Friday, March 4, 2011

Progressive Israel-Scolds Inadvertantly Support Conflict

I was a bit surprised when a number of readers responded earlier this week to a post on J-Street by apparently saying that J-Street doesn't entertain the positions it entertains. I may have played into their hands, however, by focusing on marginal issues such as the number of participants at the J-Street conference. In a week where yet another poll of American public opinion found that 60-plus% of Americans (most of whom can't be Jewish) support Israel, and fewer than 20% support the Palestinians, it doesn't make much difference if the radical wing of American Jewry can convene 1,000 people or 5,000. You get the feeling, these past two years, that even the Obama White House has understood that the votes aren't in that particular political camp - though the chattering classes in Europe agree wholeheartedly with the J-Street agenda.

What is the agenda? As David Suissa has put it, there are two planks to the platform: It is really, really, really, really important that Israel reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians... [and] the underlying assumption is always that the major obstacle to peace is Israel. Israel Matzav dug up a short video in which some participants at the conference said predictable things such as that Hamas isn't as bad as the IDF. It's the usual Mondoweiss fare.

This week also saw the publication of an 11,000-word article by the New Yorker's David Remnick, fawning over Haaretz and describing it as the best of Israel. I mention it here because Remnick's piece is a fine demonstration of how the J-Streeters see Israel; along the way it also shows why they're irrelevant for almost all Israelis. According to Remnick, Haaretz is alone in Israeli society in its willingness to face the reality of Israel's wars, its conflict with the Palestinians, its occupation of them, and all the things that are wrong with Israel's politics in matters of war and peace. Alas, he continues, not only are Israelis not willing to listen, but even most of the political left cannot abide with Haaretz, because, as he repeatedly tells, it lacks empathy with the Israeli side of the story, and refuses to offer any sort of consolation for their suffering at times of terror attacks. It's position is principled, and the principles cannot change merely because people are frightened, say, or bereaved.

The arrogance of Haaretz, of Remnick, and of the many non-Israelis who allow themselves this train of thought is always aggravating, but hardly unusual. Only once in the entire article does Remnick very briefly allude to a different dynamic:
Since the talks between Arafat and Barak collapsed, a decade ago, mainstream public opinion in Israel has become a paradox: majority support for the idea of a two-state solution, but a generalized distrust of Palestinian intentions. Middle Israel feels that it left Lebanon, in 2000, and got rockets from Hezbollah; left Gaza, in 2005, and got rockets from Hamas. The peace camp, despite occasional demonstrations and displays of vitality, is depleted.
Let's see. What parts of the story does that little paragraph overlook, even though every Israeli can reel them off in her sleep? The steep rise in Palestinian terror from September 1993 and the beginning of the Oslo process, so that in each of the years 1994, 1995, and 1996 there was more terror than in any previous year of the conflict since 1948. Then there was the offer by an Israeli prime minster of ceding all of Gaza and at least 89% of the West Bank, along with division of Jerusalem, so as to enable the Palestinians to have a sovereign state with no Jews in it. The Palestinians responded to that one by launching the 2nd Intifada. There was the one about how Israel built a defensive fence that proved its value in saved lives but also drew a line on the ground that Israel was willing to retreat to even without peace, which caused the Palestinians to launch their "apartheid wall" lie. There was the time Israel moved out of southern Lebanon in return for a promise from the international community as expressed by the UN Security Council that Hizballah wouldn't be allowed to re-arm. That didn't work so well, did it. And so on.

My ever-repeated point being that the reason a very large majority of the Israeli electorate has given up on any chance for peace with the Palestinians is that the Palestinians and their supporters have been working long and hard to convince us there's no peace to be had.

There won't be peace because the Palestinians' national aspiration isn't to have a small state divided into two sections alongside a larger Israel, thus in effect affirming the historical victory of Zionism. The Palestinian national aspiration is to roll back Zionism, to rectify its injustice as they define it, and to have their state on the entirety of their land. Not to mention the aspirations of hundreds of millions of Muslims beyond the Palestinians, who are also an irremovable part of the equation.
The really pernicious thing about the position that Israel is the prime culprit for the lack of peace is that it re-affirms the fundamental position of the Palestinians and apparently most Arabs. This is that Zionism is a crime against the Arabs and against the Palestinians. Zionism was a crime in 1897, it was a crime in 1917, it was a crime in 1947, and in 1967, and remains a crime till this very day. I don't know if people like David Remnick, or the leaders and public of J-Street, or Barack Obama, or all the millions of others who insist the Israelis are the reason there's no peace intend to be saying this, but the reality is that the message they're sending to the Palestinians is that Zionism remains the culprit, the criminal, the aggressor who caused the entire conflict by being so cruel to the victimized Palestinians.

The fact that thousands of Jews in America say this about Zionism isn't frightening - they don't make much difference - but it is depressing.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

If anyone wants some light reading for the week-end
http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1238334247_1.pdf

on foreign funding of British universities

T34

Silke said...

I cherish the way Remnick choses his words in the paragraph Yaacov quoted.

Especially

"generalized distrust"

impresses me deeply because it is so way above my ability to understand it that I feel humbled by this superb and exquisitely subtle demonstration of Mr. Remnick's intellectual clout.

And surely somebody so well endowed between the ears can't err and thus I must swallow all the rest hook, line and sinker or imbibe it as gospel.

Actually the piece made me ask is the New Yorker angling for a financier from amidst those who keep Haaretz afloat or the other way around? The whole piece stinks of money concerns in the background.

RK said...

"David Remnick, or the leaders and public of J-Street, or Barack Obama, or all the millions of others who insist the Israelis are the reason there's no peace ..."

Do you have quotes from Remnick, Obama, or J Street's leaders insisting this? (Actual quotes, and not assertions about how the fact that these people focus disproportionate attention on Israel must mean they think "the Israelis are the reason there's no peace." Not only are those assertions impossible to quantify and verify, but the inference drawn from them isn't necessarily true.)

Anonymous said...

@RK
Do you mean that J Street et al are deliberately not focusing on what they preceive to be the main obstacle to peace?

If the don't believe that Israel is the main obstacle, then aren't they in the position of searching for their keys under the street light rather than the gutter they dropped them in?

T34

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Haaretz and hutzpah, I see they're having great fun helping Netanyahu choice the new National security advisor.

One has to admire their audacity, much better than this poor attempt to influence the choice
http://www.glz.co.il/newsArticle.aspx?newsid=78585

T34

rashkov said...

American Jews tend to have wealth and frequently contribute to campaigns. Their votes are not at stake, but their campaign money is.

Anonymous said...

I would disagree with your claims about the goals of the Palestinians. I would say the goals of the leadership is at least to maintain the status quo. Currently they have all the benefits of a state with none of the responsibilities. They also get unaccountable sucking at the NGO, UN and EU teat. Why ruin that with a state? Yeah a few of their low level guys get killed but for a while now Israel hasn't been bumping off leaders.

Danny

Anonymous said...

I wonder how strong a link Yaacov sees between anti-Zionist Viennese who thought Herzl was wrong in 1897, and Israelis playing moral dominance games based on voluntary poverty of Zionist patriotism in 2011.


Bruce

Anonymous said...

Bruce, think you have to translate your comment from gibberish first.

nadine said...

There is an interesting example of the Euro-left mindset in this interview by Herb Keinon of the Jpost with Jean Asselborn, the foreign minister of Luxembourg.

This is a unusual interview because, being done by an Israeli, it asks the questions that progressives usually don't get asked: questions involving actual Palestinian behavior, instead of just concentrating on their status as victims, such as why did the Palestinians spend the last two years running away from negotiations?

You can see that any mention of this or other obstructions to peace such as the influence of Iran, Hamas, etc, is waived away as trivial; excuses are found for the Palestinians ("they cannot negotiate if they look out of the window and see on their own ground ...settlements are being built", the problem of Iran is dismissed airily ("Palestinians are not friends of Iran, not at all"); the responsibility for the failure of negotiations belongs squarely to the Israelis ("it is the Israeli responsibility, because this government doesn’t continue the same policies of the governments before, [such as] when we were in the Annapolis framework").

For the Euro-left, I'm persuaded, it's a definitional thing. They can no more take up the idea that the Palestinians are responsible for the lack of peace than a Marxist can take up the idea that the proletariat are responsible for the lack of social justice. He knows the capitalists/Israelis must be to blame. Equally, he knows the solution is simple and within reach if only the guilty party would make a determined effort.

‘How can an intelligent people only see the short term?'
By HERB KEINON
03/01/2011 00:00

In candid, highly critical interview, Luxembourg’s FM Jean Asselborn presents window into European Left’s thinking on Israel.
http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=210253

Silke said...

nadine

thanks for the link:
before I have read the piece let me answer the question asked in the headline:

Because an intelligent people is aware of the simple fact that even foreseeing the next minute is impossible, let alone the long term.

BTW "we" have to find other labels than "left". As best I can tell by American standards I am pretty far left but somehow I think it has not impaired my ability to value realities over utopian wishful thinking.

Bruce said...

Silke:

I wholeheartedly agree with you that we need another label to describe reflexive anti-zionists on the "left".

I regularly call such folks the so-called "left" or the faux "left".

peterthehungarian said...

The traditional definitions of left and right lost their meanings in the last decades. In Israeli and/or traditional sense I'm way to the left - according to a modern leftist (I call them together with Bruce "the so called left") I'm a far right racist Zionist coloniser.

Yaacov said...

RK,

I don't think it would be any problem to find lots of appropriate quotes from the J-Street gang. I'm not however going to waste any time on doing so. As for Obama, let's turn your question on its head: When George Bush thought, back in 2002, that the Palestinians were refraining from negotiating in good faith, he gave a famous speech describing what they had to do. (He was much castigated for it at the time - June 24th 2002).

When Obama wanted to set the track for negotiations, he likewise gave a speech, in Cairo (how ironic in retrospect). In that speech he had specific actions for Israel to take, and mealy-mouthed platitudes for the Palestinians. He then followed up with many months of clear actions: Israel had to stop all settlement activity, including in places the Palestinians had already ceded, while the Palestinians had to... humm, I can't quite remember what they had to do. Come to the talks, perhaps. Pretty please with sugar on top. So far as any of us know there has never been a demand that the Palestinians desist from teaching their school children that the Jews have no history in Palestine, say, or that a Palestinian leader face his people and say, in Arabic, that there won't be a right of return, or anything of the sort.

Remnick, like the rest of the media, supported Obama in his maliciousness (and in retrospect, in his stupidity, if you pardon me for the harsh but justified language).

Yet I think you know all this perfectly well. So my question to you, for a second time this week: are you perhaps saying it isn't so? Can you find a shred of evidence that Remnick, or Obama, or J-Street, or almost anyone else from the political mainstream and left in the US, or anyone to the left of Gert Wilders in Europe, who has taken any action since September 2000 that would plausibly indicate they understand that the true obstacle to peace are the Palestinians?

Silke said...

somehow I read a lot of glee in this Goldberg-Post

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/is-netanyahu-breaking-toward-the-center/72016/

is that maybe owed to a high due to too much JStreet righteous triumphalism?

Merkel's speaker on radio denied that she'd use the language ascribed to her btw.

Rabbi Tony Jutner said...

This is a misleading article in that it calls for pro-israel ziocrats to be represented at an anti-zionist meeting. One year ago during the J Street meeting, I told J Street that it had 2 choices. Be pro-israel and thus be a second Aipac, or be anti-israel and embrace NewJudaism, with its pillars of Social Justice, Economic Justice, and Rights of Return of Endogenous Peoples, especially the Palestinians. J Street has made the latter choice, giving anti-zionism a firm footholds in the American Jewish mainstream. The acceptance of BDS, the support by Soros, and the support of the Goldstone Report, which historically denies illegitimate entities the "right of self defence" are all concrete steps to enshrining anti-zionsim as the Jewish mainstream. It is completely inappropriate to have israeli representatives when our goal is to seek justice for Palestine. Rather, we should invite delegates from Turkey, Iran, and the Muslim Brotherhood, who are not as burdened by domestic considerations as is president Obama as 2012 approaches

I.Barr said...

Tony Jutner is a typical self hating Jew. He wants rights for the Palestinians, but not for his brothers, the Jews. He lives in America, far away from suicide bombers and missiles. As much asd he is concerned let the Jews swim. If there is another Holocaust it is them Jews not us the good Jews in America like Soros a convicted fellon and a Nazi collaborator who proclaim being atheist and not Jewish....So this Jutner is nothing but a promoter of anti Semitism against Israeli Jews hoping that he will be recognized as a "good Jew". We met similar characters in the Holocaust. These were Jews who did not hesitate to surrender other Jews to the Gestapo. Ask Soros.

Anonymous said...

I.Barr

i believe the good rabbi is speaking with tongue planted firmly in jewish cheek

RK said...

Yaacov:

First of all, no quotes, as I expected. So at the most, the positions you're ascribing to Obama can't be read out of his words; they have to be read in to his silence.

To answer your question, no, I don't see any evidence that Obama or Remnick think Israelis are "the" obstacle to peace. I think Obama subscribes to the conventional "pox on both their houses" view that U.S. administrations have always espoused. That's why I'm glad you brought up Bush's 2002 speech, best remembered today for foolishly promoting Palestinian elections. If you were really judging Bush by the same standards you're applying to Obama, you would've savaged him for failing to realize the level of popular support Hamas commanded. You would also have taken him to task for the several speeches in which he made the same "false equivalences" you're accusing Obama of making (here's a f'rinstance). The same goes for Rice's standard condemnations of construction projects in East Jerusalem. (When Obama actually pushed for a settlement freeze, that was a difference in tactics, not of worldview.) If Obama has singled out Israel as "the" barrier to peace, it's evidently escaped the notice of the Palestinians, whose approval of Obama is still under 10% the last time I checked. (Even lower than Bush's in 2008!)

Finally, there's the wearyingly common notion (which, to be fair, I've never seen you endorse) that Obama's pro-Israel moves -- increased security cooperation, vetoing the anti-settlement resolution, etc. -- are all the result of political pressure, while his other actions reveal his true convictions. I'd ordinarily just refer those who make this argument to Popper, but I bring it up to note that Bush didn't veto resolutions that singled out Israel for criticism, like Security Council Resolution 1544.

Since your description of Remnick's views is apparently based on even weaker evidence -- an argument from silence plus guilt by association -- I don't see how I could respond, even if I wanted to.

RK said...

Incidentally, what to make of people repeatedly failing to realize Rabbi Jutner is satire? Is it evidence of the kookiness of the far-left, or the totally inaccurate picture right-wingers have of left-wing opinion on Israel?

By the way, if Jutner's supposed to be based on Tony Judt, it's kind of in bad taste now that the man has passed away.

RK said...

GAH. Comment eaten again. Paragraphs below retyped hastily from memory, sorry for awkwardness of language.

No quotes, as I expected. I just wanted to establish that your characterization of Obama's and Remnick's views wasn't one you read out of their words; it was one you had to read into their silence.

To answer your question, yes, I'm saying it isn't so. I think Obama subscribes to the same "both sides are responsible" view that's characterized basically every U.S. administration. That's why I'm glad you brought up Bush's 2002 speech, which is now best remembered for foolishly promoting Palestinian elections. If you judged Bush by the same standards you judge Obama, you would have savaged him for failing to recognize the level of popular support Hamas possessed. You'd also have criticized the numerous statements where Bush made the same sorts of "false equivalences" you're accusing Obama of making. (Here, have a f'rinstance). The same goes for Rice's regular condemnations of construction projects in East Jerusalem. (Which shows Obama's push for a settlement freeze was simply a change in tactics from the previous administration, not worldview.) If, as you say, Obama's been singling out Israel as "the" barrier to peace, then it's apparently escaped the notice of the Palestinians, among whom Obama's approval rating remains below 10% the last time I checked. (Lower than Bush's!)

(cont.)

RK said...

GAH. Comment eaten again. The paragraphs below were retyped hastily from memory, so sorry for the lack of clarity.

No quotes, as I expected. I just wanted to establish that your characterization of Obama's and Remnick's views wasn't one you read out of their words; it was one you had to read into their silence.

RK said...

To answer your question, yes, I'm saying it isn't so. I think Obama subscribes to the same "both sides are responsible" view that's characterized basically every U.S. administration. That's why I'm glad you brought up Bush's 2002 speech, which is now best remembered for foolishly promoting Palestinian elections. If you judged Bush by the same standards you judge Obama, you would have savaged him for failing to recognize the level of popular support Hamas possessed. You'd also have criticized the numerous statements where Bush made the same sorts of "false equivalences" you're accusing Obama of making. (Here, have a f'rinstance). The same goes for Rice's regular statements condemning construction projects in East Jerusalem. (Which shows Obama's push for a settlement freeze was simply a change in tactics from the previous administration, not worldview.) If Obama's been singling out Israel as "the" barrier to peace, then it's apparently escaped the notice of the Palestinians, among whom Obama's approval rating remains below 10% the last time I checked. (Lower than Bush's!)

RK said...

To answer your question, yes, I'm saying it isn't so. I think Obama subscribes to the same "both sides are responsible" view that's characterized basically every U.S. administration. That's why I'm glad you brought up Bush's 2002 speech, which is now best remembered for foolishly promoting Palestinian elections. If you judged Bush by the same standards you judge Obama, you would have savaged him for failing to recognize the level of popular support Hamas possessed.

RK said...

You'd also have criticized the numerous statements where Bush made the same sorts of "false equivalences" you're accusing Obama of making. (Here, have a f'rinstance). The same goes for Rice's regular statements condemning construction projects in East Jerusalem. (Which shows Obama's push for a settlement freeze was simply a change in tactics from the previous administration, not worldview.) If Obama's been singling out Israel as "the" barrier to peace, then it's apparently escaped the notice of the Palestinians, among whom Obama's approval rating remains below 10% the last time I checked. (Lower than Bush's!)

RK said...

You'd also have criticized the numerous statements where Bush used the same sort of mealy-mouthed rhetoric you're accusing Obama of making. (Here, have a f'rinstance [link to Jan 10, 2008 speech removed, since it's preventing me from posting]). The same goes for Rice's regular statements condemning construction projects in East Jerusalem. (Which shows Obama's push for a settlement freeze was simply a change in tactics from the previous administration, not worldview.) If Obama's been singling out Israel as "the" barrier to peace, then it's apparently escaped the notice of the Palestinians, among whom Obama's approval rating remains below 10% the last time I checked. (Lower than Bush's!)

One of the more ridiculous arguments you see in the blogosphere (which, to your credit, I haven't seen you make) is that Obama's pro-Israel moves (vetoing the Security Council resolution, increased security cooperation, etc.) are driven by political pressures, while his other actions reveal his true convictions. Ordinarily I would just direct people who make such arguments to Popper, but I bring it up to point out that the Bush administration failed to veto Security Council Resolution 1544, which also singled Israel out. Apparently the burdens of proof are different for Democratic Presidents.

Since your characterization of Remnick's views is based on even vaguer evidence -- this argument from silence plus guilt by associations -- I don't see how I could respond to it even if I wanted to.

Y. Ben-David said...

If you read Ernest Sternberg's "Purificationism" article you will note how Jutner uses a lot of the Purificationist hot-button terms : "social justice", "economic justice" "indigenous people's rights", etc. Left wing extremists seem to like regurgitating their favorite slogans. A friend of mine found in a used book store here in Israel a book from 1965 which has photos of various famous people but with balloons around them having them saying funny things. One shows a meeting of the Israel Communist Party and the speaker at the podium is saying: "proletariate....capialist exploitation.....revolution....neocolonialism...
proletariate....capitalist exploitation.....revolution....neocolonialism...
proletariate....capitalist exploitation.....revolution....neocolonialism...blah, blah, blah"
So we see they (the Far Left) really haven't changed their sloganeering habits as they have shifted from Marxism-Communism to Purificationism.

BTW, there is also something else that this book shows that hasn't changed. There is a photo of people getting off an airpland. The first down the stairs is Moshe Dayan and the second is Shimon Peres. The balloon around Peres says "hey, this is not fair, I always should be first". He certainly hasn't changed over the decades.

Yaacov said...

RK -

for whatever reason, my system here (run by Google) sometimes doesn't like you. However, so far as I can see, whenever you write a comment it reaches me, whether it gets published or not. So rather than write and re-write, if your comment disappears drop me a line and I'll pull it out of the spam column and back into the comments section. (You need to tell me, because I read the comments thru my mail account, not from the blog interface, and so don't know what gets knocked of).

To our discussion, while you're right that some of it is standard 'pox on both their houses' boilerplate, Obama seems decidedly on the left of that. Anyway, no matter what they say or do, the reality will always be stronger.And the reality is that there is no remote consensus among the Palestinians, not to mention the Arabs in general, that the Jews have a right to a state in the Levant; because of that, the goal isn't partition and a 2-state resolution of the conflict, because that - as Yossie Beilin articulated so well - would mean a historic victory for Zionism.

I don't know if there's anything the "international community" or POTUS can do about this, but the obvious fact is that over the past 100 years, they've never done anything right if the goal was to reconcile the Arabs with the Jews. If they had there would be peace. But there isn't. (Sometimes there are long periods of lack of war, however).

So long as the international consensus refuses to accept the fundamentals, they won't be able to bring peace. The Jews and Arabs might be able to some day, regardless of what everyone else thinks or does, or they might not, but the meddlers will remain ineffective for a s long as they refuse to identify the problem.

Rabbi Tony is probably a right-wing fellow from Teaneck or some such place.

Yaacov said...

RK -

You're right that Bush was wrong when he assumed the Palestinians would vote for some form of peace prosperity freedom and other nice things, if only given the chance. Over the coming months the proposition will be tested in Egypt and Tunisia, too, maybe. On the other hand, you have to give him credit for insisting the Palestinians desist from terror,and helping them set up mechanisms to limit it. None of the other self appointed meddlers ever came close to that.

Anonymous said...

Quite OT, but this is how the Britons officially 'felt' about the Mandate for Palestine and their part in it:

http://www.ismi.emory.edu/Articles/TerminationOfTheMandate.pdf
(via My Right Word)

Its quite interesting how the British ignored some basic facts, just to appear impartial in their 'benevolent' rule.

Regards, André

Barry Meislin said...

because...[Haaretz] lacks empathy with the Israeli side of the story.....

Empathy?

Haaretz lies and misrepresents consistently and deviously.

And proudly.

It's what makes them such a cherished source of "the news".

File under: "Things you do for love" (?)

P.S. Sometimes they do actually tell the truth. Go figure.

Silke said...

RK

Blogger doesn't really "swallow" comments if you "caress" it a bit if what I experience is the same RK "suffers" from.

I use Safari. When I get the "swallow window" I click on open address, enlarge the comment box until the return to previous page arrow shows up click on it and voilà there's the comment still waiting to be posted. I type in a new Word Verification and send it off. I can't remember it having played the same trick with the same comment on me twice.

--------

As to the subject of the thread:

If a mediator, let alone a powerful one, demands a pre-condition of one party and none of the other, he has weighted the negotiation scales in one direction. This is such 101 stuff for mediators that It blows my mind that there are still people who want to argue it out of existence. Obama may have done it out of ineptitude but since he was a community organizer in Chicago that throws a curious light on what he achieved or not achieved there.

And as to Obama's poll numbers being low with the Palestinians, of course they are, he promised them a pre-negotiation candy for naught and couldn't deliver. Would I like somebody who has so blatantly demonstrated to be a weak horse?
(the other day I heard a talk with John Kornblum who was American ambassador to Berlin when Reagan called for the wall to be teared down and he told that they had made sure with the Russians that they wouldn't be too angry about that one - that's my idea of how stuff is supposed to be handled)

ON the other hand Obama, just regarding that one incidence he created a perfect example of a Lose-Lose-situtation which should be taught as a warning in negotiator-school for centuries to come.

As to the Remnick piece on Haaretz I suspect there are some money interests involved - there has been a family quarrel at the German share holder of Haaretz, maybe Remnick is trying to make CondéNast look good to them or whomever else with money to spare one can please by making Haaretz look angelic.

Why does the Remnick-piece stink for me? He never ever mentions Uri Blau. A decent reporter would have at least alluded to it. Since he did not I suspect he wrote a puff piece that reeks of him doing somebody a favour.

And no I won't supply quotes, I think that you RK are intelligent enough to read the thing in a different light provided you want to

Anonymous said...

Condi Rice condemned the building in East Jerusalem as ‘unhelpful’. Obama condemns it as illegitimate. These are two decidedly different worldviews. One is political while the other is legalistic. It’s rather difficult to tell what he means by this, perhaps more a matter of civil than criminal law.

Re. comparing Resolution 1544 (demolitions in Rafah) vs. the Resolution on settlements:
Cunningham's remarks after failing to veto the resolution were balanced:
JAMES CUNNINGHAM (United States) said that the Government of Israel had expressed its deep regret for the deaths. The United States had urged the Israeli Government to exercise maximum restraint. That Government, as well as those of neighboring States, must strive to provide the best conditions on the ground to halt the violence.

He said that Palestinian terrorists had been smuggling weapons through Gaza and that the Palestinian Authority had not taken sufficient action to halt those activities.
http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2004/sc8098.html

The 4 paragraph UN version of Rice’s remarks here:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10178.doc.htm

The full 8 paragraphs without achieving the same balance as Cunningham:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/susanriceunstmtisraelisettlements.htm

T34

Anonymous said...

Silke -

"BTW "we" have to find other labels than "left"."

With homage to Bernard Henri Levi's book "Left in the Dark". how about "Dark Left," "Benighted Left," or "Blind Left"? I personally like "Blind Left."

Nycerbarb

Silke said...

Nycerbarb

Blind Left is nice but I am quite content with Yaacov's loony left. To be more precise I perceive that the loony right and the loony left meet and get along quite fine when it comes to that subject. Here is a piece in German describing recent events in Dresden where the anti-Nazi-good-ones expressed their dislike of Jews and/or Israel. Maybe Google translate gives you an idea of the unifying effect this one subject has.

http://lizaswelt.net/2011/02/28/volksgemeinschaft-gegen-rechts/

and somehow from afar those Palestinians the Israeli loony left buddies up to don't strike me as very left either. Good ol' Jew hating is on - come to think of it, how about brown left meets the brown right and they merge into Brownies when it comes to Zionists ?????

I've been told brown alone doesn't signify Nazi-leanings in Anglo but for us "die Braunen" or they are quite "braun" gets across.

Anonymous said...

As you say, Yaacov, there are several thousands American Jews who have bought into the J-street/European leftist theory of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but it is equally important to remember the several million who have not.

Barry Meislin said...

Indeed, Jews seem to have a knack for bringing the world together....

Anonymous said...

Christians blame what they think
is our god father. Afflict a Jew
never having arisen never will -
accepting exceptional Israel who
is faithful when we all arisen -
incarnates his son god sun light
for evildoers freed from guilts.
Our blood is on their hands. USA
overwhelms individual Jews lover
no fear confusion blood & money.
Muslims may have Islam revenging
just us and justice demands ours
exemption Israel chose dyan emet.
Sorting accounts settling begins.