Saturday, October 16, 2010

War and Peace

Khaled Abu Toameh says that things were getting better between Israel and the Palestinians until the Obama administration forced negotiations neither side was interested in, and now things are getting worse.

Robin Shepherd writes about the hypocrisy of Israel's critics who remain silent as ISAF's war in Afghanistan-Pakistan uses the same methods used by Israel. He tells that he's made this point to colleagues in the British bureaucracy, but sadly he doesn't tell how they respond.
The figures are rising fast. In September, the number of publicly admitted drone attacks was 22. And they are extremely deadly too. In 2009, more than 700 people were killed, many if not most of whom will have been civilian bystanders. By the end of this year, the death toll is likely to have far exceeded the 1,400 or so estimated to have died in Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

So where’s the Goldstone Report against the United States and its NATO allies? And where is the uproar against Obama’s policy of mass targeted assassinations? Of course, I’m not suggesting either course of action. And, to be fair, the Obama administration has been resolute in opposing Goldstone at the United Nations which is a lot more than can be said for the brazenly hypocritical Europeans.
With apologies to Abu Toameh and Shepherd for putting them in the same blogpost,  the other day I asked Juan Cole if he might wish to comment on Ahmedinejad's fiery anti-Israeli rhetoric while in Lebanon. Cole was one of the main people to invent and propagate the idea that Ahmedinejad never said he wishes Israel to be destroyed, an idea still often cited in the Mondowiess swamps, the CiF comments section and similar venues. His answer to me: Ahmedinajad merely wishes Zionism to disappear, as the Soviet regime once did, leaving everything else intact behind it. I have no idea what he bases this assertion on, and am reporting on it here merely for purposes of documentation.

5 comments:

NormanF said...

Juan Cole is an ignoramus as well as an anti-Semite.

It matters little whether Israel is destroyed or Zionism disappears. Its a distinction without a difference.

Only someone who explains away evil would make such a hair-splitting distinction in what Ahmedinejad intends for Israel.

Barry Meislin said...

Well, I don't know...but trying to engage this pathetic, demented man in reasonable "discussion" might make one wonder about your own sanity....

(Though I suppose you might get serious brownie points in the World To Come....)

Avigdor said...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that under no circumstances would the PA sign an agreement with Israel which required the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state or a land swap.

Now Abbas is reversing on the land swaps, which were already accepted in 2000. But here's the best part:

"If we showed flexibility on these issues the peace agreement would have been signed a long time ago," Abbas said.

Maybe Hussein Ibish can "clarify" these remarks.

Anonymous said...

So the USSR went out peacefully??? And this guy is a "historian"?

Womble said...

Cole is deliberately misinterpreting Ahmadinejad.

Al-Manar TV (and Naharnet earlier) reported Ahmadinejad as saying in his speech that "Today, the occupier Zionists have no choice but to return to their original homelands." It cannot conceivably be construed as a call for regime change; it's a call for ethnic cleansing, pure and simple.


http://www.almanar.com.lb/newssite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=158048&language=en