(By
American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari Goldstein.)
If one were to listen to long-discredited and worthless MSM organs such as the
NY Times,
the "conflict" between Israel and Palestine in Gaza is an
evenly-matched battle of wills, if not armaments, with either claiming
an equivalent moral superiority. What the
Times and the entire
American mainstream media fail to recognize is the full scope of the
David vs Goliath fight. In this case, David is now Palestine and he
stands no chance of winning this latest round of hostilities without
some military, paramilitary and political backing from the rest of the
Muslim world (such as Egypt).
But the MSM's blind spot
regarding Israel's moral putrescence, one seemingly predicated entirely
on a pre-apocalyptic mindset going back to the Holocaust if not before,
is enabled by a mirror dysfunction on the part of the American people
and that's recognizing Palestine's right to exist, one that's no less
valid than Israel's or any other sovereign state.
Even
liberals and other sympathizers in America (and this includes liberal,
secular Jews, who have been given nearly exclusive rights to write about
Israel and its various atrocities as if gentiles aren't qualified to do
so) seem reluctant to fully embrace Palestine and to give it
full-throated support. The primary reason, obviously, is the terrorist
angle. In 2006, Palestinians elected to a majority level the militant
group Hamas, which to a lesser degree than Israel (owing to it being
outgunned) also has blood on its hands. In doing so, Palestinians, weary
and impatient of the more conciliatory Fatah political faction, decided
to vote in the less compromising and patient Hamas. The undiplomatic
Bush administration, typically, refused to recognize the legitimacy of
Hamas's majority in the Palestinian parliament.
But what's lost on the American MSM, and a majority of Americans is
why
Palestinians, who've seen their borders erode consistently since 1967
without even being given the option of moving out of their ancestral
homeland (the Israeli embargo has been in place for five years now and
showing no signs of letting up), thought their chances of recognized
sovereignty and lasting peace would be better allying themselves with
terrorists than Israel. That is, one would think, very telling.
Into
this Schrödinger's cat scenario tiptoes other Arab and Muslim factions
such as the cautious Muslim Brotherhood, of whom Mohamed Morsi , the new
Egyptian president, is or was a part. There's hope in the Gaza region
that the Arab Spring from a year and a half ago will give Hamas and
Palestine the political if not diplomatic clout it's lacked for decades.
That remains to be seen but one thing is clear: They can expect no help
from the Obama administration, which was given another four years to
ignore Palestine's plight by liberals and independents who, as with
Palestinians and Hamas, were more afraid of a Romney administration than
the incumbent one that gave us the NDAA and a reauthorizaton of the USA
PATRIOT Act.
Barack "Hope and Change" Obama
said just yesterday,
“There is no country on Earth that would tolerate
missiles raining down on from outside its borders. We are fully supportive of
Israel’s right to defend its borders.”
In doing so,
our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president was merely toeing the line drawn
by Israel and faithfully toed by every single President since Truman
who'd either cheered on or looked the other way even when Israel
committed war crimes against the United States.
At the very least, our $3,000,000,000 in annual aid to Israel and
selling them war planes and other WMDs makes us a target for every
radical Muslim faction on the planet while every administration seems
bewildered as to why.
But Obama, quite possibly without
knowing it, is in precisely the same position with the Israelis as he
is with the Republican Party: No matter what he does for the Israelis
and no matter how many Palestinian deaths he ignores, the Israelis,
coddled by unconditional support in the 64 years of their existence,
will never have enough monetary, political or diplomatic support.
The
numbers, however, are clear (the MSM, at least, does body counts):
According to the Palestinian health ministry, in the last four days more
Palestinian children (20) have been killed than Israelis of all ages in
the last four years. One recent rocket attack alone flattened a house,
killing 11 Palestinians. After making a laughable assertion that the
strikes were "surgical" in nature, Israel recently has abandoned all
pretense of humanity and has since widened their bombing raid
to include offices where journalists work.
Not only do they want to send Gaza back to the Stone Age, they're also
trying to intimidate the Arab press out of documenting their war crimes.
Israel
is the only acknowledged super power in the Middle East and the only
owner of a nuclear arsenal that won't avail themselves of the confidence
of having one. Israel comes off as looking like a scared and paranoid
mugger with a .357 magnum in one hand and a Casull .454 in the other. No
ordinance is ever enough and all they know is, they're not going back
to prison. In the real world, however, such a paranoid and unstable
criminal would never be tolerated in society so it makes little sense
for the United States and its NATO fig leaf to engage in needless regime
change adventurism in Iraq, Libya and other nations while allowing
Israel to bring the planet closer to World War III.
It's
time to stop giving Israel unconditional deference because of the
Holocaust. Many nations and other religions had been persecuted against
over the whole bloody skein of human history and Israel does not have
the market cornered on genocide. The Obama administration is utterly
worthless if you're a Palestinian or sympathizer (While running for
president over four years ago, Obama even renewed our financial support,
pledging Israel
$30,000,000,000 in military aid over the next decade.). About the
closest Obama has come to decrying the violence in the region was to say
it would push the prospects for peace "way into the future." (Violence
postpones peace? Thanks, President Obvious, even though it's just as
obvious you were speaking of Hamas's rockets and not Israel's.)
At
the risk of oversimplifying what is obviously a very complex set of
political problems in the Gaza strip, the only path forward is to break
off diplomatic relations with Israel, a nation that drunkenly and
sneeringly
holds the United States in absolute contempt and thinks, rightly, that it can dictate United States Middle East policy while
boasting of derailing the Oslo Peace process
(the same city where Barack Obama accepted his highly inappropriate
Peace Prize.). We need to stop listening to AIPAC and especially to the
Likud lunatics who make the majority. We also need to stop giving Israel
three billion a year of taxpayer money and selling them warplanes to
kill innocents.
Of course, that requires joint approval
from both the legislative and executive branches and that's simply
never going to happen even if every Republican was voted out of office.
But
disavowing Israel's apocalyptic and militaristic agenda needs to go
hand in hand with recognizing Palestine's right to exist. Israel's
unctuous and risible assurances that they'll stand down if Hamas does
first ring hollow while Palestinians bury innocent men, women and
children by the scores in their shrinking homeland. It's not enough to
recognize that Palestine's own right to exist is just as valid as
Israel's. We also need to come to grips with the screamingly obvious
fact that Israel is a terrorist state only with American political
support, much more firepower, paychecks and pensions. And, like al Qaeda
and other terrorist entities, they also hide behind their own civilian
population.
Zionism, like democracy, is a failing
experiment that has only succeeded in turning Israel and the United
States, respectively, into that which we'd sought to distinguish
ourselves.
The Palestinians fire rockets into Israel. What's Israel supposed to do? What would you do?
They first went after the military "brains" of this Palestinian caper and took him out. The Palestinians fired more rockets. So surprise, Israel is firing back.
Body count comparisons are ridiculous. Dead children, or dead civilians of any age, or even dead soldiers are a tragedy on either side. But again I ask, what's Israel supposed to do? Let only "a few" of its children get killed? Try that in New Jersey some time.
Somehow, the whining by and on behalf of the Palestinians brings to mind the puny guy who walks into a barroom, stands up on the bar, and kicks the biggest guy there in the mouth.
Need I explain what happens next?
One might add that the Palestinians knew what would happen, and have made a coldly calculated decision to sacrifice the lives of its own civilians and own children in order either to create a propaganda victory or to attempt to draw the rest of the world into their self-made conflict.
Very, very crankily yours,
The New York Crank
Jews have been living there for about 3000 years, give or take, but not under their own flag for almost two. That they were ruled by outsiders does not negate their status as living in the homeland.
Israel is finally, rightfully under its own flag. You're belief they are not legitimate citizens of their own land is patent nonsense. You know nothing a about the history of that crescent of land or you wouldn't sound like such a moron. When you announce the US is returning ALL of the land we now occupy to the native populations, then maybe you'll begin to have the tiniest inkling of what you're asking.