the USA, Israel, and national interest

nobody deserves to be compared to white americans, not even israelis

so... are we ready to lock the thread now

Israel names itself most self-critical nation in the world.

Put that on a sign and go stop some traffic with it.

T/S: nerdy dude cheerfully waving rifle astride a camel or fat dude in shades and a CROWN doing surfs up type gesture in the desert.

(I'd post these but I'm afraid the person would somehow be able to trace me)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/world/middleeast/13israel.html

Q: What's the difference between a Palestinian and a pizza?
A: Choice of toppings.

....I have a few quibbles with Stewart's approach, but who cares. The fact that he and his writers put this out there is more than enough. No doubt the growing shift against Israeli violence gave Stewart the opening necessary to produce this piece. Yet the audience sounds hesitant, which is understandable, as American comics almost never skewer Israel. Years of Arab jokes and stereotypes have warped many people's perceptions, so it could take time for them to get comfortable with bits like the above. Judging from Israel's openly stated intentions and utter contempt for world opinion, comfort levels may rise faster than normal. How that will stop the killing, I've no idea. But painful laughter is better than complete silence. Blood is smearing the greasepaint.

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2009/01/malach-ha-mavis-goes-bananas.html

Condy Rice: Olmert's lapdog

wow

XXP, maybe the audience was hesitant because they didn't get the joke? I'm not ashamed to admit I have no idea what it means.

Let's see if Secretary Hillary -- who has been a craven enabler of Israeli aggression since she got smacked around for hugging Arafat's wife -- will be any less obeisant.

The "pizza" joke is not the Stewart bit Perrin was referring to. Though among DP's, I prefer last week's

How many Palestinians can fit in an oven?
What, and waste gas on non-kosher meat!

o_0

I think it means a Jew will dump anything on top of a Palestinian but is more selective about pizzas.

xpost

[Peter and Brian entered a slaughterhouse]
Peter: My God, what is this?!
Brian: This must be the McBurgertown slaughterhouse.
Cow: Sir, you are correct. But in here, we call it DaCow.
Peter: DaCow?
Cow: DaCow. Except we spell the chau part C-O-W, like cow. So it's kind of, uh...eh, sort of a dark joke.
Brian: Yeah, yeah, it's a Holocaust joke. That's, that's really funny.

Perrin again:

Why did the Israeli Army cross the border?
What border?

I think I'm finding the pro-peace pro-Palestinian movement more and more repugnant daily. At first I was equally disgusted at every advocative involved in this process on either side. But slowly the pro-Hamas contingent is winning my Most Repulsive Award.

who, specifically? What I've learned at 25+ years of attending rallies for underdog/"left" causes is that the gathering has just as much churning disagreement within as with the Other Side.

Specifically, since I'm reading this Perrin guy's website, this kind of self-righteous, "we are the only ones who can see the truth that Israelis are evil," one-sidedness.

lol mordy perrin is a dick but youre being sort of disingenuous

Or like pinefox going to a rally where the speakers rail about destroying Israel and how "we are all Hamas today," and pinefox being like, "oh, well, at least I'm protesting." I've never been a fan of calling "anti-Semite" at anyone, but I sympathize with people who go to anti-Semitism to explain anti-Israel sentiment. So much of it is totally illogical and irrational.

uh, a lot of anti-israel sentiment is eminently logical and rational

Yeah, well, we disagree. I think protesting Israel's decision to attack Gaza is very reasonable (it isn't going to accomplish anything, it is self-defeating). I think being anti-Israel is fucking retarded.

The European left has this really confusing hatred of Israel. I mean, I understand sympathizing with Palestine and stuff, but European lefties are so overboard with their anti-Israeli sentiment that it's a little uncomfortable.

too much of it is literally 'anti-israel', if-only-it-had-never-been-borned, stuff.

xpost

you already said that burt!

a lot of it is repugnant, yes, but for mordy to be all, "gosh, the pro-hamas faction is worse" because he read dennis perrin and decided he was an irrational anti-semite is like... uh....

xpost. are you suggesting that a burt_stanton post might be redundant?

shit why am i in this thread again

Max, when you are the target of anti-sentiment, it is not very easy to distinguish between rational and irrational reasons for it.

Not to mention that I'm sympathetic for Palestinians who don't know any better, but I have no respect for their culture or beliefs. As far as I'm concerned all religious groups are morons. And recently it's seemed like a lot of Israel critics subscribe to some Prime Directive. I'd love it if Israeli culture totally consumed Palestinian culture and became the reigning regional hegemony.

The European left has this really confusing hatred of Israel. I mean, I understand sympathizing with Palestine and stuff, but European lefties are so overboard with their anti-Israeli sentiment that it's a little uncomfortable

LOL @ idea of "The European left"

WTF is that?

uh okay so Mordy is also crazy

I'd love it if Israeli culture totally consumed Palestinian culture and became the reigning regional hegemony.

nice

I'm not crazy. I just don't have any sympathy for religious ideologies (and that includes far right wing Judaism).

Mordy, most Americans don't think about Israel much. Since they've been spoonfed headlines from an overwhelmingly pro-Zionist media-industrial complex for 60 years, of course they're not gonna see things as sharply as many of those engaged with the topic.

As for Perrin's 'one-sidedness,' as usual it's a bit more complicated:

It's interesting to note how all the excuses for slaughtering Palestinians when the PLO was Hitler are now being used to tar Hamas. They reject compromise, are bottomless Jew haters, are addicted to death, want to drive Israel into the sea, etc. Naturally, being human beings, there are Palestinians who match these descriptions (just as there are Israelis who view Palestinians as dogs, pigs, insects, and cancers). But accurate labeling isn't the goal here; finding excuses to justify attacks that were pre-planned is the overall point. Again, this goes back to the PLO period, when Fatah offers of two-state negotiation, beginning in 1976, were not only rejected by Israel, but were often answered with air strikes. When the PLO kept offering to talk, Israel found ways to undermine Palestinian moderation, from helping anti-PLO Muslims gain political/military traction (which led to Hamas), to outright attempts at physical annihilation, like the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Now that Fatah has been reduced to Israeli-client status, the same bloody playbook is being used against Hamas, and will be used against whoever succeeds them.

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2008/12/killing-floor-expands.html

I'm trying to expand into fertile foreign markets here.

Not having sympathy for religious ideologies does not give you a free pass to say "I would like to see these people's culture completely wiped out" without catching any shit for it.

I've been following this conflict since I was eight or nine. Israel never responded to negotiation with air-strikes. They've responded to attacks with air-strikes. Let's not whitewash history.

XP I didn't say wiped out. I said consumed. Let it become absorbed by secular Westernism. I don't think there's any inherent value in fundamentalism.

As far as I'm concerned all religious groups are morons

well, happy Martin Luther King Day.

Let it become absorbed by secular Westernism

Of which Israel is a notable exponent?

fair amount of truth in that perrin post, though obviously it's framed in a conspiracy-theory mode that makes israel the only party, the only agency, in the whole mess.

xposts

God-bless-our-righteous-bombs secular Westernism

saying you're sympathetic to Palestinians but have no respect for their culture is kind of worthless. you're basically saying i'd dig these people if they were entirely different than they are.

israeli culture is secular and western?!

Uh no. There's value to human life. There's no intrinsic value to human beliefs.

And yes. Israeli culture is secular and western. Ever been to Tel Aviv?

Or Haifa?

their culture=the way they live

There isn't really intrinsic value to human life.