Friday, August 6, 2010
Balloons in Poisoned Wells
Michael Totten told me yesterday that Mondoweiss has posted the accusation that Israel is using poisoned balloons against civilians in southern Lebanon. That sounded far-fetched even for the feverish minds of Mondoweiss, but no: they've really said it, along with various other outlandish allegations. But the one about the poisoned balloons tops them all. It's 2010, but it could still be 1348, can you believe it?
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19 comments:
The Jews are poisoners.
Hoary anti-Semitic myths didn't die out with the Middle Ages.
I wonder what Joshua Trachtenberg would say about their continued persistence today.
The most outrageous libels can still be made against Jews and people will take them at face value.
This is beyond absurd even for the likes of the Jewish anti-Semites who run Mondoweiss.
I think the Balloon idea has its merits and should be pursued
- why not filling them with something that makes people want to sing Kumbaya for days on end
- in the 70s people claimed that smoking grass would let all people forget about aggression forever
(+ of course free sex and the eradication of jealousy)
- I have met perfectly rational highly educated people who while quoting long passages of Wilhelm Reich firmly believed that they knew without a doubt what it takes to make the lion lie with the lamb in the here and now.
Is anything known what NIF's take is as to Orgon-theory? "my" Didi has a very mysterious message up at Coteret today - maybe it is all connected? ;-)
Silke
That site makes me feel like I need a shower. Even aside from the disgust I feel at what I feel is basic treachery (deliberately distributing harmful lies about your own people), the rhetoric itself is more akin to Der Ewige Jude than to a site claiming "fair and balanced debate" about the Middle East.
This is OT, but I'm reading a book called "Complicity with Evil," about the UN's failures in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur. I mean, we all know the UN is ineffective, but the extent to which high-powered UN bureaucrats could condemn people to death in the name of "neutrality" is shocking even to little old jaded me.
By the way did you know there is a Peace Now ad showing up on your website demanding an end to "demolitions."?
Bryan
here is a group of young women buying something from a shop owned by a Maroccan Jew in Paris
after I read it I concluded that Israel-bashing in whatever guise and wherever is used as a pretext/an excuse for incredibly rude and ill-mannered and cruel behaviour
- taz is a nationally read left daily newspaper, so it is safe to assume that the Turkish? woman who wrote the piece belongs to or is headed for the upper echelons of our society her outright silly argument notwithstanding.
I've checked it - Google translate gives an accurate picture
Silke
http://www.taz.de/1/debatte/kolumnen/artikel/1/die-weissen-israeliten/
Thanks, Silke. That article is interesting. The self-righteousness of the author oozes out through every sentence. Ugh.
Of course, this is just another example of the unfairness of this debate. Supporters of Israel need police escorts for fear of violence, while blatant anti-Semites and peddlers of lies can act with no fear of violence whatsoever. Supporters of Israel can't start debates about it in public, while Arabists can spark a debate based on nothing at all.
I wonder what took Mondoweiss so long, the story has been around at least since 2007
"A marketing campaign launched by the Ha-Ir chain of local Israeli newspapers has been used by Hizbullah to spread anti-Israel propaganda, according to which "Israeli poisonous balloon attacks" have left eight Lebanese nationals in the hospital."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3359474,00.html
PS
Silke, thanks for the info on the German espionage agent.
Oops, the "Silke, thanks..." was me
T34zakat
Bryan,
Check the excellent book by John Kekes, "The roots of evil".
Thank you for that article Silke. At least in the comment section people have called this veiled propagandist out for her hypocrisy. On sites like Huffington Post and Mondoweiss the posters would be agreeing with her 100%.
I was also glad to read that the Moroccan Jewish shopkeeper stood up for Israel. Too many times we read the opposite, whether the story is true or not.
Weiss and his cohorts are simply sick.
Demented.
But I loved the bit where it says that the LAF sent an engineering unit to explode the balloons - something any child knows how to do with a pin.
AKUS
this piece has quite some info about all the toys and gadgets they get from the US and you want them to prick a balloon with a needle?
come on show a bit of respect! ;-)
http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/41848/the-guns-of-august/
I don't know if there is such a thing like a sophisticated sniper rifle but assume that there are still superior rifles which are not available everywhere and of course one can't humiliate the LAF by equipping them with anything but the best
Silke
Has anyone heard what calibre of sniper rifle was used? I would find it hard to call any .30 cal sniper rifle 'sophisticated'.
T34zakat
T34zakat
the last I know not even the distance is definite
trying to combine what I read with looking at this map leaves me more confused than ever
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-map-of-attack.html
and then there is this
It is also clear that the village is not really a village at all, but an elaborate system of bunkers and shooting platforms designed to look like houses. There are no villagers, tractors, or agricultural activities. No fires burning, kids going to school or trucks unloading goods at a local store.
http://propagandistmag.com/2010/08/05/israel-lebanon-border-incident?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+propagandistmag+%28The+Propagandist%29
Silke
I used to make sport of the ignorant sycophants licking Weiss' boots until I was banned for challenging Mondoweiss' status as a tax free entity (I think if Americans knew how he is abusing the 501(c) tax status through a loop hole they would be angry). Most of my exchanges with the drones there was pure mud slinging and insults, which I am fine with, I have lived on the underbelly of society most of my life and like to think I can give better than I receive in that sort of arena. The typical pattern would be Weiss producing an article, me attacking some aspect of it with scorn, sarcasm, and a bit of counter information and then me going tooth and nail with a pack of hyenas that would set on me, until the next article, in which the process would start all over again. It was fun while it lasted and they talked about me on occasion long after I was banned, but I refuse to go anonymous any more so dissent was crushed.
I do wonder why so many Jews use their supposed Jewish identity as a weapon against Israel though. I am at a loss to explain that phenomena. It is like Jews have so long been oppressed that some of them display traits of Stockholm Syndrome and identify with their oppressors? I suspect in the case of Jews like Phillip Weiss or someone like Neve Gordon or Norman Finkelstein it is that they are first and foremost ideologues. Having been born Jewish has little or no spiritual or theological meaning to them, being Jewish is nothing more than a convenient weapon. Any thoughts either on the phenomena or how to counter it? I am not intimidated by anyone that tells me they are Jewish or Israeli or both, but some listeners less sure of their convictions might be.
Michael--
This is a fairly normal phenomena with Jews. It's not Stockholm syndrome as you suggested but rather something we jews call the problem of the self-hating jew.
See, civilization has always hated our kind. The only way to combat that? Either become stronger in their beliefs or try to assimilate. The jews who assimilate are quite frankly embarrassed by the jews who stubbornly cling to their faith and attract the hatred of the people they are trying so hard to belong to. It's like going to high school and trying to fit in but you have a nerdy best friend who completely emabarrasses you and ruins your chances of popularity.
Mondoweiss people believe that by ingratiating themselves to the "popular" kids, aka the liberals of america, they will be accepted. They see Israel and any claim jews have to a birthright as archaic and embarrassing. They'd rather all of it just go away. And because they know that as jews people will see them as connected to it, they have to go above and beyond to criticize Israel, to the point of blatant lies and radicalization.
To combat it? The only way I've found is to really get them at their own game. Satire in the extreme usually does a good job of getting them to realize they've lost and for them to shut up because they have no comeback that wouldn't expose them as hypocritical rabid anti-semites(aka self-hating jew).
perat,
If I follow you, what you are suggesting is that Weiss may be ashamed of his Jewish roots so he strives to distance himself from his identity or be hypercritical of anything Israel does to escape it? Even while using his identity as a Jew as a weapon? Hey, look, I am a Jew I can't be an anti-Semite or biased against Israel, because, because I am a Jew. Anyway, thanks for your response.
Michael
I think the Stockholm-Syndrome is part of the story, however, I object to the general disdain of the thing.
As long as one manages to keep in the back of one's mind that it is all a charade I think Stockholm-Syndrome like behaviour may be very tactically sound if one finds oneself in a corner
(I am of an age when men harassing women were considered virile rather than evil and when you found yourself cornered between filing cabinets a smiling sucking up combined with empty promises might be the fastest and least embarassing way out of the clinch and into a good starting position to put reins on the guy afterwards)
I think those "self-hating" Jews want to eat the cake and keep it at the same time - they want to keep all the connections family provides to anybody (in Europe, aristos posing as socialists still make sure their connections are well known;-) while at the same time working towards being the last one the crocodile gets to.
If I judge from the speed German corporations got rid of their Jews even before 1933 it is a dumb strategy, they lose their soul, their decency, their claim on respect and get in return the admiration of nutty hysterics like the commentators at Mondoweiss. I'd have a hard time coming up with any example in history where a traitor became a revered member of the victors afterwards. If they refuse to know about that fact they are delusional, as come to think of it, self-hate by definition must be, after all I am the only I I have.
Silke
Michael,
One sure can be a jewish antisemite. As you can be a black racist. There were and there are plenty of those.
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