Heh, pretty hilarious - American liberals who criticize American aggression, but either fear to criticize Israeli aggression or, amazingly, don't even recognize Israeli aggression.

Hilarious is not the word I would use.

On my tiny and now defunct blog, I defended Israel's policies a few times. I now get a daily stream of hate email saying things like "the only good Israeli is a dead Israeli"

I wonder what pressure Matt has gotten from the Israel Lobby?

Part of the explanation for the silence may be that a lot of liberal bloggers are just honestly confused. There are a lot of complicated things happening in the Middle East, and a lot of incomplete and conflicting news reports. Some of the liberal bloggers may simply be unsure about what is actually happening, about which things they support and which they don't, and about the degree to which they support them. Some of the few discussions that have been taking place indicate that there is a lot of confusion about what exactly Israel is doing, and why they are doing it. Similarly there is a lot of confusion, and a lack of reliable information, about the roles and motivations of Hizbollah, Iran and Syria.

But I do think the chilling effect of the Lobby That Must Not Be Named cannot be ignored - whether that effect is due to the lobby's actual power or only its perceived power. And perhaps it would be better to focus less on the lobby, and more on the larger and less definable interest group the lobby represents.

I believe many of the bloggers, particularly those who are committed defenders of Israel, are indeed afraid of the outpourings from their comments sections - not because they are intimidated by those commentators or by nasty emails, but because they regard these eruptions of dissonance from the frustrated Democratic underground as an embarrassment. They are trying to keep the crazy uncles locked in the basement until the attention from visitors shifts to other places.

And even those bloggers who are inclined to take a more critical line toward Israel themselves may be reluctant to do so in the current political environment. This is an election year, and many of these bloggers may be taking their cue instinctively from the party leadership, despite their general independence. Congressional Democrats have sent a blunt and ununambiguous message to the faithful that, if the latter do have reservations about Israeli policy, they please keep them to themselves for the time being.

Democrats seem mighty worried that, after a successful political summer so far dominated by bad news on Republican corruption, increasing public concerns about Bush administration and Republican basic competence, and worse and worse news pouring in from Iraq, suddenly there is this new issue that threatens to sweep those others all off the table, and return the War on Terror (i.e. the dramaturgy of the Theatre of Evil Muslims) to center stage.

Like children who instinctively feel like they have a magical powers over reality, some liberal bloggers may feel that if they just don't talk about this new development, it will all go away. It's not just bloggers: I saw a panel of pundits on television last night reassuring themselves that by November nobody would care about this war, or even remember it, and we would be back to the elections staples of Iraq, incompetence and corruption.

Of course, given that many observers have suggested that we are witnessing the opening battles of World War III, you would think that at leasdt a few of these writers would conclude that the matters going on in the Levant are actually very important, and that electoral politics might have to take a back seat for a while to a discussion of the real world, and whether we should follow Israel and the Bush administration, lemming-like, off the cliff and into the pit of our doom. Just a thought.

I have noticed alot of bizarre whistling past the graveyard posts on the liberal blogs over the past week - eerie discussions of relatively trivial matters, completely unrelated to the most important events happening in the world.

The game plan of the Zionist apparatchik is to close down all discussion and suppress dissent. The defence is to expose the mendacity and immorality of those who blindly support the follies of the Israeli subjugation of the Palestinian people.

American Jewry, as I wrote elsewhere, is in need of new leadership that will lead Israel out of the moral pit it has fallen into. The most vocal mouthpieces of American Jewry today are the likes of Martin Peretz, Ruth Wisse, and Alan Dershowitz - and that is just from Harvard. American Jewry has for too long allowed faith to blind it to morality and there is no hope for a solution in Israel until morality and reason once again triumph over faith.

Until that day comes the left must continue to fight against the base slanders trumpeted by the Zionist apparatchiks. Our vision is of a moral Israel that is a far better Israel than the morally-corrupted one they strive to preserve.

Oddly enough, nearly all of the liberal blogs I read have been utterly obsessed with the conflict in Lebanon. I don't know whether this means Adesnik is wrong, or whether the blogs I read are disproportionately foreign policy-oriented, or Jewish, or what. Just my $0.02.

While The Lobby That Must Not Be Named is certainly a factor in Democratic officials' reticence to criticize Israeli actions, I think it's easy to ascribe far more power to said lobby than it actually wields. Liberal bloggers are also far, far more likely to advocate pulling out of Iraq than Democratic politicians are, for instance. There has long been a gaping chasm between the liberal foreign policy preferred by mainstream progressives and the me-too militarism of Democratic politicians.

It seems to me that all this silent support for the bombing of Beirut is just part and parcel of the general unwillingness of Democrats to risk accusations of being "soft on terrorism"... the same cussed chicken-heartedness that caused most Democrats on Capitol Hill to vote for the Iraq War in the first place. It's a fear of being perceived as weak that causes them paradoxically to actually be weak when it comes to opposing ill-considered hawkish military policies.

This has been a problem for the Democrats on nearly all defense-related issues since Dukakis strapped on his helmet in 1988, and the roots go all the way back to the aftermath of WW2 hero George McGovern being slandered and politically destroyed in 1972 for opposing the Vietnam War.

The Israel Lobby is a bit of a red herring here, I think.

Perhaps I am being overly optimistic, but is it possible that cognitive dissonance induced by the spectacular mismatch between officially stated declaratory goals and the means adopted has actually caused some bloggers to pause in puzzlement rather than just blithering on about how this again proves the Bushies are really dumb?

After all, what could a pro-Israel blogger say in support of what Israel is now doing that would not just sound like more pointlessly silly breast-beating apologetics for a policy to crush Hezbollah that makes no strategic sense whatever given Israel's proven inability to occupy south Lebanon even when it had allies in the South Lebanese Army and Syria which are no longer available.

Likewise, what could an anti-Israel blogger say in opposition that would not just sound like more pathetic whining that we are all doomed and nothing can be done?

For what its worth, I think Bush is serious about establishing a viable Palestinian state as an essential part of draining the swamps that breed terrorism. Given the realities of Israeli and US domestic politics, implementing that requires at least as much subtlety as Nixon's withdrawal from Vietnam by redefining victory as the recovery of all POWs.

The Palestinian Authority has been demanding for years that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank be replaced by an international force. Israel has naturally opposed that when it still hoped to conquer the West Bank and therefore preferred terrorist attacks to any reduction in the repression of the Palestinians demanding independence.

Since 9-11 it has been a critical US goal to achieve that Israeli withdrawal and therefore critical to make it look like insertion of an international force between the Israelis and Palestinians was done in the interest of and at the request of Israelis. Declaring that goal would have made about as much strategic sense as Lincoln proclaiming the aim of the civil war was to abolish slavery rather than restore the old Union status quo, including slavery in the south.

If an international force can be inserted into south Lebanon to protect Israel from Hezbollah (with the consent of Hezbollah), then one can be inserted into Gaza to protect Israel from Hamas (with the consent of Hamas) and then one can be inserted into the West Bank to protect Israel from the Palestinians again (with the consent of the Palestinians).

Thus we get "peace with honour" and the last excuses for not withdrawing from the West Bank disappear.

But of course every liberal knows the Bushies are just too dumb to do stuff like that...

So its either keep shouting at Syria and Iran just like the most ardent Bushies and neocons or keep shouting about civilian casualties that are still miniscule compared with a real war.

Or remain silently puzzled...

The following is from a letter to the Editor of the London Review of Books published on April 20, 2006.

But in light of the many errors in John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's article, and their admission that 'none of the evidence' they give 'represents original documentation or is derived from independent interviews', it is fair to ask why these distinguished academics chose to publish a paper that does not meet their usual scholarly standards, especially given the obvious risk that it would be featured, as it has been, on neo-Nazi and extremist websites, and even those of terrorist organisations, and that it would be used by overt anti-semites to 'validate' their claims of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy

For what its worth, I think Bush is serious about establishing a viable Palestinian state as an essential part of draining the swamps that breed terrorism.

Hoo boy. Show me one scintilla of evidence that this is so, Arthur.

Israel's hard-core supporters in the United States, by contrast, are extremely powerful and in the habit of mounting broad-brush smear campaigns against people they dislike.

Smear campaigns? Really?  Where?  I don't remember any smear campaigns if we define smear campaign as an attempt to discredit someone through personal attacks and innuendo.  This is itself a smear against those who, like me, defend Israel. 

Best I can tell, those who criticize Israel within the bounds of respectable discourse will get treated fairly.  Israel defenders may argue vociferously.  We may say you are full of nonsense.  We may attempt to belittle your logic.  But smear campaigns?  I don't think so.

Let's take some recent examples, such as the Walt/Mearsheimer paper on the Israel lobby.  This was a most execrable piece of anti-Israel nonsense.  It was an affront to anyone who cares about Israel.  But I don't remember any personal attacks against Walt or Mearsheimer.  Indeed, what I do remember is the disbelief that two people with the obvious credentials of these two academics could write such crap - illogical, ill-informed and poorly written to boot.

It's also mentioned that anyone who crticizes Israel will get called an anti-semite by Israel defenders like me.  Again, this is nonsense.  There is room for reasonable disagreement about what Israel is doing or about US policy towards Israel.  What there is not room for is a view that holds Israel to a standard that is different than any other country in the world.  This is anti-Semitism.  Thus, for example, the Belgian attempts to indict and try Ariel Sharon, while saying or doing nothing about all the other leaders all around the world who have perpetrated far more horrific crimes than anything Sharon might have been involved in, is anti-Semitism.  So are the various boycott Israel movements in academia, both here and in Europe.  So are attempts to discredit Zionism, the Jewish national movement.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard or read the idea that one can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic.  Bullshit.  You don't have to scratch an anti-Zionist too hard before the anti-Semite shows through.

I would welcome a robust debate about Israel or Israel policy. There is a lot to discuss.  But the moment I hear people talk about the "crimes" of Israel, or that the cause of all the problems in the Middle East is the Israeli "occupation", I throw up my hands.  There's no use talking to people who are so deluded. 

Okay, I can only interpret BradtheDad's post here as a deliberate parody of extreme pro-zionists.

In each paragraph, BradtheDad starts off by denying some accusation, such as smearing and charges of anti-semitism, and then he goes on to make exactly those offenses in hysterical and over the top terms so obviously loopy and illogical that I can't see it as anything but outrageously comical.

The overall effect is laugh out loud funny, in a very sly and subtle way.

Now, this might be straight on, which would be weird. But I'm wondering if BradtheDad is not having us on, and if he's not some extreme lefty performance artist mocking the right wing.

Peculiar.

Best I can tell, those who criticize Israel within the bounds of respectable discourse will get treated fairly.

That has not always been my experience at TPM. It was certainly not my experience in the "Cafe Etiquette" thread last Friday.

The Middle East seems to be a subject that has no middle ground, and that to me is its most dangerous element.  I've read some of the discussions posted here of late, and they have been volatile, to say the least.  Both sides are intensely committed and prone to defend their point of view tooth and nail, even to the point of viciousness.  It's intimidating to offer any alternative view in that kind of environment.  That could be why liberal blogs are maintaining a relative silence.

I'm having trouble reconciling

I would welcome a robust debate about Israel or Israel policy. There is a lot to discuss.

So are attempts to discredit Zionism, the Jewish national movement. I can't tell you how many times I've heard or read the idea that one can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic. Bullshit. You don't have to scratch an anti-Zionist too hard before the anti-Semite shows through.

But the moment I hear people talk about the "crimes" of Israel...

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
**disabling attacks against an electrical system means focusing weapons on the parts of the system most easily repaired or replaced. In Iraq, this meant transmission lines (shorted out with carbon filament from cruise missiles) and transformers (fighter-bomber attack) rather than generators. There were selective attacks against some generators, with prior legal review.

The sons of the prophet are noble and bold,
and quite unaccustomed to fear.
But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah
was Abdul Abulbul Amir

Being on the side that shoots anti-personnel rockets at cities and murdered 241 US Marines on a peacekeeping mission requires no additional smearing.

I'm not surprised that you resort to name-calling when you can't prove your point ("gutless coward," "chasing women out of the sciences"). This is pretty common behavior debate-stifling tactic among hard-left critics of Israel.

Also, your example fails in another way too. Mearsheimer and Walt are not merely critics of Israel, they're criticizing some ill-defined "Israel Lobby." Given the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, charges of Jewish "dual loyalty," and so on, it's natural that decent people scrutinize very carefully these kinds of claims about shadowy Jewish plotters.

Brad: Nothing to say to help the discussion along? Just lob an anti-personnel bomb. Collateral damage with intent. Too much of that lately.

To your reading of the Convention,

It only protects people under the control of one belligerant -- civilians in occupied territory and prisoners. It doesn't protect civilians in a war zone.

Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals. But it explicitly excludes Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention and the citizens of a neutral state or an allied state.

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

...typical of the mendacity of the ultra-Zionists.

...a deliberate parody of extreme pro-zionists.

...base slanders trumpeted by the Zionist apparatchiks.

Who exactly is closing down discussion or otherwise stifling debate with inane accusations...?

I would welcome a robust debate about Israel or Israel policy. There is a lot to discuss. But the moment I hear people talk about the "crimes" of Israel, or that the cause of all the problems in the Middle East is the Israeli "occupation", I throw up my hands. There's no use talking to people who are so deluded.

I sometimes attempt to participate in a robust debates about Israel and Israeli policy. But I find that most people who make critical comments about Israel are accused of "singling Israel out" for special attention, by virtue of the fact that they are discussing Israel critically without simultaneously discussing each of the other countries in the world at the same time.

And then when they make critical comments about Israeli policies or alleged Israeli crimes, they are accused of "holding Israel to a standard that is different from any other country on earth", by virtue of the fact that these criticisms of Israel are not accompanied by a bill of particulars listing the alleged crimes of all the other countries on earth.

Josh made something this criticism yesterday. I couldn't figure out if he was arguing that Israel's actions are justified because they are no worse than Putin's acts in Chechnya, or if he was arguing that there is something suspect about discussing Israel without discussing Grozny, or more than one discusses Grozny.

But you know, I do single Israel out for lots of special attention. So I guess this means that indulge in an evil and suspicious "pattern" of discussing Israel critically more often than I discuss, say Zimbabwe or Belorus. And it's not just me: I think Israel and its environs are indeed often at the center of the world's attention. I'm not sure why. But just maybe it's because Israel sits in the middle of a powder house where a single spark could ignite much of the Middle East, and indeed the rest of the world. Maybe Israel is involved in more of those episodes that tend to scare the world shitless.

I have in the past called Ahamdinejad a "punk" and a "lose cannon" and a "yahoo", and spent couple of weeks a few months ago ruthlessly singling out Iran for special attention, and spending all my time talking about Iran without devoting much time to Israel I now find this very suspicious. I think I was guilty then of ignoring Israel.

But Ahmadinejad did not smash a country this week. I'm sorry I did not discuss him as much as Israel, and singled out Israel and criticized it for things without giving equal time to the other countries in the world. I also singled Israel out for special attention last week when I defended its legal right to exist, and argued against the attempt to alter is fundamental character. Next time I do that I'll remember to defend the right to exist of all the other countries in the world too - one by one.

Just say no to feeding short & simplistic, obviously purposely inflammatory troll comments.

Add to your analogy that your people have been mass slaughtered because of their religion for thousands of years, and a certain justified paranoia comes into play. If the Lebanese wanted to be considered innocent bystanders, they shouldn't have allowed the importation of missiles or included Hezbollah in its government. Finally, allowing those missiles to be hidden in residential neighborhoods makes Geneva a non starter.

Shit happens when the leader of the most powerful country is a moron. Everyone takes liberties. That said, Saudia Arabia must be rooting for Israel--Iran is the greater threat. And they have an Osama problem.

Colore Oscuro,

I have never read a single commentator anywhere in the World defending the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the consequent horrors.

Nor, coincidentally, have you seen anywhere near a corresponding number of UN Resolutions against China's occupation of Tibet (nor of Jordan's and Egypt's occupations of the West Bank and Gaza, respectively, from 1948-1967) with those against Israel.

Colore Oscuro,

Talk about an inane comment.

It's a question, actually.

Someone above was comparing Israel to Cook County. I'll compare Israel to Illinois. Does Illinois have a right to exist?

There is Illinois, the state, protected by We the People of the United States under our Constitution. That Constitution was written when the people of 13 individual states quickly figured out that small states could not easily defend their right to exist. Illinois joined the union for the same protection.

There is also Illinois, the Indian tribe, with its unique culture. I don't know what happened to them. Maybe some are still around. But apparently their people had no right to exist as a sovereign state.

Israel has the same right as any other sovereign state to exist. If it can form alliances and make common cause with enough people to perpetuate its existence it will exist in the future. If it cannot, it will not.

Being called "anti-Semitic" by Republicans is one of history's great ironies, but that's exactly the stick that hovers over the heads of Democrats who consider criticizing Israel, no matter what they do.

Things will never change so long as this current malignant crop of repugs rules America. Israel has committed some serious crimes against humanity, and they're in the process of doing again, right now.

Does that make me anti-Semetic? I don't think so. It makes me anti-lunacy. If you're pro-lunacy, sorry if that offends you.

The Red Cross summarizes the 4th Geneva Convention as applying to civilians under enemy control."

The Convention itself says "in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals."

Israel, or any belligerant, has an obligation to protect enemy nationals under its control, not enemy nationals under someone else's control. Your understanding of the meaning of "protected persons" is simply wrong.

Red Cross summaries are not normative. I will leave it to the TPMcafe community to read the specific language of the Convention and come to their own conclusions.

You either don't understand collective punishment, don't understand proportionality with respect to national infrastructure, or you don't want to hear anything that criticizes Israel.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

>> alarmingly often among intellectual liberals,

Alarmingly often?? Quick, a dozen names, please!

I need to know who those vile people are so I am on guard if I ever bump into them.

(And I naively thought that the most anti-zionist people in the US were the Orthodox Jews who protest against the existence of Israel on a regular basis. I guess my antisemitic radar needs new batteries.)

Israel receives very substantial aid from the United States, both military and monetary. Americans have every right to know how that aid is used, and they have every right to hold Israel to a "higher standard" than countries that are not affiliated with the US in any way.

Perhaps this is not to the liking of Israel supporters - perhaps they believe that Israel has the right to receive US aid and Americans have the right to keep their mouths shut.

For your first contingency, Israel withdraws, a possibility would be an international peace enforcement, not peacekeeping, alliance. The enforcers will have to be willing to get into some very bloody urban combat. I doubt there is any country with the will to do so.

For your second case, I see nothing that could be done.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

I up rated Abdu Abulbul Amir’s comment because I do not believe it is spam.

What is it in Abdul’s comment that offends you.
Do you dislike poetry?
Do you find it offensive that Abdul said he served bravely?
Is it because you don’t like that he served the Shah who was installed and supported by the U.S?
Do you object that in his last sentence he says that Hezballa has smeared itself by firing indiscriminately at civilian targets and also killed U.S.Marine peace keepers?
Did you possibly have a knee-jerk reaction to the name “Abdul”?

I believe that you called the comment spam because you thought he was critical of Israel. I think he Was criticizing Hezballa. I don’t think you would have down rated him if you saw his comment as a criticism of Hezballa. I’m sure you will correct me if I am wrong.

What DOES verge on anti-Semitism (I would argue it is) is when people argue that Israel has no right to exist, or that the Jews had no right to the land of Israel back in the 1880's when zionism started. That is an existential argument, not a policy one. And you hear it alarmingly often among intellectual liberals, in Europe especially but also here. An existential argument vis a vis a Jewish state is, in my opinion, ipso facto an anti-semitic one.

I authored a discussion post where I argue that an existential argument vis a vis a Jewish state is not an anti-semitic one.

I would love for you to explain your reasoning for reaching the opposite conclusion in the comments over there. 

On July 24, 2006 - 4:18pm Ragout said:

I'm not surprised that you resort to name-calling when you can't prove your point ("gutless coward," "chasing women out of the sciences").

It's too bad that Colore Oscuro may not have brought his argument to its strongest conclusion with these broadbrush epithets, but earlier in his post I thought he DID offer damned good proof of his point, proof which you chose to ignore.

So I'll repeat his citation of Dershowitz' astonishing remarks:

these distinguished academics chose to publish a paper that ... would be featured on neo-Nazi and extremist websites, and even those of terrorist organisations, and that it would be used by overt anti-semites

What do we make of such remarks? Dershowitz is CLEARLY postulating a duty on the part of anyone criticizing Israel to consider the possible uses of these remarks by "overt anti-semites". Those who would criticize Israel must be put on their toes, or Dershowitz will hold them accountable for the view of anyone who quotes them. So no, he doesn't come right out and call M&W antisemitic, but he fuzzes the edge with remarks that sound like he's making that charge, and for those who haven't the time to read his remarks carefully, the anti-semitic charge is placed on their minds.

This is a guilt-by-association tactic. Dershowitz knows better than that - this remark is a reprehensible instance of exactly the sort of thing that way upthread you challenged someone to provide - an example of someone falsely accused of antisemitism.

Thus, for example, the Belgian attempts to indict and try Ariel Sharon, while saying or doing nothing about all the other leaders all around the world who have perpetrated far more horrific crimes than anything Sharon might have been involved in, is anti-Semitism.  So are the various boycott Israel movements in academia, both here and in Europe.  So are attempts to discredit Zionism, the Jewish national movement.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard or read the idea that one can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic.  Bullshit.  You don't have to scratch an anti-Zionist too hard before the anti-Semite shows through.

Is the attempt to try Milosevic anti-Serbian? His supporters say so.  Do you agree?  The overthrow Hussein while leaving dictatorships in neighboring countries intact, even outsourcing torture duties to some - anti-Iraq prejudice?

Anyway, here's an interesting sentence: "You don't have to scratch an anti-Zionist too hard before the anti-Semite shows through." 

I read that as, "I don't have to interact with an anti-Zionist too long before I convince myself he is anti-Semitic"

I doubt you will be able to make an objective argument that anti-Zionism is necessarily indicative of anti-Semitism.  If you can, I'd love for you to do so in the comments of my discussion post Any connection between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism?

Probably wrong about serving the US supported Shaw, Rjb.  The song was written in 1877 by Percy French, probably referencing the Crimean War.  Here's a link.

Neoboho

blacklib
As a regular on Daily Kos, i can tell you that the past two weeks have been scary in the flame wars that have occured. By my estimate, over 300 diaries have been written on the I/P issue ,almost all garnering 600-800 comments, ranging from questioning Israel's right to exist to Israel's right to nuke every Arab nation threatening her and points in between.

Its been revealing in how uncomfortable progressives are in tackling this issue-i guess we've learned why its been the most challenging issue of the last seventy years.We haven't been silent, j