on Iran is likely to destabilize Pakistan, a nuclear power and critical to our Afghan supply lines. I think it is almost sure to increase oil prices and harm the American economy. So while bombing Iran might look good to the Isrealis (as stated above, I think they are wrong in thinking bombs can solve their problems in the long run), I think it doesn't look so good for the U.S. We are, in my opinion, more likely to be nuclear terrorized by bombs from half a dozen other countries than from Iran. Iran, no matter what, is going to be a WMD pipsqueak.
When dealing with the Middle Eastern countries, what part of "we will butcher and kill every single Jew!" do you not understand? The Jews are not perfect as a country, people or democracy…but, compared to the countries populations surrounding them they are a paradise. When and until the rest of the world wishes not to "butcher and kill every single Jew", then I might listen. But, nothing has changed in over 5,000 years…the bloodlust of non Jews against Jews is simply insane!
One could agree with everything this author has to say and still think it were better left unsaid. This kind of vituperation does no one any good.
As long as Israel is fighting for its existence, as long it is being attacked by its Arab neighbors, by Iran, by Islamists and other anti-Semites, then criticism of Israel is grotesque folly. n nCertainly, Israel's domestic and foreign policies are as fallible as those of any other nation and can be criticized AFTER the war for its annihilation has ceased. But as long as Israel's enemies refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist within secure borders, then all other considerations, all other issues, are beside the point. n nThus, being pro-Israel means supporting Israel in whatever it deems necessary to secure its continued survival. And ONLY Israel is to determine what "necessary" is, not the Euro-American Greek Chorus, left and right, and certainly not Arabs or Muslims.
Gee, might as well as tell me, a female, to make friends with Ted Bundy because his atrocities should be overlooked! Good Lord….insanity rules in this century!!
That isn't a very smart position, young man. n nThe Palestinians and Arab world are talking abut the 67 lines. n nPay attention. You have lots to learn.
To be pro-Israel is to recognize, appreciate and admire Israel for being an exceptional country in a world that has much more been defined by how far the army can go and how much they can take from those they vanquish.